01.24.09

Four months

Posted in Baby, Family, New York Life at 1:25 pm by rachel

What changes this week has brought! On Tuesday it was time to clear out the diapers, changes of clothes, teethers, and toys from my bag and instead fill it with textbooks and syllabi:

I was only going to be away for 1.5 hours, so I thought Jax would be fine with the babysitter and that I’d come home to him looking like this:

Instead, I walked into the house to see Seth’s backpack on the table (he was feeling under the weather…maybe he came home sick from work? I thought. Best case scenario…) and both Seth and the sitter were watching over a red-eyed baby lying in the crib. He had been crying so hard that morning that the sitter thought he was having trouble breathing, so she called Seth, who ran home from work. I am so glad her instinct was to call for help, but felt terrible that our perfect, calm baby was not going to adjust very easily to the new morning schedule. He’s never been known to cry for more than about 10 minutes, and usually because he’s overly tired. Given the rest of the week’s events (fevers, coughing, sneezes) we now think that he was probably falling ill and not becoming the colicky baby we never knew before.

Once I was home and Daddy decided to stay for the inauguration, we watched a bit of CNN all together to try to focus on more positive things:

Listening to the oath remided us of our weddig vows, when Seth had to read from the print-out and I, the super-organized planner extraordinaire who forgot to actually memorize the important part of the day, said “with this ring I promise you love and… faithfulness? …. Whatever. [laughs]” OK, so maybe our vows were a little worse than the Obama fumble, but hey, we gave our guests some great entertainment and I think our mariage has been off to a successful start.

There were some nice surprises that brightened up our days as well. A package from Martine and Michel in France was filled with treats. Organic chocolate from Roanne’s famous pastry shop, Chez Pralus, some tastey white wine Dijon mustard, and this cute, weather-appropriate turtleneck:

Some good-quality, authentic mustard can make plain old grilled meats a gourmet treat. I also use mustard in salad dressing:

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon mustard
dash of salt

But I digress. Something else came in the mail in this fun red envelope. Guess what?

Our photos came, from the photoshoot we did with Jason Angelini last month! I’ve already framed this one to take to my office in the department:

Seth has had the flu, so after spending a half-day at work on Tuesday, he stayed home for the rest of the week. That meant no babysitters for the babe, but for Seth, it meant taking care of a crankier-than-usual baby while having a fever himself.

Thursday night the inevitable happened: Jax gave us quite a scare with a fever of 102.8 degrees. A quick call to the doctor and some infant Tylenol made us a little less worried, but we went to the doctor as soon as possible the next day. As of this morning (Saturday) he is back to normal, but we are watching him close.

In other developments, Jax has learned how to jump in his jumperoo, instead of using it as a gigantic teether, as he did last weekend:

Just can’t seem to get enough of this into his mouth.

Since bottles are a bigger part of his life, he’s getting really good at holding them himself.

Sometimes he gets distracted and has to smile at Daddy.

It usually works best when lying down, since he doesn’t really know about tilting it down to actually get the milk to come out.

I love how he puts his feet together like a sandwich.

He can also turn the pages of a book. Although boardbooks are safer, he’s actually much better at turning the thin paper pages of the books we read at night. Video to come, perhaps?

There are clear signs he’s a huge fan of paper. This morning he destroyed a magazine under Seth’s careful supervision.

Yesterday, once the fever was dying down, we took advantage of the above-freezing temperatures and went to our favorite walking spot: the West Side Highway.

The blanket made by Auntie Grace kept him warm.

The air was actually quite nice, but you could tell the water was still at freezing:

After regrouping at home (and making sure the fever was still over and done with), we packed up the Bumbo seat {thank you, Aunt Renée!} and went out to dinner.

Tandoori chicken? Just the giraffe tonight?

Finally we woke up this morning without the worries of teaching, work, fevers, and babysitters. One week down, 13 to go… So on this 4-month birthday we were so excited to hear the first real baby laughs. Not just smiles and bubbles and humming, but real giggles!

I think we may make it after all.

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