Jessica Kelso

This month has been BUSY! Let me tell you. I can’t believe how many people we know that have birthdays around Christmas. So along with Christmas parties, we’ve had our fair share of birthday parties! It’s been really hard keeping Thrasher on a regular schedule since we seem to have something going on most nights and can only get a sitter every so often. Despite the lack of schedule some days, he’s still been sleeping like a champ. His top tooth is coming through and I can tell it’s causing him some pain…especially since today he was doing his owl whine even though he had slept 11 hours and napped great. He came down with a cold two nights ago, and I’m thinking it has to do with his tooth. Who knew growing teeth could hurt so bad?!

When he whines because he’s tired or bored, it sounds just like a hooting owl. So funny!

This picture was taken at the Christmas parade. I think Thrasher enjoyed himself minus the motorcycle cops blaring their sirens. He buried his head into Kevin’s chest and clenched his arm as tight as he could until they were gone. He’s not into loud noises. Shower curtains opening, bath tub water running, banging pans. . . he tenses up and his eyes get real big and he finds something or somebody to cling to. It’s cute and sad at the same time. I’ve had to get slightly creative with the pictures I’m actually able to post online. We did set up a Flickr account specifically for pictures of the baby, so if you’d like to see them and I haven’t already sent you the link. . . let me know!

We are taking a short road trip to Tallahassee for New Year’s to visit with some of Kevin’s relatives and while I’m excited to see them and have them meet Thrasher, I’m nervous about traveling with a 7 month old baby for the first time. It’s only 4 hours and he’s a good baby so I’m sure it won’t be near as bad as I’m imagining. I’ve also decided to just go ahead and stick with cloth diapers for the trip instead of switching things up and using disposables. Which means probably a little bit of extra stuff to pack, but I think it’ll make for a happier baby. As it is, we have no idea how we will fit everything in our little red Volvo. We normally pack it full just with our stuff and this time we have a whole other person…plus stroller. Sometime soon I will post about our experiences with cloth diapers. Love love love them! We’ve had T in disposables every couple of days since we’ve only had 12 cloth diapers and it never fails, that any day he is in them he gets a bad rash. He has yet to get one with cloth. We just ordered 6 more though, so we should have enough now to use only cloth.

Wow, sorry for such a random post. I don’t seem to ever update, so when I do it’s a whole bunch of life squeezed into a couple paragraphs. I hope to get better at this soon.

Tomorrow will be 6 weeks since the little man joined Team Kelso and in those 6 weeks we’ve learned a lot about babies. The main thing we’ve learned is that just when you think you’ve got a schedule down and everything is moving along perfectly, things change! Naps change, sleeping through the night changes, it’s always something new and unexpected. The first couple of weeks were rough, seeing as how Thrasher was in a totally new environment with complete strangers. He was always looking around. He still likes to look around and he’s very active and alert, but nothing like those first few weeks when he was trying to figure out what was going on and where he was. At night he would wake up every couple of hours and we would come running at the faintest noise. We wanted him to feel safe and secure in his new home. We could really tell he was starting to get comfortable and settle in to things when he started sleeping about 11 hours straight through the night. The first time it happened I woke up in a panic, thinking I had forgotten to turn the baby monitor on and I slept through his crying and he was terrified. I quickly ran to his room to find a happy, peacefully sleeping baby. That lasted almost 2 weeks straight. A couple of nights ago, he started waking up once. We rock him, cuddle, sing to him and he would go back to sleep relatively fast. Last night though, it seemed that any attempts we would make to put him back to sleep did more harm than good. Poor little man has been chewing on everything. When I rock him to sleep, my shirt ends up being soaked from him just going to town on it. He already has two teeth on the bottom and I think  he’s about to get one on top. Who knew these little teeth could cause so much pain?! We’re praying that’s all this is and soon he will be back to a regular schedule. Whatever that is!

It was so fun having his first Thanksgiving and we’re really looking forward to Christmas with him. I’ve always loved the Christmas season, but having a baby to celebrate it with this year is just the best. He has his own little tree in his room, and he loves to just sit and stare at the lights. Tonight we’re going with some of our friends and their kiddos to the Christmas parade, which has sorta got me freaking out. I’m not one for big crowds, especially in Lakeland. Growing up here means running into a minimum of 5 people you’d really rather not run into. . . but our friends are going and I think Thrasher will really enjoy it. So to the parade it is! Wish me luck.