Bringing it Home to Bellevue: December 2014

Weight: 20 lbs!

Length: ?

Clothes: 9 mo

Milestones:

First words (Sortof) “Ma-ma-ma-ma” is constantly tumbling out of baby J's sweet little mouth. He babbles it while playing with us, while in his carseat, while upset in the middle of the night, while interacting with strangers. I’m sure this is a romantic mommy assessment, but I choose to believe he is saying “Mama” and knows that’s me. Sometimes a mama's just gotta claim her victories, no matter how imaginary.

Sociability and Concentration: This past month has been SO MUCH FUN. Jonah is nothing short of a delight. He squeals and grins big gummy smiles, babbles and stares all the time. He really seems to be taking in the world around him. He focuses on faces, follows a pointed finger with his gaze and mimics facial expressions. I love wondering what's swirling around in that fuzzy baby head of his.

Mobility: While Jonah first rolled over around three months, only recently has he decided to use this skill to move himself around. Now we’ll plop him down on the living room floor with a toy, sitting up, and when we return a couple minutes later he’ll be on his belly a few feet away. This skill displayed its ugly side in the middle of sleep training a few weeks ago. Up to this point, when we put Jonah to sleep on his back in the middle of the crib, that’s exactly where we’d find him in the morning (and by morning, I mean 2 am, or 3am or 1:20am…whenever he’d get hungry). Now I reach down into the middle of the dark crib and find an errant ankle, or a stinky baby bottom, or nothing at all because he’s rearranged himself to be squashed up against the short side of the crib on his side. It took a few nights (and naps) for him to settle into his newly claimed freedom (and for mom and dad not to panic every time we saw him face-planted into his mattress).

Sleep:

Aside from the brief hiccup brought on by unfettered rolling, Jonah has maintained a good nap schedule. He takes a 1.5-2 hour morning nap (starting around 8:15/8:30) and a 1-1.5 hour afternoon nap (starting around 1pm). Some days we do a late afternoon catnap (often in the car or stroller), others we skip it. I have a feeling he’ll be dropping the third nap altogether pretty soon.

A few weeks ago we finally deployed Nurse Nancy’s “sleep through the night” plan. Actually, we deployed it twice. The basic plan is for the non-soothing parent (usually the dad, who can’t breastfeed), to make timed visits at night wakings, gradually extending the span between visits until he self-soothes without any interference. The first time, 5 nights in after really great success, Jonah decided to roll and scoot in his crib, which really threw a wrench in the plan. For a couple nights, we were so nervous about him sleeping on his belly that we (actually, it was mostly Jake) went in and flipped him over, far more frequently than the plan called for. This further aggravated him, causing more rolling (Jonah), lots of tears (Jonah and me), and cursing (Jake and me). Not our finest moment.

So we took a break, checked in with Nurse Nancy, regrouped and re-launched about a week later. It was slower this time, but it still worked. Each night Jonah would wake less and Jake would make fewer visits. As of now, he sleeps uninterrupted from 7pm to about 4/4:30. This last stretch of sleep has been hard for him. He’ll still wake and cry for up to half an hour before returning to sleep. But we remain hopeful that a full night’s sleep is in our future! Actually, this mama has already had a few full nights of sleep, thanks to her amazing husband! Jake was kind enough to encourage me to sleep downstairs the first few nights so at least one of us would get decent sleep. Most nights, I still woke several times and had trouble getting back to sleep (I guess its what I’m used to these days…), but a couple nights I was able to sleep straight through until 6am, which is when Jonah wakes for the day and I get up with him. My husband—a pretty swell guy.

Food:

While Jonah’s main source of “food” is still breastmilk, we also do two “meals” a day of solids. With the appearance of another one and a half teeth (in total, three and a half now, with two and a half on their way), Jonah has become quite the skilled chewer. We still give him mainly purees (tons of fruits and veggies, greek yogurt, oatmeal cereal) and raw fruit in his mesh feeder, but we’re now (cautiously) introducing real food too. I’m a fan of many of the reasons for “baby led weaning”, which is basically a feeding philosophy that skips purees and begins with “real” food, cooked and cut into manageable sizes. I like that it introduces babies to real flavors and textures and encourages self-feeding, but I’m so incredibly nervous about choking to actually try it. So far Jonah’s been eating mainly “meltable” yogurt bites and cheerios, but we’ve recently tried mashed potatoes and shreds of beef and chicken, which he loved. For now, we plan to continue with soft foods and slowly introduce “real” foods in small (teeny weeny!) bites.

Favorite Activities:

-Lying under billowing sheets.

-Spinning, dancing, swinging in mom and dad’s (or really anyone’s) arms.

-Being upside down.

-Sticking out his tongue.

-Blowing raspberries and babbling.

-Eating the mail.

-Squinchy-faced smiling.

-Watching his reflection in the mirror.

Things I want to Remember:

1. Jonah’s First Thanksgiving: My parents and my brother Parker and sister in law Hannah all joined us in St. Louis for a lovely Thanksgiving. We played games, watched football, went swimming at the hotel pool, took a walk in Forest Park and, of course, ate REALLY well. I love seeing my family interact with Jonah.

2. Jonah Gym: A few times a week I’ll decide I’ve been too lazy and Jonah and I will work out together. In the middle of the living room rug we do Jonah-curls, Jonah-squats, Jonah-pushups (I kiss him on my down press) and Jonah crunches. I have to say, he’s much heavier (and cuter) than the free-weights I tend to use at the real gym.

3. Another Visit From Auntie Sarah: My best bud Sarah was in town briefly for a wedding and, lucky us, we got to spend a whole day with her! We went on a walk, read books at the library, had lunch with Jake and got plenty of great catch-up time. She’s amazing with Jonah; it’s clear she’s had lots of Aunt-ing experience!

4. Outings: Tis the season for Christmas gift giving, so Jonah was my shopping buddy a lot this past month. Without fail, whenever we’re out, multiple people stop me and comment on how cute he is and “Look at those cheeks! I just want to eat them!” and “He’s such a big boy!” Then Jonah will turn on his charm and babble at his admirers and you can just see their hearts melt. I love it when people stop to tell me how lucky I am to have this little nugget. Because it’s true. I am.