Daycare Ups and Downs

Having a 200,000 mile car has been anti-climatic (uninterestingly, it drives much as it did before).  Laurie's return to work has not been.  Jake was pretty easy going about the hand-off to day care and they took great care of him, but as feared, he wasn't much for sleeping there.  And he got a cold in the first week.  He'd go down for his naps, but sleep between 20 and 75 minutes, instead of the 2 1/2 hrs we shoot for here.  The main difference is that we can let him cry for a couple minutes until he's back asleep.  At the daycare, with other children sleeping, playing, eating, and what-not (for that age group, I think only pooping is left), the caretakers are compelled to pick him up and soothe him.  Which in Jake's case is the end of the nap.

Mr. Bun-Bun is a favorite at the changing table.
Or wherever he turns up.  (Thanks Tim & Jill!)

He did quickly show signs of exhaustion in the evenings, but happily not a return to the fussiness from before.  It probably helped that, because of snow days and Laurie's new schedule (Fridays off), his first week had no more than 1 and a half consecutive days at daycare.  And this last week I took Wednesday off to stay with him.  But after two full days at daycare, he did struggle with sleep (an hour of crying at 3 am), and had a solid hour and a half of angry Wednesday afternoon.  By that time, though, the search for a nanny was well underway.

Mr. Bun-Bun handles unfortunate treatment with great grace.

After quite a bit of sifting resumes, calling prospective nannies and references, and several interviews, we've hired Milisha.  Her first day is this Thursday.  She doesn't have the experience of SuperNanny Krystal, but she does have our trust and confidence.  More on Milisha later!

Chubby arms, finally!

Of course, daycare wasn't all bad:  he'd get silly-happy when Laurie would go down to visit or pick-him up for the day.  There's no doubt now that he knows exactly who Mom is!  And he really seemed to like the environment there - toys, other kids, other adults.  It also reminded us that flexing the schedule is okay, as long we get back to good sleep before too long.  Oh, and we got through his first cold No Big Deal.

Okay, this may be posed.  But we were
excited that he could even stay upright
on his own.

In other Jacobian news:  he's gradually progressing towards sitting on his own (though that's still a ways off), and has graduated to hanging out in the bouncer.  He has a decided liking for animal noises (especially monkeys/apes).  He's starting to get some insulation to deal with the Boston weather (note pic above).  His herniated belly button (extreme outtie) has withdrawn now that he's calmer.  Also, Laurie has finally introduced a few things back into her diet with no ill effects for Jake - good news for her!

Side notes - for anyone not following Mumblings from Mumbai, Greg and Twyla just hit 6 months in India.  And Grandma Tibboel (Jake's G-ma, that is) gets her first visit there soon!