Cold & Flu season has arrived

The season's first yucky bug is making its way through the Mendelsberg casa right now.  Thursday night I got sick with a terrible case of stomach flu / food poisoning that kept me in bed all day Friday.  I tried to stay away from baby J which left the burden on Brian to take care of him.  I am still feeling under the weather 4 days later with nausea, headache, weakness, and exhaustion.  Brian woke up with a sore throat and headache.  Jacob woke up with snot yesterday and had several messy diapers, so I think everyone is under the weather but apparently all beating to our own virus!  Let's hope we all get well and don't pass our respective viruses onto each other. 

You sure do realize how hard it would be to be a single parent in times when you are so helpless.  Thursday night and Friday I could not have taken care of Jacob if I had to.  I would have had to have help.  Even Brian being healthy can only handle so much of being a sole provider and taking care of the house while I was sick.  We're lucky to have a pretty good routine down and we're lucky to have each other, and especially little baby J :)

Jacob is growing like a weed (what's new!)  He hasn't been weighed since his appointment, but he is outgrowing many of his 3-6 month outfits (at 4.5 months old).  He is getting stronger every day.  He is starting to sit up on his own very briefly and he'll even pull himself up to a seated position if he can grab your arm or a pillow to help pull himself up.  He's really reaching for things now too.  In his jumperoo he will reach for the toys around the jumperoo now and his feet can just about reach the floor!  When I was so sick all weekend I took a few baths for my achy body and we would put Jacob in too (might as well bathe him while we're at it).  He loved it, like a big pool for him, but warm!  He laid on his back and just kicked and kicked and smiled and had the best time.  He doesn't even get too mad when you take him out, he's just very content around the water all together!

We have started solids!  We started last week with some baby oatmeal and did it a few times, but Jacob would cry and not swallow any of it, so we took a few days rest.  We got him a new highchair a few days later, and put him in it yesterday.  He was content to sit in it and play with his toys for quite awhile (in baby language quite awhile is 30-45 minutes).  We fed him some baby oatmeal in the chair and he's actually starting to swallow some of it.  We may try avocado in the next day or two to see if he likes that any better than the oatmeal. 

Jacob's first taste of oatmeal last week, not such a fan yet!