Jones's First Easter

Jones's first Easter is now in the books ... and on the blog!

He had a great day, which started out with a visit from everybody's favorite Bunny. The Easter Bunny brought him some water toys to play with at the lake, but even more importantly, he brought Jones a book of Easter stories from the Bible and a CD with Easter hymns on it. Those oughta come in handy for many Easters to come!

We made it to church - almost on time, miraculously enough! - and Nan was in the nursery with him, which made the morning even more special!  After that, we ate with the whole family at Sid's. Jones does really well at Sid's, thank goodness, and among the waitstaff, he's something of a celebrity, which makes for really fun lunches. On Easter, same as always, he sat perfectly peacefully in his stroller, playing by himself, while everyone else ate. 

After I finished my salad, I picked him up. My thinking was that people might want to start passing him around before we packed up and headed for home. As soon as I picked him up, however, I realized that the passing was gonna be impossible. His diaper had leaked, and though I wasn't sure of the "extent" of the damage, I knew no one would want to be near him, especially while trying to make the most of Sid's delicious buffet. 

I whispered to Jeremy that I needed to go change him. He said, "Do you need my help?" Typically, I'd have said, "Naw.  Be right back," but I must've had an intuition that a mess of this proportion was going to call for all hands on deck. 

And boy, am I glad I did!

We grabbed the diaper bag - which I rarely even take IN to Sid's - and headed in search of a secluded spot to change him. Thankfully, we ran into Joshua Simmons who told us where he'd always sneak out to change Foster, and we found the table way in the back, behind closed doors. I spread out the changing pad and laid Jones on top of it. Jeremy went digging in the bag for a dry diaper. 

And he dug.

And he dug.

And he dug,

until he realized that there was NO. DRY. DIAPER.

How was there no diaper in the diaper bag?! How had I not replenished my supply?!

So, there we were, in the back, drafty hallway of a 150 year old building with a naked baby and no dry diaper. I remembered that there was one in my purse, which I ALSO rarely take in to Sid's, in the car. Jeremy went out and got it, and by the time he got back in, Jones was, miraculously clean (wipes I DID have in the diaper bag), though I wasn't sure his Easter outfit would ever be the same again. 

As a result, of course, we'd need to put him in the spare outfit I always keep on hand. Well, maybe not "always" ... somehow, the extra outfit had fallen into the same black hole as all those extra diapers. So now we have a naked but clean baby in a restaurant full of people we know who are expecting Jones to return to the table in the same sweet threads that he left it in. Instead, he returned, wrapped in his daddy's jacket.  He didn't seem to mind. 

From there, we went home for a few hours. After Jones's nap - actually, I had to wake him up from it - we went to Greenville and met up with Mom, Daddy, Sissy, David, and the kids at Faith Baptist. Jones stayed in the nursery. Leaving him with strangers, even at a church, was HARD on me. It was so hard, in fact, that about ten minutes after dropping him off, I went back to check on him. Of course, he was having the time of his life - sitting in an Exersaucer, kicking and playing like Brer Rabbit just thrown in the Briar Patch. I'm gonna have to get one of those things!

At any rate, after church we went to Sissy's for some Easter treats and then back to Mom and Daddy's to turn in for the nite.

It was a wonderful - if momentarily smelly - Easter Day. AND, you'll be glad to know, his diaper bag has been doubly replenished, so we never encounter this type of Diaper Disaster again.

Here are some more pictures from Jones's first Easter:

a Message from Jones

Bo-BOOSH-ka!

Until today, Jones thought his two Pops were the funniest people on the planet.  After this exchange in the Haywood Mall Belks, I'm wondering if Payton may be giving the Pops a run for their money?!

Sucker for Shutterfly

Shutterfly has me right where they want me.

They say "Jump;" I say, "how high?" They say, "Free;" I say, "When's my deadline?"

The deadline on my latest freebie was yesterday. Hating to waste a free 8X8 book, I decided to make a book of Jones's Daily Instagrams. These are little square pictures I snap once a day with the intent of making a poster of all 365 pictures from his first year. Now - in addition to the poster, apparently - there will be a series of three books, each featuring four months of Instagrams.

Here is the first of those three books!

Click here to view this photo book larger

Click here to create your own Shutterfly photo book.

"Oh, I love the Bunny ..."

Well, I can't say it put any real spring in his step to meet him, but Jones DID get in his first visit with the Easter Bunny today.

After work, Jeremy and I put Jones in the warmest-outfit-that-still-looks-somewhat-Spring-y he has here in Greenville and bounced on over to the Woodruff Road Chick-Fil-A.

Surprisingly, there was no line, so our longest wait was in the Woodruff Road traffic, and even that wasn't all that bad.

Jones adapted very easily to being held by six feet of white fur, and all in all, it was a wonderful family outing, complete with Jeremy's telling Jones that Easter is about way more than pastels and baskets.

Happy Easter, Everybody!

Beautiful Dreamer

I wonder what he's dreaming about.

Sweet little sleeper is still spending nites in his napper. He hasn't yet kicked the cough; he has, however, projectile vomited about twice a day for the last five days.

"Beautiful."

Sick Day

I'll bet you're looking at this picture and wondering why Jones is in his napper at NITE.

And MAYBE, just MAYBE you're asking yourself why Jones's room has been rearranged, so that what is typically his napping apparatus has replaced the place where his bed usually is.

Well, here you have it:

Jones has his first cold.

It's not bad, and he's not fevered, but he's got a croupy wheeze that makes him sound like the penguin in "Toy Story 2," so he's taking Children's Mucinex and sleeping in his napper, because, though I'm not THAT kind of doctor, I've convinced myself that the incline will keep him from choking on his own drainage.

Makes sense to ME, anyway.

Oh, and I placed him right by his monitor, so if he needs me, I'll hear him via monitor before the sound can even reach my bedroom.

(UPDATE: He didn't need me. He slept clear through to 7 a.m. and was his same sweet, though still-croupy self, when I went him for my morning smiles.)

Nightmare Scenario

Though you can't tell it from this picture, Jones had a moment last nite when his sleep wasn't quite so peaceful. In fact, it was just before this shot was snapped.  Here's what happened:

Jones must've been worn out from all the fun of celebrating his five month birthday, because by 7 p.m., he was sucking his thumb and falling asleep.  Seeing this, I decided to get him ready for bed a bit early. He was out before his bedtime bottle was finished, and for the next hour and a half, things seemed pretty normal. He was sleeping, and Jeremy and I were watching TV in the den ... which, with Jeremy, consists of watching about sixteen shows at the same time. 

Just after 8:30, though, I heard a scream on the monitor so terrifying that, for a split second, I thought it must've been on the TV. I'd never heard Jones sound ANYTHING like that. As soon as it sunk in that it was him, though, I RAN back to his bedroom and picked him up. I tried to comfort him, but he just kept screaming, and nothing helped. He never woke up - just screamed for about two minutes. Realizing I wasn't helping by holding him, I laid him back down. My first thought was fever, but no. No fever. Then I thought, maybe, teething? But he wasn't sucking his fists, so I knew it probably wasn't that. Just in case, though, I used some Orajel on his gums for the first time. 

By the time I'd busted open the package, though, he had quieted down and seemed no worse for the wear. I applied the Orajel, anyway, and pried myself away from his room, though part of me wanted to sit in there and stare at him to see if he'd do it again.

He didn't. Thankfully. Instead, he slept through the rest of the nite and woke up, "jibber-jabbering," just as he always does.

An informal poll of my sister and some of my mom friends suggests that he's now had his first nightmare. Two friends said their children had it right before they popped out a tooth. Five months seems a little early to me for teeth to be popping through, but who knows. All we can do is wait and see ...

... and hope nothing ever haunts his dreams again.

FIVE MONTHS OLD?!?

In some ways, I can't believe it's been five months.

In other ways, I can't believe it's ONLY been five months. 

No matter what I believe, though, it's true: Jones turned five months old today! 

Just for posterity's sake ... and in case we ever have another baby and want to know what we were doing with Jones at any given point in his life, so that we can do the same with his sibling ... I'm going to type up some stats about his life as we currently know it.

SCHEDULE: 

Most days, Jones wakes up about 7 a.m. He'll generally lay in his bed, talking to himself for as long as we'll let him. Jeremy calls this "jibber-jabbering," and, not surprisingly, it typically consists of a good bit of dolphin calls.

Most days, we go in to his room between 7:45 and 8 a.m. He always greets us with the brightest smiles and squeals you can imagine.  In fact, I don't like to let Jeremy get him up without me, because I don't want to miss out on those smiles.  If you know how much I HATE getting out of bed in the morning, you know how bright the smiles must be to get me out of bed. He is definitely a morning person, something ELSE he didn't get from his mother.

Something he DID get from me, though, is not wanting to eat as soon as he gets up. He's usually up about an hour after he eats.

Here's the rest of his typical schedule:

7 a.m. - wake

8 a.m. - bottle / cereal

9:30 a.m. - nap (usually for about an hour, though sometimes more)

12 p.m. - bottle, then nap (again, he sleeps for about an hour here)

2:30 p.m. - nap (most of the time, he'll sleep a little longer at this nap)

4 p.m. - bottle / food

7 p.m. - "bassy, bassy time!" (though he doesn't get a bath everyday)

7:15 p.m. - bottle

7:30 p.m. - Bible story / prayer / bed

EATING:

Ideally, he'd eat 8 ounces four times a day. He NEVER eats that much, though. In fact, with this teething thing, he's lost a LOT of his appetite, so we're lucky to get 6 ounces in him, and he'd be fine with half that. He's also getting a tiny bit of Rice Cereal most mornings and, in the afternoon, he gets a veggie - so far, we've given him Sweet Potatoes (which he loved) and Green Beans (which he did NOT love). This week, we start with Sweet Peas. Maybe it'll be a good enough combination of the sweet and the green that he'll actually eat them without making a mess.

Speaking of messes, I've started stripping him down to his diaper to feed him food; otherwise, stuff just gets ugly.  By "stuff," I mean me, him, his outfits, my attitude. You get the picture.

LOVES:

I'm very sad to say that he loves the TV.  He also loves singing "Head & Shoulders, Knees & Toes" with Mama, playing "How big is Jones?" with Daddy, laughing when Poppy says "BOO" to him, giggling when Mayme "giddy-giddys" his chin, and staying with Nan & Pop while Mama goes to the gym.

All in all, Jones has been the BEST baby in the HISTORY of babies, if you ask me, and I am so excited to see how he continues to grow.

Jones in what Jeremy calls his "take-it-home outfit"

By the way, as of last Monday, Jones is completely formula-fed!

Child labor

This was Jeremy's second week working in Greenville. To help him get his office organized, I spent a good chunk of last week in the office with him, which, of course, meant that Jones was there, too!

For the most part, he was really easy to keep there. There are spare offices on either side of Jeremy's, so we took put Jones's napper in one of them, and he was able to stay on his nap schedule, which makes life easier for everyone. When he was awake, he'd lay on a blanket on the floor, playing the same way he does here at home.

The only problem we had were those dolphin-like squeals. If productivity for the Teach Them Diligently staff took a dip last week, it can probably be attributed to the massive distraction of my son, Flipper.

Oh, well. At least, he's cute!

Rollin' with the homies

It's appropriate that there's no picture to this post, because neither Jeremy nor I were around to see what I'm about to tell you. We just saw the aftermath.

Actually, we heard it.

The mornings before we go to Greenville are always rushed. Luckily, I can get Jones up and changed and then lay him down to play on his green carpet until it's time to hit the road. That way, I can get stuff done - like drinking my daily Coca-Cola.

Today, as Jones played on his carpet, I was vacuuming up the popcorn kernels from last nite's dinner. When I finished, I heard a frustrated cry coming from the back of the house. Since Jones hadn't yet eaten, I assumed he was just getting hungry.

He was hungry alright, but not for food ... for AIR! He'd rolled all the way over - shoulder and everything - and was laying with his face buried in the floor.

Did you catch that? HE ROLLED ALL THE WAY OVER!

Looks like I picked the wrong week to take up vacuuming!

"Jonesie Football"

It's not the best picture, I know, but it looks to me like Jones practices his Heisman pose in his sleep. It's either that, or he's pointing to which side of the outfield he's about to hit his home run.

Either way, our little man's an athlete!

Rub-a-Dub Tub

With the exception of his very first one, Jones has taken every bath of his entire life in the kitchen sink. This, as you can imagine, has kept my lower back from aging the twenty years it probably would have, had we been bathing him in the tub.

Today, though, I realized that his swims in the sink are numbered.

What do YOU think?

Everybody has a Laughing Place!

If it's true that "everybody has a laughing place," then Jones's must be at his Mayme & Pop's house!

Rollin' With the Flow

If this is rolling over, then Jones just did it!

We've really been expecting this for about two months now. He started early on kicking one leg over, but he never really finished the job. Today is the closest he's come, and even now, he still has to figure out how to get the shoulders thrown all the way over, too. Still, I'm counting this as a major milestone in our little man's life.

Tar-HEEEEEELS! Tar-HEEEEEELS!

Hear this: it's not easy for me to cheer for North Carolina basketball. It comes as naturally to me as drinking Diet Coke instead of regular, but in order to keep the peace in a home populated by a pair of passionate basketball fans, I sometimes have to do that which isn't easy, that which is, in fact, downright HARD - especially on weekends when MY team loses and Jeremy's wins.

That was the case this weekend. Jeremy's Valentine gift to me was a trip to Knoxville to see my Cats play; my Valentine to HIM was a trip to Chapel Hill to catch his 'heels. Of course, we took Jones along, so that he could catch his first-ever Carolina ballgame.

Chapel Hill is probably one of my Top Ten towns in the entire USA.  It doesn't hurt that there's a Qdoba on Franklin Street. If only they'd had a PHD in Theatre back when I was looking at schools ...!

Our visit to "the Hill" was a quick one. We rolled in late Saturday afternoon and were there just long enough for Jeremy to get a chocolate shake at Sutton's and for me to pick up a dozen Krispy Kremes. We also made time for a photo op at the Old Well before heading to my friend Elizabeth Wexler Watson's house in Raleigh. That's where we were spending the nite - and eating dinner, too!

Wex made vegetable lasagna, and it was so much fun visiting with her, Jason, and their new dog, Albert. Albert was ENTRANCED with Jones. After we'd put the baby to bed, Albert snuck upstairs and noiselessly opened the door to where Jones was sleeping. I caught Albert with his nose placed curiously at the foot of Jones's "napper." It was one of the most adorable things I have ever seen.

After eating those Krispy Kremes I mentioned for breakfast, the three of us headed back to Chapel Hill. The plan was to tour the Basketball Museum, eat some lunch, and then head to the game. The plan was NOT to have our car towed, but we almost did. We got there early enough to park in the free lot across the street from the Museum.  Now, in the University's defense, signs were CLEARLY posted that, in preparation for the 2 p.m. game, ALL CARS had to be removed by 10 a.m. that day. We assumed, however, that they wouldn't tow us.

We were wrong. When we left the Museum about 11:30, there was a tow truck attached to my two front tires, prompting me to SPRINT (no, really.  SPRINT) across the parking lot to assure the friendly truck driver ... and the not-as-friendly campus policewoman ... that I was moving my car RIGHT.THAT.MINUTE.  They detached my car from the truck but said I'd still be responsible for the $50 ticket.

$50.

Are they for real?

Anyway, the Museum was amazing. It was especially awesome watching Jeremy fill Jones in on the history of Carolina basketball. He was so proud to share his love of the team with his little boy. I honestly wish we could've spent more time in there, though it was TRULY a God-send that we left when we did. We'd probably still be in town now were we trying to track down our towed car. The game was great ('Heels won!); our seats were even greater (thank you, Bubba Cunningham), and I hope we're able to make many more trips to Chapel Hill.

Until then, here are a few more pics to remind us of our FIRST trip as a family of three to Tobacco Road!

Hungry, anyone?

As of 7 p.m. tonite, Jones's solid food diet consists of more than just Rice Cereal!

Tonite, we added a little vegetable action into the mix. I was concerned. He's really - finally - mastered the cereal, so I was a little timid to rock the boat, but he could not have done any better with the Beech Nut Sweet Potatoes we gave him.

We went with Sweet Potatoes in honor of my friend Elizabeth Wexler, who, for awhile, thought she might turn oompa-loompa orange for all of the Sweet Potatoes she ate. After the way he tore up nearly an entire jar of them - he'd probably have eaten the whole thing, if I wouldn't have stopped short, fearing what his Poppy would call a "reversal" - I think Jones may have the same problem.

Conventional wisdom says to try introducing veggies one a time for a few days. This way, we'll know what's the culprit, if he has any allergic reactions. Next week's veggie?  Mama's favorite - green beans.

With the introduction of solids to the feeding schedule, I'm also gonna try to mix up his bottle schedule tomorrow.  He's been doing five 6 oz. bottles a day. I'm thinking I'll up that to four 8 oz. bottles.

Wish me luck!