Ten Months Old, (Two Days Late)

We have a top tooth today! The left middle one to be exact. Please oh please let him sleep better now. The Baby has been waking up every 1.5 hours throughout the night for what seems like forever but is probably just a week or two. His attitude during the day is great but the nights are miserable for everyone. We also have a baby that can quickly crawl on hands and knees. He is unstoppable! He weighs 21.5 pounds and is an unknown height, likely less than three feet but who is going to hold him down and measure him? Not me!

He ferociously hates diaper changes and really dislikes getting dressed. Bath time is awesome, as is tormenting cats and tenderly petting Buttercup the baby chick. We call it tenderly but sometimes Buttercup loses a few feathers. She doesn't mind, and will stand still for him to pet her. The relationships between Muffin (Chicken's kitten, one month younger than The Baby), The Baby, and Buttercup are hilarious. Muffin has learned that Buttercup is now bigger and rather scary when she decides to give chase but she still really wants to eat her. We decided that a group photo shoot was the only way to illustrate the fun.

No animals were harmed, although Dude (in the bottom right corner) appeared horrified by it all. It is very difficult to take a picture of three babies at once.

This is a better picture of how tall Buttercup is compared to Muffin. I think Buttercup will at least double in size in the next few months, and will be the biggest chicken that we have. Poor Muffin.

And The First Word Is...

Bird!

He started to say "du" and "da" about a week ago, already had "bu" "ba" "ma" "mu" and "nu" in his vocabulary. If you can call a bunch of sounds a vocabulary. Tonight I was holding Buttercup (our new chick) while saying and signing bird to The Baby and he said bird clear as can be. I looked at The Daddy and asked, "Did he just say bird?" Yep he did!

Here is a picture from last month, with The Daddy hunting for pumpkins that we still haven't carved. Darn flu bug! My goal is to carve them tomorrow since Chicken has the day off of school.

Picture taken October 11, 2009 at Bates Nut Farm.

Moving On Up!

On October 20th The Baby pulled himself up to standing in the bath for the first time and of course I grabbed a picture of it for teh innernets. Since that day he has started crawling a little bit on all fours, sitting on his knees, scootching to sitting on his bottom, pulling up on anything that will hold his weight to a standing position. At this point we are taking bets on whether he will crawl on all fours competently before he gives up using his clothes to clean my floor and walks. Isn't he the cutest?!

ETA: If you click on the picture and view it larger, you can clearly see his two bottom teeth.

Bate's Nut Farm

Although we had a great time at Bate's Nut Farm on Sunday, last week The Baby had his first sick visit to his pediatrician. His stats were: 20.08lbs, 28" tall, head 44.5cm. He had a tummy bug that left me temporarily regretting the choice to use cloth diapers. Yuck. This was The Baby's first real illness. The pediatrician told me to give him 1-2 ounces of Pedialyte every time he went potty, even if he didn't like it I was to make him drink it to help with dehydration. Well, The Baby hated it so much that one sip made him throw up. He threw up the Pedialyte AND all the breast milk in his stomach. Then we tried Gatorade, same result. Then we tried Sprite and no dice. Eventually we gave up as I decided that throwing up was not helping the situation. For the week he nursed and nursed and nursed and refused all other food and drink. By Sunday he was better and ready to try a first that his brother loved: New England clam chowder. He ate it until I thought his was going to burst. That's my boy!

What A Look!?!

The week beginning September 6th The Baby added "M" to his sounds. This week he added "N" sounds. He is getting really good at scootching around the house, using both arms and his right foot to propel him around the floor. He is starting to get up on all fours but can't figure out what to do from there, and plops back down onto his belly to move around. Today I noticed him pulling up on things to hang out on his knees. The crib is being lower some more this weekend!

Last night he went down in his crib around 8pm, I got him up to dream feed* around 10pm, and then he slept until 5:30am. He was up to nurse and then back to sleep until 7:45am when he was up for the day. I would LOVE for his to repeat, but I will take anything over the up every two hours to nurse all night long routine. That was a bummer.

On the nursing front, after some middle of the night biting, he hasn't bitten me in a while. [crosses fingers] He has really started to eat food, preferring finger foods to baby food. The only baby food he will eat is rice cereal mixed with breast milk. He is eating a small bit at lunch, just a few bites and much more at dinner. Tonight he had some dehydrated apple bits, cheese cubes, avocado, and rice cereal with a nursing session to finish the meal.

*Dream feeding is getting him out of his crib, nursing him while he is mostly still asleep, and then putting him back into his crib. He never even opens his eyes. This way I can go to sleep around the same time as The Daddy and hopefully The Baby won't wake for a feeding until 1am or thereabouts.

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Who Does This Look Like To You?

Picture taken at home, September 13, 2009

Growth Spurt

This weekend The Baby:

• started to say his first consonant sound, "ba"
• learned to scootch, which is what we are calling his style of crawling that is not up on all fours
• started using his first sign, "milk"

Picture taken September 6, 2009

Now With More Bite!