Jonah is 8 months old!

Jonah turned 8 months old on March 21st but I'm just now getting around to doing a post. With Jonah's eighth month brings many new things. One of those being 2 new teeth. He has been working on these 2 teeth for while and I think he may be working on a third because the teething symptoms have continued on. Here is what Jonah has been up to this month.

Sleep:

Well sleep has taken a step back from where we were with all the teething that has been going on. Jonah has been extra clingy and it has been carrying over into the night. We get up to console him or give him his paci several times a night. So much that Michael and I take turns going in to check on him. It has been pretty exhausting but hopefully we will get a break soon. It really makes us enjoy and relish the nights that he is not hurting.

Eating:

His eating schedule is pretty much the same. He eats cereal in the morning and at night still. He is still not crazy about the meals but he tolerates a couple of them. We are giving him small amounts of table food that we can easily mash up. He does great at lunch eating his fruits and vegetables. He is up to eating a full jar of veggies and sometimes a full jar of the fruit.

Play:

Jonah still plays really well with his small hand toys on the floor. He loves to jump in his jumper and will go about 15-20 minutes sometimes. The newest thing he has started doing in his walker is to actually walk around in it. Before he was push backward with both feet and rarely go forward. Now he is all over the place. He only gets in the walker in the kitchen because he can move easily and there is no way for him to get out of the room easily. He just walks until his walker runs into something and then he has to reach out and touch it. He gets himself stuck up against the lower row of cabinets and has figured out how to open the doors. He loves to open them as far as he can and let go and hear them bang back closed. The othe rmorning I stepped right outside the side door (it opens onto our carport where the vehicle is) to start the truck up and he walked himself over to the screen door so he could still see me. It was so cute! We are going to get him an outdoor swing soon so we can start having fun outsided too. Also, he can now roll off his belly and he just rolls and rolls around on the floor. It is too cute!

Personality:

Each month Jonah's personality grows and grows and it is so fun to watch. The newest thing he has perfected is making the "motorboat" noise with his lips. He learned this from his Daddy. The only thing is he creates a lot of spit when he does it. He still loves to be vocal to us when he is feeling good. He has a fun and silly personality and loves to laugh and smile at people. I hope he always has such a good nature.

Here are pics for the month.



I think these monthly pictures are going to get more challenging to take LOL



Showing his little personality

My New Mommy Knowledge

As a brand new Mommy I have learned many new things about myself and about caring for a baby. I have not learned them by reading a pregnancy or parenting book but by experience alone. Some of these things could be considered undesireable but mostly they are just facts of life once a precious baby enters the picture. These are all things that totally knocked me off my feet...at least momentarily....because no one explained that they would happen, or in some cases I was warned but it didn't really sink in until I lived it. I am going to attempt to list at least some of the things I've learned so far but please know that this list is just skimming the surface.

1. Babies do not "sleep like a baby." I always thougth that babies sleep all the time. In fact I was told that by many people. I knew I would probably be a little more tired than usual. I really was clueless! Babies do sleep during the day but they don't like to sleep at NIGHT!!!

2. Labor is nothing like what you see in the movies or on TV......let me say that again....it is NOTHING like that!!

3. When you hold your baby for the first time you will fall in love with something that scares the bejeebies out of you!!

4. You cannot take care of a newborn baby all by yourself. You will need someone by your side day and night to help you. This is the part where I learned that I (and God) had picked the best possible partner for me to have in this life.

5. When people brag and say that "oh their baby was in a good routine by 6 weeks old" that they are probably lying because babies don't have routines. At least not in the way that adults have routines. If they poop once a day, eat every 2-3 hours and sleep all day and are up all night then I guess you got yourself a good routine there.

6. You will wear maternity clothes for at least a couple of months after you have the baby. You will not want to wear regular clothes. Note to self - next time buy maternity clothes that will last this long.

7. Being productive is getting a shower sometime during the day. I made this a priority. Somedays I put off eating (even when I was starving) when I had the time so that I could get my shower in.

8. Babies get gas really bad. Umm.....I was not aware of this fact until my baby was screaming and I didn't know what to do and someone said well he must have a "little gas". WTH!!! Baby gas was created by the devil plain and simple.

9. I used to love to have people over to my house to visit....entertain as they say. Well once a baby comes people want to come to your house more than they ever will again in your life. The only problem with that is you don't want anyone to come over to see your house in it's current state or to see you in your current state. Refer to #7.

10. Many people will try to assure that "it will get easier with time". These people are very well intentioned but give very bad advice. Yes you will adjust and things will "seem" easier. But they don't just all of a sudden get easier. They get different. Yes different is a better word choice I think.

11. You will have a major adjustment in your pool of close friends. Your friends that don't have babies will just kind of disappear. They will come see the baby and then you won't see or even think about them for a couple of months. What is even harder is when you have friends that want a baby and can't have one. They are sometimes the hardest ones to be around. You want to continue the friendship but it can never be the same. See you have something that they want so badly that it is sometimes physically hard for them to be around you. You tell them, with a screaming baby in your arms, "is this really what you want?" And they just look at your precious baby and say, "yes I would love to have this."

12. You will reach a point in the beginning months of having a baby where you feel overwhelmed most of the time. You will not be able to keep up the house, yourself or even fix a decent meal. This is the point where I learned that I can choose to be hard on myself or I can just let it go. I will admit this is still something I deal with everyday. I keep choosing to let myself off the hook.

13. You will think back to your pre-baby days and wonder what the heck was I doing with all that free time? I could have been writing a novel, exercising 3 hours a day, etc.... Time becomes this elusive thing that you need more of but can never have.

14. You will want to literally give your new baby the world and everything in it.

15. When you husband lovingly and kindly offers his help, you should take it. He needs to help you as a new father and a man and you need to let him. You are not superwoman and he loves you anyways. This advice will save you from having a blow-up fight at 2 a.m.

16. People will tell you to sleep when the baby sleeps. This is a wonderful idea. The only problem is that the actual practice of it is very unrealistic. I found that the only thing that kept me sane was to take a break and sit for a few minutes and then get up and get something done. Even if it was just to fold a basket of laundry. It gave me more peace of mind that any nap could have.

17. You will find that deep love for your baby and it will be the truest form of love that you have ever experienced.

18. You will have a deeper understanding of our God and His love for you through the tangible love that you have for your baby. It is the same love that He had for His Son. The difference is that He sent His Son to die for you and me. Could I ever imagine doing the same??

19. You will enjoy receiving compliments about your baby far more than any compliment someone can give you personally.

20. You will eventually get to wear normal clothes again and feel human again. That at the very least I can promise you. I cannot promise that you will have your house clean all at the same time, the laundry caught up or the gourmet meal prepared. But who wants to do all that when you have a sweet baby to play with right now!!

Sorry for the long post but I needed to get all that off my chest and just in case I ever need to remind myself of these things.

My name is April and I admit I have a problem.....

I have an addiction that I need to fess up about. I am addicted to the internet and computers and particularly facebook and blogger. I have a primal need to "check-in" on certain websites everyday and sometimes several times a day to see if anything new of my interest has popped up. The only problem is there is little thing called "work" that I also have to do during the day. Yes I know that is very inconvenient. Now so far I have had no problem getting all my work done and then some. I guess I am pretty good at managing my time.

See I work from home. Which is a blessing beyond belief that I NEVER take for granted. I am on the computer for work ALL DAY LONG. I get bored sometimes with it just being me here by myself and no one to talk to. So when I have a lull in my work...I skip over to blogger and check out the blogs I follow or I jump on FB and check for my friend's newest status updates. I guess it is like the office coffee break or smoke-break for me. At least that is the excuse I am choosing.

I try really hard not to let the computer pull me back in once I go pickup Jonah after work. He deserves my full "real" attention once he is with me. I am sad to say that there have been times when I just could not overcome my craving to check-in and would be holding him in my lap and looking on the computer at FB. I feel terrible about that so I am making a pledge now to only check-in online when he is not with me or asleep.

So with all that being said, I am going to try and pull more people over into my addiction by prividing some tempting and worthwile sites that I love and use weekly (sometimes daily) on the big ol' web. Enjoy!

http://www.shutterfly.com/ - where I keep all my pics and order many many things from

http://www.kellehampton.com/ - blog of mother to Down Syndrome child and she is a photographer too. I cry many times when I read her beautiful posts.

http://www.dawnmcvey.typepad.com/ - blog where I get wonderful card ideas that I never have time to make

http://www.centsationalgirl.com/ - blog where I get wonderful ideas about sprucing up my home which I never have time to do

http://www.etsy.com/ - all I can say is I am addicted and I like being addicted to this one. One day I will sell stuff on here.....one day

http://www.campbellyardsales.com/ - like craigslist but more local for me. You have to buy stuff fast or it's gone

http://www.paperbackswap.com/ - place where I list books I want to get rid of and then get books I want

http://www.flylady.com/ - just joined this email club that emails you one task to do in your home each day to help you have less clutter. I have done a few and I feel good about it.

http://www.etsy.com/people/aprilshowerz/favorites?type=shops - place where I store all my favorite etsy shops. If you have a couple of hours to kill you can visit it.

http://www.fabulousfunfinds.com/ - place that does daily giveaways of neat and often unknown online companies. There is a lot of cute kids stuff.

Happy Surfing!

The last couple of weeks

Well we have had an interesting and busy last couple of weeks. I am finally getting around to catching things up. I guess I will start back on Feb. 28th when Jonah had his 6 momth well-check up, at 7 months and 1 week. Here are his stats from that visit:

Weight: 18 lbs. 1 oz. (35%)
Height: 26 inches (11%)
Head circumference: 44 cm. (34%)

So he is a little low in most all areas for his age but he is very proportional so there isn't anything to be concerned with. Michael, Mom and I had a bet going of what he would weigh and I guessed 18 lbs so I won!! He also got 2 sets of shots while we there and did great. He cried out but got over it quickly with a bottle to help. However, the fun began that evening and night.

The night after his shots we had given him Tylenol for his legs, in case they were sore. He was running a low-grade fever too. Well that night was horrible. We were up for most of the night with him screaming and we couldn't figure out what was wrong. We didn't have a good thermometer (we have since bought a temporal one) but we knew he felt warm and probably had a slight fever so we kept the Tylenol coming. Well the next day he started sounding stopped-up and we knew he was getting a cold. His Nana had a cold the week before and that is probably where it came from. So needless to say the rest of that week was spent with some sleepless nights tending to him because he would want his pacifier to go to sleep but then he couldn't breath through his nose when we laid him down. We finally started putting him in his carseat on the floor so that he was upright and that helped tremendously. I hated to have to do that but we needed some rest as well and he just could not breath laying flat on his back.

Well by the weekend he was coughing and sounding like he had a lot of mucus. I had called the nurse and they had told me to just suction him out a couple of times a day and do saline drips. So that was what we did but now we could feel some congestion in his chest. Well by Sunday we felt that we need to get him seen by someone so we went to the after-hours clinic in Clarksville. It was a pain to have to drag him out in the bad (rainy) weather but it saved us from having to take off work and we got some peace of mind. The nurse practitioner we saw was great and said it was good we had brought him in before it got worse. She did rule out any ear infections and that is was just mucus and nothing more serious. She also told us to go ahead and suction him out more often. I just love when the same medical practice is not on the same page!! Oh well!

By this past weekend he was back to normal! There have been some pretty major milestones achieved in the last couple of weeks as well. He is now able to roll off his belly, going one way. He won't roll the other way yet though. He throws his arm out and blocks his way. Also, he got his first tooth through the skin this past Sunday!! We were so excited when we saw it that you would have thought we had won the lottery. We don't know when it actually broke through because he never cried out or anything. We sure were glad to see it and it makes me wonder if some of last weeks events were just part of the teething stuff that happens to babies.

In other news, Michael ran a half-marathon in Nashville on Saturday and finished in better time than last year. I haven't really accomplished anything recently other than starting to get ideas on Jonah's first birthday party and decorations. I will post some sneak peaks soon! Here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks.

Playing with his toy that Uncle Kyle bought him for Christmas



Playing his his favorite jumper





This is the hair that we are dealing with....I secrety love it!!





Daddy and Jonah showing off our newly organized and stocked pantry. :)