Nothing Comes Close to the Golden Coast

I know it's been a while since the last blog, but it's been a very busy three or four weeks. We are officially moved into our new place in Irvine, CA, but it was not a smooth transition to get here :). Initially, Jonathan was planning to set out on his drive with all of our belongings on Sunday 2/13, but he was hit with food poisoning that Friday making him unable to pack any of our things into the moving truck. By Saturday he was feeling pretty good, and we decided it was more realistic that he leave Monday 2/14. Monday morning I was not feeling so good, and I started feeling worse and worse as the day went on. I decided I could not take care of Jack without his help and asked Jonathan to hold off on leaving until Tuesday. We ended up going to Urgent Care where they recommended I go to the ER since I kept throwing up even though they gave me a ton of anti-nausea meds. I didn't want to go to the ER, so I refused. By time I got back to our apartment, though, I was in so much pain and throwing up every few minutes. Jonathan drove me to the ER where they did a CT scan and found out that I had appendicitis and needed my appendix removed. They scheduled me for surgery the next morning at 6 a.m. Jack had only taken 3 partial bottles over his lifetime, and I couldn't breastfeed from all the pain meds and the blue liquid from the CT scan. Since all of our stuff was packed in a moving truck and ready to hit the road, Jonathan stayed with some of our friends that also have a baby so that Jack had a place to sleep and baby supplies. My friend Emily also helped Jonathan get Jack to take a bottle with a lot of persistence while I stayed at the hospital. I had my surgery on Tuesday 2/15, and I was discharged that evening. Jonathan hit the road on Wednesday 2/16 while Jack and I stayed with friends while I recovered. We are so thankful to our friends, Emily and Mike Green, for opening their home to us and helping me with Jack while I was recovering.

Jack was pretty much the ideal baby while we were trying to get everything packed up in our apartment. He is not the most independent little guy, but he actually sat by himself and took naps in unusual places the two days we were doing most of the packing. Here he is napping in the corner of his empty nursery on his changing pad:

And here he is watching Jonathan pack stuff up while sitting in the nursery chair:

Jonathan also tried to do some packing with Jack in the Moby Wrap. It didn't work out so well, but it made for a cute picture:

Jack had his first plane ride at just over 3 months old. He did a great job even though we had a rough start. He was flipping out in the waiting area before we got on the plane, and people were looking at me with a sense of dread that I would be on their airplane :). Jack was just hungry, but I was trying to wait until take-off so his ears would pop while eating. Eventually he got too mad, and I just had to feed him. During take-off he ate a little bit more, and he was laughing with the bottle in his mouth as the plane took off. We changed one terrible smelling diaper on the plane after he finished his meal, and then he slept the rest of the flight.

Jack will be 4 months old in a little over a week, and he has been developing new skills very quickly. He's been so close to rolling from back to front over the past 2 weeks. He will roll onto his side and just hang out there watching tv or playing with the toys on his playmat. He can't quite get the momentum to push himself over his arm. He did accomplish rolling over from front to back on March 1st! Here he is trying to roll from back to front:

Jack's neck has also gotten a lot stronger, and he prefers to spend most of his time vertical instead of laying down. I spend a lot of time sitting and holding him up in a standing position since it's the only way he's happy sometimes. He has started to spend some more time in his bumbo chair trying to get that back and neck nice and strong.

We've also been able to put him in the Moby Wrap facing forward since he holds his head up so well.
Jack has also had an obsession with his feet lately. A little over a month ago he started watching them move, and now all he wants to do is hold them in his hands and make attempts at putting them in his mouth.

Jack has also started to find more enjoyment in toys. My mom got him a toy that is a little piano, and it used to scare him when it played music. Now he can sometimes turn the music on himself, and he loves to spin the part that has beads in it.

As far as enjoying our new California surroundings, we've made one trip to the beach. The trip was ridiculously chaotic since Jack was in a grumpy mood. Jonathan and I took turns eating lunch while the other one sat in the car with Jack while he cried and cried. He was a little moody while at the beach, and he had terrible gas while we were trying to leave for home. We had to change his diaper twice in the Starbucks parking lot while he screamed from gas pain. We only live about 15-20 minutes from the beach, so we'll have plenty more opportunities for a more relaxing trip. Here's a snapshot from a video I took of my guys at Huntington Beach.
So far California is treating us well, and we are having some great family time. Just a few more pictures I wanted to share since I thought they were cute: