Things making me happy this week | 1

Ye old blog is being resurrected. New Feature: Weekly Happy Lists. Because I need to think happy.

 

Ryder singing Jingle Bells in his bed (almost) every the morning. 

Our Christmas Carol sing-a-long in my mom's car on our way home from visiting family in Missouri.

Taking Claire & Ryder to the aquarium on Tuesday.

Having a fairly laid back Christmas compared to recent Christmases.  I think it was so relaxed because I was the only person to get a fun new tech toy (an apple watch), so I wasn't having to activate a new phone or setup a new iPad or figure out why someone's electronic whatever wasn't working.

Taking an entire week + a day off from work!  Granted that was BEFORE Christmas and now I'm back at work.  And the first couple of days that of it were rough, but it ended up being enjoyable.

7 Months + 3 Days update

On Saturday night, I moved Ryder's pack-n-play into our bathroom's sink room and he slept the ENTIRE night. On Sunday night, he slept most of the night, he only woke up once around 2am to nurse and then went right back to sleep in the pack-n-play! Yay!

On Sunday at lunch at my mom's house, we were sitting there with Ryder and he was getting a little fussy so I gave him my knuckle to chew on and I felt something poke it! He's got his first tooth coming in! I couldn't feel it with my finger at first, only my knuckle (my finger must not be as sensitive). Eventually Sunday evening, I managed to get his mouth open and could actually SEE it! It's his right middle tooth on the bottom!

Ryder at 7 Months

Ryder is SEVEN months old! So exciting! He's doing so much more stuff now.


In addition to now being able to sit up for as long as he wants to, he is also able to get himself into the sitting position by himself! He can also army crawl kind of...or at least pull himself along the floor using his elbows & pushing with his feet. He is all over the place now. You can definitely tell that he has some favorite toys. I just got him a Baby Einstein Count & Compose Piano - my mom had one that he LOVES, but they don't make them anymore so yay eBay - and he loves that thing. It also came with this little Baby Einstein music player and he loves that thing too.

Even though he knows we come back, he cries if we leave the room. If we try to "hide" his toys from him, he can find them under burp cloths. He also loves knocking down blocks when I stack them up. He is constantly trying to get into whatever Claire is doing - playing on the iPad, looking at a book, etc.

We've pretty much stopped BLW. He just gets so upset when he wants food and he's not actually getting much from BLW. I've made him purees of peas, peaches, green beans and bananas. I'm planning to pick up pears, squash and maybe carrots to do this week. I'd also like to try chicken. He's also had store bought applesauce. I know applesauce is easy to make, but we already had the store-bought stuff for Claire (not baby applesauce, but normal unsweetened applesauce). We also gave him some cinnamon applesauce because that's what we had and he wanted some...and he liked it. So now I'm looking at the Gerber website getting ideas of other things that I could try making myself for him.

He is now wearing mostly 12-month clothing but still in size 3 diapers. He's still sleeping in his pack-n-play in the master bedroom, he just can't get the whole sleeping through the night thing figured out yet.


My little boy is getting so BIG!

Ryder at 6 Months

He's half a year old already!


He has been sitting by himself for about a week - he still can't get that way, but can stay sitting upright for the most part. I try to either sit behind him or have a pillow behind him just in case he flops backwards. He loves bath time, he never disliked baths, but now he is starting to giggle & splash in the water! He can roll really well and elbow around in a circle to get to toys. He is still up at least 1-2 times overnight - currently sleeping in pack-n-play in master bedroom. We were bedsharing until about 2 weeks ago, now he wants to roll around too much. He's adjusted pretty well to sleeping in the pack-n-play, once he starts sleeping through the night or at least being more predictable about getting up only once, I'll move him to his room. He slobbers EVERYWHERE and he likes to chew on the cold teething rings - maybe we'll have teeth soon!

We're mostly doing baby led weaning where you give babies manageable pieces that they can chew on. We fed him oatmeal cereal a couple of times, he's also had avocado, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumber, mashed potato (w/ breastmilk), sweet potato, french fries (without salt), yams, watermelon, and cantaloupe. He didn't necessarily EAT much of any of them, mostly just chewed on and tasted. I'm thinking about pureeing green beans, peas, peaches and pears to feed him too since peas & green beans don't work well for BLW and peaches & pears are really slippery. He is also still nursing really well! We've made it 6 months so far, I'm hoping we can make it for an entire year...but we'll see!

We went out to see my family in Columbia over the 4th of July. It was his first trip. He did really well both driving out and with the change in schedule of hanging out at my aunt's house most of the day. My brother & Anaya shot off fireworks once it got dark and they didn't seem to bother him, although after about 5 minutes Claire was done and told me she needed to go inside.


We had his doctor appointment this afternoon. According to their milestone chart, he is doing lots of things an 8 month old baby does. He weighs 20.5 lbs and is 28.5 inches - 90th & 97th percentiles respectively.

Ryder at 5 Months

This month's pictures are probably my favorite so far. He is developing such a personality.


We're still bed sharing. I've decided it is fine and we'll just keep doing it until whenever he is ready to sleep on his own. I do NOT want to fight with him to sleep like we had to with Claire.

He is rolling over a lot, both directions. At the beginning of June we moved him into his new convertible carseat since he was outgrowing the infant seat. He has pretty much stopped scratching up his face, yay! I had to pull out the 6-9 month / 9 month clothing already! Still in size 3 diapers. We tried Gerber Oatmeal Cereal for the first time last night, mixed it with some breast milk. He is still breast feeding and he is going great so far! He likes going to walks in the stroller. He loves his exersaucer, since it doesn't have many toys attached to it we're constantly having to pick the toys up after he knocks them off. He's going a really good job of starting to sit up, he can't get in that position by himself and once we put him that way we have to help keep him upright. I put him in the Johnny Jumper for the first time this month, he really seems to like it.

He got to meet his Nana & Papa (Justin's parents) for the first time this month.

He is fascinated by Claire and loves watching her. He also watches more TV than I would like because of her. And he is already enthralled with the iPad (not that he gets to play with it, just because Claire will bring it over and sit by me with it while I'm playing with Ryder).

Ryder at 4 Months

Wow. Our little guy is 4 Months old already. Approximately a year ago was when I found out I was pregnant and now we have a 4 month old!


On April 25, my mom & dad saw Ryder roll from back-to-front for the first time. Justin saw it the next week, but I didn't see him do it until May 4th and then again on the morning of May 5th! I tried to get a video...but he doesn't like to cooperate with me. He is also now rolling all the way over (back-to-front-to-back), again, no video because whenever I try I end up just getting him doing one roll and then fussing about it. We've also just started putting him in his exersaucer. He loves standing up. We've started putting him in his highchair during dinner, he is pretty happy to sit and talk to us most nights while we eat. And I got him a different bathtub in hopes a teaching him to splash - no luck so far.

He is also going through quite the sleep regression right now (I do not remember Claire doing this). If you had asked me before Ryder was born if I would EVER have him sleeping in bed with me, I would've said no. I didn't do it with Claire (at least not regularly) and I had no intention of doing it with Ryder either. But every night, all night, he is in bed with me. It's the only place he will sleep at night... At this point though, with his sleep regression, he is back to being up (and wanting to nurse) every 2 hours. Seriously. He is usually up at 12:15am, 2:00am, 4:05am, and 5:50am. I need some more sleep!

We went to the doctor on May 16 for his 4 month check up. He is a growing boy: 18 pounds, 2 ounces and 26 inches! Everything looked good. The doctor told me what I could do about his cradle cap, but it doesn't bother me that much so I'm undecided if I will do any of it. He has moved up to size 3 diapers. He's still mostly in 3-6 month clothing, but he does have a few 6-9 or 6-12 month things that fit. The 6 month footed sleepers I got him are all getting tight, but luckily it is warming up.

Hello May - Currently

Today we had Claire's Kindergarten transition meeting and we were talking about May Day and May Poles and I realized that I had more or less forgotten about May Day. Also, it is really hard to type with two hands while a baby is sleeping on one arm.


Currently:

watching Royal Pains & My Little Pony

reading What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman

listening to Claire talk (and talk back) a lot

making lots of homemade dinners & new recipes

feeling so very tired

planning next school year, we have big changes coming

loving my little boy who loves to sleep on mommy.

list uses the prompts from rukristin's Currently cards

Ryder at 3 Months

Ryder is THREE months old already! That is 1/4 of the way to one year!


He had been sleeping almost the entire night. He'd go to bed around 8-9pm, get up once between 1-2am to nurse and then go back to sleep until about 7am. It was lovely. Unfortunately he is currently recovering from his first cold, his cry is so hoarse, it is cute, but sad sounding. The cold really messed with his sleep and he has been sleeping with me since I'm not sure I would hear him cry with how weak his voice is if he were in his own room. We're finally getting back to a fairly normal sleep pattern, still getting up once a night, but way better than about a week ago when he was up 3 times every night.

He ALWAYS has his fingers in his mouth. He also manages to gouge his forehead no matter how often I trim his nails. He loves playing on his play mat and has started grabbing a hold of the toys that hang from the bar. He smiles and giggles at us - especially Justin. He does not usually like sitting still. He likes to be moving - mostly carried. He rolled over for the first time, front to back on the 14th.

According to my bathroom scale he weighs about 17 pounds. He is wearing size 2 diapers and 3-6 month / 6 month clothing (depending on the brand).


We're loving on this little boy and can't wait to see what he does next.

Hello April - Currently

I love April. Hopefully we'll finally start experiencing normal Spring weather - it SNOWED just over a week ago...silly weather. I also love April because my birthday is this month! And Easter (this year). Sometimes they are on the same day even! But not this year.

I'm trying to figure out why this little boy has decided he HATES tummy time. He liked it, he would usually do it for at least 10 minutes without fussing until about two weeks ago and now he starts screaming the second I put him on his tummy. He does slightly better if I prop him up on a pillow. But he used to be fine just laying on his tummy...now he is not.


Currently:

watching way too many episodes of Peppa Pig (thanks Nick Jr.)

reading the Tess Monaghan series by Laura Lippman

listening to angry music (Linkin Park, Breaking Benjamin, etc) (also my pandora station is actually called Angry Music)

making lists of projects i want to work on

feeling overwhelmed like there is not enough time to get anything done

planning project life layouts

loving april! spring!

list uses the prompts from rukristin's Currently cards

Menu Monday

The only meal from last week that we didn't make was the meatloaf, and that was because Justin ended up being gone the night we were going to have that (which ended up being Friday after all my re-arranging), so Claire & I just had deli sandwiches and we'll have meatloaf this week instead. Claire ended up being sick all of Saturday and not totally back to normal on Sunday so she didn't eat much either of those days. And my mom was awesome and brought us lunch on Sunday!