Thunderstorms

Apparently, LJ is too young to be scared by thunder and lightening as we had a pretty big storm last night. Actually, it was around 5:00 am. I was surprised that we had not heard from him before this. LJ was in bed and asleep by 9:00 last night...RJ and I were 30 minutes behind him! LJ slept right through the storm...not a peep out of him. I, of course, was wide awake...when I finally fell back to sleep...I dreamed LJ was drowning. Go figure! When I left for work at 7:15...LJ was still asleep. RJ says he woke up pretty quickly after I left, but that was an EXCELLENT night for us!

Our current afternoon routine (I'm not 100% sure what goes on here in the am!) goes something like this. LJ eats. This takes about 30 minutes. Then we read a story. Right now we are reading Bible stories for children. Let me tell you...even though they are for children...Cain still kills Abel...Joseph's brothers still sell him into slavery, etc. You can’t change what happened, but this does seem like a lot for a child to think about…of course, LJ is just looking at the pictures and listening to the comforting voice of his mommy. At the conclusion of the story, we change into a clean diaper and then...TUMMY TIME! Sometimes we are rewarded with a roll over, but mostly just high-head holding. I have run the camcorder for several of these sessions just in case, but all this means is that we have several minutes of LJ on his tummy. Tummy time lasts about 5 minutes and then we have "other" play time. After an hour or so of this, LJ is ready for a nap. This nap lasts anywhere from 30 minutes to the all-time record of 1 and 1/2 hours...this was set yesterday (I was in on an hour of this!). Once LJ awakens, we start the whole process over again.

This weekend LJ's uncle (bigbro), aunt, and many cousins are coming for a visit...I'm sure he'll be a good boy...as usual!

LJ's Baptism

The big day was this past Saturday and as Fr. R said, LJ "is now a Christian." All is well that ends well and this ended well. I didn't even get stressed when LJ's Godfather called from about 30 minutes away at about 10 after 11:00. The baptism was scheduled for 11:30, so this presented a small problem. Fr. R said it was ok and we waited. We waited so long that people arrived for a baptism scheduled for noon. So, LJ had about 30 people celebrating with him! He was a good boy and didn't cry when Fr. poured the water over his head. We do that every evening during his bath, so it wasn't a shocking experience for him.

After the baptism, everyone came back to our house and we had a big lunch...fajitas from a local catering place. They always send enough food to cover twice as many people as you told them you would have, so we have TONS of leftovers. The RJ and I will be having fajitas for dinner all this week (and I guess LJ will too...indirectly).

LJ didn't roll over for any of his guests, but he rolled over for RJ this morning. We had some tummy time after lunch today, but all I got was some very high head lifting. We'll try again after his midday snack. He's just waking up from his nap now!

LJ's First Valentine's Day

LJ's First Valentine's Day was just like every other day in LJ's life. I might have eaten some almond m&m's, so he "ate" some processed candy. Does this count? We didn't even dress him in red. Daddy came home with some pretty flowers that night and I asked if we could go to Target. There is no one at Target at 8:00 pm on Valentine's day...I must remember this for next year. If only I could wait and go to Target only once a year. After that we went to a famous burrito establishment where I ran into a student from 2 years ago. She, of course, thinks LJ is adorable! As if she could say anything else. And that was LJ's first Valentine's Day. He was so worn out that he feel asleep (solid) without his bath...and woke up at 4:45 to eat...just that perfect time where it doesn't do me any good to try to go back to bed.

So, I got up at 4:45 on Tuesday. I left for work about 40 minutes earlier than normal (6:30) and there were kids waiting for the school bus...couldn't have been more than 10 years old. What is going on that kids have to wait for the bus at 6:30? That is terrible. These kids aren't on some rural route that takes an hour to get through either...they are not too far from our house. RJ tells me that, as a child in the country, he was the first to get picked up in the morning and the last to get dropped of in the afternoon. So, he had to ride the bus almost an hour each way, every day. This makes me sad (in a good way...) to think of him as a little boy, riding the bus all over the county roads. Ok, back to me. I have little sympathy for my students who complain about how late they stayed up...studying for a test...and how tired they are. Yeah? Well, you could have studied earlier if you wanted...or you could have decided not to study at all. I HAVE to get up as another human being's life depends on me. So, save the drama for your momma!

LJ sleeps in his crib now...that transition has transpired. He wakes once in the night to be fed. When that one time is...your guess is as good as mine. It is usually between 4:30 and 5:30. We decided to put him to bed earlier in the hope that he would wake up earlier, so I could feed him earlier, so that I could go back to sleep. He was in bed by 8:30 last night...and woke up at 1:30 to eat. I did get to go back to sleep, but that was a little earlier than I expected. And, he was up for the day at 6:45 am...poor RJ!

Batteries

It seems that almost everything baby related requires batteries. All different sizes too. I not only have to keep a stock of the usual AA, but now AAA, D and the almost-never-used C! These toys, vibrating chairs, musical thingies, etc. eat batteries at an alarming rate (especially if you forget to turn them off as you move your wee-one away from whatever it is). But, here is the most frustrating part...all the battery covers are screwed to the toy, so you must have a Philips screwdriver that is easily accessible. We keep ours on the dining room table along with all the other stuff we need to have accessible, but don't have a regular place for...oh, and the stuff we don't need accessible, but for which we don't have a regular place (and that folks, is a run-on sentence). And, why is it that some things include batteries and some don't? Here's my favorite though...one musical thingy came with batteries, but the instructions say, "For best results, replace the included batteries with new batteries." WHAAAAT? Did they decide, "hey, we have some old batteries laying around, we'll just throw them in, but we'd better tell the consumer that they won't last very long?"

LJ is fine and enjoying all his battery operated thingies...the ones that have working batteries anyway!

Rolling Over!

Ok, I don't know if I can really say LJ is "rolling over" as he doesn't do it all the time...but he has done it once, two days in a row! Front to back. He's rolled over a couple of times before, but it was accidental at best. He'd just get so mad being on his tummy that he'd get his legs kicking just right and fling himself over. But, this is different. I put him on his tummy yesterday and he supports himself with his arms very nicely. He wasn't crying or flailing or fussing, he was just looking around and then...ploop...he rolled over...it was like butta ("butter" with the Streisand accent). I was so excited that I called RJ on the phone...as if LJ had found the cure for all the ailments of mankind. RJ was excited too. I put LJ back on his tummy, but alas, that was all the tummy time he had in him...so he turned into the turtle on his back.

LJ woke at 3:30 last night...remember, we are going through a growth spurt ;-) But, he's been sleeping in his crib quite well for the last 3 nights (all the nights we've had him there).

This morning RJ called me at work to tell me that...LJ rolled over! See, he did it again. And RJ sounded as if LJ had found the cure for all the ailments of mankind. So, it isn't a mommy thing...I guess it is a parent thing! I tried the tummy time this afternoon...no roll over. But, we are optimistic the trend will continue.

From the Mouth of LJ

My mom gave her students an assignment this week, so she has been busy grading. She doesn't enjoy that part of her job too much, but says, "you take the good. You take the bad. You take them both and there you have the facts of life." That sounds very wise to me, but someone told me that was the theme to a tv show. If there is one thing my mom knows a lot about - tv would be it.

I was out to lunch with my mom and my aunt MJ and I heard some other babies talking. One said, "agoo ah ack agoo". I thought that was brilliant. Oh, you may be out of practice with baby talk, so I'll translate the rest for you. It seems that not all babies are as nice to their parents as I am. I've been pretty easy with this whole sleeping through the night thing. Did you know that some babies cry out in the night and their parents come to get them? I didn't know this either, but it is true. One baby told me that she gets to spend several more hours in the company of her parents by using this technique. She told me to be careful though...if you do this too many nights in a row, your parents might catch on and try something called "cry it out" and you don't want any part of that. So, I tested this technique last night. At 1:30 I cried out. They didn't come. I cried out again. They still didn't come. I had to call out steadily for a minute or two and sure enough, my daddy showed up. He tried to just pat me on the stomach and put my pacifier in my mouth. This is not what I had in mind though, so I just spit the pacifier out and cried some more. You know what? The next thing I knew my mommy was up and I got to eat! I was really tired about half-way through and I accidentally fell asleep. But, at 5:30 I tried it again...and it worked again! I got to eat! I think this threw them off because 5:30 would have been acceptable if I hadn't tried the 1:30 "together time"...so I fooled them into letting me eat 2x last night. It was sooo fun! They seemed a little tired today, so I decided I'd better be really happy and easy...give 'em a break. I'm not sure if I'm going to try this tonight...I don't want to know what "cry it out" entails.

I'll tell mom to do a better job of keeping you updated.