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Christmas talk

I'm 98% certain Jude has night terrors. :( He's been almost consistently screaming but not entirely waking up at about the same time almost every night for a few weeks. It doesn't matter if I'm holding him, sleeping with him, or he's in his crib while he sleeps, he still does it. He doesn't even wake up, he just screams and it takes a while to calm him down and usually the only thing that helps is nursing him. It's kind of scary and makes me worried. I just scoured through my parenting books and there's nothing on the topic so I hit the Google machine, and this is the most cohesive thing I found. I'm going to mention it to his doctor when he goes again, which won't be until after his surgery, if it's still happening but it doesn't seem like there's much that can be done about it aside from comforting him back to sleep.

Christmas was good. We got a Wii from my grandma, which means my family has officially joined the 21st century, at last. Up until last year we still had dial-up internet and never had cable. My parents also got a flat screen TV for the whole family to share. They got me a TomTom GPS because of the time I ended up in Lansing on my way up north >.< and a video camera. I can't use the software that came with my camera though apparently. It won't work on the family desktop for some reason and I can't get it to work on my laptop. I was at least able to save the files and upload them to YouTube. Here's a video of Jude on my mum's lap. I can swivel the screen 180º so I pointed it at Jude while I was filming and he was laughing at "the other baby" on the screen.


Jude got tons of toys for Christmas of course. I'm still in the process of cleaning and finding homes for everything, it's going to take weeks most likely. He's rather clingy and it seems like I can only put him down for 10 minutes at a time, if that.

I have tons of pictures from Christmas to upload of course, I just haven't gotten around to it. I will eventually, have no fear.

Christmas time is here!

I'll make sure to post all about all the festivities when they're over.
Merry Christmas everyone!

Surgery, Thanksgiving, 4 months, etc.

First and foremost, Jude is 4 months as of yesterday. He hasn't really reached any new milestones, but his skills are definitely improving. He knows that he's grabbing things and how to do it. He investigates things more with his hands, and his mouth. He babbles and laughs almost all the time. I haven't really put him on a schedule, but he has seemed to form one, or something like one on his own. He can sit up, but not quite on his own yet, he's a little wobbly still. He loves to stand when I hold him up. He also loves to look at himself in the mirror, I have a little narcissist on my hands. He has rolled over on his own, but he doesn't do it often for whatever reason. All in due time I reckon.

His surgery went well. He was confused afterwards and cranky unless I was holding and rocking him. He was really upset when I put him down to get him dressed to go home. I distracted myself by making my parents & Chris play hangman with me while he was in surgery. His bandages finally all fell off last week and there's some scars, but the doctors gave me a silicone gel to make them better. He was drugged up, cranky, and groggy for a day or two after. The day after he fell asleep on the floor while playing, twice. The morning of he was surprisingly happy considering he wasn't allowed to eat. He also didn't wake up in the middle of the night to eat like he normally does so it worked out pretty well.

Playing at 5 am before we left for the hospital.

Post-op.

Home from the hospital.

The day after.

Thanksgiving was Thanksgiving. We spent it at my grandma's house. I cooked some things that everyone loved. I've been so domestic lately, it's odd. And now Christmas is approaching rapidly. Eeeks.

'Twas the night before Jude's surgery....

...And these are some of my thoughts.

I'm freaking out, I have been for weeks but I haven't showed it much. I actually have been trying to suppress all emotions around people, it's crazy weird. I know everything will most likely go great,

and that it's for the better but part of me is freaked out by the fact that my baby has to have surgery, especially since I've never had surgery, aside from the c-section. It's also weird that he'll look completely different after tomorrow. I know he won't be a different person,

but he'll look different and that makes me kind of sad. Getting his skin tags removed makes me feel hypocritical too. I'll miss his adorable little cheeky nipples.

Since we have to be there at 6 & his surgery's at 7:30 he's not allowed to eat after midnight but he can have pedialyte or water until 4:30. Which means when he wakes up looking to eat at 3 I have to try to give him that. That's going to be a challenge since he won't take a bottle at all. I thought about trying to just cuddle him back to sleep, but I think it will be better to try to get something into his stomach.

I'm also upset about Chris, he's all talk and no walk and it's annoying, but that really has nothing to do with anything and I know if I talk or think about it more I'll just think of more things and it will be catastrophic.

3 months!

It seems so surreal that I have a 3 month old baby. It's odd to say and think about really. I think it's because recently I've been missing my old care-free ways a little bit. Don't get me wrong, I love Jude, and my life with him in it but I think about a year ago and everything was completely different. It's strange how much can change in so short a time.

Like just in this past month a ton has changed. Jude babbles a lot. He has also started chewing on everything he can find. He'll pick up toys and nom on them. He blows spit bubbles like it's his job. He's a chunker too, he has the arm equivalent to cankles, it's adorable.

There was also his first Halloween. We didn't do anything exciting. He wore his

skeleton pajamas all day and watched me make pumpkin lasagna and watched Sydney get zombified for the night. We passed out candy too, but we only got like 20-30 kids, if that. Our neighborhood is lame at Halloween time, it makes me sad because I love Halloween. I took a bunch of Halloween/October pictures of him to make a first Halloween scrapbook with such obligatory shots as him sleeping at the cider mill, him with Sydney getting her costume ready, us being awesome and matching, him watching everyone carve pumpkins, and him with the Jude sized pumpkin I carved for him. Yup, I'm sweet.

Also in October he saw an eye doctor, because of the fused suture they wanted to get a baseline there and make sure his eyesight wasn't being affected by it. It's not, he can see. Have you ever seen someone try to do an eye test on a 2.5 month old though? It's ridiculous especially since there are so many more fascinating, shiny things for a baby to look at in the office than the doctor and the toys he's supposed to look at.

I finally got a call from the plastic surgeon's office with a date for his cvr! February 9th. When he's 6 months exactly.

His skin tag removal is in 2 weeks, and I'm honestly kind of more nervous about this one than the other for some reason. I can't explain it, I just am. Maybe it's because I think his skin tags are adorable and don't want him to change drastically.

The friendship Chris and I were working on? Progressed into a talk about slowly maybe getting back together which then progressed into going out on a date. It was a real date too, a first for me actually... I'm on the fence about the whole thing though. I have my doubts and I have my dreams about the whole thing. Who knows what will happen though.

2 months!

That's right, Jude is 2 months old!!!

Milestones:

-Coos, grunts, squeals.

-Smiles & laughs.

-Holds his head up more frequently.

-Blows spit bubbles.

-Lots of wiggly movements.

-Can grab things when they're placed in his hand.

-Follows moving objects with his eyes.

Those are the only ones I can think of right now, there may be more.

Thursday after his kidney ultrasound I took him to JC Penney to get his portraits taken. He didn't want to wake up for the photographer so there are lots of sleepy ones and some grumpy face ones, it was funny. These are the ones I ordered prints of:

Another big thing, Chris & I are working on a friendship. We texted a bit earlier in the week and made dinner plans for Thursday (which half blew up in my face, but that's a different story for a different place). I ended up not babysitting Wednesday night so I decided to go out to Starbucks with him so just the 2 of us could talk. We ironed some things out & it looks like things are looking up in that department. He came over for a few hours Thursday evening to spend time with Jude & have dinner with my family. It was a pretty good time. :)

Hopefully the betterness sticks.