First trip to the Aquatic Center...Noble slept the entire time, so we didn't even get wet!

First stroller ride We bought his first high chair (for the cereal...keep up!)

Fun with Solid Foods!

For a variety of reasons, it became clearer and clearer that it was time for Nobley-Obley to start on rice cereal. At 2 months, Dr. D. told me it was time. We didn’t want to put the cereal in his formula and when I said that to Dr. D, he said, “then feed it to him with a spoon.” Oh, okay…have to say, that hadn’t really occurred to me (and no, I’m not being sarcastic for once). So, it took another month for me to wrap my mind around feeding a child younger than 4 months cereal (ALL the books say start solids between 4-6 months or your baby will blow up or something equally terrible…). The poor kid is gaining weight just fine, but just acts like he’s STARVING. We told ourselves we’d wait until 12 weeks (3 months sounds so much better than 2, doesn’t it?), so here we are.

Judge for yourself—I think Mikey likes it!

—Kristi

(P.S. He cries when he’s done with his cereal, the saddest little “you’ve really hurt my feelings!” cry. Apparently the kid loves to eat. Ah, he is a Weseloh, after all…)

First solid food (rice cereal!)

Bittersweet....

Today was a big, big day for our family: it was Kayci’s last day of preschool. They had a “Moving On to Kindergarten” celebration and we had one last potluck lunch with her friends and their families. I only cried twice today, so I’m feeling like I did okay. Kayci was just excited to get to wear her new dress and “Princess” shoes (she overheard Ms. Alison telling me yesterday that the kids could wear “whatever they want” today, so too-small shoes it is!). Today’s a hard day in a lot of ways, but I’m really proud of the person that Kayci is and is becoming. She’s beautiful inside where it counts, and it doesn’t hurt that her exterior is pretty gorgeous, as well. :) But seriously, she’s a great kid. I couldn’t be more proud…but I’m not ready for her to be this BIG.
—Kristi

Fun with Friends...

I’m totally supposed to be working (shh…) but couldn’t resist! Yesterday I was having kind of one of those mornings…fussy baby, big kid who needed more than Mommy had to offer. My friend Paula called and when we started talking she said, let Kayci come over and play. She even offered to come get her, but I thought that getting out of the house for a walk would be good for me and Mr. Shots. So, we walked over to Paula’s. As soon as we got there, Kayci took off to play with the boys and I sat down (for a minute) in the big comfy chair to catch up with Paula. I think all 3 of us relaxed immediately…Noble went to sleep (for the first time that morning), Kayci was having a blast, and I enjoyed visiting with Paula. I left there AN HOUR AND A HALF LATER feeling like a whole new Mommy. (And Paula fed Kayci lunch, too!) I told James when he came home for lunch how blessed I feel to have the Headleys right around the corner. :)

So here are some fun pics…one of the things about going over to the Headleys is that it’s a place where we can totally relax and PLAY. We spend a lot of time in their backyard!

This is from Lydia’s 6th birthday party: Kayci painted my nails, then the boys wanted to help. As many of you saw, I had tie-dyed nails for 2 weeks, but I wouldn’t trade that hour for the world.

This one’s just for fun: Paula’s parents were visiting from Iowa, so we took Noble over to meet them. Noah wanted Noble to ride in his stroller (yep, it’s a doll stroller) and you know I can’t tell him no…

Triple Whammy

Noble had a big day yesterday. It was his 2-month Well-Baby visit. They weighed and measured him (that’s in his Babybook if you want specifics), and he’s exactly average. :) Developmentally he’s on track, and all in all it was a good visit. And then…

Whammy 1: I brought up our feeding concerns—Noble’s just not doing well with his formula. Kayci couldn’t handle cow’s milk as an infant, and we’ve tried the lower lactose formula for him but he still has so much gas and then, of course, the tummy aches. So, we went over the options and decided to switch him to soy formula (which worked beautifully for Bitty). After the doctor, we went to Wal-Mart and bought some, and he has done so well with the switch! Much less gas IMMEDIATELY. He’s still spitting up, but that seems to be mostly after his antibiotic, which is…

Whammy 2: Dr. Draehn asked how Noble had been sleeping the past few days. I explained about Grandma and the traveling, etc. and that he’d been more fussy than normal but with good reason. Turns out, he has a bigger reason—his first ear infection. Hence, the antibiotic.

Whammy 3: 2-month immunizations. Noble did really well with the actual shots, and quit crying as soon as I picked him up. But since then, he’s run the typical fever and been more lethargic and fussy than normal. He slept a LOT yesterday, and we let him…Kayci did not do well with this same round of shots, so we were kind of expecting a rough 24-48 hours. It hasn’t been horrible, so we’re relieved. 24 hours to go…cross your fingers!

—Kristi

The Bet

This is SUCH a James & Kristi thing…

So, over the past 2 weeks we’ve logged a lot of hours in the car, hospital, restaurants, funeral home, etc. It has been nice, despite the circumstances, visiting with my family. (One of the highlights: my Grandma had a box of letters, etc. she’d saved through the years. What a treat to read letters my mom wrote before I was born and when I was a baby…back then they didn’t talk on the phone all of the time like we do, so her letters are filled with the mundane-to her, at the time-details of our family’s day-to-day life. 30+ years later, it’s fascinating to read what was important back then, and to read that basically, our personalities haven’t changed since we were babies.) Anyway, I digress. Back to the bet…

Sunday night we were at the nursing home for several hours for the visitation. As you can imagine, we had a lot of time to sit around and talk. Which apparently can only lead to trouble for James and me. I don’t know how it came up, but we began to argue about when we paid off the CRV. I was POSITIVE it was when we moved to Brenham, he was CERTAIN it was when we bought the truck. If you know the two of us, or you read the title of this entry, you know what’s coming. I started it–”let’s bet,” I said. James didn’t want to at first, but of course I kept at him until he finally agreed. But ah, there’s a certain finesse to James and Kristi betting. Usually the one who insists on the bet has an agenda. In this case, sadly, I did not. So, when James said, “Loser takes night feedings for a WEEK,” I didn’t think twice about it because I knew I’d win. Well…Monday night when we got home from the funeral, I asked James to go look it up.

You know what happens next. He won the bet. With very little gloating, which would NOT have been the case had I won. I have not been a gracious loser, I have to say…I was exhausted after all of the traveling, etc. (and stress, yes, I’m sure) and then to have all of the night feedings, well, not the perfect week. So, here we are 4 nights in. James gets lots of cool points–he took the feedings (BOTH of them!) on Tuesday night so I wouldn’t be so tired for Wednesday’s commute. Then yesterday was such a long day because of Noble’s shots, James brought up the bet again–he wanted to let me out of it and help with the night feedings. He was such a gentleman about it, too, saying that we could forget the bet and he wouldn’t hold it against me later. Well, if you know me, you know that I was REALLY tempted–I’m so exhausted, and so far behind in all 4 of my jobs. But, I didn’t accept his offer. Not because I think he’d gloat about it or bring it up later, but because, in all honesty, I don’t know if I could have made such a generous offer if I’d been the victor here. Would I have held him to it, and made him do all 7 nights in a row? I can’t answer that. And also, if I back out now, the next time we bet it won’t mean as much. (We take our bets very seriously, you know).

Last night wasn’t so bad, not nearly as bad as we expected it to be after his shots. Only 4 nights to go…

-Kristi

At Rest

Last night around 8pm Kristi’s grandma passed away in katy. She had been rushed to the hospital a week before and had deteriorated ever since. Kristi and Kayci and Noble spent a lot of time in the past week driving back and forth to Katy and just sitting with her grandma, who would phase in and out of lucidity. Yesterday they released her from the hospital and moved her to a nursing home with a hospice staff.
In the photo above, taken Tuesday, May 6, Noble and Grandma Clarkson snuggled up and took a nap together. The one below was taken on April 25th.

Two Funny Photos

This first photo is of Noble’s first trip to Baskin Robbins. The boy was barking out orders and getting samples like a madman! As you can see, he already cleaned out the whole 5-gallon carton of Infamil Crunch flavor and was about to go to work on Pacifier Praline.

The second photo was taken one day a couple of weeks ago when we were at Hallmark. He was sleeping in my arms as we walked around the store. Suddenly, I saw a photo that looked REALLY familiar. I looked down and got the live show of what was in the photo. Apparently, Noble has been moonlighting as a picture frame photo model. That explains how he could afford his new diamond-studded pacifier.

Noble Smile

In the past week or so, Noble has really become a lot more alert. He’ll lock his eyes onto you and track you as you walk across the room. He’s also started showing glimmers of recognition. He’ll look at you for a little while and give you a quick little smile if he recognizes you. It’s not the full-on beaming smile that babies give that lights up the room (yet), but we’re getting there.

He especially loves to smile for Mommy.

But unfortunately, Noble isn’t as in love with the camera as his sister was, so we have yet to really capture one of his smiles. Even if, as he did last night, he smiles several times in a row he’ll clam up as soon as the camera is brought out.

But Kristi managed to capture one of his fleeting smiles on her phone and e-mailed it to me today. It’s not the big smile that he gives you with big, bright eyes – it’s the tail end of a smile. But you get the idea from the photo.