Christmas Steps

My father told me that children take amazing steps when they are pulled out of their element. Handsome did just that. He did so well with all the family. He clung to me like his life depended on it. At first he didn't let anyone hold him, but after my aunt started kinda sneaking him away from me so that he didn't notice what was happening, he got better with others taking him. As my aunt would say, "Just don't make eye contact." She would stand just next to me with her hands behind her back, turning side to side, whistling as if she were doing nothing, and when Handsome was completely unawares, she would take him and walk away. If he didn't see me then he was fine. As soon as he saw me or heard my voice it was all over.

He is also starting to stand without holding onto anything. He thinks it's hilarious. He will climb up and then let go with both hands, look at us, and then fall down laughing.

Handsome did very well on the airplane. He didn't cry at all. If he started fussing, I would just feed him and he would quiet down or fall asleep.

My aunt got him a walker thing which DH said he walked with this morning.

Handsome seemed very happy the whole time we were there. He just smiled and laughed at everyone. It makes me miss living near my family. I think he would really enjoy being with them more than just at Christmas.

His naps weren't always easy and he was up every three hours at night, but overall he slept well.

Today is my anniversary so I'm making this entry short. Tomorrow starts the marathon working. I'm not sure I'll be able to see my son or my husband much during the next week.

Yay for vacations and boo for work.

Work?

Work? You want me to work today? Seriously?

I have three hours before I'm gone for vacation for a week and a half and I can't seem to get any work done. I desperately need to, but I just can't seem to do anything. I want to go on vacation NOW!!

I'm going to be so far behind when I return, but I am surprisingly unstressed about that right now.

Yellow Bathwater

When Handsome takes his bath, the water will inevitably make him pee. I gave up caring a while ago. Usually he will pee in his diaper when the water is running, but before I put him in the water. Even when this happens, he will wait until I've finished washing him to pee once again in water. I don't know how he has so much water in him.

Anyway, a couple days ago, I was holding him standing in the water and he peed. Of course, normally when he pees, he doesn't really notice, but this time it made a noise as it splashed in the water. He looked down at himself peeing and seemed so proud of himself. When he finished he looked up at me like, "How cool was that? Can we do that again?" I told him I had no power over that and sat him down in the slightly yellow water.

Yes, it sounds gross, but I used soap. I was not about to refill the entire bathtub again. He'd just pee in the new bathwater.

Crying it out?

So DH and I got in an argument. It all started because Handsome wouldn't go to sleep. I bathed him, lotioned him, clothed him, lullabied him, fed him, and put him to bed. During the whole process he was rubbing his eyes and resting his head on my shoulder. He was obviously tired.

Usually he goes to sleep easily, but last night was one of those that didn't go so easily. As soon as I put him down on the mattress he started wailing. After a few wails though, it waned to a whimper as he turned over and started crawling to the side of the crib. Occasionally he will fall asleep after this initial crying so I left him in his room and went to my room to fold the clothes. I was away long enough to hang up between 5 and 10 shirts. It couldn't have been more than 2-5 minutes.

I went back, picked him up and calmed him down. Once he was calm, and had his head down, I put him back in his crib. He started crying again so I left him once more to give him a chance to calm himself down again. Of course he didn't stop crying, so once again after about 10 shirts I went to pick him up. This time I rocked and hummed until he actually fell asleep.

I was about to lay him down when I hear DH on the phone downstairs. His voice carries like no other so of course it woke Handsome up and he started wailing again. BOO!!! I put Handsome down to go downstairs and tell DH to go to the basement. I was frazzled, so I yelled at DH, so things went downhill.

I gave Handsome another chance to fall asleep on his own and went to fold a few more shirts. DH got off the phone and came upstairs, got Handsome out of bed, and asked me why I would force Handsome to go to bed if he wasn't tired. Grrr. Handsome WAS tired! DH was afraid he was sick and so he thought letting Handsome cry would just make things worse. I finally convinced DH that Handsome was tired so DH went and laid down with Handsome until he fell asleep and put him in his crib.

After DH came downstairs we talked about it. He was upset because I yelled and I was upset that he woke up Handsome after I finally got him to sleep. We decided that neither one of us wants Handsome to do the crying it out method, but a few minutes will help him learn how to fall asleep on his own. We decided that our max was 5 minutes - depending on the type of cry that we heard. Don't know how hard and fast this rule is, but at least we came to some sort of agreement.

Even though I wasn't happy that DH went to pick up Handsome when I thought I had the situation under control, I was happy to see how much DH cared about Handsome. He looked really hurt and worried that Handsome was crying.

Hopefully Handsome goes back to sleeping well again. I'm kind of afraid of how he will sleep when we travel to Texas for Christmas. I don't know how he's going to do sleeping in a different house. He's never slept anywhere other than at our house.

My Poor Pooper

I have to learn how not to laugh. It's horrible really that I would see someone else's pain as funny. I know I need to do better or my son is one day going to really hate me.

Yesterday I was sitting on the floor with Handsome as he was crawling around in his Santa suit (nothing else was clean). He climbed on the first step and then then grabbed the bottom banister so he could stand up. I was watching him to see if he would fall, and as I was watching, all of the sudden his face started crunching up and he started to cry. It was a serious cry. I didn't know what was happening because he hadn't fallen. I looked at the pole and felt it to make sure there wasn't anything sharp on there, and then I looked back at his face. He was looking at me with a look of , "Mommy, PLEASE help me!" And then I noticed a hard long grunt mixed in with his serious cry. My poor Handsome was trying to poop and it was painful!

I didn't know what to do! I didn't think picking him up would help because I wouldn't want anyone to pick me up while I was in the process of pooping. So I held him just under his arms as he stood there, grunting, and crying with tears rolling down his little face.

Yes, I know I'm a horrible person because after I realized why he was crying, I couldn't stop laughing! I held him as close as I could mostly so that I could hide my face behind his head and he couldn't see me laughing. His crying was just so sudden as if he had just fallen, so it must have been an instant urge to push. His little face was all red and tears were falling and he would take breaks between cries to push.

Once his sobs quieted down a little and he seemed to stop pushing, I picked him up all the way and put his little head to my shoulder. I seriously need to find something with a lot of fiber to make the process easier for him. When I changed his diaper there was just a little there and it didn't seem too hard. It was certainly stinky, but I don't think stink makes it hard to push. He did start to cry again when I wiped his little bohiney. Fiber. We need fiber.

Da, Da, Da, Ba, Ba, Ba

So unfair. How come the M sound has to be more difficult than the D or B? DH is of course ecstatic that Handsome is now calling his name - either Dada or Baba will do. There is no Mama. But I still don't think it counts that he's calling DH's name because he doesn't know what he's saying. He has to KNOW before it counts. Right? Or am I just making excuses so that I'm not sad he can't say my name?

We attempted to go to the gym last night. We hadn't been in a couple weeks and it was 7:30pm. You can see the disastrous scenario right? We got there and just sat him down in his little car seat and he started screaming. Nothing would do. DH stood with him for about 10 minutes so that I could work out for a little bit, but we left shortly thereafter. We HAVE to go to the gym more often. We haven't been going because my schedule changed so that the only time we could go is when Handsome is tired and cranky, plus now I'm afraid of him getting the flu from the other kids if we did go. I'm getting the feeling that Handsome is not going to let any of my family hold him over Christmas. That will be a bummer.

Ga Ga Ga

You know what the most beautiful sound is? "ga ga ga ga.." I LOVE that sound. Yesterday Handsome decided to start babbling with "ga ga ga" and "ba ba ba." It's so cute! It looks like he is finally starting to understand some things and like he is actually trying to say something. He makes the sound by basically sticking his tongue between his lips and closing his mouth. Too cute. He's going to hate me for saying this one day, but he makes his mouth so wide that he looks like a little cow sticking it's tongue out. So cute!!

The other day I came home and DH was holding Handsome. Handsome was crying. I sat down next to DH and took Handsome and he stopped crying. I know it shouldn't make me feel good, but I was so happy that he would stop crying when I took him. Sometimes I feel like he's going to hate me since I leave him to go to work everyday. It just made me feel good that he still knows who I am and wants me to hold him.

Only 7 days left until I leave for Christmas vacation!! Yay!!!

Sweet Potatoes for Seven Months

We have success! We fed him sweet potatoes today and he loved them! He was actually smiling and talking and asking for more food. He seems to understand that the spoon brings food too.

He turns 7 months today! It came so fast.

Standing poop

Ok, I know it's a bad title for the post, but it was funny so I went with it.

On Dec 6, Thur, Handsome had two more milestones. They seem to be coming with lightening speed.

First of all, since he has been eating his squash I knew the poop would change. Well, on Thur he had is first real poop. Luckily DH got to change the diaper! ;)

The second milestone came with his climbing. He normally will grab onto something low so that he can halfway stand up and then grab something a little higher to stand all the way up. Well on Thur, he was climbing on my legs and got to the halfway mark where he was holding onto me and standing on his knees. Then he got to his feet and straightened up to grab onto something higher and there was nothing to grab onto! So he stood there, on his feet, with his hands in the air, staring at me with the most confused look on his face. After a few seconds he realized that there was nothing to hold onto so he sat down, still confused with what had just happened. I called DH into the room, but of course Handsome wouldn't do it again. But still, he stood up all on his own without holding onto anything!!! He's also starting to walk from one corner to the next while holding onto the coffee table. He only gets a few steps before he trips over himself and falls down, but it's definite progress!

We still don't have much of the "baba" or "mama" and I'm kinda bummed about it. He is still in love with the screeching, grunting, and raspberry sounds. Occasionally he looks like he's trying to say something and kinda grunts with a pattern, but all the books claim that he's supposed to be repeating syllables now. I know that every child develops differently, and I expected him to be late with talking since he has two languages coming at him, but I thought I would at least get a "mama" since that is the same in both languages. Plus right now he wouldn't be making actual words as much as just practicing different sounds.

Handsome turns 7 months tomorrow! It's going so fast.

Standing squash

Two events happened yesterday.

Event number one happened in Handsome's crib. When I went to pick him up in the morning, he was standing. Fully standing. Usually he will stand on his knees, or when he stands on his feet, it'll be kinda hunched over. Well, yesterday morning it was a full, sturdy stand which planted his chest above the top railing of his crib. So of course we had to lower the level of his mattress in his crib.

Event number two was that Handsome got a new food! For the past two weeks he's had a serving of rice cereal or oatmeal each day. Or perhaps I should say that his bib has had a serving of rice cereal or oatmeal each day. He still will barely eat any of the cereal. It's better, but he still won't eat more than about an ounce. I'd heard that some babies never really like rice cereal, so I decided to try a new food. So I bought some butternut squash, baked it and stuck it in the food processor. It was the first time I had ever tasted butternut squash, and it was actually pretty good. It tasted a little like sweet potato. He actually opened his mouth for the squash on the first try. I think he was intrigued by the orange color. The first look on his face was one of pure disgust. He moved the squash around in his mouth for a while, but then he swallowed it! I brought more to his face, and he opened his mouth and had the exact same reaction. I got about four spoonfuls in before he decided he didn't want to eat anymore. He did seem to like the squash better than the rice. Even though he never gave a good face, he ate more of the squash than of the rice cereal.

So when exactly will he actually start to want to eat from the spoon? I keep reading that some babies are eating jars full of food by this age, and yet Handsome is really uninterested in it.

Hospital

Remember my friend who almost ended up in the hospital? Well, she finally landed in the emergency room this weekend. They let her go, but she may have to return today for a longer stay if her lungs haven't cleared up.

Her sister had to take her kids for the weekend because apparently her husband couldn't watch them while she rested.

Grr.

My Friend

Remember my friend whose husband cheated on her? They decided to definitely get a divorce.

And then do you know what happened? She got bronchitis and pneumonia and almost ended up in the hospital.

Her husband's response? "How much is this going to cost me?"

Honestly God, sometimes I just don't understand.