Jonah: 4 Months

I know I’m biased, but...I think I have the most beautiful baby in the world!  He has the softest skin with so many sweet rolls and folds.  He’s my little baby angel!

Whenever he eats, he has started flirting with me.  It is seriously the cutest thing ever!  He’ll smile shyly, talk, and coo at me.  I love it!  He also makes the cutest squealing noise whenever he gets excited.  I know he is so close to laughing!  He has the cutest personality, and I love watching it develop.  He is so sweet and funny!  Jonah is also very much a morning person.  It’s rare that he’s not awake by 6:30!  He is very happy when waking up too - all smiles!

August 1 was my first day back to work.  The night before, I cuddled with Jonah all night long.  I couldn’t sleep!  I knew he would be in good hands with our new nanny, but I was still so worried about leaving him for so long.  The nanny texted me multiple times while I was at work, saying Jonah was inconsolable and crying the whole day long!  He wasn’t used to me being gone for hours on end and having to drink out of a bottle all day!  Yes, he had gotten bottles previously, and did well with them, but didn’t have to drink out of them all day.  The nanny was at her wits end.  So I wasn’t surprised when she quit the next day...leaving us in the same position, needing to find a new nanny before Jordan started school again on September 9.  Ugh.  

Physically, Jonah has been developing by leaps and bounds!  He is able to hold his torso up and does little push-ups during tummy time!  He is also constantly rolling over, and even rolls over during his sleep!  Jonah also has started trying to scoot forward. The problem is though, he can't figure out how to move his arms! It's so funny. He also eats a ton.  Once, he ate 8 ounces for Jordan when he woke up!  I was shocked!

Jordan watched Jonah the rest of the month of August.  Jonah is so lucky to have all this time to spend with Jordan.  None of our other future kids will have this much time with him!  I was also jealous, because Jonah was sleeping much better for him during the day than for me (initially, anyways)!  Towards the middle of August, Jonah started going through the dreaded “four month sleep regression!”  He had been sleeping 8 hours a night, eating, and then sleeping 3 more hours.  During the sleep regression, he would get up every 2 hours.  I just had to remind myself that this too would pass!

Wednesdays have become my least favorite day, because I’ll usually work and then I’ll have Young Women’s in the evening.  I hate being away from Jonah all day long.  

My 25th birthday was fun and pretty laid back!  We went on a long walk and then out to dinner at a restaurant a few blocks away from us called The Hill Cafe.  I got their crab cakes - they were so delicious!  Because I worked on my birthday, we continued the celebration to the weekend by going to breakfast, to see Wolverine, and going on another long walk!  

Jonah got a “command center” exersaucer on my birthday too and he loves it!  He especially loves to chew on the green leaf!  We also got Jonah a little chair in the middle of August and he loves that too.  It helps him sit upright and has a lap tray for him to play with toys!

Jonah loves all types of music, but apparently he is a boy after his mommy’s heart.  He loves 80’s music!  One night, I tried to get him to sleep for about an hour, and then Jordan tried.  He put on “Don’t Stop Believin” by Journey and Jonah fell asleep before the song was over!  Jonah also LOVES piano music, and is always entertained when Jordan and I play the piano.

We went to North Carolina again August 17 to see the Bethers and (brother) Jordan before he went back to Utah!  It was so relaxing.  We hung out, watched movies, ate yummy food, and then went to church the day after.  

We got some new neighbors on August 22.  They have big dogs who like to bark, but thankfully not at night!  

I loved this outfit he wore one day.  The bib said “Daddy’s Big Guy” and his onesie said “Daddy’s Little Guy.”  What one is it!?  Haha!

To celebrate Jonah turning 4 months, we went to Maymont!  It was so beautiful!

Jonah: 3 Months

I’ve been wearing Jonah a lot in the Sleepy Wrap.  He loves it!  I love keeping him close, because I know that soon he will want to be moving everywhere!  Whenever he eats, he grabs onto my shirt so tight or would run his arm back and forth against my chest.  It is so sweet, it melts my heart!

We had a “Life After Camp Sleepover” for the Young Women and Jonah joined them!  :)  I was worried he would wake everyone up, but he did really good!

This little boy is really starting to get chubby.  I LOVE it!  He has the cutest rolls ever.  

We were able to go to Utah for a week in the beginning of July!  It was awesome.  That morning we went to breakfast to see Grandy and Grandpa Rick so they could love on Jonah!  Then we went to see the Evers boys in their neighborhood parade.  They were so cute!  Jonah even joined in on the fun and rode with cousin Wilson in the bike trailer!  Afterwards, we saw Monsters University with the Petersons!  It was so fun.  We spent the 4th of July helping the Hendersons prepare for their annual party.  We had a great time!  It was Jonah’s first time in a pool!  He loved the warm water!  After the party we went to the country club in Sugarhouse to see the fireworks.  As always, it was a great show.  Jonah surprised everyone by sleeping through them!  I guess he was sleepy!

July 5th was spent hanging out with cousins and getting ready for Jonah’s blessing the next day.  Jordan and I were able to go get a couples massage (I am ALWAYS going to get a hot stone massage from now on!) while Wendy watched Jonah.  They sent us the cutest pictures of him with Willie!  We all went to Cafe Rio that evening and then to see Despicable Me 2, which was so funny.  We got him the cutest blessing outfit ever!

Jonah was given a name and blessing by Jordan on July 6 at Omi and Buppi’s house.  Before this experience, I had no idea that babies could be blessed outside of a church, so it was a really neat day.  Jordan gave a wonderful blessing and many of our family members were able to participate!  After the blessing, we had dinner and hung out with most of our family members.  Thank you so much for everyone that was able to come and participate!  

Jordan had to leave that evening on a red-eye, so my mom came and picked me and Jonah up for the rest of our trip.  On the 7th of July, my mom, Jared, me, and Jonah all went to church together.  We had a great time!  That evening, we went to see Grandma and Grandpa Cuthbert so they could love on Jonah some more.  Danen, Debra, Mallory, and Mitch were there as well!  

Uncle Jared is SO cute with Jonah.  He totally doted on him, played with him constantly, and made him smile!  It is seriously so sweet!

On the 8th we ran a bunch of errands and my mom, Jonah, and I made a trip to IKEA to search for some cupboard organization.  Unfortunately, they didn’t have what we were looking for, but I am always happy to go to IKEA! :)

The 9th was spent hanging up pictures at my mom’s and then dinner with Omi and Buppi so they could love on Jonah!  I was happy that I could catch Buppi singing “Hoppe Hoppe Reiter” to Jonah on video.  He has sung that to every single grandchild countless times and it’s one of my favorite memories of growing up!  

Throughout the entire trip, Jonah was napping so great - taking all these 3 hour naps!  I think it’s because he was so stimulated and seeing all these new faces!  I’m glad he was able to sleep well though.  He started really sleeping amazingly well at night - about 7 hour stretches, eating, and then sleeping for another 3 hours!  One strange thing that would happen a few times during naps however, are night terrors where he wakes up from naps screaming and flailing.  It is SO sad and breaks my heart!  I started reading the No-Cry Sleep Solution toward the end of July and I absolutely love it.  It has given me such great ideas and routines to follow to help Jonah have healthy sleep habits - and not cry it out!  

Jonah and I had a horrible experience coming home from Utah on July 10th.  Our flight was originally scheduled for 8:30 AM.  When I woke up to feed Jonah at 4, I saw that our flight had been delayed 3 hours.  Delta made me reschedule both our flights.  I picked one leaving at 9:30 AM and going to Minneapolis.  When we got to the plane, our captain said there was a dent in the aircraft and that we were delayed.  We ended up being delayed for almost 3 more hours.  When we finally got to Minneapolis, I had missed my second flight.  Delta rescheduled me for another flight leaving at 7:30 PM.  I walked around the entire airport twice, got dinner, and fed and changed Jonah a few times.  I was running out of diapers!  My flight was then delayed until midnight (UGH), but thankfully they then pushed it up to 9:30 PM.  I tried to find diapers in the airport, but could not find any smaller than size 3 (Jonah was in between size 1 and 2).  When we got on our flight, Jonah began screaming and screaming and couldn’t be consoled.  I couldn’t change him because the flight attendant was taking a million years to hand out drinks in the aisle.  I finally changed him, fed him, and he fell asleep only 45 minutes before we landed.  It was horrendous!!  One thing I learned that would have made it a bit easier would have been taking the stroller so I could put Jonah, my pillow, and the diaper bag all on it.  We were delayed a total of 8 hours!!

This little boy started to go through a growth spurt soon after we came home...right on schedule!  He hits all his growth spurts a week early, and it was almost exactly a week before he turned 3 months!  He would eat everything in sight, including gnawing on his fists with such a ferocity!  He ate every 2 hours both day and night for over 24 hours...it was exhausting!

The next few days after this, he was super unhappy.  I thought he was teething because of all his drool and blowing bubbles!  In hindsight though, I see he was just fussy.

I noticed in the middle of July that Jonah is losing his hair :(  It covered his mattress! It made me so sad!!  

We went down to the Bethers in North Carolina the 16th and 17th of July.  It was so fun!  We went boating and Jordan and Brady were even able to come before they went to work!  It was Jonah’s first time on a boat.  He didn’t like the wind blowing in his face, but tolerated it when we held him tight and close!  Jenae watched Jonah while Jordan and I went to the temple, which was so nice.  :)

For the record, this picture was taken after boating, while on dry land! :)  

We always put Jonah in a life jacket and hold on tight!

We got Jonah a “Finding Nemo” play mat that he absolutely loves.  When you kick Squirt, music and lights play and he gets so excited!

On July 20, Jonah rolled from his back to his belly for the first few times!  He just kept doing it over and over.  I was so excited!  I had set him down in his crib for a minute to get something, and he immediately rolled over!  

At church on July 21, Jonah had 2 blowouts, and so was therefore a diaper-only baby by the end of church!  He also had pooped on his blanket, so I had to roll that part up and cover him up with the rest!  I was so embarrassed, but I’m laughing about it now!

We started interviewing nannies around this time and hired one girl.  She seemed super promising - lots of experience with infants and was my age!  I was so happy.  

Right around the time Jonah turned 3 months, he started really holding on to toys well and sitting up!  It is so cute to watch :)

Jonah: 2 Months

Jonah’s second month started off with Nana leaving to go back to Utah.  :(  It was so great to have her here!  

Jonah and I also went to church for the first time on May 26.  Everyone adored him and could not stop staring at him and talking to him!  One lady said, “He looks so wise!”  I agree - especially being so new from Heaven, it makes you wonder if the veil is still thin for them.

We drove down to North Carolina to spend Memorial Day with the Bethers.  I’ll admit, I was worried.  Jonah had never stayed the night at someone else’s house, and I was worried the change in environment would be difficult for him.  I’m happy to say it went really well!  Since I had to feed him every 2 hours, I wasn’t able to do as much with the kids as I would have liked, but that’s ok.  We went to their neighbor’s pool party and brought a ginormous pasta salad that Wendy made before she left.  Jonah slept the entire party and we stayed in the shade the whole time.  Jordan and I discovered that making road trips with a baby takes twice as long - if they’re hungry, you have to stop and feed them; if they have a poopy diaper, you have to stop and change them.  Good to know for planning for the future!  

I ended up having to take another round of fluconazole for that dang yeast infection.  Very happily though, it didn’t give either me or Jonah tummy troubles!  Yay!  It also cleared up the infection, which made for a very happy momma!

May 29 was the first time Jonah went 7 hours between feedings at night!  I was so full of milk that I had to pump and got SIX ounces out of one side!  I was shocked.  He slept so much because the little stinker decided not to nap at all the day before!

May 30 was mine and Jordan’s fourth anniversary!  We went to see Iron Man 3 during the afternoon with Jonah.  He did great, only had to eat once and didn’t cry.  The loud noises made him jump though!  That evening, he got his first non-family babysitter, our good friend from the branch Haley Donaldson.  She watched him while we went to dinner!  It was so nice.  

Jonah hit his 1 month growth spurt at the end of May, and was eating every hour and a half!  He would sleep really well at night though.  His nighttime feedings were very consistent - 1, 4, and 7!  He also started being consistently fussy around 6 PM, and cluster feeding until bedtime.

Jonah has pulled off some amazing feats when it comes to his diaper.  I’m not even joking - somehow he has managed to pee on both me and Jordan with the diaper on.  But when I go to take the diaper off, it is dry and his clothes are dry!!  How in the world...I’ll never know.  Another time he peed on me FIVE times in a row!!  Every time I would go to put a new diaper on, he would pee on me!  He just kept laughing, and I kept laughing too - it was SO funny!

We noticed the beginning of an umbilical hernia in the start of June.  I told the doctor about it and they said it could wait until his next appointment.  Usually hernias disappear by themselves and aren’t an issue until 3-4 years old.  

In the middle of the month, Jonah began projectile vomiting a few times a day, as well as spitting up ALL DAY long!  I was so worried.  In addition to this, he was super fussy, eating every hour, and had a temperature of 99.2.  I took him to the doctor and she said I was feeding him too much!  They weighed him at the doctor and he weighed 11 pounds!!!  I was so shocked.  He had gone from 25th percentile to 75th percentile in a few weeks!  Wow.  So they said to feed him no more than every 2 hours and use the binkie more.  This REALLY concerned me though.  Everything that I had learned, read, and was told by nurses and lactation consultants was to feed on demand!  So I called the lactation consultant and told her the situation as well.  She suggested feeding from only one side each time and if he gets hungry again in the space of an hour, feed from that same side.  Then switch to the other side at the next feeding.  It’s called “block feeding.”  

At his doctor’s appointment on June 14, Jonah’s stats were: 11 pounds 3 ounces, head circumference 37 cm, and 23 inches long!  He also got his immunizations that day and was not happy about it at all.  I felt so horrible for him.  His little legs where he got shot were red and swollen.  Every time he would kick his legs he would scream and cry.  :’(  It was so heartbreaking!  He also had a low grade temperature of 99.8.  I called the doctor and they said I could give him baby Motrin, which really helped him.  

We celebrated Jordan’s first Fathers Day on June 16!  We gave him a nice card and a photo book with lots of pictures from Jonah’s birth onward.  

Every time Jonah eats now he grabs onto my shirt so tightly.  I love it!

We went to my co-workers baby shower on June 19 and everyone LOVED Jonah!  He was such a little stud, smiling at my co-workers!  It was so fun.  

We also went up to Girls Camp on June 21.  It was great!  Jonah was so good, he hardly cried at all.  It was super hot though, so I fed him frequently so he wouldn’t get dehydrated.  The Young Women are obsessed with him.  It’s so cute! :)

On Jonah’s 2 month birthday, he and I went to Virginia Beach and just played in the water, read, and took naps.  He had a good time looking at the underside of the umbrella, but did not like the water one bit!  It was really cold for him.  When I put his little toes in, he jerked his feet back and screamed.  Other than that though, it was great!