Jalen is Two Months Old!

Rick has been traveling for work since last Thursday so I packed up the baby and drove up to Vancouver to stay with my parents. I was a bit nervous driving with Jalen all by myself since he's in the back and I can't get to him if he cries. I had to stop half way to change his poopy diaper and feed him. Then we hit rush hour traffic after we crossed the border trying to get into Richmond! We were stuck for 1 hour in that mess and Jalen was getting hungry. So I broke out my emergency bottle of pre-mixed formula, reached back in the car and fed him with my foot on the brake. This coming Sunday is Jalen's 2 month birthday! Too bad his daddy is still in LA and won't get to see Jalen until we go back to Seattle next week.


Jalen's catching some rays at Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver.

Bath Time For Jalen

Jalen used to hate bath time when he was first born. But now that the weather is warmer and we've learned to get the bath water to the right temperature, Jalen enjoys soaking in the tub while being scrubbed down.

Jalen's First Trip to Canada

On the last weekend of June, Rick and I drove up to Vancouver to attend my friend Monica's wedding. We brought Jalen with us and he was quite well behaved during the drive. Of course my parents were just delighted to see him again and my Dad took a lot of pictures.




Daddy is all dressed up to go to Monica's wedding.

July 1st is Canada Day! Jalen celebrated by wearing his new Roots Canada t-shirt.

Week Six

Jalen found his favourite spot on the couch to take a nap. Just like his Daddy!

Cousin Taylor can't wait to babysit Jalen.

Here's Gerrie holding Jalen at Trish and Arlene's baby shower last weekend. Jalen did well at the party until he had a blow out and pooped out of his diaper. Grrrr!

Mommy and Jalen.

Jalen says "hi!"

Attack of the Exploding Poop

Last week was my first full week of being at home alone with Jalen. Without either grandma around, I no longer have the luxury of someone holding Jalen whenever he gets fussy or needs to be entertained. But I still need to eat and do the laundry and other chores even when the baby is crying for attention. So I just let him cry it out. At first it was kind of an experiment. I put him down in his crib and see if he'd just cry for a few minutes and fall asleep. No such luck, he cried for 45 minutes. Sure, he'd take a break here and there to catch his breath but when he wants to play and he's not sleepy, he'll keep crying until real tears stream down his face and his face scrunches up into a beet red. Once Jalen showed me who's the boss, I would just let him cry for a few minutes when I shove down some food before attending to him again. He also doesn't nap for very long during the day. Just when I think that I can put him down for a nap and I'd have an hour or so to catch up on chores, he wakes up 15 minutes later screaming for me. As a result, it's hard to get a lot done around the house so I just don't expect to do too much. It's a good thing that I learned how to prioritize tasks from my day job!

Recently, Jalen has also gotten into the habit of having one giant poop a day. When he was younger, he'd have 5 or 6 small poops a day. The doctor says that the frequency of poops is expected to decrease but she didn't tell me that the poops that he does have get so big that they cannot be contained by any diapers. The poop shoots up his back and soils his clothes and mine. So whenever that happens, I have to change all of his clothes and hand wash the poop off them. This is one of those things that I'm definitely going to bring up when he's old enough to understand what his mother goes through for him. I'll make sure to get my payback one day...

Jalen's daddy is playing with his chubby cheeks.


Jalen is happily asleep in the Moby Wrap.

We showed off Jalen to Rick's ex-coworkers from Boeing last Friday. Here's Joy getting her baby fix by kissing Jalen's foot.

Trenton, Katelyn and Jalen had a play date today. It was fun!

Jalen is One Month Old!

This past week has been quite hectic. My mom went back to Vancouver so last Monday was my first day alone with baby. It was a bit rough because Jalen seemed to fuss and cry whenever I tried to eat or get some chores done. Rick was scheduled to go out of town for work on Tuesday so on Monday night, we packed up and moved to Rick's parents' house. We weren't sure how long Rick was going to be gone for so we packed up for the whole week. He flew out on Tuesday night to New York City then made his way to Albuquerque, LA, back to Seattle then back to LA again. He didn't get back to Seattle until the following Monday morning. While he was gone, Rick's parents were really helpful with Jalen. Rick's mom stayed up late to feed Jalen so I could get a little more sleep and during the day she held him and lulled him to sleep so I could get a break. Rick's dad made us lunch and dinner so I didn't have to worry about cooking or cleaning. Just in the last week, Jalen started spitting up a lot after each feeding. He would spit up 3 or 4 times huge mouthfuls of milk. Even if we burped him or held him upright he would still spit up. I tried burping him in all different positions and holding him upright for half an hour after each feeding but he would still spit up big amounts of food. I called the nurse and she assured me that spitting up is normal and as long as he's gaining weight it's not a big problem. I was still worried that maybe he wasn't getting enough food or he was in a lot of discomfort from the spit up. We took him to the pediatrician for his 1-month check yesterday and found out that he is 11lbs 8oz! That means that he has gained almost 4lbs in a month. The doctor wasn't concerned about the spit up because of his healthy weight gain. She thinks that I might be over-feeding him so he is throwing up extra food. I'm going to try to feed him less at each feeding. Considering that he is in the 90th percentile for weight it might be a good idea to put him on a diet!

Jalen at 1 month old. Weight: 11lb 8.5oz (90%), Height: 21.5 in (50%), Head: 15.3 in (50-75%)

Daddy came home for lunch on Friday to see Jalen on his one month birthday before flying out again for the weekend.

Becoming Baby Wise

Rick and I started a new routine last week. I would feed Jalen at around 10pm, then go to bed. Rick would give Jalen a bottle at about 12:30am, which will allow him to sleep until about 3am - 4am. That gives me about 4 - 5 hour of consecutive sleep which I hadn't had since Jalen was born. It has worked out quite well for us. The only down side is that since I have to go to bed at about 11pm and Rick doesn't get home from work until 7pm or 8pm, we have very little time together. Overall Jalen has been eating and sleeping pretty well. Only occasionally would he have a short feeding only to wake up an hour later hungry again. Some nights after I feed him at 3am, it would take him a while to go back to sleep. So I would have to hold him and rock him while I'm barely awake myself.

Rick's coworker gave us a book called On Becoming Baby Wise. It describes a parenting method that promises to train your child to sleep through the night by the eighth week! That just sounds heavenly and I've been trying to squeeze in time to read the book whenever I can. The method calls for the baby to be on a 3-hour to 4 hour feeding schedule. Right now, Jalen eats about every 2.5 hours so I'm going to start to train him to go a bit longer between feedings. Supposedly, the baby will eventually stop waking up for the middle of the night feeding by following this schedule. It sounds really good so I guess it's worth a shot!

Jalen and cousin Gracie

Jalen and Tyler (a.ka. T.Vo). Tyler is about one month older than Jalen. He's already 11lbs!

Jalen and Trenton. Trenton is about 2 weeks older than Jalen. He is exactly 1 month old here.