Happy Halloween!

The Renoud Family wishes you treats (and no tricks) this Halloween!

Jamisen taking a little

cat
cow nap at the pumpkin patch.

Clearly Jamisen couldn't decide which black and white animal he wanted to be. I think he looks equally cute in both!

I hope you're doing something fun with your family tonight. We'll be at my brother Erik's house handing out candy- full sized candy bars in honor of my Grandpa who's handed out full sized candy bars his entire life! Happy Halloween! Enjoy your families tonight, be safe and have fun!

Update 7:39 p.m. We are home (and Jamisen's asleep) from handing out candy at Erik and Cheriss's house and had to share photos. We ended up dressing Jamisen in his cow costume (which he puked on three times, taking out Auntie Cheriss, Uncle Erik and his Dad in the process. He truly follows the adage, "If you do something, do it with all of your heart" - or in this case, stomach!).

All dressed up with Auntie Cheriss. He puked right after this photo was taken.

Playing with cousin Toby, who dressed up just to match Jamisen!

 Getting his first Halloween candy of his life!

Baby in a Pumpkin

I bet when you saw the title of this blog, you didn't think I literally meant 'Baby in the Pumpkin' but yes, we carved out a pumpkin and all in the name of fun photography, stuck Jamisen in the pumpkin. There's a fine line between Anne Geddes and child abuse. We're pretty sure we didn't cross it.

The baby in the pumpkin did make this year more memorable than previous years. We had an extra fun time carving our pumpkin this year! As you can see, we did it a little differently than the traditional Pumpkin =)

He immediately realized he was sitting in food and started eating the pumpkin. It was a little hard in this format but we did take the opportunity to introduce him to this healthy food. Jamisen LOVED "his" pumpkin, especially when we steamed and pureed it up and let him eat it.

Pssst - If you're thinking of doing this for your newborn, first of all, YES, do it! The photos are so fun but just a tip - we cut holes in a giant garbage bag and put Jamisen into the garbage bag and *then* into the pumpkin. This meant that he stayed relatively pumpkin-butt free and dry during the photo shoot.

Mango!

We've had a fantastic time introducing foods to Jamisen. And he LOVES solid foods. Loves, loves, loves to eat. That kid is a Faiola! Forget this milk and bottle stuff, give me FOOD! We introduced him to mango today. You can see his eh hem, positive reaction in the video below.

Visit to the Pumpkin Patch

We have had a fantastic weekend with family. I feel so lucky that my folks were able to come up for the entire weekend. We explored Stoney Ridge Farm today and wow, was it packed full of families! I haven't seen that many families in one place ever! Of course, once we visit Disneyland, that statement will probably change.

Jamisen has never seen farm animals before. In fact, besides a few adorable niece and nephew dogs, he's never seen ANY animals before. He seemed interested. He was wide awake and alert the entire time.

We dressed him up for the occasion in his Farm Cow outfit. He was such a good sport. You can't see us, but both Mommy and Daddy are right out of the photo frame ready to catch any toppling babies.

And of course, we picked our own family pumpkin from the awesome pumpkin patch. We were SO proud of our Pumpkin!

Sunday, I left the family (sob) for a Mastermind Business Meeting to work on goals for 2012. Since becoming a parent, my measure of 'success' has changed so this will be an interesting and challenging day as I work to define what I want for myself, my business and my family life next year. I know that next year, 2012, is going to be a year of 'Building' for our family - saving money, starting on baby number two and generally, building for the future we want.

Sleep Training

Our sweet little boy is over 5 1/2 months old. Since birth, we have both been willing, ready and able to do anything to make him smile. One of the things we discovered (thank you 'Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Baby' book) is that sleeping babies really are happier. And happier babies equal smiley babies! So, when he was 2 1/2 months old, we started on a serious nap schedule with him. Thanks to the awesome addition of SuperNanny McKenna to our parenting team, we were able to get Jamisen on a 3-naps-per-day schedule. That helped a lot with his happy demeanor.

But, while he slept well during the day (even if some of those naps were short naps), nighttime was a different story. Many nights would go by with him not clocking over 2 hours without waking up and needing our comfort. His Doctor told us that we should consider sleep training. But still, 6 weeks went by after that visit before Chris and I decided that we needed to teach him this essential skill. The kicker was the night he woke up over 20 times and needed us to put him back to sleep. He needed the sleep. We needed the sleep.

We had a double date with another couple who preached sleep training to us. With their cheerleading and buoyed by the support of my entire book club (all Mothers), we started on a Thursday night (10 days ago Thursday night). I slept upstairs in the guest room to keep a good handle on the sleep training.

The plan was simple:

Baby wakes up, let him cry for 5 minutes
Comfort him at 5 minutes (put pacifier back in, 'shhhhhhh' verbally and hold his hands for 10 seconds, leave the room)
If he continues crying, let him cry for 10 minutes.
Comfort him at 10 minutes of crying (put pacifier back in, 'shhhhhhh' verbally and hold his hands for 10 seconds, leave the room)
If he continues crying, let him cry for 15 minutes.
Comfort him at 15 minutes of crying (put pacifier back in, 'shhhhhhh' verbally and hold his hands for 10 seconds, leave the room)

And so on...

Thursday - Jamisen woke up 9 times between 7:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. The longest he cried was 28 minutes. The shortest he cried was 3 minutes.

Friday - Jamisen woke up 3 times between 7:30 and 6:30 a.m. The longest he cried was 8 minutes. The shortest he cried was 2 minutes. The longest he slept was 6 hours 28 minutes.

Saturday - Jamisen woke up 6 times between 7:30 and 6:30 a.m. The longest he slept was 4 hours 20 minutes. The longest he cried was 15 minutes.

Sunday - Jamisen woke up 4 times between 7:30 and 7 a.m. The longest he slept was 5 hours 29 minutes. The longest he cried was 29 minutes. But, after that 29 minutes, he only slept for 17 minutes before starting up the crying for 12 minutes again so that might count as 41 minutes?

Monday - Up 4 times. Longest cry was 10 minutes

Tuesday - Up 4 times. Longest cry was 5 minutes.

Wednesday - Up 6 times (lots after 4 a.m.). Longest cry was 5 minutes.

Thursday - Slept a full 6 hours in one stretch but was up 7 times before 6:30 a.m. and he cried for almost an hour at 4 a.m. When he woke up at 6:30, I pulled him into bed with me in the guest room and we both fell back asleep, exhausted, for an entire hour.

Friday - This night was almost bliss. He only woke up 2 times after 9:30 p.m. I almost flew with happiness because clearly, the system was working!

Saturday - Then my world came crashing down. Up 4 times. Blah blah blah blah blah. Refer to previous Sunday.

Moral of the story? Either our son is stubborn or we aren't doing SOMETHING right. Either way, we are tired. But, as soon as he smiles in the morning (after we've propped our eyelids up with toothpicks), we don't care. We'll do it all again as long as it takes. And, judging from our son and his stubbornness? It might take a long long time.

No Puking on Daddy

Jamisen and Daddy had a lot of fun playing airplane. In place. But really, it was a success because Jamisen did not puke in his Father's mouth.

This series of photos makes me super laugh. Jamisen is still learning how to sit, roll over, and basically do every movement in the world with any reliability.











That look says "Whoah! What just happened?! That was extremely hard work!"

Whoah! Solid Foods!

We started Mr. Jamisen on solid foods today! Specifically, organic rice grain cereal. Check out this video. He is attacking that spoon! Eating like a champ or, like he's 50% Faiola.

The entire process was NOT clean. I cannot believe we're supposed to do this two times per day AND still work full time. Something will have to go. I'm nominating dishwashing or perhaps the adults in the house eating.

It is clear a full shower for all three of us will be necessitated each and every feeding.

Later this week, we'll start to introduce pureed fruits. He's going to be so high off the sugar that we predict peals of laughter and perhaps some spontaneous dancing. From him. Not us. Just in case that wasn't entirely clear.

One more video to demonstrate both how adorable Jamisen is and how messy the process was. Seriously, is this kid a champ or what?!?

Thank You Lynn!

Jamisen LOVES his new blocks that our good friend Lynn (an awesome business coach). They're covered in a nifty fabric that allows them to easily stack and stick in gravity-defying situations. Jamisen typically watches me build things, reaches for the block buildings, realizes he has no tummy strength and then falls onto his thighs, giggles and squirms out of it. Here is his video talking about how much he loves his new blocks:

Cliche in How Cliche it is

I didn't realize, pre-kids, how easy it was to figure out who I was - or at least, the things I did that made me "Me". The lines were easily drawn. I worked out. I worked. I had a great relationship with my family. I had an active relationship with a substantial number of friends. Check. Check. Check. If it's a good idea to do, with data to back it up, it was easy to fit in and schedule my life around.

Toss a kid into that perfectly ordered life and whoosh! I've had redraw those perfectly ordered lines. Only this time, the barometers for success are constantly shifting. For example, Chris and I are "supposed" to have date night once per week; that's considered 'best practices' by every marriage book I've read. It's not so much the 'date nights' but the commitment to put each other, and our relationship, first.

But, when there's a baby that you've neglected/given to a caring, loving competent nanny to raise during the day, suddenly, going on a 'date night' isn't a slam dunk. Does the baby need us? We're adults. We can reason our way to a good relationship without a date night. Right? (No, really, can we? And how long can we if we keep skipping date night to stay home with the baby that may or may not even notice which caregiver he's with. Or, does he?)

This isn't anything new or anything that every single other new mother on the planet hasn't experienced. It's cliche in how cliche it is. I'm muddling through it, trying to figure out the trade offs and whether I should go jogging with the baby (for me) or sit at home and read and play blocks (for him). I'm beginning to suspect that no matter how much time and dedication I bring to the job of motherhood that it won't ever be enough. It doesn't mean that I'll quit trying (I'm nothing if not stubborn to a fault) but it does put a big question mark over the entire process of feeling angst, regret or fear. Those feelings don't have any place in parenting. Hopefully, when I get my new lines redrawn, there will be no room for them. I'm planning on those lines looking gloriously colored in all their convoluted twists and turns. Who needs straight lines anyways? Life is what happens in the knots.