Wilderness (ish)

We went camping. It was awesome. I could just end this post there, but then what would I do with myself for the next 20 minutes while Little J is sleeping? Clean? Yeah, right.

We went up Provo Canyon a bit to Big Springs Park and then walked up the trail a little ways to a nice little camp spot. We went with some friends which made it even more fun. We made a fire, set up camp and made some s'mores. Little J loved it. He really likes being outside and he got to spend all evening on a nice blanket outside, looking at a fire. He got absolutely filthy though! We need to get that boy some shoes, because his white socks were (and still are, after a trip through the laundry) a nice sooty black.

He grabbed the camera about 1.3 seconds
after I took this photo. Phew!

He did great at night. We zipped our two sleeping bags together and Little J and I slept in there while Big J roughed it with a down comforter. It got into the mid-30s but I was nice and toasty. It was like sleeping next to a space heater. Big J was a bit cold all night long. Poor guy. Luckily we have a great tent that kept the chill away pretty well. Little J romped around the tent and thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread. We played lots of peek-a-boo, and he was giggling a LOT. He got pretty tired at the end of the night and only woke up once. Boo-yah!

We made some french toast for breakfast and Little J had yogurt with a nice smoky flavor. In fact, I think all of us were a little smoky flavored by the time we left. We packed up camp and put all our gear in the back of the Subie Tetris-style and it was back to the real world. It was great to be out in the fresh air, with hummingbirds zooming around while we ate breakfast, and a nice little brook bubbling by all night long.

He's wearing two pairs of pants, socks, his
long-sleeved pajama shirt, and a hoodie.
At least he wasn't cold, right??

Man, some day we're going to live in a tree house in the wilderness and cook all our food over an open flame. Food just tastes better that way. Also, food always tastes better when you eat it outside. Don't believe me? Try it with watermelon. I guarantee you it tastes waaaay better and is waaaay juicier if you eat it outside.

The only thing I missed about not being in our apartment was access to a bath. Little J has an innate ability to get dirt EVERYWHERE (in between his fingers, up his nose, in his ears, etc.), and sometimes no amount of wipes can render him presentable. Next time we'll rig a little sun shower so we can get him clean before bed time. I have a feeling that once we get him naked (his favorite state of being) in the wilderness (his favorite place) there'll be no clothing him again, and he'll run off to become a wild baby raised by coyotes. Ah well, maybe we'll join him.

Dr. No

Well, guess what. Little J learned his first word. Wanna know what it is? Of course you do! It's, "NO!"

Since he's been crawling all over the house, he's been getting into things that he shouldn't be (potted plants, kitchen cabinets, craft supply boxes, potted plants again, the TOILET! Yuck.) we've been telling him, "No thank you!" and removing him from the situation. I think that he thinks that we're just providing a narrative to his adventure and not actually disciplining him, because now he'll do those same things and say "no" while shaking his head. It's SO adorable, yet SO frustrating. Wait, I think that sums up all of my feelings about parenting up to this point.

But, if I'm trying to give him another bite, and he's done eating, he'll also say "no", so that's what makes me think that he's grasping what the word means. I tried to capture this phenomenon on camera, but alas, Little J is not a performing baby. He does shake his head a few times though!

Aaaaaand we're back!

Hi friends! It's been a while, so I figured you would like to know what our wee little family's been up to. Here it is in a nutshell:

Well, first of all, none of us are employed at the moment. We're tried farming out Little J to day labour stuff, but so far, no one's hired him. It's probably because instead of harvesting strawberries, he'd just eat them all. Big J was laid off a while back and we've been looking for a job ever since. No such luck so far. The silver lining is that Big J can stay home all day with the rest of us, and we're having a blast. We spend a lot of time at the park, in the woods and in the car.

What a good snoozer.

We took a super awesome trip to the Northwest to visit some family and look for some jobs. Although the jobs portion of the trip was pretty much kaput, we LOVED spending time with the family. We went to the zoo, Pike's Place, the beach, and spent a lot of time playing pass-the-baby. Little J did great in the car (ish).
He got really wiggly and drives that usually took us 6 hours ended up taking us 8. But it was ok with us.

He also learned how to be mobile while we were away, and that has been wreaking a little bit of havoc with our diaper-changing routine. Now he thinks it's hilarious to flip over while I'm changing his diaper and crawl away as fast as he can. Only once has he peed while doing this; as much of a surprise to him as it was to me. It has taken me holding down his legs with my forearms and Big J making silly faces at him for me to even dream about getting a new diaper on him. I've also gotten pretty good at putting diapers on him while he's standing.

It's moments like this where I expect him to suddenly
start speaking in full sentences.

Now we're back home and doing some adventuring. We got a baby backpack (not one for the baby to carry, one to carry the baby in) and Little J loves going for walks. We got an Osprey Poco Plus, and it's AWESOME! For those of you looking to get a backpack, make sure to include this one in your line-up. Check it out here. Although he has a tendency to snooze while in it.

Since Little J is mobile now, we've started baby-proofing our home. We moved our knife set from ground level to the countertop and we're having to vacuum a lot more often. It's incredible that after you sweep, vacuum and then mop, your child still finds that one piece of icky stuff on the ground and puts it in their mouth. I've been following Little J around the house, making sure he doesn't ingest anything dangerous. Speaking of that, I found one of my little pearl earrings in his diaper the other day. Apparently he ate it and it passed through his system just fine. Oops. I'm a little reticent to wear it again, even after thoroughly cleaning it.

We're making some big life decisions right now. We want to live in one place for a long time to raise our children, and we're deciding where that's going to be. That's kind of a big deal. If you know where that's supposed to be, please clue us in. Thanks.

"Wait, Mr. Brown moos? I thought only cows mooed."

Send in the wipes!

Please direct your attention to his mouth
and hands.

Well, it happened. Little J made his first mess. I was working on a project on the computer and he was on the ground, playing with my makeup bag (his new favorite toy). I looked over and he was waving my mascara around in the air, and when I looked over again, he had unscrewed it, poked himself in the face with it, and gotten it all over his hands and his book. I was astounded! I had no idea he knew how to unscrew things! So, like a good mom, I didn't clean him up immediately, but instead took a picture. His tongue wasn't black, so I don't think he ate any. But then again, he did kind of have that smug, cat-who-ate-the-canary look on his face.

After wiping him all up, I gave him the mascara again to see if it was just a fluke that he had gotten it unscrewed. It wasn't. He's also learned to pull the caps off of pens. Sure it makes a lot of messes, but I love to see him learn like crazy.

The inventor of baby wipes should get a Nobel prize. I love them. We go through MANY MANY wipes a day because, like me, Little J is a lap-feeder. He gets food in his hair, armpits, nose, etc.

I'd love to hear about your baby's (or yours, I don't judge) messy moments!

Food, Glorious Food!

So Little J has been eating lots of solid (that word is misleading in this context) food lately and he really seems to have been liking it, until about a week ago. I swear, babies wait until you get into a rhythm and then *BAM* they decide to completely change their behavior.

Here he is looking very pleased with
his ability to control his mother.

I wanted to make sure he was eating SUPER good-for-you food so I was making all of his baby food - peas, carrots, squash, avocados, yams, etc., but now he won't even look at it. You know what he will eat? Baby food from the store. Here I am, slaving away over my mini food processor, and Little J just turns his nose up at it. I'm not going to give up yet though. I'll still puree lots of stuff for him until he gets more teeth and is able to eat table food.

For a while, all he wanted to eat was blueberry greek yogurt and avocados. I tried giving him avocados again the other day and he barfed. Nice. I even bought one of those mesh baggies you put food in and they just gum it and get the mushy bits out, but he lost interest in it after about five minutes.

But through all of this confusing not-eating-a-rama-lama-thing, he seems to be no worse for wear. He still poops a lot and is still a happy, giggly baby. In fact, this morning, every time I made an 'O' face at him, he could NOT stop laughing. And that made me laugh, and my laughing made Little J laugh even more, and we were a mess of giggles.

Yes, that is Desitin he's playing with. No, he does not
prefer to play with baby toys. 

He is SO close to crawling. I haven't really been encouraging him to crawl because that means I have to baby-proof my home, and I have a LOT to do there. He'll get up on his hands and knees and rock and he'll scoot himself backward, but the forward thing is really mystifying him. I think today we'll spend some quality time together on the floor sorting this thing out.

Now that he's a lot more mobile, he spends a lot more time smacking his head into stuff. I put him on the floor the other day in front of the vacuum so he could make friends with it (he's still terrified of it), and he started to pull himself up on it. As I'm sure you know, vacuums aren't made to withstand full-frontal baby lunges, so it toppled over and Little J ended up on top of it, spread-eagle. He looked pretty confused about how he got in that position, and then decided he was NOT ok with it and let me know that via ear-piercing squeals and screams.

The only thing he's successfully (read: without whacking his head or falling over) pulled himself up on is the coffee table. I think he has a somewhat permanent bruise on the left side of his head, but at least he's learning!

Rub-a-dub-dub!

The resemblance is uncanny, no?

Bath time is Little J's favorite time of the day hands down (splashing around, most likely). So the other day while he was in the bath, I decided to see what he would look like with hair. The following pictures are the fruits of my labors.

I tried to do a Bob Ross 'do, but the structural integrity of the bubbles just wouldn't allow it.

I know, I know, I got the spikes a bit in the wrong spot.
Nevertheless, "RUFIO, RUFIO, RU-FI-OOOOOOOH!!!"

He thought the whole thing was rather funny and didn't mind a bit. Also, he took Big J's toothbrush with him everywhere that day, so hence it being in the bathtub as well. Don't worry - we sanitized it afterward.

I think tonight we'll try Captain Picard. Maybe some Princess Leia if he doesn't mind looking like a girl.

Oh! Speaking (well writing, really) of looking like a girl, I was in a checkout line a couple of days ago and this cute little old lady called Little J "Princess"! I didn't have the heart to tell her she was wrong, but it was fairly obvious he was a boy. He was wearing a while onesie and a blue hat and had his blue blanket with him. I mean, if you're going to hazard a guess in that situation, go with boy.

Anyway, I'm over it.

Any other suggestions of bubble hairdos I can subject upon my son?

These are a few of my favorite things...

Although I doubt any of these things would make you feel better if you were bit by a dog or stung by a bee.

1. Mine isn't exactly like this, but it's
the closest picture I could find.

A few days ago my friend Charisse asked me what things I thought were essential after I had a baby. That got me to thinking about the baby products (stuff for babies, not stuff made out of babies) that I liked or found unnecessary. These are things that worked for Little J and I, so the list in your head is probably different - feel free to share what you think in the comments.

1. Changing table. I LOVE my changing table. It's nice and tall (because both Big J and I are tall) and it's sturdy and holds a TON of stuff. I put his extra wipes and diapers, Desitin, baby powder, shampoo, socks, burp cloths, nursing pads, and lotion in it. There was also some room left over for some other random stuff like a box of envelopes and my extra purse. I don't like changing diapers on the ground, so this is my favorite piece of furniture.

2. Sweet relief.

2. Bouncy chair. I love putting Little J in this while I shower, change the laundry, waste time on Facebook, etc. It has a light-up waterfall and a couple songs it cycles through so it can keep him entertained for quite a while. Although he's kinda getting sick of it now. He tries to sit up in it whenever I put him in it, and he ends up whacking himself in the face with the arch. It's both funny and sad.

3. Rocking chair. It's really nice that I have a designated area that I nurse Little J that's comfortable and moving. He likes begin held when he's sick and it's nice that I can sit in the rocker and be comfortable myself.

WARNING! I TALK ABOUT BOOBS NEXT, SO IF THAT WEIRDS YOU OUT, MOVE ON TO NUMBER 6.

4. Phillips Avent Twin Electric
Breast Pump. Or as I like to call it -
AWESOMENESS!

4. A really nice breast pump. I tried a manual one and then a single side electric pump, but they were terrible at sucking. Wait. I mean they sucked. Aw, never mind. You get my drift. I learned that if you get what you pay for when you buy a breast pump, so I had to spend a bit more than I wanted, but it was worth it. I pump twice a day for Little J's cereal, and this baby gets it done in about 3 minutes. I wish that I had had it in the beginning.

5. Nursing pillow. It's so nice to not have to use sixteen pillows all stacked up in the crotch of the couch to get your baby to boob level. I bought the knock-off version; not the Boppy, and it works just fine. Although I did use a Boppy the other day and I liked it a bit better. I wish I had brought it to the hospital. I'm learning lots of things that I will implement with our next child.

6. The Infantino Breathe carrier.
It's inexpensive and Little J likes
it much better than screaming
his brains out. 

6. Baby carrier. Sometimes Little J will not stand being put down, so I plop him in the baby carrier and go about my business. It's made life SO much easier. We've been hiking with it, and it also works when I'm just cleaning up the house. I have a Moby-style wrap that a friend of mine gave me that I really like too.

7. iPod touch. I can't tell you how many games of pocket baseball I've played while nursing James. I find it awkward to read a book or crochet or do anything very creative with my hands while I'm nursing, so the iPod has saved my life. I can't stand sitting in the rocking chair with nothing to do, so I browse the Interwebs, read the news, check my email and the weather, and play baseball. I also enjoy the app Temple Run. I think Little J gets a little concerned when I suddenly shout or yell at the game. I can also read on it, so I get in my daily scriptures, a magazine or the Onion News Network.

Isn't this pillow INCREDIBLE??!?

Well, there you have it. The seven things that I cannot live without, now that we're living with a baby.

Also, while I was looking for pictures of the products that I love, I found this product to the left. I want one. Like, yesterday. My giant swollen pregnant body would have loved it, and my post-partum broken body would love it now. It's like a husband, but without all the wiggling and extra body heat.