About Jake

Jake is such a third child. He is lucky to be born into a busy house with four people to adore him daily. That I am left with little spare time/energy to record everything special about him is a small price to pay for the fact that he gets more people to love him, right? At least that is how the story will go when one day he notices he has about 5% of the mountains of documentation dedicated to his oldest sibling.

As a newborn, Jake was a very chill little fella. He would even stay calm during middle of the night diaper changes. Even the cold wet wipes on his bare bum didn't phase him.

I coslept with him for 7 weeks. For the first month he was probably awake more at night than the day, so I was up and down with him all night long. Besides that, when he was sort of sleeping, he was the NOISIEST sleeper ever. So much grunting and meowing and barking and chirping and oinking. But hardly ever a cry during the night. Funny, because he would cry during the day. But at night he did not, even during those diaper changes when he was pooping like 5 times in the middle of the night. He is just so good natured.

After a couple weeks he started to get pretty fussy, which lasted for the next two months. Then one week he just came out of it like magic. I love when that happens. And now he is back to being our happy, chill little guy.

Michael calls him a "Likey Boy". He says "Jake, you're a little Likey Boy, huh? Because you just like things." Michael has surprised me with just how much he adores Jake. He loves to tell people about his baby brother. On multiple occasions, Michael has given speeches to complete strangers, like a store cashier, about his adorable baby brother, telling them about his adorable smile and how cute and tiny he is. Michael has even wished to share a bed with Jake so they could snuggle at night. He says he can't wait until Jake is old enough to play with. Once we were driving, Jake was crying, and I said something about how glad I was that this will be our last baby to have to deal with crying in the car. Even through the loud crying, Michael said it made him sad that I said that because he loves having the baby and wishes we could have more and more kids. One of those moments of getting totally schooled by my offspring.

Jake adores Michael right back and gets overjoyed when he is around. Despite the above story, usually Jake does not cry in the car. Today I dropped Michael off at a friend's house, and as soon as he was gone, Jake started crying. Then on our way back to pick him up, Jake cried the whole way, but magically stopped as soon as Michael got in. Michael sits in the back row so they can see each other. And now I understand the reason behind the fact that Jake cries in the car much less than Michael and Ella did.

Ella also loves Jake and likes to sing and tell him stories. Sometimes she wants me to put him down, and when I am reading to her she doesn't like him to touch her. But all-in-all, the jealousy issues have been much more mild than I was geared up for. Nothing even close to the crazy jealous behavior Michael had when Ella was a baby.

I can hardly believe it, but he is starting to suck on the exact same two fingers as Michael and Ella. When Ella chose the same fingers as Michael, I thought it was a cute coincidence. At 2.5 months, I figured she was too young to do something like that intentionally. But a couple weeks ago, Michael was sitting next to Jake with his fingers in his mouth. Jake was studying him intensely, and then he started to work his same fingers into his mouth. He did the same thing a few days later when examining Ella. One thing I have learned more and more with each subsequent child is that they have much, much more going on upstairs than is apparent.

Jake has a single transverse palmar crease on both hands (one line that goes straight across the palm). The nurse who pointed it out told me "Oh, look, he has a simian crease. That can be an indicator of genetic anomaly, like trisomy 13. But he seems fine, so it's just an interesting feature." Thanks, nurse! For quieting the mind of a fragile new mother. Anyway, clearly he is just fine and I was over any worry quite soon. But, advice to the nurse: if there is an interesting feature on a totally healthy baby, let's not point out it's association to genetic disorders to a mother fresh out of labor, shall we? Now I love his special little crease and love to run my finger along it.

Sometime within his first week, I laid him down for tummy time on the floor for the first time (or nearly the first?), and almost immediately he rolled over onto his back. I thought it was a funny little accident and put him back on his tummy, and he did it again. Turned out not to be a fluke - even though he doesn't do it every time, he's continued to roll onto his back intermittently since the very beginning.

For the first couple months, white noise was Magic on him. Truly magic. The first time I tried it he had been crying for a while and I turned on an Ocean Waves sound track. He went from crying to knocked out sleeping within 3 seconds. It was like chloroform. It continued to work like that for several weeks, often with the same immediate effect. It was AWESOME! We downloaded the track onto Rob's iPhone and it rescued us in several car trips.

I LOVE the miracle blanket and have used it with all my babies. It helps a lot with soothing them and they can't wiggle out. It is a swaddling blanket that is like a straight jacket. Michael was a very wiry baby and even he could not get out of it, so I thought it couldn't be done. But then, at two months, Jake started getting out of it. He seemed to like getting swaddled and I never heard him make even a grunt with getting out. But when I would go in to feed him in the middle of the night and morning, he would have out an arm or two. He's a little Houdini. So I stopped swaddling him at 2.5 months, much earlier than my other two.

Traveling from Utah to Israel with him stunk about as badly as I thought it would. Nine hours of time zone changes! Blech. Of course he had his first good night of sleep the night before our trip. The flight itself actually wasn't so bad once we finally got into the air and the motion + white noise knocked him out. The hard part is once you are home and you are desperate to sleep but your baby is not. Then I was also worried about all the bad habits I was creating with him out of my desperation to  get some sleep.

He still wakes up twice at night to feed. During the day I often have to feed him every 1 - 2 hours, which seems ridiculous to me for a 3 month old. The problem is that when he is wakeful and hungry, he eats just enough to be satisfied, but then is too social and will not take more. Later, when he does want more he is tired and falls asleep and so again I can't get him to take more. I don't know how we will ever get out of this cycle where I feel like I am nursing him all the time. I have learned by this child not to care too immensely. Pretty sure there will be a time when it will work out rather naturally.

He's REALLY into the World Cup right now.