Somebody has his first pair of Chuck Taylors! :) He still has some room to grow, but Kevin put them on him the other day to go to his doctor's appointment. Pretty studly.
Big Boy shoes on Big Boy feet!
He has crazy fits in his Jumperoo from time to time (he is really only in there during mealtimes now). Here is one I captured last week:
Last weekend, we went to New Castle/Indianapolis to attend our friends' (the Butts) 10th wedding anniversary bash--it was at their wedding that Kevin and I reunited (thanks to one heck of a party with a lot of beer and tequila) and afterwards started dating.
Beforehand, we hung out with my parents and brother. Here is Uncle Dave reading to Lewis:
I hear this book with a finger puppet in the middle was a big hit (I was upstairs getting ready):
Big Lew and Mamaw/Grandma/Gammy (whatever you'll be called!) Pat :)
Thanks again for babysitting for us, Mom and Dad, while we partied the night away! Some of us more than others. :)
We are not going up to New Castle for Thanksgiving this year (we alternate), so we will spend Thursday with Kevin's family and Friday with Kevin's friends and wives and children. I'm looking forward to Lewis getting to be around Colin (2+ years old) and Clara (~18 months old). Hopefully he can keep up! Then the next weekend, we'll be going up to New Castle for the Carter Thanksgiving/Christmas dinner at my parents' house. 'tis the season for food, family, drink, and road trips! :)
Since his 9 month check-up last week, we have gone full-steam-ahead with both lunch and finger foods, together. Now, he sits in his highchair and feeds himself while I prepare and eat my lunch next to him--the goal is to transition and do the same for breakfast and dinner.
I researched finger food suggestions on BabyCenter and have expanded his repertoire to include:
Cheerios (still his favorite, and he has become quite accurate with them!)
Small pieces of soft fruit (just banana, so far)
Small pieces of steamed vegetables (carrots, parsnips, sweet potatoes, peas, turnips, and little broccoli 'trees,' so far)
Shredded cheese
Yogurt melts
Small pieces of pasta
I've bought both fresh and frozen vegetables to cube and steam and either keep in the fridge for a few days or freeze into meal-sized portions. I've designated part of a shelf in the fridge for his foods, so hopefully I can take some time once (or twice) a week to make fresh batches for him.
I can also include toast, ricecakes, eggs (haven't yet introduced those), small bits of soft meat, etc. I'm going to aim to buy foods for him that Kevin and I will also eat to try to keep the expense and the waste down. Just last night I cubed and steamed two sweet potatoes, and that was WAY too much! Fortunately they are inexpensive, but maybe in the future I can cube/steam half of one for him and bake the other one and a half for our dinner (bad example because Kevin dislikes sweet potatoes, but you get my point).
After the holidays, I am going to work on meal planning, reducing our food costs, and eliminating midweek trips to the grocery store, so this will all tie in together.
In closing, here is a video of Lewis, Hattie, and Peter at lunch today. On the menu were Cheerios, sweet potatoes, finishing up yogurt from breakfast, and his (and my) first taste of turnips! (Same with parsnips the other day--not bad!) The dogs also loved the menu (even the turnips!) and patiently waited for Lewis to drop pieces for them to eat.
Note: Blogger is being a pain as far as pictures go, so if the spacing is all off, that is why. I'm tired of messing with it. :)
His doctor's appointment went well this morning--the Dr. said he looked good. He asked if we were sure he's only 9 months old, given his bigger size. :) The doctor also said that we could/should start to go ahead with a lunchtime solid feeding, too, and to include more finger foods, so I'll work on incorporating that into our daily routine. He had to get two shots (took them very well...just a few fusses)--his last Hep B and his flu shot. We'll go back in a month for a 2nd flu shot.
His favorite toy(s) are our rubber drink coasters. He likes to carry them around when he crawls, either in his hand or in his mouth. I think he likes how 'chewy' they are on his ever-teething gums.
His favorite game is Catch Me If You Can...if we go after him, he'll pause, look over his shoulder, and then take off like a crawling monster again with a smirk and a smile. Like, "You can't catch me!!"
He also likes to pull pages out of magazines and eat them.
I've noticed that he's started noticing other children (those maybe 5 years old and younger) at the grocery, at Target, out at restaurants, etc. I've caught him smiling and/or craning his neck at them a few times.
He continues to eat well--he nurses six times a day and eats solids at breakfast and dinner. Breakfast is typically yogurt, cereal, and fruit (half puree/half fresh i.e. mashed banana) and dinner is typically meat, cereal (or sometimes pasta), and vegetables (half Gerber puree/half my homemade puree OR finger food i.e. smashed peas). We are still introducing new foods every 3 days and working with Cheerios to improve his self-feeding skills.
He is sleeping well for now.
He continues to pull up and cruise around the furniture...still gets bumps and bruises, but not as often. He has been reaching higher and higher, and it's hard to keep up with his ever-expanding wingspan! What once was safe and out of reach is now being pulled down and put it into his mouth. He moves from one object to the next pretty seamlessly now. I've noticed him letting go a few times if there is something to put in his hands. Also, if he sees something he wants across the room, he'll cruise along a piece of furniture, drop to the ground, crawl to the next piece of furniture, get up and cruise some more, and eventually reach his target. It's so fun to watch him figure out the best way to get from Point A to Point B.
On that note, he likes to cruise along the front of the couch, and if Hattie is laying in her usual spot (on top of the back of the couch, atop the cushion), she has started growling at him and has snapped at him a few times. If he is on the couch (on our lap) next to her, she's fine, will tolerate petting (at least for a little while), wags her tail, etc., but if he's at the front of the couch banging the cushion, she gets angry. We are keeping a close eye on her. Lewis, meanwhile, thinks her growling is hi-larious, which, of course, doesn't help matters.
Still not saying a whole lot. He goes through chatty fits, usually in the evening, but he makes no sense and hasn't yet put syllables like da-da, ga-ga, or ma-ma together.
He is almost entirely in his 12 month clothes now. He still wears a few pairs of 9 month pants, but they are getting to be too short. The other day I put him in a 12-18 month size long-sleeved onesie, and it was a little snug! I think it stretched out as the day went on, but it's amazing how sizing can vary among brands.
Current Tooth Count: 6 (4 on the top, 2 on the bottom)
Yesterday I had to make some cookie balls for a going away party of a former coworker out at Jefferson Memorial Forest, so Kevin and Lewis were spending the morning together while I worked in the kitchen. Kevin decided that, rather than hang out in the basement like usual, he and Lewis would go to the park! So they had their first official Father/Son outing, and here are the pictures and videos they came back with:
Whee!
And, look, SIX teeth!!
Lots and lots of leaves to eat
Banging out some beats on the picnic table
Thanks for taking me to the park, Pops!
Just the right height
Exploring a tree
Crunching his way through the leaves
And more swinging before they go!
And here are the finished cookie balls that I finished just as they were arriving back home!
Nutter Butter (left) and Mint Oreo (right)
For the record: The Nutter Butter were disappointingly not as amazing as I'd hoped they would be. The Mint Oreo (first introduced to me by my friend, Rachel) were a huge hit, as always.
Just wanted to post some pictures from the last week--I'll have a full text-heavy post on Tuesday after his 9 month check-up at the doctor's office!
First, Lewis helping to prep the dogs for a walk around the neighborhood:
Hattie's (sometimes) Best Friend
Eating leaves with Peter
Dog Food, because he can
I've had some major successes at Goodwill and consignment sales over the past few months--apparently, I've lost track of just how many sets of wooden building blocks, alphabet blocks, and train track pieces I've acquired. I went to wash them all the other evening, and this was them drying out on the counter. Oops. I think he is set for a while.
Blocks, Blocks Everywhere!
What are you looking at? :)
Looky what we have here--four top teeth!
Kevin completed the Louisville Sports Commission Mini Marathon this morning while Lewis and I walked the 5k--here are Kevin and Lew before we set off. Bright eyed and ready to party!
The littlest racer. :)
Finished in 49:48
Kevin finishing (far left, left of guy in bright orange)--Go, Go, Go!
Good job, Kev! (blowing away the guy in the orange, I just noticed) :)
Finished in 2:07:34!!
Kevin and his Mom
The medal, dipped in Maker's Mark wax (took this for you, Craig)
Mornings have been better since Monday, thank goodness. I think that the car naps and our extra activities with visitors were what did us in last weekend. This week I've made it a point to be home for every nap, and he's been napping a little bit better each day. Now, of course, he has his 3rd cold, but so far it doesn't seem as bad as the last one was. His middle two teeth are also coming through (bringing his total to 6), but they don't seem to be bothering him as much as the fangs did.
Here he is the other morning while Kevin and I were loosely supervising him (Parents of the Year)...he got into the recycling which was/still is overflowing onto the floor. He really loves bottles. He rolled this one around for a while and put it in his mouth (as he does with everything).
Chug, Chug, Chug
Just the other day I gave him a bubble bath for the first time, and he loved it! He loved to try to eat the bubbles off of his fingers, and I loved to make fun bubble sculptures on his unsuspecting head.
Do I have something in my teeth?
Yesterday we went to JoAnn's (twice) for their 25% friends and family sale, and I picked up enough supplies to keep me busy for a while. I have material for Christmas stockings, curtains for the laundry room, and a few cross-stitching projects (one small, one medium). Now if I can just figure out a way to work on things while watching Lewis. There's always naptime.
Here he is, asleep after we got home from our second (late afternoon) trip. You can't really see it, but he had a little snot bubble under his left nostril. Poor buddy.
This was him a little later, during the Cheerio course, as I was preparing his dinner. He moved before I snapped the picture, but I'm posting it because I think he looks so much like Kevin here. I mean, you might say, Duh, he always looks like Kevin, but his expression in his eyes/nose and mouth/jaw area, especially, freaks me out. It's just like Kevin. And look at that shaggy hair!
Here is the smiley, chatty, and snotty monster enjoying his new favorite food: Cheerios! Sometimes it seems like he could eat them as his entire meal and be perfectly happy. His tray-to-hand-to-mouth success rate has improved quite a bit this week. I give him 5-10 minutes of Cheerio Time in the evenings before dinner while I get the rest of his meal ready. Last night, too, we added smashed peas.
DANGER! DANGER! on this next one. Peter lets out a big bark around the 1:01 mark, and you might pee your pants (like Lewis probably did) if you aren't expecting it.
We've started closing the hallway doors to keep the wandering beast contained a bit more upstairs. I was trying to get some video of him racing down the hall, discovering (again and again) that the doors were all closed, then turning around and crawling back to me, then going back down the hall and doing it all over again, but he was too fast! This was a still I got of an 'Uhhhh' look--like, Mama, what am I supposed to do with this current situation?
Yesterday we also went to Babies R Us to look for any sort of cold relief products that we don't already have. I found that Johnson's has a vapor-y baby bath made for babies with colds (with eucalyptus, rosemary, and menthol), so I got some of that. We tried it out this morning--it smelled like a spa. Yum. And again, bubble art. I'm not sure if the vapors helped or not--he did have a couple of really snotty sneezes during his bath, so maybe??
A Shark Fin
I also went on Amazon (after calling Whole Foods, Target, Walgreens, CVS, and Walmart with no luck) and ordered a Nosefrida for him because apparently he is traumatized by the bulb syringe from our last bouts of snot-sucking--so far, so good! I had it overnighted because I was afraid we were in for a long weekend of snot-sucking and didn't want to wait until Monday.
He still cries, anticipating anything to do with his nose, but it a) doesn't go into his nostril far at all and b) you do the sucking and can get out the goobers much more efficiently (and I still use the saline spray to soften things up beforehand). And there is totally a filter, so it is totally impossible to suck any of his snot out of the collection tube (and into your mouth--gross). A new must-have! Thank you, Swedes, for both the Nosefrida and IKEA. I love you.
Now I am off to get a much-needed haircut because a) it is wild, as always, and b) so that Lewis can't get ahold of it and pull it out by the fistful! Happy weekend!
Lewis woke up at 5:15am this morning. Inappropriate. Unacceptable. Obscene.
I mentioned we've been having some hiccups, and I think it's time we regroup, revamp, recharge our sleep tactics. I reread the pertinent chapters of our book this morning, and here is the plan:
Lewis needs to:
Sleep for 10 1/2 to 11 hours at night (no more than 12...hahaha, won't be a problem)
Sleep for at least 1 hour, twice a day (with a 3rd short nap, if needed)
Positives to be Happy About
No more nighttime awakenings!
Goes right to sleep at bedtime. Stays asleep until 'morning' (even though morning comes far sooner than the goal wake-up time)
With early awakenings, Kevin and I have had time to watch our saved TV shows or Today, tidy up the house, cook full breakfasts (eggs, bacon, biscuits, gravy) sometimes, and spend quality time as a family before Kevin goes to work. Sleeping a little longer would be nice, too, though.
Negatives/Areas Needing Improvement
Is waking up before the 10 1/2 or 11 hour mark
Is sometimes napping for only 30 minutes at a time (though he hit 1 hour for both naps yesterday and so far today)
Has too long of a stretch between waking up from 2nd nap and bedtime (sometimes 2pm to 7:30pm)
Action Steps
Stick to the 1 hour rule for naps--keep him in his crib the full hour to give him a chance to fall back asleep.
Pay attention to cues during the day re: ready for naptime. Space them 2 to 2 1/2 hours from wake-up, then 2 1/2 to 3 hours from 1st nap wake-up, then possibly 2 1/2 to 3 hours from 2nd nap wake-up if 3rd nap is needed.
Consider beginning bedtime at 7:15pm/Asleep by 7:45pm (Change from 7:30pm/8pm) to see if he will sleep longer in the morning. Maybe even 7pm/7:30pm.
Keep going to bed early so I am better able to function so g.d. early in the morning.
And someone started pulling up on the kitchen cabinets and opening drawers, so it looks like we'll be installing drawer locks this weekend...
