Changes

So we moved in to our new house a couple of weeks ago, and it's been great--but a lot of work! Winterization, cleaning, painting, and some contractor work has been taking up a lot of time. We got Victor's room set up first, of course :) His is almost done--all that's left is getting a room darkening blind up, and then I'll take pictures of how gorgeous it is! We painted the walls a fantastic, glowing blue with white trim and wainscoting. His curtains are blue with little planets and spaceships on them, and there's a dark brown rug covering the hardwood floor. Love it!! We had to disassemble the crib to move it, and when we reassembled it we put the mattress on the lowest setting because he had been sitting up and rolling over an awful lot. As it turns out, it's a good thing we did because the very first day in his new room he used the bars of his crib to pull himself to a stand!! Ever since then he's been standing at every opportunity, and he's been getting better and better at it every day. He no longer bonks his head as much as he did at first--he can sit himself down pretty well now. I do get nervous on the hardwood floors because they're pretty slippery, but he doesn't bonk himself too hard most of the time. He has to learn sometime, after all! I'm able to block the kitchen and the sunroom off using a sliding door, so I try to keep those rooms as babyproofed as possible so that I don't have to follow him around all the time. It doesn't help when people put bins full of glass bottles or small trashcans with sharp things in them around the kitchen, *ahem* cough *Damian* cough, so I still have to pay attention. We finally got the bookcases bolted down, so once I get the bottom shelf bolted in I'll be able to start putting books away, yay! :) In the meantime, I have the boxes of books set up as a little maze for Victor to practice walking with. Bad idea? Probably, but what else am I going to do with them?? ;)

Finally he's sleeping through the night again. we had a few miserable weeks once we moved in where he would wake up at 4 a.m. and just scream for 2 or 3 hours. Not sure what was wrong other than new place, stress from moving & working, refusal of nighttime feedings (that one was my bad), and I read that babies sometimes ahve trouble sleeping after learning new motor skills, such as pulling themselves up to a stand. Blargh. That was a miserable couple of weeks. He's doing much better now, sleeping through the night again, so hurrah!

The other major happening is that I am finally weaning Victor. He's ready for it. During daytime feedings he often gets impatient, tries to sit up while feeding, doesn't take too much from me. He LOOOOOVES food, oh my goodness. He is so Damian's child (but without the food allergies). If he sees people eating, he has to eat too. He will try anything, usually more than once. He loves feeding himself. He has no shutoff valve (and this worries me): babies are supposed to stop eating when they are full, but Victor will keep eating as long as he is given food and as long as he sees other people eating. This makes for tricky mealtimes, as I have to gauge how much he's eaten vs. how much I need to eat! If he doesn't get enough, he will scream if I try to take him out of his high chair, but he won't give any signals that he's had enough (other than not screaming). Usually I will feed him his fruits and veggies first, then I will let him entertain himself with finger foods like crusts of bread, cheerios, rice krispies, rice, pieces of melon or other things he can pick up but not choke on. I try to eat during the feed himself phase. Works for lunch, trickier around dinner, because we usually eat later, but we still want to feed him table food. I want to start making more baby foods but it's been crazy with the house, so that will most likely mostly wait until after Thanksgiving. I'm down to three nursings a day, and I have mixed feelings about finishing completely. However, the other day Victor helpfully bit me hard enough to draw blood so I'm starting to get over it ;)