Two Months Old - Mother's Day

James has been going to town on his hand/forearm any time he gets the chance for about the past week -- it's always wet and slimy but it's so funny because he's SO LOUD and sloppy -- he's not at all interested in the binkie unless he's trying to calm down for bed (and that's less than 5 minutes of sucking there).
I couldn't think of a better way to spend my first Mother's Day then with three of my favorite guys -- Jimmy, James and Easton made me some chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast (yum, the only way to eat pancakes), did some yard work, helped me clean up the house and made us (Michele and John too) some uber yummy dinner! It was a great day and James turned 2 months old! He was much happier Sunday than Saturday (Sat. he pretty much fussed from 9am to at least 5pm, it was brutal).

James is catching up to his bear!

As I was going through our "photo shoot" of pictures, it totally looked like James was playing the air guitar :-D Here is one where he really looks like he's jammin' it out.
Jim helped James with his first "official" art project while I was in the shower Saturday :-) Such a cool Mother's Day present -- he used Crayola Air-Dry Clay to transfer the hand/foot prints of James -- I think I'm going to paint it when it's dry so you can see the prints better. James' left hand is still in the clutch reflex, so I guess it was pretty difficult to get it imprinted and his right foot is missing a big toe, but he really does have one :-) I also got a very nice charm bracelet that James can add to every year -- I can switch out one of the plain links for one with a charm whenever necessary...the charms are a heart w/ a key, the letter "D," a teddy bear w/ a blue belly and a teacher's apple -- Thanks for thinking of me, I love you guys!

James riding bareback on Easton

First Play Date

Yesterday James was invited over to Becca's house for his first official play date! Becca is our friends Steven and Colleen's second daughter. She is 2 days younger than James and we're excited to watch them grow up together -- how fun to have a friend to grow up with!

James spent his whole visit sleeping and Becca took her share of naps too -- may be the last time there is this much peace when we get together with the youngins ;-)

No, Mommy, my middle name is Edward, not Trouble :-)

Trying to model my funny noise that I'm making at him -- he can get the ending where the tongue sticks out, but he's still processing the rest of the action

Eight Weeks Old

James is 8 weeks old today :-) Here are some favorite pictures of mine from this week and a slide show at the end of the post with all of the pictures from this week. Not much going on today...he's napped quite a bit on me (right now in his Pack 'n Play so I can actually type quickly) -- probably bc he was up until after 1am last night! I think it was bc his feeding schedule had gotten messed up - we tried tricking him into thinking it was bed time after his 10pm feeding...didn't work for Mr. Smarty Pants and he needed one more feeding before sleeping. Then at 1:30am, Easton hacked up dinner -- needless to say, that was awesome after being asleep for maybe 5 minutes (I thought it was the baby making noises still).

Here is James after a good night's sleep and with a full belly after breakfast -- such a great smile! It was more of a "laughing" smile as he was being very noisy "talking" and "dancing" for me in his bouncy seat (another morning with a shower, hopefully this thing keeps working for us)!

Here is another picture from the bouncy -- he's showing one of his best "dance" moves -- watch out ladies on the dance floor! It reminds me of the characters from a roller coaster ride at Kings Island.
Here's our lil' bear in his "bath bag" -- it was a gift from a co-worker (thanks Katie) and he loved it! Much less "I'm cold" crying after we took it off him than with the hooded towels.

James during some happy time today

A slide show of James' eighth week -- more smiles, spit bubbles, "talking" and "dancing" :-)

Music Man

James Top Songs at 7 weeks

The following songs have all shown amazing results as far as calming down a crying James -- usually it's me singing/humming (very badly at that) into his ear w/ some walking or bouncing involved, but they work. Some other moms have joined in the experiment and found that the country music definitely speaks to the little ones -- that, or we have a lot of country bumpkins on our hands!!!

4. "Halo" -- Beyonce; thatta boy, gotta get a little R&B groove in there ;-) and I figured I heard "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)" enough during my pregnancy to make Beyonce a fav of his -- one question: is every video of hers from this CD going to have her wearing a leotard? hmm, we'll have to wait and see I guess! This song reminds me of the SNL skit w/ Justin Timberlake in which they do a parody of the song (is parody the right word there?)...hilarious! It makes me miss work a little bit to hear Single Ladies as we would dance to it and have the girls show us their moves before they left the locker room on their way to class -- gotta keep it livened up! PUT YOUR HANDS UP! Even Al Roker (go to the 7:30 mark of the clip) from The Today Show knows the dance -- he busted it out today when he filled in for Kathie Lee on the 4th hour of the show w/ Hoda (love both Hoda and Al)! ***see below for more about stories I've seen on The Today Show recently which have sparked my fancy***

3. Classical Mix CD -- it's a success if he's calmed down by "Ava Maria", which is track five :-) I truly believe it works because I played the CD and had the headphones tucked under my seat belt towards my belly as I drove to/from work while I was pregnant (35 miles = lots of time for music)

2. "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" - Kenny Chesney -- a new addition that I randomly tried because he started screaming when Jamie Fox was singing "Blame" on American Idol and I remembered that he would always kick me in utero when I put country music on -- I guess he really was dancing :=)

1. "Chelsea Dagger" -- The Fratelli's; the steadfast go-to since he's been born! I am really sad for hockey season to end as this is the song they play when the Blackhawks score a goal -- but it is also the music for an Amstel Light commercial (the one w/ the guy hanging from the light post doing soccer tricks - so cool), so we will most likely still hear "his" song after they hopefully win the Stanley Cup :-)

***there was a story that ran today regarding organ donations -- as you may/may not know, my father is here and will be able to go swimming with his grandson (one of his dreams he couldn't reach if he were on dialysis) because of the amazing gift of a kidney from a living donor, one of our neighbors from when we lived in Michigan...he'll be 6 years post-transplant in June (his life expectancy actually increased when he reached 5 years, COOL)! -- anyway...they featured a program, http://www.matchingdonors.com/ in which living donors are matched with people who need an organ transplant and have been unable to find another means of donation... I find it very heart-warming that people are willing to do this and hope the story will encourage more people to sign up as donors through their state.

Story #2 related back to babies is the Tummy Tub -- bath buckets that have been used in Europe for awhile and mimic the womb and can help babies learn to stand earlier (water buoyancy helps)! I'm quite happy with our tub (and Jim gives them anyway) but I thought this was innovative, especially with a small bathroom :-)

Gma Chele caught this smile on camera Saturday -- he was happy after a long, car-ride induced nap :-D

And For My Next Trick...

Jim went to check on James to say goodbye before leaving for work this morning and this is how he found James in his crib :-D What a little stinker! I have labelled the picture to show you where I put him down to sleep last night and where he ended up...seriously, he moved himself 3/4 of a crib during the night -- definitely a first here -- I guess in honor of his 7 week birthday :) That or he was really hot because the fan is down in that corner and I had set it up to blow more into the middle of his room (vs behind his dresser) because it was fairly warm in his room yesterday (especially with the door closed)! We keep a fan going to keep the air circulating in his room, just one of the things research shows help reduce the occurrences of SIDS, along w/ having a mesh bumper up (which I'm glad we put up when he started rolling 3 weeks ago, because he would have woken up with some appendages hanging out of the crib this morning) instead of the quilted bumpers that come in the sets.

He had himself all tucked up in the corner with his feet up the slats of the crib...maybe it was all the pent up excitement from the Blackhawks beating the Calgary Flames in the 1st round of the hockey playoffs -- Go Hawks!

Here James is workin' a half smile (you know, for the ladies) while on the changing table. He is 7 weeks old today and the non-gas related smiles are becoming more common (not here, this one was definitely gas related as he was 'riding the bike' like a champ for me while getting it all out before I changed him)! Some other tricks: he is much better at making spit bubbles, he is hitting the chime on his activity mat on purpose to make it ring (it looks like he is doing the elementary backstroke when he gets going on there, maybe the next Michael Phelps minus the pot drama), he can still roll from his belly to his back (thus avoiding any tummy time exercise), his neck is getting stronger and much more of his movements are voluntary, and he can make some pretty good eye contact and will find me and get that "Hey, I know you" look in his eyes and he is getting to recognize Jim too!He doesn't even cry when Easton wants to share the pillow with him!!! What a good brother! (Right after this picture, James punched E in the face and E just looked at him like "Dude, what was that for, I'm being nice and giving you more than half!")

James' Baptism

We had a great weekend! Our family and friends got together to celebrate James getting baptized. My family (sans Larry & Maddie) came in Saturday so we got to hang out a bit before things got crazy busy on Sunday. Sunday we got Jimmy to cook us some yummy breakfast and put the finishing touches on getting things ready for the after party then headed to church. There were 3 children getting baptized and James was definitely the youngest -- and the quietest ;-) I don't know how he does it in public because he certainly just cries for no apparent reason when it's just Jim & I with him -- he must be bored with us already. There are a ton of pictures in the slide show (80 I think, sorry) because I just put all my pics into an album using Picasa and I figured out how to do a slide show through that site today really fast...so you may want to scroll through quickly yourself instead of watching it play. (Note: you may be able to click in the bottom left and it will take you to the album itself and I think you can make comments, but I'm not sure). It begins with some pictures from Friday and Saturday...cute ones: Pops and James napping and James making his "O" lips old man face. The slide show finishes with the pics from the baptism ceremony and the posed pics after w/ the Godparents and Grandparents (James is uber lucky -- he has John for a Godfather and then TWO Godmothers: Kristen AND Cassie -- how can you beat that?!?) The non-church pics are still from Sunday when we were at home hanging out. Jim said the pictures of James on the changing table are 1) him "doing the sprinkler" and 2) "showing his guns"...you be the judge. One of my favs: James getting checked out by BOTH Charlie and Easton at the same time -- lots of doggie breath up in his grill :-D

Thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate!

Jen & Kennedy Visit

In a fit of baby rage (to be fair, he was losing his bink) James grabbed the handle of the frog on his bouncy -- unfortunately the music did not settle him down and he continued his snort-filled cries (so funny bc they are so cute and I knew he was just tired but fightin it -- so stubborn)!


Here is our lil man showing off his lanky legs as he was "dancing" -- at least that's what I call it when he's pulling his legs to his chest as quick as he can (probably working up a good diaper for me) and flailing his arms uncontrollably! He's still in newborn diapers (the size 1 was still too loose) and has a bit of room left in his newborn clothes... thank goodness Jen let us borrow some of Kay's gender neutral clothes or he'd be swimming in all of his outfits! Thanks for sharing! According to Wii Fit, James has finally broken the 8lb mark though :-) Woo hoo for progress!!!
Jen and Kennedy York came Tuesday to meet James. Jen got her baby time and Kay was a bit jealous ;-) She saw the baby sleeping on her mommy so she got help up on the chaise and used James' booty as a pillow -- she's such a cutie! Kay took a break from playing on the floor and pushing Easton out of the way to hang out with James and I.