Weight: 16.8 lbs.
Height: 27 1/2 inches
General Observations: This little boy is getting much stronger and more stable while sitting. He started sitting on his own at the end of his 4th month and in this last month he’s really gotten much better at not only sitting on his own but reaching around for objects or toys. He gets in crawling position and rocks back and forth but he hasn’t quite figured out how to go forward, although he can scoot himself around on the ground pretty well (He gets where he wants to go).
Jedi has also started sitting in shopping carts and high chairs now. He likes them quite a bit! Jedi sings quite a bit now, especially when we’re in the car. His hair is getting longer and his eyes are still changing color. They are a bit more gray/hazel now, but I can still see the blue. One of my favorite developments this month is that Jedidiah has started reaching for me (or daddy). It always tugs at my heartstrings to see him look up at me and reach up with both of his little arms. Ahhhh, he wants his momma; I love it! Speaking of momma, he’s run into some stranger anxiety this month. I’ve had a hard time leaving him places for any period of time. He hasn’t made it through many classes at the YMCA (and those are only an hour long) before they’ve had to come and get me because he was so distressed. Same thing at church… Hopefully he’ll grow out of this stage soon.
Health: He’s very healthy. We really haven’t seen anything this month that is cause for concern. He had his six month check-up and the doctor was impressed with how well he’s doing. His height, weight and head circumference are still following the curve nicely although his weight is starting to taper off a bit. Our pediatrician thinks it’s just because he’s so active. I think that Jedidiah’s teething, and I’ve been told by several people that even the moving up and down of teeth below the gums can be just as painful as the actual breaking through of the gums. I still think the teething necklace helps but there have been days where I think his teeth have been bothering him more than others.
Eating: Jedidiah isn’t nursing as often anymore. We’re still at about 5-6 times a day most days, but that’s in a 24 hour period. We’re still exclusively nursing and I love it. He sure has shown an interest in food though. He watches us so closely as we eat and drink. He knows what cups are for and he knows to put them in his mouth. Although he hasn’t learned to drink out of them, he puts his tongue inside the glass or slobbers on the outside rim of the glass. In fact, he tries to drink out of the cup we use to bathe him at night! Yuck! He definitely doesn’t understand why that water is off limits to him.
One of my favorite things to watch is when Trent gets home from work. Usually I nurse Jedidiah at least once in the evening before his bedtime feeding and typically Trent and I sit on the couch and watch a TV show. We sit side-by-side on the couch and I watch Jedidiah pull off and just look at his daddy. He studies him intently and waits for him to notice. When Trent looks down he gets the biggest smile and then goes back to eating, but just for a few gulps before he does it again. I love watching him watch Trent. It is the sweetest little game!
Sleeping: If you remember at the end of the last month, we started trying to crib-train Jedidiah. We had started with nap time since I was afraid to lose sleep by trying it at night, but we weren’t having much success with it. There was still a LOT of crying and not a lot of sleeping. So one day my mother-in-law stopped by while he was screaming in his crib and suggested that maybe it would be better to try to put him in the crib at night instead, since he already has a good nighttime routine and knows it’s time to sleep. Even though the idea scared me (and I still wasn’t sure I didn’t want him right next to me at night), I decided to go for it. Trent took a Wednesday off of school to come and watch our swimming lesson, and so Tuesday night (going into Wednesday), I decided it was “now or never.” So we put him down and guess what? He slept! He went a good 7 or 8 hours before he woke up. Of course my body wasn’t prepared for this long stretch so my boobs were engorged, but I nursed him and put him down and he slept for another few hours. All in all, he slept for 11 hours that first night! I felt like, wow! This is amazing. On the night of Mother’s Day, he slept for 11 hours straight!
Anyways, we’ve all heard the saying, “sleep begets sleep,” so I was hoping that him sleeping better at night would lead to him sleeping better during the day. My girlfriend sent me some information that she found helpful with her little one that basically outlined how long babies should be awake or asleep for. One in particular followed the 2-3-4 rule. So basically, 2 hours after baby wakes up they should go down for their first nap. Then 3 hours after they wake up from that nap, they should go down for nap #2, and then 4 hours after that, they should be going to bed. We tried this religiously for about 2 weeks but that first nap was like pulling teeth! He’d cry for SO LONG. One day it was 2 hours and he still never went to sleep (I had to get him up to leave for tutoring), but other days it would be like, cry for 50 minutes, sleep for 10. In the end I decided it wasn’t worth it to try to push. I debated back and forth whether I was putting him down too early (he wasn’t tired yet, so he was pissed that I put him in the crib) or if I was putting him down too late (he was already over-tired and therefore couldn’t sleep). Eventually I just started watching him closely for signs that he was tired. As soon as I thought he was, I would put him down. That seemed to work much better. We still struggle with the morning nap, but the afternoon one(s) are much smoother now! He only sleeps for like 20-40 minutes at a time, but hey, that’s better than nothing!
This whole sleep business really stressed me out! I was even tracking his sleep and graphing it to try to find patterns of what was working and what wasn’t. For him the 2-3-4 didn’t really work. His is more like a 3 or 4-3-4. But you just have to find out what works for your baby!
Diapers: We’ve been much better about using the cloth diapers this month, but a big part of that is the fact that we’ve slowed down and cut a lot of things out of our schedule so we could be home more (for nap times).
Clothes: He’s definitely in 6 month clothing, although some outfits are still a bit too big for him. He can squeeze into a few 3 month outfits yet, but they’re getting pretty tight on him, so we figured we’d retire them and move on to a whole new wardrobe!
Social:
Jedidiah celebrated his first Fiesta, which is a special time of celebration in San Antonio. We didn’t go to many events (because the crowds and parking situations are CRAY-CRAY!) but we did make it out to Alamo Heights Night with some of Trent’s co-workers. We enjoyed an evening of socializing, beer, live music and, at the end of the night, fireworks! Jedidiah LOVED the fireworks and was mesmerized by them. It was so fun to watch him experience new things!
My Zumba place, DeVoir Fitness, also put on a special Fiesta event. I decided to take Jedidiah and just strap him on me while I worked out. He loved the music and the movement (it probably reminded him of what it was like en eutero), in fact, he even fell asleep about half-way through! We had a nice time seeing everybody!
Jedidiah came with me to a friend’s bridal shower. It was on a day when some crazy storms hit, so we were pretty drenched when we finally made it inside Chuy’s. I decided to try to put him in a high chair, since the cart had been a success. He LOVED it. He likes to be where he can see everything, so he was definitely a fan. After a while, Trent came to pick him up so I could enjoy my time with the girls, but it wasn’t before Jedidiah’s “girlfriend” came. Yep, he’s already working his magic with the ladies!
“May the 4th be with you!” Yes, Jedi celebrated May 4th, which only nerds and Star Wars fanatics appreciate (we qualify as both). We made sure we donned our Star Wars apparel in recognition of this day. Check out our cute family picture!
We didn’t really celebrate Cinco de Mayo, but at our church meeting that night we did have a potluck and man, were there some delicious Mexican foods that we ate! We couldn’t find a Jedi-sized sombrero so we had to settle for this cute little onesie that says, “The Senoritas love me!”
We celebrated our first Mother’s Day together with time at church and then a lunch out with the family. You can read about that here.
Jedidiah attended his first wedding. It wasn’t just any wedding either, it was a DOUBLE wedding. Two of our friends from church decided to get married after a very powerful sermon series at our church called Sex and the Scripture. It was an amazing testimony to their friends and family of obedience to what God’s word says. I am so proud of these two wonderful brides! (Plus, Stevie and Rob’s daughter has already been promised to Jedidiah) 😉
Jedidiah trying to kiss Avery… she’s not having it.
We still visit daddy at work a couple times a month. His students enjoy the interaction with Jedidiah and it is a fun time for all of us!
Likes: His favorite “toy” in the house is still his flower. He LOVES that thing. I don’t know if it’s the bright color, or the texture of the petals, or the fact that he can grip and swing around the stem… I don’t know, but he sure does love to play with it!
He still enjoys being outside. Another thing he has grown to love is bath time! Since he started taking swimming lessons, he’s really started playing in the bath instead of just chilling while we wash him. He SPLASHES and SPLASHES and SPLASHES.
He loves to swim and in fact, at the end of this month, I bought him a little inflatable pool. However, we never got to use it because our cat (or one of the many other outdoor critters that frequent our yard) tore it up. I tried to duct tape the holes, but really, it was pointless. Now we’ll have to get a hard pool instead… lesson learned.
Dislikes: Not much. He gets fussy when he’s tired, especially at night, but he’s just trying to communicate his needs with us.
Memorable moments and firsts: He started reaching for mommy when he wants to be picked up. I love this and treasure the moments when he looks up at me and stretches out his little arms towards me!
He rides in the cart now, sitting up like a big boy. I think he likes it much better than being in the car seat as he can see what’s going on around him. He also really likes to play with the cart handle (I do wipe it down before I put him in there).
Like I mentioned before, this was the first month he started sitting in high chairs when we’re out to eat.
A friend of mine from my mommy group is trying “elimination communication” and has been doing it with her daughter since birth. She sits her on the potty and she says that about 50% of the time, she goes potty or poop when she’s on there. Anyways, she inspired me to buy a baby potty (we’d have to buy one eventually anyways) and try it out. The good news: Jedidiah went pee-pee on his potty! The bad news: he only did it once. I think we were too busy and out of the house too often for me to be consistent with it. Although we tried, we’ve kind of gone away from it now, but we’ll see what happens.
We had baby Jedidiah dedicated at church on Mother’s Day. This was a very special time for us as parents. You can read about his baby dedication here.
Jedidiah’s learned how to “drive” his walker. For the past few months, he’s played in it and even moved around some, but this month he FIGURED IT OUT! He can do a 4 point turn, he backs up and goes around when he gets stuck, he can go where he wants to. My husband took this funny video of him chasing our kitty cat around the house. Poor cat was scared to death, but it was hilarious! You can check out that video https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Ftrenton.logsdon%2Fvideos%2Fvb.1449707885%2F10208767801979619%2F%3Ftype%3D3&show_text=0&width=560“>here. He’s just SO good at directing the walker to where he wants to go. He’s also started running in the thing. It’s super fun to let him chase us down the hallway. This kid goes full speed! It’s kinda funny when he crashes into things, his stop is so abrupt, it seems like he needs an airbag in there!
There have been a few times I’ve had to nurse Jedi in the car so I bring him in the front seat to do so. When we’re done, he LOVES to play with the steering wheel. I’m going to have to watch this boy closely!
What about mom? Well, a good friend gently pointed out that I may be “too busy.” She challenged me to know my limits and even reminded me that “Busyness” is not a Biblical model for how to live. So, her wisdom along with my desire to get Jedidiah’s napping figured out, led me to cut back significantly on my obligations. “Baby and Me” time at the Library is on hiatus until June, so that worked out to leave. Our swimming lessons wrapped up as soon as he hit 6 months, so I knew that that would be ending shortly. My Spanish lessons ended at the end of this month as well. I cut back on my time at the gym anytime it conflicted with potential sleep times for Jedidiah. I even stopped going to my mommy group for a few weeks. Although in some ways this was refreshing, it was also exhausting because I don’t feel like I’m getting out so much and the days with him seem a lot longer.
Daddy time: Oh my word, these two have so much fun together. I absolutely love watching them interact! Daddy brought Jedidiah to Toys’R’Us one day and they had fun in the Jeep.
Daddy loves to make Jedi laugh and is constantly doing silly things to that end. I love the end result though. These two…
Until next month’s post!
We went to our first Spurs game as a family. It was actually to celebrate our anniversary, but we wanted little man with us (we always want him with us). It was a great game against the LA Clippers (which we won). We had a great time. We’re trying to teach Jedidiah to say “Go, Spurs, Go!” (Train up a child…).
Logsdon's big adventures! 