7 month update

Hard as it is to believe, Daniel is already 7 months old!  As I think back on the past month or so, I realize we've had several big changes.

First, here's his 7 month "birthday" picture:

Eating
We introduced Daniel to solids around his 6-month birthday and have been gradually expanding the offerings.  So far sweet potatoes, bananas, and multigrain cereals have gone over well.  He was initially less enthused about zucchini squash but seemed to like it better as the week went on and as I mixed it with not just breastmilk but also a little cereal.  I think going forward with new veggies I'll start out just mixing it about 50/50 with milk and cereal and gradually decrease the cereal portion as he gets used to the veggie.  When we first started solids Daniel needed a little help getting the hang of how to use a spoon but now he eagerly leans forward with his mouth open to take it.

Breastmilk is still the majority of his diet, as it should be for a 7 month old, but over the next month I think we'll try to work up to 2 solid feedings a day.  So far solids are just a supplement to milk feedings not a replacement for them, but as the year goes on solids will become a bigger part of his diet.  In the meantime he's still nursing like a champ and taking two 7oz bottles during the day.

Sleeping
Not much change on this front.  He still sleeps wonderfully through the night almost every night and naps pretty well most days.  His wakeful interval has been about 2 hours since his newborn days but now sometimes seems to be able to go a little longer to 2 1/2-3 hours at a time.  We're still on a 2 nap a day schedule though and hopefully will be for a few more months at least.

Skills and developments
As the last post mentioned, Daniel now has his second tooth.  I can't tell yet where the third one will come through so I don't think it's imminent but you never know.

The biggest news on the skill front is that Daniel is beginning to crawl.  Last Monday he got up on his hands and knees for the first time.  Tuesday he learned how to rock back and forth.  Friday he was on the bath mat before his bath and while trying to move forward, he scooted himself backwards off the mat, out the bathroom doors and into the bedroom.  And Sunday night...well, he did this:

Yes, we have a crawler now!  Excited and a little nervous to see what lies in store this week as he gets better at it.  One thing's for sure, we need to babyproof ASAP!

A few more pictures



Yum, bananas!



 

Yay, I'm crawling now!

Snow days!

It's been an interesting week here.  Last weekend was gloriously warm and Monday was pretty nice too, but the rest of the week has been COLD.    Cold weather + precip Monday night=ice on the roads, so my office and Kevin's, following the lead of most local school districts, was closed on Tuesday...and Wednesday...and today.  We both went in to work on Thursday, Kevin for the full day, me for a delayed start and early exit.  I had to use some vacation time to do that, but since I was dropping Daniel off at Grandma's and then taking him home I felt safer avoiding the traffic.  Kevin had to work from home all 3 days but I was home free just enjoying a few extra days home with Daniel. 

It turned out to be a momentous week as Daniel cut his second tooth, alongside the first one in the bottom middle.  I see him licking it with his tongue a lot so he's obviously still getting used to these new sharp things in his mouth.  I'll miss that cute gummy baby smile but it's exciting to see him hit this new milestone.

Here's a picture of Daniel and me exploring our snowy sidewalk and yard:




































And here we are inside where it's warm.  Daniel's staying warm in a jacket my mom (Mimi to Daniel) gave him for Christmas.  Note the cute bear ears!  And if you look closely, you'll see tooth #1.
 

 

One of the amusing storylines in our house with the snow days has been the cats' fight over the bed by the fireplace. It's the black cat, Tim's bed but the gray one, Todd decided he wanted it too so he has forcibly evicted Tim on several occasions. Today they found a way to co-exist and stay warm!

On a related note, Daniel has really discovered the cats lately.  Whenever one is nearby he reaches over to grab their fur or roll over into them.  They're taking this newfound attention pretty well but make an escape when they've had their fill.  I shot some video the other day of Daniel playing with Tim.  Unfortunately I was trying to hold Tim and record at the same time so the video has a bit of a "Blair Witch" feel too it, but Daniel's laughs come through loud and clear.




Sweet potatoes for my sweet potato
After getting less than enthusiastic responses to avocado and green beans we decided to go back to sweet potatoes to help Daniel get the hang of eating solid foods before branching out again to something new.  He seems to like sweet potatoes pretty well so far though milk is still far and away his favorite food.

Canada, eh!
In August 2009 Kevin and I traveled to Lake Louise, Banff, and Jasper, Canada with my family.  While we were in Jasper we saw a little onesie we thought was so cute we had to get it for a future little Williamson to wear someday.  Now Daniel has grown into it and it looks really cute on him.  And the baseball cap he's got on looks like a beret for some reason giving him quite the international flair:

6 months old and eating solids!

Monthly update
Even though my last post was only a few days ago, there's a lot of news.  For starters, we had our 6 month checkup on Thursday.  Daniel's up to 15lb 8oz and 26.5in long, still long and lean and a healthy boy.  He had his first runny nose this week but no other symptoms so the doctor's guess is allergies or teething rather than a cold.  He was very smiley and giggly at his appointment and grabbed the stethoscope from the doctor's neck so he could play with it and inspect it further.  Our next checkup is in 2 more months and I wonder what new tricks he'll learn by then.

The big change for us in the past month is that Kevin returned to work and Daniel goes to my mother-in-law's house during the day.  We've all had to adjust a little to that change but all in all, it's going well.  Daniel seems to be happy there during the day and generally naps and eats well.  He has always thrived on a routine of play, eat, sleep (we tried switching the first 2 but it just works better this way), and we try to have him back down for a nap within 2 hours of waking.  My MIL is trying to stick to this routine with him as well and I think that predictability helps him to feel secure even though it's not home and not Mommy and Daddy.  Grandma is relishing the opportunity to spend time with him and her house is close enough to my office that I can go over to visit at lunchtime.  It's about as close to an ideal situation as you can have short of working at home.

Here's a look at where we are this month:
Sleeping: His nighttime sleep is down a bit during the day because he doesn't get to go back to sleep for long after our first feeding of the day.  He still eats around 5:45-6, but whereas before I would put him back down and he'd wake up again after 8, now we leave for Grandma's by 7:15 so he's up for the day by then.  The good news is he seems to be compensating for that by napping longer during the day.  2 and 3 hour naps are not uncommon.  He's had a harder time getting down for the night for the past few weeks with teething but most nights it's still not too bad.

Eating: Until tonight, Daniel was still an exclusively breastfed baby.  He's a good eater and if tonight's experience (below) is any indication I think he'll be a good solid food eater too.

On a side note, the fact that I exclusively breastfed for 6 months, as the AAP recommends, makes me a member of an exclusive club.  Only 13% of mothers still exclusively breastfeed at 6 months and less than half are still nursing at all.  I know some women aren't able to nurse or can't fully provide that way, but given all the benefits nursing provides mom and baby it's a shame that so many women don't get the support they need at home or work to enable them to continue for the whole first year.  I was happy to see the Surgeon General's call to action to support breastfeeding this week bring awareness to the issue.

Activities: The ExerSaucer has been a big hit this month.  He loves playing in it and it's been fun to watch him discover new toys on it.  In fact, he loves it so much we decided to get another for Grandma's house.  He still enjoys his activity mat too and is starting to work on creeping.  If we put a toy he wants a few inches away from his hands, he can scoot himself there, though not yet gracefully.  He has figured out how to lift his butt up and down and tries to generate momentum that way but not always successfully.  Sometimes he'll use his head to scoot forward too.  He lifts all the way up on his arms too and he's starting to put weight on his knees.  While he may not be able to put the movements together smoothly during the day he's quite proficient at moving all around his crib at night.  It's not uncommon to find him all the way across the crib from where we put him, turned 180 degrees to face the opposite direction!

Here's his 6 month carseat picture:

Since that doesn't show his length well, here's a picture of him lying by our cat Todd. 

For the first few months Todd seemed indifferent toward Daniel but lately they seem to be growing fond of each other.  Daniel watches Todd from across the room and Todd lets Daniel pet him, grab his fur and, as we saw today, even roll over onto him, and he was still purring.  Besides our other cat Tim, Daniel has another feline friend in Grandma's cat Marty, who stands guard outside the bedroom door while Daniel naps during the day.

Who likes sweet potatoes?
We decided early on that we would wait until Daniel was 6 months old to introduce solids, or at least as long as we could.  So as the half-year mark drew closer we made preparations, setting up the high chair, researching which foods to give, and last week, I bought little bowls, spoons, and sippy cups.  It felt surreal to look at them and realize my baby would be eating big boy food soon.  It reminds of how it felt in the final months of pregnancy looking in his closet and realizing that a little baby was coming soon to wear them.

After much consideration we decided Daniel's first solid food would be sweet potatoes.  So today Daniel and I went shopping and bought a fresh yam.  I baked it, scooped it out of the peel, pureed it, and mixed in some breastmilk to thin it out, then let it cool.

On the advice of some mommy friends we stripped him down to his diaper and a bib (so as not to have messy clothes) and strapped him into his high chair.

Once we got him settled in it was time to eat!

Here's his first bite:

Mmmm...yummy!

We quickly discovered though that he ate better if we put a dab of puree on our finger and fed him that way.  After he got tired of his high chair we even fed him some more in the bathtub and he kept eating.  All told, our first foray into the land of big boy food went pretty well.  After a few days assuming no adverse reaction from the sweet potato, we'll try another new food, this time something green.

One side effect I'm not looking forward to: stinky solid-food diapers.  That's one "change" I can't believe in!

Book list

You may notice I added a new widget to the right sidebar today.  I read a lot so I decided this year I'll keep track of what I've read and see how many books I make it through in 2011.  (r) denotes a book I had already read before, all others are first time reads.  In a few years once Daniel starts reading I'll keep a list for him too.

The book I'm reading right now is a historical novel based on the lives of an Irish immigrant who comes to America in the 1700s and his descendants.  It would be an interesting read anyway but is particularly so for me because that immigrant, one Thomas Hill Dougan, is a direct ancestor of mine.  The following generations are collateral relations for me, not direct, but still fascinating to get that glimpse of what their life must have been like.  I'll post more about it later but I learned of this through the massive genealogy project I started last year.  It's one of those things that I didn't realize what a big undertaking it would be till I got into it, but am really enjoying learning about my roots.  So far I have several Revolutionary War patriots, soldiers on both sides of the Civil War, and on Kevin's side, he is directly descended from Pocahantas.  Really cool to learn about it all, and I hope it'll make a great gift for Daniel someday to learn more about his roots.

Captain Morgan, The Fonz, and Michael Jackson...and teething

As usual when I sit down to blog I feel like a ton has happened since my last post.  I'll save my "monthly report" on sleep, feeding, etc for after his 6 month checkup in a few days but I have some cute stories, pictures and a video to share in the meantime.

Bath-time!
Daniel's favorite time of day continues to be bathtime.  A baby his age doesn't really need a bath every day but he loves his so much we do one just about every day anyway (only soaping every other day so we don't dry out his skin). 

While Kevin gets the bath ready I take Daniel to his room to change and take off his clothes.  He smiles when he realizes it's "naked boy time" and I sing the bath time song, which is the old Batman tv theme except "Bath-time" instead of Batman...yes, clever I know ;) 

When I take him to the bathroom he likes to lay on his hooded towel on the bathmat and play and smile at us for a while.  This is where Captain Morgan and Michael Jackson come in.  He kicks his legs a lot and we joke that he's Michael Flatley, Lord of the (No-Pants) Dance, but then he'll often settle into a pose with his hands on his hips and one leg up, ala Captain Morgan:

He's not quite doing it in this picture but it's the best one I could get where he's decent:

Usually when he's doing this there's no burp cloth or diaper in his way.  Last month he was pleased to discover that he had feet and enjoyed grabbing them.  He'd probably be a bit embarassed that I'm sharing this, but lately he has discovered his boy parts, so when his diaper is off he'll reach down to explore this new find, reminding us of a certain pop singer who used to grab himself during performances.

After some playtime on dry land we get him in the tub and clean him up, then it's more playtime with Daddy till he's ready to get out.  Kevin's got him well trained so he'll sit with his back against Kevin's knees and his feet on Kevin's chest.  Then Kevin will say "give me fingers" and hold his hands out for Daniel to grab, then pull him up to a standing position.  While he's standing up he'll dance,  do his victory and flasher poses, do the twist, and headbang.  Most days one or both of the latter two will get a good laugh out of him, as in this video:

Finally after all that, it's time to get out, dry off in his snuggly towel, and get dressed for dinner and bed.  It's a fun night-time routine that we all enjoy and a good way to transition him from playtime to bedtime.

Eeehhh!

He's been babbling the past few weeks and becoming more vocal.  Lately he's taken to making an "eh!" noise like The Fonz from Happy Days.  Haven't caught it on video yet but it sure is cute!

Houston, we have a tooth

He had been a little on the fussier side last week and we could feel swelling in his gums so we knew he was working on a tooth, but yesterday morning in church I put my finger in his mouth and could actually feel the top of the tooth, which had cut through the gums.  It looks like the tooth next to it is coming along too so he may soon have two little pearly whites.  So far teething hasn't been too bad for him.  He's been harder to get down at night and today fought his nap off for a long time, but compared to some of the horror stories I've heard it doesn't seem like we have it too bad.

Here's one more video of him showing off his gummy smile.  He's recently started to open and close his mouth and smack his lips.  He doesn't do it often but it's really cute to see when he does.  Naturally I had the camera turned vertically when I took the video so it's sideways, but still cute I think ;)

5 months old!

This week Daniel celebrated his 5 month birthday, and he's as happy and healthy as ever. 

First, here's his 5 month picture:

And another which shows his lean form a little better:

Here's a recap of where we are these days:

Eating: Daniel is still an exclusively breastfed baby.  I get up to nurse him in the morning before work then we nurse 1 or 2 times in the afternoon/evening before bed.  He'll usually take 2 bottles of expressed milk during the day while I'm at work.  We'll introduce solids in a month or sooner if he shows readiness.  We haven't been in any hurry to do it so long as he's still thriving on just breastmilk.  The immunity the milk provides him is nice this time of year, especially since he's still too young for the flu vaccine.  Plus, it's convenient not to have to pack food for him when we travel next week for New Year's Day and it'll be nice to get a few weeks to settle into our new child care situation before throwing another change into the mix.

Sleeping:  He gets a gold star on his chart for his sleep habits!  He goes down for the night around 7 and on a weekend, will often sleep till 7 the next morning.  On a weekday I'll get him up about 5:45 if he isn't already up, but after a diaper change and meal he'll go back down for another hour or two, so he's generally good for about 12 hours a night.  He's always been a good night sleeper but for about the last 6 weeks he's also been a good napper too.  He usually takes a mid-morning and mid-afternoon nap, each usually 60-90 minutes but occasionally a little shorter or 2+ hours.  We had to stop swaddling once he started rolling over in early November but he sleeps just fine in his Halo sleep sacks, or as we call them "sleepy sacks," since we put him in when he gets sleepy.  He even naps pretty well when we travel, in his little tent:

Developmental milestones:  He's learning how to sit up, though he isn't there yet.  We just started him on his Exersaucer, which is like a walker but stationary.  It'll help him strengthen his leg muscles so in a few months, he'll be ready to crawl and walk.  (On a related note, guess we'll need to start childproofing the house soon!)  We put him in for the first time yesterday and already today he had learned how to swivel around in it to get to his favorite toy.  The activity mat is still our old reliable play area but I think he'll enjoy the Exersaucer too.

He's also started babbling just in the past few days, and it's really cute to hear.  He likes to do it when we put him down to bed, he'll just lie there talking to himself for a few minutes.  We haven't captured it on video yet but we'll try to soon.

In another development, he has finally shed the last of the reddish newborn hair and is now all blond.  Until this week he still had a patch of it at the base of his skull but tonight I realized it's gone.  Now his stork bite birthmark is more visible, but once his hair gets thicker I think it'll be harder to see.

Child care: Kevin has been home with Daniel since I went back to work in mid-October.  He admitted the first few weeks were a bit challenging but since then they've settled into a nice routine together.  It's been great for our family for the boys to get this bonding time.  Daniel's face lights up like the Christmas tree when he sees Daddy.  But just as mine did, Kevin's time at home with Daniel is coming to an end.  When the new year rolls around, Kevin's mom will start watching him during the day.  I'm hoping that'll give Daniel and Grandma a chance for a special bond too.  And since her house is so close to my office I'll be able to drop by at lunch to visit.

So, that's a snapshot of life these days.  This past January when we were putting up our Christmas decorations, we talked about how when we put them back up this winter there would be a baby in the house.  Now we're about to celebrate baby's first Christmas!

Daniel is 4 months old/ Baby's 1st Thanksgiving

Whew, lots to report on this time.  Since my last post we've had several new developmental milestones, a checkup, and a holiday:

This is how we roll
Daniel rolled tummy to back for the first time on Halloween, then a little more than a week later he learned how to roll from his back to his tummy.  We haven't captured that on video yet but he loves to show his new skills off on his activity mat, in his crib, and even when we're trying to change his diaper.  We always put him to bed on his back, and sometimes he stays there, but we'll often come in to get him and find him on his tummy.  Our pediatrician says not to worry, now that he's strong enough to roll over he's not at risk of suffocating if he sleeps on his tummy.  And as she points out, now that he can roll over if he wants to sleep on his tummy, short of going in and turning him over again every time there's not much we can do about it.

In a less exciting but equally happy development, Daniel, who has always been a good night sleeper, can now add champion napper to his resume.  Before he would nap unpredictably and too little, but the last few weeks he's generally good for an hourlong morning nap and 90 minute-2 hour afternoon nap.  Two big changes helped us get there: him learning to fall asleep unassisted, and the installation of light-blocking shades in his bedroom.  Not sure how much credit should go to each one, but the combined effect is that we can put him down drowsy and even if he cries a little first, he'll get himself to sleep.  I think that keeping the room dark enables him to fall asleep more quickly  and also to fall back asleep more easily when he wakes.

Here are the shades:

And here is his 4 month picture:

Checkup
Daniel had his 4-month checkup on the 19th.  He's developing quite well and really growing.  He's up to 13 lb 10 oz, 25.5" long, 16.25" head circumference.  He got 2 shots, his first DTaP and his second Hib.  He cried during the shots but was quickly calm and didn't seem to have any trouble afterwards.  Our next checkup is in January, when he'll be 6 months old.

Our first Thanksgiving
For Daniel's first Thanksgiving we visited my side of the family at the ranch in south Texas.  Daniel handled the long drive and sleeping away from home surprisingly well.  He was able to stay more or less on his normal sleep schedule-in fact, last night he slept 11 hours straight.  Which was great, except we were counting on getting on the road as soon as he was up to miss the traffic.  Fortunately we all get a little more rest and still missed most of the traffic!  He loved spending time with my parents, aka Mimi and Grandpa, as well as my brother, his great-grandparents, and some other famil members.

Here's a picture of him with his great-grandfather and namesake.  I'm so glad he and my grandmother got to see and hold him.  He's their first great-grandbaby!

We also enjoyed a visit from my cousin Chris, his wife Lisa, their daughter Caitlin, who's exactly one month older than Daniel, and Chris's mom my cousin Robin.  Here's a picture of Daniel and his cute cousin: