Catching up w/Jameson

Sept. 26, 2008:
Jameson must hold a spoon when we feed him solids. Otherwise, he'll grunt and furrow his eyebrows. And eventually, refuse to eat. But once we give him a spoon, he's fascinated long enough for us to feed him. Jameson has also recently learned how to launch the spoon and the food on it in all directions. He is also quite talented in banging on his tray (a new signal that he's ready to eat), and screaming VERY loudly if the banging doesn’t get our attention fast enough. But, he's the joy of our life and makes us laugh all the time.

The rest is told as if I'm talking to Jameson...

October 9, 2008
You continue to have good sleeping nights and bad sleeping nights. We can’t always rely on you to sleep through the night. Although you were on track as a consistent nighttime sleeper, your last ear infection and your latest cold have put a small damper on this progress. You still sleep fairly well, and most nights, we are able to put you in your crib while you’re still awake. Currently, you have a bad cold and your spit-up level has increased dramatically. You were never a baby who regurgitated your food, but lately, you’ve had some serious issues with your acid reflux. You have projectile vomited more than once in the last week, which tends to cause your dad and I some concern. This is not typical behavior of you, so we are worried. We have put you back on Axid, an infant acid reflux medication. It seems to help you but now that you have another cold, your mucus level is high, which is another aggravator to your reflux. It just seems like a never-ending story. And we have to limit your food intake to certain foods as well. Heaven forbid we try new foods! Oh well, you are still young, so I’m not going to worry about it. In another 10 days, you’ll be 8 months old! You are rolling all over the place now. You don’t stay still at all. You try to crawl, but look more like a fish out of water with flailing arms and legs. You’ll get it soon, I’m sure! You continue to have the cutest hair-do ever. It’s soft as can be, and it spikes straight up, no matter what we do. You have also learned how to blow raspberries, but now, with your entire tongue sticking out of your mouth so that you spit everywhere. It’s quite funny and you know it, so you do it over and over to get a reaction out of us. You are smart and curious. I couldn’t love you more.

November 14, 2008
Wow, it’s been more than a month since I last wrote. It’s been busy for me at work, and with the holidays, I’m trying hard to get ready, shop early, and decorate on time. I’m not very good at these things, Jameson. In the last month, you have decided that crawling is just too difficult to do, so instead, you either roll all over the floor to get to where you want to be, you get up on your knees and rock back and forth, or you whine/scream/shake vigorously until someone moves you to where you want to be. You are a very stubborn baby and you give up easily because you are like me…IMPATIENT.

December 1, 2008:
Time sure is flying by during the holiday season, as I suspected it would. It’s been a rough couple of weeks, Jameson. And I type this because I know a lot of parents that forget the first year of their baby’s life because so much happens, so many things change, and let’s be honest, we barely survive it half awake. When you are feeling well, you are funny, charismatic, and full of fun personality. You talk incessantly and you have the greatest smile. You are smarter than we would like. You can mimic our actions and we can see the wheels turning in that bright brain of yours. You analyze everyone you meet and everything you see people do. You easily move from one person to another on most days and its nice to have the freedom to do this. You even sat on Santa and smiled. I am amazed by how quickly you are learning things. I can put a toy in an empty tissue box and you know it’s there and can pull it out and then put it back in. When I read to you, you try to help me turn the pages. You still cuddle like a champ and now you give kisses on our necks. You love water and scream in delight when you take a shower with your Dad and you can put your hands and face in the spray of the water.

You do not like being dressed because it interferes with your play. You hate being put into your winter coat and mittens because you feel trapped and immobile. You scream really loudly, sometimes because you are so excited about something you figured out or something new has made you happy. But most of the time, you shriek because you love attention and hate entertaining yourself. You want to be near someone at all times, or held, or touched, or watched. And I can tell, even at such an early age, you are frustrated with your physical limitations. You have finally learned to crawl, although its still more of a drag motion, but you can get to what you want when you put your mind to it. You are still impatient and stubborn and sometimes you either forget you know how to crawl, or you just plain don’t want to put the energy into moving yourself, so you scream to be moved. You can get on all fours, but you don’t quite have the strength yet to move forward. You still hate table food, although, you have eaten banana and fresh, homemade rice cakes (that quickly and easily dissolve) without choking, so that is progress.

For Halloween, we visited Nana and Papa and Uncle Paul, Lauren and Jenna. Then we went to Tante Rena’s house and she played with you while your mom and dad ate a gourmet meal she cooked for us. You were in love with her bell and you fell asleep on the way home and we put you to bed easily that night. It was a great first Halloween.

Two weeks later, you and I drove to Old Orchard Beach, Maine to visit Tante Dette. I had a baby shower to attend for a high school classmate, Shelli Dumais Gibbons. It was November 15th. You had a great afternoon with Tante Dette and she cherished her day with you. That night, you didn’t sleep well at all. I rocked you and rocked when you woke up 3 hours after I put you down to sleep. Each time I put you back into your portable crib, you woke up crying. Eventually, Tante Dette took over and you fell sleep and ended up sleeping with Tante Dette in her big bed. She’s so good to you and such a wonderful godmother. However, that weekend marked the start of what turned out to be the longest 3 weeks of our lives since you were a newborn. The next 4 nights, you didn’t sleep well at all, waking up once, twice, three times each night. It got worse as the week progressed. We could only assume it was due to teething and we gave you some Tylenol and Orajel to help ease your pain. But you are and always have been immune to the calming effects of baby Tylenol or Motrin. While they seem to help reduce fever when used, other side effects that most parents get to enjoy, such as sleepiness and grogginess, do not exist for you. So you still remained a horrible sleeper for the next couple of days. In fact, your dad and I were supposed to go away for the weekend of November 22-23, taking you to Lincoln, NH in the White Mountain region, but we had to cancel that trip because you just weren’t yourself. You started a cold on Thursday, your nose was constantly running, and by Saturday, you were coughing up a lung. But, in our haste to unpack all our luggage that Friday night, the 21st of November, we put you on our bed and failed to protect you as best we could. You rolled off the bed. Your dad tried to catch you and though he managed to keep your head from hitting the floor, you still managed to fall directly on your butt and roll onto your left leg. You cried for about 5 minutes and then you were finally comforted, but you didn’t sleep well that night. We chalked it up to teething and your new-found cold. But sometime during the day on Saturday, I began to take notice of a difference in the way you moved, or should I say, the fact that you weren’t moving. You didn’t rollover or enjoy sitting much, and you didn’t laugh or kick like you usually do. In fact, you were quite cranky. And then it hit me, you were hurting from the fall. And when I changed your diaper and you screamed in pain, I realized that there was a tender spot just above your left ankle. Your dad immediately dressed you in your coat and we were off to the ER. An x-ray confirmed that you had a buckle fracture in your left Tibia, just above your ankle. Sunday, you seemed in better spirits, but you still were sleeping really badly at night. Waking in screams, hard to console, and even more odd, you were starving. On the 24th, you had your 9 month well visit. You had more immunizations and your pediatrician said you looked good considering your cough and broken leg. He also assured us that the break was very minor, barely a fracture, and would heal on its own in 2-3 weeks. A brace or cast was not needed because you weren’t walking, but we did take you to a specialist on Tuesday, the 25th, just in case. Again, the same response. So we felt better. You took your shot like a pro on Monday, and we also found out that your iron levels were a little low. So you’re now on iron drops to help boost your iron. Thanksgiving was on Thursday, the 27th. Your first Thanksgiving. You did fairly well with all the commotion, but around noon, it was a struggle to finish preparing the table, appetizers, side dishes, and hold you because you were overtired and didn’t want to be put down at all. You finally fell asleep after we all finished eating – Aunt Cindy, Uncle Paul, and Lauren helping to hold you while we ate. Unfortunately, you continued to wake up constantly at night and after 10 consecutive nights of this, your Dad and I were exhausted. We still are exhausted.