Air Miles

On Wednesday June 13th our family embarked on a trip to Illinois to visit the Jones family for a surprise retirement/birthday party for Grandma Cathy. We flew into Bloomington, IL which was 2 or so hours from Jesse's hometown of LaHarpe. It was a long day of travel but Jerex is a fearless flyer. This was his 3rd time flying and he seems to be a natural traveler (moreso than daddy who always seems to get frisked by TSA and gets in trouble for flying with full size tubes of toothpaste).

At DEN airport security, Jesse snapped this picture of us - yes we took up the ENTIRE ROW of the x-ray belt!! We were those annoying people with kids that in my past life of business traveler, I would scan for and avoid getting in line behind! There were many an impatient foot-tapping business man waiting in line behind us, checking their watches and giving us the stink eye:

Babies don't travel light...

Being in an airport with a baby is an interesting experience, and since both Jesse and I have traveled so much on our own for work and for fun it is definitely a different type of stress that is experienced when babies are on board. Take for instance, timing out feedings and diaper changes. We got the airport in plenty of time and made our way to our gate. The Denver airport bathrooms have those extremely noisy air hand dryers and well that set Jerex off! He screamed and cried and fussed the whole time in the bathroom b/c of the roaring hand dryers and I can't say I blame him - I hate them too! Then, we were waiting at the gate for our flight (in my head, I'm congratulating myself b/c we are 15 minutes early - so not too early - his diaper is changed and we're ready to board and my master plan is WORKING! YAH!) I had timed out his feedings so that he would need to eat again right upon takeoff, which is of course the recommended time to feed a baby so that they are swallowing and ears popping while climbing in elevation.

Of course our flight was 15 minutes delayed and so my master plan didn't exactly work out, but isn't that what always happens?! Jerex needed to eat before boarding, poor starving baby:

Can't you tell by his chubby cheeks that he's regularly deprived of food? Yes, all that stuff is ours. Except the McDonald's sack.

On the actual plane Jerex did great, he does this thing where he sticks out his tongue and makes the "bbbthhhh" sound and sprays spit everywhere and that was what he did most of the flight, luckily only Jesse and I were in our row of seats so were were the only inhabitants of "The Spray Zone". Grandpa Jay and Grandma Cathy picked us up and we enjoyed 4 fun days in LaHarpe which I'll post more on later!

Achoo! Chomp!

Saturday June 2nd started off like any normal weekend day usually does. Coffee, breakfast, relaxing and trying to decide what to do with ourselves the rest of the weekend, didn't have any plans. We decided to go to the Taste of Louisville b/c we had never been to Louisville, and we had some friends there that we wanted to see, so we headed that way after Jerex's nap.

Jerex had been feeling a little under the weather - he had contracted his first little cold, sneezing and coughing and snotty nose - poor fella!  He had been fussy since Thursday May 31, that is when the cold really started to set in, despite April and my best efforts for germ control after Brock touched things! (Brock also had this cold which Jesse named the Missouri Typhoid - we all ended up getting it!).  I'd noticed that Jerex had been sneezing a lot and drooling a lot, I thought that the drool was probably b/c he was stuffy in the nose and couldn't breathe as good out of his nose so his mouth was open more than usual.

After we got home from Louisville, I was playing with Jerex and noticed that low and behold, he had a tooth poking through his bottom gums!! Not one but TWO!! Both bottom ones! Without warning there they were! He HAD been drooling quite a bit more than usual but that was our only real sign. We had been more concerned about monitoring his cold that the tooth totally snuck in on us! I haven't been able to successfully get a picture of the teeth but they were quite a surprise when we saw them. He loves chewing on things now more than ever.

Working on that tooth!

I've got a secret and it can bite you!

The drool is the only warning we had!

Some of the fussiness from what I thought was Jerex being sick with the cold could have been attributed to the tooth, I realize now in hindsight. Plus with the busy Memorial Day weekend, we were in and out and on the go and so if his gums were swollen we totally didn't see it.

I also realized during this whole experience that there are few things worse than having a sick baby. The feeling of helplessness is terrible and I would MUCH rather be sick than see my little baby suffer! We went to the doctor the following week since the cold hadn't cleared up and since he had a fever off and on, and she gave us some medicine for him, which since starting that he has been much better. The only thing right now that is still bothering him is the pesky cough!

At the doctor's office we got his 5 month stats - for his weight at least!

18 pounds, 8 oz!

Jerex 5 months

Bolder Boulder, a Tiger, and Matching Plaid Shirts

Memorial Day weekend brought visitors to CO, my sister April, nephew Brock and brother-in-law Chris! School is out in Grant City and so the clan made the journey west.  Brock is 13 months old and it was an interesting preview of what life will be like with a mobile toddler! (I think I'm tired now... just wait until I'm chasing a little ornery boy who can walk and needs me to procure healthy meals 3 times a day...)

The boys were curious about each other, they couldn't play together just yet but we had fun trying to pose them together for pictures. And protecting Jerex from Brock's lovingly aggressive "pats" on the head. April and I would position the boys, then proceed to make a loud annoying attention-getting ruckus in order to get them to look at the camera and smile. Believe it or not, this is a difficult thing to achieve! Who would have guessed that?! Out of approximately 100 - 120 photos, here are the ones that I was happy with. As you can see, my photos are not going to win any photography awards even though the subjects themselves couldn't be cuter! (pure bias = yes.)

Matching shirts - will they ever forgive us for this?!

Finally - a smile!

Why is Aunt April / Mom acting so crazy? We're concerned so we'll hold hands.

The pouf was to sit on, but Brock wants to clap and run around.

So you see, we got a few keepers out of the photo shoot. I think once they are BOTH mobile our % of "good" photos will likely go down even more!

The "main event" of the weekend was the Bolder Boulder 10K race that I signed April and myself up for in the spirit of getting back into shape after baby. Having a goal to work towards was something that I thought would motivate me into becoming a distance runner, even though previous attempts at becoming a distance runner ended with me accepting that God just doesn't want me to ever run over a mile. It hurts and my "fast twitch muscles" were preventing me from running farther and the muscles that I need for distance running - well - I just wasn't born with them!  In high school and college I was lucky enough to be fast and never had to run a race over 400 meters, so the mental aspect of running way farther than that seemed overwhelming and impossible!

Let me say that the whole experience of LABOR for 18.5 hours is a real wake-up call to understand what the human body can endure, and what pain REALLY is. A little minor discomfort from running more than 20 minutes is now something I can have a little perspective on (I scoff at Past Renae for being such a wimp)! So, I started some training when I felt felt ready enough in late March / early April and worked my way up to be able to run 4.5 miles prior to the race. Granted, they were slow miles, but I did them! April and I had neither one ever ran a road race of any sort, much less a 10K (yes we could have / should have started with a 5K perhaps!) The last time her and I were in some sort of race event together, we were 18 and 16 years old at the state track meet in Jefferson City MO winning the team state track championship for 1A girls! So this was a fun little 11-years-later glimpse into what is left of our athletic abilities, after having children, and in a totally non-competitive road race at 5300 feet above sea level after minimal training.

The Bolder Boulder has been voted America's "All-time" best 10K by Runner's magazine, and 50,000 people run this race annually, it is the biggest weekend in Boulder of the year and so there was a ton of people in each heat, of all ages and all ability levels. We were put in a "slow" heat since we'd never ran any races that qualified us for starting in the faster heats. We arrived kind of late to the starting line - mostly because Jesse dressed Jerex in a Tiger costume and we paused to take pictures of his cuteness before we left:

Rawr! Run fast momma!

She's pulling my tail

 So we arrived at the starting line somewhat feeling rushed, and jostled our way to the "MJ" group which was our heat. It was perfect race weather - 70 and sunny and not a cloud in the sky! A fellow runner took this picture of us at the starting line:

Hopped up on energy Gu's.

We took off, and immediately realized that we were going at a faster pace than most the people in our heat, so we proceeded to weave in and out and pass people the whole way. Of course, we were also getting passed by little old ladies, and 8 year old girls, and one fat guy running barefoot, but we analyzed it and we feel confident that most of the time, we were doing more passing than Being Passed! The first 3 miles were really smooth, the race course itself was pretty flat considering we are in Boulder. We didn't walk except when we grabbed some water, walked to drink it then continued running. I hit the wall at mile 5, and thanks to April's encouragement ("4 months ago you were in labor! C'mon this is nothing!!") we finished with an average mile pace of about 10:40 - which isn't something to brag about by any means, but we were shooting for 11:30 given that I'd just had a baby and April lives in the flatlands of MO - so we were pleased with our time! I think April was in better shape than me and could have gone faster, but since she is such a kind and loving sisser, she stuck with me and went slower than she wanted to.

Throughout the race course, I wish I could have taken pictures b/c there are a ton of bands along the way (my favorite was an Elvis impersonator and a rapping Marine), lots of people having parties that live along the route, and enticing offers of Marsh mellows, cupcakes, Doritos, keg stands and slip n slides if you want to do a little detour! We did not partake in any of the things that would slow us down, our husbands had predicted we would finish at 1 hr 15 minutes or 1 hr 10 minutes and so we wanted to beat their predictions and come in faster.

1 hour and 6 minutes after starting, we crossed the finish line at Folsom Field in front of roaring crowds and adoring fans (minus our husbands and babies, who were still pushing the strollers through CU campus crowds when we finished! But they were there in spirit.)

Victory

I'm really happy that April and I did this race together and I'm hoping it becomes a yearly tradition for our family to do this race :) The rest of the weekend we rested, ate ice cream and watched Game of Thrones marathons! Was a great weekend overall (minus the Missouri Typhoid Fever which will be covered in a later post.)

First Mountain summit

For the first time as a family on May 20th we hiked our backyard mountain - the wonderful Mt. Sanitas. A nice 1255 foot elevation gain on a Sunday afternoon using our new baby-hauling backpack (Jesse carried Jerex, I felt I would be lucky to finish the hike without carrying a large baby on my back.)

Overall, we thought that he would get too tired and fussy to finish - but he surprised us with his hiking spirit and ended up loving it! Despite taking a few naps along the way.

Hiking is tiring work.

Family pic

Jerex bein' all cute and stuff

Sometimes a baby just begs to have his picture taken. Like when he might be sitting in front of a rose bush with rosy red cheeks. Or lounging about in his new jorts. Or bouncing around in his johnny jump up. Or hanging out with his nanny. And ESPECIALLY when wearing neon yellow Babiators!! Either way, I am glad I had a camera handy!

Too cool!

Visitors of the Grandparent Kind

I have a lot of posts to catch up on so better get started! Grandma Brenda, Grandpa Burton, and Great-Grandma Betty came to Colorado for a nice long visit back in early May. It was Gma Betty's first trip to the mountains and we had a great time! Highlight of the weekend was definitely going up to Flagstaff Mountain in Boulder for a scenic picnic lunch. Weather was great the whole weekend and Jerex got lots of quality time with his Missouri grandparents and great gma.

Gpa Burton

Pretty as a postcard at Wonderland Lake

Top of Flagstaff Mt overlooking Boulder

Token Flatirons pic!

Chilling on the rooftop deck

 

Mother's Day!

My first Mother's Day was fabulous! All day long, I kept thinking about how happy I am to be a mom, and how amazing Jerex is, and what a great dad & husband Jesse is, and how did I get so lucky?! It was a great day that started off at 11 AM because I was given the wonderful gift of sleep!!! What more could a new mom want?!  It was a very restful weekend where I could recharge my batteries. Here are pics of me and my little man on my first Mother's Day:

And, here is a pic of me and my mom and my grandma at the top of Flagstaff Mountain in Boulder!

Hope all you moms had a great mother's day this year!

4 Month Checkup

Jerex went to the doctor on May 7th for his 4 month checkup, and all was well! He continued to weigh in and measure in at the 95% for both height and weight! He is getting close to double his birth weight. He never misses a meal, ladies and gents:

4 Month Stats - Heavyweight division

 He had to get vaccinations which were not fun, but he was less fussy this time afterwards, and I asked the doctor ahead of time exactly how much Tylenol to give him so that I didn't have the confusion of converting mg to ml this time with a screaming baby distracting me...  Or rather, call my brother in law who is a high school math teacher to do the conversion for me!

Monday the 7th was a crazy day. My parents and Grandma Betty were in town and they had to leave that morning so Jesse took them to the airport, so it is always sad when people have to leave... and I had an overnight upgrade for work which required me to be up a lot in the night monitoring things going on in India, so I was up from 2:30 AM - on... At one point in the morning before Jerex's doctor appointment, Jesse had just gotten back from the airport and trying to catch up on his work, I was on a conference call with things going haywire with my upgrade, Jerex was crying and inconsolable, Ned had barfed on the carpet, and then Jesse stepped in the barf while trying to walk around calming Jerex. It was a culmination of all things stress and we both just had to laugh hysterically about it! Cat barf + crying baby + work stress + sleep deprivation + conference calls + no nanny (for some reason we had given her the morning off.) = a funny story to tell later on! It was a long day, but everyone can always get through one day :)

Something new we are trying now - Rice Cereal! The doctor ok'd it at our checkup and said that it would be good to start getting him used to eating and so once a day we are trying to start giving him cereal at night to fill him up longer, the thought being - maybe he'll sleep longer if full! (yeah right!) Here are some great pics of him getting his first solid meals:

What is this stuff? I am dubious.

Hmm, I'm going to eat it. This better be organic.

I hate this but I love this spoon, I'll show them!

Get In my belly!

Jerex is on Twitter!

For those of you who did not know - Jerex has been tweeting since in the womb. Yes, it is amazing and don't ask me how he was able to do this. I had no idea iPhones got service inside placentas. Anyways - check out his twitter feed and follow him if you don't already!

Jerex Twitter Feed

 My favorite recent tweet is when he sent out the above picture with the text "breakdance fighting some clown."

hah!

Ned-glected... A tale of a sad cat

Ned the cat has been a big part of the Jones family for going on 6 years. He is a playful, energetic, and loud animal who enjoys drinking running water and napping on laps, eating cream cheese and darting outdoors when we go in and out. He received all sorts of love and attention prior to Jerex being born... However since Jerex has been born, Ned no longer is feeling the love (he isn't the cutest creature in the house anymore). Parent-bots Renae and Jesse no longer have endless hours to sit around and pet Ned. We no longer play fetch with Ned every day, or treat him to some tapioca pudding. He is turning into a spiteful, attention-seeking meow machine that I personally think sheds more now just because he is mad at us. Ned's behavior is really pretty bad now, and Jesse and I are starting to feel fed up with this cat! Any advice is welcome... We are considering starting to let Ned out of the house more so he can roam in the backyard but then again, we have been warned about mountain lions killing house pets in our neighborhood so maybe that isn't such a great idea... Jerex really doesn't mind Ned, but Jesse and I are almost at our wit's end!!

I have heard that house cats act out when babies are born b/c of the attention thing, but always thought that Ned was above that. Guess not! We'll figure out a way to deal with it and in the meantime, will try not to neglect Ned as much. Once Jerex can walk, Ned will get plenty of attention and exercise running away and hiding from an interested little baby boy!

Future Cat chaser