Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Jack and his Mommy wanted to wish Daddy a Happy Birthday!

We love you!

Thank you for being the best husband and daddy and working so hard for our family!

Jack Week, Day 7 - I Heart Mommy and Daddy

Jack seems to fluctuate between who he likes best in our family. For awhile, he would whine and whine at Mommy and be so happy when Daddy came home. Then he went through a period of time when he couldn't stand it when Mommy even left the room for a moment and really didn't want much to do with Daddy. (This wasn't the happiest time.) Now I think we've found a happy medium. Jack loves to play and laugh with Daddy, but needs Mommy when he's sad, hungry, tired, or not feeling well. (Yeah, Mommy doesn't necessarily get the best end of the deal, but at least Daddy is feeling more loved.) And Mommy and Daddy love Jack very much!

Jack Week, Day 6 - Mr. Personality

Jack has definitely developed his own personality. He can be a very happy kid, but is also very stubborn. If he doesn't like something he will let you know for sure and continue to let you know for awhile afterward. He insists on things his way and gets frustrated when they don't go his way. For example, he gets very ticked off when he tries to crawl towards a toy, but ends up getting farther away. Oh, the whining that comes with that!

But Jack is also a people person. He loves to get out and see people. He flirts with the girls in Relief Society. He smiles at everyone in the stores. He just loves to be around people. When we go to the library, he smiles at everyone he sees and they can't help but smile back. Jack is my little social butterfly. So if you see him, give him a smile and I'm sure he'll grin right back at you.

Jack Week, Day 5 - Sleep...Wait, What's That?

I hesitated about this post, since it houses my dirty little secret. As I peruse other blogs, I read all about how everybody else's babies sleep through the night and nap super well and have been doing since they were, like, two days old. And I always want to cry because I feel like a bad mommy. You see, my baby does none of those things. Not even close. Jack is a terrible sleeper.

He started out well in the sleeping department. I even remember him sleeping through the night when he was a month old. Then, at about 3 months, there was a week where he did it almost every night. But the next week he stopped. In fact, he started waking up at least twice a night. And it has been getting progressively worse ever since. Last night, for example, he went to bed at 7:30 and woke up at 8:45, 11:00, 1:30, 3:45 (and didn't got back to sleep until 5), then woke up again at 5:30 and wouldn't go back to sleep. And this is actually one of his better nights. We've had nights in recent weeks where he wakes up every hour. He just doesn't sleep soundly.

Nap time really isn't all that much better. He seems to have this internal alarm clock that wakes him up after 30 minutes. But he wakes up still grumpy. So I have the choice - dealing with a grumpy baby or holding him while he sleeps. Neither is very appealing.

Now I tried to do Babywise the first four months of his life and felt like an utter failure because I was the only mommy who couldn't get it to work. I've tried to let him cry it out, but he cries so hard that he chokes himself or makes himself throw up or just keeps on crying. I don't have the heart for it.

So there you have it. I've come clean. My baby doesn't sleep. Don't judge me. I'm doing the best I can in my exhausted condition. And please don't comment and tell me about what a great sleeper your baby is. All I want is sympathy and maybe, if you have a terrible sleeper, tell me about it so I don't feel so alone. Because it seems as if I'm the only one...so tired...

Jack Week, Day 4 - What's For Dinner?

When Jack was first born, he was a great eater. Then, at about 2 months, that changed. We began the battle of infant reflux and some days were terrible. After about 2 months, as it grew progressively worse, culminating in a tear-filled weekend where he ate practically nothing, the doctor prescribed some medication that has changed things. Jack eats so much better now, although we still have lots of times when he thinks he's too busy to eat. When he eats, we have to go back into his bedroom, turn on a dim lamp, and make sure no one disturbs us. Otherwise, he will be too busy checking out everything else in the room. He's not a big eater, but at least he eats now.

While he's primarily nursed, Jack has begun the fun world of solid food. He has some rice cereal for breakfast and now tries goopy, messy veggies for dinner. So far he's sampled carrots and sweet potatoes. Each day he eats a little more of this, but, once again, he's so busy checking things out that it's hard to get him to focus on eating. We are in a constant battle for the spoon. I will give him a spoon and then have a spoon in my hand. He always wants the spoon that he doesn't have. Most of the time he ends his meals with us both covered in the food. Not sure how much he's actually eating, but we're slowly getting the hang of it.

**What's your baby's favorite foods?**

Jack Week, Day 3 - On the Move

Watch your back! Jack is now a mobile little boy and can mostly get where he wants to go. After perfecting the art of rolling everywhere, he now scoots around. He scoot himself to the direction he wants to go, but the only problem - he can't scoot forward. No matter how hard he pushes, he just ends up pushing himself backwards.

This can be very frustrating for him. Once he finds he's not where he wants to be, he ends up getting really mad and pushing his arms and legs up so that he looks like he's doing push-ups. From time to time, this position will send him flying forward, but not too far. But practice makes perfect and before long, I'm sure he'll be crawling forward too.

Jack also uses his walker to get around the kitchen. He likes to hang out with Mom while she makes dinner or does the dishes and has discovered he can get into things this way. Yesterday Mom was shocked to discover that he snuck up behind her while she was loading the dishwasher. Next thing she knew, he was chewing happily on one of his baby spoons that she had just washed.

His one struggle with walker time is that he can steer himself quite yet and ends up getting stuck in corners. But he works hard and never has time to sit still. Such a busy baby!

**What's the funniest way your baby gets around?**

Jack Week, Day 2 - So Many Toys, So Little Time

Jack is not spoiled. He is just very well loved. For Christmas he got lots and lots and lots of toys and these toys keep him very busy. Whether he's shaking rattles or making wobbly balls jangle or pressing buttons on his phone or remote, he's always making lots of noise with his toys. But the best part of these toys - you can taste them all! Every toy he owns has been sampled multiple times by his little mouth. And they are all delicious.
And sometimes, when Mommy and Daddy haven't put his favorite toy, he scoots himself over to the toy basket and finds what he needs. One morning he was busy throwing things out of the basket. He was especially annoyed to find that his remote control wasn't on and so therefore wasn't making any noise. That got tossed pretty far. Such is the life of a busy baby!

Jack is also an avid reader. He loves this Itsy Bitsy Spider book and spends much of his time looking at the spider and tasting the spider and laughing while Mommy sings Itsy Bitsy Spider. He still hasn't quite figured out the concept of which way the book goes. Give him time.

**What toys can your baby not live without?**

Jack Week, Day 1 - Slippery When Wet

This week the Coffman Chronicles is going to be devoted to exploring the life of the coolest 6 month old on the block and we'll show you how he spends his busy days and how he has grown and changed in the last month. This is JACK WEEK!

Jack loves bath time. I mean, absolutely loves bath time. His face lights up when he hears the tub, then gets even brighter when he discovers he's naked, and he's positively giddy by the time we grab his towel and head in.

He has lots of fun toys that he loves to suck on. There's toys that you squeeze and toys that spray. And toys that you just throw around to see how big you can make the splash.

The latest excitement in bath time is sitting up and trying to crawl around the tub. Now this would be really fun if Jack actually knew how to sit up for a long time. But he is still unsteady and is constantly on the brink of falling over. Mom has to hover with hands ready to catch the bobble baby at any moment. Yet it's just too fun to resist and so Jack insists upon sitting to get a better view.

Sadly, bath time has to come to an end and this makes for a sad fellow. After the best part of his day, we lead into the worst - GETTING DRESSED. He hates it. He screams and wails and gives Mommy the saddest looks you'll ever see. The only way to lighten the mood during these tense moments is when Daddy shows up for some peek-a-boo. Then all is forgiven.

**How does your baby feel about bath time?**

Stay tuned tomorrow for more in the exciting adventures of JACK!

How Do You Celebrate?

Think about your half birthday. Do you celebrate it? Most people don't seem to remember their half birthdays and they tend to fall by the wayside.

But there's a certain individual in our house who celebrated their very first half birthday yesterday, making him SIX MONTHS OLD!

And in our house, we know how to party right.

We celebrated by having...

CARROTS!!

The verdict is still out on how the birthday boy feels about his carrots. He didn't seem to love them, nor did he seem to hate them. He seemed more bored, as you can tell by his face in the picture.

Half A Year of Change

Amazingly, 6 months ago I woke up looking like this:

(Ok, so maybe not exactly like that. Probably much more haggard - I had been up all night having contractions).

After hours and hours and hours of waiting at the hospital, I was presented with this little treasure.

An itty-bitty, little bundle of joy that spent his days eating, sleeping, and getting his diaper changed. But then he grew.

One Month

And he grew

Two Months

And he grew...

Three Months

And he grew some more...

Four Months

Wait, he grew even more...

Five Months

Until, finally, well he was a big 6 month old man!

Gone is my little eating, sleeping newborn. Now my days are full of a big talking, rolling, splashing, rice-cereal-eating, attempting-to-crawl, playing, grabbing, Sesame Street watching, busy little man. What a difference half a year makes!

(And Mom has changed quite a bit too - she's a permanently exhausted, sweat pant wearing, drool covered laundress who is 4o lbs. lighter)

The Uninspired Blogger

So lately I've felt like a boring blogger. More uninspired than anything.

In case you haven't noticed, my blogging these days basically consists of me putting up pictures of my baby. Now I know I have the cutest baby in the world and everyone wants to look at his darling mug, but I feel like maybe my readers are wanting a little more. (Or maybe not. My baby is REALLY cute. But something tells me you are wanting more by the lack of comments these days. I used to get a lot of comments. Now I get very few. Sad face.)

I used to be a blogger who told more stories and was sometimes even funny. I kind of lost my blogging rhythm when motherhood set in. So today, on the eve of celebrating being a mommy for six months, I'm going to reclaim my blogging mojo and make a vow to be more exciting. Now finding something exciting to blog about will be another adventure in itself. My life consists of Jack, Jack, and more Jack, plus some housework thrown in. But I will attempt to make this more interesting.

But for all my Jack fans out there, don't worry, I will still put up plenty of Jack pictures and stories. I'm just going to make them more exciting.

So here's to a new, more inspired blogging me.

Good Times with Uncle WIll

My brother Will recently moved to Provo to attend BYU. He's living in the same apartment complex that Dallin and I met at and he's been spending lots of time at our house as he adjusts to Provo college life. Jack really enjoys it when Uncle Will comes over. He always has a big smile for him and likes to play with him.

Last night, after a tasty Sunday dinner, Jack and Will had a great time playing together, as you can tell from the peals of laughter in the video.

Uncle Will is hilarious!

January Blahs

I haven't blogged in awhile and, frankly, it's because I feel I don't really have all that much to blog about. Sadly, I think I have a case of the January Blahs. January has always been my least favorite month. It's cold, there's a let down after Christmas, not much to look forward to (except for Dallin's birthday, but that's all the way on the last day of the month.)

This January has been exceptionally blah since I really don't leave the house much since it's disgusting outside (lovely Utah has had the worst air quality in the nation this week - worse than LA at rush hour. Yuck!) and I have a baby. Plus, where do we go? All the places I can think of are outdoors. What do you do to occupy yourself in the winter? We still have two months before we can even start hoping for spring.

Here's how Jack and I occupy our day: cleaning house, doing laundry, practicing crawling (he's getting close), walking in the walker, playing with toys, reading books, watching Sesame Street, napping (when he's cooperating), dancing, and taking pictures, as seen below. So if you have any ideas on what to do to get us out of our January Blahs, we'd appreciate it. And enjoy our pictures. At least I have a cute baby to lift my spirits.

Yummy In My Tummy

Tonight was a night Jack has been anticipating for awhile. For the last month or so, he's been grabbing at our food and acts like he really wants it. So tonight he got to try some rice cereal.

Getting so excited. The anticipation is killing him!

Mmmmm...he really liked it! The only problem was that he kept trying to grab the spoon, even though I gave him his own spoon to hold. He knew my spoon had the food and he wanted that instead.

Delicious!

Video of the first bite - I love that he watches the camera the whole time!

Places to Go, People to See

Jack here. I just got back from my Christmas vacation to Ojai, California and boy, was I was busy. Mom and Dad took me all sorts of places and had me meet all sorts of new people.

I went to the cemetery and visited my great-grandpa's grave

and cousin Wessy's grave. That's who I get my middle name from!

I spent time at the beach, putting my little piggies in the sand. I also loved watching the waves. When one would crash, I would get very excited, wiggle and giggle, hug my daddy, and then turn around and watch for the next one. Maybe I should be a surfer...

I went to the playground and rode on the swings

and went down the slide

One day we went to LA and visited the temple where Mommy and Daddy got married. We also met up with Mommy's former roommate Shelley and her family, but silly Mom forgot to take pictures. But I did have fun meeting another baby named Jack, just like me!

I met my cousin Shyla for the first time and thought she was cute enough to eat. Oh, wait, I think everyone and everything is cute enough to eat. But I did like smiling at her and liked when she smiled back.

We also visited Mom's friend Lelah and I got to meet her niece who is only a few days older than me.

I had such a good time on my trip. I loved playing with my family and going places. Plus the warm weather let me play outside more. It was a great vacation!