it's one of THOSE times

I have so much to write about but the one thing that sticks out foremost in my mind is how irritable my little baby man has been over the last few days.

{JC looking not so stoked to be visiting the Mendocino Botanical Gardens}

I think it's a combination of a few things that have manifested themselves in such a way that JC, who normally is a very mellow, happy-go-lucky baby, has undertaken this tantrum-throwing, pissed off at the world mentality.

One: We have been completely booby free for about three days now. Monday morning was the last time I nursed. He has seemed generally not-quite-right since we started the weaning process a couple weeks ago. I really thought that he was ready. I could barely hold his attention long enough to finish eating most of the time. He just wanted to play. But now that it's gone, he definitely notices. To be honest, I'm a little sad too. I thought I was completely, 100% ready. And I am ready but I could totally see why mommy's continue nursing past one year. It didn't help that as we got towards the end of nursing, he was being extra cuddly and sweet. Like he knew that his nursing days were numbered.

Two: Teething. We officially have THREE teeth! Maybe even four. Last time I checked the fourth one was barely hanging in there. His right top front tooth and his two front bottom teeth are officially making an appearance.

Three: We took a road trip to Fort Bragg this past weekend with a four hour drive there on Sunday and four hour drive back on Monday. JC generally does not like being on car rides this long. Even if we stop, he is just ready to be done with it. Which I can respect, because that's how I feel. I still need to write about our trip and the wedding venues that we checked out but one milestone of the trip was that we had our first meltdown in a restaurant. He's usually really good in restaurants, eats whatever, or just plays and has a good time. At breakfast on Monday we had to take shifts. I had to walk around on the street while Charles tried to scarf down his breakfast and then we switched. He was fine once we got outside and looked around but he wanted nothing to do with sitting in a highchair or being in the restaurant.

Four: He didn't sleep very well on the trip either so the last couple of days we've been laying low at the house, letting him catch up on his sleep (three hour naps y'all).

Five: I think a lot of it too is that we are both new at this whole only eating solid foods thing. Before we stopped nursing, I'm pretty sure JC was never hungry. He ate every 2 hours, whether it was nursing or solid food. Now, I'm not sure if he's hungry or just cranky or bored or teething or God knows what else. I try feeding him and he straight refuses everything I offer, throwing it on the floor, screaming and crying. I have to pick him up and calm him down before we even try another option. I did read in Baby 411, my baby bible, that it is very common for babies to become very picky eaters as they approach their first birthdays. It said basically that they will adopt a toddler diet where they will eat well once every three days or eat one good meal within a 24 hour period. It had some good advice like offering three options to eat and if he doesn't want it then don't make something else. He will eat when he's hungry. I know this probably sounds like common sense to most people but I need instructions like this. This was reassuring after we both had a meltdown during lunch today. I made sure that I made his beloved veggie pasta while he was napping so it was ready to go as soon as we woke up. He wanted nothing to do with it and was mad about it. Ok, let's try some spaghetti, you love spaghetti. Throws it on the floor, slamming his hands on the high chair tray, tears rolling down his cheeks. At this point, I was in tears too. This was exactly how breakfast went and I was frustrated. I grabbed some bread and he ate two pieces of plain bread. While he ate that, I managed to make a quesadilla and he wolfed that thing down. But it was a rough thirty minutes of crying, appeased, crying, happy, crying, ok I'll eat this and now I'm full and content.

Luckily, throughout all this, JC still finds ways to be the most adorable being on this planet. He just recently has started playing peek-a-boo with him being the initiator. After his bath today, he was pulling the towel up over his head and I'll say "JC where'd you go?" and he'll wait the perfect amount of time and pull the towel down super fast with a big grin on his face. And I'll yell "Peek-a-boo!" and he'll laugh and flail. So cute. After both of his naps today, he just wanted to snuggle for about fifteen minutes before we did anything else. When he rests his little head on my shoulder I will stop whatever I'm doing and relish in that moment.

Well, tomorrow is a new day so hopefully I will wake up to a happy baby. Wish me luck!

{Please pray that this drooly mess is what I see tomorrow!}

week in iphone pics, w.4

I'm super excited because tomorrow (or, as of this very second, today) we are going to Fort Bragg to look at possible wedding venues!!! Ahhhhhh!!!! I can't believe we are actually making some forward progress on this wedding business. We are going to visit the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens and this rental house. I feel really good about both of these places but I'm secretly pulling for the house. Ok, it's not really a secret. We are leaving tomorrow and coming back on Monday so it will be a quick trip but I'm hoping we'll be able to hang out on the beach for a little bit. I went a little beach crazy at Target this week. As you will see.



JC being HELLA cute munching on some Cheerios and watching Sesame Street, it was so cute to have him sit still in my lap for a few minutes. Surprisingly, he actually made contact with most of his Cheerios. Tsunami was happy to eat the ones that didn't make the cut. After Charles got home from hanging out with the guys for a little bit, we had a dinner date at BJ's.



That is what was left of JC's first peanut butter and jelly sandwich and I've been a major creeper of JC on the baby monitor while he's sleeping. So cute with his baby booty up in the air.



Putting in his audition for Stomp and my first attempt at a recipe out of Deceptively Delicious. JC gobbled this up by the way. But when I tried to use the remaining filling the next day on a tortilla as a quesadilla, he wanted nothing to do with it. Side note, Charles originally purchased this to cook for me while I was pregnant. I have the worst eating habits.



We went to Borders and got JC "Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See?" and "The 17 Day Diet" for the fiance and myself. Oh yeah, it's going down. And the highlight of my week, JC and I hung out in the backyard for a minute while Charles cooked dinner. He was being so adorable. The last picture is probably my current favorite picture of the little man. He has just started reaching for things that are ridiculously out of his reach. He was trying so hard to reach for the moon. So. cute.



Some more baby creepin. My little thumb sucker.



My hauls from Babies 'R Us and Target. JC discovering the dryer for the first time.



We didn't do anything today besides tons of laundry and go for a quick walk around the neighborhood. We are so lucky that this is literally in our backyard.

Wish me luck that we find our wedding venue and in turn, set a date!!!

Linkin up with Amy from A Good Life

mama monster & baby monster are finished!

Yay! I managed to finish my mama & baby monsters only a week after my intended due date. That's pretty good by my standards of finishing my knitted projects on time. JC seems like to like it regardless if I'm a little late in giving it to him. That's why he's awesome.







If you are interested, you can get all the deets on my project's ravelry page.

<3 Melissa

week in iphone pics, w.4

Whoo hoo! Week four of iPhone pictures!



some quality baby & kitty time, waiting for daddy to get our new tv loaded into the rav (it ended up being too big to fit in our car! Papa John had to come to the rescue), my faithful target companion, all the toys in the world and an empty puffs container in a box is incredibly facsinating



lookin' sharp for his one year portraits, digging in the toy box, watching a baby try to eat a pizza crust is BEYOND entertaining



he's happy because it's his birthday, elmo is so much more fascinating when spread across 60"



what do you mean i can't play with the dog food? playing with an elephant while wearing an elephant, trying out some new fancy soap that Grandma Janie brought us from France, it gives pretty good mohawks



dang we went to target twice this week?? the sweater i ordered from totsy FINALLY came (it cost $7 to ship this thing in an envelope and it took like 3 weeks...hmmmmm), i was extra proud of this outfit i put together



just hanging out before we went to a luau themed graduation party

<3 Melissa
(amy at a good life hasn't put up the link yet but i'll add mine when she does)

flashback saturday

Ooops, I was supposed to post this yesterday for "Flashback Friday" but I was having too much fun hanging out with the Super Friends last night, staying up late and watching the first X-Men movie on our new TV. I like that we still try to have fun movie nights even though we all have kids 2 and under. It takes some patience and you can't really watch a movie that needs too much concentration, but we make it work.

Anyway, I'm unofficially making this JC's birthday week post-a-thon because I inadvertantly have only been posting about things pertaining to this milestone. I'm not going to apologize though. IT'S A BIG FREAKING DEAL! I can't believe that I have a one year old. It didn't really hit me until I called to make a hotel reservation for next weekend and the lady asked me how old my baby was when I told her it would my fiance, baby and I staying in the room. I was about to say "so many" months but I had to stop myself and say "one year". It was trippy.

I've been freaking out so much by how much different my baby is at a year old. My little guy was born at 33.5 weeks so he had to stay in the hospital for the first 17 days of his life. It was agonizing to say the least. Here's a couple pictures of his sweet little newborn self while he was in the NICU wearing one of his few preemie sized outfits.

He was so tiny you guys. Like itty bitty tiny. Well, he actually was pretty big considering how early he was. I'm so curious as to how big he would have ended up if he had the chance to cook a little longer before he was born. 

Poor baby man had to have a feeding tube for most of the time that he was in the NICU. That was the main reason as to why he couldn't come home right away. He was big enough but he didn't have enough energy to finish his feedings before he would fall asleep. I really like these pictures because it was the first time that I ever got to dress him in "actual" clothes. The hospital provided these HUGE gowns that he wore most of the time because they were easy to keep all of his monitors attached. My mom bought him this little outfit and I wanted him to wear it before he got too big. It was so nerve racking getting him dressed. He was just so little. I was so happy when I finally got him all dressed because the onesie was pretty much stretched to capacity. His little belly was so big. It made me hopeful for how big he would eventually get. 

I wanted to do a size comparison with now but for some reason JC wasn't down for holding still while I held the onesie up next to him. Who would have guessed. So I looked around for an appropriately sized stuffed animal and scored with his bunny that we got him for Easter. It fit the bunny perfectly!

He's gotten so big!!!

Seeing this made me smile so big. I'm keeping that bunny dressed so that any time I worry about how big JC is compared to other babies, I can look at that and see how far we've come. 

<3 Melissa

twelve month doctor check up!

Why that has an exclamation mark at the end of it I'm not quite sure. If you asked JC about it, he wouldn't be as excited about it. Actually, it wasn't all that bad.

JC showing off his sweet band aid, Tsunami looking extra thrilled in the background

His one year stats are as follows:

18 pounds 12 ounces

27 inches long

18 inch head circumference

Compare that one year go:

5 pounds 4 ounces

16.9 inches long

Do they measure your baby's head when they are born? I can't find this number anywhere if they did.

I can't believe how much bigger he has gotten! He's still a tiny guy compared to other babies we know but when I see how much progress he's made I am so proud. His doctor is definitely not concerned so I'm not either. My little tiny preemie is growing up.

He had the nicest nurse sing him "Happy Birthday" when he got a little fussy while he was getting weighed. That made him happy. We got three shots today, one in each arm and one in his thigh. This was the first time he's received shots and really seemed bothered by them. I'm not looking forward to bringing him into the doctor once he figures out/remembers where we are and what they do there. There was a mom there practically shoving her son into the back as he cried and cried, just terrified at the idea of being there. They hadn't even seen him yet. For now, JC cried just a little after his shots. But it didn't last long. Nothing a little daddy snuggles couldn't fix. An hour later he was as happy as could be.

Extra drooly, just how I like him

<3 Melissa

They say it's your birthday!

JC all brand new on his birth day, one year ago

Today is JC’s first birthday!!!!!!!!

I really wish I had my blog earlier so I could have done little posts like this every month but I figure better late than never right?

It’s crazy to think about how much change has happened in the last year. When I brought JC home, he pretty much slept all day. Being a newborn plus the added fact that he was a preemie made it so that he slept for about 2-3 hours, would wake up to eat and then immediately fall back asleep. I knew it was important that he saved his energy so he could grow and get bigger. Now he’s so active and alert. He’s a little person interacting with the world around him, learning a million new things every day. I feel truly blessed to witness his ability to find joy in the simplest acts. Everything is brand new to him and he loves it.

Let’s go through some stats shall we…

JC ‘s sleep schedule has been pretty much the same for the past three months or so. He wakes up between 9 and 10. He goes down for his morning nap between 11:30 and 12. He sleeps until about 1:30 or 2. His afternoon nap normally occurs between 4:30 and 5:30. He sleeps until about 6-6:30. We start his bedtime routine around 9 and he’s down for the night between 9:30-10. When it comes to sleep, I really can’t complain. This kid is a champion napper. He has slept through the night since he was about 4 months old. OCCASIONALLY he wakes up in the middle of the night due to teething pain but it’s very few and far between. I feel pretty lucky that I have a baby who loves sleep as much as I do.

He’s eating three solid meals a day now. We are still nursing about four times a day. Well I guess three times a day since yesterday when I decided to officially start weaning him. We are both ready. JC’s favorite foods are scrambled eggs (with cheese, bell peppers, and/or tomatoes), rice & beans, avocados, yogurt with rice cereal & mashed up blueberries, ANY pasta/sauce combination, and quesadillas. He mostly drinks water but he has had a little bit of orange juice a couple of times and he LOVES it. He likes to feed himself with his hands but he hasn’t quite figured out that you need to tilt a cup to get water out of it. I’ve tried switching his sippy cups from a cup that has a soft sippy part to one that is hard but I’m not sure if he gets how it works. He finally seems to get how straws work now though and he likes drinking from them.

His favorite toys are his train and his new “mail cart” as I call it. Both of these are big and have wheels and are meant to push around while standing up. He is getting a lot better at pushing them without falling over. His favorite books are Biscuit and Baby Faces. They’ve been his favorite for a while. JC really only notices the TV when Sesame Street is on it; Elmo is his favorite. Besides that he isn’t huge on television.

JC is an expert crawler and pulling himself up to a stander. I catch him letting go of whatever he’s supporting himself with and he can stand for 10-20 seconds before he falls down. One of his favorite things to do is pull himself up to a stand using our headboard on our bed and falling down on purpose. He’ll fall on his butt and then on his back and he’ll laugh and laugh. It’s so funny to watch him play little games like this. He also loves to dance. His favorite songs are anything that involve a guitar, but especially Jack Johnson. Or when his daddy plays for him. Katy Perry is still his number one lady.

He’s starting to figure out how to clap. He’ll put his hands together and move them up and down. His pincer grip is pretty much down pat. He’s really good at picking up cheerios and other little pieces of food and feeding himself. He tries to pet the cat but usually ends up pulverizing her. Luckily, she’s really sweet and seems to be ok with it.

He says the words “dada”, “mama”, “baby”, and as of yesterday “birthday”. If he knows what they mean, that’s a different story. He has become quite the babbler. He used to be the strong, silent type but lately he will sit on the floor and babble all day. He’s also what you could call a “hand talker”.

Baths are very enjoyable. We are still using the little inflatable tub in the big bathtub but he’s getting more and more curious about the rest of the bathtub around him. He likes to stand up and splash down on his baby booty.

We are FINALLY getting some teeth! Well a tooth, to be exact. It is his bottom right center tooth, if that makes sense. It made it's first appearance a couple weeks back and has been slowly but surely making its way up. JC totally digs brushing his teeth tooth too. 

That’s pretty much JC, in a nutshell. He’s still super mellow and easy going. He has a little bit of stranger anxiety that’s setting in but that’s normal. It just takes him a little bit to warm up to you if he hasn’t seen you before or in a long time (which for him is more than a day). But once he does, he loves most people. I’m really looking forward to what the next year has in store for us!

I’ve still got to go through all the birthday party pictures from the weekend. I’ll get those up ASAP! Here's a teaser picture.

That is my adorable cake monster. Needless to say, he enjoyed his birthday cake.

<3 Melissa