This past week Alan and I went to Hot Springs for a little mini-vacation. We stayed at the Arlington and went out to eat a lot and hung by the pool and ... went to Mid-America Museum! You're jealous, right?! Don't lie. Seriously though, we had the best time there. It hasn't changed just a whole lot since we were kids, so the nostalgia was nice. We did every activity there was, including the Tesla Coil show and the simulator ride, and the little mini-tunnel crawl (which has a slide - this was my favorite - I felt about 10 years old in a good way), and we dug for dinosaur bones in the dinosaur exhibit and went for a short walk around the grounds (fabulous weather, BTW, and the grounds that the museum is situated on are so nice - the best of Arkansas' landscape, I would say, very green and fresh).
The boo-boo stayed with Alan's parents and, by all accounts, had a great time. I only called to check on him once and Alan and I had to laugh a little bit because the one time we called, Jones was having a mega-fit in the background (he had just woken up and was hungry), so we could barely hear Grandma Betty or Grandpa Richard as they tried to fill us in on what they had been up to. Anyway, we were successful in being away from Little Bit for three whole days, but we both agreed we think that 3 days is our maximum for right now ... I think we both would've been completely neurotic if we had been gone somewhere for a whole week.
Let's see ... since this is a negligent blogger post, I should fill y'all in on what we've been doing for the last three weeks, I guess. Jones had his first sickness. Stomach bug. Pretty bad all the way around. Made my first phone call to my pediatrician's house (at 9:00 at night ... on a Saturday ... I felt bad, but he had told us to call if we needed to and it was a situation that warranted a phone call) but I think I managed to not come off like a nutcase. He's fine now and we've started solid food! The first time around we did rice cereal and he was just not a fan, so I switched to fruits and he likes them just fine, so far. He's getting better at eating all of the time, and likes to grab the spoon away (not that he knows what to do with it ... he's just becoming grabby :o)).
We've got the monitor hooked up in his room and he's sleeping in his crib at night, and the pack-and-play is packed up to be used only for traveling. We're still struggling a little with making it through the night in the room, but I attribute a lot of that to the fact that he has been congested recently. My to-do list includes purchasing a humidifier, because I think that will help. Also, he's become a bigger fan of the pacifier since moving to the crib, and I definitely think it's a soothing/comfort thing because he doesn't really care too much about it otherwise. we went swimming for what was probably the last time, or next-to-last time because the afore-mentioned fabulous weather means that the water in the pool is chilly ... really, too chilly for our little guy. He still loves swimming though, and even kicked his legs like he was a frog, so I'm hoping he learns to swim easily and isn't scared when the time comes.
Jones is also now 5 months old, so here's an update on the little fella:
At 5 months, Jones:
- Probably weighs between 16 and 17 pounds, but I cannot be certain. We haven't been to weigh-in in awhile ... truthfully, since we quit going weekly, I forget to take him. Since it's not part of the routine, I just totally space out and forget.
- I don't know how long/tall he is, either. I would guess around 26 to 27 inches, but that's a complet(ly uneducated) guess.
- Wears a size 2 diaper - we finally had to purchase diapers on our own, can you believe it? We had so many (generous) people give us diapers as shower gifts, that we just now had to purchase them on our own.
- Wears a variety of clothing sizes - 0-3, 3, and 3-6 months, he wears them all. I mean, obviously, the 0-3 are a little small, but they still fit okay, so we're still wearing them. Wearing lots of Razorback stuff nowadays since it's football season!
- Eats between 6 - 8 ounces of formula 5-6 times a day, and we eat solid food twice a day (right now I'm using those organic food pouches, like Ella's Kitchen and Plum Baby Organics, so we eat 1/2 of the package in the morning or afternoon and 1/2 in the evening).
- Lllllooooovvvveeesssss the jumperoo. Absolutely his favorite toy of the moment.
- Loves for people to talk to him and smile at him (so he can smile back, I think).
- Has started going to TLC/Mother's Day Out on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday and seems to like it.
- Is very interested in what Mommy and Daddy are up to at all times - being left alone in a room (like if we put him in the jumperoo and then go into the kitchen for a minute) is not acceptable, for the most part - he wants to be a part of what you're doing!
- Talks to himself, and to you.
- Likes stuffed animals, mostly to gnaw on.
- Likes, but doesn't love, his gumdrop pacifier, except at night in the crib (when he really likes it).
- Is sleeping on his own in his nursery, like a big boy.
- Is really interested in the spoiled labradors - he grins and grins when they come in, and has started reaching out his hand and sort of holding his face out toward them so they can lick and inspect him. I have to move him away from Augie because Augie gets to licking him and just about suffocates him ... please don't call Child Services on me.
- Rolls over both ways and is really trying to figure out how to crawl. I'll have to video it some time, but he's got a maneuver he tries where he gets his whole butt in the air, weight on his feet, but he can't get his hands/arms in the right place so he doesn't really get very far with it - he'll put it all together soon, though, I think, especially since he's watching lots of babies crawl at TLC and Mother's Day Out.
I have a confession: I never went to see the last Harry Potter movie. We are just pretty busy around here, and we're afraid to take the boo-boo to the theatre in the event that he throws a ring-tailed fit, and we just straight-up missed it - it's already out of the theatres! So now I have to wait to Netflix it ... bummer ... it's a good think I know how the story ends. On that note, I haven't forgotten about my promise to share my favorite quotes from the book (although I haven't done it in awhile), but I have (another) confession regarding the 5th book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: while I enjoy it as a whole, I don't really have any favorite passages. This is not to say that I don't think it's well-written, on the contrary. I'm just saying I don't have anything that I can definitely quote here that really resonated with me. Also, I haven't really got any recommendations for reading for you, other than The Lincoln Lawyer, which I read in Hot Springs - 2 thumbs up! I'm putting it on our Netflix queu as well, since I've heard the movie is good. Other than that, I've been reading a lot of, well, kind of trashy-Nora Roberts-esque stuff - vacation reading for sure!
