4 months old!

It's hard to believe it's been 4 months! Jason has changed so much. He's playing with toys pretty regularly now, growing like a weed and really starting to grab onto stuff (yeah, watch your hair!).

When I cleaned the house a couple weeks ago I decided to occupy Jason by putting him in front of the fishtank. Appearently, I really enjoyed this when I was a baby. Jason seemed to too, so that was nice.

We had his 4 month doctors appointment last week and here are his stats:

Weight: 14lbs 2 oz (32%)

Height: 25.75 inches (78%)

Head circumference: 16.75 (56%)

looks like he's a tall one....a tall Bender! Who'd a thunk it?

We had a nice visit with Dan's parents at the end of February. We decided to get his 3 month pictures taken. We were a bit late since he was going to turn 4 months in a couple days but what can you do?

Here's the link to the pictures:

https://www.smilesbywire.com/home.asp?AC=LTPP0120109627JCP

just put my name in as cathy bender with a "c"...morons spelled my name wrong. They're morons because I spelled it out for them and they appearently think a "K" is spelled with a "c" or something. Anyway, there are some pretty good shots there. I was a bit disappointed that he didn't smile, but I think he was pretty overwelmed. Good thing we have plenty of good smiley pictures of our own.

The big thing around here is we started Jason on rice cereal last night! He took to it pretty well. He's still figuring the whole thing out but since we mixed it with breastmilk at least the taste wasn't too foreign. He was in a good mood most of the night and slept well so overall it seems to be a good thing.

it looks like he's smiling through the goo here:

He kept grabbing the bowl like "hurry up mommy, you don't have to wait for the food to actually stay in my mouth, bring on the food!"

here's the video of the whole thing (bear with it, like the baptism one, it's a bit messed up for the first few seconds but it gets right)

Playing with toys

Hi all! Jason is playing with toys pretty regularly now. It's so cute and nice because he's able to entertain himself a bit better. We've also been able to get a lot more cute smiley pictures:

he loves his moose

We bought him an exersaucer...he doesn't know quite what to think about it, but he's still a bit small for it. I think he'll have fun with this
the little face I can't get enough of:

Would have been one year old...

Today is the one year anniversary of the EDD of my first pregnancy. If things had gone differently I would have a one year old now. It seems odd that I would think about that because it was about a year ago that we concieved Jason - the light of my life and the sweetest baby ever. I am so thankful to God for the blessing that is my wonderful son, yet I'm still sad today. I'm wearing my remembrance necklace I bought soon after I miscarried. I wore it from the miscarriage until the EDD then again on the anniversary of the miscarriage (July 24th). I've just been thinking a lot last night and this morning. Last night we were singing our Palm Sunday/Good Friday songs. I've never really been saddened by Christ's death. I knew it was God's plan and that he would be raised from the dead 3 days later so knowing the happy ending it was hard for me to be too upset. One of the songs we're singing is from Mary's perspective. We sang it a few years ago and so many people cried, but I didn't. Now that I have a son, I was SOBBING. It had to be so hard to see your son die like that...I don't know if I can fit enough tissues in my folder to get me through Palm Sunday this year. Of course I was already sad because Jason was SCREAMING before choir rehearsal last night. I hadn't heard him like that since he got his shots and it really scared me. My friend Krissy suggested it was gas and after some Mylicon and bouncing and patting he felt better. I couldn't imagine dealing with that all the time. I am so grateful that Jason is usually such a calm, happy baby. Sorry for the bummer post. I guess cute pictures and milestones aren't all that's on my mind.

Baby Bjorn walk and Johnny Jump-up

Good head control affords a baby new experiences. On Friday we took Jason for a walk in his Baby Bjorn. When we've tried to put him in it in the past he's cried the whole time, but thankfully this time was different. I was kind of cold outside so we put him in his bear bunting (just like the NB one he got from G&G Bender, only we got a 3-6 months version). He fell asleep pretty much as soon as we put him in the carrier. He looked like a doll with his cute baby arm and legs sticking out. Overall, it worked much better than the stroller on our uneven sidewalks. I had to walk kind of like I was pregnant again...I might have to adjust some straps and just get used to using it in general.

sleepy bear

Last night we tried out the Johnny Jump-up. He's still too small for it but he seemed to enjpy it anyway. I'm sure it will work better when he can get centered in the basket so one leg isn't lower, leading to spinning. Bonnie was pretty sure we just got her a "dangling baby" toy and Jason kept trying to eat the straps. A good time was had by all!

I was also able to load the video of Jason's baptism on the previous post

Jason's baptism

Jason was baptized last Sunday. He did really well. Here's the video if you're interested

I hate how fat I look but that's how I look...maybe it can be motivation or something. But of course it's not about me, it's about him.

Here are some more pics of my little angel:

He's starting to hate tummy time less and less as he's getting better control of his head and upper body. He can also roll over from his tummy to his back!

This picture cracks me up...he's starting to bring toys to his mouth and Dan caught a great face.

2 month appt and back to work

Sorry, I've been a bad blogger once again!

I totally meant to update the blog on Jason's 2 month appt stats but I forgot...here they are:
Weight: 11lbs 12oz

Height: 25.75in

He also got his first shots. He was in a pretty good mood the whole appointment, even smiling a few times...then he got his shots. I had given him a low dose of tylenol before his appointment in the hopes of dulling the pain but he still screamed at the top of his lungs. I don't know if any mom can hear their baby scream like that and not cry...I know I cried! I held him and did what I could think of to soothe him and the thing that came to mind first was nursing him so when the nurses left, I sat down and nursed him and finally was able to calm him down. Then the nurse popped her head in and was like "you can feel free to nurse him and take your time"...yeah, I was planning on it! He was a bit drowsy and cranky the rest of the day and I gave him another dose of tylenol later on that night for pain and he seemed to have a low fever. Overall, we're no worse for wear and he's protected against a whole bunch of stuff, so go immunizations!

We also made our first long car trip - 3 hours to KC and back in the fog. Dan's sister, Abby, was going wedding dress shopping on the weekend of 1/16 and it was going to be quite an opportunity for family to get together. Of course, her mom came down but also her grandmother, aunt and her sisters-in-law. This meant that Jason could meet his Great-Grandma Coffman, his Great-Aunt Gail, his Aunt Sarah (and Uncle Matt), and get to see his Aunt Abby again. It was quite a house-full! It was a nice visit, Abby picked out a beautiful dress and Jason was well behaved (of course) and hopefully didn't steal too much attention from his aunt ;-)
On 1/18 I returned to work :-( I have been freezing my breastmilk for the past month and a half so I had a pretty good stash that Dan could defrost to feed to Jason while I was gone and I had the lovely task of pumping at work. Fortunately, my first day was busy enough so time went fast but slow enough that I could pump a couple times without trouble. Dan did pretty good with Jason despite some fussy times. Once he gets a hang of feeding him things will go smoother - although I think Jason will suffer from boob-withdrawl regardless. It's kind of nice to be back at work part time. I get to spend lots of time with my baby but I can get away a couple times a week and every other weekend and be Kathy again instead of "Jason's mom". I was also happy to discover that I hadn't lost too much of my speed and skill over the 11 weeks I was away. It makes me appreciate the time I spend with Dan and Jason more too.

Christmas 2009

We had a great Christmas this year. It was so fantastic having a baby this year, even though he had no idea what was going on. My parents and brother came down from Dec 23rd until the 27th. They got down just ahead of the storm that gave us a White Christmas. Not a whole lot of snow but enough to cover the ground and it was icey so all the more reason to stay inside, hang out and play Wii and cuddle the baby. This was the first time Jason got to meet his Uncle Jimmy so that was nice. I hope my parents got some better pictures, I sort of forgot to download them from their camera before they left but here are a few:

We also got ourselves a new camera for our big Christmas present. Hopefully this will lead to better pictures taken by me (it has the stabilization feature for my shakey hands) and more videos. I'll have to figure out how to convert them to smaller file sizes (I've seen Dan do it but I don't know how he did it) so I can put them in the blog. Jason is smiling a lot now and we've even been able to catch some on camera....he's so flipping cute! We had Monday the 28th to reset the house and Dan's parents came down on the 29th. His sister Abby came with them for the day and had to go back home to work on the move. We had a second Christmas so Jason was able to get more use out of his Christmas outfit. Between both grandparents and all the Aunts and Uncles, Jason made out like a bandit. For New Years we did the "(Great) Grandma Bender New Years Celebration". We played games all night then rang in the new year wearing stilly hats, throwing around an unopened bag of confetti (it's cleaner that way) and had plenty of noise makers and streamers. It was a good time!

So I will let Jason wish you a Happy 2010!