Again, I have Lindsay to thank for reminding me to keep people updated on what is going on with us. Thanks so much for keeping me on my toes with this, Lindsay!
J.R. will be eight months old soon! It's so hard to believe! He's done a lot of stuff in the past couple months. I'll go backwards. His newest thing is blowing spit bubbles. That just happened this past week... It's kinda funny and cute, until he tries doing it with his mushy food. The week before that, he learned how to use his finger and thumb to pick up small pieces of food to eat. He is now feeding himself the Gerber Puffs at each meal. Soon we're going to start him on well-cooked veggies to feed himself. Oh, and he's started giving slobbery baby kisses. I let him kiss my cheeks. It gets really bad when he tries to lick me at the same time... eewww!
He's babbling like crazy. He uses the 'b', 'm' and 'd' sound a lot. He uses the 'm' sound when he gets upset, so it sounds like he's calling for me. It's really cute. He uses the babababa when he's really serious and looks like he's trying really hard to get something across. Some of the faces he makes when he talks to us are absolutely priceless.
He's sitting up on his own like a champ now. He started doing it just before Christmas, and is really good at it now. Once in a while, he'll reach for a toy, and faceplant in his playpen. He's not too thrilled with that, but he's getting better about pushing himself up on his hands. He won't use his knees, and he's not crawling yet, but he's slowly working on it. However, he LOVES to be on his feet. His favorite thing to do is have someone hold his hands and "walk" him around. He uses those little legs of his very well in that regard.
J.R. got sick for the first time a few weeks ago. Luckily it was on a weekend, so Bryan was there to help. Saturday, he started with some really bad diarrhea, and Sunday, ran a fever and was subdued. Monday he felt much better and his fever had broken, but he didn't sleep well at all Monday night. Bryan and I ended up being up with him from 3:00am to 4:30am, and Bryan stayed home from work Tuesday to trade baby duties back and forth with me, since none of us was in a very good mood that day. Other than that, he's been really healthy.
He is still on the small side, though. He weighed 14 pounds, 6 ounces at his last visit in January. He weighs about 15 pounds now. I went to a bridal shower yesterday with my friend Auvery, whose son is 3.5 months old, and weighs the same as J.R. They are four months apart, and weigh the same... Definitely a sight to see. Auvery said that Trenton, her little boy is in the 95th percentile for weight at his age range, while J.R. is in the 5th. It's quite humorous. Especially when you see how much this child loves to eat. He still nurses every two hours, and gets three solid food meals a day, as well as the puffy things as a snack during and after every solid meal. I can't figure out how he doesn't put on the weight. It must just be that he is so incredibly active. Only God knows...
As far as the rest of my life goes, I AM FINALLY BACK TO MY PRE-PREGNANCY WEIGHT!!! And my pre-pregnancy pants size, too, I might add! It was SO nice to see that on the scale the other day. It's kept my mood up pretty well for the past week or so. I just hope the bridesmaid's dress that my friend Christy bought for me will still fit okay. She bought it a size bigger than I would have worn before getting pregnant. Hopefully it will look okay. Her wedding is at the end of February, she's getting married on Leap Day. I will have to be gone for a week to be able to be there for fittings and rehearsals and such, since Bryan will need the truck to get back and forth to work. Poor Bryan. I'm going to be gone that whole week, and then I'm going to Arizona during my brother's spring break from school to visit my mom and brother, and his dad. I'll be gone for a week at that time as well. So we've got to stock up on the bachelor food for him, because I know he's not going to cook for himself. At least he's good at cleaning up after himself, so I don't have to worry about coming home to a disastrous house.
My dad and I seem to be on pretty good terms lately. He's been to the house to visit three times since December, and has now moved to Jefferson City to be closer to us. I have mixed feelings about it, because I feel like he's going to be missing out on a lot of Brandon's life for being further away from him. Brandon is my adopted brother, the same age as Alexander.
Well, I think that's about it for my update. It's so amazing to see the new developments that J.R. goes through seemingly every week. He's full of smiles and laughter these days, makes my days thoroughly joyful. I love being a mom!
