Refiguring Sleep Out

Giving him another week or two to decide that just because he's in bed and CAN stand in there, doesn't mean he has to. By rocking him completely to sleep before putting him down. And he's not going down easy, he's fighting it every rock of the chair. And even if you stay in the chair for several minutes, we've only got a 50% chance of getting him in the crib still completely zonked, if he even half wakes up, it's try to stand up.

I'm going to make this quick, as I wanted to try for a week's worth of posts, and well, it's already 11:20. Fortunately he slept through his recently common 40 minute wakeup, he may still wake up at midnight, but this is good progress. Still no second tooth, but here's the first one for ya.

He clearly isn't too pleased about it.

Or maybe just about it's friend, who I had hoped would have been here by now. But tonight when nursing he was doing this thing with his hand that I noticed the week the first one came in so.... *crosses fingers*

Pleeeeeeeease!

Wasting
Space
So
I
Can
Post another photo!

I pulled this out of the garage today, it's not new to us, but it's new to him (a ring toss, if you haven't figured that out) His favorite thing to do now is to crawl around with a ring in his mouth :D I love it when he does that, he's so cute!

Didn't get nearly as much done today as I wanted to. Part lazy, part clingy baby, part I DON'T WANNA NAP baby. Although the ring toss kept him distracted for a good while.

I like distractions.

I'm going to make these posts happier. I'm hopefully going to go to bed soon here! That's pretty happy, right?

This. Week. Sucked.

I don't think I've said anything since getting back from vacation. We had fun (mostly - at least during the day) vising family and friends in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. We used up our travel vouchers finally as well.

Since my last report, Peanut can do many thing. He can climb all the way up the stairs. He can pull up on just about anything, and cruise along them. He's starting to wave, and will often clap or high five on request. He can get himself out of any position - we've had to lower the crib mattress. We've introduced wheat, and he fascinated by pasta and cheerioes. Though right now he has cheerioes and banana chunks on his tray and he likes the banana more. We found freeze dried apples and blueberries in Philly - he loves the apples but just spits out the blueberries. He'll learn to like them :)

At the Zoo, his favorite (read the only animal he showed interest in) were the flamingos. I think he would have like the rainforest exhibit, closer to the animals and there was more movement, but he fell asleep in his daddy's arms for that.

There, I tried to stay positive for awhile. We're home, Boi went directly to work after it, and we've barely seen him. I've got my second cold in a month. Peanut no longer likes to sleep or nap. Sleep completely rules a person's day, especially when they're under the weather. To keep him sleeping in the morning, we're having to switch to cosleeping, which means I get less quality sleep at that point too.

Last night, Peanut went to bed at 9. He woke up at 10. He woke up at 11. At 11 I gave him Tylenol, hoping the wakeups were due to that tooth that's trying to cut through. Nope. He woke up at 12. He woke up at 1. At 1 when he woke up he was more alert, so I tried to get him down, but he was back up faster, so I nursed him, still didn't want to go down. So I ignored him for awhile :( 

Part of the problem is the vacation we took, he hasn't been the same since. Also the day after we got back, he finally figured out how to roll back to front. So he eventually fell asleep on his tummy, and whimpered on and off for an hour in his sleep. He woke up again around 2, I rocked him back down. Around 3 something, Boi finally came home from work, and he woke up again, this time he rocked him back down. Can you guess what I did at 4 and 5? HE SLEPT TWO HOURS THEN and woke up at 730. I kicked Boi and he brought him into the bedroom and they cuddled for another hour until he had to get back up for work. Now it's breakfast, I'm having a coke. Must. Find. Energy. I'll have healthier stuff later, right now I'm focusing on being awake enough to take care of him.

I had hope that maybe things were getting better, but they're not. I'll just keep telling myself to give it a whole week. Friday night, tomorrow night, that will be the night legends are made of. At the very least I should be 90-95% by then, so things should look a bit happier.

Memorial Day Weekend

In the Pool at his Great Uncle D's

Well, it's been a fun weekend. Spent Sunday at Boi's uncle's house where he got to see some of his family, and Peanut got to stick his feet in the pool. Then he was a good boy and slept the whole ride home. Peanut's tooth continues to grow out, but still not very visible. At least not to easily get a picture, but you can feel some good definition if he permits you to touch it. Today he is perfecting going from belly to sitting, so excellent job. He's pretty proud of himself about that. He's also getting better at standing up using leg power instead of just arm power. Which means he's getting into a lot more things these days, how I fear for our home.

He also decided that third naps are for 7 month olds and not 8 month olds. Sigh, he usually only takes two naps now, but last night he only slept 10 hours so he needed that third nap. I spent an hour trying to get him down. It could have been worse, him being awake from 330-10. He was actually in a fairly good mood - likely do to his crawling to sitting prowress. Then I decided, for both his and my sanity that we'd watch one episode of Yo Gabba Gabba before bathtime and bedtime. We switched from Netflix to Amazon since it's cheaper and you get more bang for your buck (on top of the instant streaming on the ps3 - book rental, extra free books and fast free shipping). Alas, the app seems buggy and it kicked us out, and then froze the console. Siiiiiiiiiiighs.

Look at me stand up at the coffee table!

Oh, and he tried his hand at some moist cheerios today. He's still working at the pincer grasp though, so not much gets into his mouth before I start shoveling it in before he wants to get out of his highchair. Then tonight I got my first experience of the joy of the next 4+ months nursing with teeth :/ Yeah. That's all I have on that.

I've got Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to get ready for our vacation starting on Friday. I REEEEEEEEALLY hope it ends up being a good time. It won't be overly restful, I know, but hopefully there will be moments of fun and sanity in it. I really should be cleaning and preparing now, but I'm pretty drained from the day :/ I'm being bad and having some ice cream, maybe then I'll be in better spirits. The house is a wreck :/ Plus I need to work. Damnit, I haven't even opened my email for a few days, that's going to be a disaster too.


But! I did finish and order Peanut's First Book! It won't get here until next week though :( So we can't take it along with us on our vacation. But I can't wait to get it and read it to him. And maybe make a second one next time a free book promotion comes along :) I made mom an account and put the free book promo in it and she got it for free too! I love stalking out coupons/deals/etc. Sometimes something comes along and it just inspires you :) Sometimes, at least, sometimes it's just Free Anti-Chafing Gel samples. LOL!

Anywho, here's the link to the book I made. Enjoy -> http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AcNm7Zk2ZOWjoA

Teefers

Woohoohoo!

We have our first tooth! A toof a toof! A tiny little nublet! I was feeding him applesauce banana oatmeal this morning, a favorite, a good chunk escaped onto his chin, I scooped it up with a finger, stuck it in his mouth, and  when he nommed down I was like... wait what was that? So I vigilantly stared as hard as I could while feeding him, and at one point I saw a gleaming tiny little line on his gums. A TOOF! The bad attitude and the runny nose have finally come to a head, and out has sprung a tooth. It's still too tiny to get a picture of it (though that didn't stop me from trying) but I will get one.

I'm finishing up his Safari book today, then I'll share it on here and on Facebook. A few videos first - he's a crawling powerhouse now, here's a video I took at Grandma's house yesterday.



And then later that night, I was experimenting with colors, every time he 'got it wrong' he actually just picked up the wrong color to hit the right color with it. He didn't do that when he was right. I'm intrigued, we'll play again this afternoon and see if last night was just a fluke!



Other then that, we're up to three state parks (Rib Mountain, Lake Wissota and Counsil Grounds), then we going to drive south this weekend for memorial day, then vacation starts next Friday! A whole week of seeing Boi - I can't wait!

Walking and Crawling

So, stuff is going on at the ol' homestead. Foods are growing outside, bushes/trees are getting pruned, a book about Peanut is getting worked on, and a baby turning into a child inside. Today, Boi set him down after he woke up this morning, and there wasn't much confusion, he remembered right away how to go forward. *sighs* My baby.

So this is a sneak peak from the book I'm working on. Peanut and Sophie (his girlfriend - the giraffe) go on a safari with their magical sombrero. At first I thought I was going to need only a few shots, but now that I'm working on it... yeah I'm going to need a lot of pictures I think. Maybe it would be better if I used bigger pictures... I don't know. But I like playing with the pages too often.

Yesterday we went to Lake Wissota State Park. It's our second state park on our (ok, fine, multi) year plan to visit all of them in the state. Here's Peanut walking into the lake for the first time with his friend K.



And then here is a snippet of him crawling this afternoon. Still no speed records being set, but he knows what he's doing now.

Mother's Day

Yesterday was Mother's Day! Alas, it wasn't too swell, but at least not due to Boi. He did good - he got me boxes of mac and cheese, wine, and left a few notes for me around the house. Peanut however drove me to eat red velvet cake ice cream with cream cheese frosting. Doesn't he look sweet here? Yeah, on top of everything that drove me to get this ice cream, he cried the whole way home ::sigh::

Today he invented a new game. He was standing and playing with his toys in the clothesbasket, me next to him (he still doesn't exit standing well most of the time) when he reached out to me. So I took his hand, he took a step towards me and grabbed my other hand. This filled him with much glee and he slapped my chest to show me his excitement. Then he turned around, reached for the basket, and completed the circle. Then he did it a few more times :D Big boy!

I made him parsnips and sweet potatoes for dinner tonight, thinned it out with some water and the rest of my stock. I'm not sure what it was, but something in it had a tang... and he did not care for it :( So I grabbed some green beans, and he gobbled that down, and I tried mixing in bits of the parsnip food... and the more parsnipy it got the less he liked it. Seriously kid? Momma loves the parsnips, it's those beans that are nasty :/ I'll blame Boi.

Craig Ferguson is in Scotland tonight, and Boi is working late... again... I'm going to finish up my mother's day wine and watch Craig and wish Boi was home ::sigh::

7.5 months

What has been going on. Peanut has been going backwards, or spinning in circles like a pro. His favorite thing though is to do downward dog - stick his butt in the air and stretch out his arms and legs. Like he's going to somehow stand from that so he can walk around. You can dream boy - you can dream. He's getting better at pulling up and staying balanced, playing while standing and only holding on with one hand. Raspberries are super cool, especially while he's eating. Clapping is really neat, he will often mimick us clapping. Also the other night for the first time, I signed him milk and he signed it back. I need to be more consistent about signing, but that's a good sign!

Suddenly out of nowhere he's stopped being shy with the mirror and doing as close to a wave (read:wants to slap the mirror) as I've seen him do. Hopefully soon he'll start waving hello and goodbye to people. And today I saw him, rather haphazardly, go from all fours to sitting. How's that for a nutshell of what he's been up to? :D Oh, and he's officially tripled his birthweight. From 6lbs 5oz to 19lbs. My chunky monkey :D

We had an unhappy evening. I brought him in for his evening nap, and he just screamed and screamed and screamed instead :( We had given him some teething tablets earlier, but they must have worn out. So I got him some Tylenol but I ended up having to cancel the nap :/ We'll see if I regret that decision later. But we have managed 2 successful two nap days, but he didn't nap too great today in general...

We went to Rib Mountain today. That was fun, though maybe I just shouldn't have bothered strapping him into the stroller the number of times he was in and out. I want to go with him to visit all the state parks in WI. It seems like a good goal for a baby. Nothing too grand, but something to get us out of the house.

Last weekend was the neighborhood garage sale in my mom's town. We got a lot of good stuff, including what seems to be the best find for his current age - this train that has 4 balls that move around when you hit the button and music plays. I'll have to get a video. Best part? It was only a dollar. Score! I wasn't sure about it, but mom pushed me to get it - I'm glad she did!

I'll try to get back into posting more frequently so I have more daily updates rather then 'this is what has been happening the last two weeks' SO SORRY KK COME AGAIN!