Sixth Tooth

Jax is the proud owner of six teeth and a slightly runny nose to boot. His left upper incisor finally came through. All the same teething symptoms so we knew it would be any day. I don't know if poop can possibly smell any worse than the stuff that comes out of poor Jax when he is teething. Just nasty .... plain and simple.

Jax was also the victim of a biting ... by his sister no less. See Jaida's blog for details on this. He is fine ... doesn't even seem traumatized or anything.

Hi Dada

Jaxon LOVES to talk on the phone. This morning he brings me the phone and holds it up to his ear (upside down) and says "Hi Dada" while pointing at his mouth with the other hand. I called Joe at work and asked him to speak to Jax. I hold the phone up to Jax's ear and in the tiniest sweetest little voice he says "hi dadadada" with a BIG smile on his face.

Big Time Wrestling Moves

Jax loves to body slam stuff. That stuff includes food on his booster seat chair tray, his toys, us, the cat ... oh the poor cat. Anyhow, he straightens his back raises his arms above his head and then flings his entire upper half onto his target with wreckless abandon. This has resulted in Jax having bruises on his face from landing on hard objects such as a toy, the floor, my knee or shoulder, etc. He has slammed Jaida and the poor cat several times as a sign of affection. They don't seem to feel the love though. ;)

FIVE teeth

Jax is now the proud owner of five teeth! Do I have the world's slowest teething children or what? Jax has been a bit out of sorts the last couple of days. Also didn't sleep well the last two nights even though up until that point he had been sleeping 12-14 hours straight in his own bed and in his own room each night. Add to that a tremendously snotty nose and some REALLY nasty poops and I was pretty sure something was going on with his teeth. Yesterday I noticed his right upper tooth right next to his front center ones came in. What is that tooth called anyhow ... an incisor? The other one should be in in about a weeks time I would guess.

Cousins

This is Jax and his little cousin Mattie spending some quality time together. Jax happily slept through the entire thing otherwise he likely would have ended up sitting on her head, pulling her hair or in some other way torturing her and she would not look so happy. :)

Happy 1st Birthday to Jax!

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Originally uploaded by gias_kids.

Yes ... hard to believe our little guy is ONE year old.

Jax shared his birthday party with his sister. They each got a cute clown cake. Jax wasn't so into the fondant icing but once he got past it to the cake part he was double fisting he was cramming so much in his mouth. I think Jax had lots of fun watching all teh older kids run around like maniacs.

Jax is VERY close to walking. I think he can do it but just has not decided he wants it bad enough yet. He can stand unassisted and will walk while holding our hand. I think part of the problem is he crawls so fast that he doesn't want to slow down enough to figure the walking thing out. :)

Jax had his one year check-up and is now 21.5 pounds and a little over 31 inches long ... so overall tall and skinny. He also has a gigantic noggin. :) The only problem is Jax seems to have developed reactive airway disease and a bit of triggered asthma. The doctor does not think this is going to be a long lasting issue but it just needs some attention right now. So for the next 3-4 months Jax is taking nebulizer treatments of Pulmicort twice a day. This is just to stabilize his respiratory tract and then he should be able to go off them. At first he hated the treatments with a white hot passion. Then his dad started doing funky chicken dances to entertain him while he was in gas mask mode and now I think Jax might just look forward to his meds. Although not sure how much is getting into him when he is laughing hysterically. ;)

Our big guy

Well Jax is nearly a year old! Where has the time gone? I have to say I am loving that he is a tiny bit more independent. Jax is still quite the snuggle-bug even with his new found independence.

A few updates:

Jax can cross crawl ... you know the official way of crawling. He has been crawling since he was very young but because we have hardwoods through-out the house he never really felt the need to get all the way up on those knees.

Jax is scarily close to walking. We are not rushing this AT ALL. I love his little baby side.

Jax talks a lot. He babbles constantly. He says mama, dada, yaeda (Jaida), og (dog), ity at (kitty cat), up up up (all strung together quickly), in and out, this, that and something that sounds a lot like Hi

Jax is such a wonderful little guy. So full of spunk but just has a really sweet sensitive side also.

This is the face of BIG trouble!

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Originally uploaded by gias_kids.

Eek! It has been SO long since my last update. Life is crazy busy and I feel that I am barely keeping my head above water most of the time. We are fully enjoying life and all these early days with little Jax ... hence the lack of blog entries - there is simply no extra time.

Let me give the quick update on boy-wonder. He is doing everything your typical 10 month old baby should be doing plus some. He also did almost all of it shockingly early. He is trying to put me in an early grave ... I am convinced of it. He started crawling at about 5 months old. In typical Lamela-Rhea kid fashion he still doesn't cross crawl as there is no need for it ... we have hardwoods so the commando crawl/belly shimmy works out very well. Shortly after he figured out the crawling thing he also decided to master pulling up on EVERYTHING ... nothing is safe. sigh ... Then came cruising which at this point he is an old pro at and actually runs along the surface of the furniture while barely (if at all) holding on. He also LOVES to climb. Jax takes anything vertical as a personal challenge. He worked out (much to our chagrin) that he can push an upside down laundry basket around to use as a step stool to get to all sorts of places he shouldn't be. Did I mention that he tries to climb the stairs every chance he gets? Must.Invest.In.Baby.Gates

Shortly after he worked out all the physical stuff he started saying dada ... surprisingly this word seemed to be linked to Joe and the dog very early on. Now he says something that sounds remarkably like "Hi DaDa!" when he sees Joe. He also says mama ... for the longest time only when he was crying but now he says it whenever he wants anything. Jaida swears he says a version of Jaida but I am not totally convinced. Jax started on solid food at about 7 months old. While he does love to eat and really loves solids he does not seem to have the voracious appetite that his sister did at the same age. He loves anything cut into bite-sized pieces and enjoys feeding himself and the dog. He still nurses like a champ ... mostly morning and evening at this point except on weekends when he makes up for missed milk during the week. He hasn't really worked out what to do with a sippy cup except throw it across the room. Mostly because we have not given him many opportunities with one. Jax waves hello and squints when we ask him to wink. He claps his hands and loves to applaud himself for a variety of tasks done well. He also likes to play pat-a-cake and the bumpy horse game. Generally, he likes any game that involves him being thrown about in a variety of directions. Jax also LOVES his sister. He studies her every move and generally just wants to do whatever she is doing. Jaida takes this in stride for the most part and loves to procclaim "look mama Jaxie is learning from me". Lately though, Jaida has become a bit more aggressive in taking toys from Jax or bossing him (can't say I blame her as he is into all her stuff). When Jax has something that he thinks she might take he throws his body on it and starts growling when she so much as looks at him. It is pretty funny but does lead to a fair amount of noise in our house. Oh did I mention that she has several nicknames for Jaxon ... Jaxie, happy Jax and Jaxie-Bo.

Jax is the sweetest little guy. He is a total wild child and a little dare-devil but he is also such a tender soul. He seems to get his feelings hurt easily ... like if Jaida raises her voice at him. He loves to snuggle and gives the best hugs and kisses to all of us. He has a temper also. It is amazing to see the flare-up so early. If we take something from him that he really wants he has no problem letting us know. If he wants to be held and we put him down ... he just melts into one big Jax puddle in the middle of the floor. Jax is also a baby that generally just needs/wants mama a lot. I can't say this bothers me at all. ;)

Jax is now a little over 10 months old. He has followed the same growth curves most of his short life. Generally he has a noggin in the 95%, height in the 90-95% and weight in the 65%. There was one month right before he started solids where he totally fell off the weight curve but as soon as he started getting more calories from the solids his weight picked right back up. This period also happened to coincide with a big increase in his mobility. Jax has (like his sister) suffered pretty terribly with back-to-back ear infections. I am reasonably sure there was one infection that just never completely went away since November 2006. In March of this year we had tubes put in his ears. Made a world of difference. He had one slight ear infection since the tubes but it didn't really cause him much discomfort.

Now that Spring has finally sprung in the DC area we are having a lot of fun spending more time outside. We are looking forward to many weekends spent touring the city or lounging at the beach.

The new and improved Jaxon Rhea

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Originally uploaded by gias_kids.

I am just testing out the link between my flickr account and this blog. Please bear with me.

To laugh or cry that is the question ... apparently

Jax seems to have some issues figuring out whether he wants to laugh or cry. Maybe this is a normal new baby thing and I just missed it with Jaida but I do find it kind of amusing. Jax rarely cries and usually it takes something like a needle poke or me sitting on his hand (a story for another day) or something similar for him to really cry. Something is going on in his brain right now and whenever he gets giddy and starts to giggle he nearly cries. It is like his brain can't quite sort out what is going on ... pretty funny.

Three Months Old and as cute as ever

Jax is a few days over three months old. He is such a joy!

He had his first little head/chest cold a week or so ago thanks to his sister. He handled it like a champ ... no crying or sleepless nights. Last week he went to the pediatrician for his IPV and DPaT vaccines. He weighed 13 pounds 7 ounces and was a little over 24 inches long. He didn't get fussy or anything from the vaccines so that was good.

Jax is such a great baby. He sleeps really well both for naps and at night. He rarely fusses and is generally a joy to be around. On Thursday (9/28) he giggled out loud for the first time and it was the sweetest sound ever. He is also very good at grabbing objects and getting them to his mouth ... namely my hands or his blankie.

Yesterday Jax spent his first day with Nancy as I returned to work part-time. He did great. He only drank 3 ounces of breastmilk for her but then spent the evening nursing so all is well.

Stinky Boy

How can such a little guy smell SO bad? Jax now only poops once every three to five days and let's just say the gas on day 2-3 is very unpleasant. It doesn't seem to phase Jax but the smell is enough to clear a room. Oh ... and Jax apparently thinks farting is hillarious. He is SUCH a boy! He will let a big one rip and then get the biggest smile on his face ... it must feel great. :) By the time he finally gets around to pooping the sheer volume is just stunning. I tend to make sure I have no plans to go anywhere on those days since he can fill a diaper + some several times in a day ... a real mess.

TWO months old

Can you believe the boy is 2 months old already?!? We can't. Jax is doing great. He is a happy little guy that eats, sleeps and poops well. What else is there to life at this age? :)

Jax had his 2 month well baby check today. He is doing really great. He weighed 12 pounds 3 ounces and was just about 24 inches tall. He has grown 5 inches in two months which is amazing. He is going to be a tall dude. He looks quite tall ... pretty string beanish actually. He is by no means a light weight but doesn't look that heavy because he is so long. The little guy has lovely brownish/red hair and slate gray eyes that seem to toggle between blue, green and gray depending on what he is wearing that day. The pediatrician was impressed with how strong Jax is ... he holds his big noggin up nice and steady and also loves to stand and will do so for long periods if we hold him up.

We are going to fully vaccinate Jax but are doing it on a delayed schedule. He had two needles today ... one with a combination HiB/Hep B and the other with the PCV vaccine. He goes back in a month for the IPV and DPT vaccines. He was a little achey and fussy after the injections but nothing too bad.

Jax is just such a great little guy and so mellow. He still co-sleeps with us and we all sleep well. Some nights he will nurse and others he does not but generally he never wakes at night because we are right there with him so I guess there is no need really. He also naps well during the day.

Breastfeeding is still going great and Jax really seems to enjoy it but also has himself on a pretty good eating routine already which is nice. I can already tell he is a baby that is going to be just like Jaida in his love of routines. I make plenty of milk and have a nice stash in the freezer for when I return to work.

Generally life is great!

Goat Boy

We call Jax our little Goat Boy. Mostly because he sounds just like a little goat when he is getting fussy. He makes this cute little baaa'ing sound as his nose gets all scrunched up. It is really cute. We took The kids along with Jaida's friend Jordyn to the Montgomery county fair. As we were walking through the agricultural area we passed the goat barn. The baby goats were making all these noises and Jax got this look on his face like he was being called home. We were fairly amused. :)

One month Pediatrician Appointment

Jax continues to grow at warp speed. At todays appointment he weighed 10 pounds 9 ounces (75th %). Not sure about his length as they did not measure him. We will try to do this later today just for the record. Jax has the same sensitive bumm as his sister did early on. He has an allergy to all the commercial hiney wipes which make his bottom quite red and angry. So I made my homemade wipes and added a little comfrey oil to the mix. His bottom healed right up and continues to be a happy shade of pink. He also has a slight case of prickly heat on his face from being in skin contact with one of us so much of the time. The pediatrician said a small amount of hydrocortisone cream will make the rash go away ... so we will try that.


Jax is smiling more and more ... most of the time his big smiles come as he is gazing at us and drifting towards sleep. He is also starting to vocalize more and more. Lots of little happy cooing sounds coming from him now. The pediatrician was amazed at how much head control he has already ... a very strong little neck on the boy.


Anyhow, everything continues to go really well.

Nicknames

Jaxon is a boy of many nicknames. Beyond the obvious one of Jax he is also called Mr. Man Baby, Mr. Poopy Pants, Squawkmeister B, Bubba Boy and Little Buddy by his dad and me. Jaida fondly refers to him as Jaxie or Mr. Baby if that is your real name. :) The poor kid!

Jax continues to be the easiest baby on the planet. He seems to be in the middle of his evening fussy period which supposedly peaks around 6 weeks. It is almost comical ... he has such a hard time crying that he just gets this pained expression on his face as if to say "please don't make me cry" and fusses a little bit. Generally, during this period he will only be soothed by mama ... but at least he is soothable. He continues to sleep through the night. Last week was a little rough as he was going through his 3 week growth spurt and was nursing constantly. I am reasonably sure we stayed connected all night for 3 nights in a row as he was nursing every 30 minutes - hour all night. Luckily, we both slept through it ... he grunted and latched and we both went back to sleep. :) Happily, Jax will also sleep anywhere which allows me a lot more freedom for the time being.

Four Weeks Old

How can that be? Is it possible that time feels like it is passing by even faster this time than it did with Jaida? I can't believe the boy is already a month old!

Jaxon continues to be extremely mellow. Really quite the little sweetheart. He loves to cuddle ... especially with his mama but he gives dad and sister some cuddle time every day also. He finally has adjusted to cold wipes on his hiney and doesn't poop or pee every single time I open his diaper which makes diaper changes much more pleasant for all involved. He also seems much more okay with having a little naked baby time and seems to now be enjoying baths much more since starting to bath with Jaida. Today Jaxon enjoyed his first bottle of EBM. He acted like he has been taking a bottle forever which will give me a little break every now and again plus make sure he can eat when I return to work.

I am really wondering how we ended up with a child with light brown/red hair and blue/green eyes. It is freaking me out a bit. It will be interesting to see how he changes over the coming months.

Here are a few current pictures of the boy ...




Also, here is Jax's birth announcement for those that are not receiving it by snail mail.

http://www.purplestork.com/proofs/17658-jaxon-a.jpg

Three weeks old today

and a mini milestone for Jax. We have noticed over the last few days that Jax's eyes are really starting to track well and focus. When he is looking at us it is really obvious he is looking at us and not just scanning the room. Anyhow, Jax was lounging in his rocking chair which has a toy bar with a couple of colored padded geometric shapes hanging from it. He was focusing on one of the shapes on the end and concentrating so hard and making lots of little grunting sounds. He then picked up his right arm and made a big swipe and made contact with the shape. He did it about 4 more times while sitting in his chair. It was so cute to see him working so hard at this. Jax has also started smiling ... although only at his mama. These were genuine open mouthed grins where I could see he was going to smile by looking at his eyes first not the fleeting sleepy gassy grins from the first few days. He has smiled several times and always in response to me talking and cooing at him. He is going to have the sweetest smile.

Jax's eyes are also starting to change color ... although it is not clear what color they are going to be. His eyes will most definitely be more like mine in color where Jaida's are more like Joe's (super dark chocolate brown). Jax looks like he will have brown eyes but with some green and amber flecks like his mama's. Also, his hair is quite light in color ... sort of a light brown with a lot of red. It is also going to be curly. The long part on the top of his head is already starting to pouf up and has a bit of wave to it. So cute!!

Jaxon's Two week Pediatrician Appointment

I took Jax to his pediatrician appointment. He was pronounced in excellent health and a beautiful baby. The pediatrician commented on how long his arms and legs are and how big his hands and feet are. She said he is definitely going to be a big guy. His stats are 9 pounds 2 ounces and 21.5 inches long. He is tracking right along where Jaida was at this point ... she was 9 pounds 4 ounces and 22 inches at her 2 week appointment. He had blood drawn for his second PKU test and was not amused even slightly. The boy can definitely scream when he wants to.

Poop R' Us

Jaxon is 2 weeks old today. He is doing really well and already is changing so much. He has definitely held onto the newborn infant look much longer than Jaida did. I think because Jaida had so much hair she always looked older than she was. Jax still looks very much like a newborn. Right now Jax pretty much nurses, sleeps and poops a lot and that is pretty much it. He hardly ever cries (usually involves a diaper change when he is sleepy or a bath again when he is sleepy). He is very mellow and sleeps easily anywhere but especially loves to sleep in his mama's arms. He is generally sleeping through the night ... goes down at 11 p.m. and sleeps straight through to 5 a.m. or so and nurses and then back to sleep after minor grunting for another few hours. He is a very civilized baby with a very lucky mama. :)

Diaper changes have become a major source of entertainment around here. My reflexes are not quick enough for boy diaper changing which leads to much pee and poop being sprayed everywhere. Jaida thinks this is amazingly disgusting and absolutely hillarious all at the same time. Everytime I need to change Jax it means I go through three clean diapers in the process and usually end up with either pee or poop on myself. The boy is some kind of freaky poop making machine.