8 Months

Jack is taking off as you can see by the pictures, he's not a sitting still type of baby. I can't leave him alone for a second because he will scale up on the couch to get to the window so he can bang on it. He's so much fun. I say every stage is my favorite because he's just getting to be more and more fun. He's not walking yet but doing a lot of cruising on the furniture (along the bottom and tops of it). He had reverted to infancy like sleep patterns (getting up 3-4 times a night) so we had to do a little sleep training. I think it was harder on me than on Jack but well worth it. We are actually sleeping more than 2 hours at a time so I'm starting to feel a little more human.
We are trying keep busy, Jack loves to be out and about. On Mondays and Thursdays we have our play group meetings, Tuesdays we have library story time, Wednesdays I'm going to MOPS so Jack gets to hang out with other babies while I eat a meal sitting down, and Friday is our free day where we often love to hang out with Jack's friend Brooke. We've also joined the Y so that Jack can stay comfortable in the water. He goes under on his own, he will hold onto my hands and step into the water. He sings and talks to as many people as possible while we are at the pool.

7 Months

Jack started crawling a few days before he turned 7 months old. So Ross and I have been scrambling trying to baby proof. Jack's first favorite place to go is towards Max's water bowl. He's only gotten in it once but enjoyed making a mess before I got to him. He's quite the talker and loves playing in the water. I've been trying to take him to the pool as much as possible. I think every new stage is my new favorite time in his life. He is SO MUCH FUN. He's reaching for Ross and I and he crawls toward Ross squealing when Ross gets home from work. He also loves Max and Max's toys!

5 & 6 months

FIVE MONTHS

SIX MONTHS

I've gotten behind on my blog posts. Jack keeps us pretty busy these days! In June we went to Florida with my family for vacation. We had a great time together and Jack was the center of attention. While we were in Florida he decided to start rolling over and is rolling all over the place now. He is enjoying cereal and veggies, but not a big fan of fruits.
Right before he turned 6 months he started sitting up and yesterday I caught him on all fours while he was suppose to be napping. It seems like he's doing something new everyday and his little personality is growing by leaps and bounds. He's such a happy baby. He loves to sing to himself in the mirror and he'll lay in the floor and play while singing to himself. His bedtime is around 7 now, I think he would go down at 6:30 but I want Ross to see him. He'll be calm and almost ready for bed when Ross gets home, then he get SO excited and wants to play with his Daddy for a while. When Ross walks in the door Jack gets a big grin on his face and starts jumping up and down ~ he loves his Daddy!

4 Months Already!

Even though I'm still getting very little sleep time still seems to fly! I can't believe Jack is 4 months already. He gets more and more fun everyday. Several people (including his pediatrician today) have commented on how vocal he is. He does love to talk it seems. He's starting to imitate us more and is catching on to how to make motorboat sounds with his lips. He continues to be in the 25th percentile for weight and head size, but has jumped from the 25th to 75th percentile in height. Maybe he will be taller than Ross and I! He's reaching for everything and loves to touch our faces (I think he really likes feeling Ross's stubble). He's amazing we love him more and more every day!


He just decided to hold his head up a couple of weeks ago and is getting pretty good at it. He still hates tummy time though.

He decided one day it would be fun to roll onto his left side, two days later he thought it would be fun to roll over. I didn't get the camera in time to get him completely on his stomach.

Jack is 3 Months

I'm three months old!


Two of my roommates from college and their girls


Meeting his great grandparents - Grandteddy and Grandmother

Time flies and I'm way behind on my blogging. Jack's third month was full of firsts. First plane trip, first limo ride, first thunderstorm, first triathalon (not that he participated in, my dad did), first flag football game (Ross played), and first trip to the great state of Tennessee. We were able to fly to Tennessee the first of April and Jack got to meet his great-grandparents and many many other people. My parents hosted a "Meet Jack Party". My dad did Jack's baby dedication the same night. My mom also took Jack almost every night so I could sleep. It was amazing! I felt rested for the first time since he had been born. I barely touched him the whole trip between my parents and his aunties holding him. It was a fun and special time for all of us! His personality is starting to show a little more every week as he become more talkative and expressive!

New Happenings in the Life of Jack:
1. He's starting to look at people and follow their movements
2. He's rubbing his eyes
3. He laughed for the first time when Ross tickled him with his hair
4. He's sucking on his fists and gagging himself
5. He's staying awake for longer
6. He's discovered he has volume in his voice and loves to squeal as loudly as he can
7. He's started fake coughing, then he'll smile at me
8. He is startling himself, when he slightly rolls to one side and throws his arms out. He's not a fan

We continue to be amazed at God's gracious gift to us. He's so much fun and such a blessing. Nothing beats looking into his crib and him giving us a big smile!

Jack is Two Months!

I am two months old!!

My favorite sleeping position

Learning to read :)!

I can't believe Jack is two months old already. He still gets up every 2-3 hours at night to eat but he doesn't want to get up to play until 5 or 6. While that is still way early to me it's a whole lot better than 3 am! He's growing like a little weed. At his two month appointment he weighed 10 pounds and is almost 22 inches long. He is recognizing Ross and I and smiling when he looks at us a lot of the time. He's holding his head up more, although he HATES being on his tummy. Ross says that he is turning into a human more and more everyday. He's great!

Firsts

First Outing - we went to Balboa Park. He seemed to enjoy his time when he was awake.

First Trip to the Beach - This outing seemed to make him very hungry because he ate almost the whole time we were there!

First Time to Hold His Bottle

Playtime with Daddy - he's smiling and talking more and more as we play with him!

Jack and the Aunties

Jack has now met all his aunts. Sarah, Hannah and Abigail came out shortly after he was born. This week Ross's sister, Megan, came out to meet him. He loves them all!

He Smiles!

Here is Jack's first recorded smile with a surprise at the end. He's interacting more and more with us as we talk and play with him. He gets cuter every day!

1st Month

Jack is 1 month old today! It's hard to believe a month has passed already. It's been the greatest but hardest month of my life. I'm not used to getting 4 maybe 5 hours of sleep a night, although a couple of times I have gotten 6 total which is very exciting! It seems like the first three weeks were really tough on me, then I started learning what Jack needs, not what a book says he needs. When I started giving myself grace and realizing that while one thing may have worked for my friends baby it may not work for Jack things started going much smoother. I just chilled out and started enjoying learning about my son and his needs instead of trying to make him do things like so and so's baby or like this book said things should be done. He's started "talking" a lot more in the past couple of weeks, it's pretty cute. But then again pretty much everything he does we think is pretty cute! He had his 1 month check up yesterday and his pediatrician said he looks great. He's in the 25th percentile in height and the 10th percentile in weight. So that means that we are still feeding on demand or every 3 hours to get his weight up a little more. He weighed 8 lb 2 oz.

So here are a few things I've learned about my son in the past month that I can think of off the top of my sleep deprived brain!

1. He loves to sunbathe
2. He's very alert and loves to look around, especially at 3 in the morning
3. He's aggressive and easily impatient, so if I don't start feeding him when he starts telling me it's time then it takes a while to calm him down and even then feeding can be hard because he's so worked up. So I'm trying to learn to anticipate what his cried mean.
4. He loves baths
5. His pee can reach long distances and he has very good aim
6. The whole letting the baby cry themselves to sleep does not work with Jack. He will get himself so worked up that he will throw up and we have to feed all over again. So we are learning to soothe him to sleep and he sleeps SO much better and longer (the 5 S's really work with him). Plus I love holding and watching him!
7. He loves his swing
8. He's very active whether he's awake or sleeping (so swaddling really works great)
8. and my personal favorite...He prefers his mommy to anyone else. I told Ross to let me enjoy my few months of glory because soon Ross was going to be his favorite!

Here are a few pictures of each week of his life:
Week 4

Week 3

Week 2

Week 1

Meet Jack Isaac Brodie

Nursery In Progress

At the request of some here are pictures of the nursery so far. My mom is bringing the bedding so I'll post those pictures later on. Our theme is surfing (what else would it be!). The pictures on the wall are of Ross so our little boy can look at those and dream of being as good a surfer as his dad! I have letters to hang between the pictures but since we haven't decided on a name I thought I would wait and put holes in the wall AFTER we choose a name. I think it'll look really good once we get the surfer bedding in there. I'm also going to hang a shelf above the guest bed and put cute little animals and baby books on there, but since I didn't have much luck trying to hang it I'm going to let my dad hang it. All I managed to do was make two very big holes in the wall (which are nicely covered up with two picture frames at the moment). Ross will have to fix my damage before we move! Oh, and for the record, I did not paint the walls like that, it was our landlord. If we stay here after the summer I may have to paint over them.

9 days and counting...

So we have 9 days to go before our due date...little Brodie continues to be active and I think he's ready to come. We're ready for him to come! Everything is ready, my last day of work was Friday, and the nursery is ready. Ross has described this time as the anticipation of waiting to open Christmas presents...only we don't know when Christmas is!

New Year's Day Surfing