(Almost) Naked Baby

Jude Discovers a Lavender Plant

(Click to see look of concentration: "I will close my fist on this leaf.")

Six Months!

I love this pic I took of Jude and Jono yesterday. Jude is six months old today. Can you believe it? He's like, a real baby now.

Here's an update on his latest habits and activities.

First off, he has graduated from the 30-minute nap and is taking longer daytime snoozes now. Like, over an hour, and sometimes two. I'm getting so much done, it's obscene. I used to struggle weekly to log my 10 hours of paid labor, but now it's a real cinch. Thanks Jude. Mama loves you.

He also knows how to whine now. It's kind of a grating, sustained grunt/squeal, and he uses it to tell us he is not pleased with whatever we're doing. Like anything that involves touching him for a practical purpose, such as strapping him into the car seat, putting his hoodie on, etc.

He makes a range of noises, and when he discovers a new one he makes that same noise obsessively for days until the novelty wears off. He also responds to humor, but our funniness eventually gets old to him and we have to think of something else. Like last week he laughed his butt off every time I put my face close to his and sang "Strangers in the Night" in a sultry baritone voice.

Dooby-dooby dooooo (strangers in the night)... exchanging glances, lovers in the night...

It worked about five times and after that he was completely straight-faced and looked at me like, "Not funny anymore. Move on."

AND...he's eating solids. We made it to six months exclusively on breast milk! He gets two solid meals a day now: rice cereal in the morning and oat cereal at night, with nursing in between. In a week or two we'll start him on pureed veggies, and next month we'll introduce fruit. At his first feeding (well, really his second, but it had been a long time since that 4.5 month attempt) he learned pretty quickly what was on the spoon we were pointing at him, and he lifted his head and opened his mouth for each bit like a baby bird. Now that it's been a few days he's less passive about it and grabs for the spoon or his bib and sucks the spilled cereal off of it. He loves the stuff.

Jude has a bedtime routine now. It goes like this:

Oat cereal
Warm bath (soap occasionally)
Put on night-time diaper and PJs
Read books
Nurse
Sing/rock
Sleep

I was thinking that solids might help him sleep better at night, because most of the people I talked to about it said it had helped their babies. But the first few nights he was still waking three to five times on average, sometimes to eat, but just as often I think because he's trying to poo or what have you. Maybe he's a little cold sometimes in our drafty old house; I don't know. The past two nights he has only woken twice (to eat), so that's progress. The prospect of just one 2 am feeding makes me giddy. Someday...

My friend Lori made me feel better when she told me that her babies didn't sleep very well at night until 8 or 9 months. She also wondered if mothers have some sort of hormone going through us during this time in our lives that keeps up functioning despite the lack of sleep. She pointed out that now that her kids are out of that stage, she's back to being a zombie if she gets anything less than 8 hours a night. She has a point. Most days I feel great and operate just fine despite everything. There are some days I may even fall in the category of "high-functioning". Whatever it is, it's a miracle.

Every kid is different and how you feel about the habits of yours on any given day is highly relative. I'm so used to Jude's waking patterns that it usually doesn't bother me much, but then you hear from some chick whose four-month-old is waking only once a night and you start to feel a little jealous. I was on a mom's Q & A website recently and some silly woman posted the following:

"My baby is four months old and is STILL waking up for a 2 am feeding every night. Help!!"

Yeah lady, we all feel bad for you. (Someone needs to slap her.) Honestly if Jude had been sleeping through the night already at that age I'd be worried he was getting enough to eat. The gazillion comments to this woman's post were quite amusing. Most of them were along the lines of "Are you kidding me? Get over it!" Hee hee.

I need to commend Jude for something that I think he is doing great with. A few weeks ago we decided to see if he could learn to go down for naps and bedtime on his own. (Normally I would nurse or rock him to sleep.) He fussed a bit the first few days, but now I can put him in his crib drowsy but wide awake and he doesn't make a peep. When I go back to check on him a few minutes later he is sound asleep. He'll also wake up in the morning and play by himself in his crib for 20 minutes or so, and I get to sleep a while longer. Wunderkind I tell you.

So that's the latest on Doobers, as Jono called him the other night (I think it's because we've been singing "Dooby Dooby Doo...").

Jude Discovers a Tree in the Forest

BFFs VII

Hiking for 'Shrooms

Here are a few pics of us posing in front of trees during our weekend up in Cadillac with Jono's dad and step-mom. We went to a seedy flea market in Mesick, ate in a tacky/fantastic diner called Jeri's Mushroom Inn, and hiked a new section of the North Country Trail looking for morel mushrooms. (These are the kind you eat because they are delicious, not the kind hippies eat for, well, you know.)

The North Country Trail runs from New York to North Dakota. We didn't find any 'shrooms, but we did find turtles, cormorants, horse poo and a muskrat. Good times!

Thriving

It's my first Mother's Day, and someone gave me the best compliment recently that made me feel like I'm doing my job.

Jono's Grandma Holtvluwer took one look at Jude last week and asked me what I was feeding him. I answered that he was still eating only breastmilk. She replied, "My goodness, he is thriving on that!" I probably flushed with pleasure when I heard her say it.

I know all mothers get milk, and most mothers feed it to their babies, but there was something about that comment that made me feel good, even if it doesn't make me unique. All those night-time feedings have been worth it.

Here's to moms everywhere. Pay us in cheeks!

Jude in a Hat (@Tulip Festival)

Though I've received a hat or two since my last post, this one is truly the last Jude in a Hat installment (unless I find myself rolling in hats again in a few months... then it might make a comeback).

This is Jude in a little Dutch hat. Yes, I finally caved and owned up to part of my heritage. I honestly never thought I would be dressing my progeny in Dutchy things, but here I am doing it. I have a weakness for squeezing Jude into outfits that make him look fatter/shorter/koosier, so there you go.

My parents are now living in their third town that annually holds a Tulip Festival, so of course we had to partake in the festivities. (And yes, as a result of this Dutchy hometown-hopping, we love to play Dutch Bingo.) We went to the "kinder parade" to watch my dad and his fifth grade class march. They all dress up in Dutch costumes and each class has a gimmick. One section was "Dutch Art" and they walked with banners of paintings by Van Gogh, Rembrandt and Vermeer. (One thing I'm proud of being Dutch for is how meticulous they are, which has produced some serious artistic genius.) Another section dressed up as pigs and carried vats of fake cheese around. My dad's class pushed themselves along on scooters and did scooter tricks. It's all very quirky.

The teachers take up the rear of each section to make sure no one goofs off or falls behind and gets trampled by a marching band. Dad had been begging me for a week to let him carry Jude in the parade, but I balked at first because I thought he might go deaf from the drums and trumpets and what-not. Dad assured me there were no bands marching behind his class, so I agreed.

What followed was hilarious. My mom and I ran alongside Dad and his class, so we witnessed the crowd (especially the above-60 set) flipping out over the baby in the Dutch costume. Old folks got up out of their seats, screamed and clapped hysterically as they passed. It was like the crowd was doing the wave as Rose Park's fifth grade made its way down the route. Dad had the biggest grin on his face and kept pointing at Jude and saying "This is my grandson!!" to anyone who glanced in his direction. Hee hee!

Anyway, I'm sure you're chomping at the bit to see pictures and video of this (I mainly refer to Jude's extended family), so here are some.

To wrap this one up, I need to tell you what our new Friday installment will be. It's called Jude Makes a Discovery. Here is the first one:

Jude Discovers a Yellow Tulip

(see elbow dimples)

Naaa na na na-na-na-naaaah

Tree Hugger

I don't know about you, but our weekend was fantastic.

On Saturday we went to the farmer's market for opening day of the season. Jude wore his spiffy knit mukluks (Thanks Aunt Jessie ;) The Schnitz Deli is on our way over there, and there was a couple sitting at a table out on the sidewalk. As we passed the guy said, "Look at that." His girlfriend said, "Oh my gosh." Then they both started laughing. We have to be careful. He may cause car accidents in these.

We went for our first Spring hike together on Sunday. We even skipped church to do it (shhh). I promise you we did not brain wash him into this, but it's official: Jude is a tree hugger. Now that he can face forward in his baby carrier, his new thing on walks is to reach for everything we pass and try to grab it.

He also has taken to sputtering with delight on every walk. It's hard to describe what sputtering is, but he gets so excited that he starts making a "pbbthhhht" sound with his lips. Spit starts flying everywhere, the droplets airborne and glistening in the sunlight. After a good sputter he gets a sloppy grin on his face. You can hear him doing it for a second in Part I of the video footage (below).

Here are a few pics of our tromp through the woods at Seidman Park.

See that green stuff? What is that?

Jude is looking in the river.

Tromp tromp tromp...

Tromp tromp tromp...

See, I told you!

I took some video footage out there too. You can probably guess what my subject was.

Hike Part I:

Hike Part II:

Hike Part III:
(Turn up the volume on this one.)

Things Have Changed...

...everyone else is on vacation in warm places and you're excited that your husband offered to take the baby for most of a Saturday so you could organize the basement.

...nothing fills you with more glee than when your kiddo goes down for a morning nap so you can run around like a chicken with its head cut off "getting things done" for an average of 30 savory minutes.

...your hubs gets home from work and your heart literally jumps out of your chest with excitement that you'll get to hand the babe off to him when he walks in the door -- then falls somewhere below your knees when you realize he's decided to split wood for 30 minutes in the backyard instead of coming in.

...said hubs becomes unsettled when he notices wife and babe are plastered against the sliding glass door boring four holes into the back of his head as he splits said wood, and he feels a wee bit of pressure to make his way into the house sooner rather than later.

...you still can't believe how big your boobs are, and have to keep reminding yourself that they will eventually go away.

... you forget to wear a tank top under some of your favorite pre-baby shirts, and notice later that the buttons around your bust-line are about to pop open. The gaps between each one are so big pretty much everyone can see your son's lunch buffet area.

...what you consider quality "alone time" becomes the ten minutes you spend in the shower with the babe in an infant seat outside the shower curtain. Whom you must soothe every 30 seconds by keeping the curtain partially open so he can see what you're doing.

..."reading a book" becomes the 20 seconds in bed before you pass out like a drunken sailor.

...you must now use the bathroom in the company of another tiny person who is lying on the bathroom rug staring at you.

...you use morning nap time to write a blog post instead of working and feel extremely guilty about it.

...your husband's asthmatic night-time breathing sounds exactly like the beginnings of a baby fussing in the next room and you can't stop yourself from tensing up every 3 seconds because of it.

... even though the bod isn't what is used to be, you figure you can still get away with wearing your two-piece swimsuit this summer. People will lend you a little grace when they see you on the beach with the baby you recently pushed out of it.

...your prayer life has gone significantly downhill as it now revolves around asking God to put your baby into an 8-hour stupor for the night.

...it seems whenever you sit down to nurse, the phone rings, the dog whines to be let out and someone knocks on the door, and you're completely paralyzed by the indecision of which need to address first.

...you are blinded by a huge wave of jealousy when another new mom "can't believe how long my baby's naps are".

...you can't believe this chubby, bald, two-foot tall creature is part of you and always will be, and the love you have for him is sometimes terrifying because of all the things that could happen to him.

...you don't know how it's possible that this is the most work, time, and love you've ever lavished on anything, you've never been more exhausted in your life, and yet there are moments where you feel deliriously happy about it.

... your shower looks like a sasquatch was in there last. There's a lot of post-partum hair coming out of your head, and you figure it's only a matter of time until you look like Demi Moore in G.I. Jane.

... an hour after the babe goes to bed for the night, you miss him already, and must go in to stare at his fat little sleeping face.

J to the U to the D to the E...

...in a H to the A to the T. This hat is a little big on him and looks like head gear at the moment. But sadly, it is Jude's very last hat. I will have to start a new installment. (No, this is not a plea for everyone to go out and buy him a gazillion hats. But if the spirit moves you...)

Please vote your preference:

Jude About Town
Jude in a Tank Top
Jude in Booties
Jude Doing Grown-up Things That Are Funny When a Baby Does Them
Other Ideas?