Summary of May... and an Impending Anniversary

Things have been pretty hectic around here, as evidenced by the three-week-long absence of any blog posts. I have been trying to get to writing, I just haven't had much to report, let alone any time to write about it!

Jackson has been a totally different baby the last few days. In a good way! It has taken reflux medication, lots of gas drops, and taking milk out of my diet before this happy baby has surfaced more regularly.

I think milk is the real culprit behind his extreme fussiness. A milk intolerance is also known to cause the excessive spitting up/vomiting, and it also increases gas because a fussy baby tends to swallow more air while feeding. Luckily, most babies outgrow this milk intolerance by a year, if not age 2 or 3. Seeing that my dad is still intolerant to milk as an adult, I am hoping that he isn't one of the few whose intolerance lingers past toddlerhood and into childhood and adulthood.

Jackson is Mr. Smiley lately! Sometimes I swear he even laughs at me sometimes! It is fun to play with him by laughing and cooing back at him. He has quite the vocabulary of goohs and gahs and owhhs. It's so cute!

We have seen several more job opportunities come and go this month. It is extremely discouraging. It has been 6 months now, and still no job. It is sad to see our one year anniversary coming while we are unemployed and living with my parents. This is definitely not what we had hoped for our first year of marriage. However, on the bright side, we have a beautiful baby boy, and we are still very much in love. I suppose those are the only things that really matter anyways. I'm lucky to be approaching our anniversary still happy with my decision to marry him. Though temporally our first year of marriage has been less than ideal, the love we have for each other surpasses all that I had hoped for and expected to find. For that, I am grateful!

Car Seat Sleep and Job Opportunities!

After what felt like an entire week without sleep has finally (hopefully) ended. We've had two nights of decent sleep patterns, and we are all in much better moods! It is amazing how awful sleep deprivation makes you feel. In every way.

There was about 4 or so nights where Jackson was waking up, eating for 40 minutes, then taking another 20 minutes to fall back to sleep enough to put back in bed, sleeping for an hour, and repeating. He would sleep for about 2 longer stretches in a day, but it was unpredictable which nap would be a longer one. It is torture to be consistently woken up from deep sleep and never being able to complete even one REM cycle. Not to mention, a few days prior to these sleeping issues, he started with some evening colic. 3-4 hour stretches of an unconsolable baby is REALLY hard to deal with when you haven't slept hardly at all for days. Needless to say, I was at my wit's end and pretty much desperate to find a solution.

We stumbled across this solution when I had to take him the hospital for some routine blood work. After fighting sleep all morning long, he fell asleep in the car on the way home. I was so glad to see him sleeping, so I let him sleep! He ended up sleeping for like 4 hours. Then I got thinking. The longest stretches of sleep have been when he was in a reclined position, like in the bouncer or in his car seat. After realizing this pattern, we decided to conduct an experiment. Waking up 2-3 times a night felt AMAZING in comparison to the schedule we had been keeping. I got so much done the next day! We tried it again a second night, and he fell asleep at the same times and woke up at the same times. I think we've finally stumbled into a schedule that we can all live with happily! 

I'm pretty sure that he's inherited some acid reflux issues, which is why sleeping at an incline works so much better for him. It also helps him with his intestinal issues-- he is a very gassy baby! Not only does he have a TON of gas, but it is loud! My mom said it was as loud as her dad's gas. A grown man! She's asked me a few times if it was me. But nope, it was Jackson! 

That was probably the hardest week of my life. Here I have this tiny little baby that God has entrusted to me and David, and for the life of me, nothing we could do would make him feel better. Being so beyond exhausted, and on top of that, an unconsolable baby-- very stressful. 

Even with a new and improved sleep schedule, our lives are beyond chaotic. The days and nights all blend into each other and David and I can't even keep track of what day it is anymore. David totally spaced a dentist appointment on Monday, and we missed a free photography session last night that we won. Things just slip through the cracks when the days all blend together like that... 

The job opportunities keep coming-- and so do the rejections. There are about 4 potential jobs right now, but there have been countless "potentials" in the five months we've been unemployed, so we are skeptical. Of course we always hope that something works out, but we are also aware of the struggles that the video game industry is facing right now. Jobs are hard to land, and competition is stiff! 

Pray that we'll find something soon?