The Baby Gourmet

So we're still on jarred foods for most of what Jackson is eating solids-wise. He can now feed himself cheerios and eat various foods...well mostly carbs...but also bananas, etc. We haven't had the fortitude to attempt anything too crazy yet.

I kind of was getting sick of feeding him the same stuff all the time. Turkey and vegetables. Chicken and sweet potatoes. Beef with carrots and corn. Rice and lentils. That was basically our dinner time rotation. So I got online to see what Earth's Best had out there, and I discover their Gourmet line and their Antioxidant line. I figured, what the hell, let's go for it.

Result? Jackson is becoming a food snob. Wednesday night he had "Tender Beef with Spinach" and yesterday at school he had "Chicken and Mango Risotto" and then when we tried good old Turkey and Vegetables? Negative. Breakfast? Banana and Mango antioxidant blend. Yes. Done. I am very glad he likes some different foods...he is already doing way better than mom is on the food experimentation...maybe I'll get ambitious this weekend.

Sunday Afternoon Musings

Greetings from snowy Colorado. It's beautiful here as always. People don't believe me when I tell them, but hello, it was 70 degrees on Thursday and now it's snowing. Last weekend Jason went skiing and had a picnic in the park on the same day. It's the greatest place there is.

It's been a week of inconsistent naps. At school this week he had two days of a TOTAL of one hour of naps. Yeah, that's not really going to work for me. Jackson has averaged about 5 hours of naps a day for a very long time, so when he gets ONE hour in, needless to say he's unpleasant when its time to go home. Not to mention it causes him to wake up a lot at nighttime, so I've been dedicating myself to trying to figure out what is going on there. The teachers are doing their best and it's obviously not their fault...I just need to help Jackson figure out what's going on so he can have good naps and good days.

Yesterday was an epic nap day. He slept until 730 am, then took three naps that were minimum 90 minutes during the day. That's amazing, and his sleep last night for sure reflected his good sleep during the day.

Last night Jason played Mr. Mom while I worked at CU and then went for a girls night out with my indoor team plus ones. It was actually more plus ones than teammates, but that was okay. We hit the Rio and then went to the Outback Saloon for some karaoke, which I can't lie is like one of my favorite activities. I have a knack for convincing people who are adamant that they will NOT sing that they need to sing and they usually do. It's all about finding that perfect song, and when in doubt, call on Abba.

Daredevil

Jackson apparently thinks he doesn't need to hold on to things when he stands up at school. His latest endeavor is pulling up on the exersaucer at school, standing there, and then letting go, thinking he can continue to stand there on his own. He hasn't developed that strong of balance just yet so this is not a good idea. His teachers have to watch him like a hawk and make some diving catches so he doesn't bash his head anywhere. Super.

What Are These?

They are teeth, Jackson. And you have two of them, right in front, on the bottom of your mouth. And now, when you put your fingers in your mouth and bite down hard, it will no longer be a soothing experience. It will hurt. As you learned tonight. I do not know if this is a lesson that you will need to teach yourself repeatedly, or if it is something you will learn quickly. In any case, now you have teeth and biting on your fingers will not be good.

Nothing to Report

It's been a boring week in the Lew casa! Jackson is doing much of the same...crawling, sitting, drooling, teething, eating, sleeping, peeing and pooping.

No real extra pulling up, or super fast crawling, or incidents to report. The most exciting thing is he had graham crackers and yogurt at school, which is nothing that interesting.

I guess the most exciting thing is there isn't anything exciting, which is different for a change from what's gone on lately. Happy weekend everyone.

Self Service

We've been experimenting with Jackson and finger foods for a little while now. He has always been interested enough to push them around his tray, and usually will pick them up. He has been known to use the pincer from time to time. But when he actually decided he wanted to put the foods into his mouth, usually he would grab them with his fist, put his whole fist in his mouth, and attempt to put the food in that way. Then he would take the fist out and the food would drop for either us to clean it up or for Buffy the Dog to eat.

Tonight at dinner at grandma and grandpa's house, he successfully transferred food from tray to hand to mouth, chewed it up, and swallowed it. Hooray!

Chew This

Hooray for chewing! Last night we were all sitting on the floor watching that game, and we let Jackson go to town on a teething biscuit during our dinner. He finally did actually go to town and actually gnawed on it to the point that it required chewing. He never got anything to the point of swallowing, but it did lead me to try some more finger foods today.

We have been putting Cheerios on his tray for like two weeks, and while he can pick things up using his thumb and finger, he doesn't have a lot of interest in putting such things in his mouth. Jason has a banana basically every morning, so today I took a slice and cut it into little Jackson-sized pieces. He played with them, but again wasn't super-motivated to eat them. Which surprises me, because he puts literally EVERYTHING into his mouth. I have an exercise ball in the basement which is two feet tall and all he does is try and take bites out of it, so I find it odd that he won't put something clearly sized for his mouth actually into his mouth.

So after a few minutes of watching him push banana pieces around, I held one out for him to try. He kept it in his mouth and chewed on it for, oh, five minutes or so and then swallowed it without incident. Then did it one more time before he had enough. In any case, the little monkey seemed to like the bananas and hopefully we can start progressing him to chunkier foods and he will enjoy it. Really I just want him to feed himself one so we can cheer that he did that and move on.

He's gone three straight nights without his 10 pm bottle, so it looks like we're doing okay there. He does wake up a little bit at like 3 am, which I think he did before but now I'm just extra-sensitive hearing-wise because I'm jumpy about him maybe wanting food. We'll see. He's for sure eating in the mornings like an absolute champion.

Just Keep Swimming...

Jackson attended his first swim lesson on Wednesday night at the Longmont YMCA. Jason loves swimming and I do not, so we decided that swim lessons would be his thing, but there was no way I was going to miss the first one. There were two other children in the class with them so it was a nice little class with a very nice teacher. Jackson got to float, move around in the water, go through a hoop and lots of other things. He seemed to do very well right up until the end...he got a little cold. Oh and then afterwards he had a meltdown for no reason we could ascertain. But other than that, it was a total success. Thrilling video footage to come later on youtube/leabuff.

Naps Are For Sissies

Is apparently the mantra of my child today. Jackson is approaching the time when three naps ought to become two, but we're having a hard time figuring out which one will be the one to go. Sometimes, it's the morning nap. Sometimes, it's his late afternoon nap. Sometimes, it's his middle of the day nap.

We're working on finding a consistent dinner time and bed time regardless of what has gone on that day as a starting off point. That is becoming 6 pm and 7 pm right now, but that too fluctuates. He typically has breakfast at 7 am, which consists of a bottle and some fruit and cereal. Then if it is a home day, he goes down for a nap at 9 or 9:30 am. Then he usually has lunch at 11, then crashes at 12:30 and sleeps until about 2. Then he has a bottle, usually is good for about two hours and then gets fussy and tired at about 4 and crashes for another two hours. Then it's dinner, play time, bath and story and bedtime. He occasionally and usually still is half to full waking at 10 ish for another snack, which is probably the first thing that we need to push him to give up and will do so more insistently.

So we'll see where the chips fall once that falls by the wayside. The issue is that when he's at school the aforementioned atomic clock accurate schedule that he has adopted goes completely by the wayside. Sometimes for no reason, sometimes for some reason, sometimes for the kid in his room that thinks shrieking as loud as possible is a super fun game to play in the nap area when my child is finally asleep. Hell if I know.

I look forward to his first swim lessons tomorrow night at 6:30 throwing the entire thing into chaos. Hooray!

Must Be All Those Crunches

So yet another first for the Lew family. Jackson has been napping poorly of late during the day, he's probably ready to drop a nap but I'm struggling to figure out where we're gonna drop one because they are very inconsistent. I'll figure it out. Anyways, we got home from school and work at about 5:30, so I decided to see if he would take a quickie before his dinner.

He fell asleep basically immediately. So Jason and I reheated some pizza and had some salads and starting to eat our dinner and of course about 6:25 he started squawking. So I went upstairs to find him sitting up in the middle of his crib chewing on his blanket! So that would be the first time Jackson has been discovered in the upright position in his crib. Not sure what will come next, tooth number 2 (immediately next to what has been dubbed tooth number 1) or standing in the crib. We'll keep you posted.