another rushed update...

i actually started this last night and of course jude wakes up in his crib crying to get in the bed with zach and i so i couldn't finish... but here you go!

still no time for photos, barely time for blogging. tonight (friday night) i turned in my final blackboard assignment so all i have left until the end of the semester is a two-part take home essay for my rock documentary class and an ecology final on monday night. YAY!!! the end is finally in sight...

so of course while i'm having an incredibly busy last month of school jude is learning and growing like a weed. i regret not being able to spend more time with him for the past month. it seems like everyday, as soon as my mom gets home in the morning, i hand him off and trudge unwillingly up the stairs to the solitude of my bedroom to write papers and do homework. i HATE that. i hated being in class 3 nights a week, too. nearly half of the week i do not get to be the one who bathes him and puts him to bed. but thankfully that is over now. or at least it will be after monday. i am so ready to spend the summer with my baby! (and zach, too)

we put down a partial deposit for our new apartment and will be getting the keys sometime tomorrow, hopefully. we are supposed to be out of our duplex in harrodsburg by the 18th, so about two more weeks and we will be moved to lexington. YAY again!!! however, i know that the moving is also going to take away from my time with jude, so i am not too happy about that. plus we haven't packed a single thing as of yet... bleh.

so anyway, like i said earlier it seems that since i have been too busy to blog jude has given me lots to blog about. i would love to go into detail about everything but honestly i am barely able to keep my eyes open at the moment. due to this, i am just going to be brief so at least i know it all got recorded.

jude can stand! he's a real pro at the cruising thing now and is getting more independent by the second. he can even pull up against the walls or doors! he used to need something to grab ahold of but now it's just so long as he has something to lean his weight on initially. once he's up, he doesn't need to lean on anything. i had been noticing this for a couple of weeks and then he finally just stood alone. accidentally of course. the first time was at my friend jesse's apartment and the second time was in my room at mom's. zach and i were fighting so i was in the floor playing with jude. he pulled up and was holding onto my shoulder and i absentmindedly handed him a flat little mirror to look at and he grabs it with both hands and hovers for about 5 seconds before realizing what he was doing and abruptly sitting down. since then i have been doing everything i can, trying to trick him into doing it again. he's done it a couple of times and then tonight i got him to stand several times in the grass outside. he's going to be walking soon! ahhhh!!! hello, baby gates!

jude has had meat, cheese, white potatoes, flax(in yogurt), cauliflower, broccoli, asparagus, and probably a few more things since i've last done a food update. he had the white potatoes tonight with his pureed meat and seemed to really like them. i feel terrible for not sticking to his new food schedule this month, but i really just haven't had the time to cook, puree, and freeze everything. so hopefully we can fit in everything from the 8-10months category that he hasn't had into the 10-12months time period.

also, i think i am starting to wean him. I THINK. i have such mixed feelings about the whole mess. it started when i realized that we were almost out of the vast supply of frozen breast milk that once took up so much space in mom's deep freezer. i had been dumping a lot of milk on class nights when zach and i went to the movies so that i wouldn't have to buy ice and bring a cooler. plus i was convinced that we had like a never-ending supply stored up. obviously not. so we bought some of the enfamil with lipil, the only kind of formula jude has ever had, and gave him a bottle to try. it might be gross to you guys, but when i heat up a bottle of my milk i usually taste test rather than wrist test because i don't trust my skin as much as my mouth when it comes to the accidental burning my sweet baby. well, i will have to say that breast milk is a delicacy compared to formula. it actually tastes like milk. and sweet milk at that. formula tastes like CRAP. i wasn't even thinking as i held the bottle up and squirted the tiniest taste onto my tongue... habit, i guess... but i gagged. ugh. it tastes like medicine or vitamins or metal or something! i felt like a horrible mother for subjecting my child to that. but you know what? he didn't seem to mind. now, no one else besides myself and my mom have tried to give him a bottle of this stuff, so it might just be because he trusts us and is used to us giving him bottles... but he really didn't even seem to notice a difference. i can tell that he doesn't really gulp it as greedily as he does my milk in a bottle, but he doesn't make a bad face or anything. and he pretty much makes a bad face to anything food-wise. but yeah, so i stopped feeling bad when i give him formula and am thinking i might start trying to wean him gradually. i had been wondering how exactly i was going to go about weaning him. on his first birthday do i just refuse to nurse him? no, of course not. i didn't think i would ever supplement with formula but i am not so opposed to it now. i am so conflicted, though.

on the one hand, breastfeeding is REALLY convenient. no bottles, formula, boiled water, etc to lug around and i don't have to take time to measure and mix the bottle. but on the other hand, i DO have to tote my pump bag around everywhere along with bottles (just in case) whenever i go out with mom or take jude somewhere for the day. and pumping takes like 10 minutes. so it totally sucks when you are stuck in traffic on your way to lexington and there is a crying, sleepy baby that really just wants to nurse. scoop, mix, and shake seems a lot simpler than the whole pumping thing. so maybe i will just enjoy the best of both worlds for the next couple of months and pack formula and water just in case, instead of my pump. but that brings me back to the not being sure this is what i want... if breastfeeding wasn't such a complete hassle sometimes then i would honestly probably want to extend it past a year for jude. it's been such a blessing. i have loved to spend that quality time with my baby. and being pretty much the only one who can provide him with the nutrition he needs has been pretty gratifying, really. and the thought that this nutrition is by far the absolute best i am capable of giving is really cool. but then there is the selfish side of me that wants to lose this last 10-15lbs, the one who wants to smoke the occasional cigarette with my beer at a Klime show and the mommy who is just tired of feeling TIRED! i don't drink as much water as i should, which has a lot to do with it i know, but honestly breastfeeding had made me feel perpetually exhausted. i just want my body back, and though that seems selfish to me at times, other times i think that's ok. i carried this little pea around with me for nine months and so now it's been over 18 months since i've been able to just do what i want with myself. so who knows what will happen with this weaning thing. despite the selfish mommy that sometimes rears her ugly head, i know that weaning is going to be harder and more emotional for me than it ever will be for jude. sigh.

now, after that ridiculous rant, let's see... what else has jude been doing?

oh! he points! this has really started to happen during the past week but he's been pointing occasionally for about a month at least. but now he points at things he wants. it's super cute. and helpful! haha. and also, i swear he said bye-bye tonight and waved as we were leaving the derby party at tom and kelly's. who knows with this kid these days. dadadada and up are his favorite words but sometimes he mixes it up and says other things. albeit incomprehensible things mostly. he's said mama a couple of times but that's about it. i haven't been doing the Baby Can Read with him over the past few weeks (mainly since i've somehow lost DVD #1) but once we get moved in to our new apartment i plan to start doing it again everyday.

hmm... what else? he won't clap, but he likes to slap things and he finally splashes in the tub. it makes for a good ole time and a soaking wet mommy. he also likes to throw things down. he will climb up on the side of the tub to get his toys and toss them one by one into the bathwater. when he's full at mealtimes he leans over the side of his highchair and drops bits of food on the floor or else feeds it to belle. he especially likes to do this with cheese because of his dislike for the stuff. what a funny boy.

and that's about all i can muster right now. at least it ended up being longer than i thought it would!