Super Trooper

The story of William's first Christmas:

6+ hours on an airplane.

At least 20 hours in a car.

Multiple family gatherings with many, many, many new faces.

And through it all, William was a major trooper. Despite all the traveling (and the fact that he was cutting his second tooth!), he had plenty of smiles everywhere we went. Of course, now that we are home all the traveling seems to be taking its toll--in the form of a cold--so things have been a little fussy and sleep-deprived around here. But hopefully it's nothing a little rest and TLC won't fix, especially because we've got a wedding to attend on Saturday! No rest for the weary :-)

Stressed? Me? Never.

Christmas is Next. Week.

We have family/holiday celebrations Thursday night, Friday night, all day Saturday and all day Sunday.

We have a flight coming up soon with a very active 8-month old that we are dreading trying to prepare for.

Said eight-month old has decided that now is a good time to (officially) start cutting teeth--which has ramped up the fussiness and poor sleeping habits (as well as a sudden refusal to nurse). It's swell.

He has also decided that pooping is his new favorite thing--but getting his diaper changed is not. I honestly spent a total of One. Hour. changing diapers the other day because every diaper change is a battle.

There just isn't enough chocolate in my house wine in a bottle hours in the day.

William: Eight Months!

Sitting still is not in this kid's vocabulary. And doesn't he make the goofiest faces?!?

Check out his hair! William thought it would be fun to roll around on the blanket, which caused some major static electricity. I'm not sure he realized what Mom and Dad found so funny, but that's okay :)

So as I was looking through my notes about William's eighth month of life, I had to laugh at the first thing I had written down: Major teething pains. Super clingy, doesn't even want solid foods that he previously liked, not sleeping well, extra fussy. Well, I'm here to tell you, that by the time William officially turned eight months old, he still had no teeth. And those symptoms? Pretty much never let up. Now, I know that teething pains can start well before the teeth even start to show, but uffda. Things have been a little rough.

Thankfully, there have been plenty of good things going on as well. Because he was starting to refuse all foods, we decided to start giving him some finger foods to see how he did with those. And so far, he's doing great! We've tried banana, sweet potato, avocado, pear, bread (even a pancake!), and plum. He still misses his mouth about 30% of the time and struggles a little bit grabbing some of the slimier food items off his tray, but overall it's been a major success. As far as purees go, we've introduced rice cereal, carrot, acorn squash, peach, green beans, and asparagus. Overall, those have gone pretty well too, although I'm convinced he gobble up some of his lesser favorites (like asparagus) in a heartbeat if we gave them to him as finger foods instead of purees.

Despite the dropping temperatures and incessant cold/flu bugs that are going around, William has managed to remain healthy enough to avoid any visits to the doctor, which means no height/weight stats. Although based on our home scale we're pretty sure William is pushing nineteen pounds. Save for a few random discrepancies in the sizing he's pretty consistently in 6-9 month clothing, although some 3-6 month items still fit as well as some 12 month items. And he's still more than comfortable in size three diapers (knock on wood, it's been awhile since we've had a blowout!)

Developmentally, we can tell that he's working on finding his voice and figuring out how it works, but he's still not much of a talker. I think part of the reason he's been so slow on talking is that he is focusing all his energy elsewhere--mainly, becoming an independent mover. He isn't taking steps on his own yet, but he will stand unassisted for a few seconds, and he's just recently starting pulling himself into a seated position from his stomach (which--we discovered--required a whole new round of baby proofing because he can pull himself up onto a lot more things from a seated position than he could from his stomach). A fun skill he's picked up is the ability to take his shirts off, especially if we pull his arms out for him. Of course, this is not such a cute skill for him to practice while I'm trying to get him dressed, but it's still pretty cute (although it probably won't be as cute this summer when we can't get him to keep a shirt on. Oh well.)

As I alluded to with the "teething" issue, sleep is still inconsistent at best. On good nights, he'll go down between 730 and 800, stir a few times after that and need us to go calm him back down, nurse at 1030/1100, nurse again around 200, and then at 530 (almost on the dot) he'll wake up--still tired, but he won't go back in his crib so one of us will have to sit with him in the recliner until 730 or so when he gets up for the day. Sometimes he drops that 200 feeding, which is wonderful, and other nights he is up even more than that. It's exhausting, to say the least. And while Darrell and I realize that we've definitely created some sleep crutches for him and some of the issues are our own fault, we continue to come up with excuses (he's teething, we're going on vacation, he's got a cold, etc) to avoid doing any "harsh" sleep training method. Naps, however, have been improving slightly; I'm usually able to get at least one nap of just over an hour in his crib, so that's been nice.

Overall, we are still loving this whole parenting gig and each month continues to be more fun than the last as more and more of William's personality starts to come out (the stubbornness... Not quite as fun. But he comes by it honestly, so we really can't be surprised).

Throwback Thursday

I'm not sure if it technically counts as a "throwback" if it's from six-ish months ago, but considering William has practically quadrupled his age since the photo was taken, I'm going to say that in this case, a six-month old picture does, in fact, count as a throwback.

Look how cute! And how little! And how calm! I feel like he is never that calm and laid back anymore. Ever. Sigh.

And just for fun, here's a picture of me when I was approximately a quarter of my current age (now this is definitely a throwback).

Coolest. Christmas. Present. EVER. And yes, I totally wish I still had that sweatshirt so I could bust it out for an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party. Not that it would fit or anything, but that would just add to the ridiculousness of it.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

You know how they say that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover? Well, it's also true that you shouldn't judge a book by its title. I'd heard nothing but good things about this book since it came out, and I knew it had made it on to many bestseller lists, but I just couldn't bring myself to read it (or even put it on my list of "books to read"). Why? I was intimidated by the title. It was just so long. What good would it do me to read a book that I couldn't even remember the title of to tell people what I was reading? And besides, if the author couldn't pare down the title of her book to something smaller than a mouthful, it seemed to me that the rest of the novel would be full of other lengthy and seemingly superfluous details and descriptions.

Well, although I don't like to say this very often, I was wrong. About as wrong as I've ever been about a book. I loved this book so much that it's now on my "will buy" list if I see it at a secondhand store because I would absolutely love to read it again. And again.

And honestly, I should have assumed that I would enjoy it--crazy title and all. After all, it is set during one of my favorite time periods to read about: WWII. And I know I say this about almost every WWII book I read, but the perspective of this book is a very unique one--and it is made even more so by the writing style. The book focuses on an island in the English Channel that was occupied by the Germans during the war, and subsequently cut off from all contact with the outside world. After the war and occupation are over, one of the islanders begins a correspondence with an author in London, and the entire book is written as a series of letters (and if you are worried that that would be confusing--as I was--don't be. It is wonderfully executed and easy to follow). There's bits that were humorous, bits that were sad, and even a little love story thrown in for good measure.

If I haven't sold you on this book yet, here is most telling bit of truth about how good this book is: the (fictional) author in London who is corresponding with the (fictional) residents of Guernsey decides that she would like to write an (fictional) article and then (fictional) book about their (fictional) story. On more than one occasion I found myself wanting to know what the name of that book was going to be so that I could read it next. That's how believable the characters are and how well written the novel is. And sadly, the author died before final publication of this book happened, so it's impossible highly unlikely that she will write any sort of follow-up novel. All the more reason to go out and read this one!

November Randoms

Are we really a whole week into December already?!? Where is the time going?!? I feel like I'm going to blink and it's going to be 2014--which is not good because I have a pretty extensive list of things to get done before then! I'll do my best to keep the posts coming on the blog, but, well, I don't make any promises. At the very least I'll try to get on every few days and post some pictures of this cutie, because I know you'd rather see him than listen to me ramble anyway :-)

There are no words to describe this face

He looks a lot like baby pictures of my brother in this one--and I personally think he looks nothing like he does in the previous picture.

Bundled up for a walk

Showing some love for his family in SC!

Putting the claim of this "indestructible" book to the test (for the record--these books are awesome!)

It was only a matter of time before he figured out how to pull the books off the shelf. My house will never be clean again

Getting ready to support Grandpa's (and Aunt Amanda's) Alma Mater at a football game

For about a week, William lost interest in eating any solid food (except for rice and oatmeal). I tried letting him feed himself to see if that remedied the situation. It didn't. But it sure made a heck of a mess!

Celebrating Cousin John's Lion birthday party from afar

Such a good helper in the kitchen

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas!

While I'm not particularly loving the temperatures that are accompanying this snowfall (eighteen degrees with a wind chill near zero), I'm loving the blanket of white that has covered everything. Now it's starting to feel like Christmas--and if the temperatures could climb back up at least to the thirties that'd really be awesome. At least cut our tree down last weekend; while the forty-degree temperature didn't really feel Christmassy, it was certainly a better option than cutting down our tree in the ten-degree weather forecasted for this weekend.

Happy boy with his first Christmas tree!

And how, you might ask, is it going having a Christmas tree with a seven-month old crawling machine? About this well:

"Helping" to arrange the tree bag

Ooh, lights!!

Don't let that innocent face fool you--Mommy had to cut off the branch just to the left of him because he kept trying to wrap his hand around it and pull. Just a little dangerous

Thankfully, he hasn't quite mastered getting into a sitting position from his stomach, so we only have to have the branches and decorations high enough off the ground so that he can't reach them from floor level. He's also discovered that this strange green thing pokes him if he gets too close, so I think that has helped deter him from trying to crawl under or behind it. Now that the novelty of it being new has kind of worn off he hasn't paid it much interest, so that's good. We may have to avoid putting any gifts under the tree this year until we are ready to open them, though, because that might just be a little too tempting for him. Excited for lots more "firsts" with our little buddy this month!

Gobble Gobble!

Well, William's first Thanksgiving was a success! Granted, I'm not sure if he noticed that there was anything special about the day from any other day, but it was fun nonetheless. Especially since we got to have Daddy home for a day in the middle of the week. Lots of laziness, lots of family time, and of course, lots of giggles and smiles!

As close to a turkey as he came this Thanksgiving--his "feast" consisted of sweet potatoes and a little bit of Mommy's homemade dinner rolls. Next year, though, he'll get the full spread!

William was not impressed with our attempts to get a family picture

Playing pool at Grandma and Grandpa's (it is worth noting that in the eight years Darrell and I have been together this is only the second time we've been able to play pool at my parent's house. We'll just say the pool table has been inaccessible and leave it at that)

And of course, what's Thanksgiving without a little naked baby time? This is a pretty common sight around William these days as he has officially decided that pretty much everything is more interesting than getting his diaper changed and getting dressed. Makes for some fun times.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!

Birthday Craft

Someone special in William's life celebrated a birthday earlier this month, so we decided to do a little craft in honor of the occasion!

Now, if you are thinking that it's a little bit of a stretch to call that a craft, well, you are probably right. But--it required inspiration from the internet, the use of craft paint, and cleaning up a mess afterwards--so I'm counting it as a craft in my book. Plus it was super cheap--also a win. That being said, I've seen lots of cool artwork ideas using hand/foot prints, but I won't count each of them as individual crafts for my 30 before 30 project. Although I do hope to try a lot of them out, especially as William gets older and a little bit more cooperative.

By a Thread...

Just checking in briefly from deep in the throes of....well, something. Teething? Ear infection? Growth-spurt? Typical seven-month old behavior? Post-full moon lunacy? Angst over impending winter weather? I don't have a clue. And subsequently I have no solutions. Except to just wait it out. This too shall pass--and hopefully before I lose the last little grip on sanity that I have left.

William: Seven Months!

It's been an exciting month for (not-so-little-anymore) William! We're blowing through developmental milestones (physically, at least) and have begun our foray into solid foods. And he's handled it all like a champ!

No official stats on height or weight (no scheduled doctor's appointment until nine months--and hopefully we can make it through cold/flu season without needing an impromptu visit to the doctor), but it definitely seems like he's putting all his solid food to good work helping him grow. We feel like he's packed on at least a pound, and I swear he grows inches overnight.... But I doubt that is actually the case, because if it is then his clothes must be growing with him. He's still able to fit in to a lot of his 3-6 month outfits, although every once in a while we'll put a shirt on him and laugh because of how ridiculously small it is. So we're slowly adding those clothes to the "too small" pile and filling out his wardrobe with 6-9 month clothes--and he's got some cute ones in that size that I can't wait for him to start wearing (there may or may not have been a sale on sweaters at one of the second hand stores and I may or may not have spent $30). He's completely in size three diapers, and I imagine that will be the case for the next handful of months.

As much as I have enjoyed being the sole provider of William's nutrition, it has been really enjoyable to transition him into solid foods. So far we've introduced oatmeal cereal, sweet potato, summer squash, avocado, pears, peas, and apple. Summer squash and peas are not his favorites and he lets us know that every time we try to feed them to him. Everything else, though, he eats really well, and (most of the time) he's surprisingly not messy. While he likes to reach for the spoon and "help" feed himself, his motor skills are strong enough that he rarely flings the food off the spoon. Plus he knows that once the spoon has been in his mouth that there is no more food on it, so he pushes it back toward us so we can get more food rather than trying to play with it. That isn't to say we haven't had our nights with pea in his ear and sweet potato in his hair... But it's gone remarkably better than I thought it would.

I said at six months that I would be surprised if he wasn't crawling by this point, and while he doesn't have the whole "hands and knees" crawling bit figured out, he is definitely mobile. This kid can army crawl like you wouldn't believe--and he's especially quick at getting from A to B when he's going after something he knows he shouldn't be (like the computer). That being said, walking is actually his preferred mode of transportation. He needs assistance, of course, but if he knows Darrell or I am nearby, he will sit and fuss until one of us comes over and gives him our fingers to help him walk. It's almost scary how good he is getting at it. He is also pretty good at pulling himself up, which is only problematic because he likes to practice this skill on toys/objects that aren't very stable. Unstable when standing baby plus a toy that isn't exactly meant to be standing toy equals quite a few tumbles.

While his motor skills are developing just fine (and somewhat ahead of schedule), his communication skills have not been keeping pace. Not that we are concerned or anything, but it's just something I wanted to be sure I noted for my own reference. We'll occasionally hear consonant-vowel sounds, but not often. And never in repetition (gah-gah-gah-gah, for example). He's plenty vocal, mind you (and if you want proof just try to take a toy away before he is done playing with it), just not a lot of consonant sounds. He has (for the second time now) "discovered" that he can blow raspberries/spit bubbles, so maybe that lip action will help him work toward developing more sounds. Just watch--in two months he'll be talking incessantly and I'll be cursing myself for ever saying anything.

Sleep is, well, still a luxury at times. We'll have a few really good nights (8:00 to 5:30!!), and then we're back to waking up two (or three or four) times. We've pretty well cut out all but one middle of the night feeding though, so the nights when he is waking frequently he usually gets put back down with just his pacifier (way easier on Mom!). Naps are sub-par at best (can thirty minutes really even be considered a nap?), and we're waffling between two and three depending on the day (which I know doesn't help him get into any sort of a routine). We're getting there though--and I'm always glad when the weekend rolls around so I have Darrell home to help with naps.

And what fun would all this blabbing be without a few out-takes?

I'm Number One!

 

Love our little buddy to pieces!!

Good Timing

It seems so often in life that timing is everything. And while being up at 1 AM nursing my seven-month old (who is fully capable of sleeping through the night, mind you) is rarely a good time for anything, last night that proved not to be the case. Because last night, in the middle of the night, was the perfect time for me to find and read this article (thanks to my cousin who posted it on Facebook). So, even though it was in the wee hours of the morning (and after William had already been awake once, mind you), it was refreshing to read this:

I was at the Moms’ Group Christmas party and Kai’s mom looked at him and said, “Buddy, are you tired?” She then spread a receiving blanket on the floor, put this slightly cranky child down and he fell asleep. He fell asleep! What the hell?!? Clearly she’s drugging this kid. No shushing. No patting. No nursing. No driving around the block pleading. The little bugger just fell asleep. I swear to God I wanted to drop kick the fruit tray across the room and scream, “What the fuck am I doing wrong!?”

It turns out nothing. Because I have decided that there are certain kinds of babies.

• There are babies that are smart and say, “If it’s really quiet or I’m not moving, that means that they’ve forgotten me and I don’t want to be left under a bush somewhere so, helloooooo!”
• Then there are some babies that are smart and say, “If I can’t feel a warm body near me then that means I’m unprotected and a dingo is going to eat me so, helllloooooo!”
• Then there are some babies that are smart and say, “You know what is great? A boob (swaddle, pacifier, rocking, or whatever) because it totally does the trick to get me to sleep. Yet, you seem to have forgotten that so, helllllloooo!”
• Then there are some babies that are smart and say, “Hot damn, I’m a baby and get to sleep whenever I want. I’m just going to lay into this swaddle sack and catch some serious zzzzs.” I’m also convinced that these were the babies that were historically left under bushes and/or eaten by dingoes.

All of the sleep books out there? They work. They just don’t work for every baby. You are standing in front of a door with a thousand keys and only one of them fits.

So my advice is this, absolutely keep reading the books. Keep trying new stuff. But don’t feel like you’re failing if you have to hold, swing, rock, move that baby to get them to go to sleep because that just happens to be the type of smart kid they are. That door will eventually unlock and swing open whether you find that magical key or not.

Think of it this way, babies are constantly changing, so anything you do today can all go out the window tomorrow.  Some people think of this as a negative: “You better be careful when he starts teething because you’ll lose all of that sleep training progress.” Whereas, I think we should think of it as a positive: “Who gives a crap if she sleeps in the swing all night? Next week she may have it totally figured out because she isn’t going to be 22 at college sleeping in her Rock n’ Sway.”

 

It is often a blessing and a curse that I have quite a few friends with children close in age to William; I love the opportunities for play dates, but as a naturally competitive person, I often find myself comparing William to others (even though Darrell has reminded me time and time again that I shouldn't). And when I have friends with little ones younger than William who consistently sleep through the night, I can't help but think that it is something I'm doing wrong that is preventing William (and us!) from getting a full night's rest. Like the author of the article, I often find myself forgetting that William is not the same as my friends' babies and won't respond to the same techniques they do. In fact, William is not the same baby that he was yesterday, and what worked one day might not work the next. While the scientist in me wants to find a process for naps and nighttime sleep that produces consistent and reproducible results, babies just don't work like that. And maybe, just maybe, I'll get that through my head one of these days--maybe a day when I'm feeling just a bit less sleep-deprived. 

The Light Between Oceans

Lately, it seems like all the books I've been reading have been about babies and families. Or maybe I'm just more likely to notice those aspects of books because I have a baby of my own. Regardless, there is no denying that this book is centered around babies, families, and being a mother. One mother--after three failed pregnancies--would do anything to have a child of her own. Another mother--after the disappearance of her daughter and husband--would do anything to have them back, or at least have some answers to their fate. One man find himself wedged between the lives of the two women, and his own life becomes a wreck as he finds himself stuck between a strong sense of morality and the desire to be loyal.

At the end of novel, one of the characters admits that it wasn't until she had a child of her own that she could fully understand the decisions both women made. And although I never read this book childless, I honestly feel like I can say the same. While at times I morally disagreed with the decisions both women were making, I tried to imagine being in their shoes--and found myself wondering if I would have had the courage to do the right thing. Would I have had the courage to ask my husband to lie for me so that my prayers could be answered? Would I have been able to give up the life and child I had dreamed of to bring the child--my own flesh and blood--happiness?

While this book may be a tough read for anyone who has dealt with infertility/pregnancy loss and/or the death/disappearance of a young child, it is a beautifully written novel that truly captures one of the fundamental debates of humanity: doing what is right for someone else versus doing what is right for yourself.

Six Month Photos

I am In.Love with the six month photos of William that we had taken. Enough said.

All images copyright Korzan Custom Photography

Happy Snow-vember!

See what I did there? Because this is what things looked like in our neighborhood yesterday:

And that isn't even all of it; if you look closely at the picture you can tell that the snow is still coming down. I think we got six to eight inches of accumulation by the time it was all said and done. Normally I'd be complaining about that much snow in November, but this was my favorite kind of snow--big, heavy, wet flakes, perfect for making snowballs with (not quite so good for driving in, but hey, I didn't have anywhere to go). Plus it'll all be melted by the weekend.

I made the comment to Darrell last night that we were a little remiss in not taking William outside to get some pictures in his first snowstorm, and Darrell reminded me that technically (technically) this was William's second snow; it snowed pretty much the entire day he was born back in April. So it's not like I can feel guilty for neglecting to document his first snowfall. Because I highly doubt the nurses would have been too keen on our taking William outside to get pictures of him (at mere hours old) in the snow. So I'll blame it on the nurses if years from now adult William wonders why we don't have pictures of him and his first snowstorm.

October Randoms

Is it really November already?!? Where does the time go?!?

Wishing he was at the beach in NC

Cheesy smile!

This is apparently how William likes to play when left unsupervised for a short period of time

Probably not how the ExerSaucer was meant to be played with...

Major spit bubbles

More cheesy smiles--and gobs of drool!

Practicing his soccer skills

Again with the cheesy smiles

Picking a fight with the Halloween decorations