Skiing and Bear Attacks

I've been trying to convince Alex to go skiing with me ever since we started dating. Finally last year, he said he'd go. Unfortunately, I was pregnant at the time, and skiing wouldn't have been the best idea. So I've been looking forward to it for an entire year. Yesterday, we finally went; my mom has been in town for the week and tended The Boy for us, and we went to Alta for a day of skiing. This is the longest we've ever left Aaron; second was when we went to see The Dark Knight about a week after he was born. Looking back, that seems crazy.

There was a huge storm yesterday. The roads were awful and it took us about two hours to drive there (normally it only takes about one). It was sooo worth it though. Because of the storm there was lots of fresh powder (and it was nice and dry, not all sticky and wet), and since it was Thursday there were hardly any people there at all. I started skiing 22 years ago (holy cow!) and this was the best snow I can remember skiing on. The snow kept falling for the first part of the afternoon, but after a while it cleared up and ended up being a gorgeous day. Freezing cold, but beautiful.

This was the first time Alex had been skiing, and he did awesome. I don't know that powder is necessarily the best snow to learn on, but Alex said it was great because it really cushioned his falls...

Me

Alex

Just to demonstrate how good the snow was: this was one of the runs. In the middle--not on the side. You may now turn green with envy.

The sun did this cool halo thing; it looked like there were two suns.

Sunset as we were getting ready to leave.

In other news, there have been reports of adorable fuzzy blue bear attacks in Provo today. The bear allegedly mauled it's victims with snuggles and grabby hands. Here is a recent picture of the bear:

5 Months

Today is Aaron's five month day. He's been here for five months. Looking back, I can't believe that it has been only five months. It seems like longer. I feel like so much has happened.

I've come to except the fact that baby time is not the same as normal time. It's like cat or dog years. One year for me is like 10 for Aaron. Five months ago I was pretty much exactly the same. He's totally different after 5 months. Anyway, here are the pictures.

Just barely home from the hospital



Taken yesterday just before bed time

Look at the difference! In just 5 months he goes from being just a little tiny head baby to big monster baby (a very cute monster baby) (these parentheses are for Jo). Also, notice his hair color. It's a lot lighter than it was in the beginning.

The previous post mentioned the last crazy sick month we've just had. For an update on that, Aaron and Jo are doing much better. I got lucky enough to escape with only a hoarse voice and mild sore throat (so far(more parentheses, can you handle this!?!)).

To any readers, forgive the silly parenthetical statements, they are for Jo. If you want to know more, see her blog.

Belated Updates

Whew, it's been a while since we updated this thing. I guess I'll do this in chronological order.

We spent Thanksgiving with my mom, stepfather, and my brothers and their families. It was great to see everyone. All of the kids had changed a lot since the last time I had seen them. We had Thanksgiving dinner the Sunday before the real Thanksgiving at my mom's house in Statesboro, GA. Then we stayed the rest of the week in some condos at Hilton Head Island, SC. It was beautiful. We were right by the beach. The trip wasn't exactly relaxing (Aaron was a little crazy; turns out he was getting sick and developing an ear infection at the same time...), but it was nice to be somewhere new and see my family.

One of the highlights of the trip was Bartender Joe. We went to a place called "The Earl of Sandwich Pub" for lunch one day. The waiter/bartender was a guy named Joe. He was bald, had a goatee, lots of tatoos, and lots of piercings. Despite his downright scary appearance, he was very friendly. Aaron started fussing a little bit while we were eating, so Joe came up and started talking to him and playing with him, and made him smile. He even held him for a few minutes (he really wanted to); he said that although he doesn't look like it, he loves babies and wants to "eat up their little cheeks" (or something like that). It was so funny. I only wish we had gotten a picture.

Aaron at the airport in Savannah, looking pretty tired.

The view from the balcony at Hilton Head. The ocean was just beyond the trees.

 

Alex chilling with our nephew Todd.

Grandma Elaine with cute babies Derek and Aaron; Derek is only a month younger than Aaron.

When we got home, we took Aaron to the doctor. He said he had a sore throat, but that there wasn't anything we could do except give him Tylenol. Two days later he was getting worse--coughing, throwing up, sounding really congested, not eating--so we took him again. Again, the doctor said we'd just have to let the cold take it's course, but now he also had a full blown ear infection. Personally, I suspect he had been developing the ear infection for a while; he's been acting extra fussy since about a month ago, and at his four month check up the doctor said he had some fluid in his ear but he didn't think it needed to be treated. Bah! Next time I'm just going to insist on antibiotics at the first sign of redness in his ears. 

Aaron, the day we took him to the doctor, in a crazy outfit.

Anyway, we were also told not to give Aaron any more Tylenol for a few days, since he had been on it for a week already. Poor little guy. On top of everything, I got sick too. This is really the worst cold I've had in a very long time. And the only thing worse than taking care of a sick baby is taking care of a sick baby with an ear infection who can't have Tylenol while you're sick. Alex has been the best though; he spent his whole day off the Monday after we got back, and the next Friday, AND all weekend taking care of Aaron so I could rest most of the day. I don't know how I got so lucky. I hope I feel better tomorrow, though, because it's back to the grind. But I'm optimistic; Aaron seems to be doing better and I'm entering the having-to-blow-your-nose-every-five-seconds stage of the cold, which usually means that the end is in sight.

We also got visits from my dad and Alex's mom last week. That was fun. Alex's mom was only here for a few minutes, though, but it was still nice to see her.

Aaron with Grandpa Sorensen

Playing with Grandpa.

In other Aaron news, he has recently discovered his feet and how delicious they are. I'm not exaggerating when I say we have been looking forward to him eating his feet for a year!

Mmmm, feet...

And finally, there's the business of NaNoWriMo. Yeah, about that. We did it the first two days, but that's when Aaron's mysterious (ear-achey) fussiness began. We could've done it if we had more waking hours, but we decided that 20 was enough...

Solid (Well, Sort Of) Food

Tonight Aaron ate his first solid (if you can call extremely runny rice cereal solid) food. It was quite exciting. He actually did pretty well with it--a lot better than I was expecting. He didn't seem to mind the taste too much; it was mostly the spoon he didn't seem to like. I have no idea if I was doing it right, though. I just kinda stuck the spoon a little bit in his mouth and half-let him suck on it and half-poured the cereal into his mouth. And of course it got all over him. But isn't that the point of feeding babies anything besides milk?

Mmmmm, single-grain rice cereal from a spoon...

The rice cereal aftermath

He has become quite the renaissance baby. He's eaten breast milk, a variety of baby formulas, diluted apple juice, and rice cereal; and he's eaten from a breast, a bottle, a little tube on a finger, and now, a spoon.

Halloween

On Halloween, I made Dinner In a Pumpkin. This has long been a tradition in my family. However, up until just a couple years ago, my mom always used a recipe that was, well, gross. Luckily, she recently tried some different recipes that gave new life to Dinner In a Pumpkin and saved the tradition from certain doom. Last year I made it myself for the first time from a recipe I found on the internet. It was pretty yummy, so I made it again this year from the same recipe (I omitted the mushrooms though):

Dinner In a Pumpkin

1 med. size pumpkin, topped and cleaned out
1 lb. ground beef, browned and drained
1 pkg. UNCLE BEN'S® long and wild rice, fixed according to directions
1 can mushrooms or 1 c. fresh mushrooms
1 can cream of mushroom soup

Combine ingredients and put in pumpkin. Put top on pumpkin. Place pumpkin on cookie sheet in oven preheated to 350 degrees. Bake for 2 hours.

Serve dinner in pumpkin. May use pumpkin as vegetable and serve with butter and brown sugar or honey. Do not open pumpkin while baking or it will expand and top will not fit on pumpkin again.

The night before, we carved pumpkins. Here's a picture of our masterpieces:

After putting Aaron to bed (he wore his costume for about half an hour), we had dinner, handed out candy, and finished out the evening eating Muddy Buddies and watching Simpson's Treehouse of Horror.

Baby Bond Movies

(Read this post after the one below it, I know poor planning on our part.)

So, once we figured out that Aaron's costume was going to be more bond than vamp, I started thinking of bond movie names that could be modified with the word 'baby'. For example, the upcoming bond movie would be Quantum of Baby, instead of Quantum of Solace.

Here are the rest for your viewing pleasure. Be warned though, some aren't that great:
Dr. Baby
From Russia with Baby
Babyfinger
Thunderbaby
On Her Baby's Secret Service
Babies Are Forever
Live and Let Baby
The Baby with the Golden Pacifier
The Baby Who Loved Me
For Baby Eyes Only
Octobaby
A View to a Baby
The Living Babylights
License to Baby
BabyEye
Baby Never Dies
The Baby is Not Enough
Baby Another Day
Baby Royale

Quantum of Baby

Last year at Halloween, we looked around at the costumes at the Halloween store at the mall. There were so many cute little baby costumes. Of course this year, now that we actually have a baby, they didn't seem as cute. 

I decided since there weren't any cute pre-made costumes, I would make Aaron's costume. I figured a little vampire would be cute; I just had to find a black onesie and sew on some white fabric for a shirt and make a little cape. Then we'd slick his hair back, draw on a little widow's peak, and voila! Vampire baby. To make it even better, Alex and I would paint little bite marks on our necks and be the vampire baby's victims.

Imagine my excitement when, as I was shopping for footie pajamas (3 months old and needs 9 month pajamas??? But that's a post for another day...), I came across a little tuxedo sleeper thingamabob. It didn't look like the cutest thing in the world, but it would be a whole lot easier than making something similar from scratch. Now all I would have to do is make a little cape and we'd be set.

Unfortunately, the cape never got made. I didn't make it to the fabric store and the Halloween party we were going to started in half an hour. We figured the little suit would still be ok just by itself.

However, once we got it on him, it was waaay cuter than it looked on the hanger, and we knew he wasn't a vampire baby. He was Bond. Baby Bond. And he put Daniel Craig to shame.

The ladies just can't stay away from Baby Bond

In the clutches of his arch nemesis, Daddy No

Heading to the poker table

"Milk Martini. Shaken, not stirred."

In the BMW stroller

A little hung over after a night of partying and womanizing

This one was just too funny not to include

NaNoWriMo

Question: What do Jo and Alex do for fun when they have very little free time?

Answer: Write novels, of course!

November is National Novel Writing Month, and we've decided to join the ranks of the lunatics who attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. It's going to be crazy. And awesome. And everyone that reads this should do it with us.

If, at the end of all this, you are interested in reading our masterpieces, just check us out on the New York Time's Bestseller list sometime next year.

Speaking of pictures...

Here's a cute one of Aaron in the bath.

That is all.

The Daily Jo

Despite the fact that this is called the "Jo and Alex" blog, we all know it's really the "Aaron and Sometimes His Parents" blog. So, to save any grandparents/interested parties from having to read spiels about Max Payne or the like when really all they want to see is pictures of the baby, I've created my own separate blog. Originally the idea was to post something every day (thus the title) just to get me writing every day, but I don't know that I'm actually going to have time to do daily posts. But, too bad, the title stands.

Night Of The Living Baby

Aaron and I have been having some breastfeeding issues. To make a long story short, after weeks of fussing and refusal on his part and lots of pain and frustration on my part, we finally visited a lactation consultant (twice in one week, actually, but that's beside the point). Among other things, the consultant suspected that we might be having a yeast problem. To effectively treat this kind of yeast infection, both mother and baby must be treated, as it can go back and forth between them. She recommended using something called Gentian Violet for four to seven days; all that is required is to paint the baby's mouth with it then nurse, then voila, pain gone! Sounded simple enough.

So Saturday night, after Aaron's bath, we give it a try. I dip a Q-tip into the Gentian Violet and swab Aaron's mouth with it, letting him suck on it for a few seconds, just like the instructions the lactation person gave me said to do. Aaron's tongue starts going crazy--in Alex's words, "like a dog with peanut butter in his mouth"--and he starts gagging a little, presumably because the Gentian Violet tastes nasty. I look at the bottle and see a funny little note: "Keep out of the reach of children. If swallowed, get medical help or contact a Poison Control Center right away."

Great...

Alex and I start panicking. Alex runs to get his cell phone and the number for Poison Control. I think there might have been some profanity involved, but I don't really remember because I was a little preoccupied by my own profanity and the fact that I had just poisoned my child. 

Alex comes back in with Poison Control on the line. Aaparently everything will be ok. Oral medications have strict standards, the Poison Control guy says, and whoever makes Gentian Violet just didn't want to adhere with them, ergo the warning. And Gentian Violet works great for yeast, he adds.

Needless to say, that was the end of the Gentian Violet experiment. 

There was one side effect, however: apparently Gentian Violet turns babies into zombies. Luckily, after a day or two of Aaron having a purple mouth and exclaiming "BRAINS!" (I can only assume that's what his goos and gaas meant),  the effects wore off. Now everything is back to normal, with the small exception of one pair of permanently purple footie pajamas.

Here are a few pictures of Zombie Aaron. These are actually from the morning after the craziness, so his mouth is actually quite a bit less purple than it was. Notice the purple jammies and the purple fists...

Aaron's Blessing, Take 2

Two weeks ago, on August 31, was Aaron's baby blessing. It was a great day; we had a wonderful time and were very happy that so many of our family and friends were able to come. Unfortunately, in all the hubbub of the day, we forgot to take pictures (d'oh!). I felt really sad about that (and I still do, a little). I mean, what kind of a mom forgets to take pictures on her baby's blessing day? Well, I've accepted that the kind of mom that forgets is the tired, distracted, hostess-bein' mom, so I guess I'm ok.

But I still wanted pictures. So this morning, two weeks later, we staged a few "blessing day" pictures. Aaron has been growing so fast, I could barely get his little outfit on. In fact, the neck of his shirt was a too small for his head; it scraped his face a little when I put it on, and he started crying. :-( He's ok though. It's a good thing we finally got around to taking those pictures though--a day later and I wouldn't have been able to get the clothes on at all!

So without further ado, here are some pictures of the little guy, mommy, and daddy:

And here's one of the back porch, still all set up for the party. Today, however, our only guest was Leia...

So there you have it. If anyone happens to have any pictures from the actual day, feel free to send them to us :-)

First Haircut

Thursday was Aaron's two month birthday. To celebrate, we decided to give him a haircut. His first haircut ever. Who has ever heard of a two-month-old needing a haircut? 

Here are some before pictures:

And after (not too bad for someone who has never cut anyone's hair before--especially not a wiggly baby's): 

Two Months

Aaron had his two month checkup today. At the baby checkups they do some measurements. I thought that I'd share them with you. He is 12 lbs 11 oz and 25.25 inches tall! I thought he'd weight a bit more than that but he is still in the 75% for his weight. But get this, his height.... 97% percentile!!!! What? Where'd that come from? I'm 5'7"... why didn't I get any 97% percentile height?

Another way to look at it: he has grown almost 5 inches in less than 2 months! (Redundancy incoming alert)...... WHAT? All I can say is that babies are crazy. Or at least my baby is crazy.

Another thing they did at this check up were his two month vaccinations. Boy, was that fun! He was so upset for hours, his legs (where the injections were administered) got a little red and puffy, needless to say it was a frightening day for under-warned, first time parents.

After some baby Tylenol, mommy cuddles, an exploding diaper, and finally some food he settled down and was pretty happy for the rest of the day. What a relief when he finally started being happy and smiling again.

Here are my two favorite pictures from today. He was showing off his new favorite activity.

Guilty Pleasures 2: The Fall of Ice Princess

In light of the insight presented in Alex's comment, I am amending my previous post: instead of watching Ice Princess, I will be watching the Max Payne movie. I can't wait to see Marky Mark as the title character. 

Now I must go and play Max Payne and Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne in preparation.

  

Guilty Pleasures

I'm not particularly in touch with pop culture. I know about things like The Dark Knight, Harry Potter, and Oprah. Those, and whatever current fashion trends I glean (and sometimes laugh at) from my monthly fix of InStyle magazine. So it's not surprising that I didn't know about Twilight until the third installment was out; the hairdressers were talking about it while I was getting my hair dyed last year, in case you were wondering how it happened.

Now, I don't really consider myself a slave to fashion, but I must admit when millions of people are reading the same book, I get a little curious about it. So I read it. And scratched my head. And wondered why on earth this particular book was so popular. I mean, it was okay I guess, but I didn't understand why anyone who wasn't a thirteen-year-old girl would like it so much. It just didn't appeal to me, because not only am I not thirteen, I'm also not really what you'd call a romantic (and the book is basically Romance Novel Jr.).

That said, I am now for some reason intrigued by it again. Maybe it's because of the movie version that's coming out soon, or maybe because I recently discovered that an aunt of mine, who happens to be a remarkably intelligent and well read person, loves the series. So part of me wants to read the other books. Another part of me, however, doesn't want to get sucked in again only to be disappointed again. That part of me remembers the last time I read something--The DaVinci Code--just because it was popular only to discover how abysmal it was.

What to do? Do I give in to my curiosity and read the other books, or do I spend my very precious and rare spare time reading something that I'm pretty sure is actually good (and that I already own)? Or do I just disregard others' guilty pleasure and indulge my own? Perhaps the last option is the way to go. Ice Princess, here I come.

Real Person Clothes, Rolling Over, and Other Milestones

Today I took Aaron shopping for the first time by myself. Real shopping, at the mall and everything. I was worried about taking the stroller; I wasn't sure if it would fit in any dressing rooms (it's one of those gigantic travel system strollers) and I was afraid I might be the only one there with a big baby tank. Silly me, did I forget that I live in Provo? Of course there were thousands of people pushing strollers around the mall--half of them much larger than mine (to accommodate multiple stroller-aged children). And, with a little finagling, the stroller managed to fit in every dressing room I used. 

Anyway, on to the point. I got real person clothes. That aren't maternity clothes. That actually fit. Including shirts. Granted, they're not exactly the same size as I wore pre-pregnancy, but they're real clothes. No elastic panels or bands in the pants, and the shirts are remarkably un-tent-like. I think they will do nicely while I work on getting back to my normal size.

After I got home, it was time for Aaron to have a little "belly time." He did his usual routine: lay there for a minute after I turned him onto his stomach, started wiggling and moving his head around while making little squeaks and grunts, then began getting upset and ready to cry by the end. I was about to turn him back over when he just turned himself over. He had been threatening to do it since we got him home from the hospital (he's pretty strong), but it still took me by surprise. It was quite exciting.

   

Sleepy Baby

Yesterday was not a good day for sleeping for Aaron. He usually has three substantial naps during the day; yesterday he had one and a half. Needless to say, by the end of the day he was exhausted and fussy. After having some food, a bath, and lots of cuddling, he finally went to sleep at around 11.

And he slept the whole night.

And not for just the four or five hours that people call "sleeping through the night"; he slept for seven and a half hours. Whoa. Not only that, but after a diaper change and a feeding, he went BACK to sleep--before we could even get a burp out.

Now if only he'd sleep that much every night. For the rest of his life. That would be awesome

One Month

Today, Aaron is one month old. I can't believe it's only been a month. I know babies go through big changes as they grow older, especially in the first few months / first year. But I was not expecting this. Here is a quick overview of his weight these past few weeks.

Day 1: 9 lbs 12 oz
Day 12: 9 lbs 2 oz
Day 31: 11 lbs 12 oz

Whoa! Two pounds in about two weeks. That is a > 20% increase in weight in just two and a half weeks. I wonder if you can feed newborns too much food. It's on my list of questions for the pediatrician next time we visit.

Anyway, here's the part you all wanna see. One month pictures:

A funny picture I caught

A smiley picture