Monday, November 22, 2010

5 months

Our little boy turned 5 months last week! He is just the cutest little man. Well...not that little, we're estimating he weighs about 20 pounds now!


At 5 months, Jamie loves playing with and trying to eat his feet, and we can't keep him on his back. He rolls over all the time, and he can push his chest and tummy all the way off the floor. He is also very good at spinning himself in circles while on his tummy. He tries to grab anything and everything within his reach (and out of his reach too), but once he gets ahold of one thing, he quickly loses interest and reaches for something else...but only after shoving it in his mouth first, of course. He has 2 very cute but very sharp little teeth, which he uses to gnaw on our fingers (ouch!). He loves going for walks and seeing new places. If he's being particularly fussy, I can pop him in the stroller and go for a walk and it almost always calms him down. Jamie has the cutest smile and the most adorable laugh, even if he doesn't laugh as often as I'd like. I could listen to it all day! He's pretty ticklish; the best way to make him squeal and giggle is to give him kisses on his tummy and his side.

Our biggest problem with Jamie is his sleep habits. He usually does pretty well at night, waking up just once (we've had a few bad nights lately, but last night he slept for 9 hours before waking up!), but he only lets Mommy put him to bed, and it can take several tries before he'll stay asleep. He is a TERRIBLE napper. It's rare for him to nap longer than 45 minutes, and sometimes he won't even go that long. If I hold him through the whole nap, I can get him to sleep longer but then I have no chance to get anything done. It can be very frustrating, but he usually wakes up with the biggest smile on his face, so that helps make up for it. I swear, if he took good naps, he would be such an easy baby. I just got a book called The No Cry Nap Solution, which has some good ideas I want to try out, but as we're going to France in just a couple weeks and then straight to Kirksville for Christmas, I feel like the jet lag and being away from home would screw up what little progress we'd be able to make by then, so I may wait til January to start them. I'll keep you posted, though... Any suggestions would also be appreciated (as long as they're not of the cry-it-out variety)!

We love our little man so much and feel so lucky to have him!

Sunday, November 7, 2010

a little bit of everything

When I wait this long to update the blog, there's just too much to catch up on...so here's a quick recap of our last month or two.

At the end of September, I turned 25! We went to P. F. Chang's for dinner (yum!) and Thomas made me a cake. Not the most exciting birthday I've ever had, since most of the day was just like any other, but it was fun to go out and I got quite a few nice presents too.

At the beginning of October, Thomas had a conference to go to in Philadelphia, so instead of staying in Knoxville, Jamie and I took advantage of his absence and went to Kirksville for a visit. He was such a good flyer! I wish we could always fly. This is sadly the best picture I could get of his first flight. While we were in Kirksville, we spent most of our time visiting grandparents and playing outside (not so easy to do at our apartment, unfortunately). I also got to hang out with some friends while my mom watched Jamie, which was really nice. It was mostly just a relaxing trip. Here's just a couple pictures.

piano lesson with Uncle Johnny


playing in Grandma and Grandpa's backyard
(I miss having a yard soooo much now that I have a baby!)

Mr. James turned 4 months right after we got back from our trip. I will have to do a separate post with his updates. He has been a busy boy lately!


Thomas's sister Emily came for a visit during her midterm break. I'm afraid I didn't get many pictures of her visit, but Jamie had fun playing with his aunt and we had fun hanging out and showing her around Knoxville.

Last weekend we drove out to Great Smoky Mountain National Park, which is only about an hour from here, and went on a short hike. It was so beautiful! And a couple of the towns near the entrances to the park look like they have a lot of fun stuff to do. We plan to go back many times.
We also met two other couples from Missouri doing the same hike as us- so random!
Hooray for my Moby wrap--it makes it so easy to carry this little stinker around :)


This is the waterfall that we hiked to. It also continued on in front of where we're standing here. It was soo pretty and peaceful.

And of course, last weekend was also Jamie's first Halloween. I really wanted to dress him up but didn't want to spend a lot of money on a costume when he's too young to go trick-or-treating, so I made him this pirate costume with some cheap red and black fabric. I used a plain white onesie he already had and just added a skull and crossbones. I didn't have a pattern for the pants and just modeled them on a pair he already has, so I'm glad no one can see the seams, but I love how it all turned out!

Monday, September 20, 2010

cousins

This has been a pretty big year for babies in our family. Since December there have been 5 new babies born! I'm pretty excited that Jamie has so many cousins near his age. Unfortunately I haven't been able to meet any of these babies yet, so I had to steal pictures.

My brother Hyrum and his wife Kim had a little boy on December 4th. His name is Rivers John. I can't believe he's already 9 1/2 months old and we haven't gotten to meet him.


On April 16th my brother Mark and his wife Sarah had twins! Sarah Elena and Abigail Rebekah. Sarah and I were due only 3 weeks apart but our babies are 2 months apart because the twins came early and Jamie came late. (Side note: I was surprised at how much Elena and Abigail look alike since they are fraternal twins, but then I found out that Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen are fraternal too...isn't that insane??)


And most recently, my sister Amy and her husband Charlie had a little girl just over a week ago, on the 12th. Her name is Kaylie Jo.


They are all such cuties! This brings our total up to 14 nieces and nephews. I wish we all lived close together so that I could hold all these babies and Jamie could meet his cousins!

Saturday, September 18, 2010

3 months

Mr. James turned 3 months on Wednesday. I know I say this every time, but I can't believe how quickly the time is going! It's also hard to believe how much babies change in such a short period of time. He is so much bigger! According to our scale (when I weigh myself with and without him and find the difference), he now weighs about 16.5 pounds. He only needs about another half pound to double his birth weight! But even though he weighs that much, he's still wearing a number of his 0-3 clothes, which are theoretically only supposed to fit up to 12 pounds or so, and just starting to move into the 3-6 outfits. At 3 months, Jamie doesn't cry too much anymore, at least not compared to how much he used to. He mainly cries when he's tired, and if we let him get too tired, it's bad news, but otherwise he's a generally happy little man. He smiles and "talks" all the time. He also gurgles like it's going out of style. Yesterday morning he laughed for the first time. It was the most amazing sound I've ever heard, especially because it was so delightfully unexpected. I spent all day yesterday and today trying to get him to repeat it, but without much luck. He has rolled over from his tummy to his back, but that's another trick he doesn't like to repeat much.
While he doesn't exactly like tummy time, he does much better now that he can hold his head up.

He has started reaching for toys or our hands, but only if they're already pretty darn close to him.

He loves batting at the bees on his little activity gym thing.


As long as I keep him balanced, he can push himself up to standing and support all of his weight. He'll do this over and over, usually while standing on my lap. I think it's super cute. :)

Jamie is also sleeping much better for us now, most of the time at least. The past 3 nights he has slept for 8 or 9 hours straight, not waking us up til about 6. It feels sooo good to get a full night's sleep! We adore this little guy and can't wait to see what changes and developments the next month brings!


hanging with Dad


thinking deep thoughts

we love bath time!

I love these guys :)

Friday, August 20, 2010

our new place

Reasons our new apartment is better than the our old one:
  • the dishwasher
  • we have our own washer and dryer now!
  • Jamie has his own room (something I didn't have til I was 11, lucky boy)
  • there's a real dining room
  • our walk-in closet
  • more closet space in general
  • we're allowed to paint if we want
  • the pantry (it's actually not the greatest pantry but I love that there IS one)
  • ceiling fan in our bedroom
  • really big mirrors in the bathrooms
  • that's right, bathroomS, plural...the 2nd is just a half bath, but it's still pretty sweet
  • since we live in a city now, we actually get a few TV channels despite the fact that we don't have cable
  • we are close to pretty much any store or restaurant we could wish to go to
Unfortunately there are also a few more bugs than I'm used to, and I really hate bugs. But I guess that's what we get for moving to the South. We'll post pictures as soon as everything is FINALLY unpacked and arranged. It's been a lot more difficult to finish all that now that we've got a baby!

Friday, July 16, 2010

first 7 weeks

I can hardly believe it, but Jamie is 7 weeks old today. Where has the time gone?? He is an amazing little guy, and we feel so lucky to have him!

The first few weeks of his life were very rewarding but very difficult--rewarding because I finally had my sweet little boy and could snuggle him and cover him in kisses, and it is SO wonderful to watch Thomas with him--they are too cute together; difficult because both of us had some health problems. Jamie unfortunately had jaundice. We had to take him to the hospital to get his blood taken each of the first five days we were home from the hospital, which was awful. He cried so hard. Because his bilirubin levels were still going up after the first couple blood tests, we also had to use a biliblanket, which looks like a heating pad with UV lights and helps the levels go down. He was supposed to stay on it basically 24 hours a day, which made it so we couldn't hold him as much as we wanted and made it tricky to feed him, etc. Finally his levels were down where they were supposed to be, and then I got mastitis and ended up back in the hospital to get IV antibiotics. NO fun. And on top of all this, Jamie had his nights and days completely confused and would stay up all night long (poor Thomas...Jamie would finally go to bed just as Thomas had to leave for work). It was pretty rough for a while.
on his biliblanket

Things are getting easier, though! Jamie still needs some work in the sleep department, but he generally sleeps at night now and has even slept all the way through the night a few times (though most nights he still wakes up a couple times to eat and occasionally he decides he doesn't want to go to bed at all!). It is getting more and more fun to take care of him every day. It is amazing how quickly babies change and develop. He smiles at us all the time now and makes lots of adorable cooing noises. He loves bath time and sometimes cries when we take him out. At first he hated tummy time and would scream bloody murder as soon as we put him on his stomach, but now it takes him a good 7 or 8 minutes to start crying, and he is learning to hold his head up better every day. He loves motion--being walked around or rocked, sitting in his bouncy chair, going for a drive (I hope he'll enjoy the 11 hour drive to Tennessee...). He seems to be discovering his hands; he has started sucking on them a lot and clasping them together sometimes, though he hasn't figured out how to reach for his toys yet.

after bath time

in his bouncy chair

tummy time!

He is getting bigger and bigger all the time too. At his 3 week doctor appointment (why it was at 3 weeks instead of 1 month, I don't know), he already weighed just over 11 pounds. We took him to the doctor around 5 1/2 weeks because he was sounding congested, and at that point he weighed 12 pounds 12 ounces. I sure don't need to worry about whether or not I'm producing enough milk! He has a huge double chin which can make it hard to clean his neck. We think he is the cutest chunky monkey :)

Other than taking care of our adorable baby, we are super busy right now trying to get packed up and ready to head out to Tennessee! We are moving this Sunday and it feels like we'll never be ready--it's a lot harder to pack and clean when there's a baby to take care of at the same time. Both grandmas are pretty upset that we're taking the little man away. It is hard to believe we'll be gone so soon. We are sad to be leaving our families and friends but excited to start this new phase of our lives!

Some more shots of our cutie for your enjoyment :)

first time changing the diaper genie

grumpy little man

napping with Dad

with Mommy on the fourth of July

one month old!

hanging with all his animal friends

story time with Daddy

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Jamie's photo shoot

So Jamie hasn't left me with much time to do things like update this blog...one of these days I will post about his first few weeks of life (can you believe he's already 3 weeks old??). But in the meantime I have to share this link. Yesterday Jamie got his pictures taken, and the photographer put up a "sneak peek" of the pictures on her blog. We had tons of fun getting them taken, and I am so thrilled with how they turned out! Enjoy :)

Saturday, June 19, 2010

introducing James Thomas Lecaque

On Tuesday, June 15, at 8:46 a.m., Mr. James Thomas Lecaque arrived in the world. He weighed 8 lbs, 10 oz and is 22 inches long. He is absolutely adorable, and we love him to pieces!

Jamie was due June 1st, but he decided to be fashionably late. I really, really did not want to be induced, and while my doctor didn't insist that I had to be if we got to 42 weeks, he was definitely concerned about letting the pregnancy progress any farther than that, mainly because of the age of the placenta. Waiting and waiting for the baby got harder every day that he didn't show up and we got closer to 42 weeks. Last Monday morning, when I was 41 weeks and 6 days, we had a stressful doctor's appointment. I was only dilated 1 cm, which I had been for the previous 2 weeks, and the baby still hadn't dropped, so it didn't look like he'd be arriving any time soon, making induction more likely.

After the appointment, we had a non-stress test and biophysical profile done, and the baby was doing perfectly fine. During the non-stress test, I had one contraction that I thought felt different than all the Braxton Hicks I'd been having for the past several weeks, but I wasn't really sure. In the afternoon, I started to feel some cramps, but they were sporadic and I really didn't want to get my hopes up in case it wasn't true labor. Thomas and I went on a long walk in the evening and by the time we were home, the contractions were stronger and getting more frequent. It looked like we might be having a baby that night. We ate dinner, cleaned up the apartment a little, and finished packing for the hospital. The contractions continued to get stronger and more frequent. At about 10:30, when they had been about 4-5 minutes apart for an hour or so, we left for the hospital.

When I got checked at the hospital, I was dilated 3 cm, 90% effaced, and the baby had finally dropped. I was so relieved that things were finally moving along! I was really glad we went to the hospital when we did because about 20 minutes after we got there, my water broke. Thomas called my mom and she arrived around midnight. Soon afterwards, the nurse put the baby on the monitor and discovered that when I had a contraction while sitting or standing, the baby's heart rate was dropping significantly, probably due to his cord getting squished somewhere. I consequently had to spend the rest of labor lying down. Because I had been planning on trying to have the baby naturally, this was disappointing because it meant that all kinds of pain relief/relaxation techniques I'd been planning on using--walking, birth ball, rocking chair, hot shower, etc--were no longer available. Also, lying down is the worst position to labor in and it made the contractions more painful. By about 1 I knew there was no way I could get through it without some pain relief and decided to get an epidural. Because it was the middle of the night and I hadn't been planning on having one, they had to wake up an anesthesiologist to come in, so I didn't get the epidural until about 2:15. They checked me immediately afterwards and I was dilated 8 cm, so I made it that far without anything, but I sure wouldn't recommend it if you have to lie down the whole time!

After the epidural, I was able to calm down and relax. Labor progressed somewhat more slowly at that point. Around 5 I started practicing pushing with my nurse, and I started pushing in earnest at about 5:30. Thomas, who had been a great coach and support for me the whole time, counted for me. Unfortunately, the baby's head was hitting my pelvic bone and not moving at all. At 6 the nursing shifts switched, and my super fantastic nurse was replaced by one who was less encouraging. I continued trying to push til about 7:30 with no progress at all. By that point, due to the lack of progress combined with the epidural having worn off significantly and the fact that I had been awake for over 24 hours, I really didn't think I could keep going and a c-section was looking more and more likely. But then I got a boost on the epidural and my initial nurse came back in and encouraged me to keep trying. The doctor came in around then as well and, with the use of some instruments and manipulations, managed to get the baby past the bone and finally moving. They realized the baby was sunny side up, which likely added to the difficulty of pushing him out in the first place, but the doctor was also able to get him to turn. I pushed for about an hour after the doctor came in, and at 8:46 Jamie was born!

While labor didn't go exactly as I had planned, I was thrilled with the end result--no induction, no c-section, no tearing, and, best of all, a beautiful, healthy baby boy! Thomas and I just couldn't be happier with him.


my last belly picture! the day before Jamie was born--1 day shy of 42 weeks

right after his birth











home at last!