Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Our little ham!

The last month or so for Jace has been rough. He hit a growth spurt and then had two teeth come in at the same time. So he's been grumpy. He was grumpy for so long that Rod started to think that we were wrong about our initial impression of Jace's personality, Jace wasn't the happy baby we thought, just a moody baby.  Well, the growth spurt is over and his teeth have come through. He's almost sleeping through the night and he takes great naps during the day. He has a huge appetite, but that's ok. The best part is, he is a very happy baby again! My family was in town this last week, which meant lots of pictures, and we got to see him interact with family members, be silly, and mostly ham it up in front of the camera. Every time we pulled out a camera, he'd start grinning. He knows what to do with a camera...


Found the camera!


This was while I was trying to take a picture of him quietly playing on his own with his little feet sticking up. But he saw the camera!
Today, Rod got a cute daddy moment. Jace woke up early this morning, so his naps have been earlier today. Well, he's been so happy lately that it's a little hard to tell when he's ready for a nap. You really have to watch for the early signs, cause he'll yawn or rub his eyes and then continue giggling and playing. So, after lunch, I thought he needed a nap, but he was still happy playing so I decided to go for a walk up to campus with Rod and give him a nap when we got home.
 Well, Jace fell asleep on the way up but woke up when we got there, so I knew I'd have to get him to bed soon, or I was going to have to take an extra long walk to make sure he got a good nap in. I distracted Jace while Rod was doing schoolwork, but on the way home, even giving him treats wasn't enough anymore. (I thought he might be hungry, I hadn't realized he was cranky because he was exhausted) Finally, he refused to  take any more treats and just turned his head to the side like he does when he decides to put himself to sleep. He was out quickly, but by this point we were on our way home and I didn't want him to get a snippet of a nap and then be cranky and unable to fall asleep when we got home. So, I took him out of the stroller and let Rod hold him, thinking the effort of holding himself up would make it impossible to sleep, even if he was mad at us all the way home. Instead, Rod's walking lulled him right to sleep as he was sitting in Rod's arms. It was so cute to see him nodding off while sitting up. I tried to give him another cracker to distract him, and finally managed to get it in his mouth. This woke him up for a couple of seconds and then we watched him close his eyes and the chewing slow down, down, down until it stopped and he slumped against Rod's chest, completely asleep. It was so cute I didn't have the heart to wake him up anymore :) (fortunately, it was short enough that we came home and were able to put him down for his nap just fine.) I love this cute kid!

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Weekend Worriers...

       Man, the last two Saturdays have been pretty miserable for Jace. Funny thing is, both days were his happiest days of the week. Last Saturday, Jace had some short naps, which made for a bad morning. But after he got up from his early afternoon nap, he was pretty happy. He was a content boy, particularly enjoying eating his crackers and stealing pretzels from Aunt Mary, who had come for a visit. That was pretty funny to see! Unfortunately, he ate too many pretzels, and the saltiness of those pretzels was a little too much for this little baby. I'd given them to him before and he'd been fine, but as mommy and Aunt Mary were talking, mommy lost track of how much he'd eaten. So when we decided to go out for a walk later, Jace cancelled that walk by throwing up everything he'd eaten, peas, crackers, pretzels. It was our first experience with throw-up from him, and caused a little panic from his parents. He had been a little fussy before this, so I thought the walk would cheer us all up. That got canceled. It turned out he was fussy because his little tummy hurt. Once he threw up, he actually cheered right up.
       He was downright chipper as he played in the grass with us and later tried out some graham crackers that I had made. Which he then had an allergic reaction to. Note to self: even when a food has milk in it, it still counts as being not edible until after the year mark. Even if it's only two tablespoons. But he was quite happy as hives appeared all over his neck and abdomen. Only mommy and daddy were panicking. He was very content. What a trooper. I love that little guy. We put him down to bed, and I continued to worry, but the next morning, he was completely fine.
      This weekend was almost a repeat of last weekend. He had a decent morning nap, but his afternoon nap was not good, he was still tired. So we put him down again, unsuccessfully thanks to a fire truck going by. So after 40 minutes of crying, we knew he wasn't going down and we went to rescue him. Only to find that at some point during this "nap" he had thrown up. My guess, he finally managed to make himself throw up after hitting his gag reflex so many times. I'm pretty sure it wasn't anything he ate, because he'd been ok with everything he'd eaten that morning. First time changing the bedding due to throw up (or any bodily fluid).  He'd also lain in the throw up, so he had it all in his hair. Time for a little strip down in the bathroom. I had unsuccessfully washed his tub this morning, so we couldn't do that. First time in the big tub was decidedly pretty cool. The fact that he got two baths in one day, definitely a bonus in his book. He was grinning just about the whole time.
    After that mess got cleaned up, it was time for dinner. I made dinner as Jace snacked. I decided to introduce him to pineapple, and gave him the juice from the pineapple I was preparing for dinner. He loved the juice. He's always a big fan of juice and he was quite mad when I took it away because he had hives on his arm. Big allergic reaction to that one. He had hives on his arm and chest at first and this time they were really itchy. In the past, the hives haven't bothered him, but they were driving him crazy because the were so itchy this time. After letting him be for a little while, thinking it would pass, I decided to try and help him out with the itchiness. But at this point, I had dished up dinner for myself and had handled pineapples. So as I stripped him down and wiped his chest with a cool washcloth, I was spreading the hives by touching him with pineapple juice on my hands. Of course he thought the idea of a third washing in one day was not bad. Lots of opportunity for fun splashing as I dipped his hands in the cool water to help with the hives. Once we stripped him down, he seemed to feel a lot better, so after wiping him down with cool water for a little while, I set him on the floor to play while I finished dinner and the hives went away. He played with an ice cube quite happily.




Such a happy baby despite unhappy happenings!
The hives went down and he went to bed just fine, even though at the slightest cry, mommy went into a sympathy panic because man, life is just rough for this little guy sometimes! At moments like these, I feel like I am definitely underqualified for this position as parent!