Six month checkup

Junior had his six month check up a few days. He was in the 75th percentile for everything. He didn't even gain half a pound from his four month checkup. I thought he had thinned out and sure enough he has. The doctor told me to start feeding him pears and a little bit of prune juice to help make him more regular. Sorry Junior, doctor's orders. I was supposed to give him another suppository yesterday but ran out of time. I let him gnaw on a pear and was expecting some sort of reaction since it was his first food other than breastmilk. No reaction. He couldn't care less. He chewed on it just like he would any other toy and got bored with it just as fast.

The doctor also gave me a stronger prescription for hydrocortisone for his excema. I am going to try harder with the over the counter before I try that.

I also got some gripe water last night. All the mylicon has been recalled so I'm hoping this will help his belly. He slept for four hours after I gave it to him last night so I'm hopeful.

After that four hours he didn't sleep much again. And neither did I. DH helped after 3am but I'm still beyond exhausted. I think my body is getting closer to it's limit. I'm starting to get dizzy all the time and my brain function has seriously declined.

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I didn't get to post when I initially wrote this post, so I'll just add on here.

I have given Junior the gripe water a few times now and he seems to actually really like it. I don't know if it helps his belly or not, but I'm going to continue trying for a while.

I gave him the suppository and he didn't produce anything from that. I've given him prune juice and he didn't produce anything from that. I'm wondering now if I'm not feeding him enough? I don't know. I'll continue with the prune juice and see if that gets us anywhere soon.

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We finally ordered a crib for Junior. He's been sleeping in the playpen since he was born and that can't be too comfortable. It's all lumpy. We put the crib together today and tonight is his first night sleeping in the crib. He whined for about the first 20 min, but now he's been sleeping for just over an hour. Hopefully the sleep will continue.

I love his crib. It seems much more stable than the crib that we had for Handsome. I love the color too. It's the Graco Shelby Cappuccino. Love it. I put it at the lowest setting though because he is already pulling up to stand and at the lowest setting he can just reach over the top. Apparently that's what the 75th percentile can do for you.

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Sorry for the disjointed thoughts. I haven't had sleep in months and that makes thinking challenging.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Thanksgiving was really good this year. We stayed home and a really good friend of mine from college, who was also DHs best man at our wedding, came over with his girlfriend. I cooked turkey, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, and warmed up some rolls. I of course made sure I had my sparkling grape juice as is my family tradition. My father never had alcohol in the house, so as a substitute we drank sparkling grape juice. I still love that stuff. DH, who can't drink any alcohol because of the medicine he is on, drank that sparkling grape juice like he was dying of thirst. :)

This was the first year that Handsome actually got to eat a Thanksgiving meal. Last year Handsome was still exclusively breast feeding. We set up his highchair at the end of the table and put a sampling of all the food on his little tray. He used his fork like a champ and ate most of what we put on his plate. His favorite of course was the sweet potato casserole. We snuck the meat in with the sweet potatoes so that he would at least eat a little meat.

He did really well with our friends, playing and laughing with them, which made me really happy. He laughed almost the entire day - well, after his belly was full.

And I was proud of myself because I didn't eat too much and I even started the dishes before I was exhausted so most of the kitchen was clean and all the extra food was in the fridge before we went to bed. Yay!

2008 was a very good Thanksgiving.

The art of eating a sandwich

So Handsome has had a sandwich before, but not all by himself. Yes, he's old enough he should have had one himself a long time ago, but here's the thing: we don't really have a dining room. We have a table that is on it's last leg that sits on the carpet. If I let Handsome feed himself more often my carpet would be beyond disgusting. The other option is to let him eat in the kitchen, but then either DH or I would have to stand there with him because there is not room for more than one chair. Sad, I know.

So anyway, I let him feed himself the sandwich last night. He was so excited! He tried to use both hands and the sandwich kinda folded like a taco and completely dipped underneath his mouth. But the ever persistent Handsome kept trying and ate the whole sandwich! All by himself! Anytime a crumb fell on the carpet he was sure to point to it to let me know I needed to pick it up. Oh so helpful.

My little boy is growing up.

Silly Mommy, Milk is for bottles

I put milk in a sippy cup this morning to see what Handsome would do. He LOVES milk and and as soon as he sees the jug coming out of the fridge he gets all excited and just knows that milk is coming. Usually of course it goes into a bottle and you can lay him down on the floor hand the bottle to him and he will go to town. Well, I gave him the sippy cup, he took a sip, and he gave me a look of at first confusion and then disgust.

I should also add that he loves water. We typically only put water in his sippy cup and he will go through a couple of those every day.

I fed him his yogurt and left the sippy cup on the coffee table. He kept going to it and trying it again. It was never right. In order to check whether it was the cup or the milk, I transferred the milk into a bottle and laid him down and handed it to him. He laid down there and finished that bottle of milk.

Apparently milk doesn't belong in a sippy cup. Sippy cups are for water.

Chunky Legs

Handsome has far outgrown his Bumbo. Even so, DH will still use it to feed him during the day. He just sits it on the carpet and lays a towel in front of him. When Handsome gets bored he will climb out of it. Well, I decided to put him in there yesterday to contain him while feeding him cereal or something. I couldn't get him in! His thighs were so chunky they wouldn't fit in the leg spot!! He must of grown during his nap because in the morning he was fine and the day before DH had used it! I swear he's in the middle of a growth spurt.

Tongue

Handsome does the oddest thing. He will stick out his tongue and then put his face on my chest - Like the part where skin shows on a modest neckline. What in the world is he doing?? Sometimes he'll do the same thing to my arm. He doesn't seem to do this to DH at all. Is he tasting me? Is he trying to figure out if milk comes out everywhere? I ask him what he is doing and he will either just stick his tongue on me again or smile at me. What in the world?? If I stick my tongue out as well, then he will start to laugh and try to grab my tongue. Weird child.

The past few days he's been practicing his pointing. He will point at everything and say, "a da?" Don't know what it means, but that's what he does.

He is also a fan of picking up random items in the house and bringing them to us. He will smile broadly when he hears his "thank you!" And then he either wants the item back - so that he can give it back to us - or he will be off to find something else to bring.

My child apparently also has a foot fetish. He loves shoes, socks, feet, and mostly toes. He thinks they are the funniest thing. He will grab our toes so that we will say, "toesies, toesies!" and then he'll grab his own. He could laugh at this all day.

I cut his hair again two nights ago. DH wanted it shorter, so I cut it shorter. It's so sad. Not because it looks bad; it looks good. The problem is that he looks so old now. All his little curls made him look like he was still a baby and they were so cute! But DH was getting upset with all the, "SHE's so cute!" comments. He wanted it to be clear that he was a little boy. Now he looks like a little boy. A little toddler boy. And it's cute. Very cute. But I miss my little curly headed baby.

Year Check-Up

So we took Handsome for his 12 month check-up today. He is 18.25 pounds (3%) and 27.25 inches (13%) and his head is 18.5 inches (74%). So now he is smaller with a bigger head. The doctor told us to start adding butter and oil to his food and give him milk and yogurt to give him more fat. He eats a ton, but she wants more fat content in what he eats. I'm not so sure how I feel about that, but I will give him more. I gave him a bit of the cookie I was eating today. He seemed to like it. :)

If DH gets into his accelerated nursing program then he could start working Jan '10. This to me means that I can have baby #2 in Jan '10. ;) This means that I can start trying around March of next year! So now my goal is to lose and keep off 15 pounds by March of next year. I want to be the same size I was when I got pregnant with Handsome. If I lose 15 pounds then I'll be right around the same weight. Now granted, DH has to agree with all this, but this is the little plan that I have.

Cheerios

Well, I finally bought Cheerios last night. The dr told me to buy them and let Handsome try to eat them at his last doctor's appointment which was almost two months ago. I didn't buy them because I was terrified that he would choke on them. I'm sure that's some first time mother fear that I'll get over with the next child. Nonetheless, it took me two months to get up the nerve to buy Cheerios.

So for the first try I bit off 3/4 of a Cheerio and gave him the tiny piece left. Because really, how can a child with no molars chew on a hard Cheerio? Well, he gummed it for a second, then it was gone and he was begging for another. Since the first one went so well, I only bit off half of the next one and gave him the rest. You could hear crunching in his mouth and then it was gone and he wanted more. I gave him half a Cheerio for a while until I finally gathered up the nerve to give him a whole Cheerio. After eating the other half of his Cheerios I realized that it dissolved really easily in my mouth, so he got his full Cheerio. I watched him the whole time waiting to have to do the Heimlich maneuver or something, but he chewed that Cheerio like a champ and started begging for the next.

So now I have a Cheerio eating little boy. It's about to make me cry. Imagine - the mere fact that my little boy can eat Cheerios is making me teary eyed. I've never been so emotional until I had Handsome.

The next step is letting Handsome figure out how to eat the Cheerios on his own. He still hasn't figured out how to get things from his hand to his mouth. He will pick up books and eat them, and really anything he finds goes to his mouth - except actual food. When he got the Cheerio in his hand, he didn't know what to do. He just looked at me and cried for another Cheerio. I'm kinda glad because since he doesn't realize he can eat things he has picked up with his hand, I don't have to worry so much about the small pieces of fuzz on the carpet, or the piece of dirt that came in on someone's shoe. I actually dread the time when he figures out how to feed himself. I know it is coming soon.

Cold Carrots

Handsome does not like cold carrots. Not at all. He was still hungry after I fed him sweet potatoes so I decided to feed him some cooked carrots from the fridge. He's eaten carrots before and quite liked them, but we always warm food up for him. I thought I would try cold carrots that hadn't been processed so we could try the finger food concept.

It was a no go. He tried it once and then thereafter he would come to me so that I would hold him, but as soon as he saw the cold carrot coming to his mouth he would run away as fast as he could. Carrot disappears, baby comes. Carrot appears, baby runs away. I tried to get DH to film it, but he hasn't quite figured out the video camera yet.

At least now I know, if Handsome gets too clingy, I'll just get some cold carrots out of the fridge for him to try. ;)

Holy Guacamole

I made guacamole tonight complete with onions, red hot pepper and garlic. It was oh so yummy. We let Handsome try it and oh my goodness, Handsome has a new favorite food. He LOVES him some guacamole. He would cry if I stopped feeding him. DH and I love our hot pepper so the guacamole was definitely not on the mild side, so even little Handsome seems to like his spices. This was probably the first spiced food that he has gotten and he couldn't seem to get enough. I used about five avocados and thought I had made way too much, but it was gone before I knew it.

Handsome's poor little forehead still has the big bruise from about two days ago. It still doesn't bother him, but it's so big and noticeable. He's still climbing on everything like nothing happened. Does anyone ever fear that their child is TOO trusting? He climbs and leans and lurches just assuming that someone will catch him.

Handsome seems to have made it through my cold/flu without getting sick - knock on wood. Let's hope that it stays that way. He said Mama again today. Yay! He's getting good at his German too "nine, nine, nine."

Bananas

Over Christmas Handsome got his first taste of a banana. To say he loved it would be an understatement. I had grabbed a banana for breakfast and decided to let Handsome suck on the side of it just to see if he would like the taste. He tasted it and then started grabbing it when I thought I was going to take it away from his mouth. He would cry when I stopped letting him eat it. I mashed it up for breakfast for about three mornings, and every time he would cry when I stopped feeding him.

I also gave him a few mashed up Teddy Grahams on the plane going back home. Probably not the healthiest snack, but he liked it and again cried when I stopped feeding him.

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.

Soild food

I fed Handsome his first solid food today. It's interesting that they call it solid food. There was nothing solid about it. It seemed a bit like orange juice with the pulp. I mixed the organic rice cereal with breast milk like they said to do, and even added a little more rice cereal, b/c it just didn't seem like enough.

I sat him in the Bumbo on the kitchen floor, set up my video camera, and pried DH from his studies. And then I attempted to spoon feed Handsome. I have to preface this story with the fact that Handsome will put absolutely everything in his mouth. So I put the spoon to his mouth, he gave me a disgusted look and proceeded to spit everything out. He looked none-too-pleased with the whole process. I could just picture him saying, "Mom, what in the world are you doing?!" I kept trying to feed him and the majority of the food ended up on his chin and shirt. In fact after the first few spoonfuls, he wouldn't even open his mouth for the spoon anymore.

So I gave up. DH suggested we try the bottle, so we put it in a bottle. At first I tried to give it to him sitting up, and he wouldn't do much with it. I laid him down across my lap and then he tasted it and repeated the disgusted look. After a while though, he did manage to finish the three ounces that I had prepared. He was much better with the food in the bottle, but I don't think I'm supposed to give it to him that way. I'll try again tomorrow and see what happens.

Should I try the oatmeal variety instead? Would he perhaps like that better? Or should I continue with the same thing for a week just to get him used to it?

I remember being told that the majority of the first meal would end up on him instead of in him, but I thought we could manage a little more than what he got. He did manage to get a bath out of it and he loves his baths. I even let him sit this time and just held him in case he lost his balance. He was very excited.

On a side note, I have a cold. Boo. I hate colds. I went to the grocery store today and bought orange juice... and cookies. Both make me feel better. I'm washing my hands like a madwoman in the hopes that Handsome doesn't get sick.