When other people love him

Whew, things have been busy lately! We're just settling in from a trip to Colorado and are about to leave for Texas for a few weeks! I don't really have any cute stories for this post...just thought I'd update everyone on how things are going here with us. I will say, though, that it was an amazing thing to see Jackson with everyone in my family. I knew they would love him, but to physically SEE them loving him really gave me great joy. I love Jackson, and delight in every new little thing he does. I watch him learn to make new silly faces and go crazy when he laughs. It was just plain wonderful to share that joy with the people I love! To see their faces light up when he laughed or noticing that the whole room went quiet to watch Jack grunt and struggle his way over from his back to his front on the floor was so great. It just reminded me of how lucky Jackson is to have such a big, loving family! He's already learning that our family hangs out in the kitchen, too! :)

Anyway, things are going well! Jackson is rolling over both ways now and smiles and even laughs if you can really entertain him. He loves to play in his jumper or lay on the floor on his tummy and play with toys. I also think he's starting to get over his car seat aversion!!! It's a struggle to keep him from grabbing EVERYTHING within his reach as well. I'm starting to learn that everything on the table or counter near me needs to be moved when I'm holding him!

That's about all I've got...enjoy Thanksgiving!

Task management

When I was in the Air Force I had a really good handle on task management. There were several times that provided great experience in this field. Today blew me and my task management skills out of the water.

Today had been a frustrating day. Jackson refused to take a nap any longer than 15 minutes and hadn't slept real great last night either. (Just to include you...Jackson just spit up on his crotch while studying his feet. Had to pause for clean up.) Well I decided to put Jack in his jumper for a few minutes so I could clean up some bottles and get sooomething started for dinner. (Emphasis added to demonstrate a total lack of ideas). Less than 5 minutes later I come around the corner into the living room to see (and I'll do my best to describe this accurately and in great detail) Jack jumping in a puddle (yes a puddle) of his own runny poo. The poo has run out of his diaper, out of the jumper seat, and down his leg. You would think after that long distance travel there wouldn't be much that made it to the floor. Think again. Also important to note is that we have put a couch pillow beneath said jumper to help Jackson reach the ground. It apparently got covered in poo, became slippery, and exited the scene stage right. I honestly had to say out loud to myself..."Ok. What do I do first? Pick one thing, focus on it until it's done, and then you can pick another one."

SO I picked Jackson up out of the jumper, smearing poo on every thing along the way, and carried him upstairs. Seconds before depositing him onto the changing table a little 1/4 cup of poo slid down his leg, splashed off my bare foot and hit the carpet in his room. Again at this time I had to say out loud, "Focus on one thing at a time. Clean the child off first." I would've taken him to the bath tub, but after doing that once I learned that poo is not easily cleaned out of the bathtub either. Long story short, the involved paraphernalia are in the washer and I've put away the carpet stain cleaner I never thought we'd use again after house training the dog. I'm quite confident there is still poo in a few cracks of both Jack and my's bodies...but we'll get it later.

Moments of Mayhem

Things have mostly settled down here in the Scarbrough household. Jackson has been doing really well...he's working on saying "Goo" right now. That may sound sarcastic, but I'm actually serious. Up until now he's just "Oooh"ed and "Ahh"ed, so a consonant thrown in IS actually a challenge for him. Isn't that the life? Even though things are going swimmingly and we're in a definite routine, we still encounter moments of mayhem. For example...

Jack usually wakes up twice in the night. Once between one and three and then another time somewhere between five and seven. He then proceeds to sleep for another hour or two before waking up for the day. (I know...please don't hate me. I'm so lucky to have a good sleeper!) Every once in a while he decides he doesn't have need for those last few hours, so I'm careful to keep him in the dark and not talk to him that last time he's up in hopes that he'll stay groggy and go back to sleep. To help in that process I always change his diaper first and then feed him so he can relax and start drifting off while he eats. Well, this morning I forgot. I toyed with just leaving him in his diaper, but it seemed like it might be leaking a little. So I bit the bullet and decided I'd stop feeding him and expect crazy screaming for the few seconds it'd take me to change his diaper. I raced him up to the changing table, started taking his diaper off with one hand while getting a new one out with the other and then I actually looked at his diaper. Full from front to back with poo. Old poo. He'd just been an angel and slept for 6 hours straight, so who knows when this poo occurred, but it was dried on to his bits already. These are the moments of mayhem. I'm standing in his room without a light on (to help him stay asleep) while he screams bloody murder because I cut him off from his breakfast (to help him stay asleep) and we're both covered in crusty bits of baby poo (that has nothing to do with him staying asleep). I turned the light on.

He's all clean now and currently practicing falling asleep on his own. The Dr. said to start trying to put him down when he's drowsy but not fully asleep so he can learn to sooth himself to sleep. I was pretty skeptical, but we did it last night and after about 15 minutes (without ANY crying! just goo ing to himself) he fell asleep. And so we begin our "work week". Happy Monday everyone!

Workin in the desert

I'll admit I was one of those wives who thought their husband had no idea how much work it takes to be a stay at home mom. Heck...I used to be one of those women who had no idea what it takes to be a stay at home mom. I sometimes wondered what I could say to Jordan to help him understand how hard I work, but I never came up with anything that didn't come across as "please feel sorry for me because my self-induced life is soooo hard. sniff sniff."

Well, Jordan proved that I am a lucky lucky woman tonight. I was coming up the stairs with Jackson in the moby wrap (wrapped up against my torso. Side note: Some friends of ours lent us a baby bjorn so Jordan could help me out and carry Jackson around sometimes because I kept complaining about how much it hurt my back. After a few times using HIS carrier Jordan definitely sympathizes.) Anyway...coming up the stairs with Jack as well as an armful of diapers and laundry that had just finished. I started to put it all away and said something to him along the lines of..."well, today was a productive day! I got my homework done, we went to the commissary, I made dinner and dessert, and did the laundry and got it put away." He may have been making an attempt to get in my pants, but my amazing husband replied "Dang. You never get a day off do you? This is like working in the desert for you." In those few (completely non romantic sentences) my husband won my heart all over again. You see, when he's deployed he works 14-20 hours a day. Every day. Every single day. Bleck! Since I was aircrew we worked on a 3 day cycle with every 3rd day completely off. He'd tell you it's because we were spoiled little aircrew brats. He's probably right. lol.

Point of the story is, being a mom is hard. (It's amazing and fulfilling and wonderful and exactly what I want to be doing right now...but it's still hard.) And my husband gets all that..and that makes me love him even more.

Women without babies don't count

The title may sound a little bit politically incorrect, but it's really not. Honest.

I had a revelation tonight when Jordan and I took a trip to the gym together. It was SO great to get a chance to unwind and work out. Don't get me wrong, I love a good massage, but I have more energy and I just feel better after I work out! So onto my revelation...

I'm ashamed to admit this, but before I had Jackson I compared myself to other women. Shocker, right? Oh and yea...I still do. BUT, now I feel relieved by the fact that I only feel the need to compare myself to other women who have children. Or at least babies. Sexy football cheerleader? Pft. Ok so she has a rockin' bod, but did she grow a baby and give birth to it? No? Well then noooo wonder she looks like that. Let's see her in a few years after that baby. Once I have this little internal dialogue I no longer feel threatened by her in any way. Nor do I feel the need to work out harder or eat healthier. Isn't that awesome?! I do realize that women without babies or children have to work on being fit and healthy (because goodness knows it wasn't easy for me before Jack) but now I can just throw them into a category I don't fit into and continue on. :)

I remember when I used to go to the gym on base in high school and think people were looking at me because I was so obviously cute. (Yea...sad, isn't it?) After being in the military I realize the guys were looking at me wondering why the school bus let me off there, and after having a baby I realize the women were trying to determine if I had a child...and upon realizing I didn't, ignoring me.

Fred and Drear

I feel like I have to come up with some cute little title for these posts just to make them fit in with the others. I apologize if it's getting old! ;) This title pays homage to my military background and its incessant need to shorten things. While I was deployed we lovingly termed one of our protein choices in the chow hall "murkey" because the little chow hall workers claimed it was turkey, but it looked like ham for all intents and purposes. This is another one of those....I couldn't chose between fred or drear...but it's a combination of fear and dread. Those are the feelings that come washing over both Jordan and I when Jackson lets out a little sequel of unhappiness these days.

You see, we are terrified of the screaming baby of unhappiness coming and taking our happy content little boy away again! (Ok so that may be a little dramatic). Aside from some screaming caused by a foray into the world of formula (we've got a Rx for a new one that should work wonders now), Jackson has been doing wonderfully since I eliminated milk and soy protein. Alhumdelallah! (I thought I'd throw in some random Arabic there. It means thank God. So far I've paid quite a bit of attention to the diapers portion of this blog and not much at all to the desert part. That was my weak attempt and balancing things out...) Even though he's been great overall, I can't help myself from throwing up a quick prayer when his crying starts to get a little frenzied that is something along the lines of, "please dear sweet Jesus do not let this be the beginning of the end! Send a little angel of intenstinal health into my baby's body and let him rip a huge fart right now if that's what needs to happen!" Yes. I talk to God about farting. I didn't used to, but I guess it's part of being a parent...

Sleepy babies

Parents who have sleepy babies irritate me a little. I admit...I'm jealous. Before Jack was born everyone was telling me I'd have plenty of time to get things done around the house because, early on, he'd mostly sleep. Ha! My baby finds crying and screaming way more fun!

All joking aside, I think we've determined that Jackson has a sensitivity to milk protein. It sounds like lactose intolerance, but it's actually a little different. Regardless, I've decided to cut out all sources of diary for a few weeks to see if he responds with less crying and general upset-ness. I had to laugh at our intern Dr. the other day when he told me it's typical for babies to cry 2 or so hours every day. I told him we've had days with over 8 hours of crying, broken only by intermittent eating and short-lived naps on his part. While I may be tempting fate by saying this, things seem to have improved already in the few short days since I gave up diary. Although it's a huge sacrifice for me (growing up my family probably should've invested in a cow with the amount of milk we consumed), it'll be worth it to get some peace and quiet. Without consulting Jordan I think I can safely say that today was one of the best days for both of us in the past several weeks.

I also have to give tribute where it's due here: to my husband/dad-extraordinaire. He's been so wonderfully helpful and involved and I feel blessed to have him. I knew he was great, but it really hit home when we went to church last Sunday for the first time. During the opening songs we both kept looking down at Jack (sitting in his car seat on the chair between us) to check and make sure he was doing alright. As soon as he starting looking perturbed, Jordan sad down and started talking to him and rubbing his tummy. When he escalated to a cry, Jordan picked up the car seat before I even said a word and took him outside the sanctuary to hold and soothe him while I enjoyed the service. He later came back in with Jack in his arms and sat down next to me. Like babies tend to do, he started making a ruckus as soon as it got quiet again, and Jordan exited once more. Over the course of this whole episode 3 of the 4 women surrounding me turned in their seats and said something along the lines of, "wow, what a good dad!" Like I said earlier, I already knew that, but it was a nice feeling to know I have one of those husbands other women notice and appreciate. :) Thanks to his family for raising such a great guy!