five months big

jacob has done a lot of things in his short life... he has moved across the country, been on countless road trips, gone to a concert, started eating solids, slept through the night, and grown so much. i think about where we were five months ago and so much has changed. even looking at pictures of him from several weeks ago makes me realize how quickly he is maturing and learning.

i have the privelege of working for a doctor from home in order to stay with jakey. when i go into the office to work, i get to take jakey with me.  today we measured him.  he was 18 pounds on the nose (50th percentile) and 27.75 inches long (98th percentile). i'd say he takes after mommy and daddy with those stats!

he started eating rice cereal a couple of weeks ago.  the first couple of times i mixed it in a bottle with expressed milk, and he thought it was alright.  a few days in, after he grabbed my fork at dinner and tried to put it in his mouth, i decided to try the cereal in a bowl.  he started eating from that spoon like he has been doing nothing but that his whole life. it was pretty amazing to watch.  he barely even spits any back out.  and he LOVES it. he screams when the bowl is empty even when i make him a large portion. we bought an avocado at the grocery store today and as soon as it is ripe we will try that out and see what he thinks. hopefully i can get a picture of the face he makes when he tries it, whether it is a happy face or disgusted one.

he is an ace at rolling from his stomach to back, to the point where he refuses to participate in tummy time any longer.  he can almost turn from his back to front, but will only do so if he is trying to reach an object just over his shoulder.

he has been to a concert in lawrence (david nail) and a football game (trinity vs. independent). he loves other babies, especially his cousins.  he laughs all the time, especially at blondes. (this could be a problem later in life.) he is starting to really pay attention to the cats and LOVES to watch the fish in the tank.

i seriously love this guy. and he is the coolest kid around.

that totally made my thursday

on the way to work this morning jeremy said "do people whistle at you all day long?" i said "no" and he said "that surprises me."

then when he dropped me off he rolled down the car window and gave me a big wolf-whistle.

man i love him.

family photos

we were able to get jeremy and bryce in the same city for more than thirty minutes this past weekend, so we took a family photo.  good thing, because the last one was when jeremy and i still lived in california!

obviously there has been an awfully cute addition to the family since then... and i dont mean bryce's beard.  :D

cousin time!

now that we are back in kansas, jakey gets to spend more time with both of our families.  all of his cousins were a big part of our decision to come home. last weekend we all got together to celebrate two birthdays.  since our last cousins picture there has been an addition - that wee little wildcat on andrew's lap.

love these kids!

road trippin...

embarking on a 1600+mile, three day car trip with a ten week old baby is not for the faint of heart. thankfully my mom and i have strong tickers. for the move from connecticut to kansas, jeremy and max drove the uhaul and my mom and i took the car and the baby. thankfully jacob is a fantastic child and slept most of the time in the car. we had to stop every couple hours for him to eat and for us girls to stretch. the first day we were on the road for 11 hours through CT, NY (got lost in the bronx - what an experience!), NJ, PA, MD, WV, and VA. that hotel room was SO welcome! after we ate dinner we fell asleep and jakey slept for NINE hours. he has never done that before! we woke up in the morning and headed to nashville to see anna. we slept at her house that night. i got to rub the baby belly and see their house and all the fun projects she has been blogging about in person. very fun.

 the last day of the trip was the longest and hardest. the garmin took us through some backwoods way to get to wichita, which would have shaved considerable amounts of time off the trip, had a VERY important bridge not been out. so instead, we were lost in the wilds of KY and IL. thankfully my mom has a small obsession with maps and atlases, and was able to successfully navigate us back to civilization.

we finally made it home at 11pm on the fourth of july.  we were able to watch several firework displays from the highway between emporia and wichita which was fun - avoid the crowds, noise and bugs! jeremy and max were waiting for us at home. we have never been happier to be OUT of the CAR!

fishin' trip

 about a month ago we took jakey out to guilford for his first fishing trip. he fell asleep and hung out on the dock with me while jeremy and max walked around the pond to try and catch something. max caught a turtle (i think thats because he was wearing a teenage mutant ninja turtles shirt) but neither boy caught any fishes.

 there was a veeeerrrrry friedly duck that hopped up on the dock with me and hung out within touching distance for about ten minutes. she even tried to eat jakeys blanket. the tail of it was hanging out of the car seat and she grabbed it, prolly thinking it was something tasty.

it was a fun trip until we got the news that bryce was in the hospital with head trauma. thankfully he is now recovering and back at home, but it kinda put an end to the free spirits of the day.

my water boy

jakey has loved the water since birth. as soon as his cord fell off and he could take a bath he has been showering with me and loving every second. he has had a couple of baths in the sink and sits there like a king in a hot tub. its no surprise that he loved being in the pool too!

being in the pool really wears a body out, you know?

we're coming home!

jeremy, jakey and i are moving to wichita! really really soon!

we gave our notice a couple of weeks ago and i am finished working this friday. saturday my mom, jakey and i are leaving groton and heading to wichita via nashville. jeremy and max are driving the uhaul and going a different route. by july 4th we will all be home, safe and sound.

the bad part is that jeremy has to fly back to connecticut and work for the rest of july.

the great news is that i already have a part time, work from home job. very happy about that. i miss my baby when i am working.

it was all kinda sudden, but we are happy that jakey will get to grow up with his cousins and family. and we are happy that we get to be near all of our family too.

soooo. how excited are you? cant wait to reconnect with all of my wichita/kansas friends. if anyone has a cute house for rent next door, let me know! :)

uncle max!

both boys in their plaid shorts!

uncle max has been staying with us since june 1 and watching the baby while i am working. so far so good - he even managed to change a diaper (and got the full fire hose effect, poor guy). he is quickly becoming a jiggling expert and jakey doesnt give him too hard of a time.

8 Weeks? You've GOT to be Kidding!

 i cant believe it has been eight weeks already since we had jakey. everyone who is a parent knows how fast the time flies. it is getting hard to remember the almost six years of life jeremy and i had together before this kid! he started smiling at people on his seven week birthday: me first, then daddy, then uncle max. he still hasnt smiled at rumpy or cricket. :)

also on his seven week birthday he slept 6 hours straight at night! he has done that one other time since, and i love it. otherwise he is pretty good about sleeping four or so hours, waking up, eating, and going straight back to sleep for a few more hours. i am getting over the zombie stage of motherhood, and very happy about that.

he got his first set of shots today and didnt cry too much. of course he only got two shots instead of all the usuals because we declined several of the vaccines. the doctor said that even the kids who get the rotovirus vaccine get rotovirus - what's the point then? he has been extra fussy this afternoon but sleeping most of the time thankfully.

he gained about two pounds in the last month and grew and inch and a half - 23.5 inches and 12 lbs, 11 oz. He is in the 75th percentile for height and weight. He talks and looks and does everything that a two month old is supposed to be doing!

parental visit: second set

shortly after my mom left, jeff and barb arrived! they came bearing k-state gifts, which are ALWAYS welcome in our little connecticut house! :) jakey loves wearing his k-state socks all the time. darci also sent some adorable little onsies with john deere stuff embroidered on them. LOVE!

we spent a lot of time with them exploring the area and trying some new restaurants (and some old standards).

it was great to spend time with them. we got to eat at mystic pizza, and barb amazed me by being able to tell me what year she went and saw the movie, who she went with and the plot.  That movie came out in 1988! i cant even remember what i wore yesterday until i do the laundry... (mommy brain at its finest).

the parental visit

 my parents arrived very very early in the morning on may 9 - our first baby visitors! we spent a lot of time just hanging out with them holding the baby, but we also made it out to eat on the water a few times. dog watch in stonington is at a marina and the sun was setting as we ate - beautiful!

 my mom bought jakey a mini swing. it took him a few days to get used to it but now he loves it. he also loves his sophie the giraffe. (seriously this toy is amazing - an international sensation!)

on saturday mark and lanelle brought carly and ava to come a see the baby. the girls were more interested in the cats than the baby but it was a wonderful time to catch up and hang out. 

 my mom spent lots of time holding the baby, smelling the baby, rocking the baby and changing the baby.  cricket got in on some of the action too.

my first mother's day

Jeremy brought me starbucks in bed. that started the day out right! then we got all dressed up and he took jacob and me out to eat at a favorite seafood place by the water: s&p oyster. we had to wait over an hour during which i had to change his little diaper twice, but he slept other than that in his car seat. he also slept all through the meal. basically he was a perfect angel. everyone who passed by commented on how cute he was and wished me happy first mothers day.

the food was great and i got to spend time with my two favorite boys. i couldnt have asked for a more perfect first mothers day!

wanna see what we made?

Jakey is one week old today.

here's a short clip of him in the hospital at one day old:

daddy took that video while mommy was sleeping.

here is jakey hanging with me today (1 week old!) while daddy went back to work. you can hear his little snorts (the reason he is often called mr. snorty pants), his baby sneezes, and see a smile. i know it isnt a "real" smile yet, but man oh man is it still cute!!!

{i have been trying unsuccessully to upload this video since tuesday. i am going to try it in the next post. }

book review: endgame

Endgame: Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall- from America's Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness

by Frank Brady

from the back: Endgame is acclaimed biographer Frank Brady's decades-in-the-making tracing of the meteoric ascent- and confounding descent - of enigmatic genius Bobby Fischer. Only Brady, who met Fischer when the prodigy was ten years old and shared with him some of his most dramatic triumphs, could have written this book. Drawing from Fischer family archives, recently released FBI files, and Bobby's own e-mails, this account is unique in that it limns Fischers entire life - an odessey that took the Brooklyn-raised chess champion from an impoverished childhood to the covers of Time, Life, and Newsweek to recognition as "the most famous man in the world" to notorious recluse.

Posessing a 181 IQ and remarkable powers of concentration, Bobby was only thirteen when he became the youngest chess master in US history. But his strange behavior nearly halted his Cold War championship match with Soviet star Boris Spassky, he turned down millions of dollars in sponsorship offers, and by 1992 he was an international fugitive, wanted by American law enfocrcement for having violated US sanctions.

Woven into Fischer's late-life odysset are bizarre flirtations with apocalyptic religions, Nazis, and mafiosi, and bouts of paranoia that had him traveling with gun-toting bodyguards and railing against perceived conspiracies.

Who was Bobby Fischer, and what does his life say about the flowering of genius and the distorting effects of fame? In Endgame, Frank Brady gives us the fascinating answer.

my review:

this biography was incredibly interesting to me. i am too young to know anything about bobby fischer from when the main events of the book were taking place, but reading them in this book made them real to me. the author really got inside information and explained the world of competitive chess in a way that made sense to even someone who doesnt know how to play chess (which i do, thanks to my dad and his interest in bobby fischer back in the day) without seeming condescending. if this subject appeals to you in the least i think you will enjoy this book.