February Highlights, Part 1...

The month of February was a fun one in our house. P is changing daily. There are so many times when I look over at him and think, "You weren't doing that yesterday!" I feel like I've blinked my eyes and all of a sudden I have a little boy instead of a baby, and I'll admit...I'm loving my little boy (and I know his dad is, too!)

This picture brings to mind TEETH. :) We have quite the set at the moment. As of mid-December, P had 3 teeth. As I write this today, he has all 8 of his front teeth AND 3 molars!!! And not surprisingly, we went from no molars to 3 molars almost overnight.

A couple of weeks ago P was in a bad state of mind. Poor guy. He is normally in such a good mood and easy-going and happy, but we had a few days were he was fussy, whiny, and just not our typical Peanut. For what it's worth, at the time we did check his mouth, but he didn't seem to have any molars coming in (or at least we thought). We did give him some Tylenol one day, but other than that, we just cuddled him and took him for walks and played outside, and it seemed to pass. Then, we had 2 HORRIBLE nights of sleep. The first night P woke up at 1:30 and was awake and crying until 4:15. The second night he woke up at 3:15 and was awake and crying until 5:45! We thought it had to do with the fact that he had been sick the week before and had gotten used to me getting up with him in the middle of the night. Since he had been in a perfectly good humor those two days during the day, I didn't even consider molars being the culprit. The next night, P slept fine (thank you, God!), and I thought we were back to normal...and we were...but with one extra tooth in the back of his mouth that I discovered during his bath. :-/

I would like to take a moment to publicly apologize to my child if he was experiencing teething pain in the middle of the night. Your mommy and daddy are new at this thing, Peanut. We thought we had ruled the teething thing out. We were obviously wrong. Don't worry. We'll make it up to you by hopefully not making the same mistake with your hypothetical sibling years from now.

I should also add that a few days later when P was in the bathtub, I checked his mouth again, you know, to see how his one molar was doing. The top left one was doing just fine...as was his top right one...and his bottom left one! P, we can't keep up with you! :)

UPDATE: I've been coming back and working on this blog over the past few days, and this morning (3/9/12) when I checked in P's mouth, the 4th molar was poking through!!! No wonder he was a little fussy yesterday. What a trooper! (And as a side note, I just looked it up and found that most babies get their first molars around 14 months, so doesn't it make sense that P's would all come in within 2 weeks of being 14 months!? Seriously. This kid is like clock-work.)

In this picture, artistically speaking, I think P is trying to imitate the octopus bath piano (yes, you heard me right) in the background. The octopus is definitely one of P's favorite TOYS at the moment (which, now that I'm thinking about it shouldn't be so surprising, as he spent months 3-5 of his life obsessed with the green, plush octopus that hung above his play mat). Although we try to relegate this toy to bath time, it does make an appearance from time to time during the day when we are in the bathroom and slamming cabinet doors, another favorite past time.

P also loves to play with his crack monkey (which I just replaced the batteries in for the 3rd time - thank you Aunt Debby for the battery charger! It worked!!!), empty yogurt containers, anything stack-able, his singing Potsy (a rather flamboyant cooking pot from Leapfrog that he got for his 1st birthday), large plastic magnets, his wooden puzzle (where he "booms" the pieces one by one onto the floor - although he does take the pieces out the tiniest bit and puts them back and then claps for himself), his singing tool bench, a yellow plastic ball that rattles, and a funny little toy where you put a ball in the top, and it rolls out to either the right or the left. He loves to chase the balls down and repeat.

Other past times include stacking blocks and knocking blocks down, banging on the piano, walking behind the dino, getting his parents to chase him around the house, tormenting the cats, pulling up on EVERYTHING, banging drawers and cabinets, reading, reading, and reading, grooving, listening to music, singing songs, and standing at the windows (most likely with some stackable cups).


These pictures were taken on a rare occasion where I was giving P a bath. Our normal night-time ROUTINE involves the following: P eats dinner around 5:30. J is home by 5:30 on Tuesdays and Fridays so we can eat together as a family (we also aim to do so on the weekends). After we eat, J gives P a bath while I get dinner ready for us or clean up the kitchen. We try to be good parents and calm things down for P by reading to him before he goes to bed, but honestly, most of the time, the kid won't hear of it. He wants to play...and most of the time, we let him because he willingly goes to bed about 7:15 every night after he nurses. In fact, I've told people that as I'm saying his prayers, a lot of times P is lunging out of my arms towards his crib, and I can just hear him saying, "Say 'Amen,' woman. I'm exhausted!" :)


Sleeping has gotten a lot better...A LOT better. J and I always tell people that P has many redeeming qualities, but being a good sleeper has never been one of them. Right after P turned one, he was waking up in the middle night...EVERY NIGHT...at 3:50 for no apparent reason - just ready to hang out, I guess. When we finally worked that out, he got sick, and then he got his molars, and now, he's been going to sleep at 7:15 and sleeping until 5:30, when I get up and nurse him, and then he normally goes back to sleep until 7:30ish, although this morning, he made it all the way until 6:30. :) So things are improving. Just a few short months ago, I was thinking to myself that I hadn't had a solid night's sleep in over a YEAR (and that is kind of depressing...), so to sleep from 10:30-5:30 (or 6:30!) without waking up has been such a gift! I'll never take sleep for granted again.

As a side-note, one thing that P really IS good at is sleeping from the hours of 7-12...no matter where we are. :) He is more than willing to fall asleep in his pack-n-play at someone else's house, which is so nice! He comes to our small group with us each week and pretty easily makes the transition from crib to car seat to bed...not without waking up, mind you, but he just willingly falls back asleep. So, thank you Lord, for P's ability to do this. :) We don't take it for granted!


We don't just eat washcloths at our house. :) P has a lot of FOODS that he's loving right now. These include, but aren't limited to, pasta, chicken, Kashi blueberry waffles, whole wheat bread, cheese, cheese, and more cheese, yogurt (on the days he'll let me feed it to him), beans (especially white beans), any type of veggie (including carrots, peas, green beans, corn, broccoli, red pepper, zucchini, yellow squash, mushrooms, and onions), and any type of fruit (including apples, grapes, oranges, clementines, kiwi, banana - sometimes, and blueberries- ALL THE TIME...I often picture him turning into a male version of Violet Beauregarde from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.) Unfortunately, it looks like we're allergic to eggs...I gave P some scrambled eggs the other day, and he got red splotches all around his mouth and up towards his eyes. :( Neither J nor I had any food allergies growing up, so we're not sure where this is coming from or what to do with it. Sigh...hopefully he grows out of it quickly.

Overall, I would say that P is a pretty good eater. He is as slow as molasses in January, but a perk is that we can sit down and eat with him, and he's not done before we even take our first bite. :) My struggle is to find healthy things that are easy and fast, and thankfully, a mom's group that I stay connected with has LOTS of good ideas that I'm looking forward to trying out. Right now we're trying to introduce regular milk, and he doesn't seem to have a lot of interest, so we'll see how that goes. I would also say that he doesn't love eating meat (maybe it's his granola-y Austin connection) :), but I just keep trying things out with him.


Oh sweet Peanut, you are so loved. Thanks for being so much fun to be around! :) You make our little world a better place to be.