Squash for me, please!

Here is a video of Mitchell's first veggie - squash. He is a little uncertain about it, but I think it's growing on him!

We had kind of a rough weekend. For starters, Mitchell has decided that he no longer needs to nap :( The morning nap isn't too tough to get him down for, but he WILL NOT go down for his afternoon nap....then he's so tired that as soon as I put him in the carseat to go anywhere, he's asleep within minutes. Then, he's so worn out by bedtime that he's overtired and throws a big fit before bedtime. He did this on Friday night for me - Jacob had a weekend long bachelor party...so he wasn't around to witness (and yes, the weekend was rough for him too.) I thought maybe it was just a fluke Friday thing. I went to the Royals vs. Cards game on Saturday night with some girlfriends for a bachelorette party (fun, fun!), so my dad and Sherri graciously offered to babysit. He threw SUCH a fit for them that they just knew he had to be feeling ill. Nope - not sick, just TIRED! He did it again last night. He's to that age where his little brain is just constantly looking and feeling and learning and he just can't shut it off to sleep. I'm hoping this is a short phase!

Bad timing on this phase :( We have our big recruiting event (summer leadership program) at work this week. We invite 30 of our best college recruits into the office for a 3- day long program. Jacob and I both try to attend both the day and evening events, which means very little Mitchell time the next couple of days! In fact, this will likely be the most I've ever been away from the little guy :( :( We have a true babysitter for tonight and then assuming they aren't too scarred from Saturday night, my Dad and Sherri are watching him again tomorrow night (even picking him up from daycare for us...which is a first!).

The only reason I'm okay with leaving him two nights in a row is that we're leaving for Maine (to visit Jacob's dad & diane and family) Thursday morning and don't return until next Wednesday, so we'll get constant Mitchell time for a whole week. Can't wait!

SIX months old!

Once upon a time there were three Folks - a big papa Folks,
a middle-sized mama Folks and a wee little SIX month-old baby Folks.
They lived in a little house in a suburb.

And they had three chairs - a great big chair for papa Folks...



...a middle-sized chair for the mama Folks...



...and a wee little chair for baby Folks.

Doesn't he look the happiest in his wee little chair? Mitchell is SIX months-old today! A lot of his recent activities can be summed up by the above "wee baby chair" picture. You may have not noticed at first glance, but check out his left hand....grabbing a plant. His hands are EVERYWHERE grabbing EVERYTHING these days! I have basically given up on wearing earrings or necklaces - they are some of his favorite toys.

Here are his stats:
Weight - 21 pounds 15 ounces - greater than 97th percentile
Height - 27 1/2 inches - 80th percentile

His growth seems to be slowing down a tad (as we'd hoped...otherwise he'd be larger than Andre the Giant.) He gained about 2 1/2 pounds in the past two months. The pediatrician said that although he's still "off the chart" in weight, he's closer to the top than he was at his 4 month appointment. He's grown about 3/4 of an inch, and dropped down from the 95th to the 80th percentile. She's guessing that by his 9 month appointment that he'll be in the 80th percentile all around...because hopefully he'll be crawling by then and will burn off some of his safety stock of baby fat!

Other pediatrician comments:

• She was very impressed with how well he's sitting up on his own!
• Although Mitchell only uses his pacifier for naptime and bedtime, I had read that you should stop using it at 6 months. She said it was fine up to 2 years! Yeah - we'll save that battle for later! (Think he'll be sleeping through the night by then?)
• Mitchell's head is a little flat in the back :( She said that it's not anything to worry about and will reshape itself now that he's not laying down as much.
• We instructed to start veggies today!!! I'll shoot a video of his first taste to post.
  

Gangsta Baby

Yo, yo, peeps. Check out my new hat. Don't I look cool? (except for my squished ear?)

I sure like it :) Yes, my mommy knows that it does not match this outfit...we were just trying it on for size. It stays at daycare now so that I can wear it when we go on our daily walks. The daycare gal (the one that we like) said I even kept it on my head for the whole walk...but I took it off at the very end and started chewing on it.
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THE SLEEP FOG HAS LIFTED! Mitchell only got up TWICE last night - a recent record - and each time he was back to sleep in 20 minutes or less. He didn't even stir this morning until 7:20! I think I have bedsores from getting so much uninterupted sleep! I honestly felt like a new woman this morning...maybe this will last?!?! I had to brag on him because I felt like I only post about the challenging nights....kind of like how we typically only complain about our husbands when they do something wrong. Our girlfriends usually don't get the hear the stories about all of the great things they do! :)

I got my first "dreaded call" from daycare today. Mitchell started running a slight fever due to the shots that he got yesterday. I took him some Tylenol and it was back down in no time. Hope all "daycare calls" are that easy!

Jacob is home again- yeah! Mitchell was so excited to see him - he even stayed up a few hours later than normal. He did that the last time my mom came to visit too...she arrived close to his bedtime, just like Jacob did tonight. I think he's so excited to see them that he can't sleep! There is just some "fun quotient" that daddys have that mommys don't have. That's okay - I think mommys make up for it with their TLC.

Cause and effect

Cause: Mitchell did NOT sleep well again last night! He was up probably six different times...wanting to nurse, or play or just rock and be held. Jacob is out of town, so I just spent the night on Mitchell's futon to save me trips up and down the stairs. Ugh!

Effect Number 1: I decided to call the pediatrician and move up Mitchell's six month appt, which was scheduled for Friday. He has had a sniffly nose the last couple of days and he seemed to be pulling at his ears last night, so I thought maybe the rough night was the cause of an ear infection. Good news - it was not. Bad news - I have no idea what the cause of the sleepless nights is! I'll give the full doctors report (which was good) on Friday's post....with a picture of him in his little chair.

Effect Number 2: After Mitchell was finally up for good this morning, I fed him his morning cereal and was going to make myself a bowl of cereal too. I was walking around in a fog due to lack of sleep and instead of pouring the cereal into the bowl I had set on the counter, I poured my cereal into Mitchell's bottle warmer. Why? Absolutely no idea! Double ugh!!

Effect Number 3: So as you all know, I've been struggling with my expectations of our daycare. I have been praying about it the last couple of nights because I am just not happy with one of the main ladies that is in Mitchell's classroom. Yes, she's the "individual attention" lady. Well....I took Mitchell in late today because of the doctor appointment, and all of the other kiddos were down for their morning nap. The IA lady told me that her last day is July 1st! I guess I was supposed to be upset, but I was so happy! Yeah! They are searching for a new person, so keep your fingers crossed!

Southpaw

Here is a little video that we took of Mitchell eating his morning cereal. He enjoys trying to feed himself. He doesn't always hit his mouth, so he has to get a little guidance from us :) We've noticed that he continues to favor his left hand - will he be a southpaw? Jacob's dad says he will not because the natural swirl on the back/top of his head goes clockwise. If he was going to be a lefty the swirl would go counterclockwise. My dad is left-handed, so I tried to see which way his hair swirls, but he doesn't have enough hair left to tell!!! If any of you know left-handed guys, check out their swirl and let me know if the old wive's tale is true.

We had our first REAL babysitter last night. Jacob and I attended an annual bowl-a-thon with work at Lucky Strike in the Power & Light District. We left home at about 6pm and the babysitter gal reported that Mitchell was asleep by 7pm, so I think she had a pretty easy job.

Speaking of bowling, guess won the big prize for getting the overall high score? ME!!! I averaged a 140ish. When the heck did I become a good bowler?!?! I won a digital picture frame, which I'm so excited about. We've given them as gifts a few times now and now I have one of my own! Yeah!

Collage

I made my first attempt at a collage....this one is for the Grandma's. I know you have a hard time picking one picture to be your computer background. Now you don't have to pick just one! Give it a try and let me know how it works! :) The top two are pictures of Mitchell in his baptism outfit. Although we have a lot of great pictures of Mitchell's baptism, I wanted to get just a few pictures of him by himself in his little outfit, before he outgrows it!!! The other two are ones that I've already posted.

"Once he starts cereal, he'll sleep longer." That is a direct quote from probably 12 different people or books. Seems to be the opposite last night! First of all, he didn't go to bed until after 9pm, which is LATE for him! He woke up atleast 4 times during the night and then was up for good at 5:30am. Only to take a nap from 6:30 to 8:30. Hopefully he'll take a good afternoon nap at daycare today and be back on schedule tonight. We'll see...

How could you not miss this little guy?!?!

Jacob went to Houston this week for work, and I thought he might miss Mitchell, so I told him that I'd try to post several new pictures.

Thanks to all of you who have posted comments or sent emails following up on daycare. I'm liking it better already. He seems pretty happy (see above for proof) and continues to nap and eat well for them, so I'm feeling much better about things. He's getting on a pretty good nap schedule too. One 1 hr nap in the morning and a 2ish hour nap in the afternoon. It works out nice because he's at daycare for about 6-7 hours and he sleeps for 3 hours of it. It works out wonderful for me because I pick him up about the time he wakes up from his long nap, so he's even happier than normal to see me!

Who's your daddy?

That's a question Mitchell will not likely get asked since he is the spitting image of his daddy. I think Jacob enjoyed his first Father's Day! I told him that we could do whatever he wanted to do aaaaallllll day long. Any guesses?????? Yes, our day revolved around home improvement projects. We made trips to Home Depot, Nebraska Furniture Mart and Sears clearance center. We spent Mitchell's naps working on the bathroom tile (ALMOST DONE!).



Funny story followed by a funnier picture. The day started out very nice, but a big storm blew in mid-afternoon and the temperature dropped by probably 15 degrees. Jacob changed into a long sleeved t-shirt, so I told him that if he was cold, Mitchell was probably cold too. I asked him to change Mitchell into a warmer outfit...and this is what Jacob came up with! Ha! I am by no means a fashion queen, but I did have to explain that just because things are blue, doesn't necessarily mean that they belong together. Mitchell couldn't have cared less...maybe my tolerance is just preparing for the days when Mitchell demands to dress himself!

Fruit loops, Lucky Charms.....

...or rice cereal. Those were Mitchell's selections for his first food EVER, and to our surprise he chose rice cereal. :) As you can tell by the attached video, he wasn't quite sure what to think at first, but slowly warmed up to it. Watch for the little shiver/shake that he does after the taste first registers with him. Too funny!

Click here for a slideshow of feeding pictures like the one above.

The pediatrician's instructions were to start rice cereal at 5 1/2 months. We'll start veggies in a few weeks, so I'm sure we'll have another video for your viewing pleasure!

Playing catch

Grammy Diane sent us a plush, jingly baseball that Connor used to play with when he was a baby. We discovered that Mitchell thinks playing catch with it is HILARIOUS! I tried to capture some of his laughs on camera. We thought it might have been a one time deal, but Jacob and I have "played catch" with him multiple times now and he continues to be very amused by it.

Daycare update - Not to my surprise, the first few days were a little rough....for ME! The 1st day, we only left him there for a few hours. On the 2nd day, when we arrived they were busy feeding breakfast to another child, so they sat him down on the playmat and handed him a toy....without even really saying hello to him or acting excited to see him. I know my expectations are unrealistic, and I realize that not EVERYONE is going to be as anxious and excited to see Mitchell in the morning as I am....but I was still disappointed. When I picked him up that afternoon, they reported that he seemed to be struggling with the transition a bit. She said he "needed a lot of individualized attention" that day....and I thought, good for you Mitchell. You DESERVE individualized attention. Of course, I overreacted and called Jacob to tell him that we were going to need to start a search for an in-home nanny that would give our little boy all of the individualized attention that he needs and wants. We decided to give daycare a fair shot first, so we're giving it a month. If we are still unsure about things on July 10th (yes, exactly a month), we're going to look into other options. (which likely wouldn't include a nanny anyway - we can't afford that!) Of course, the money was the least of my worries at the time. :)

When I dropped Mitchell off yesterday morning, the girl who made the "individualized attention" comment wasn't there, so rather than just handing him over, I sat and played with him and the other children and the two teachers for about a half an hour. I got to know the teachers a bit better. One of them hadn't been there the day before, so I told her how Mitchell had been struggling to transition and she reassured me that every child goes through that and that if he's eating and sleeping okay (which he is) then he's actually transitioning better than most children. I felt much better about leaving him yesterday and when I went to pick him up yesterday afternoon they were outside on the playground and he was laughing and smiling the ladies...maybe I only needed a week rather than a month?!? :)

The "individualized" girl will be back today - so we'll see how it goes.

Daddy Daycare closed its doors :(

Today was Jacob's last day of paternity leave. :( I'm actually not quite sure if he's as sad about it as I am. Ha! He would certainly agree that the time with Mitchell has been very good for all of us....but he's ready to get back to work. We took Mitchell to daycare today for a few hours to give him a little trial run before his first REAL day tomorrow. The girls said he did pretty well, but it's just hard to know! He didn't nap very long - although maybe that's expected in new surroundings. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

Here is a picture of my sister, Kelli and Mitchell before he heads off to his first daycare experience. Check out his cute little sandals. Jacob's sister, Katy, bought them for him. Aren't they adorable? Question - can I refer to them as 'flip-flops', eventhough they will never likely actually make the sound, since he's not walking?

First of MANY 1st day of "school" pictures :)

Mitchell's Baptism

Mitchell was baptized this weekend at our church.

Mitchell had to master the "praying hands" before Pastor Adam would consider him for baptism. Just kidding :)

We were fortunate enough to have lots of family come join us for the special event!

He was such a good little boy He didn't make a peep.

"With this oil, I anoint you...." We thank the Lord for blessing us with this little boy everyday! Thanks for being our photographer, Katy. You got some GREAT shots! (see more in the slideshow in the sidebar.)

My, how we have grown....

Each month on the 27th, I try to get a picture of Mitchell in his little rocking chair, so that I can see how much he's changed.

2 months old - February 27th

3 months old - March 27th

4 months old - April 27th

5 months old - May 27th

We have the big BAPTISM this weekend, so both of our families are coming in town. Looking forward to having lots of family photos to blog.

The littlest Folks at the Folks Family Reunion

We drove about five hours to Lake Tenkiller in Oklahoma for Folks Family Reunion. Jacob's grandpa, who is no longer with us, was one of 11 children, so there is more extended family that I could name (even after spending a weekend with them!)

Four generations of Folks (Mitchell, Jacob, Jacob's Dad-David and David's mom-Lois) Mitchell is trying to grab Lois's hair!!!

Jacob's dad and brother traveled from Maine for the reunion. They hadn't seen Mitchell since his arrival, so they had lots of fun reuniting. I guess that was the theme of the weekend for the extended family....and the not-so-extended family :)

They go all out for the reunion - even picking a new theme each year. Can you guess this year's theme? Argggghhh....



Mitchell was his super, smiley self almost all trip. We took his pack-n-play with us to the park for the reunion and set it up under a tree, in the shade, and he even gave us two good naps outdoors. That was certainly a first!

David's 1st cousin, Sandy, is a speech pathologist for babies (mostly autistic babies), so she gave us a things to play with, including this honey bottle & straw that they special order sans honey to try to teach babies how to drink out a straw. She said that there is a short window of time around 8 months old when you can teach babies to drink from straws - otherwise it usually takes until they are 2 years old. I put some water in it and gave it to Mitchell and he started sucking right away. Sandy must be a GREAT teacher! :)

See slideshow to the left with these and more pictures from the weekend. You can double-click on the small slideshow to see a larger version and the captions.