The Mallorys Online

The Mallorys had a very eventful weekend!  We started the weekend off with my buddy EJ’s birthday on Friday night.  It was a surprise and his wife arranged for his friends to drop by for dinner.  We played Scattegories and had a great time laughing at our absurd answers.

The next day we dropped Jacob off at the Wixoms and took my mom out to Napa Valley aboard the wine train.  We enjoyed some great wine and really good food (mom had the salmon, Jennifer and I had the best beef tenderloin I’ve ever had!).  The train left the station at 11:30 and cruised at a leisurely 17mph to St. Helena where it stopped for twenty minutes or so before turning back around. On the way back to the station we had dessert and various dessert wines.  It was great to get out with my mom and share some conversation about life without all of the distractions.

After the wine train we picked Jacob up, dropped my mom off back home and rushed over to the Parish’s for their son’s three-year birthday party.  It was surfer themed and they created a water park in their backyard.  The cake looked like a huge wave, too!  Jill is always so creative with family events.  It seemed like there were more kids there than adults and Jacob quickly became irritated with all the noise.  We took him in the backyard and he fell asleep in my arms.  The poor guy had been to a birthday party earlier in the day with the Wixoms and had enough at this point.

The next day we relaxed early in the day and ran errands.  We then hosted our friends for a Labor Day BBQ and played some Scattegories.  Jacob looked adorable in his “This is How I Roll” onesie that Uncle Tuna got him and his “Skate or Cry” hat that our friends in SoCal got him.  We got some great pictures of Jacob and his hat.

Monday was a low-key regroup day.  After everything Jacob had been through he was noticeably more fussy and just needed some calm home time before starting day-care on Tuesday, but that’s for another post.

A buddy of mine sent out a note asking for iPhone app recommendations.  Since I went through the effort to put the list together I figured I might as well share it on the site.

• WeatherBug - replaces stock weather app and provides more detailed forecasts and weather maps
• Wordpress - I run a couple Wordpress powered blogs and this provides publishing on the go
• Facebook - This one needs much improvement.  It’s rumored they’re working on a 2.0 that closely resembles the web based Facebook
• Pandora - Internet radio that adapts to your taste.  You can create custom stations by seeding the player with a favorite artist or song.
• eBay - Obvious
• iChoose - Free app that offers a coin flip, yes/no, dice roll or card choice when you need a little help making a decision!
• myLite - Flashlight app with some cool effects.  Great way to cut Jacob’s fingernails while he’s sleeping at night.
• Simplify - App that allows iTunes library sharing between users.  I share mine under NorCalAngler
• SportsTap - Instant access to scores and news for all major sports
• Last.fm - Similar to Pandora, Internet radio that adapts to your preferences
• Dual Level - Bubble level app that uses the iPhone sensors to make sure things are level
• Exposure - Tap into your Flickr photo library anywhere.  Great for showing off pics of Jacob without loading my iPhone will gigs of photos
• HoldEm - The best iPhone Texas Holdem game
• Enigmo - Fun puzzle game where you use various tools to direct water into buckets
• Air Hockey - 1/2 player air hockey
• Sudoku Free - Obvious
• Tris - Will be removed from the app store on Wednesday due to copyright issues - Tetris clone

What are your favorite apps?

You can see it’s pretty watered down, but he loved it!

It’s very rare that a network news writer is witty enough to make me laugh.  If you have watched any of the women’s gymnastics then you have heard about the controversy with rumors some of the Chinese women were under 16 years of age, the minimum age to compete in this sport.  MSNBC has an article about how Olympic athletes can move into reality TV and surprised me with this hilarious summary:

“Olympic athletes who’ve made names for themselves on Beijing don’t need to leave the glare of the television cameras. They could make careers on reality TV. How about Michael Phelps as “The Bachelor,” or tiny Chinese gymnast He Kexin as a baby on “Baby Borrowers”?”

Freaking hilarious!  From http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26254878/

Our poor little man has been going through a little rough patch.  To give some background, he started going 3-4 days between “poo-poos” and it started to affect his eating.  We met with our pediatrician and she checked him out and gave him a clean bill of health.  She recommended a little prune juice when he gets backed up and mentioned a formula switch should be one of the last things we try.  Well that afternoon we were at Target and we found the Target brand sensitive formula, which was identical to Similac Sensitive that Jacob has been on for months.  The Target brand was $10 cheaper so we decided to give it a try and see if it helped get him more regular.

What we didn’t know is that we just kicked off a horrible series of events.  Jacob became so constipated on the Target formula that he started straining while his face turned beet red trying to push the poo-poos out.  It got so bad that we had to pick him up and calm him down for fear he would pop a blood vessel.  We called the hospital advice line and the nurse said we should try half-diluted prune juice.  We started him on it in the afternoon and by the evening he had cleared himself out.

Seeing him that upset on the new formula made me sick to my stomach knowing that we caused that pain.  We decided to immediately switch him back to Similac Sensitive.  Over the last four days Jacob has been a completely different child.  He hasn’t been his normal, happy, laughing self and seems to constantly be in pain.  He is gassier than before and we’re guessing he may be an early teether.  He’s constantly drooling and he is chewing on anything he can get his tiny hands on.  Hopefully this is a short lived phase and he gets back to his fun-loving self.  Mom and dad are out of ideas for trying to soothe him.

That’s the short version and there are a ton of details I left out regarding him not taking naps, becoming bored of his toys, and needing constant attention.  We have a pediatric appointment at 2:45 today and hopefully we have some answers and/or new ideas.

The first is Jacob rolling over from his tummy to his back.  It’s adorable!

The second is Jacob laughing at the “I’m gonna get you” game. He really gets going with it!

He sat down in his Bumbo today without any problems. Look at him cheese it up as he sits listening to mommy!  The third picture is him in his bathtub without his newborn sling =(  He’s growing up so fast!

I was just listening to Garth Brooks’ “The Dance” and I have decided it is one of the best songs ever written/performed.  It’s on the No Fences CD.  Totally random, but I felt compelled to share.

This just in, Jacob realized he has a thumb and it tastes good.  He couldn’t be happier with this latest discovery. Mommy’s finger is also delicious.