David is Eight Months Old!

 You know all those people that say “enjoy it, it goes so fast”?  They are correct.

8 Months!  I remember when 8 months seemed so old. Now, here we are, chugging right along. His first birthday will be here in a blink!  I’ve recently started getting a little weepy about how fast things are going. He doesn’t like to be cradled and hardly ever falls asleep in my arms anymore. He wants his crib and he wants his freedom.  I’m so glad I spent nearly my entire 5 months of maternity leave holding that little muffin in the recliner during all his naps. I thought I was spoiling him, but he’s turned out just fine and I will forever cherish those moments (and thousand cell phone pictures of him sleeping).  Babies certainly don’t keep. 

So, what’s going on? Honestly, not a whole lot of new stuff since his 7 month update.  He’s sitting really well now. Although he has figured out that we keep a pillow behind him so when he’s done sitting, he’ll just fall backward. He thinks this is very funny, but I am not quite sure how to get him out of this. Maybe use a folded blanket instead so it’s still soft enough, but maybe not as fun?  Sometimes he falls to the side, but I almost think it’s intentional because it’s a slow fall and he just rolls over and continues playing.  

Crawling is still a no-go. He has figured out he can roll anywhere he wants to go and is generally OK with this means of transportation. We are trying to do more floor time and it’s hard watching him get frustrated, but I know that’s the only way he’ll learn. Just last night he got up on his hands and knees and rocked for the first time. Daycare says he’s trying to pull up on some toys and Zach said he pulled up on our TV cove thing last week. So yes, baby-proofing in full effect.

 He’s still eating puree’s and cereal for breakfast and dinner along with his formula. I tried some puffs but he just gaged and then threw up everything I’d just fed him. So, we’ll wait a little longer on that.  I think next I’ll make him some food with more texture and see how that goes. He hates the mesh feeder and scrunches his face when I try to put it in his mouth.  He’s working on getting the sippy cup down, but mostly just wants to chew on the spout.  At a family gathering a couple weeks ago I caved to the peer pressure to let him try a couple tiny bites of homemade ice cream. He really, really hated it. But green beans? He’d eat them all day.  Weirdo.
 

The poor little thing has had a whopper of an ear infection.  I suspect the one he got a couple weeks ago never healed but last Monday he was just absolutely miserable. Cried and cried and cried and cried. He hasn’t acted like that since he was 6 weeks old.  So, Zach took him in and here we are on yet another round of antibiotics (we've done a LOT of laundry lately....)  It’s not fun, but that little kid is a trooper.  He might be totally miserable but he’ll still bust out the smiles for the doctor and anybody else that wants to make him giggle.  Also, his top teeth are making their way through. The first one has just cut through and the next one is on it’s way. It’s pretty hard on him, but he’s doing alright.  He’s going to look so different with top teeth!

We’ve officially ditched the infant car seat, the baby swing and two huge tubs full of clothes. He’s so, so tall and at his doctor appointment last week he weighed 20 lbs 10 oz. Both Zach and I were really tall kids, so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised, but in the end we both ended up being rather average. So, whatever. 

Also...
I’ve been meaning to capture this because I think it’s really strange:  We have never, ever let David sleep in bed with us. Not once. Since the day he was born.  However, for the past 8 months, I wake up nearly every single night freaking out that he’s in bed with us and I’m either A) squashing him or B) trying to catch him because I think he’s falling off the bed. EVERY! NIGHT!  It’s driving me absolutely insane.  I’ve even woken Zach up several times “looking for the baby” by digging around in the sheets. It’s so bizarre. I just hope it stops soon, but it’s been so long already. Who knows how I’m going to react when he gets to be old enough to actually get in the bed on his own!

I mean, that's weird, right?

Anyway....

We just love having this little guy around SO much!

Until next month....

David is Seven Months Old!

Well. That was the fastest month ever.

My little muffin man is 7 months old! He’s more fun than ever too.  He is such a happy little boy! Always smiling, laughing, babbling and loving life.  We are so lucky!

He is so good at sitting now.  I took him to Sheena’s wedding shower at the beginning of the month and there was another little baby there so I sat him next to her. I had my hands behind him, but he never needed them. He just sat and played for a good 15 minutes all on his own!  Since then, he’s been a sitting pro! He’s even able to turn from side to side and reach forward to grab toys.  Right now, he’s working on trying to crawl. He rolls all over the place, but has recently been spending a little more time on his tummy pushing up on those arms and then getting his knees under him. Just not at the same time.  He also does what we call “swimming” where he’ll raise up on his belly and flail his arms and legs around. So funny!  I have a feeling crawling may be happening soon, but we aren’t rushing it. We’ve already dropped the crib down though, just in case!

He’s eating all sorts of fruits and veggies. So far we’ve had sweet potatoes, green beans, pears, apples, squash, banana, and peaches. He pretty much loves everything. He’s still on puree’s but I tried to give him a little piece of mushed real banana and he HATED it. So funny. He loves the packaged stuff though.  I think he didn’t like the texture. We’ll keep at it though. Next he’s going to try real avocado.  

He’s really growing too. We took him back in to the doctor on Friday to make sure his ears were ok since he was being a real crank-monster (turned out to be his top teeth getting ready to come in. Fun!) and he weighed 19lbs 10oz! No wonder none of his pajamas fit anymore! Time to go shopping!  Most of his clothes are 12 month now. Crazy!!

He is really into his shape-sorter blocks. His favorite thing to do is take the lid off (on his own!), dig his hands around inside, then dump everything out and I put it all back in. Repeat a million times.  He’s getting really good with his hands too. He watches me bang two blocks together and then he grabs them and repeats what I did! He can sort-of wave bye-bye. Mostly he just tentatively raises his hands and kind of opens and closes his fingers. It is adorable.  Zach taught him over the weekend to “give a five” and he’s just started clapping his hands on his own, but only when he wants to. He does love to play patty-cake with me though. Every time I clap my hands he puts his on the outside and just smiles so big! I love playing with him so much! 

Other fun things:

-He loves going on walks. He’ll sit there and bounce one of his legs the whole time and loves to look around and see everything that’s going on.

-Is obsessed with his crinkly book.

-Loves tags. However they must be original manufacturer tags. He has no interest in the “taggie” toys or any of those “fake” tags!

-Likes “reading” his board books. He can open and close them and seems to really be interested in all the pictures. It’s kind of the only way I can get him to sit nicely on my nap for any length of time. Otherwise he’s a mover and a shaker!

-Sleeps through the night (7:30pm-6am). He will sometimes whine a bit during the first couple hours, but we hardly ever have to go in to sooth him anymore. Sometimes we do, but that’s generally only when he doesn’t feel well.  Yay sleep!

-Still taking 2-3 naps a day. Length varies greatly.

-LOVES daycare and all his daycare “girlfriends”. Apparently he’s hot stuff in those parts.  We are in trouble!

-We’ve ordered his big boy car seat and I think we’ll start using it this month.

-Reaches up when he wants out of his exersaucer or car seat.

-Says “ma-ma” and “ba-ba” but I really don’t count them as words because he has no idea what it means. It’s still fun hearing “mama mama mama” all the time though!!

Here he is playing with his crinkle book. He takes his playing seriously folks!

 

This month is all about Vince and Sheena’s wedding so it’s going to be busy!  I actually went to the lake this weekend for the bachelorette party so Zach stayed home with David. It was the first time I've left him and although I missed the little bugger, Zach really enjoyed having "guy time" which was really awesome to hear.  

You never know what I’ll have to share next month! We might be crawling, pulling up, cruising, saying words! Who knows!  It’s all just so exciting right now!

Six Month Pictures

Last week we went and had our family pictures taken. 

Rebecca was our wedding photographer and through the years has become what we consider to be a friend. Even our husbands are twitter buddies! 

We couldn't be happier with the pictures and I am already having such a hard time picking which ones to get!!  Thanks so much Rebecca!

You can see even more pictures on her blog! Be sure to check out the slideshow!

David's 6 (and a half) month stats

We finally had our six month doctor appointment today.

We've got a tall one on our hands!
Height: 29" (98%)
Weight: 18lbs 10oz (62%)..... (I don't know why, but I was convinced he'd be 20lbs!)
Head: 45.1cm (79%)

He's doing great developmentally. She's happy with how he's rolling everywhere, sits well, wants to stand and is "definitely social".  We are on the right track with his food and he's pretty much doing fantastic!

The only bad thing is that he's got an ear infection. We had no idea! I guess some babies don't really show any symptoms, so I guess it's good we were there! I know it's silly but I'm so nervous for him to take "real medicine". Probably because I'm allergic to penicillin (which is what he's getting) but I'm sure it will be fine. I just feel awful I didn't catch it sooner.

Also? Shots are no fun....

Stay tuned for a sneak peek at his six month photo shoot!!

Bounce Bounce Baby

The other day David was going bananas in his bouncer. He loves it and also clearly loves the dogs! 

Enjoy!

David is Six Months Old!

 Hi. Welcome to the longest monthly update ever.

I now understand why so many people have “two under two”. Up until this point, I couldn’t even fathom why someone would go through all that pregnancy and newborn nonsense again so soon. But now David is 6 months old and whoa baby, this is a fun age! It makes me want to have a million little 6 month olds!

 This kid is hilarious right now. He might be one of the happiest little babies around. He’s still a morning guy (just like mom!) and wakes up (around 6am, sometimes later, often times earlier) happily chatting to himself in his crib. The second you go in his room he’s all smiles and kicks. Morning usually consists of some bouncing around in his Johnny Jump Up (LOVES IT) while I wrangle the dogs and then a nice bottle followed by some floor time or exersaucer time while I get ready. Zach gets up before I leave and they hang out (and nap) until he goes to daycare. We are lucky that he gets to go in a little later so he gets to spend his mornings at home. He’s doing GREAT at daycare. They love him there. Every time I pick him up they tell me how happy he is and how he’s always laughing and smiling. Sure, they could tell this to all the moms, but sometimes I like to peek in before I walk in the door and often times I see the teachers playing with him and just giggling away. It’s good to know he’s being loved on so much there. He’s finally sleeping at daycare too! So, overall, things are good!

 At night we come home, sometimes go on a walk outside if it’s nice and then we have dinner! He’s loving dinner time so far. Once he started eating oatmeal, he couldn’t get enough of it! We’ve started veggies now too so it’s about to get super fun! I’ve bought some veggies that I plan to cook up this week and freeze, so we’ll see how that goes. I think he might also be ready for breakfast too. You should see how he eyeballs my food in the morning! After dinner we do some more floor time. We are working on sitting on his own right now. He does not like to do it. He wants to stand, stand, stand! He does pretty well in the center of the boppy and gets better every day, so I know he’ll be a pro before we know it. I really hope it’s soon though because he’s getting super-duper heavy in his infant car seat and I’m about ready to make the switch to the big boy car seat, but he has to be able to sit in a shopping cart before we can do that! He’s a little rolling pin though. Just this week he’s started rolling multiple times in a row. I haven’t quite figured out if he’s doing it just because or if he’s really trying to get somewhere. Either way, I think it’s time to start thinking about baby proofing.

Night time has greatly improved. We start our bedtime routine of book (when he’s not fussy), bath, bottle, bed around 7pm each night. Like clockwork he gets super fussy around seven, so that’s when we start! He loves bath time. We’ve never used our baby bathtub and instead just lay him on a sponge in a few inches of water directly in the tub. He will kick and splash and scream and laugh the whole time. I get soaked, but it’s still fun. He hates putting on his pajamas though. We could change his outfit and diaper a thousand times during the day and he loves it, but at nighttime he fights us. I hope he grows out of that. Then it’s into the sleep sack and time for his bottle. He usually falls asleep while drinking and rocking and I know “all the books” say I shouldn’t be rocking him to sleep anymore, but you know what, I LOVE IT, so I will rock that baby to sleep every night for as long as he’ll let me. It’s the only time he’ll let me hold him laying on my lap. Then it’s into the crib. Lately he’s been waking up about an hour after he goes down. Sometimes he’ll fall back to sleep on his own but other times he needs to be flipped back on to his tummy and given his binky. Again, I know we aren’t supposed to do that anymore, but I figure, like most things, he’ll grow out of it on his own. 

The biggest news?! We are officially SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT! It’s been almost three weeks now so I am pretty confident we are good. Sure he might start waking up again during a growth spurt or bad teething episodes, but just knowing that he CAN sleep through the night is like a miracle to me. I can’t even tell you what it’s like to finally be able to get in my bed and stay there all night long! I will never take that for granted again!! He is a crazy sleeper though. Wow. That kid is all over the crib. I have no idea how he’s getting into the positions he does, but it is insane. Every time I check the video monitor he’s facing a totally different direction and at the complete opposite end of the crib from where he was last. Why he doesn’t move around like that when he’s awake is beyond me…

 

 Other news:
-We have two teeth (bottom two)!
-Pretty sure those baby blue eyes are here to stay
-He loves the dogs and the cat. Ted and George especially. He will smile and screech every time he sees them. Poor Missy loves him to death, but I think until she stops licking so much she won’t be the favorite
-Favorite toys: Sophie the Giraffe, Teething beads, Links, Bebo Ball, exersaucer, jumper
-Wearing 9 month clothes. About ready to move to 12 month sleepers! He’s long.
-Still likes watching cars out the back door
-Takes about 2.5 naps a day. A long one in the morning, another around noon and the late afternoon nap is hit or miss
-Celebrated his first Easter
-Got Baptized
-Survived his first doozy of a cold (I survived two terrible colds and Strep. Yay.)
-Still doesn't have a favorite blanket or "lovey". I'm wondering if he ever will.

Here's my most favorite video of the month. Zach had just woken him up from his nap to go to daycare. It's really dark and hard to see, but this pretty much just sums up how happy he is. Also, his hair is awesome and I love it.


Now, can anyone please tell me how to slow time?

Sweet Po-Taters

Today, we had sweet potatoes! David's first non-cereal food! He didn't really have much of a reaction, so I'm guessing that's a good thing. He ate them like a champ! I tried them too and they were tasty!