Santa's little helper

Santa has a brand new little helper this year... Baby Jude!

We are very excited to prepare for our little guy's first christmas ever. Jude got a headstart, trying on his little santa outfit. While he doesn't have a belly like a bowl full of jelly (he's a baby, he has not tried jelly yet)... he sure does have a cute chubby belly to fill out the suit.

how do you blow out half a candle?

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! This year we are staying home, figuring that with an infant we wanted to avoid the hectic world of airports or highways. The turkey is in the overn as I write.

Jude will have no turkey. He is, after all, just 6 months old. 6?!? you say? Yes... it's not only Thanksgiving but also Jude's 6-month-birthday.

chewing his way through life

So maybe after dinner is on the table and the kitchen is cleaned up, we'll pause and celebrate a little bit for the little guy, too. He is certainly the most obvious thing to be thankful for this year.

picnic in november

brrrr. its gettin cold outside. so its nice to catch you up on a bit of baby jude's november. On november 3rd, not even a month ago, it was 70+ degrees. So Kara and Jude brought a picnic lunch and met Greg and his co-workers, Byron and Evelyn, in the park.

jude's november picnic

Jude enjoyed the sunshine and friends

I imagine the upcoming winter days will feel pretty long at times when I'm inside with baby jude all day. I"ll take suggestions to make them better?

remember this weather in January

does this come in a smaller size?

We are blessed to have a great kids program at our church that provides Free childcare while we attend a sunday morning service that includes singing and hearing a talk about a topic from the bible and how it applies to our lives.
Besides the great staff and volunteers, it also gives us a chance to "try out" new baby items that Jude does not have at the Miller home.
Recently we put him in something called the Jumperoo.

Jude in jumperoo

As you can see, its still almost too big for him. His little feet barely touched the floor. but he seemed to enjoy trying something new.
Might be a fun christmas gift for our little guy???


p.s. for those of you who read yesterday, we've decided today that jude is definetly teething, although we can't tell where yet. I'll take your prayers and thoughts to get through a whiny, no nap or short nap day.

bedtime rocks

tonight i just need to post and say that bedtime rocks. it has been a long day with little Jude. I thought I'd tell you about a particularly crazy few hours yesterday to make you feel apart of the miller house for just a bit.

yesterday i was hosting a guy from our church for a meeting to discuss a video series i've been asked to produce for the holiday season. He was due at 11:30.
About 11am I fed Jude. I went to change his diaper (shoot where are the diapers...need to get from drawer). Jude pees into the air and on the wall and his hand.
I wipe off and change Jude, strap him down and run to the ringing phone...in case its one of the editors i've been waiting to hear from, or russell lost for our meeting? No, its the home refinance place, so i have to ask them to call back.
I pick Jude up and he promptly spits all over his outfit and my arm.
Doorbell rings.
Strap jude down, grab sweater, answer door. 'make yourself at home'
Go back change jude. have meeting with him next to me in swing.
midway through he gets a bit fussy.
realize he has pooped through his diaper and onto his outfit and newly washed blanket.
excuse myself to change poopy baby, while also asking my guest to momentarily celebrate with me because baby has not pooped in days, so this is big deal. set up jude in pack n play with his crazy mobile.
carry poopy outfit past guest in dining room and wash in the sink. gross.

today was a challenging because jude did not take very long naps. i've come to count on that time to accomplish tasks, cleanup and recover. and when he was awake he was often making quiet whines (or not so quiet whines) we're not sure if he might be teething again already. bummer.

anyway, thanks for sharing a few moments in the life.

big boy car seat

We've enjoyed the car seat we got for Jude, the Maxi Cosi Mico. Its easy to operate and it blends in with our car. Sometimes it seemed the carseat was certainly easier on us than Jude.

Jude's first moment in the carseat at 3 days old

The little guy sure cried when we strapped him in the first time at the hospital. Once he got carried a bit and actually put in the car things calmed down.

Jude's first car ride leaving hospital

From then on he seemed to do o.k. in the carseat. As long as we provided his pacifier he was cool with car rides. Sure we had the occasional scream fest on a trip home, after all he is a baby.

But last month the carseat became all bad for mister jude. He would cry, scream, and he seemed tightly wedged in the thing. It comes with a head support insert for infants and Greg thought that was making Jude not fit comfortably in his seat anymore.

The infant head support for carseat

But we were not sure if Jude had the head strength or was old enough to remove the extra insert. Greg looked online and read everything that came with. I glanced through our baby library (yes we call it a library now cause there are just too many books). But no one had an answer on age, weight, or development for when to remove it.

Jude's carseat phobia got so bad I actually avoided going anywhere I couldn't walk too for an entire day. Finally even though mom was nervous, I decided to follow greg's advice and take the thing out.

And here's what happened...



Little Jude was grinning, talking, and so so happy to have room. He has made friends with his carseat again. Now if only he'd stop growing so he doesn't outgrow this thing too soon.

tiny teeth

Jude seems to be over the 'teething' phase of his first two little teeth. They are barely stubs in the front bottom of his mouth. He spends time chomping on toys and blankets with them. And he curls his tongue over them, kinda like "what are these things?"

if you look close you can see TEETH

Jude still likes to grab and chew our fingers when he can. It takes on a bit more adventure when he can actually bite you from one side now.

Oh and the other big news (yes its funny how small things before we were parents seem big now) Jude rolled over twice in front of mommy the other day. The first time he seemed intrigued. The second time it was like "i think i can do that again."

honest officer it wasn't me

where's the tooth fairy when you need her?

look! i've got two teeth.. well almost

I've decided this tooth fairy character who paid me off as a child needs to show up when babies are teething. If the fairy is actually a fairy, she could magically sooth the child's pain and replace their pacifier in the middle of the night. I wouldn't even expect her to leave any money for these pre-teeth visits. I might even pay her to show up!

Fortunately our little guy really turned a corner on sunday with his teething tempermant. he's back to his smiling, laughing, talking self.

happy days are here again

Jude's latest trick is that he's figured out how to wiggle off his bouncy seat. fortunately its just the upstairs one that sits only an inch off the ground. he can slide everything but his head onto the carpet. its kinda funny to watch.

i'm outta here

your eyes are happy

We've had lots of cute baby updates on this blog. But I will pause for a moment and write about me, his mother, and the changes others have noticed in me.

At work I've had comments such as "being a mother really agrees with you", "I've never seen you look better", "you are so relaxed and happy. is it just being tired or are you really enjoying motherhood" and one of my favorites-- "your eyes, it is in your eyes, they look happier".

Their observations got me thinking in the wee hours tonight as I held Jude and quietly rocked him until the baby tylenol kicked in for teething pain.

Lately I've realized what a heavy burden I carried for 5 years as I waited for God to answer my prayers and cries and allow me to have a baby. I would hope, as a follower of Jesus Christ, that my eyes would be happy a lot. Because honestly, for you foodies, knowing Jesus... well its like tasting that amazing new cheese, a great wine, or a yummy ice cream flavor...it just makes you happy and hits a happy spot deep down somehow. But I guess my eyes and my heart had been carrying my struggle with infertility for so long. And its finally lifted. I'm so, so grateful as I rocked Jude tonight for what a gift he is.

(by the way, if this infertility/spirituality discussion is your thing, i invite you to check out a blog post i found helpful http://www.toddawilson.com/2008/10/19/barrenness-and-bitterness/ at the bottom of it, I confess I'm the kjmil who posted a comment. if you have 5-10 minutes, check it out)

so back to Jude, he is whimpering tonight at 1 am, 1:25am, 2am. normally a quick quiet replace the pacifier works. but also 'normally' he does not wake up or only stirs once. finally at 2:20 we got up. i held jude in the rocker and greg gave him the tylenol. it comes in a dropper. which jude now seems to recognize as a helpful thing. he opened wide for it. I rocked and walked with jude until after 3 when he got sleepy again.

You would think this is 'awful' right? and in my pre-mom stages it would have been a bad thing to be up. but I loved holding the little guy and am still amazed that somehow just my presence and being in my arms can comfort another human being so deeply.

babbling baby

little jude is quite the babbler during the day when he is not teething. he even wakes up many mornings and babbles in his crib. here's a short clip of some of the many things our talktative baby has to say.

baby alaska

Little Jude has only taken one long trip...his baby baltimore adventure chronicled on earlier blog posts. But others have taken trips and brought him gifts. Jude's grandpa henry and grandma nancy took an incredible trip to alaska over the summer. They brought Jude back some colorful souveniers, sized for a cute baby like him. Even though we've been enjoying them for a bit, Jude asked us to hold off on the post until after the election. He was concerned it might make a political statement. (smart baby that jude. now if he could just figure out rolling over....)

caribou baby

I wish baby sock makers could read this blog. Because I must say the socks they brought for Jude stay on much better than the various socks we have purchased here.

jude's colorful 'paws'

so a much belated thanks to grandma nancy and grandpa henry

The grandparents and jude

a stitch in time (i.e. evelyn rocks)

Back in April, at Kara's first baby shower, Greg's co-worker and our dear friend Evelyn told us that her main gift for Jude would be a hand-knit sleep sack (the secondary gift was the pair of cool earphones). Evelyn is a knitter, and is very generous with her creations.

Knowing it would take a while, Evelyn prep'd for a fall/winter sleep sack. I think we surprised her by having such a large baby who kept growing quickly... more knitting just to keep ahead of his growth! Well, this past week Evelyn put the finishing touches on it and gave us this lovely gift.

[Aside: For those of you who don't know what a "sleep sack" is, it's essentially a long robe that is closed at the bottom and has holes for arms and head to stick out. It allows the baby to basically have a "blanket" on when sleeping, but keeps them safe from the possibility of suffocating from an actual fluffy blanket. A good invention, really.]

So Jude agreed to model it for us, and here are some picture.

The action photo: "Look, I can still kick in here"

"Look how happy I am in my crib with this" or maybe just "Feed me"?

"If dad knew how to draw in cartoon talking

bubbles, this would be a great place to add one

saying how cool it is to have custom-made outfits"

Gorgeous detailing... really, it's very nice

Always thoughtful, Evelyn even made sure it was fully machine washable and dryer safe before handing it over. Showing how much he appreciated it, Jude chose his first night in the sleep sack to be one of the rare times to not spit up all over his clothes.

chowing down on dust

Mr. Jude hit a major milestone yesterday. As noted in the previous post, the little guy is starting to get teeth. Add that to the fact that he's been staring at us eating our food (and grabbed for mom's ice cream cone yesterday) led us to believe it was time for... solid food.

Now I always thought you made the leap straight from milk to mashed peas. But no, there is this odd intermediate step of "rice cereal". It's this powder that you mix up with some fresh milk, and serve to the baby. It starts off with a consistency somewhere between soup and milkshake.

rice cereal box; package is really overdesigned for what it is

Jude was a good sport; he took a few spoonfuls and actually swallowed. There was a bit of overflow down the chin, but not nearly so bad as you might expect. Granted, it will be a while before he leaves milk behind and is on to all solids, but it was a nice start.

So I was very curious about what this stuff was. Before seeing it in the house I had guessed it would be something like oatmeal. No, not at all. It's this fine white powder (not a good description... usually that means cocaine or anthrax) and, being the adventurous dad that I am I tried some--without milk--to see what he's tasting.

Ash. Dust. Powdered melamine. I don't know what its supposed to taste like, but that's all I came up with. How did anyone determine that this was a good thing for infants to eat? Ugh. I promised Jude that the next time he had to eat it I'd mix it up with some beef broth instead of milk (good thing he doesn't understand English, because Kara's going to make me break that promise).

Well, at least it's ostensibly nutritious. I'll have to introduce him to yummy food a little while down the road.

our baby is whiny

our baby is whiny. this is unusual for little jude. today i finally know why. he has a little tooth starting to push through his lower gum. poor little guy has made the most mournful whimpers the last few days at various points. and then other times, he's playing and he's fine.

this may also explain why he woke up 3 times on saturday night.

so tonight greg and i are sitting on the couch with 3 books in front of us, trading information about what to do and how to help our little guy. its almost comical the way we dive into any new situation... let's read a bunch of books and then form our 'informed' opinion :-)


i can only imagine what we'll be like when he's a teenager.

this grin will soon have teeth

jude is our treat

excuse me but don't I look cute?

We didn't do much trick or treating with little Jude this year. Instead we took part in one of Kara's favorite annual activities...watching the literally hundreds of kids who descend on our neighborhood with goodie bags, smiles and demands for candy.

We decided to forgo buying a 'costume' for Jude this year. Instead we combined his sleepsack and hat, with a store bought 'ghost' bib to make our spooky adorable ghost baby.

Jude's first Halloween

We get kids literally going up and down our stairs in constant traffic at times. So Kara brought Jude out on the porch with her to avoid so many doorbell rings and any worries about whether he was o.k.

kara and jude greet trick or treaters

jude also relaxed in his bouncy seat

As large as our baby is, he is still not quite as big as the pumpkin.

Jude vs pumpkin...pumpkin wins!
We even attempted a costume on George, our super dog.

"i find your lack of faith disturbing"- darth vader(dog)

Darth Vader dog only lasted a moment before dashing off and somehow escaping his front paws from the outfit. Eventually we removed the costume because it was also dangerous, almost causing george to trip down the stairs.

We ended the evening by taking Jude out to visit several friends of his parents.

Greg and Jude on our outing

jude and the farmers

We got Jude up and out for the final farmers' market of the Oak Park season. It is one of our community's Norman Rockwell type moments...where everyone young and old comes out to buy produce, organic plants, even meat.

a stylin dad and jude

We know Jude's days in the 'buggy' portion of our Bugaboo storller are coming to an end. soon he will outgrow the weight limit for it. Fortunately we use the same frame and just pop on the seat portion of the stroller and we're set to go. But we bundled baby in the buggy and went shopping.

blanketed and bundled baby

After a little while at the market our bundled baby got fussy. I'm not sure if Jude was hearing so many things that he wanted to be held to see them better...or if he was cold, tired? But eventually I carried Jude and we put our various vegetables, apples, and even pumpkins in the stroller instead.

stroller as cart

It was a funny ending to the market season that helps make oak park such a great place to live. Some of you may remember we actually took Jude the first time when he was just two weeks old

Jude at his first farmers' market