Jalen Says Hello

Jalen's Two Month Check Up

Last Tuesday I took Jalen to his two month check up. He is a big boy! He weighs 14lbs 9ozs and is 24 inches tall. His weight is in the 95th percentile and his height is in the 75th percentile. No wonder he's already wearing 6-month sized clothes. At the check up, he also got a round of vaccine shots. Jalen had to have 3 shots in his thighs. He handled it quite well and only cried a little bit. I was a bit nervous afterwards because the nurses told me to expect him to be fussy from the shots and possibly have a fever. He started acting a bit strange after dinner when he started making sad whiny sounds and he wouldn't look at anyone in the face. He just stared into space all night while drifting in and out of sleep. At night, he got a very slight fever, 100.9 degrees. I called the nurse to ask whether I need to give him some Tylenol but she said I didn't have to with this kind of low fever. So he just slept if off and the next morning he was his happy normal self again. Phew!

Jalen has really changed a lot just in the last two short weeks. He started smiling and cooing at me. At first he would only smile once or twice in the morning when I change his diaper or after I feed him. Now he smiles quite often when I talk to him and play with him. When he responds to me by smiling, it's such a wonderful feeling. I can only compare it to being in love. All the hard work of parenting definitely has its rewards!

Jalen's buddy T. Vo came over to visit. T. Vo just turned 3 month old and he's 12lbs. Jalen is bigger than him and a month younger!

Jalen is enjoying his new Bumbo. He can hold his neck up quite well so he can sit up in this cute baby seat.

Trish and Steve welcomed their new baby girl on July 23rd. We went to meet Sidney at the hospital on her birthday. She's so tiny!

Jalen Locke - bikini inspector

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!