My sister Megan has just finished another semester of college at BYU Idaho (Go Meg!!) In between finishing her schoolwork and flying home to New Jersey, we got to spend some time together.
We picked her up from Salt Lake on Sunday evening and someone was very excited to see Meg again:
While she was here we were able to just hang out, visit, do some shopping and play with Jimmie. We also had the chance to go and visit Seven Peaks while she was here. For those of you who don't know, Seven Peaks is a water park here in Provo. Both big and little Jimmie had never been to a water park before! We had a lot of fun. We went in the late afternoon though, so Jimmie was starting to get a little sleepy and fussy. He didn't like it very much initially but once he fell asleep in my arms, he quite liked the water in the wave pool :) it was really nice to just be able to sit in the water and cool off. After the wave pool we went over towards the slides. Megan and Jim did slides while I fed Jimmie and then Aunt Meg stayed and played with Jimmie (who was now awake) while Jim and I went down the slides. Here are a few pictures from our adventure! Meg got most of the good ones, so you'll have to ask her if you'd like to see some really cute ones :) Here are a few of my own.
Some of the Seven Peaks slides. See that orange one? That's the one we all went down. This picture doesn't do it justice. Here it looks pretty gradual. In real life, it's nearly straight down. I've been down it before, but this time, we went head first!
A nice little family shot, even though squirt is asleep :)
Loved getting to spend some time together!
(Sorry Jimmie's sun hat is in your face, Meg :) )
Love Jimmie's face here! We will sure miss having you close!
It's a very different experience being a Mom in a water park. But I don't miss being the one that gets to run around and do whatever I want for a second. I loved getting to just lay outside with this little squirt.
Especially when we got to just relax in the water together.
But next time we go... we should remember towels. Um, DUH! Good thing we had Jimmie's soft little carseat canopy to wrap him up in :)
The day was a ton of fun! But we sure were tired by the time we got back :)
Thanks for coming to visit us Aunt Meg! Even if it was just for a few days. Don't forget to send us those pictures! We will miss you for sure!
P.S. Sorry that I've kinda been on a hyper-editing of pictures phase. I've just been having a lot of fun with it. I do have the originals of all pictures if any of you would ever like any of these pictures without the editing. Editing is fun for the blog, but to just have a picture, an original is nice. Just let me know!
Thanks again for all of your love and support during Jimmie's test. He recovered wonderfully from it all. No side effects from the anesthesia or anything. The Dr said that he would probably sleep the rest of the day. Well after getting home, he slept for about 45 min and then decided to stay up til 3 am :) that was fun. But since then he has been happy and normal!
Here he is trying to wake up to get some food. He was really not having it for a while:
Here is our little fighter after fully waking up. Well...mostly waking up :)
A little before the test, Jimmie went through a growth spurt. A physical one for sure, but a mental one as well. Physically, he is about the size of some of his cousins and uncles when they were born, weighing in at over 10 lbs. The book I'm reading about the baby's development refers to these mental growth periods as "leaps". During the leaps they reach different milestones. Because every baby develops differently they may only choose to develop some of the new abilities with the rest to follow later. I have an app that goes along with it and love it bc it tells me when to expect another leap, for how long, what to expect in behavior, and new skills to look for. So when you hear me refer to a "leap" in the future, this is what I'm referring to.
Jimmies gone through his first leap a little while ago and picked up some new skills over the course of the leap.
Social Smile. He's probably been doing this since about 5.5 weeks. But he's doing it ALL the time now. It's adorable. For those of you who don't know what this means, it means he smiles intentionally now. And at least for Jimmie, it means you smile for 90% of the day once you are awake!
He always would stare at things but now he STARES at things. He will gaze at things so intently, you can hardly break his concentration. Earlier this week he was looking at the fan in his Rock n Play. I pulled him closer to me, but now something on the coffee table was blocking his view so he arched his back and strained his neck so that he could keep looking at the fan. It was so funny.
He really is more active and playful because he's awake through a lot of the day. This picture was just too cute to pass up :) but of course he still crashes like this every once and a while.
Because he smiles now, it's so fun to see his reaction to things. I have found that I can almost always get him to smile by playing patty cake, or touching him in any way (poking his belly, touching his nose, etc) while making sounds. Daddy is really good at a Donald Duck type sound which Jimmie just thinks is hilarious!
Like I said, he's always loved the contrast of things, but he is really starting to love all these bright and colorful patterns that he can study
These things are always in his mouth. Forget the pacifier, we love those hands! Sometimes it's a chore to get the hands away from his mouth long enough to start feeding him. And he grabbed his toes a few times the other day! I think it was on accident though ;)
Now that he's gaining more weight and getting a little older, he has been sleeping longer. He's always been a good sleeper, normally getting 3-4 hours of continual sleep stretches from the beginning. However recently it seems he sleeps longer and goes back to sleep easier. He's become a champ at going down a little sleepy and falling asleep on his own. Last night we went to bed at 10pm and woke up at 6am and he only woke up once for 25 minutes. Woohoo!
I'm sure he's reached many more things but I can't think of too many right now. In the upcoming weeks we have some fun ones to look forward to like first time in the water (besides bath), first airline flight, first family reunion, and first time meeting a lot of family on both sides. We're so excited! Aunt Meg is coming to visit tomorrow so more on that later!
For those of you who dont know, jimmie needed to have a brain stem test done to check his hearing neurologically because he failed 3 separate hearing screenings. For more info on that, check out my previous post "The Hearing Situation"
First of all, thank you all so much for your thoughts and prayers. It has made a world of difference. Even though it wasn't a major surgery or anything it was enough to mess with our nerves and is always a little scary. I'm actually writing this as we sit and wait. We will be waiting here for several hours. The test alone takes about an hour and a half and then newborns normally take an hour or so to wake up from the sedation. So I've got some time.
Because he was being sedated he wasn't allowed to eat after 4 am, his test being at 8:30 am. This made Mom a little nervous because she knows his reaction when he doesn't get to eat every 3 hours. He's also been going through a growth spurt and wanting to eat about every hour and a half. I fed him super well as close to 4 am as I could, changed him, burped him, swaddled him, and made him as comfortable as possible and then just prayed he would stay sleeping for both of our sakes. He woke up 3 hours later wanting to eat, but I was able to rock him back to sleep fairly quickly. He did not want to go back in his Rock n Play (where he sleeps), so I laid him in my bed for a second and he loved it. Jim had just gotten back from work so he was able to stay with him and keep him calm while I got ready. Totally crashed.
I actually had to wake him up in order to get going to the hospital when it was time to leave. Quickly changed him, got him in the car, and got going. The car ride didn't put him to sleep, but it kept him calm. I was able to just sway his carseat as we went through checkin at the hospital, etc.
He weighed in at 10 lb 4 oz, the little chub! Though he did still have his fuzzy jammies and his diaper on. But still, he's gaining a lot! The pediatric nurses have been great. We have 2 nurses and some kind of nurse that is the equivalent of a physician or something. I forget her title. They were all so good with Jimmie though and answering our questions. He got his IV and his little nose tube thing. Then they gave him the medicine and it took about 10-15 minutes for him to really go to sleep.
He was not a happy guy with all the nurses doing all the things to him, but they were so good with him. The saddest thing were his pathetic little cries/whimpers as he was being forced asleep.
The people have hooked up the electrodes now and began the test. They should be able to tell today whether or not it's a permanent or temporary thing. Whether its just the anatomy of the ear or something more serious. If it is something more permanent or serious, it will take a little longer to determine what exactly that is. But we are optimistic and hoping that its just because of the narrow ear canal and the odd shape/orientation of them like the doctor suggested.
So for now we wait while the nurses monitor him and his vitals and the hearing specialists administer the test and observe. This is our view for the next hour or so.
He's totally sleeping with his eye open here. Silly guy!
The Results:
The test concluded and they determined that he is definitely hearing within normal range. The way this test works is that they administer sounds that go through the ear and up to the brain, where the doctors read and analyze it. It is a more accurate and reliable test. The way the other test works is that they administer a sound which goes in through the whole ear and is supposed to bounce back. We administered the previously failed test again and he still failed. Therefore, there is some kind of problem or reason why the sound is not transmitting out.
The good news is, you don't need sound to travel back out the ear to hear. The bad news is, because they're not sure what is causing it, it could be an indication if hearing loss later in life. Whether that's 5 months from now or 80 years from now, who knows. We are just going to monitor the situation closely and make sure he is completing developmental milestones like he should be (ie. babbling, responding to sound, etc). If there is reason for concern we will do more testing, otherwise we will just follow up with it and retest at 1 year old.
Currently he is recovering nicely. He came off the medicine at 10 and by 12:30 he's just starting to wake up to eat. Normally it takes 15 min-1 hr to wake ( closer to hour for newborns ) but he decided to wake up around 30 min enough that we knew he was starting to, but pretty much sleep sleep sleep unless really really stimulated. Normally they don't let you leave until you've nursed him and they see he can eat, but he was taking too long. So they let us leave w the instruction of if he doesn't eat in an hour, call us. Of course he starts eating the first time at home :) what a champ! Slowly but surely, he will eat more and wake up more. But I fully anticipate him sleeping all day and being up all night. Yayyy!
We're glad it's done and thrilled with the results and recover process so far. My little rag doll baby will be back to normal in no time!
We were lucky enough to have Jim's Mom, Carol, come visit us out in Utah for a week! She got in last Saturday morning (July 6) and just left this afternoon. We had such a wonderful time with her and I think she enjoyed her time here as well, getting to bond with all of us, but especially baby Jimmie.
A few days before Carol arrived, it was the fourth of July! We really didn't do much of anything. We had planned to go see the fireworks that night, but Jimmie was sleeping well and we were pretty tired by the time the evening came. We skipped the fireworks, but we sure heard lots of them for several days since it's legal to shoot them off on your own around here. Nala was not a fan. We did get to visit with my good friend Jennifer though, who was in town from WY for Stadium of Fire. It was so great to see her and have her meet Jimmie!
Around Provo, during the week of the 4th of July, we have what's called "Freedom Festival". There was a hot air balloon show every morning, but we'd planned to go Saturday morning before going to the airport. Unfortunately, the show was canceled due to inclement weather. But because of it, I did figure out how to finally get my Moby wrap to work! I'm officially a "baby wearer". Let me tell you...it's a lot easier to get things done around the house like that!
Later Saturday morning, we picked up Jim's mom at the airport. We're so grateful she was able to come.
On the way to pick up Grammy for the first time!
For the first few days we mostly hung around the house, played games, relaxed, and played with Jimmie. Thankfully, Carol also brought her camera so a bunch of the pictures on here are hers. They're just too good to pass up including on here!
Jimmie with Grammy
Big yawns for Jimmie
On Tuesday we went to a place called Hokulia Shave Ice and boy, was it tasty and greatly appreciated on a hot summer day! We also learned, that Jimmie really likes it outside! At least.. he has every time so far! (Don't worry, he was in the shade :) )
Mine was mango, tiger's blood, and blue raspberry. It even had some ice cream in the middle. SO GOOD (and this was a small!)
They're pretty cool. You sit the cup they come in, into the holes in the table to eat it. Clearly we all had to document this. Jim got Strawberry and Carol got Root beer with ice cream in the middle. Kinda like a root beer float!
On Wednesday, we went to Color Me Mine where you can paint all kinds of ceramics however you'd like and they glaze and fire them for you. It was a ton of fun, but took a lot longer than we thought because you have to put 3 coats of paint on everything. I didn't get any pictures while we painted... we were a bit preoccupied with painting and entertaining a newborn. But here are some pictures of our finished products. I think our pieces turned out great!
I made a yellow with green polka dots big plate with Jimmie's footprints on it. It was a good thing we had so many people there to help get his footprints on. The employee even commented that (though they're a tiny big smudged) they're about the best 1 month old footprints she's ever seen! They're generally not the most cooperative.
Jim wasn't going to paint anything but I suggested that since he likes to call himself "King James" sometimes (in reference to LeBron and because he thinks it's cool) he should make some sort of goblet or mug to drink out of. His turned out really cool because he used pain that makes little speckled things appear after it's been fired. A very cool look. Little did we know, this is actually a sundae dish. Works as a goblet for us though!
Jim's mom made an awesome memory plate/souvenir of her trip by including all of our names around the edges and Jimmie's birth info in the middle. It turned out so great!
After Color Me Mine, we went up to the Y Mountain Trailhead to get a good overview of Provo. It's way too hot to hike right now, but the view from up high is still so pretty.
The sky looked super cool that day too
Not a super great picture of the two of us, but we don't have many pictures together. So while the others walked up the path a ways to read about the Y, we just kinda hung out for a bit.
Jim and Carol
Our little family
Thursday was July 11th or 7-11. Because it's 7-11 that means that Seven Elevens all over the country gave away free slurpees from 11am to 7pm. You'd better believe we were there!!
Pretty much free anything you can sign me up for. Earlier in the day we had gone to Sizzler for lunch. I'd been there once before a long time ago and Jim had never been. When we were out on Wednesday and passed one, Jim's mom got all excited because she didn't know they still existed and hadn't been in forever. And what can I say... I fell in love with the place! I can't decide if it's an indecisive person's dream come true because they can try a little of everything with the endless salad bar or their worst nightmare because there is so much to choose from. For this indecisive person, it was a dream come true. Holy delicious food, I was in heaven.
Later that night as I was on my phone during a late night feeding I read someone mention something about a "Cow Appreciation Day" being on Friday. When I looked into it more, I learned that everyone can get free Chick-fil-a if you dress up like a cow! Hello, more free stuff? Do I even need to tell you that I convinced everyone to go?
So Friday morning, I found some old white t-shirts and started painting some spots. Then I learned that you don't really have to be in hard core cow costumes to get free food. You just need something with a cow pattern. So after 1 shirt, I got lazy and painted some spots on strips of the t-shirt for headbands. I was going to do a onesie for little man, but found a free pair of socks that the hospital had given us and drew some spots on those.
Rockin' those quality socks!
Jim and his Mom with those awesome headbands! I think I may have traumatized them. Those things came right off the second they could! I thought it was hilarious.
Workin' the outfits!
It was busy, but really not too bad!
Our little cow family. So stylish! I threw the shirt on over my clothes... It looked a little ridiculous wearing a huge cow t-shirt with my skirt. Oh well!
Our cashier lady was super generous. The rule is if you're in full cow costume from head to toe you get a free meal and if you just have partial cow attire you can get a free sandwich. We got free meals though, even little Jimmie! I think it's because we actually tried and had spots painted on instead of stuck on with some tape from a printer like most people. Either way, we got 4 meals and made a really funny memory. Yay for our week of free food!
After lunch we decided to go bowling since our local bowling alley is doing games for $0.99. We played a few games...and I stunk. I also wasn't super good at getting pictures. Sorry! But here's one of Jim going hardcore as usual :)
Our scores?
Game 1: 1st- Carol, 2nd- Jim, 3rd- Me
Game 2: 1st- Jim, 2nd- Me, 3rd- Carol
Don't ask me for the numbers... I have no idea. I doubt I even broke 100.
Oh, and did I mention we had bumpers? So pathetic.
I also realized that this week we have now officially had Nala as a part of our family for a year. This was her, this week, a year ago. What a sweet little pup!
Here are some other pictures snapped just around the house throughout the week. We certainly don't take enough pictures of this little guy ;)
Trying some tummy time
Somebody loves me in Mt. Holly, NJ bear from Grammy!
Our little day dreamer
Tryin' to be like Daddy
Sooo cute! We sure will miss having her around here and I know this little guy will miss those loves.
Just hanging out together
Did you say something Mommy?
Just checking things out
A happy little guy for sure!
Posing
Not thrilled to be in his car seat, but I thought this picture did a good job of showing how much bigger he is!
Playing with Daddy on a rainy day
LOVES his swing. So glad we got the replacement part in the mail! Sometimes it's all that will calm him.
SOOOO BIG! (And loving Aunt Meg's blanket!)
Just looking at each other
Nala, trying to lend a hand here
Jimmie getting his bath!
6 weeks old and having a whale of a good time!
He's getting so big! This is an outfit from Jim's friend
How can you not love those big eyes? Mom was having kind of a bad morning and started feeling sorry for herself. Then she looked down at that little face...suddenly it's all better!
Nala wanted to get in on the action too. Haha!
Here's a video of trying out some tummy time. He really hates it!
We sure loved having Grammy come to visit and spoil us and our little man! It means so much that you came to visit and we will miss you for sure! Such a fun week with so many memories. We're so blessed to have such awesome and loving family in our lives.
