The strike has ended

Posted on June 14, 2013 by Mdfrisco

He took the bottle, he TOOK the bottle, HE TOOK the bottle!!!

I had pretty much given up on the whole bottle thing. It was getting frustrating every time I would offer the bottle he would just play with it and roll it around in his mouth, then I would end up having to throw the precious breast milk that I worked so hard to produce down the drain. Doing that every day for several weeks was discouraging. I think the most frustrating part was that I knew he could take the bottle since he had been doing it for 2 months before he went on strike, he just didn’t want to. We moved on to rice cereal and started trying the sippy cup. He loves the cereal and the sippy cup was pretty messy, but at least I knew he had something in his tummy while I was at work and wasn’t starving.

I was doing the math and had pretty much accepted the fact that I would not be able to leave him for any extended period of time or overnight until he was a year old. Not that I am ready to leave him overnight yet, but it was the idea that it was possible. Or the idea of being able to have a glass of wine or two while out to dinner and not having to worry about enough time going by before I can feed him, or the idea of being able to have a night out with some friends and Justin can feed him a bottle before bed. There are lots of great ideas out there. The feeling that I would not be able to get any kind of break for a really long time was kind of daunting. I do love my boy SO much, but it is nice to have a bit of a break once in a while.

We would still attempt the bottle here and there but I honestly had moved on and really didn’t think it would happen. Then a friend of mine who went through the same thing with her little girl encouraged me to try the Lansinoh mOmma bottles, they were the ones that did the trick for her daughter. We had already tried 6 different kinds of bottles/nipples with no luck so I really didn’t think it was the type of bottle that was the issue, I thought he just didn’t want to do it. So I kind of put it off. The next time I talked to her, she mentioned it again…A few days later I had to go to Babies R Us for something else and decided to pick up one of those bottles while I was there. If nothing else, it would be a nice addition to my collection of bottles of all different sizes, shapes and nipples. The next day I tried it, he did what he usually does and played around with it for a while, but he did latch on, but never took any pulls. After a while, I stopped fed him his cereal and moved on with the day. Two feedings later, I decided to try it again. I reclined his highchair put on some music and got ready to kick back while he played around with the nipple for a while, gave him the bottle and about 30 seconds in he latched on and started taking some pulls. I FROZE. I didn’t dare move my hand or my body for that matter, I didn’t want anything to distract him from his very important job of sucking down that milk. He kept sucking and sucking and was taking it all in, every muscle in my body was tense and my eyes welled up in tears, he is really, finally doing this!! When he finished, I jumped up and down, clapped my hands and was cheering for joy, he was looking at me like I was nutso! I immediately texted Justin, my mom and girlfriends to share the good news (top priority)! I was SO excited, I could hardly stand it. I had to keep myself from updating my Facebook status to “HE FINALLY TOOK THE BOTTLE!!!” (yes all caps are necessary), because I know most people on Facebook could care less, that is what this blog is for.

After I put him to bed that night, I started thinking and hoping that this wasn’t just a one time fluke kind of thing and the real test would be the next day while I was at work. Jacob didn’t let me down, he took the bottle from Justin at both feedings like a champ! I’ve done one feeding a day since then with a bottle and he is doing great! I still feel a little reluctant to be celebrating since it hasn’t even been a full week and I am afraid he will “relapse” but this is a big accomplishment after 5 long weeks of trying, I can’t help shouting this news from the rooftops. This weekend we will be out and about a lot, so we will be trying a bottle feeding in public and will see how he does. This truly is an answer to prayer and thank you to all of you who were praying for this and encouraging me to keep trying. A HUGE weight has been lifted off my shoulders knowing that he will now get a full feeding if I am not around. Justin and I had a pact that if we could get Jacob back on the bottle then we would plan family trip to Paso Robles. So that is our next order of business, I am ready for a fun break!

Getting ready to enjoy some cereal!

Party planning

Posted on June 10, 2013 by Mdfrisco

Last week was a busy week for me, on Saturday I co-hosted a baby shower for a good friend of mine who is expecting a little girl in August. So there was lots of shopping, cooking, decorating and crafting. I love planning parties, before our group of friends started having kids and tripled in numbers, Justin and I used to host parties all the time at our house. Justin comes by it naturally since his parents are pros at the party throwing business. He was even voted “life of the party” in high school (hmmm is that a good thing or bad thing??) I love the planning, decorating and preparing part of it. I’ve had several people tell me I should have gone into the event planing business, but I enjoy doing it and didn’t want to turn it into work. In this age of Pinterest, party planning has reached a whole different level! Pinterest is such a great way to get ideas and a lot of it is DIY, as long as you are armed with a glue gun, scissors, and a Michael’s Craft store nearby you can do some pretty creative things. I have not had a chance to plan a party since I discovered Pinterest, so this was fun! But it is also hard work when you have a 5 month old! There were many late night dates with my glue gun and lots of help from my awesome husband, and it was all worth it. We were able to shower her little girl with all kinds of cute girly things and I can’t wait to meet her in August!

In Jacob news…Saturday morning we were all on the floor while Jacob was doing tummy time and he rolled over onto his back! He has not done it again yet, but I have a feeling this is the beginning of a new phase, we will keep you posted! Here’s our 22 week old who is starting to wrestle around with the giraffe.

Daddy Daycare

Posted on June 6, 2013 by Mdfrisco

Every woman is different when it comes to being a stay at home mom vs staying in the workplace. I know that most women are not able to work from home with the type of career they have, or for financial reasons they cannot stop working, or some women need that connection and identity outside of being a stay at home mom. Many people have strong opinions why it should be one way or another, I am not here to say that one way is better than the other or even the way it should be. Every woman is different, I am just sharing my personal experience.

My parents had their own business and my mom worked out of our home. Growing up, my mom was always there if I needed her. If I forgot something she could bring it to me, if I was not feeling well she was able to stay home with me, on days when we had pep rallies and other school activities, my mom was able to come and cheer me on. Justin was raised the same way. And I want to do the same for my kids. When I got pregnant we knew that I would not be able to quit working altogether, but, it was also not worth putting Jacob in daycare since it is ridiculously expensive and my paycheck would just be thrown into the cost of daycare. Besides, I didn’t want to do that anyway, I wanted to be home with my child.

Fortunately, I work for some amazing people and have the kind of job that allows me to work from home and go into the office one day a week. It is a challenge to get work done at home with a baby. Especially one that only takes 30 minute naps! But somehow, I’ve been able to get it done. The things that require more than 15 minutes of my time get done at night after he goes to bed.

So what does Jacob do on the one day a week I go into the office? He hangs out with Daddy! We are also fortunate that Justin has the kind of job that he is able to be home with Jacob one day a week. I love this set up because I get the best of both worlds. I can be at home with my son, but also keep my own identity in the workplace AND Justin gets some quality time with Jacob. What’s even better is because Justin has this time with him, he knows what it is like to be home with him all day. He knows I don’t sit around the couch watching soap operas and eating bon bons, he knows that Jacob needs to be entertained, he knows how to do the routine and knows that he only naps for 30 minutes and that 30 minutes is not really enough time to do much else than go to the bathroom, eat something and maybe answer an email here and there. He knows how exhausting it is, he knows how you always have to stay one step ahead of him, and he knows how much stuff you have to take anytime you go anywhere with him. Because he knows how much work it is, he tells me all the time that he appreciates me and everything I do. I feel so blessed to have a husband who loves me and understands.

The first day Justin watched Jacob, this is what I saw when I walked into our bedroom after putting Jacob to bed.

Pure exhaustion. Even the dog was tired!

Now that we’re in more of a “routine” and we are used functioning in our new lifestyle, it is easier. While it is still exhausting, Jacob is getting more and more fun every day with being able to interact with him more and see him squeal in delight at something or get a serious look on his face when he is trying to figure something out. Justin is enjoying this time even more. I even convinced him to try wearing Jacob in a carrier. The two carriers I have are wonderful, but he can only be worn facing in towards me, sometimes he doesn’t like that because he wants to see what is going on. So a friend of mine gave me her Baby Bjorn, Justin put it on and Jacob LOVED it! We took the dog for a walk and Jacob was giggling and squealing at everything he saw (mostly the dog, he loves to watch the dog). I think Daddy Daycare has approached a new level since the Bjorn has been discovered!

And no, Justin does not drink beer all day while watching Jacob, this photo was taken in the evening after I got home 🙂

5 Months

Posted on June 3, 2013 by Mdfrisco

After I took Jacob’s weekly picture and downloaded them to my computer I realized that this should have been his 5 month photo…so I took another one with his 5 month sticker. But I loved the first one I took and had to share it with you, so again, I give you two pictures. I promise I won’t make a habit of this! Here’s the first one I took.
And here is the one with his 5 month sticker.
He thinks his daddy is hysterical! 🙂

We saw Jacob’s pediatrician a few days ago to follow up on a rash he has had for a while now. The doctor says it is just mild eczema and suggested a lotion to put on him. We also talked about the fact that he will not take a bottle anymore…so he said we could start feeding him rice cereal, that way Justin can feed him while I am at work. So that was our project on Saturday morning, we got the highchair set up and fed him his first taste of rice cereal

and he loved it!

We also weighed him at the doctors office and he is now 16 lbs 4 oz, he gained a pound in 3 weeks!

A visit with Uncle Terry

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Mdfrisco

It has been a busy busy week! We left on Sunday to go to Justin’s parents house for a couple of days to visit with Justin’s uncle Terry who was in town from Kentucky. Before we left we took his 20 week old pictures. These pictures were so fun to take and I couldn’t decide which one I liked the best so I give you two.
He was a wiggle worm and kept grabbing the giraffe’s arm and pulling him over. I know there is going to come a day when I will be begging and bribing him to sit still for this picture.
When we arrived to Justin’s parents house, everyone was outside in the pool. Which is a good place to be when it is 90 degrees outside! After getting settled in we got Jacob in his bathing suit and Justin took him for a little swim.
IMG_9209ed

He wasn’t particularly a fan…he didn’t scream or cry, but he didn’t necessarily love it either, as you can tell from the look on his face in the picture. He loves his bath, so I don’t think it was the water, I think it had to do with the temperature since the water was pretty cool. We will keep at it especially since it is starting to warm up for summer!

The next day the boys went golfing and Jacob and I went to visit my best friend Stacey and her family. Both her boys love Jacob and her oldest wanted to hold him the entire time. It was pretty cute!
Justin, his dad, Uncle Terry & Cousin Tim had a great time golfing (or at least Justin did, he shot a 78!). They came across a herd (or a flock?) of big horn sheep on the golf course.
Our family is also a dog loving family, we always end up with several dogs running around whenever we get together. Apollo will always be my first baby 🙂 although he doesn’t get as much attention from me as he used to, I know he is enjoying the break from being the primary subject for my camera. We had 4 dogs altogether and they all got along great!
Willie and Bogey (the two black and white dogs), have a more laid back personality and lounge around and watch the world go by. Where Apollo and Otto (the brown dog) are busy bodies, they are always hunting for lizards, walking the perimeter of the yard and chasing all the blackbirds out of the trees. Jacob loved watching them walk by and run around, it was pure entertainment for him.

All in all it was a fun few days! We loved visiting with Uncle Terry, Jacob was very happy to snuggle with him!

We enjoyed the warm sunshine
And took plenty of naps!

Baby Dedication

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Mdfrisco

A couple of weeks ago our church had a baby dedication, there were 7 families that participated! Our church family was such a huge support to us during our journey to getting pregnant and it was a special day to celebrate all the new babies.

Since then, I have had several people ask me exactly what a baby dedication is. Basically, it is the parents commitment before the God to raise their child according to God’s Word and God’s ways. The parents are making a promise to the Lord to do everything within their power to raise the child in a godly way, prayerfully until they can make a decision on their own to follow God.

Another part of the dedication is encourage the congregation/witnesses to pledge their support to the parents to assist in the spiritual development of their child. As witnesses to the dedication service, the church members and family members pledge to offer guidance to the child and agree to be a resource to the parents. As we all know, it takes a village to raise a child, and it is nice to know we have our parents and church family to support us in time of need.

Each family chose a picture of their child and a verse. Here’s what we chose for Jacob…

This is one of my favorite pictures of him. It is not by any means a technically perfect photo, it was taken with my iPhone and it is a little fuzzy. But it is, what I’ve learned in my photography class, an emotionally perfect photo. I love the look in his eyes and the smile he is giving, while it is fuzzy, it has a strong emotion with it and sometimes an emotionally perfect photo is better than a technically perfect photo.

I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.” And he worshiped the Lord there. – 1 Samuel 1:27-28 (NIV)

Jacob was praying for us too!

I love our little family (even with spit up on my shoulder)
Jacob with Grandma & Grandpa
And Papa and Nonnie
And a special family friend, Toni, joined us as well

Jacob is so lucky to have these people to guide him, love him, and spoil him to death!

Bottles and feet

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Mdfrisco

As I mentioned before Jacob is starting to reach out to his toys and grab things and those things now include his feet. He has been kicking his legs up in the air for a long time when he is lying down, I’ve been waiting for the day that he discovers that there are feet at the end of those legs and he finally has. Now we’ll see how long it takes him to try and get those feet in his mouth.

I snapped some pictures of him while he was playing with his feet on Sunday, when I downloaded them to my computer these took my breath away. I mean there is NO WAY Justin could deny that this is his child

There are times when I think he looks like me, most of the time I think he looks like Justin, but there are times when it literally takes me by surprise how much he looks like his dad. It’s almost like I have a glimpse into what Justin was like as a baby.

I’m sure the preppy collared shirt has a bit to do with it too 🙂

One change that Jacob decided to make recently is refusing the bottle. We figured this out on Mother’s Day when we tried to give him a bottle after I had a glass of wine with dinner. Nope, he wanted nothing to do with it. At first we thought it might have just been that specific occasion, but we’ve tried to give him a bottle every day since then with no luck. So…after advice from friends and online research we have been trying different things to try and get him back on to a bottle. There was no change this past week, but we are not giving up. Luckily I am home with him everyday so it is not too big of a urgent problem, except for one day of the week when I go into the office for work. Last week I fed him right before I left, then Justin brought him to my office so I could feed him his lunch, then I was home in time for the next feeding. The way it is looking right now, he is probably going to have to do that again this week and that will get old really quick. Plus I am starting to feel like I will never be able to leave him for more than a few hours at a time, so my visions of doing anything fun outside of baby are rapidly dwindling. Let’s hope we get this figured out soon! All prayers are greatly appreciated!

After snapping a few of our weekly pictures, I looked at them on my camera to see if we got a good one and I noticed that he was slouched down, so I went to go sit him up and he spit up all over himself. I’m sure that was his way of saying he was done taking pictures. So I give you our slouched down (but smiling) 19 week old.

A year of firsts

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Mdfrisco

This is going to be a year full of firsts, and a pretty awesome one is my first Mother’s Day as a mom. I remember the weekend of Mother’s Day last year when I found out I was pregnant. I remember the feeling of excitement, but not wanting to get too ahead of myself since it was still so early. It is hard to believe a year has gone by, so much has happened!

Being a mom has been the most rewarding, challenging and life altering thing I’ve done. And I’ve only done it for 4 months…I am so looking forward to many, many more years of being Jacob’s mom…and I know those years will bring many more rewarding, challenging and life altering events & times and I promise him and pray that I will be the best mom I can be.

Whenever we have a free day on a weekend, we’ve started looking online to see what fun things are going on in San Diego that day and then go explore. We really try to take advantage of the fact that we live in America’s greatest city! We started off our day at church, then we headed downtown to Seaport Village. It was a beautiful San Diego day, we walked along the water, in and out of the shops and had an early dinner with a view.

Here’s my 18 week old reason why Mother’s Day was so special this year.

And the flowers I got at church with my Mother’s Day card from Justin. Very similar to last year, maybe this will become a yearly photo.

Hope you had a wonderful Mother’s Day!

17 weeks

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Mdfrisco

We’ve been busy! My mom was in town for a week, we celebrated my grandma’s 90th (!) birthday, my mom’s birthday and we had Jacob’s baby dedication at church. Then Monday morning after all that I woke up with a sore throat and have been fighting a cold all week. So I am a bit behind and have lots to share with you, but first, I’m a little late in posting this weeks picture and wanted to get it up before next weeks picture 🙂

17 weeks
We had Jacob’s 4 month check up on Thursday and his doctor is very pleased with his progress. He is a happy, healthy baby boy! Jacob had a little discomfort with his shots at this visit. He was clingy and grumpy the rest of the day, I ended up giving him some baby Tylenol and by bath time that night he was smiling again.

Jacob weighs 15 lbs 4 oz (45th percentile)
Jacob is now 26 inches long (84th percentile)
The circumference of his head is 16.25 inches (60th percentile)

This week Jacob has shown an increased interest in his toys and instead of just looking at them he is reaching for them and of course putting them in his mouth once he gets a hold of them. With the exception of a few nights here and there he is still sleeping great, anywhere from 8-11 hours at a time.

Have a great weekend & I’ll be back with more soon!

A day in the life

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Mdfrisco

Now that Jacob is more awake and alert during the day, I am often trying to find new ways to entertain him. He no longer will tolerate you sitting and snuggling with him (except at the end of the day we do get some good snuggle time), he needs to be up and moving around. So we have a variety of things we do for entertainment around here in between feedings, naps and diaper changes. Usually we start our day with a conversation at the changing table about what we are going to do for the day. Jacob has found his voice and when I pause from talking he answers me with his newfound coos and sounds and plenty of smiles. That is by far my favorite time of day 🙂

One of Jacob’s favorites is the Bumbo chair. I love this, because it supports him so he can sit upright. I put it in front of the mirror so he can look at his own reflection.

Gasp! Who is that baby??

We play with his rattle (which we named Frankie the Fish, which to me kind of sounds like a mafia name?), and a squeaky giraffe (Georgie the Giraffe). When he is done playing with toys we like to read a book, a favorite is Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see.

Hey mom, see that book over there, come on, open it up.

Of course he always gets captivated by the reflection of the fan in the mirror so I turn the Bumbo around so he can see the fan, and watch the dog walking around the room.

Hey mom did you know there’s a black dog walking around behind you?

There is also a shelf for the Bumbo that will come in handy when we start introducing foods to Jacob. For now we use it for more toys.

Hmmmm let’s see…how does this one work?

Ahhh I get it…but I would rather watch the fan

Then there is the activity mat. Jacob has come a long way from his earlier days of tummy time and we continue to work at it everyday. I also put this in front of the mirror to encourage Jacob to look up at himself.

Other times I roll a ball back and forth in front of him while he is doing tummy time to work on hand eye coordination.

When mom needs a few minutes to do something my go to was the mobile to entertain Jacob, which he still enjoys, but now we’ve upgraded…Jacob has been kicking his legs so much lately, I went to get a jumper so all of his kicking could be put to good use!

He loves it and is very content playing in it for a good amount of time which allows me time to get some work done while he is entertaining himself (that is if I can pry myself away from watching him, he is pretty entertaining!)

We also enjoy getting some fresh air so we put the leash on Apollo and take him for a walk. Apollo really enjoys this part of the day!

And that is a day in the life of this 4 month old!

The Frisco Project

Adventures in life, pregnancy, friendships, family & a little photography

Category Archives: Jacob