So much has happened in little Jameson’s growth and development since the last update. He started crawling a couple of days after his 6 month birthday. He is now a crawling machine. He is into everything! He is such an explorer—and his mission? To find the smallest, most random items in places you’d never think of looking and stick them in his mouth. He crawls under chairs, into trashcans, and onto whatever he can climb. He started pulling himself up to standing position within a couple of weeks of crawling. So we pulled out the little activity table we bought at a consignment store that plays music and has all sorts of fun gadgets on it. He loves it. But that doesn’t stop him from pulling himself up on bookshelves, the couch, his crib, our bed, the cupboards, you name it.

He cut his first tooth while we were in Utah for Christmas. He is cutting his second tooth as we speak. Boy is he a fussy baby when cutting a tooth. He has been teething for a couple of months as little pearls have been showing up under his gums all over his mouth. I thought for sure he was cross cutting first because his canines started to bulge and a little white bump showed up at the base of his gums in both bottom canine areas, but that was it. I’m starting to wonder if the bumps are just swollen salivary glands or something else. Regardless, he cut the traditional bottom two teeth. Still haven’t got them in a picture yet. Just the tops of them are showing now and he is very protective of them when I try to open his mouth or take a picture of them.

He is still not sleeping through the night. *sigh*. And he doesn’t eat very well during the day, so I still give him an extra feed before I go to bed around 11 o’clock. I refuse to feed him at other wakings he may have between 11 and 5. But after 5 am if he wakes up hungry I give in. I have to wake up at 5 anyway to go to work, so technically, 5 am is not the middle of the night in our house. He woke up a lot crying when we were in Utah, but since we’ve been home he has gotten better. Only a couple of nights where he has woken up more and typically on the nights where his cold was really bad and he had trouble breathing and when he had teeth pain. I think I’ve approached solving the problem with his eating during the day. I got nipples with faster flow. He has been on slow flow and I think it is just too much work to get the milk out so he just gives up after a couple of ounces. Since I switched to medium flow he is drinking much more! Yay! Because he didn’t grow much from his last doctor’s visit. I think he was 19 lbs at his 5 1/2 month check up and he just went in a few days ago because his cold has stuck around way too long and the nurse weighed him in at 19 pounds, 9 ounces. That is not much over two months. Lets hope more milk will help him catch up on his weight gain. He is still a chunker though. I wonder how much more chunky he would be if he ate as much as the books say he should. He already has cankles. 🙂

He is loving solids now. He has had peas, sweet potatoes, rice, chicken, bananas, oranges, pizza crusts, apples, toddler puffs, and teething bisquits. His absolute favorites are chicken blended with sweet potatoes and also plain ol’ sweet peas.

He is babbling for sure and has little words he can say. He says “Mama” when he is really upset and crying. And he says “num-num” when he is eating his favorite solids food. He tried saying “baba” this morning. As he was holding his bottle he was saying “bbbbbbbb.” Its just a matter of time. 🙂 He loves to say “ahh-ahh” when he is happy and playing. He will yell it happily, over and over again with a big smile on his face. He absolutely loves to smile and laugh. He is such a happy baby.

We are exploring soy formula right now–something I’d never thought I’d do. But Jameson has been congested almost everyday since I started supplementing my breastfeeding with formula when he was 8 days old. And this cold he has now, he has had for a month now (I too have had it this long). Now I know mine sticks around longer because I have allergies, so I wonder if he does too. I’m allergic to cow’s milk and thought maybe cow’s milk formula could be causing his congestion. So I’m slowly introducing him to soy and will see if anything changes for the good. On the downside, he has been constipated since the change, even though the change has been slow. I’m doing only a third soy and two-thirds regular right now. I’m afraid to bump it up to half until I see his bowel movements soften up. I looked it up and found that it could be the transition and then it would go away, but that it could also just be the soy. It does create firmer poop. 😦 So….if the constipation doesn’t go away, I’ll have to jump ship. There are a few recipes online for home-made rice milk formula I might try. But its way more work. I have to buy essential fatty acid drops, infant multivitamin drops, molasses, and a few other things. It seems like it would taste good though. Otherwise, maybe it’s dust. I bought mattress covers that are supposed to suffocate dust mites and still need to put them on all our mattresses. Owen and I are both allergic to dust and dust mites pretty bad so maybe JJ got that gene. So many factors. But I will work on each one and hopefully find the solution.

Well, Jameson’s four-month birthday came and went September 26th. And I had a doctor’s appointment set up for him on the 3rd, so I said I’d wait to blog so I could get his weight, but we ended up having to cancel the appointment because it didn’t work with Owen’s work schedule that day. Owen is the one who takes Jameson to all of his appointments now. It seems his doctor doesn’t schedule anything after 4 and I cannot get him there before them with my commute from Temecula. So he finally got in on Friday and he’s a healthy little baby, of course. 🙂 I cannot explain how much love I have for this little boy. As does Owen. I literally feel like my heart swells and grows when I see him smile and cuddle with him. I can spend all day just kissing him and hugging him.

Jameson weighed in at 17.4 lbs and 27 inches long, which puts him in the 75th and 90th percentile for weight and height, respectively. His head circumference was like 16 and 3/4, which puts that in the 40th percentile (sorry kid. Looks like you got Mom’s Colombian head. You got Grandpa Jeff’s personality, put his German head is not something you got from Mom.) He still has his Dad’s steel-blue eyes though and that makes us super happy. Still, if they do switch to brown I won’t have to change too much in my song for him. The first line can easily be switched from “Who’s that baby with the dark blue eyes…” to “Who’s that baby with the light brown eyes” without messing up the beat. 🙂

Milestones:

Talking: Well the child likes to hear his own voice and he certainly has a lot to say. And LOUDLY. This child is a squeeler, a yeller, a sigher…you name it, depending on his emotions, he will figure out how to communicate his feelings through his vocal cords. He loves to be loud and he will talk as long as he is awake. Interestingly enough he is not really a crier. I mean he cries. But really its only if he is super tired or super hungry. Otherwise, he’ll communicate his anger or frustration through just yelling. Too funny.

Movement: He can roll from his stomach to his back. He just started rolling from his back to his stomach today. He hold his balance while sitting, but needs to be propped up still. He loves to stand whenever he can—on Mom or Dad’s knees. On his changing table after a change. On the floor during floor play with Mom or Dad. And he loves to roll all over his bed when he is trying to fall asleep. I’ll put him in with his feet facing south. And then I come into check on him and he’s flipped around in the other direction or sideways! And he’s so proud of this achievement as well. He’ll greet me with a huge gaping smile and then kick his legs.

Eating: Yep, he’s starting to eat solids. He is just so interested in my food now. He tries to grab it. He stares at it. He drools over it. So I thought I’d try a little rice cereal and banana on him to see how it went. The kid gobbled it up an cried when I paused for one second to get another spoonful. He didn’t want any time spent without that delicious rubber coated spoon in his mouth. Since then he has eaten peas (another favorite), and avocado (tolerable). Although we have taken a two-day break from solids because after the avocado, the kid has been constipated. Poor baby. 😦 I’m doing bicycle legs and tummy rubs, trying to give him diluted apple juice (to which he doesn’t enjoy so he has only taken an ounce.) I’m hoping for a blow out tonight so we can resume. I think I’ll just give him a little less food next time. I planned on only giving him two or three spoonfuls because it was just “practice.” But he’s had more like two tablespoons worth each night because he just loves eating solids so much. I think his little intestines are just not as excited about eating as much as he is.

Sleeping: Well he started sleeping through the night the day I returned to work. But after two weeks that was over with. He still wakes about twice every night now. He is hungry the first waking which usually comes around 1 AM. And then he wakes again around 4 AM and can quiet down after about twenty minutes of fussing. Not sure why it is so much harder at 4. He sleeps in our room still (we have a pack and play in there) because I don’t want his wakings to wake up Kanan. But we decided that from now on when Kanan is at his dad’s, Jameson will sleep in his crib. We are hoping that it will help us sleep better because he makes so much noise between 4 and 5, it is hard to get anything quality. Plus, he may smell me and that might be contributing to his night wakings. We shall see.

Teething: Well he is drooling. He is biting HARD on my fingers. When he smiles, I can see pearls under his gums. So I think he is teething. When those teeth will emerge is the next question. Kanan didn’t get his first tooth until he was 12 months old, just like me. Owen doesn’t know when his first tooth came in. But I have a suspicion that JJ will cut a tooth in the next month or two.

Relationships: Jameson absolutely adores his brother. I actually have to nurse Jameson or bottle feed him in the back room when Kanan is around because if Jameson’s brother is home, he does not want to take his eyes off of him. He laughs at everything he does. Wants to eat all of his toys. And yells to get Kanan’s attention when he is well….not paying attention to him. Kanan feels the same love toward Jameson too. He tells me often how much he loves his baby brother. And I love to watch Kanan “parent” Jameson. It is just adorable. 🙂

I was blessed to grow up with a mother who was always very health-concious. Because of her, I have always sought the latest research on healthy living and try to incorporate my knowledge into my diet. And in a world where everyone is so busy, it can be easy to just eat conveniently. I too am a busy woman but have learned some easy ways to make my diet as healthy as possible without a lot of extra time and energy. Here are some simple ways you can do so.  

http://img.ezinemark.com

Lots of Color—When adding fruits and vegetables into your diet, choose as many different colors as you can. A variety of color will ensure that you include a range of vitamins into your diet, add incredible flavor into your food, and frankly, just add beauty to your food and brighten your mood. Have fun with color, and be experimental. You’d be surprised by the delicious combinations you could come up with. I came up with a great recipe for crab pasta salad with this in mind. Multi-grain penne pasta, mayonnaise (good options are olive oil-based, Veganaise, or regular mayo with no high fructose corn syrup), sliced red and yellow bell peppers, shredded orange carrots, chopped green cilantro, diced green celery, diced green onions,  diced sharp cheddar cheese, imitation crab, and dried red cranberries or purple raisins.

• Red fruits and veggies are great for lowering blood pressure and killing free radicals, preventing cancer. It includes nutrients such as lycopene, ellagic acid, Quercetin, and Hesperidin.
• Green fruits and vegetables are also excellent at fighting cancer-causing free radicals, improving digestion, ensuring vision health, and strengthening your immune system. They include nutrients like calcium, beta-carotine, vitamin C, and chlorophyl.
• Yellow and orange fruits and vegetables are excellent produce to help strengthen bones, develop collagen, lower cholesterol, and improve prostrate health. They include flavanoids, potassium and vitamin C.
• Purple fruits and vegetables improve mineral and calcium absorption, are anti-carcinogenic with anti-oxidants, and fight inflammation. They include less commonly known but vital nutrients such as ellagic acid, resveratrol, and quercetin.

Check out this link for more information on adding color to your diet: http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/yf/foods/fn595w.htm

So go ahead and do something different like making salsa with red strawberries or yellow mangos, throwing in some sliced plums in your salad or using purple cabbage in your fish tacos, maybe add some diced pineapple, red cherry tomatoes, and green apples into your chicken salad sandwich. Your body and your tongue will thank you. 🙂

Read labels. You will be surprised how much of our condiments and foods have unhealthy additives to our foods like high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, and harmful color dyes like yellow number 5. These ingredients have been linked with diabetes, obesity, and ADHD-like symptoms. And you don’t have to go to expensive health food stores to find healthy options. While these ingredients can pop up in ketchup, mayonnaise, peanut butter, yogurt, barbecue and teriyaki sauce, I have found healthy options at decent prices even at affordable markets like Walmart. And remember, the higher the ingredient is on the list, the greater the amount of it sits in the jar.

For more information on the dangers of high fructose corn syrup check out: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/high-fructose-corn-syrup/AN01588. For information on yellow number 5: http://www.livestrong.com/article/370945-health-effects-of-yellow-5-food-coloring/ and hydrogenated oil http://www.naturalnews.com/024694_oil_food_oils.html.

Enjoy the right Fats: Fat is absolutely necessary for energy, digestion, vitamin absorption, and even maintaining healthy body weight! You just need to know which are the good ones to use and how much. Firstly, get rid of your vegetable or corn oils and never look at them again. These oils are extremely dangerous when heated and will produce cancer causing free radicals. Second, instead cook with coconut or olive oil or even real butter. These are all safe at high temperatures and even have added nutrients that are beneficial.  I just recently discovered the benefits of cooking with coconut oil and am amazed. Even better, it tastes amazing! Coconut oil is rich in saturated fatty acids like Capric Acid and Lauric Acid which raises your body’s High Density Lipoproteins , lowers bad Cholesterol, boosts immunity and regenerates cells. Coconut oil also increases your metabolism so will actually help you shed weight. It can also be used on your dry skin and hair and stays solid at room temperature so you can store it in your cupboard and use less of it than other oils. Other good oils include Olive oil , which is a monounsaturated fat that lowers the amounts of low-density lipoproteins, lowers cholesterol, improves, and maintains blood sugar levels.  Next, watch those hydrogenated oils in your jarred and boxed foods. If you can, minimize your use of boxed foods as much as possible and instead prepare the food yourself. If you must eat prepared or boxed foods, I recomend buying those from stores that specialize in selling choices without all the processed ingredients and hydrogenated oils—I like Fresh and Easy, Henry’s stores, and Trader Joes. About 25-30 percent of the calories in your diet should be made of healthy fats for optimum health. That is of course not in addition to the unhealthy fats you get from fast food, processed meals, and junk snacks like chips. So keep those to special occasions. I have found that most of the time when I’m craving fatty foods, it most often because I’ve waited oto long to eat and really need protein. To prevent fat cravings like this—eat some healthy trailmix or some low-fat cottage cheese for a snack between meals. The fats and proteins in these foods will help curb your cravings later.

Check out this link for more information on the benefits of olive oil: http://www.all-about-olive-oil.com/benefits-of-olive-oil-7-reasons, coconut oil: http://www.organicfacts.net/organic-oils/organic-coconut-oil/uses-of-coconut-oil-in-cooking.html. Or read about them all in this article: http://www.truthaboutabs.com/unhealthy-vs-healthy-cooking-oils.html

edmonton.my3gb.com

Cut down on your sugar and fructose intake. People often think they are doing their bodies well by eating fruit-flavored yogurt, drinking juice, and eating fruit. But even these can pack excessive amounts of sugar into your daily intake. Some tricks I have done to help minimize my sugar and fructose intake: 1)–read labels and buy options without if available. 2) Be aware of yogurt! While they do contain bacteria such as acidophilus which is essential to digestive health, it is best to avoid flavored ones completely and instead buy plain yogurt and then sweeten it yourself. I will pack a 4-oz dish of yogurt in my lunch and sweeten it with a teaspoon of sugar or a tablespoon of berries, blended smooth. It sweetens it just fine and uses only a fraction of the sugar or most often, high-fructose corn syrup found in most flavored yogurt. 3) Be aware of the amounts of fructose in fruits and limit yourself to just two servings of fruit a day. Believe it or not, even fructose in excessive amounts is linked to diabetes, ADHD symptoms, and obesity. Here is a very informative link to an article on the dangers of a diet high in fructose and even includes a chart with fruit and the amount of fructose in those types of fruit. Believe it or not, it varies significantly! Check it out at http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/06/19/richard-johnson-interview-may-18-2010.aspx. 4) Cut down your soda intake! Soda is diabetes in a cup, and if you drink soda often, most likely a number of your ailments are due to just that habit alone. If switching to just water is too much for you to follow through with switch your soda out for a sparkling mineral water and add a squeeze of lime and perhaps sweeten it with some agave. Agave has fructose in it, but much less than that which you would find in a typical soda.

nandyala.org

Change it up— Don’t get caught up eating the same ten dishes or making your salads the same way every time. Vary up your diet with different combinations and try fruits and vegetables you haven’t tried before. Make it fun. Studies show that eating the same foods over and over again can actually lead your body to develop allergies to it. Also–adding variation will ensure you get a broader range of vitamins in your system. You can vary your fruits and veggies by buying them in season and even save money by purchasing them at farmer’s markets in your area. I can walk out of a farmer’s market with two grocery bags packed with produce for under 20 dollars. If you run out of ideas, grab a cookbook from a bookstore that emphases healthy but delicious meals or look for ideas via the internet. I subscribed for a year or so to Cooking Light magazine and got many great ideas through it.

Hope you enjoyed these tips! I’d love to hear from you on your thoughts and ideas!

Jameson loves his feet!

It is amazing how fast Jameson is growing. We are officially out of the hardest months of infancy and they were really not hard at all. Jameson is such a laid back little guy, it has an easy-going ride for the most part these last few months.

He discovered his voice about a month ago and since then loves Loves LOVES to talk. The kid just babbles and coos and he loves to do it loud! Owen and I just explode with love for him when he gets into one of his stories and Kanan is always asking us, “What is he saying?” I make up funny summaries of his stories and thoughts and often make Jameson appear overly confident and independent. I’ll tell Kanan that JJ is saying, “I don’t need adults to help me out. I can do everything by myself. I can walk, I can run, and I can even fly!” Kanan then laughs and says, “no you can’t Jameson! You are just a baby!” It is adorable. Often times, Kanan will just cover JJ with kisses and look up at me and say, “I like having a baby in our family, Momma.” Me too Kanan. Me too. And Jameson just adores his big brother as well. He is all smiles when Kanan talks or looks at him. I love seeing the two of them loving each other. Yesterday, we were all sitting down at the dinner table, including Jameson, who sits in his high chair and watches us eat. As we were eating, I just looked around the table at my two sons and my wonderful husband and tears just welled up in my eyes. I told them all how happy I was to be with my boys and what a blessing they all were in my life. It was a sappy, perfect moment.

One of Jameson’s newest discoveries have been his legs and feet. He discovered them earlier last week. I noticed when he was laying in his little bouncy seat and was lifting his left leg uuuuuupppp and doooowwwnn, uuuupppp and doooowwwwnnn. The entire time, watching it very intently. Then a couple of days ago, he started grabbing his feet. I must say, there is not much cuter then a chubby little bubba grabbing his feet. I’d have to say, all he has to do next is suck on one of his little toes and he will hit the top of cuteness in my opinion. 🙂 Today, Owen and I took him to the grocery store, and he held his little feet the entire time. We got lots of smiles and comments over this. One lady stared at him so long, it sort of got awkward for me. Okay lady, I know he is cute, but…..

He was supposed to have his two-month well check a month ago, but our doctor’s office couldn’t get him in until this week. (I know….we are changing doctors. Between that and the rude receptionist, we are over it. The doctor is great, but everything else about his office is ridiculous). Anyway, Owen took him in this week and the doctor said he is so healthy he is boring. Haha. Good one Doc! Jameson weighed in at 14 lbs and 4 ounces. He is in the 75th percentile for his weight. And he is in the 95th percentile for height. Owen didn’t recall exactly what length he was, but he is obviously on the longer side for his age. 🙂

He is pretty much sleeping through the night. He started the night before I went back to work. What a sweety, helping me out like that! So we are on week three now with sleeping through the night. We only had two nights during this time where he woke up once in the middle of the night. Otherwise, we put him down around 730. I pull him out of bed around 1030 to feed him again before I, myself, go to sleep. He barely wakes up and goes easily back down. And then he is out until I wake him up at 5:45 AM to feed him again before I leave for work. I could just let him sleep, but I cherish that quiet time with him in the morning. I get to see him and spend time with him and it also helps me maintain my milk supply.

He has transitioned pretty well with me going back to work. Honestly, I think I have a harder time then he does. He does go through a day or two every week where he doesn’t eat very well while I’m at work, but it doesn’t seem to make him fussy with me and he makes up for it when I get home. And he still sleeps well at night. Still, there are other days where he eats so much while I’m at work, as much as 7 ounces in a feeding!

On the downside, there is some signs that he may be having some sort of intolerance to something I am eating, so I’m trying to figure out what it is. It doesn’t seem to make him fussy or irritable at all, but he shows the signs in other ways. I did just recently find out that I am allergic to cows milk, and so that could be it because I do eat a lot of dairy. I’m not sure if my allergy could affect my milk or if he may have inherited the allergy, but its worth a shot at looking into. I love to guzzle a tall glass of cows milk at dinner and I eat cheese like a giant mouse. I also eat yogurt and cottage cheese. So I’m switching to Goat, Almond, and Soy milk as alternatives and going to cut down the cheese to see what happens. The protein in milk occurs the most in the milk and much less in cheese and yogurt. So I’m hoping I don’t have to go that extreme. We shall see! 🙂

Overall Jameson is a wonderful blessing to this family. I have only had him in my life for three months and I honestly cannot imagine life without him now. He is an absolute joy and I want him to stay a sweet little baby forever.

I cannot help but be righteously angry about the growing and changing belief system of our country. I am a teacher and currently teaching 11th grade American Literature. I teach this class using a historical lens and so we start off by reading literature of Native Americans and that of Colonial America, including those of Puritans. On my last assignment, we read a poem by the Puritan,  Anne Bradstreet entitled “Here Follow Some Verses Upon the Burning of our House, July 10, 1666.” In the poem she uses a few different elements that students are required to learn by our state standards: allusion, plain style, and inversion. Because she is a Puritan, what do you think she makes allusions to in her poem? Yes, the bible. Given that I cannot expect my students can just identify biblical allusions right off the bat due to the diversity of beliefs in public school students, the only way I could possibly see if my students could identify allusion was to provide them a handout with the bible verses of which she alludes to. They were required to read the poem and identify the lines in the poem where she alludes to these verses.

This morning I get an email from my VP. Apparently, one of my students complained to the administration that I was having them “read the bible” in my class. The email asked me to report to administration to discuss how I was using the bible in my class.

In American History, we see our beliefs and values change as they are addressed through various literary movements such as Puritanism, Romanticism, Realism, Modernism, and Post-Modernism. Am I supposed to teach Puritanism and have us just ignore what they allude to in their literature or mention what they believe in? Would we understand what they were writing about or understand the foundations of our country? I had a student a few days ago in my first period class innocently ask, “Why are we talking about God and the bible in this class? Isn’t this public school?” He didn’t seem angry or anything, perhaps he was just curious. And he isn’t the only one as I got from the email. Furthermore last year I had a student in one of my classes raise her hand and say she was very uncomfortable about discussing God or the bible in the class for the exact reasons. I could tell she honestly felt that we were breaking some sort of rule. I explained to her and the class why were discussing it. That I was not imposing the Puritan beliefs onto them and that eventually as we get to the point in American History when God is no longer a figure to be widely valued, that we will not be discussing it any longer. That seemed to make a difference. But this year, apparently my answer did not suffice. Someone needed to double-check.

Is this where we are at? Do our youth actually believe that we are no longer allowed to even discuss what our forefathers believed because what they believed may be offensive?

So when I talk about some Native American beliefs in worshiping the sun and the land and their belief in life being a circle, that is okay, but if I dare talk about what Puritans believe, I am wrong? When I have my ninth graders notice the allusions that Homer makes to Greek polytheistic mythology, that is okay, but I am not allowed to mention Christian literature when discussing American beliefs in Colonial America?

Now in defense of my school administration, I know that when I explain to them the assignment they will agree that I did not break any rules. I myself, vented to my colleagues and they too agreed that I did nothing wrong. But that does not clear me of my irritation and concern. It doesn’t matter if my colleagues know I am right or even if administration understands and confirms that I am not breaking any rules; this still reflects the beliefs our youth. And these youth are getting these beliefs from somebody. Blame it on the media. Blame it on their parents. Regardless—-they will be the ones running this country in the future. And what this tells me is that my husband is probably right when he made the joke last night that there will be a time in the future when our history classes will simply summarize American History from Colonial America to the late 1800’s as simply “The Dark Ages” in one lecture. And then really begin the classes a couple of days later in the 1960’s when we became “enlightened.”