Days with the Jensens: Spring

Spring has fully sprung here in Atlanta and with that comes the Dogwood Festival at Piedmont Park, which is now within walking distance of our house. Yeay! Spencer and I love going to the festival so this time we loaded down the stroller with snacks, diapers, a bottle, water, etc. yesterday afternoon and walked to the park. It was the perfect day for the festival, which meant a ton of people were also going to be there. Once we got into the park and saw the sea of people we quickly navigated our way to a nice grassy spot and laid out our blanket and set up camp. It was way too hard to push the stroller through all the people so we were not able to walk around and check out all the yummy food, art, wares, activities etc. but we did have a great time people watching and enjoying the beautiful weather. Ella Ann had a good time watching all the dogs (and petting them), kids, kites and bubbles all around us (there was a couple beside us blowing bubbles and with the crazy wind yesterday they were showering us, which delighted Ella Ann who ran through them like a madwoman....they were kind enough to give her an extra bottle and wand they had as well!). Rane enjoyed his nap in the stroller, as usual!

In other news, I took Rane to the pediatrician (again) on Friday because he was up SEVEN, yes I said seven, times on Thursday night so I thought something was probably wrong with him since it was so out of character for him to do that. Sure enough he has a mild ear infection. I had also decided to start sleep training him that night so my pediatrician said that was most likely why he was up so much because he was not swaddled for the first time ever and was not used to it. She pumped me full of confidence and told me to try it again the next few nights and see if he does better. I was instructed to NOT feed him at what has become his usual 4 a.m. feeding, which lasts about 10 minutes so I know he's not hungry, and let him cry himself back to sleep. I also put him in his bed drowsy, not swaddled and with NO pacifier. Yes, I was nervous! Well that night he was up twice, the first time he cried for about 30 minutes which seemed like about 30 hours at 4 a.m. and woke again and cried for about 2 minutes. He was awake to eat at 6:30 a.m. and then went back to bed until 8:30 a.m. He also went down for his naps with minimal fussing before he was asleep! Good boy! Last night I can proudly say he went to sleep on his own after about 3 minutes of fussing and slept until 6!! Wahooooooo! Before he got sick he would sleep until 5/5:30 a.m. but that went out the window after his cold so I can now say this is the most sleep I have gotten since before he was born! Sweet! :) Rane has also developed eczma in the last couple of weeks that is just as bad as Ella Ann's was when she was his age. Thankfully, though, it is not on his face like hers was. Despite his aliments he is being so sweet. He loves to laugh now and his new favorite trick is to keep his legs as stiff as a board so standing is fun for him! He refuses to bend sometimes when we try to sit him up! I think that since he has spent his entire life crumpled up in a ball he has realized it is time to finally stretch out!

When Spencer got up this morning he told me that he heard a fight going on in the parking lot of Taco Mac (a restaurant/sports bar) that is a house and two stores down from us so he got out of bed to look out the window and saw some men beating up a guy until he ran off. Yeah that was enough to get me scared but after I saw the story on the local news I got a little more frightened!!!! Here is the link to read about what happened. We looked out our front window this morning and watched the news being broadcast across the street from Taco Mac that we were watching on television as well! Craziness!