Lakeside Trip

This past weekend we made a trip to Lakeside to visit Grandpa and Grandma Pfeffer's house.  Andrew showed off his new skills of babbling, standing, crawling, and engaging in tons of eye contact.

Practicing crawling with grandma

 On Saturday afternoon we hung out with the Gregorys.  Devin and Andrew has a few years more before they can play together (and by that time Devin might be so over Andrew), but it was pretty cute to hear Devin ask fifty times if Andrew could eat pizza, what he eats, and why he wasn't eating lunch with us.  He also talked to Andrew and got a few really good giggles.

After lunch and shopping at the Outlets, we stopped by Cassuandra and Jeremy Olson's and hung out with them and Jersey.  Andrew was pretty enralled with the great dane, but didn't quite know what to do with her.  When Jersey licked him it completely covered his face and he just stared.

 Back at Grandpa and Grandpa Pfeffer's house, Dave's cousin Mike and daughter stopped by for some play time.

 Of course, Andrew took many naps because he was so tired for all the excitement.

Andrew stared at Grandma's big dogs too!

Wordless Wednesday

EDIT: I thought this was a good picture to be by itself for Wordless Wednesday, but I have gotten a few emails about it already. Andrew is playing with his sippy cup and by no means, drinking from it.  He likes to chew on it.  He's also giving me the look of, 'no more pictures Mom."

Pears

On Friday, Andrew added pears to his first foods. 

Again, like with all the foods, he eats and eats!  He actually seems to like pears.

 So much so, that he licked the pears off his bib!

Crawling progress

There is a whole lot of this going on at our house.  Andrew now gets up on all fours and rocks back and forth over and over again until he face plants into the ground to move forward.

He eventually gets up on his toes to lunge forward.

Yesterday (9/25), Andrew lifted his arm up and actually moved forward the "normal" crawling way.  He didn't get very far because he can't figure out how to move his knee.

Five Month Photos (a week late)

Wordless Wednesday-Ouch

a day at the park

Robyn and I took Ivy and Andrew to Arlington Sports Park yesterday. 

While Ivy ran around and climed the stairs, Andrew slept and rolled around on the blanket.  He also practiced his sitting up unassisted.  I put him in the swing to see what would happen, he didn't seem to mind it (but wasn't super excited either).

Andrew's practicing crawling

Sweet Potatoes

Even though Andrew is sick, we've been still moving on with the new food process.  This week we tried mommy-made baked sweet potatoes. 

The first taste face

He liked sweet potatoes a lot better than peas!  Like with everything, he eats with vigor and finished a full ounce of sweet potatoes and four tablespoons of oatmeal.

Wordless Wednesday: Into the Ducky Tub

Sick Baby

It started nice and slow.  Andrew had a runny/stuffy nose on Thursday.  By Friday, he added a little cough and on Saturday the cough increased in frequency and became croupy again.  He sounded like a barking dog as he was coughing.  After the second time that he coughed so hard he threw up, Melissa told me that I could called Kaiser and see if we could get him in (it was 7:45 pm on Saturday). 

I left a message with the after-hours nurse and when she called me back at 8 pm, she told us to come right away.  We were able to get right into the pediatrician office and did not have to go to Urgent Care (fantastic!!). 

After listening to his lungs and checking everything else out, the doctor pronounced the diagnosis of Bronchiolitis.  Never heard of it?  Neither had I--Bronchiolitis is a common lung infection, often caused by a virus. It most frequently occurs in infants, commonly younger than 6 months of age.  Bronchiolitis starts out with symptoms similar to those of a common cold but then progresses to coughing and wheezing. Symptoms of bronchiolitis typically last for a week or two and then go away.

The treatment is a neubulizer and breathing treatments. 

Breathing treatments + five month old = traumatic

We've spent a lot of time trying to convince Andrew to sleep (he's not having it) and eat (3 oz vs. 8 oz).  He's cried more in the past few days then he has in his entire life!  The humidifier is running any time Andrew is in his room and he likes playing with it, so I let him.

We have to do breathing treatments four times a day now (or more if needed) for this week and on Saturday we switch to twice a day for the next two weeks.  In total, he'll have to have these traumatic treatments for three weeks!!

Football Weekend

Mommy's favorite weekend of the year is here! 

Football has officially started at school and home! 

We celebrated Arlington's first home game on Thursday night (we share a stadium with three teams and have to share nights too-sucks).  It was SO hot that day that instead of being concerned about Andrew being cold, I was worried that he'd get overheated.  Thankfully it cooled off enough that we were comfortable in shorts and t-shirts.  Andrew wore his 'little dude' shirt in AHS colors and Mommy and Daddy had their lion pride yellow on.

 Andrew had a good time.  He looked around, played with some friends in front of us, and smiled at my students.  I think he was a bit overwhelmed though because his smiles were not constant, but there were no crying moments.

 We left at half-time so Andrew could be home by bedtime, but AHS won the game! 

It was fun for me to see a lot of the players that I had in class three years ago (remember when I had the entire freshman team in my Intro to Lit classes?!?)

On Thursday at the game, Andrew had a tiny runny nose, but I assume it was related to the two teeth that are trying really hard to come out.  Thursday night we had a horrible night of sleep, Friday Andrew's cough got worse, but he was still pretty happy.  Saturday, he was clearly sicker than sick.  By 7:45 last night I called Kaiser and we went (more to come), so today as the Chargers' play their season opener, Andrew was pretty excited for about five minutes.

Then he remembered he was sick and the happy baby turned into a coughing, sick baby.  He has sleep for the past two hours of the game.

It's okay little man, there will be plenty more football for you!

Peas

After the first few bites--he was totally unsure if this was going to be something for him. 

Andrew has mastered Oatmeal and consumes a lot of it (4-5 tablespoons if I let him), so I decided to add peas into his expanding diet.  I pre-made the peas before school started a few weeks ago, but made them too thin (for next time, I'll know less formula added) so he actually had oatmeal-pea combo.

Like pretty much everything, Andrew ate them like a champ.  He makes a face almost every single bite (because who actually likes peas?!), but continues to come at the spoon mouth wide open ready for more.


Midway through our first experience--Not too bad mom

In less than 10 minutes, Andrew consumed the full ounce (one ice cube) of peas mixed with one tablespoon of oatmeal.  The still hungry piglet then ate another two tablespoons of oatmeal!

At the end--happy pea covered baby!

Five Months Old

Monthly photos postponed until Andrew feels better!

Developmental Milestones this Month: Andrew can do all of the following age-appropriate developmental things: everything from month four and roll over both ways, sit in a tripod stance (uses arms for support) for over a minute, stand holding on to someone's hands, work to get an out-of-reach toy, pass object from one hand to the other, and look for missing objects (mainly the dog).  He does not babble or talk very much, so we're working on repeating sounds over and over.
Physical Growth this Month: At the doctor's on Tuesday, Andrew weighed in at 17.48 lbs (gain of 1.2 from last month) and is measuring at 27.5 inches long (same as 4 months).

Things Andrew likes: My content baby is still pretty much "into" everything.  He loves people and has starting staring/smiling at strangers at church or restaurants if they smile at him.  The dog is increasingly becoming a favorite; he actually smiles at her now.  Loving the jumperoo, laying on the floor to move around, food, being tickled, his and other people's hands. At daycare, they say he LOVES a little girl name Mariah and he'll look at her, smile, then giggle.  Within the last two weeks, it has also become clear that Andrew likes to feel textures (like Mommy) and now "pets" things as he eats and plays.

Things Andrew doesn't like: still the car seat and being ignored, but we found a new one.  He HATES and screams when I put nose drops in to help suck the boogers out.  He doesn't mind the sucker (bulb syringe).
Sleeping: The first two weeks of this morning were HARD sleep wise.  Andrew wanted to wake up 2-3 times a night to play (not eat, needing a diaper, or anything useful) and would not just go back to sleep (blog here). Thankfully as quick as it started, it stopped and we're back to normal at night time.  Bedtime is between 8-8:30.  The sad for mommy good part of bedtime is also that Andrew goes to bed without any intervention other than swaddling.  He does not want to be held to calm down.  Also, on the swaddling note, we swaddle with one arm out and don't really have plans to stop swaddling.  He does not try to roll over while sleeping.  He is not napping well at daycare still, so his nap schedule is all over the place during the week, but on the weekends, he is still takes two, 2-hour naps and a short catnap.

Eating: Andrew eats 8-9 ounces every four hours during the day and still refuses the dream feed. He gets between 32-36 oz every day (only 4 more oz a day than last month), but we've now added oatmeal and peas once a day.  Next week, I plan to make it twice a day and he'll eat "breakfast" of oatmeal at daycare.  When the sleeping issues went away, so did the eating concentration issues thankfully.  We're at 1.5 ml of Zantac for the GERD, but we have a referral to see the GI specialist about the coughing/gagging that is waking up him even with the zantac.

Playing: He is all over the place while playing and enjoys moving his arms, legs, head, etc.  He loves things that make noise and can go into his mouth; if there is anything that can do both (Sophie and his crinkly lion) it is a favorite.

Diapers: Leaving size 2s this week!  We had a few nightime blowouts and started using 3s at night last week and I decided that I wasn't going to buy another box!  We used 524 size 2s.

Clothing: Clothing wise nothing has changed from month 4.  Andrew wears 3-6 month onesies and 0-3 month shorts.  I did try on a pair of 3-6 month pants in prep for "cold" weather (wishful thinking) and they are just a bit too short to look normal.  I have a feeling that we'll be skipping pants all together in this clothing size.

Firsts for this month: Eating our first solid food (oatmeal and peas), three weeks of daycare under his belt, first cold and croupy cough (followed by first Urgent Care appointment), second cold, first football game, and first bowling trip.

Inch bug

Andrew has started inching himself across the floor and I'm sure crawling is right around the corner.

His scoot is pretty darn cute.  First, he plants his feet and pushes his bum into the air and quickly plants his forehead into the floor.  Then, as he pushes his feet, he rolls up his body (sort of like the second picture) and then falls forward.  The result is moving a few inches. He repeats this pattern over and over again until he's moved several feet to a new toy, box, chair, person, etc.  He's been trying this out for the past two weeks, but he's getting A LOT faster.  Last night, he managed to get his knees bent and under him and his arms holding him up without his giant head crashing to the ground!

I have yet to really get it on video (something about that blinking light that really grabs his attention), but when I do, I'll show you.

First Week of School

Two weeks before Andrew started daycare and I attended trainings, buy-back days, and all school staff meetings. As I wrote about before, Andrew had a great time at daycare. He laughed, played, and did what he what other happy babies do. He struggled with napping (too much going on and too many people to play with) and took his time eating, but you'd never know that he wasn't an old pro.  He spent most of the afternoon with me asleep or eating to catch up on what he missed at school. He slept a lot all weekend to catch up on the sleep he missed while playing.

Last Monday was my first day of school.  I started the year with a downright awful attitude. Who knows if it is the seven year itch (as it relates to a career) or if it was the fact that I wasn't getting to be at home with my baby, but either way, bad attitude Jennifer was in the house.  I was extremely mad about teaching Read 180 again, mad that I was considered "the most qualified" even though no one making those decisions has ever seen me teach, and mad that the class from hell was going to descend upon me again. 

Anyway, bad attitude Jen stayed through all the week before prep, the Saturday classroom prep and even Sunday "get ready for school" stress.  After talking to Des, I decided I needed to suck it up and at least pretend to be happy and "normal." 

It's a good thing I did because I was pleasantly surprised on Monday at my students.  My Read 180 class starts the day and they were not overly rude on the first day (like they were last year) and the number of tough boys is only two.  My Media kids were eager and my Intro students were FANTASTIC.  My bad attitude was quickly replaced and by the end of the week, I actually felt like myself and I was actually EAGER for the day to start.

Andrew had another fantastic week at daycare.  He's learning to nap there and actually had three days with at least one "good" nap.  He did start rejecting his second bottle, but I'm assuming it is because he knows that I'm coming shortly (he eats it about 2:30-3 and I get there around 3:30). 

The four day week upcoming holds promise and thankfully bad attitude Jen hasn't reappeared.

Grandpa and Grandma Bennett

September 3, 2011

Five Hundred posts later

This is my 500th blog entry!  Crazy!

I was going to write blog about the first week of school, my students, Andrew's daycare week, and all that boring stuff; however, I thought it would be MUCH more appropriate to share a video of the best part of my day--Andrew!

You get to hear me talking and him talking/laughing/kicking back :)  Yes, I sound like a moron, but didn't you already know that?!?