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 ;)

King of the Crib

So Victor growls now (yes, actual growls you can feel rumbling in his chest) and it's adorable. He growls when he's happy, growls when he's zooming around with his little army crawl, growls to say hello--so cute! Especially when he's pacing back and forth in his crib like he's a lion in a cage ;) He now has his fourth tooth popped out on top. Six teeth in two months, yeesh! Still doing his army crawl, always the same way-pushes with his left foot and pulls with his right arm so he goes in a straight line. Right now we're working on getting him up and down stairs. My parents have a single step down from the kitchen to the family room and another single step from the family room to the sun room, so it's good practice for him without being dangerous. He has had a few face plants, but he's also spun himself around and gone down backwords. Up still takes some work--he can raise himself so his torso is on the top and he's standing with his feet on the bottom, but he can't quite manage to get his feet up the step yet. He has also discovered the wonders of my mother's tupperware cabinet and lazy susan. Oh the fun!! He has to sit there won't move until he has pulled everything out. I may need to start reading about how to dismantle lazy susans as preparation for the day when he manages to crawl in there and get stuck. Silly baby! :)

Loco-motion

So I've been slacking on the blogging lately, sorry! I think I've been discombobulated by the move--not really comfortable in our apartment as it is. Hopefully we will be moving into a house soon. Things are moving pretty well on that front; small hiccup with a few termites but that will be taken care of before we get in. Closing date right now is Oct. 20, cross your fingers! :)

The other thing that's moving really well is my little wiggler, Victor! He has perfected his army crawl and can zoom pretty well across the floor (Hopefully there will be a video if it stops giving me errors when I try to upload). He wants do get up on his knees and go, but he can't quite manage it. He'll get up on his knees and kind of rock back and forth, but before he can go anywhere he'll slide or fall over. He's determined, though, and he'll probably be crawling before we move! My mom's cat Lucy is a big help--when he sees her, he gets a big smile on his face and tries to catch her. She's still faster than he is, but not for long!

We finally went to the doctor for his 6 month shots, almost in time for his 7 month birthday. He did very well again, but his percentages were a bit down--only 25th percentile for weight instead of 30th (meh, not a big change), and only 50th percentile for height instead of 80th. 26.5 inches and 15 lb, 12 oz! No wonder the 6-9 month clothes still aren't fitting properly!

He's really been enjoying trying new foods. Anything is fair game, but some of it he likes more than others. Right now he's really going to town on some musk melon--just hand him a slice and get out of the way! It's sweet, cold, soft enough to gnaw on with his little teeth but it won't make him gag when he actually gets a piece of it in his mouth. He's eaten a bunch of baby foods but also big people's food--sucks on apples, watermelon, squash, potatoes, lemons, tomatoes--it's all good! :) He doesn't like sucking on pacifiers or fingers any more, but he will chew on them (and anything else you put in his mouth). Another new fun game is dropping stuff on the floor to see what will happen. Yay! Fun times :)

He's getting a lot better at sitting up on his own, he can stay for a while now if he tries. Most of the time he'd prefer to get moving, though. I think the crawling and the sitting are helping his tummy, too. We took him off the tummy medicine a few weeks ago, and although he gets some stuff in his mouth every once in a while, I think he's a lot better off than he was when he started the medicine. We'll keep an eye on him, but hopefully he's off for good!

He likes to make happy noises, but he also cries more. Fortunately, he's back to mostly sleeping through the night after a few difficult nighttime sessions of denial. He's much louder than he used to be, though--another reason to get a house, as I feel so guilty when he cries so loud, especially at night, but sometimes he needs to cry!

Hopefully this video will load, if not, I'll try again when I'm back at the apartment :)

6 months!

Victor was 6 months old yesterday! It's so cliche but so true, they do grow up so fast! He's such a tall, gangly baby now. I really want to get him weighed and measured again, but he's not one of those super fat babies (except for his adorable little squishy fat cheeks!). Long arms, long legs, long body. When I went through the 9 month sizes I almost had to discard some of them because they were clearly meant for fatter, shorter babies (he just wore them early and had room around the tummy). I notice it most when I am feeding him, though--when he was born, he was the perfect size to hold in one arm. His head would rest in the crook of my elbow, and his little buns fit perfectly into my hand. Now I can barely reach his butt with my fingers extended! I wouldn't go back though. He's so much more fun now that you can play with him and make him smile and laugh. I love it when he flaps his arms and legs when he gets excited (which is why we already have the perfect Halloween costume for him, and I intend to take a video and turn it into a youtube sensation ;) ). I would, however, like to go back to the days of him sleeping through the night!! He hasn't slept through the night since before we got to Ohio, and never once in our new apartment!! It's getting old pretty darn quick. Blame it on his cold, blame it on his teething, blame it on his mommy and daddy staying late at grammy's house to watch True Blood, but it's not fun. He's still cute though. His hair is coming in more and looks a lot darker on top (though he still has a little bald patch in the back where he rubs his head). His eyes haven't changed for a while; they're still brown in the center and dark blue on the outside. He's turned into a tummy sleeper. Unless he's waaay out of it, the first thing he does when he lies down is roll onto his side or his tummy. Sometimes I'll roll him onto his tummy when I put him in his crib just to help him decide to go to sleep (and lately even that hasn't been working too well--naptimes are a battle again). He's started fighting when we put him in his carseat. He'll arch his back and slide down and cry; then once he's in he's fine, silly baby. I think we need to get in there and adjust the straps to the higher holes but we've just been too busy, and it's such a hassle to change that out. Hopefully now that Damian will be starting work we'll get back to a regular schedule where we have regular naptimes and bedtimes. I was thinking of trying to teach him sign language, too, since boys are supposed to get verbal later in life (though something tells me Victor won't have too much trouble). The only problem with that plan is that Damian and I would have to learn sign language too! ;) Flash cards, anyone? So many changes! It was fun going through the store again and being able to get all the 6 month toys now for him to play with! Yay! Lucky little baby :) So much fun stuff coming up!!

Relocation, relocation, relocation

We made it! We are now Ohioans. A long trip, but it will be worth it. The moving people came on Friday, August 20 at 7:30 a.m. We originally intended to stay one last night in the apartment and leave on Saturday, but after they left at noon, we just wanted to get the heck out of town. Victor and I managed one last little trip to the ocean in the morning, we had a last lunch in downtown Carlsbad on the way out, and after loading my car up on to the trailer we managed to get out of town by 4--just in time for rush hour! So we only made it as far as Victorville (hee) that first night. It was worth it, though, our nice apartment was too empty and depressing. So we got a good head start on our trip. We bypassed Las Vegas on Saturday and stayed in Cedar City, Utah the next night--I was sooo glad to get out of the desert and the 110 degree weather! Utah was actually a lot cooler, greener, and prettier than I was expecting, so yay (though after the nasty desert pretty much anything would have been). Still, we didn't stray off the beaten path. Sunday night we made it to Grand Junction, Colorado, just across the border from Utah. Colorado is sooo pretty!! Such a gorgeous drive on Monday, all the way to Denver--except for the part where it rained going down the mountain with the trailer fishtailing and the baby crying--because of course Victor surprised us with his first little tooth on Monday morning! We didn't even know he was teething until I felt it in his mouth! It was probably a good thing we were driving so much--he was kind of forced to sleep through most of it. He did have a pretty bad night Sunday night (waking up crying a lot) so at least we figured out why eventually.

Tuesday was an adventuresome day. My mom arrived bright and early at the Denver airport. (Why Denver? There's a direct flight from Akron-Canton Airport on a great airline (Frontier).) Victor was liking his car seat less and less, so it was a good time for me and him to abandon ship and fly to Ohio. Thank goodness it was a direct flight--he cut off my circulation sleeping for the first hour, and then wouldn't stop moving and wiggling for the next two, and of course I was seated next to the disapproving middle-aged man instead of a cooing grandma. At least I had an aisle seat. We survived, though, and Victor ended up with another tooth by Tuesday night! My mom and Damian continued the long boring drive through hundreds of miles of corn. They were able to keep going longer in a day than Victor was, and made it to Akron by Thursday for dinner!

Good timing on their part, because the movers were ready for us bright and early on Friday morning once again! So by Friday the 27th, we had our cars, our stuff, our apartment, and our family back together once again.

At this point we're about as moved in as we're going to get. We have a month-to-month lease in hopes of acquiring a house before too long. That means we still have a bunch of boxes we haven't opened sitting in our new living room. The good news is that we've already found a house we like! Now if only we were making money, maybe we could put an offer in on it... ;)

Damian starts his new job on Tuesday the 7th. In the meantime, we've been enjoying the hospitality of my parents and sister. Unfortunately, we all came down with colds soon after Damian arrived. Victor has been a trooper through it, even staying cheerful and determined to play as hard as usual despite the stuffy nose. I'm finally feeling better, but he still gets congested sometimes, so I'm hoping he just has some lingering symptoms rather than Damian's full blown ragweed allergies.

Victor is supposed to get his 6 month shots next week (6 months on Sunday, can you believe it???) but we're still trying to get some interim health insurance coverage before we go. We have until the end of the month to get them, so hopefully we should be set before then. Damian's full blown health insurance doesn't start until November, of course. I still need to find a pediatrician first!

Well now that we have our internet hooked up I'll hopefully be able to post more often. Should be lots of exciting news coming soon!

Serious disease

Victor has a terrible condition known as "wiggleworminthepantsitis." It causes wild flapping of the arms and legs, and occasionally the blowing of spit bubbles. People around the victims of this disease are often inspired to make silly monkey noises and sympathetic arm flaps of their own; this is normal when witnessing a flare up of wiggleworminthepantsitis. There is no known cure. However, it is hilarious.

Packing

My mom just left yesterday, and thank goodness she was here--she got us off to a great start with our packing, in addition to her usual delightful presence! I was left with Victor today, and it was a lot harder to get things done. He did take a long nap, though, so I got a few boxes packed up. Up to a count of 11 for boxes of books alone! (Not just today's work, today I only got 4 boxes). Mr. Victor seems unfazed by the move for the most part, he just hates the sound of the tape dispenser.

Have I mentioned his "Victor kisses"? He opens his mouth wide and latches onto your chin (or jawbone, or occasionally the nose) then sucks and/or licks and/or bites in a very sloppy kind of way. If you're really lucky, he also grabs onto your hair on either side to keep things steady! So sloppy, and yet so cute ;)

Here's a picture of Victor helping his mommy pack. Good thing he folds up for easy storage!