procrastination.

let me begin by saying that i should instead be working on a poetry analysis for my online class that is due by midnight. but since it's been a long and busy kind of day i choose procrastination. i will justify by saying that i have over two hours to complete the work, i cleaned most of this gigantic house today while balancing jude on my hip, and haven't gotten a nap. in other words, i earned it. additionally, it is a bit necessary since we've had a lot of "firsts" going on this week. kind of. and since my parents have been in ecuador with my laptop since last friday i haven't found a convenient time to sneak away into the computer room to blog. so since i'm already here and jude is successfully (and quite easily) gone to sleep, here goes...

i'll work backward and see what all i can remember...

today jude tried yogurt for the first time. supposedly this is an "8-10 month" food, but seeing as he will be 8 months in just over a week, i decided to go ahead and try it out. plus we are out of fruits, veggies, and grains to try from the "6-8 month" category. the only things we missed out on were pumpkins and plums, if memory serves me. and that was only because the whole foods market didn't have them. to date jude has eaten (and enjoyed) rice cereal, barley cereal, oat groat cereal, avocado, apricot, apples, bananas, mangoes, nectarines, peaches, pears, prunes, sweet potatoes, acorn & butternut squash, yellow squash & zucchini, carrots, green beans, sugar snap peas, and beets. he has not enjoyed parsnips (got quite the parsnippity face on that one) or the plain whole milk yogurt. to be fair, i tasted the yogurt and it tasted more like sour cream than the delicious flavored dannon i'm used to. i added some apples to it and that helped (he did eat an entire oz of it after an initial complaint) but i think next time the ratio needs to be more fruit to less yogurt. he is generally indiscriminate when it comes to what food he eats though he makes a bit of a sour face to the tartness of apricots and nectarines and could definitely tell a difference in the texture of the mango when i left it a little chunky. for this next round of foods i am going to try to steer away from the puree and try more texture so that he will get used to it. he always pauses when eating green beans, peas, or zucchini as they have a grainer texture than most everything else. the beets he liked, though they made his poop pink for two days, and like i said, the strong flavor of the parsnips worried him a little. all in all, though, it's been a very successful first couple of months with solids. i can tell he understands now that the smells coming from the kitchen generate tasty treats, even if it's only for mommy and daddy. he is getting more curious about the things i eat, always watching me bring bites to my mouth and even crying out to indicate that he would like some. but not yet baby jude... as we get closer to 10 months, i definitely want to experiment with finger foods and also with letting him make a mess of his meals. right now i try to keep mealtimes as tidy as possible and discourage fingers in the mouth during feedings as well as fingers in the bowl. not because i don't want him exploring and learning about food but really just because i can tell he isn't intellectually ready and doesn't understand anything other than picking up things and throwing and them down or turning them over and around is fun. once he gets a better grasp on hand to mouth equals feeding himself, then i will encourage the mess. i can't wait for that actually! :)

other than new food, today has been relatively quiet. we cleaned, we played, we had a busy day. i let him explore the carpet while i vaccuumed and gathered laundry, which he found to be quite entertaining. he inspected the fuzzies that were the worn parts of the carpet, tasted them, and deemed them alright. he pulled every drawer handle within reach. he moved the door to the armoire back and forth on the hinges (a new thing he has learned to do with books, his toy laptop, ect... basically anything with hinge-like movement capabilities) and hit his head on it once or twice. attempted an unsuccessful climb into the dog's bed and i eventually gave in and let him roll around in there until he fell asleep. very cute. and when he woke up he followed me around while i vaccuumed the wood floors and all the carpeted rooms upstairs. he is getting very mobile, although he is still doing the lunge-and-pull as opposed to actually crawling. now he is sleeping soundly next to daddy.

a big happening this week was teething. ugh. not that we actually have any teeth to show for all the effort, but i am now sure they can't be far off. and i think he is getting his fangs first. no, seriously. he is cutting little vampire teeth, or "eye teeth" as us hillbillies from KY call them. it's the strangest thing. his gums have also been swollen on the bottom right side so i'm thinking he might get three or four teeth coming in pretty close together. who knows. i just know that it's been absolute hell on all of us. he has been glued to my person all week and i haven't had my mom here to act as a substitute for me so that i can get any studying done. it's been a true test but i think we have all passed and i think the pain for jude might be lessening. or he is getting used to it. he's had the crying, unsoothable fits, restless nights, biting, chewing, gnawing, and even a little diarrhea and fever (although these last two i will discuss next paragraph). orajel seems to do nothing for him so i've been giving him tylenol once or twice a day for the past week or so. i know, i know... i hate that i have to dope him up, too... but honestly, anything to ease his pain at this point and my doc okayed it. the homeopathic teething tablets seem to help as well, but for nighttime, tylenol has been the only real help. he has been having an absolute time getting to sleep at night. he was up until 11pm the other night just restless and crying and whining. he doesn't want to be laid down and he doesn't want anyone but me. in order for zach to get to spend more time with him (and it give me a break) i've asked him to do the nighttime routine for the past week. he plays with jude, bathes him, gives him a bottle, and then bam! all i can hear from upstairs is "WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH WAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!" so i trudge upwards, get him from zach, calm him down, and spend at least 45mins trying to trick him into falling asleep. we've done frozen teething rings, ice cubes in mesh feeders, cold washcloths, the works. finally he wears himself out enough to fall asleep curled up into me. it's sweet, sure, but oh-so-tiresome. tonight though he actually just nursed right to sleep, which gives me hope that the times they are a changin'...

now, as for the fever and diarrhea... not totally sure if they were teething symptoms or something else. he had a rectal temp of 101.7 a couple days ago, vommitted, had some loose stools, and then broke out in a rash. the fever broke within an hour of my giving him some tylenol, but i was still really worried. he wasn't himself, he was excessively tired, cranky, and generally unhappy. the nurse i spoke to said that if he got any worse that day i would have to take him to the ER or an UTC. so yesterday morning when we woke up (it's been 10ish all week, YAY!) i made an appointment, tossed him in the car, and away we went. dr.rettie examined him (and by this time of course jude is back to his happy, talkative self so i feel a bit silly) and found that he is a whopping 23.7lbs, has two very perfect (albeit waxy) ears, and a rash as a result of the fever. a sigh of relief. he told me to stick it out and learn to deal with the teething because it was just a natural part of life. but of course he said it in his nice, cute young doctor way so that i wasn't mad at him for it, haha. he did say that the fever, nausea, and diarrhea could be the result of a tiny viral infection, so i guess jude has had his first minor illness.

what else? well, this past week jude has decided to experiment with his vocals. he now does this scream/squeal thing in the highest key he can muster for as long as he can hold it and then when he runs out of breath stops, takes a deep breath, and does it again... and again... and again. you get the picture. he's actually given himself a cough due to voice strain. he's also learning to whine. he whines, bordering on crying, when i take something away from him, or when he wants something out of reach, or when he is hungry, tired, you get the picture. he is for sure learning the art of manipulation. i try not to give in but honestly most of the time it's just so funny that i can't help but give in. if i ignore him he will usually give up relatively quickly and turn his interest elsewhere, thank goodness. he has been crying tears pretty frequently though. i can never tell if it's a real or imagined hurt since he does it at the drop of a hat. the personality this kid has got is amazing!

i can definitely say that i am at a point in our relationship where losing him is unimaginable. not that i ever thought it was alright, but i guess i can say that i am now so connected to him as a personality and not just as a soon-to-be-personality. before, my love for him was based more as a caregiver's love... he was helpless and i fell in love with him while taking care of him; he needed me and i loved him for that as well as what i knew he was becoming. now my love for him has surpassed that and grown into a mutual need... he vies for my attention, does things purposefully to make me laugh or react, cries for ME to hold him, etc. it's simply amazing what a bond can develop in such a short time. it definitely makes up for all the time i spend exhausting my own supply of energy to make sure that his endless supply continues to go unharmed. it's worth the lack of sleep, the 24/7 job responsibilites, the overwhelming extra amount of laundry, the early mornings, everything. i am smitten.