A QUICK VISIT

Shea and Amber stopped by on their way home from TN this afternoon to meet James. It was the first time we noticed James exhibit stranger-anxiety, and we were a little bummed. James is just never around men (especially tall, deep-voiced men) except for his Daddy. All his daycare workers are women. And it didn't help that he had just woken from a nap. AND he was hungry. So he fussed and cried a little. But in the end, he was won over by Amber's smile. And her dark hair. He LOVES pretty girls with long, dark hair (his 2 favorite caretakers at daycare have long, dark hair). Here he is trying to get a handful:

Once Amber had him smiling, we took a quick photo of all 3 of them:

Doesn't James look HUGE in her arms?

Then Shea got a chance to hold him. He made a good move and sat down so James wouldn't notice his height as much. James even smiled at him, but it didn't last long. As soon as Shea started talking, James started fussing again. Sorry Shea! He'll grow out of it...

After Shea and Amber left, we decided to give James some naked time to unwind (we always do this on the weekends). Here he is playing with the cute (and noisy!) new toy they brought him:

Nice drool drop, eh? Thanks for the gifts guys (that frog is really cool, and Jay will make up the story as he goes along - he always does anyway), and thanks for stopping by! Next time we're holding you hostage until you have dinner though...

IN THE NEWS

Yesterday was the last day of the Vicksburg Farmer's Market this season, so James and I went down to get some pickles, deserts, breads, and fresh veggies for babyfood making while Jay painted the house. And we just so happened to make the news!

RUBBER DUCKY

James loves his pirate duck:

NEW EL HQ

Big news here on station: we finally broke ground on our new Environmental Laboratory building! A year or so from now, Jay and I might be sharing a corner office (just kidding):Read the full article from The Vicksburg Post.

BABBLE ON

James' verbal/vocal skills are growing fast these days, so it's even more fun to have "conversations" with him now. Of course, he is also fully capable of having conversations with himself. Long, loud conversations with himself. In the wee hours of the morning. In the dark. He's a strange duck...

He is getting better at copying our words. We can often hear sounds similar to "mama", "hi", "baby", and "good boy" come out of his mouth. Since those are the words we say to him most often, I guess it makes sense that he's picking them up, even in their preliminary forms. Although most are just sounds (yes, we know he isn't actually talking yet), his "mama" is getting pretty good! Of course, he just as regularly says "MAMAMA" and "MAMAMOM" as "mama" though. And it's often when he's whining and wants to be picked up. Jay loves this, of course. He says "The baby's calling you!"

It's so funny to watch James try to talk because half the time he just studies our mouths, then moves his mouth and tongue the same way, without making a single sound. He'll do it over and over before he eventually gets a sound out. It's like he's thinking really hard about how to do it, then he practices the movement before actually trying to say it. He can often get a sound out that is similar to what we've said IF we're just saying the simple words I mentioned above - otherwise he just knits his eyebrows together like he has no clue what we're trying to get him to do. But even if his attempt sounds nothing like what we've said, we still get all excited and encourage him (we believe in positive reinforcement around here), and he gets this big ol' smile on his face and just looks so darn proud of himself. It's adorable.

James is surprisingly camera-shy when it comes to talking. We've had a hard time capturing the babbling and mimicry on video, and we've been trying for weeks. The other morning on the way to daycare I took this video while holding the camera out to the side. I'm sneaky like that.

James' latest trick is singing. Yup, singing. Not in the traditional sense, of course, but singing in his own way. Lots of continuous, drawn-out, up-and-down tones. If I'm singing, he's usually singing along with me these days. If I stop, he gets quiet. And now that it's just James and one other little boy (who is only part-time) at daycare, he gets a LOT of one-on-one attention there. To keep things interesting for him, his caretaker will often take him to visit the older kids in their rooms (don't worry, we've given permission), or join them for some outside time (weather permitting). He just loves watching the other kids. The two-year-olds ask lots of questions about him, and like to talk to him and make him smile. They all know his name (they'll often yell things in the morning when we drop him off like "James is here" or "The baby is coming"). James is captivated by them. The one-year-olds are generally less interested in James, but he sure loves them! Their room is all girls, including the 2 that were in the nursery with him until recently. It has been reported multiple times now that when James visits them he sings to them. What a little charmer! There is one little girl that particularly likes James though. She escapes her room and runs to the nursery often during the day. When they catch her to bring her back, she says "But I want to see the baby"! How cute is that? He sings to his caretakers too, though I hear he plays favorites. In fact, he even sings in the bathtub now.

TIMBERRRRR.....

...RATTLESNAKE, that is!

We went outside this afternoon to release some fish into the new pond, turned around to go inside through the back door to the sunroom, and were greeted by a 3ft-long Timber Rattlesnake. Awesome! A first sighting of this particular species for both us. Well, James too, but I don't think he was paying attention... Isn't it beautiful? Don't worry mom (and other future visitors), Jay immediately tossed it off into the woods and threw out some snake repellent, liberally, all around the sunroom and deck. This has worked before (with the copperheads, and the kingsnakes and rat snakes). We promise to keep you safe!

(Erin, did we get it right this time?)

BREAKING THE "RULES"

Well, it's official. Last night was James' first night sleeping on his tummy. We're not sure when he flipped because we never heard a peep out of him, but I know he was still soundly sleeping on his back when I went to bed at 10:30pm. There was no night-waking with him spinning circles on his back or scooting around his crib like a billiard ball (Baby James in the corner pocket!), not even an early morning babbling session (he's been waking up and talking to himself from 4-5am for the past few mornings - practicing all his news words, we suppose - and he has a LOUD voice). However, when I woke up with my alarm this morning at 5:30am, this is how I found him:

Of course, I went in immediately to check on him (not panicked or anything, but I did feel my heart rate quicken), and he was doing great! His head was turned to the side and everything (the reason we'd been so worried about him tummy sleeping at night was because the few times we've caught him napping on his tummy lately, he's had his head face-down with his hands in/at his mouth). He ended up sleeping later than usual, and I eventually had to wake him up at 7am to nurse him and get him ready for daycare. Before I woke him, I took a better picture to document though:

See his little booty in the air? It's so cute! Our boy is getting so big... we had to order him new sleep sacks in the next size up (medium, for 6-12 months) and have pulled out his 6-9 month PJs because most of his 3-6 month PJs are too short in the legs (the fleece ones still fit fine, but they seem to run bigger than the cotton and thermal varieties for some reason). Here he is sporting some of his new sleep duds:

Pardon his sleepy eyes, but we had just woken him up. Hope you're all sleeping well these days (nights) too!

P.S. We think James is starting to show a bit of the Bacon cowlick up front... What do you think? We've been noticing it for the past couple of months as his new hair has grown in, but it's just now starting to show in photos.

JAMES LOVES ELI

While waiting for James' bath to fill tonight (we always indulge in big-tub baths on the weekends), I decided to pull up the Bacon's Blog and show James some pictures of his cousin. He started smiling as soon as I scrolled down to the pictures of Eli, but his reaction when I clicked on them to open them full-size is absolutely adorable:

This is why we think the videos we requested for James are going to be such a big hit...

DOWN WITH THE SICKNESS

I expected it to be a long, hard weekend after finding out on Friday that James caught his first cold (following a 2-hour pediatrician appointment at the end of the day due to a low-grade fever at daycare that afternoon) and Jay showed up home from his work trip sporting the same (self-diagnosed, though). However, other than James being a bit more fussy and needy than normal, it was a good weekend. Here is the congested little boy playing through his sneezes early Saturday morning following a full night sleep (10 hours as usual!):Jay and I wanted to get some yardwork done that afternoon, and since James loves being outdoors anyway, we strapped him into his stroller and pushed him around while we picked up sticks and finished the pond (that's a mosquito repeller on the ground, in case you were wondering):The excitement and warmth of the day wore James out pretty quickly though, so I put him down for a nap after his lunch. He slept for a good hour and a half, and when we heard him stirring on the monitor, we clicked it on to find him on his belly, playing with his crib mirror:

Apparently, it didn't bother him at all that his legs were through the rails... He was far too interested in himself:Cute as this is, it's not something we were excited to see. We just knew it was the start of our bedtime worries... Until last night, James never flipped to his tummy after bedtime. But that wasn't the case last night. He woke us up around 3am talking to himself, loudly. I glanced at the monitor and he was spinning circles on his back. Oh well, we tried to drift back to sleep. He was awake and happy, but awake and LOUD! At some point, he flipped over to his tummy and proceeded to get really mad (because he has for some reason forgotten how to flip back onto his back, and he gets frustrated being on his tummy because he can't crawl yet). So I went in there and flipped him over. Not two minutes later, he was back on his belly. So Jay went in. Two minutes later, it was my turn again. We decided that we didn't want to spend the rest of our night flipping James like a pancake, so we brought him to bed with us and pinned him between us so that he couldn't flip. Excellent plan, except, are we going to have to keep doing this now? And for how long? Hopefully he'll quickly remember how to flip back himself, or learn to sleep on his tummy. At this point, we'll be happy either way!

Although James slept more than usual during the day, he was generally pretty happy and very active when awake, so we kept him busy with his usual activities...

Bumbo sitting (he still dislikes it, but he can last over 5 minutes now without screaming to be let out - though if we don't let him out when he's ready, he'll arch his back so far he can just about knock himself out):Jumperoo bouncing (he's especially happy in this photo because Jay was also entertaining him with the Leprechaun dance - don't ask):Before his bath tonight, he humored me for a fashion show. Sort of (note the pout). And I promise the only reason I put him in the corner is because he can't sit unassisted yet, but he's a good "leaner":Cute, eh? His Grand Aunt Margie bought him the set. Hopefully he'll learn to sit unassisted soon so we can get him a little kiddie pool before the summer ends, and he can actually use the robe and slippers for more than trend-setting...

And finally, one last picture to end the night. I decided to pull out my Hotsling, which I hadn't used since James was a tiny 2-month-old and I carried him around in the cradle position. He's finally big/strong enough to be held in the hip-carry position, and he likes it! If only I'd thought of it earlier in the weekend, since he didn't want to be put down much... Oh well, there's always next weekend!

BACKYARD BEAUTY

Our banana tree is blooming (thanks again Pam and Troy):

And Jay built me a pond (it started off as part of my Mother's Day present):

JUST THE TWO OF US

Jay had an overnight work trip yesterday, so it was just me and James last night. Although Jay has had to take two other work trips since James was born (back when I was still on maternity leave), I was lucky to have Robyn and Jean visiting those weeks to help me out. Not this time. This was my first overnight alone with James, and we both missed Jay. We stuck to the evening routine though: playtime, nursing, story, dinner (for me), more playing, bath, bottle with vitamins, and bed, and James did great! Asleep by 8pm as usual. After James dosed off, I spent the evening cleaning house. I figured since I didn't have the fun distraction of Jay, I might as well make more fun time for us over the weekend by eliminating some chores. Here are a few pictures of the fun we had yesterday afternoon/evening...

Hanging out on his quilt while I organized his closet (and all the new hand-me-downs we've received - Thanks again Birdsongs and Coles!):

He likes playing with his washcloth now:

The rest of the night didn't go so well though. James is getting a cold. Or else he's just teething and/or experiencing growing pains. Who knows? But it was a rough night. He woke up at 10:15pm bawling. I tried everything, even suctioning his nose (since he sounded a little congested to me), which he HATED! A sad James makes for a sad mommy:

After about 30 minutes I gave up trying to soothe him back to sleep and let him play downstairs. Then he was happy. And wide awake (seemed like a repeat of Saturday night...) I bet John and Betsy recognize this little fireman outfit:

By 11:30pm, he was still awake and playing, but I'd had enough, so I figured a nursing session would relax us both. Near midnight, he was finally drowsy enough to be put back in his crib without a fight. Success! But then at 1:45am, he woke up crying again. This time I only gave it 15 minutes or so before I gave in and brought him to bed with me. Another nursing session calmed him down and we were both asleep again shortly after 2am. Fast-forward to 3am. Same deal. Except this time it was short and he fell back asleep without needing to nurse. Every time I scooted him away from me, he'd scoot right back in, turn in toward me, and put his arm up on my chest. It was so cute, but made for some uncomfortable and restless sleep for me (as if 4 hours was going to do much of anything anyway). He slept sweetly until 7am and was his usual happy self this morning.

Still no fever, but a little sniffly with some coughing, so I decided to call the pediatrician. I guess we're dealing with his first cold. Not a first you look forward to, but it was bound to happen sooner or later. Hopefully some nose meds will help. Here he is saying "Mama, I want to go to school naked, let's skip the diaper and onesie today!"

Speaking of "school", I'd like to mention something fun that's been happening at daycare lately. For the past couple of weeks, James has been showing his loyalty. When I show up at lunch to nurse him, and after work, he'll whip his head around and look for me as soon as he hears my voice, no matter who is holding him or what activity he's doing. Unless he's asleep, of course (he often takes late afternoon catnaps). And if he sees me before I start talking, he just gets the biggest smile on his face! Now that's love! Hopefully this loyalty won't cross over into the stranger/separation-anxiety realm, since we're getting to the age when that phase starts for some kids. I doubt it will though, at least not with the daycare ladies - he definitely knows them all and likes them.

At the daycare, their big welcome board has a new display with a school bus designating each of the 4 classes (Infant, 1K, 2K, and 3K). James is at the head of his bus (of course, he WAS there first, and he IS 1.5 months older than the other little boy, so he has seniority). I just thought it was such a cute idea I had to share:

WEIRD WEEKEND

So, the weekend started off normal, other than James waking a bit earlier than usual (5:50am) on Saturday. No worries, we brought him into bed with us for a nursing session, as we always do on the weekends. But, rather than falling back asleep for an hour or so afterward, as he usually would, he was wide awake and ready to play. So we spent some family time in bed. James won the contest for the cutest PJs out of the 3 of us, of course:

Unfortunately for James, he hadn't had a BM since Tuesday. And what "passed" on Tuesday, did not pass as appropriate, so he was subjected to more juice. Since he didn't like the apple last weekend, we went back to the prune. No dice this time around though! He HATED it! We tried two different types of bottles, the medicine dropper, and finally a spoon. We got some in there, but it was painful for all of us (mostly for James):

Of course, when we let him free of the juice attack he was right back to his happy self. He enjoyed talking with his grandparents:

He took a nap in his crib:

And he tried out his walker for the first time, a cool car from his Grand Aunt Margie. He has no idea how to make it go as of yet. Forward OR backward. In fact, he pulls his legs back and rests his feet on the bar at the back of the car and just sits there. But he does enjoy looking at himself in the rearview mirrors and spinning the toys:

Since he wasn't going anywhere on his own, we decided to move the car throughout the house for him. He particularly enjoyed watching the fish in the aquarium. He was studying them so hard we worried he was going to get permanent forehead creases:
Now for the weird part. James went to bed like clockwork at his usual time (8:00pm) Saturday night, so Jay and I retreated to the couch to finish watching "Disturbia". We stayed up late, heading our separate ways to game and read. I fell asleep around 11:45pm, but was awakened at midnight by James fussing in his crib. I waited it out for a few minutes, thinking he'd put himself right back to sleep as he always does. I was watching him on the monitor and noticed he was really kicking his legs and swinging his arms, and twisting his body back and forth. Then he scooted himself up to the top of the crib and somehow got himself turned perpendicular. Obviously, this caused me to go in there and right the boy. The second he saw me he just started bawling, so I scooped him up and commenced rocking. He was so very upset! He would start to suck his thumb, then yank it out like it was on fire. Singing to him didn't help. Walking did nothing. So I thought, maybe he's hungry. Sure, he hasn't woken up for a middle-of-the-night feed since July 2nd, but maybe he's hitting his 6 month growth spurt early. The nursing calmed him down. But then as soon as he was finished, the crying started again. Jay came to investigate and we decided to try a suppository, since we still hadn't gotten a BM out of him. We thought with all the body twisting and back arching, maybe it was belly pains. Well, it was no problem giving it to him, but then he was wide awake and wanted to play. Here's the little stinker in our bed (where he ended up staying for the rest of the night), still awake at 2:00am:

The suppository did nothing (well, nothing much). We ended up with another crying fit right after I took the above photo, so we commenced nursing again. Hungry or not, I knew it would calm him down (he's never refused the breast), and Jay and I were quickly becoming exhausted and in need of sleep. I think we all finally drifted off around 2:30am. We got about 3 hours of sleep, then James woke up crying. REALLY crying. He NEVER wakes up crying these days! Even after 11 hours sleeping, he calmly wakes up and plays in his crib, babbling until I come in to get him out and feed him. So, the kid was either really hungry again (hence our growth spurt theory) or in pain (hence our BM worry). Then we thought, "Oh. Maybe he's teething". So we checked. We couldn't see anything. No swollen gums. No redness. Nothing peeking through. Nada. So, we nursed again and managed to get an hour nap in after he finished (I know some women can sleep-nurse in the side-laying position, but I just can't - I feel like I have to watch him and make sure he isn't getting squished). When he woke around 7:00am, Jay tried to take him downstairs so I could get some more sleep, but the boy just wouldn't quiet down. He was happy at this point, just ready to be awake and playing. However, since we still hadn't seen a BM (stupid suppository - they're suppose to work in 15-60 minutes!), it was time for more juice. And more fussing. Afterward, he was a happy boy again though:It's 9:00pm now. James has been in bed for an hour. Still no BM. And I'm sitting here wondering whether we'll have a repeat performance tonight. I should go get a nap, just in case...

But, to end on a high note, here are a couple more cute pictures from this afternoon. I'm sure I'm not unique in this, but I just LOVE watching my boys interact. They are so cute together, and they always have so much fun (as long as there's no juice involved). Yes, James loves us both, but it's so interesting to me that he already responds to us differently. Nobody can get James laughing and squealing like his Daddy can! Maybe it's the rough-housing (James loves it already), or maybe it's just a guy-thing that I'll never fully understand, but my son is definitely a Daddy's boy:

And I'm OK with that.

5 MONTH PORTRAITS

Jay captured some serious cuteness this month.

Don't worry, my hand is under the sheet holding James' belly, just in case. He is standing on his own though, and getting better at it every day!

HAPPY BABY

James continues to learn new yoga poses. This week it's the "Happy Baby" pose. Here he is getting his yoga practice in this morning while we were getting ready for work:

Still working on holding the pose, he usually tips over pretty quickly. He still looks happy though:

So he flips over and does tummy time. He's making a bit of a pouty face here because he's frustrated that he can't move forward:The crawling attempts continue... he's progressing enough to keep his knees up under his booty while he pushes off, and he now "swims" his arms through the carpet, but not at the same time. Therefore, he still isn't going anywhere. But we don't think it will be long. He'll be mobile one way or another any day now, since he learned to roll continuously last night (front to back to front). It's weird to walk out of the room, only to walk back in and see your baby in a completely different place on the carpet than where you left him just moments before...
It's a cooler day again, hence the long sleeves and hoodie. We were worried James would never get the chance to wear this 3-6 month outfit, since it's usually so hot here this time of year. Our memories are failing us as to who sent James this adorable outfit, but we thank you! He looks so good in blue!Usually James wakes around 6:30am to nurse, then spends the rest of the morning on our bedroom floor entertaining himself while we get ready for the day. And he usually stays awake all the way until we get to daycare (or until we're nearly there - sometimes the car ride puts him to sleep). Not this morning though. I guess the yoga practice wore him out:Hope everyone has a good day!