Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Tis the season...

So much to catch up on...

Henry had his 6 month appointment on November 8th. He measured at 27.75" (90%) and 18lbs8oz (75%). Both the nurses and the doctor commented on how tall he was. Apparently he has a good chance at being a tall boy. He was very personable at his appointment and, as usual, everyone loved him. The doctor cleared him to start solids, which of course we already had.

He is now eating 3 meals a day of baby food. He pretty much likes anything we put in his mouth. At first he did not like squash or carrots, but now he likes both. I think, however, we are supposed to wait on carrots, so no more for a month or two. He has moved on to stage 2 foods. He has no issues with any foods to date.

The doctor also mentioned on the 8th that he would have a tooth or two popping through any day. I couldn't see it, but the doctor was right. On my birthday, 2 days later, a tooth started poking through. A few days after that, Henry had his two bottom teeth! I was amazed at how fast it seemed to go from nothing to two teeth.

He is turned into quite the crawler and explorer now. He is constantly on the move. His crawling has gotten faster and he pulls up on anything he can get his hands on. He has even started cruising. He actually has stood up for a few seconds on his own a time or two. I had him standing on his own for 5 seconds yesterday (don't worry, I was protecting him if he were to fall).

Diaper changing time has become a nightmare. He does not want to lay still. Instead he'd rather turn over, butt in the air, and play around with whatever is nearby. You can tell he has started to understand things, like when he can cry to get our attention or try to get something from us. He falls and bonks his head, we have to wait a few seconds to react. Half the time he is fine and keeps going. If we react to it, that is when he starts crying. He wants to be picked up for a minute or two then he is fine.

He is SUCH a boy, already! We spent Thanksgiving with my family in the Beaumont area (then went back to Houston). My cousin's daughter Hailey is 54 weeks older than Henry. Already he was trying to tackle her. We even got a shot of him pulling her hair. He tackled her more than once, and they both enjoyed tearing up Black Friday ads together.

He also met his new friend Edie as well the day after Thanksgiving. Edie is our friend's daughter. She is 4 months older than Henry and they got along very well. Edie is a very laid back, yet active, little girl. She does not let much bother her and enjoyed playing with Henry. It was so wonderful to see him playing with another baby. I so wish he had another kiddo to play around with. Soon he will. Our friend's here in Weatherford havea son 7 weeks younger than Henry. It won't be long where he will be crawling around and they can get into trouble together.

It was so funny how vocal Henry was down in Houston. There were more people than he was use to being around, so somehow this translated to him being loud. Lots of babbling and squawking. He wanted to be heard! His uncles thought he was crazy I do believe, but they also seemed to enjoy him. We can't wait to go back for Henry's first Christmas!

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

About to pull my hair out...

Henry is officially in to everything. We need to do some serious baby proofing and I don't even know where to start. I cannot get a single thing done anymore because he is into everything. I leave him for 2 minutes and in that time, he has tried to escape. Usually his attemps are successful. Then there is the constant whining. I am guessing he is teething. I cannot feel anything, but the doctor said he was teething 2 months ago. I just do not know what to do other than to be gone from the house all the time. That is the one thing that typically calms him down - being out. It has been rather yucky these past few days, yucky and cold, so that has waylaid some of my attempts to get out.

We have officially started Henry on solids. For now we are just using the prepacked Gerber foods, but eventually we want to make our own. So far Henry really seems to like peas, sweet potatoes, pears and bananas. He does not seem too crazy about carrots, but we will be giving them another try soon. For some reason, everytime we feed Henry, he tries to turn sideways in his bumbo (we're using that with the tray). We cannot get him to face forward! Best be going, he is flipping out for the 5th time today.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Henry the Crawler

At about 5 months and 1 week, Henry made the transition to crawler. He had been trying for weeks, but most of the time he would just end up stuck in the crawling position, and as I posted before, he'd thrust himself forward. Typically he just ended sprawled on his stomach. It took time, and he worked at it daily (if not all day every day, he is a very determined baby), and he finally got it.



Hopefully that worked - this is a video of Henry crawling last week. Every day he gets better at it. Which pretty much means he just gets into more and more stuff every day. We've had to start baby proofing, but really this is just us moving stuff out of his reach. We will need to do the heavy duty proofing very soon! I was reading something on babycenter about crawling. Most babies start attempting crawling between 6 and 10 months and are full on crawling by 9 to 10. Then, some time after that, they start going from the crawling position to the sitting position. Then, closer to a year, they can start crawling using opposite arm and leg, as in left arm, right leg, instead of one side at a time. Well Henry isn't 6 months yet and he can do all of this.

I hate even telling people this because I am afraid people will think I am bragging, that somehow my son is gifted. I don't think that at all. I am sure every other child will catch up and by a year he will be no different from his peers. He is also pulling up. He loves to grab hold of my hands and pull himself up. He also crawls over to me on the couch and uses me as an anchoring device to get himself into the standing position. I think we will have an early walker on our hands. The rate he is moving, I cannot imagine it will be another half a year before he figures out walking.

We have no started on solids yet, but we will very soon. I wanted to wait until 6 months as that is what our peditrician recommended, but with the rate that Henry is developing, we might start a little earlier than that. We have some rice cereal already to go, so we might just do that until 6 months. I know most people start earlier than that, but I just was in no rush.

We have his 6 month appointment in 2 weeks. Hopefully I will remember to update this then!

Oh yeah, Henry is going as a dragon for Halloween. He makes a rather adorable dragon might I say.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Long time, no update!

Two months since my last update, so many things have happened! I really need to start updating this thing more often. Don't I always say that?

Well we survived our Alaska trip quite well! Henry was a pro. The plane ride there was a little difficult at first but he adjusted and several people commented as they were getting off that he was the best behaved baby. He went all over the place with us. We left August 26th and came back September 4th (overnight flight, leaving the 3rd out of Anchorage). We came home with Grandma and left Daddy and Grandpa behind. Henry and I spent 19 days home without Jason. It was challenging, I won't deny that. Having to deal with every feeding, every dirty diaper, every fit, it made me a stronger person. Now really I cannot say I dealt with every single one. My mother in law, Connie, was wonderful. She watched Henry in the mornings for me as I was getting very, very little sleep. Some nights I didn't sleep more than an hour. I worried all night. There was no one else there to hear anything in case Henry was in trouble.

Before we left for Alaska, we decided that we would put Henry in his room when Jason got back and we were back from Santa Fe (we left for NM the day Jason got home for my cousin's wedding). Well about a week into being home alone, a friend of mine, Kerri, recommended maybe if I put him in his own room I could get more sleep. Well I didn't really, but the transition was flawless. He slept just as well if not better in his own room than he did in our room. So he went into his room at right about 4 months.

Henry started his 4 month regression when we got home. He was sleeping through the night every night in Alaska and before. When we got home, he woke up at least twice to eat every single night. That was another huge part of my sleep deprivation. I was afraid that as soon as I would fall asleep, he would wake up and need me. Some nights he woke up 3 times screaming for food. I guess it was a regression as well as a growth spurt. He is getting so big! He was 26.5" and 15lbs 6 oz at his 4 month appointment on September 8th.

He started sitting up all on his own at about 4 and a half months. It was while Jason was gone, probably around September 15th or so. Every day it would get longer and longer. From there he decided he wanted to start attempting to crawl. He would get on his hands and knees and just stay in that position, trying to figure out how to move. He then eventually started thrusting himself forward, not understand that he needed to move his hands to make the crawling motion. He pretty much face dove into the carpet lol. We wanted him to wait until Jason got home to crawl anyway. I knew he wouldn't start crawling until after 5 months. Babies don't crawl until after 5 months!!

Well there is so much more to post, but this is good for now.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Getting over it

After doing some serious thinking, I've decided I should view these weeks without Jason as more bonding time with my son than this horrible tragedy that is being bestowed upon me. Yeah, I'll miss Jason terribly, but it is fact, it will happen, there is nothing I can do to change that. There are so many single moms out there, or moms with husbands overseas right now that have month after month without their husband. What is 3 weeks really? A challenge. A pin for my mom hat. Something I can say I accomplished all by myself. We can do this.

It doesn't hurt that my son just keeps getting cuter and more charismatic every single day.

Henry turns 15 weeks!

So we leave for Alaska (Anchorage to be exact) on Thursday. 4 days! Yikes! I feel it has totally snuck up on me. For the longest time it seemed like forever away, like it would never really happen, and here it is, right around the corner. I think Henry now has more winter clothes than Jason and I combined. It won't be terribly cold there, but we figure babies need layers. He has like 3 jackets, and somewhere around 14 outfits for an 8 day trip plus about another 5 pairs of pants and some onesies. I think we're good in the clothes department lol.

Now as for myself, that's a whole other story. We will be heading to the store here shortly. I'm not too concerned except for the fact I only have like one pair of shoes and no raincoat.

I cannot really explain how nervous I am about coming home without Jason. He will be gone for nearly 3 weeks. When returns we will be heading to New Mexico almost immediately. Like, that say day. He gets in at 5:15 am and about 14 hours later, if not sooner, we will be in the car driving. We hope that Henry will fall asleep and we can make decent headway. Oh yeah, the reason for the NM trip is that my cousin Phillip is getting married.

In Henry news, we recently got his activity center from his Auntie Alicia (a friend of mine) and he absolutely adores it. It is becoming more and more apparent that he has discovered his hands and he knows what to do to do with them - a bit anyway. He is grabbing for things and putting everything in reach in his mouth. Toys are a new favorite word around our house. He actually has toys now! And he loves his stuffed animals.

Also, for the past 3-4 mornings we've woken up around 7:30 to find Henry wide awake in his pack n play, on his back and playing with his blanket or feet or just staring at things. Not crying, just staring at things. He does, however, sitll wake up at 3am-4am and want to be fed. Bah. If only he'd sleep all the way through the night! He's killing me! That's one thing I am not looking forward to, there will be no one to help with those late night feedings, they're all on me. I know people mean well, but I am tired of being told "oh, you'll be fine." Like this is nothing. Like I have nothing to worry about. Pretty much like I'm being completely silly for any worry or concern. My husband is being dropped off in the middle of nowhere Alaska by a bush plane that only carries 2 people and will get maybe 1 thirty second phone call to me in nearly 3 weeks and I have nothing to worry about? It's not like I'll be getting daily calls from him. Also, the one set of friends we have here in Weatherford will be gone the entire time we are away. And the moms group I'm apart of happens to have nothing much planned on the days we are free and everything planned on the days we are gone on either trip. The three weeks inbetween are fairly barren, except for the library trip on the day he gets his shots, a stroll through the gardens (looking forward to that) and something geared towards bigger kids. I am afraid I'll lose it here alone with not anyone to talk to really.

On top of all that I have school work! I have no idea what to expect from this semester, but hopefully it won't be too rough. I hope to stay on top of things, get things done early in the week so I have the rest of my time free to spend with Henry. Hopefully I'll look back on these three weeks and say "What was I so worried about?" I really, really hope so. In the meantime, I'll just worry, thank you very much.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

3 months, or 13 weeks!

It has been far, far too long since I posted here. 2 months! I don't know how many times I've told Jason I HAVE to update this thing. I am going to start forgetting everything that Henry did and when. It has to be come more of a priority!

Well first things first, today (well much later today) Henry will turn 3 months old! Already a quarter of a year. Pretty amazing to see how much he has grown and changed in the past 3 months. It seems every single day something new happens.

Backing up some, Henry started sleeping through the night, for the most part, at around 3-4 weeks. He has stayed fairly consistent with the number of hours he sleeps, however, he wants to go to bed earlier now. This means he wakes up earlier. He will adjust eventually, but it is nice he sleeps about 8 hours a night at the moment, usually 8 or 9 to 4 or 5.

He went to his first wedding (my cousin Paul and his wife Delaney). They got married June 26th in Houston. Unfortunately I got VERY sick with a stomach virus. One of the sickest times of my life if not THE sickest. Luckily Jason did not get sick with it until we got home and then it wasn't as severe as mine. His parents both ended up sick and my mom fought it off for a week afterwards herself. Amazingly, Henry was perfectly fine. That is why I pump, even though breastfeeding did not work for us. It keeps my son healthy, it is better for him, and it makes him happy. He has unfortuantely had to have a little formula because he has been eating more than I can produce. Like today, he ate 36 oz! Luckily I had enough for him, but geez kiddo, slow down! I can only get like 30 a day. Anyway, I know it was the breastmilk that kept him from getting sick. I am 100 percent positive of this.

Moving on, on July 8th Henry had his 2 month appointment. He weighed 11 lbs 12 oz (exactly 4 lbs more than his birth weight) and was 24 inches long (he grew 2.5 inches). He is such a long boy! He is finally starting to get a bit chubbier, but for the most part he is fairly lean. The last time Jason weighed him on the postage scale they have for the business (yes, we've done that a few times!), he was 13.5 and that was about a week ago. He goes for his 4 month appointment September 7th I think it is. He took the shots relatively well, however, he started screaming about 3 hours after the shots were done. We gave him some baby Tylenol and he seemed to calm down. He spent a few days just really tired after that. Oddly enough, and this is just for my own personal reference, he also had really green poos for like 9 days afterwards. Gross, yeah, but I want to remember that for future reference if it shows up again.

Another huge step for us: he is no longer sleeping in the swing! I want to say this happened on about July 21st or so. He had already started taking naps in his pack n play, so he was getting accustomed to sleeping there. We had just gotten home from a visit to my mom's and grandparents. I want to say the next night after getting home, he woke up at 2am, very grumpy, we put him in his pack n play and he fell right back to sleep. Now I will go ahead and admit that he sleeps on his stomach. I know many will crucify me for this, but it is the only way he will sleep. He fussies and carries on if he is on his back and he always hated being swaddled. He is an anomoly apparently. He would spend all his time trying to kick the swaddle off of himself instead of getting any rest. Really this isn't exactly surprising since he spent 9 months kicking the heck out of me. Well ok, more like 6, but he enjoyed all 6 of those months lol.

We really feel he is safe this way since he has excellent head control and has since he was like 8 weeks old. Maybe longer actually because the doctor was very impressed at his 2 month appointment. I really think Henry is a bit advanced in that area. I mean it will eventually even out with all the rest of the kids, but for now he seems to have more head control and strength than the average baby his age. He also has a new game he loves called Standing Up While Someone Supports My Arms. He loves, loves, loves standing up. He gets those legs straight as he can and just stands there for a minute or two. He went from maybe doing it a few seconds to being about to do it for a full minute or more now. And that was within a matter of a week or so. He's been doing this now for about a week or two. His dad and grandfather work with him every day, so he has a leg up on the competition. :) Literally!

He absolutely abhors laying down unless he has to, like sleepy time and time to change his diaper. Well still he fusses sometiems when he gets it changed, but once it is changed he might lay on his changing table and coo at us for a while. Then he gets bored and wants up. He has also decided he doesn't really care for our living room anymore. He gets in these fits when we try to sit on the couch sometimes. He wants to be up moving around. He is a peculiar baby in that regard. He has no desire to sit still. There is far too much to see!

Which brings me to another thing we've been doing. We found a Moms group here in Weatherford! I was so hesitant to go, mostly nervous that I would not fit in, but finally decided I am doing this. I RSVP'd for a playdate at the local splash park even though Henry is way too young for it really, but at this age it isn't really about Henry anyway. Stay at home moms need to get out, they need to interact with other adults. It is so important! Especially to interact with other moms going through the same things you are going through. Well that was over 2 weeks ago and we had a great time! There were a few other moms there that were new and we have sorta gotten to know each other a little better. All the moms I've met so far have been super nice, very friendly and ladies I could see myself becoming good friends with. And most importantly, even though Henry is only 3 months old, he LOVES IT! He is so intruigued by the older kids. We went to Storytime at the Weatherford Library this last week and he was the happiest I'd seen him in a while. Not that he isn't normally happy, but he gets bored. Well there wasn't a dull moment that day. Once he was out of his carseat, he never once fussed. He just say there watching all the other kids, eyes wide open, taking it all in. I love that little guy to death.

He is starting to drool like crazy - not my favorite thing ever. That has been going on for 2-3 weeks now. It seems to be getting worse. Some days we have to put a bib on him just to keep his clothes dry! Not sure when he will start teething, but I am really hoping it is after Jason gets back from Alaska. That is one last thing - we are leaving for Alaska in less than 3 weeks now. We leave August 26th and come back September 4th. Jason won't be back until September 22nd. You do the math. Ugh. Not looking forward to this at all. I will be starting a new semester and I am so worried about how I will get it done with just us. I know my mother in law will be around, but I worry so much about taking advantage of her. I already worry about that as it is. I guess for now I need to enjoy the fact Jason is here and just deal with him being gone when the time comes.

We also leave the day after Jason gets back from Alaska for Santa Fe, New Mexico. My cousin Phillip is getting married! Wooo it is going to be quite a month. Traveling with an infant to Alaska then NM (driving at that) should be interesting. I look forward to the trips, just not so much the traveling part of it. At least my mom will be there for both trips and my MIL will be in Alaska as well. There will be tons of help for Henry while we are there. My brothers are going as well. I cannot wait to have a family vacation! We have not gone anywhere as a family since 2001. Almost 10 years! Wowza. This needs to change - more family vacations for us!

I need to wrap this up and get some sleep since I have to wake up in 3 hours and it takes me 30 minutes just to fall asleep. Hopefully I can find time to update this thing again. I know no one reads it but me, but it is really for my records anyway. Well maybe my mom will read it. She's usually interested in this stuff.