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.

Lessons From The Front Line

Here's a few things I've learned from my first 2 weeks of on the job training as a Mommy:

1. Always consider your baby boy's pee pee a loaded weapon. Protect yourself at all times. When you leave yourself vulnerable even for an instant, that's when your baby boy will inevitably squirt pee all over your clothes.
2. When you change your baby's diaper and you only see a hint of poop, you may want to delay swapping in a new diaper. Putting on a new diaper will no doubt cause him to immediately soil it. Instead, look away and give your baby a little privacy so that he can finish his business.
   
3. Babies go through A LOT of diapers and wipes. In Jalen's first 2 weeks, we already used up over 100 diapers. Of course you can slightly reduce your consumption of diapers by following lesson #2.
4. In general, newborn babies are pretty easy to keep happy. As long as you keep them fed, burped, changed they pretty much just sleep through the day and night. Just don't expect to be fed and rested yourself while you're tending to the baby's needs.
5. Babies grow fast. Jalen has already grown over 1.5 inches since birth and he is starting to outgrow some of his newborn clothes. Take a few minutes each day to enjoy your baby because he will never be this small again.

Erin and Jalen

Jalen had his first date with Katelyn. She is 5 days younger than Jalen. Look, they're holding hands!

Jennifer and Andy with Jalen

I had my first drink since the baby.

And first time eating sushi! Finally, yum!!

Being Mommy

Being a mom is no doubt a full time job and I'm learning so much everyday. I feed Jalen at least 8 times a day. Each feeding takes about 1 hour, that means I spend over 8 hours a day feeding, burping and changing the baby! Now that Jalen is getting enough milk, it's been a lot easier getting him to feed and sleep. The tough part is still not being able to sleep more than an hour and a half at a time. I try to take a couple of naps during the day so that I get at least 7 hours of sleep within a 24 hour period. The good thing is that I have Jalen on a 3 hour feeding schedule now so that after a feeding, I have a 2 hour window to do something for myself. Rick and I left the baby with my mom a couple of times to get some shopping done. It was definitely nice to get out of the house. Rick also put a TV in the nursery so that I have some entertainment during those late night feedings. I can't tell you what a difference the TV made. Not only that it made the feedings go by faster, I also felt connected to the adult world again because I could catch up on all the latest news and gossip. Yesterday, we went out for dinner for the first time since the baby was born and Jalen was such a good boy that he slept through the whole thing. Rick and I are planning to go out to eat by ourselves this weekend and leave the baby with my mom. I'll finally be able to have sushi and have a little bit of alcohol, yay! All these little steps are so important and things are getting a little easier each day. It's a lot of work taking care of Jalen but I also have to remind myself to not just rush through the feedings so that I can catch a nap or check email. I need to pause and take in his sweet little face before he grows up too quickly.

Jalen is 8 days old!

Jalen did not like his first bath.

Finally dry again,

and sleeping peacefully...