Our Family Adventure

Tonight we took Ajax out to dinner with my family (my parent, sister, and my sister’s new boyfriend).  This was really our first time taking him to a grown up restaurant where I knew he wouldn’t sleep through the whole meal.   We went to our favorite Chinese restaurant, which was nice as overall the place was pretty loud so no one noticed when Ajax started yell-talking.  He did wonderful, he was smiley and very content checking everything out.  I think he knew that he was getting a treat staying up a bit longer than normal.  We got home by 8 pm (he’s normally in bed by that time).  We did a quick bath, he protested a bit, then had a little bottle and was out like a light by 8:20.  Smooth.

Hello!  Tonight we gave Ajax his first taste of solid food: Rice cereal.  Honestly it looked disgusting and Ajax was none too impressed with it.  Actually, he didn’t seem to like it at all and looked very put off by the whole thing.  Maybe it was a little too soon for it, but I just wanted to give it a go and see what would happen.  We’ve also been doing plenty of tummy time and he seems right on the verge of rolling over.. almost, almost.  As most of you know, my aunt Terri watches Ajax.  Well, my cousin (Terri’s daughter) and her family are in from England, they have a 3 year old and a 6 month old.  Ajax is learning all about older cousins, lol.  I think it’s toughening the little guy up.

On a side note.  Dave and I are having ice cream for dinner.  We’re adults, that’s what we want, and I ruined dinner.  I’m not sure what happened as I followed the recipe from my Rachel Ray magazine exactly…

Ok, so phase 2 of landscaping was not completed this weekend, though we did purchase some of the necessary items to finish the job.  This was the ultimate lazy weekend.  It was crummy weather, rained the majority of the weekend, and we were all feeling pretty tired.  We also needed this weekend to get Ajax back on track with his naps (ie. showing him we can no longer be played and that he needs to sleep for more than 1/2 hr in a day).   Now that I think about it, Ajax started doing this screaming to get up thing about a month ago.   Unfortunately, Dave and I didn’t realize it till the behavior started occurring at night near bedtime, but by that time it had significantly increased in intensity, which now makes it harder to get a handle on.   Besides that little struggle; however, we had a very calm weekend.  Ajax seems intent on holding his own bottle- this is now his life’s ambition, as Dave put it.  He’s smiling like crazy.  Still no activity in the rolling department, though we have been spending more time on the tummy time.

Today, we ran to the grocery store.  Ajax also has a new thing which has been to talk very very LOUD.  This consists of him screaming – AHH!  AHHH!  UHHHH!  AHHH! He’s smiling and waving his arms throughout the store, and of course I mimic him, but not as loud.  Dave said he could hear Ajax several aisles away.  I think we’ll have a very vocal child.  I also think Dave and I need to start watching our language now.

I’ve been trying for a while now to put a short video of Ajax into the blog, however, I have been unsuccessful on that front; so Mr. Dave showed me how to upload a video to You Tube, um so much easier.   I took this the other morning while Dave and I were getting ready for work.  Our morning routine is pretty set.  Dave gets the kid up and fed, while I shower and dress. Than I take the kid and get him dressed and play with him while Dave gets ready.  I usually put him in his bouncy chair in the kitchen so that I can get a cup of coffee and get lunches together.  He really seems to like being in the kitchen because he can watch the morning activity.  He’s been very talkative lately and will just ramble on and on.  Anywho, I should have been getting ready, but instead shot this short video.   I used my camera so the quality isn’t that good.  Next time I’ll pull out the video camera.

Well, as I’ve said before Dave and I are new parents and still learning.  Ajax, however, for only being 3 months old seems a pro at tricking his parents.  For the last few nights Ajax has been pushing us to see how far he could get, or really, how late he could stay up.  We’d go to put him down and he would let out this ear piercing hysterical scream.  I thought he was hurt or dying, but then he’d smile from behind his pacifier- Played we’d been played!  Dave was the one to put this together as I was near tears trying to find out what he wanted.  I think I’ll have to be careful, I’m obviously prone to guilt.  lol.  We were at Target yesterday and I babbled at Ajax the entire time- “now what toy do you want?”  It took a while but he picked out some blocks.  Dave wanted Legos, but I vetoed that as Ajax would surely try to eat them at this point.

Well stage 2 of our landscaping project did not get finished.  It may get done next weekend, however, it’s supposed to storm all next week.  On Saturday Dave and I attended a wedding in Dearborn and a friend was nice enough to watch Ajax.  She said that Ajax was great the whole time, the only mishap was from Max who decided to investigate the neighbor’s yard for some reason and refused to come back.  She had to go chasing him, with the baby, before catching him five houses down (he’s actually never done that before).

My mom stayed the night in town on Saturday, since she too was at the wedding.  On Sunday my mom took Ajax for the afternoon and Dave and I had a little date.  We went to see Harry Potter (on a side note- tickets were only 5 bucks a piece!  haven’t been to a movie before noon in a long long time) and then had lunch at our favorite little Mexican restaurant, which is really just a hole in the wall, but has incredible food.  When we got home my mom was bragging about how she had Ajax laughing and laughing.  So of course after she left Dave and I spent two hours hovering over him making all the silly noises/sounds we could possibly think of.  We definitely got smiles and chuckles, but no hearty laughs.

Ajax has, however, been talking up a storm.  Today he said- “da”, “goo”, “gaa”, and “ooh!”  Dave also said that he heard a – “gorp,” but I can’t confirm that.  I think he’s going to be a very vocal child.  He’s also wanting to sit up more and more and wants to watch everything; he doesn’t want to miss a thing.  He hasn’t yet rolled over, though we’ve been consistent with tummy time.  He’s almost there.   On a side note, I was reading through one of my baby books, and there was a whole section dedicated to discipline.  Basically it said, don’t discipline your infant.  Do people really need to hear that?  Whenever Ajax gets fussy, Dave and I now threaten him- now, don’t make us discipline you young man!

Last time Ajax was at the doctor’s office I asked if he was teething.  The doctor said, no.  Currently, Ajax is like a running faucet, I cannot keep this kid’s chin/neck/shirt dry.  He must be teething.  I made Ajax his big four month appointment- Aug. 10th-that was the first available opening, so we shall see if this time around the doc thinks he’s teething. He is also blowing bubbles and making little noises as he blows them, it’s quite funny.   Dave will be taking him to this appointment, so we’ll see how they both do.  We’ll also probably start on solids which should be interesting.

I am amazed at how fast he is developing.  He can now look at something and reach out and grab it.  He is getting more coordinated and can get stuff to his mouth at least 75% of the time.  When you hold him up, with his feet on the ground, he’ll straighten his legs and “stand.”   He’s smiling more and more and talks constantly.  He has so much to say.  Dave and I have a wedding this weekend, Saturday, and on Sunday, since my mom will be in town for the wedding, said she would babysit so that Dave and I could have an afternoon date (he’s taking me to see the new Harry Potter movie, yes I am a dork).  This will be the second date Dave and I have been on since Ajax was born.  I think we need to make more of an effort to have a regular monthly date night.

Unfortunately for Ajax he is our first child.  That means he’s the practice kid, the one we learn on (lucky him).  It took us a bit but we finally realized that the little guy was having a bad reaction to the generic formula we’d switched him to.  We’d changed it over slowly, to see how he did, but when the change was complete and we were patting ourselves on the back, he started having terrible gas and stomach pains.  We went through the ringer this past weekend thinking of various things, I even put him on a soy based formula before we realized- oh he’s gassy and what’s the one thing we’re doing differently?  Oh yea, his formula.  Duh.  We beat ourselves up over this one.  As I said, poor Ajax he’s our learning kid!

Ajax had his first trip to Home Depot (the first of many to come I am sure).  He was quite interested in all the activity around him.  We had to pick up mulch and some yard stuff.  We’ve only been in this house, what 4 years now?, I guess we should do some landscaping.  We’ve never really done much outside because we had to re-side the house and have new gutters put in.  Well now that that’s done, we felt we couldn’t put off the landscaping any longer.  Ya know we never expected to have kids in this house, this was only supposed to be a 3 year house, but after law school the market dropped out and well here we are plus one additional family member.  Ajax was a great help during the first stage of our landscape plan.  He was so content in his bouncy chair outside with us and then fell asleep for about 40 minutes.  What a little helper!

Ajax has really learned the art of grabbing onto things with his little hands.  He also wants to shove everything into his mouth (which I hear is normal).  He also let out his second true laugh today; this one Dave heard, but I missed.  I also think he’s getting closer to rolling over.  Yesterday when I was doing tummy time with him he kept rolling to his side and kicking his foot back and reaching his arm back.  I can’t seem to spend enough time with him… Guess that’s the rub of being a working mom, you never feel like you have enough time with your kid.  This evening we all went shoe shopping for Dave (he needed dress shoes.  The last wedding we went to was right after Ajax was born and I forgot that I had thrown his old shoes out and never replaced them.  We didn’t realize this error till we were heading out the door).   Ajax got a ton of compliments at the shoe store and he held his head up and just looked around and cooed at everyone. I would take the little guy everywhere with me if I could.