Jack at 11 Weeks (I have the most beautiful baby...)

Jack at 11 Weeks (again...)

Jack at 11 Weeks (can you stand it???)

Jack at 11 Weeks

With Aunt Jackie and cousin Alessandra

Jack at 10 Weeks

Jack getting ready for his first dip in the baby pool!


Happy Memorial Day!

With mommy and cousins Maiya and Sydney.

Every day is a long day...

Jack at 9 Weeks

A long, long time...

Well, lots has happened since we last visited with young Jack. Mommy went back to work (much more on that at a later date!), Jack has put on a bit of weight and is now up to 10lbs 9oz, and we now have thrush again - for the third time. Ugh.

Re: Work.
The first few days were awful - I cried my eyes out and was a miserable wreck. Now, we've adjusted pretty well to our schedule, and the only thing that's really difficult is the utter exhaustion at the end of the day! Teaching always has been a challenging and exhausting job unto itself, much less when you're not getting lots of sleep and at a baby's beck and call at all hours. It's really more than I ever imagined, and don't know how people do it. But I guess they do it every day, and we only have two more weeks to go until school is out for the summer.

Re: Weight.
After having bloodwork and finding out that Jack possibly has low levels of growth hormone, we went back into see Dr. Ginsburg on Friday. Turns out he'd gained 10oz in 15 days, which she was happy with - it's about 3/4oz a day, and they like to see a gain of 1/2 to 1 oz per day. Good job Jack!!!

Re: Thrush.
Take Three.
Honestly, I don't know how we'll get through this again! This time, Jack is on oral Diflucan instead of the topical Nystatin, so hopefully it'll work a bit better. I'm just looking forward to the day when feeding isn't so stressful and time-consuming; hopefully it'll be sooner rather than later :)

Re: New Accomplishments and Hobbies.
Jack has been quite the busy little man lately! Some of his latest adventures include:

• Finding his feet - he grabbed onto them for the first time a couple of days ago, and goes crazy kicking the hanging rattle on his playmat. He also has woken me up kicking and banging his feet in the bassinet. It's pretty funny - you'll look over and all you see is two little feet in the air and then "ka-boom" on the mattress :)
• Being SO aware - he is looking for things and focusing on them and enjoying them. He loves sitting in his bouncy seat and playing with the animals. He also looks right at you when you call his name and "talks" to you - making all kinds of sounds and expressions. It's amazing how alert and expressive he is lately! We are enjoying him so much!
• Holding things - he likes to grab onto your fingers with both hands when you give him his binky and hold tight. He also puts his hands around his bottle and holds onto it. And he loves to pat my hair for some reason - it always makes him smile :)
• Noticing the dogs - he loves to look at the dogs, especially Lucy. She greets him every morning by sticking her nose in the bassinet and he always grins at her. And he makes the funniest faces when they give him kisses!

Well, speaking of Lucy-goosey, she's developed a real problem with peeing. We noticed she had been going in the house the past couple of weeks, but chalked it up to her being pissed that Jack was getting so much attention. But just this weekend, she's been peeing everywhere, even stopping in the middle of coming downstairs to go there. I'm worried about it, and we'll call the vet tomorrow to make her an appointment. In the meantime, I think I'm going to get her some doggie diapers because she's now gone on two pieces of furniture and I don't want the house to be destroyed before we can figure out what's causing it and hopefully stop it! So, keep the goose in your good thoughts that it's just something that's easily (and inexpensively) fixed...

Jack is Two Months Old!

Depending on how you look at it, Jack is two months or nine weeks old this week :)

Some of the things he's doing lately:

• He smiles all the time - lots in the morning when he first wakes up. He especially likes when you do the motorboat noise or make kissing noises on his belly!


• He loves ceiling fans. In fact, I would dare say he's obsessed. He just stares at them, smiles, coos, and acts like he's flirting with them. Too cute.


• Speaking of which, he's making lots of little noises in response to talking.


• He's discovered the baby in the mirror. I heard him gurgling away one day in the car, and when I pulled into the parking space, found him smiling and "talking" to the mirror!


• He's grabbing small things like his binky. Last night, he wrapped his hand around his bottle. Earlier he had grabbed and pulled the tupperware container I was holding.


• He's finding out that his feet are attached to his body. He kicks the crinkly leaf on his activity mat and gets excited about it!


• His favorite song is Raffi's "Down by the Bay" - we've made up our own lyrics and sing it all the time. He starts moving his arms and legs and smiles really big when I start to sing! (okay, so maybe he's laughing at my singing voice...)
• He had his first formula bottle last night. We had tried to give him one the night before to supplement since I'm going back to work on Monday, and you would have thought we were feeding him rat poison - such dramatic faces and antics! Then we mixed a soy formula with breastmilk last night and he drank it with no problem. And then this morning he threw a fit when I tried to give him another bottle. So who knows where we are with that!

On a related note, Jack had his two-month doctor's visit yesterday and got his shots - yuck! We found out that he's not growing at the pace they would like, so I had to collect his urine overnight for testing, and then he had to have blood drawn from his tiny little vein this morning. Let me tell you, if you've never tried to get urine from a baby using a bag with a horseshoe-shaped sticker on the end, you're not missing anything. And of course, watching him have blood taken was so incredibly sad, disturbing and pathetic.

Anyways, he now weighs 9lbs 15oz, is 22 3/4" long, and his head is 40cm. That puts his percentiles at 15th for weight (he was 50th), 50th for height (he was 85th), and 75th for head size (was 95th - I'm secretly not upset about that one :). What they look for is for them to stay around the same percentages, no matter what the weight/height. For example, him being at the 15th percentile for weight would be okay if he was around the 15th percentile at his two-week checkup. Dropping so much apparently isn't okay :(

So they're testing for metabolic disorders, thyroid function and kidney function. I am hoping that it's just leftover weight loss from when his mouth was sore from the thrush and he wasn't into eating that much. Actually, for as much as he fusses when he's hungry, he really doesn't get that into eating ever. He only eats for about 10 minutes, and that's with me cajoling him and doing everything I can think of to get him to eat more. So, if hopefully the test results are negative for everything, we can figure out a way to encourage his eating. Any suggestions welcome!!!