Thanksgagely

We hosted Thanksgagely at our house this year...and it was SO MUCH FUN! Thanksgagely is a Thanksgiving potluck that a big group of friends have been doing for a few years - it began when a majority of the people all lived on the same street (Gagely) - and it has continued although most of those involved have since moved on to other places of residence. It is a great tradition. One of the things that I am most thankful for is the fact that I get to live so near to so many friends, and having many of them over for Thanksgiving dinner really reminded me how grateful I am.

When Gabe and I were looking at this house, thinking about buying it, one of the first things we thought was "wouldn't this be just perfect for hosting Thanksgagely!" And it was! We shoved the couches up against the wall, borrowed tables from church and chairs from various people, and packed about 20 people into our living room. Everyone brought food to share (I did the turkey and it turned out PERFECTLY - I couldn't believe it!) and there was talk and laughter and a thoroughly delightful time.

Poor Jonathan wasn't quite sure what to make of it all. He did ok until he missed his afternoon nap, and as it got later in the afternoon/evening he got less and less happy. Fortunately, he was ok as long as I wore him in the sling and we stayed mostly in the kitchen instead of in the thick of all those scary people. :)

All in all, it was a great evening. Thanks to all who came and contributed to the fun!

Light at the end of the tunnel?

I can’t believe it. Jonathan just went to sleep by himself. I nursed him, and he was just happy and relaxed, but certainly not anywhere near asleep. So as an experiment (one which Gabe had tried once before with success) I gave him an empty bottle to hold and chew on, and put him down in his car seat and left. And he WENT TO SLEEP!!! Not a peep out of him.

I’m afraid to hope, but I do hope, that perhaps we’re coming out of the woods sleep difficulties?

Fun new developments:

Repetition. Jonathan has discovered that he can do the same thing multiple times over. His favorite is opening and shutting a cabinet door – it makes such a fun bang!

Imitation. Jonathan thinks it is funny to fake cough, particularly if we cough back. :) This can go on for quite some time before he gets bored with it.

And...drumroll please...

Jonathan has SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT for TWO NIGHTS in a row!!! And we’re not talking the pediatrician’s definition of 5 hours. No, no, he stayed down for 11 hours. Needless to say, this makes for incredibly happy parents. :)

New sounds

Jonathan has two new sounds! He is now spending his time saying "tssss" and "tuh, tuh, tuh".

Yay Jonathan!

Now if he could only figure out "ma ma ma"! :)

first word?

I think that Jonathan may, just possibly, be connecting the sounds “dadada” to the person Daddy. Yesterday I was changing his diaper, and Gabe came over to smile and say hello to him. Then as Gabe turned away and started to leave the room, Jonathan started crying and saying “dadada”. Of itself, that wouldn’t be very convincing…except that when Gabe turned around and came back, Jonathan immediately stopped crying and smiled.

Ever since Jonathan has been making the “dada” sound, we’ve been actively working to connect the sound with the person. Maybe it is working?

Peace and quiet

I’ve decided that it is completely impossible not to love a peacefully sleeping baby. Particularly one that is in your arms. And belongs to you.

Creeping towards crawling

Jonathan is so close to crawling. I keep expecting him to figure it out any minute! He’s been rocking forward from a sitting position, leaning waaaay out to reach for something, and then catching himself on his hands and kicking his feet out behind him. Once there he realizes that he’s on his tummy, which he doesn’t like, and yells in frustration. :) But sometimes, particularly in the morning and when he’s outside at the park, he’s more receptive to practicing. I’m going to be glad when he can crawl, since I think it will help him be less easily frustrated. On the other hand, crawling means I have to finish babyproofing the house!

Frustration

Jonathan's, not mine. :)

I'm guessing this is just a stage we have to get through...it seems like it would make sense developmentally. He wants to do so many things, and he doesn't have either the ability to do them or the words to tell me what he wants. So lately playtime (well, all the time, really) has been punctuated with rather piercing shrieks for no apparent reason. It's a little hard for me to deal with, first because I want to help him and I don't know how! And second because I don't want him to think that shrieking is a good way to get things, so I'm trying to balance helping him, with helping him learn a different way to deal with frustration. I sound a little silly to myself, responding to his cries with "say 'help, Mommy, help please'". After all, he can't say that! But I want him to know that when he can, that's the appropriate response...

I'm working on learning a couple of baby signs in the hopes that they may help. Some of the very simple ones might just be within his grasp now. Milk, more, all done, and sleep are pretty easy. I'm still looking for one for "help". Does anyone know this one, or have a good idea to make one up?

Those were for you, Sarah!

Wish you could have been there!

And the most important people: Libby and Jonathan. They look rather in love, don't they? :)

The cake.

Libby and me. Nice heater in the background, isn't it? ;)

I'm getting MARRIED?!?!?!

Libby and Abbey

Libby and Mom

Libby

Beautiful Libby

Libby and Jonathan are married!

Here are the paparazzi...

Boycott Amazon.com

Well, not really. But you might want to think twice about selling through them – they’ve raised their fees.

This irritates me for three reasons.
1) They didn’t notify their sellers. Courtesy dictates that you tell your “customers” when you change your prices (half.com and others do this). Maybe Amazon was hoping we wouldn’t notice?
2) The added fee is arbitrary. I can’t even figure out what they think the reason for it is.
3) They’re already making bank on the shipping fees. Have you ever noticed that while Amazon credits the seller with a $2.28 shipping fee, they charge the buyer $3.49? That’s $1.21 in their pocket, every transaction, without an ounce of work for it.

Hmmph. I’m selling at half.com now.

Parenting is hard.

Jonathan woke up this morning at 2:18am to nurse. "Oh good," I thought, "he'll nurse back to sleep and I'll get a glorious almost-eight-hours before having to get up." And on previous nights, that is what happens. But not tonight. Tonight he nursed, and then cried. And cried, and cried, and cried. I rocked him and sang to him for 10 minutes by the clock, with no result, then put him down to see if he'd cry himself back to sleep. 15 minutes later, he was still crying. I tried patting him, reassuring him, swinging his car seat (he sleeps in it) back and forth. He'd calm for a minute or two, then cry again. Back to the rocking chair, with no better results. Gabe changed his diaper, and Jonathan was happy as long as the light was on. As it was now a quarter to four, we decided that at least one of us needed sleep and we'd just let Jonathan get up. Hence my post at not-quite-four am.

It seems wrong to let him get us up in the middle of the night like this. It seems to set a horrible precedent, and I'm afraid that I'm just training him to think that 2am is a great time to get up. But I don't know what else to do. We can't just let him choke himself crying cause he's wide awake and thinks he's alone. And holding him in the dark while he cries doesn't let either Gabe or I sleep, which really isn't a workable solution either. For fifteen minutes, yes. For an hour, difficult, but yes. For the rest of the night? No.

I wish I knew what to do. And I wish I was asleep.

one "step" closer to crawling!

Jonathan is starting to be quite determined in his attempts to reach things just beyond his grasp. He'll be sitting up, and will lean over forward as far as he can, and then kick his legs out behind him (at this point hopefully his hands are out in front ready to catch himself!) Then once on his tummy he wiggles his legs with lots of emphasis and little result as he tries to manuever his body just a few inches closer to the desired toy. It's quite cute to watch, and fun to see him get closer and closer to being mobile (yikes!) :)

Oh, and he's also rolling over again. He had stopped doing that entirely for a couple of months, and now he wants to do so again. There are just so many fascinating things just out of reach!

New toy!

Yesterday I was at Stater Bros perusing the dented cans bins (which often have things besides cans) and found one of those 10 inch soft plastic balls for only 50 cents. I bought it, took it home, washed it well, and gave it to Jonathan. He was fascinated! I let him play with it in our tiny kitchen, which meant that when it rolled away from him, it usually hit a cabinet and bounced right back. I just stood there and watched him as his little mind went to town trying to understand this new part of the world. Eventually it got to be a bit much for him and he looked up at me like "Mom, help, save me!" so I picked him up and we'll try again later. I think he likes it, though.

Boy do I have great timing!

I did the laundry this morning. I hung it out to dry. It is now raining.

Um...I like my clothes wet. :)

Early riser

I’m getting all too acquainted with the “wee sma’s” of the morning. Unlike most normal babies (who the books say should be sleeping 10+ hours at night) our son thinks that 8 is quite enough. So when he goes down at 7:30pm, he thinks that it’s time to rise and shine at 3:30am or so.

Gabe and I are rather at a loss as to what to do about this. Jonathan just isn’t tired anymore. He’s not crying – he’s “talking” – loudly. He only starts crying if we ignore him, which I suppose is reasonable.

So one of us has been getting up with him so that the other can sleep. While I was sick Gabe got up; usually I try to since he has to go to work and school. This is obviously not a great situation.

Does anyone have any great ideas? It seems like we shouldn’t be encouraging this (and getting up with him is encouraging it?) but we also can’t force him to sleep when he’s just not sleepy…

Yawn…

Once up he’s completely happy. He’s sitting playing with his toys while I write this.

Dada

Jonathan's new favorite "word" is Dada. Actually it comes out more like "adadadadada". We figure it's close enough, though, so we're encouraging it. :) Maybe he'll figure out the connection if every time he says it I tell him "yes, Daddy is at work" or "yes, we're on our way to pick up Daddy!"

It is quite fun to hear the change in Jonathan's vocal sounds. They used to just be mostly vowels and cooing, and now we can really hear the very early beginnings of what will become real words. He has some consonants pretty clearly now, and he "talks" quite purposefully and quite often.