Cuteness abounds!
Current skills include sitting up, rocking back and forth on my hands and knees, putting my mouth on everything, and pulling myself up onto my knees.
I have 2 teeth coming in on the bottom. I love smiling. And I am enjoying eating.
I don’t cry often, but when I do I am usually tired or want to nurse. I laugh freely, and can easily make my brothers smile.
My biggest boy has his first loose tooth. I wiggle it every day. He is not impressed.
My little girl has her first tooth coming in.
Somehow this timing is symbolic, but I am simply too tired to analyze it in detail. *sigh*
Update: Make that 2 and 2! 2 loose for Elliott and 2 coming in for Trea.
My sweet little baby…
You are growing and developing so fast. Last week you mastered your abdominal muscles and began sitting up, and this week you are already practice crawling. It is adorable to watch you grunt and groan whilst you slowing push yourself up onto your hands and knees. Then slowly, ever so proud of yourself, you rock back and forth. Elliott was 11 months old when he first crawled. How different these boys are!
It will only be a short time until you are moving about the house. Terrorizing areas that your older brother still has not discovered.
And then…we are all in trouble. I can sense that your calm, happy personality is a simple disguise. Underneath it all you are dead set on the things you want. You smile and laugh at me all the while reaching for things over my shoulder that should be out of your grasp. You never loose an opportunity to grasp for things in your reach and even slightly beyond.
You have THE loudest voice. I am certain that it was specifically crafted to ensure that I dont ever let you cry it out. It is particularly shrill and piercing when you dont like what is being done to you (putting you to sleep, putting you down when you want to be carried or picked up, or forcibly removing you from my breast because you like to gnaw and clamp down on it).
You have an infectious smile and laugh, and LOVE it when kids or adults are right up in your grill. The more activity that is going on, the happier you are. When it is just you and I at home–you are bored and cranky.
At your 6 month appointment you were still getting over a nasty bout of Herpangina. As such you hadn’t eaten well in several days. So, you dropped from the 90% for weight down to the 50%. It was heartbreaking to hear the doctor sound concerned about the shift from one arch on the growth graph to a lower arch. You are still tall at 27 1/2 inches (75%). 18 pounds 8 ounces isn’t anything to worry about, but it is smaller than your brother at this age.
I have been trying to feed you solids for more than a month now, and you have little interest in them. You will eat several bites. Then gag down a few more. Then refuse to eat more than that. You have eaten banana, avocado, sweet potatoes, peas, apples, pears, rice and lentils. Fruit seems to be your least favorite and rice cereal your top pick. As soon as your get some teeth we can expand your diet a bit more too.
It is bittersweet watching my baby grow and develop. I love you sweet boy.
Phew, what a crazy month or more it has been. Hubby was sick, sick, sick for most of the month of December and some of January. Requiring 2 visits to Urgent Care and a doctor visit, several antibiotic Rx’s. 2 sets of blood work, one chest x-ray, and almost a lumbar puncture. Yup, you heard right.
They don’t know what was wrong with him still. They think he has a sinus infection that went haywire. But, who knows. He still isn’t 100%, and needs to go in next week for a third round of blood work and tests. Like I said, Phew!
Having to parent for so long semi-solo was a HUGE challenge for me. I don’t have that much patience or energy, coupled with the holidays; I was drained. I started to seriously stress out with regard to work and the daunting task of trying to keep up with it all.
Hubby and I are both highly organized (some say to much so), and like our house to be in a particular order. Trying to live up to our standards almost put me (and frankly hubby too)into a panic attack. I finally had to let go of certain things and convince hubby to do the same.
We both had to let go and allow our house to be in disorder for a while. We have a small child, and in order for us to enjoy him and be present with him we have to let go of trying to control many of the things in the periphery. As such, we are happier and less stressed. Three cheers for being aware and willing to change.
Speaking of change, Elliott changed before our eyes over the holidays. In the matter of a couple of days he went from not sitting up on his own at all, to being able to sit up unassisted, both hands free. He also started to become highly aware of his surroundings, making direct eye contact and responding with a laughs and smile. Formerly we would have had to solicit his smiles and chuckles, now when he sees something funny–he lets out a belly sized laugh and full face grin.
On his 1/2 year birthday we started him on rice cereal. He is a natural eater, and hasn’t had any issues thus far with any food we have given him. Along with rice cereal he has eaten bananas and sweet potatoes. This weekend we are going to try avocado or maybe pears. He seems to want to feed himself. Every time the spoon comes to him mouth, he reaches with both hands and directs and controls the spoon himself. SO much so that I can not extract it from him hands until he is ready for a refill. We also introduced the sippy cup with water in it. More than the food, watching him try and manipulate the sup into his mouth is endearing. But, when he succeeds and gets a sip of water-the look on his face is hilarious! He keeps going back for more, so I can only assume he is acclimating to its new flavor. But it facial expressions were any indicator–you would think we were trying to poison him.
Hubby and I are working on letting go a bit. We are trying to teach/allow Elliott to fall asleep on his own, rather than need to be rocked to sleep for every nap and bedtime. Lil E will fall asleep in the stroller or car seat on his own, and often times put himself back to sleep when he awakes. So, we realized that perhaps by always rocking him to sleep, we aren’t allowing him to learn to fall asleep on his own. The experiment is working well, and he seems to be learning quickly, all with little to no crying. Neither hubby nor I are the CIO type of parents.
Our 6 month appointment went great too. Elliott is in the 85-95% for all things. He is growing normally and according to the doc has great hand eye coordination and is a very social baby. He weighed in at 21.2 lbs and is 27.5 inches long. No teeth yet and he hasn’t rolled over…but that time is soon coming!
I have so many other things to say, and share but have run out of time. So, this will have to do for now. Be well!
darwinsgirl 