Jake~5 Months

I feel like the growth and changes from 4 months to 5 months has been the most drastic so far.  We're definitely completely done with the newborn stage and in full-on infant/baby mode.  I could have said this last month as well, but now there is no denying it!  I try to keep notes throughout the month as to what Jake is doing and how he is changing, but I felt like my notes were already outdated by the end of the month this time!  This is a sweet age, but I have a feeling I'll always be saying that with Jake.

Our major milestone of the month was rolling over.  On February 19th he rolled from his back to his tummy.  On February 22nd he rolled from his tummy to his back.  He has mastered rolling from back to tummy, but then he gets a little stressed out once he's on his tummy.  Occasionally he'll remember he can roll back the other way, but normally he stays put for awhile and then starts fussing until I come get him or roll him back.  Once he started rolling, we stopped swaddling; therefore, we stopped sleeping well at night for a couple weeks.  Actually I think it was a combination of learning a new skill (which is always fun to practice during the night apparently) and the not being swaddled that led to some sleep issues.  Also, there's that major neurological growth spurt they hit around four months that also seems to impact sleep.  Anyway, sleep wasn't as great this past month.  I feel like we definitely took two steps back in that area.  There were 3 nights in a row last week that he got me up every two hours.  He has never done that!  He was hungry every time though and went right back to sleep after he ate.  Growth spurt???  One new and sweet thing about his sleep is that he now rolls to his left side to sleep.  I always lay him on his back, but he immediately rolls to his side and puts his hands up by his face.  He likes to get his sleeve over his thumb and suck on his thumb too.  It's pretty darn cute!

I remember during my breastfeeding class I took before Cooper was born, the teacher talked about how you can guess the age of a baby based on how they nurse.  She showed pictures of different babies at different ages, and there are times that I feel like those pictures were sneak peeks into my future with breastfeeding!  Both my boys have been exactly like those pictures at those ages.  She said at four months they are easily distracted while nursing and like to nurse a little, look around, nurse a little, play, etc.  Yes, we are there.  She also said they like to reach for and pet your face at around four months.  Yep, that's true.  Jake loves to reach, grab, and rub my face while he eats.  He loves to put his fingers in my mouth too.  He also likes to hold my hand or thumb while he eats.  He still sometimes grabs and holds my hair, but he seems to prefer my mouth and thumb most.  If he holds my thumb, I rub his hand with my other fingers.  I love feeling that little hand in mine!  Reaching and grabbing are not limited to when he's nursing either.  He loves to reach and grab at toys, the mobile on his play mat, and whatever he notices that's close to him.  That includes his toes.  He discovered his feet this month, and it is so funny how entertaining a baby's hands and feet are to him!  He raises his feet in the air, looks at them, grabs at them, and lately has even discovered he can put them in his mouth!  When he grabs one foot with each hand, he gets really excited, as if he'd just realized he has two of these new toys!

As much as he loves to put his fingers in my mouth, he also loves to suck on them himself.  Sometimes he sucks on his thumb, but it seems that he mostly prefers sucking on two fingers.  He is sucking his thumb more and more though, so that might change.  He still won't take a paci though.  He'll suck on one for just a few seconds, a minute at the most, and then spits it out with a good pop!  It shoots out of his mouth like a canon!  His mouth has not only proven to be entertaining for sucking on fingers and toes, but also for blowing bubbles, cooing, squealing, giving kisses, and blowing raspberries. I love his kisses, and he's been giving them when you ask for awhile, but now sometimes he initiates it and just opens his sweet little mouth big and wide and plants a big slobbery kiss on you!  I just love those baby kisses!!

Jake still smiles so easily.  That's my favorite thing about him.  He now will smile when you smile and laugh when you laugh.  Diaper changes have become play time, as he gets so excited and squeals and squirms in anticipation of me tickling his big ol' belly or feet.  He loves for me to blow on his tummy, and he'll start squealing before I even do it!  He still gets upset when someone new talks to him and I'm not holding him or if there's a sudden loud noise.  If he's being held though, he's fine.  He can hold his head up extremely well now and is getting close to being able to be held on my hip; however, when I hold him, he tends to rest his head on my chest and just snuggle in to me, but when Karl or other people hold him, he doesn't typically do that unless he's really tired.  I love this baby stage because mommy is the best buddy; come toddlerhood, it's all about daddy!

He's shown more of an interest in Cooper this month than ever before and has started trying to interact with him.  He'll watch him constantly and loves for Cooper to talk to him.  If he's crying, Cooper will come and sing to him, and Jake normally will stop crying!  It's so sweet.  In the late afternoon, Cooper tends to get wild, and you can tell that Jake gets nervous around him--I would too if I were him!  For the most part, Jake really likes to be around his big brother though.  Thankfully his big brother likes to be around him too!

Kisses Goodnight

The other night when Karl and I were getting ready to go to bed, I said I needed to go check on the boys (that's the last thing I do before I go to sleep every night).  As I was walking to their rooms, I jokingly told Karl that it sure was going to make for some long nights when I would have to drive to Tuscaloosa every night when they're in college to kiss them goodnight.  

And almost immediately, I got a little teary-eyed.  

It just hit me at that moment that I don't get to do this forever.  I'll be their mama forever, of course, but how that role will play out in their lives will constantly change.  There will come a night that I don't get to sneak into their rooms to kiss them goodnight and pray over them as they sleep anymore.  Something about that really got to me at that moment.  These days of them being little are so precious.  And numbered.  We've all heard it a million times: The days and weeks are long, but the months and years are short.  Once you're a mama,  you realize how true that is.  

My Two Little Monkeys at the Zoo

We took our two little monkeys to the zoo a couple weekends ago to enjoy the first warmish day of the year!  This was Jake's first trip to the zoo, and it was the first time we have gone in a long time.  I didn't get a lot of pictures because I'm still learning how to juggle two kids and a camera, but I did get a quick one of both of them in their stroller, one of Jake sleeping (which he did majority of the time), and one of the sweetest little look on his precious face.  I'm sure I'll get lots more opportunities to take pictures of them at the zoo this spring, and hopefully I'll do a better job at it!

Roly Poly

My little baby is on the move!  He rolled from his back to his tummy at just a little over four months.  And no one saw it happen!  

Jake was on his play mat in the living room, and we were in the kitchen.  Cooper had gone in the living room and said, "Uh oh, Mommy.  Jake's not on his mat."  He's been scooching around on it and sometimes off of it for a few weeks now, and normally that's what Cooper means.  I went in to move him back, and low and behold, my baby had scooched off and then rolled over!  I was so sad that we didn't see it happen and felt terrible that poor Jakey was just stranded there afterwards!  A couple days later, I had the camera out while the boys were playing, and as soon as Jake started tilting on his side (which is one of his favorite positions now), I was ready!  Although this captures him rolling from his tummy to his back, it wasn't how he rolled first, but it still captures him rolling!

He actually stayed tilted on his side teasing us for a long time! 

But then he got more focused on the task at hand, and he rocked a little...

...and rolled!!!

We were all there to cheer him on this time!  He doesn't often roll from his tummy to his back.  If he's on his tummy, he either likes to prop himself up and look around or just put his head down and rest!  

I think it's so funny how babies want to practice their new skills all the time when they first get the hang of them and how quickly a new skill becomes easy to them.  Jake tries to roll all the time now.  In fact today he tried to roll over IN HIS SWING.  Glad I wasn't in the other room when he tried that one!

Coop's Scoop

Cooper hasn't gotten very much attention on the ol' blog lately, so I felt like he deserved his own personal update.  He keeps us on our toes all day, every day.  He's full of life, and I love that about him.  He's always ready to go, ready to explore, ready to do.  He's all boy and a Daddy's boy, but sometimes he manages to be a little bit of a Mama's boy too.  He says I'm his girlfriend. :)

 He's obsessed with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles right now.  Leonardo is his favorite, but Donny is a close second.  He really likes April O'Neil too.  He used his Christmas money to buy all four characters, a Leonardo mask, and a shell.  He sweet talked his daddy into getting him the sword a couple weeks later.  Now all he wants to do is play ninja "turwles."  He finds a way to make everything about the ninja turtles too, and I've taken advantage of that by making ABC flashcards for him with ninja turtle pictures on them so that he's interested.  I also made a little sight word book for him the other day using the ninja turtles.  And a name puzzle for him to practice putting the letters of his name in order using ninja turtle colors.  Sometimes I let the kindergarten teacher in me get a little carried away.  He fell for it though.  Haha!  My little man takes after his mama in his early planning skills.  He's already planned his ninja turtles birthday party.  In August.  The theme and location were decided on in December.  I think he broke my record on early planning!  He talks about his ninja turtle birthday all the time and asks every weekend if it's time.  Poor guy is going to learn some serious patience on this one!  My brother's birthday was a couple weeks ago, and Cooper wanted to know why Uncle Nicholas didn't have ninja turtles on his cake.  The boy loves birthdays and asks me to sing "Happy Birthday" to him quite regularly.  August is going to be so fun this year!  Too bad it's still five months away.  

His vocabulary is growing amazingly fast.  His current favorite word to use is "probably."  As in us asking him if he knows where his buddy next door's bike is, and he answers, "Probably in our garage" knowing good and well he put it in there!  A few week's ago he overheard Karl and me talking about someone who had passed away.  He asked where the person went, and I told him she had gone to be with Jesus.  The next thing he said drew immediate tears to my eyes.  "Mommy, will you go with me to meet Jesus?"  I pray my son goes to be with Jesus, but I also pray that he's a very old happy man when that time comes.  It took me a second to compose myself from the shock of his question and the emotions that came with it.  I told him I'd be there waiting for him when he got there.  Some mornings we wake up to him praying or singing one of the bible verses he's learned in school.  His favorite is "God made me.  I am special."  He sings it over and over, and it's beautiful.  I hope he always knows how special he is.  There's a lot of meaning in those six words.

One morning I was bathing Jake and Cooper was playing in the living room. He ran in and said, "Mommy, come look at what I made."  I told him I would be there in just a second.  He ran out, and a couple minutes later, he ran back in summoning me again to the "coffee room" as he calls it.  I quickly finished with Jake because the boy was clearly excited about something he had done, and I honestly was a bit nervous about what I would find!  He had taken out the tub of dinosaurs he got for Christmas and set up this scene:

He made a very impressive scene with the volcanoes, trees, rocks, and dinosaurs.  He even sorted the dinosaurs so that similar ones were together.  The pictures do not do it justice either.  It was a really neat set up he created.  He was so proud, and I was too!

I sure do love this boy.  I love his energy.  I love his enthusiasm and excitement.  I love his creativity and intelligence.  I love his curiosity.  I love him to pieces.  He is one special little boy!

Jake~4 Months

My sweet, sweet Jake.  As we are approaching him turning 5 months, I felt it was time to document him at 4 months.  Thank goodness I put notes in my phone documenting what he accomplishes and how he changes from month to month because time is going way too fast for me right now!  As I looked back on what he was doing from 3-4 months, I couldn't believe how much he's changing right now.  The one thing that hasn't really changed is just how dang happy he is.  I almost panic when he cries because he never cries.  He fusses here and there, but when he cries, my heart starts beating hard and my hands will shake a little; I get scared!  One day he was trying so hard to fuss while I was getting dinner ready, but every time I glanced at him, he would start smiling!  Fussing just doesn't come easy for him!  He is a happy, happy, happy little fella!  

Shortly after he turned 3 months old, we moved him to his crib at night.  Mister Easy Going didn't even flinch at the difference in his surroundings.  He still likes to see me once during the night for a little late night snack.  He still gets his dream feed before I go to sleep (preview to his 5 month post: I quit doing that not long after he turned 4 months), but sometimes he'll have a good, long feed around 8:30, and then I don't bother waking him to eat again before I go to bed around 10:00.  He normally wakes up again around 6:30 and is ready to greet the day.  We're a house of early risers, so he fits in just fine!

He has started getting easily distracted during his feedings.  And he likes to play games with me sometimes when he's eating.  He'll latch on, suck for a few seconds, pull away, and smile real big at me.  I'll tell him to get back on there, and he'll do it all over again.  Then he'll laugh.  Oh, that laugh.  Nothing brings a smile to a mama's face faster than her baby's laugh!  Anyway, it's a fun little game we play.  Well, it's a game until milk starts spraying all over the place, then I have to remind him we don't play with our food!  Once he gets serious about eating, I love to rub his back or arm while he eats, and he has started holding my hair while he eats again.  It's such a sweet and peaceful time, and I love how well it is going for us.

He also likes to hold my arm while I change his diaper.  He grabs my left arm and holds it or sucks on it if he can pull it to his mouth.  He loves to chew on whatever he can get to his mouth, but his fingers are definitely his favorite.  He's started chewing on the Sophie the Giraffe he got for Christmas.  He loves his Sophie!  Why didn't I get one for Cooper when he was a baby?!  Those things are great!  Our little one has found his voice recently.  He can squeal pretty loud and seems very entertained by himself.  When he gets to cooing and "talking" to us, he sometimes curls his tongue.  I think that's a pretty cool trick for a four month old!

He's very content wherever he is, especially if mommy's around.  He loves to play on his play mat and rolls to his side and wiggles on his back to scoots himself to where he wants to be on there.  He also has started arching his back when I go to pick him up from his swing or car seat.  This sweetie loves to be held!

Let's talk about his sweet laugh again.  He smiles and laughs so easily, and that's one of my favorite things about him.  He is super ticklish though, and we are so bad about taking advantage of that!  His legs, his tummy, his ribs, his feet, but the spot that really gets him giggling and squirming: his collar bone!  He'll laugh, snort, and squeal when you tickle his collar bone!

He's quickly outgrowing all of Cooper's baby winter clothes, so we're hoping for an early spring...very soon!

It Wasn't a Dusting

The forecast called for a possible dusting on Tuesday, January 28th.  Tuesday morning Karl told Cooper that it might snow that day, and Cooper's response was, "You gotta be kidding me!"  That was kind of all of our responses.  We hadn't stocked up on any groceries or firewood or filled up our cars with gas.  We just had shrugged off the possibility of snow.  It was only supposed to be a possible dusting.
It started snowing Tuesday morning, and it started sticking very shortly after.  Oddly enough, it was sticking to the roads and not the grass, which should have registered in my brain as trouble.  But the forecast said a dusting, so despite what I was seeing, I trusted the good ol' forecast.
Karl's dad had come to take Cooper to play that day.  When he got here, I asked him what he thought about the weather, and he said he thought it would be fine.  After all, it was only supposed to be a dusting.
See the theme here?  We all were literally not believing what we were seeing.  Even at that point, it was pretty obvious that we were going to get more than just a dusting, but none of us had even slightly entertained the possibility of how the rest of the day was going to unfold.
About 15 minutes after Karl's dad and Cooper left, Karl called to tell me he had talked to his dad and they were turning around to come back home because the snow was really picking up and the roads were getting slick.  Let me repeat, that was just 15 minutes after they left.  That's how fast this snowstorm was upon us in full force!  I told Karl to go ahead and come home.  He said he was going to wait at the office for traffic to die down since all the schools were about to dismiss and traffic was already ugly.  I told him that was a big mistake, but he didn't listen!  Well, after 45 minutes, Karl's dad still wasn't back with Cooper, and I started to panic.  We live close to a fire station, and I heard the trucks go out.  I kept trying to call Karl's dad, but the phone lines were overcrowded and we were having trouble getting calls in and out.  I was literally shaking because I was so scared.  Finally I got in touch with Karl's dad through a text message, and they were fine, but there were 3 accidents off the main road coming to our house, which is why I heard the fire trucks and why they weren't back yet.  He said he was going to get gas and take Coop to get lunch so that traffic could calm down.  Unfortunately traffic never calmed down that day.  It got worse and worse.  People were having to just leave their cars and walk to wherever they were going.  Accidents were everywhere.  People were running out of gas.  The roads were just iced over completely.  Karl's dad started trying to bring Cooper home again around 1:00.  They were only a few miles away and maybe 10 minutes in normal driving conditions.  For the next several hours, we exchanged text messages, and they weren't moving anywhere.  That evening our friend, Joel, (who is also our neighbor) borrowed my car to go pick up his wife, Joie, who had been trying to get home all day too.  Once he got to her, they ended up having to park my car because it was too dangerous for them to drive it any farther and just walk.  Karl was able to get in touch with his dad and tell them where Joel and Joie were.  Thankfully Karl's dad could get to them because at this point, there was no way he could get off the main road to our house in a car.  Joel and Joie got Cooper from him, with blankets to keep him warm, and started the long walk to our house while my father-in-law decided to try and make it back to his house (and by the grace of God he did).  There were many good people who went out of their way that day to help others in need, and I am so thankful one of those people crossed paths with my neighbors and son.  As they were walking, a car pulled up and asked them where they were going and offered to drive them home.  Cooper was not dressed for being outside in that weather for a long amount of time.  He would have been a popsicle by the time he got here had that man not driven them!  Long story short, it took almost 8 hours from the time Cooper left that morning until he got home to a very anxious mama; it took Karl over 5 hours to get home when it normally would take 30 minutes, and he ended up having to leave his truck and walk because so many cars were stranded in and around the roads; and my dad and mother-in-law both had to spend the night at where they work because they had no shot of getting home.  I know what we went through is nothing compared to what others went through that day, but it was such a nightmare.  That was one of the most anxious and helpless days of my life.  I hated Cooper being out in it and me not knowing where he was or if he was okay so much of the day.  It was a terrible feeling, but I am so very thankful for Joel and Joie getting my baby home to me that night.  Then they brought over some spaghetti a little bit later, and we all ate together.  They also stayed with me until Karl got home close to 10 that night.  I went to bed with a massive headache but a very thankful heart shortly after that.

The next day was great though!  The sun was shining, and we bundled up in our layers and tackled the 4" of snow outside our house!  Cooper and Sadie were hilarious and overjoyed to be playing in it.

Our neighbor Maria showed Cooper how to make snow angels...

...and snow balls that were used in a good ol' fashioned snowball fight!  She got Karl right on his neck where his bare skin was showing! Ha! That was payback for him pegging her on the booty when she was trying to show Coop how to make a snowball.  

Jake, being such a good baby, took a nice long nap that morning so we could all play in the snow, but I wanted to get a few pictures of him "enjoying" it too (he wasn't too fond of the cold, understandably so).

After bundling him up for a couple pictures outside, I decided later that day to just get some pictures of him admiring the snow from the window.  I scooted his little rocker to the window, pulled up the blinds, and started to take his picture.  That's when I noticed Coop coming around the side of the house as shown in picture 1.  Then I saw his daddy coming along too with something in his hand; see picture 2.  Then in picture 3, Karl sees that I see him and starts hustling to get out of my view in hopes that I don't see that he has cut up a cardboard box for him and Cooper to use as a sled down the big BUMPY hill in our backyard.  The look on his face shows that he knew I would not approve!

In case you can't see Karl's face very well, I cropped the picture to show his guilty look!

That picture is proof that boys really never grow up.  They get older and get married and their wives are really just their new mamas.  

The day it snowed was one of the craziest and scariest days of my life.  They said a dusting, and a dusting it was not, but the day after, I was pretty happy we had several inches of snow to play in!