8 months

Dearest baby Leo,

I am writing on the eve of your 8 month birthday and my 30th birthday.  Lots of changes going on in your life... you are scooting around like an inchworm (a fast one!) and you are pulling up on things like a champ.  You have even started using things like a box of diapers to aid you in walking!  You have tried to transfer from one object to another... i.e. the diaper box to a kitchen chair and you are getting better at holding on to whatever you are using for support!  You also just started letting go of things and just falling towards where you want to go... that may work for crawling buddy, but it is quite dangerous for walking. : /

Little inchworm

Wearing the hat Mama made while helping pack up things that are too small...

Your current favorite things are... eating frozen bananas in your silicone feeder, listening to an Itsy Bitsy Spider, and you haven't told us yet but I'm pretty sure your favorite color is purple ; )

and swinging never fails to get a smile : )

Transferring from a diaper box to a chair is tricky business...

 We have had your Mimi and Nana and Pap up to visit this past month.  Mimi came on the 20th of August and left Sept 10th. While your Nana and Pap came on Sept. 7th and are leaving on Sept 21st (tomorrow). Our friends Julia and Darren will be visiting us on Sunday too so LOTS of east coast visitors!

Sportin' the Gator gear

 

At Pendleton Rodeo, you were very interested in the horses and kept smiling throughout the long day even though it was in the upper 90s while we were there and it was VERY noisy.

Not sure about this rodeo clown...

but I LOVE the rodeo!

 

 Lake Wallowa was relaxing with time to hang out on the sandy shores of the glacial mountain lake. 

 

 

On our way back we had to take lots of breaks to get you out of that car seat.  Despite a total of almost 7 hours in the car and an entire 12 hour day, you did an AMAZING job! So proud of you my little man!

He loved this.... kept on smiling at it and yelling.

Thinking about climbing the wall to get to the TV

We have had a lot of fun hanging out around the house, going out to eat, going to Pendleton Rodeo, and to Lake Wallowa.  I love watching you with your grandparents... you light up! Even though you don't see them everyday, it is obvious that you know they are different.. that they are extra special to you.  I can see what a wonderful relationship you will share with them and I rejoice in it.  As your mom, I want you to have as many strong and secure relationships as you can get so that you will grow up strong and secure in who you are.  I also want you to know the wonderful people that raised your dad and I (because we are so wonderful) ; )

Happy Birthday Mom and Dad... you are officially old!

I can't believe you are 8 months, that you are learning so many new things and so quickly.  I feel like if I blink you will be a one year old.  Wish I could press the pause button on life sometimes...

Love,

Mama 

  

7 months

Dearest baby Leo,

You are 7 months now... You are growing so fast, learning so many new things.  I love to see it all but I also miss the tiny little thing you once were, even your Daddy gets it now.  Once when you were almost 3 months I was getting teary-eyed over how big you were getting and your daddy laughed at me, but now... NOW he understands and sees how bittersweet it is to watch your child grow up.  I'm sure neither of us fully grasp how hard it will be when you go to school for the first time, your first time away from home, and whenever you move out.  It is hard to be a parent in more ways then one...

 

You are getting ready to crawl and are pulling up on whatever you can get your hands on.  You are still rather clumsy about pulling up but you are getting better and better.  Crawling seems to be just around the corner as you are constantly getting up on your hands and knees and rocking back and forth.  Plus you try to move forward with your legs but you're still trying to figure out how to move your arms.  You can be very serious and contemplative but you also love to smile and your laugh is just pure joy bubbling up from your soul.  I love you in all your moods; although some are more trying then others. ;) 

I think you understand a few words now... You definitely know your name and you react every time I ask if you are hungry.  I haven't pinpointed any other specific words or phrases but I feel more and more that you KNOW what is being said and what is going on.  You are no longer a mere observer in this world...

What does this next month hold for us my dear, dear baby?
Gator season has started!







Certainly many visitors... Mimi just got here and Nana and Pap are coming soon!
Our friends Julia and Darren are coming here too but right when you turn 8 months and when your mama turns 30!  Of course your Dada will have been 30 for AWHILE...3 whole days! ;)
Learning how to sleep is still going on... you are pretty good about going to sleep on your own now BUT we have had some hiccups so we haven't been able to be as consistent as I would like. Between diarrhea and colds, we have to check on you ALOT and pick you up and continue to feed you.  We have weaned you off of one of your five night-time feeds (the 9:30 pm) one.  The next one to tackle is your 1:30 am feed then I might try the 4:00 am feed which would theoretically put me between five and 6 hours of solid sleep per night with the option to sleep before the 11:30 feed.   
So far you have had some solids but we slowed down on the new introductions so that I can reintroduce dairy into my diet and see how that goes... your menu so far consists of (from first introduced to the last)
watermelon
cantaloupe
brown rice cereal
pears
sweet potatoes
unsweetened applesauce
bananas
toast
Carrots and the dairy are the next items... after that probably avocado and mango. Then when you hit 8 months we can step it up some... eggs, beans, lean meats, maybe even some peanut butter!  Yum!  Our Dr. said some exposure to allergenic foods may help keep an allergy from developing later on... of course we will be extra careful and watchful about those foods.
I love you Leo and love seeing you grow day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute... I treasure these times I get to spend with you. :) Hard to believe how quickly time flys...

Love Always,

Mamamamama

Thoughts on this Mom thing... Written a few months ago

I have always wanted to be a mom.  I used to pretend I had kids all the time.  My love for children grew into lots of baby-sitting jobs and I guess once I had to manage real children I just figured parenthood would be like an extended baby-sitting job. HA!  I forgot that the parents used to tell me how their child needed to be cared for, when things happened, what to feed them... I was so not prepared for the major decisions you have to make for your little one right from the start.  I guess I got lost in my pregnancy and birth that I forgot there was a whole extra scenario afterwards.  I mean I obviously thought about it some but in the fun rainbows and butterflies way not the breastfeeding hardships, reflux/allergy issues, bouncing on a yoga ball constantly, trying to figure out when naps needed to happen... etc.

Motherhood is not as easy as I would have appreciated ;-) but I still love being a mom.  Getting smiles and giggles are the best and when he snuggles up next to me I can (most of the time) forget how tired (or hungry or dirty) I am and just enjoy the moment.  Nobody ever said it was going to be easy but I guess I didn't hear that part... selective hearing. 

Counting Sheep

So here we are with a 6 month old that doesn't sleep enough. If you don't believe me check out his average schedule below.  I will also include his sometimes schedule...

Bedtime- 7:15 pm
Wake- 10:30 pm (feed)
Wake- 12:00 am (feed and join us in bed)
Wake- 2 or 3 times to feed before 6:00 am (so lets just say every 1 1/2-2 hrs)
Wake- 6am -diaper change & feed- (occasionally a little playtime if he slept well)
Wake-7 am
Wake- 8 am (feed) up for the day-unless he was up all night then he goes back to sleep
Nap- 9:30 am 
Wake- 10:30 am
Nap- 12:30 pm
Wake- 1:30 pm
Nap- 4:00 pm
Wake- 5:00 pm
Bedtime-7:15 pm

So first thing...I am being very generous in my estimation of his naps here.  They are usually closer to an hour each with an occasional 2 hr nap sometime during the day.  Leo's napping has gotten much MUCH better since we moved and we have blackout curtains and the rocking chair in his room.  Thank goodness!  The 45 mins of bouncing (while breastfeeding) on a yoga ball to get just 20 mins of a nap out of him was exhausting and ridiculous and often fruitless.
Second, most nights I am able to only wake long enough to turn over so he can eat in the midnight-6am portion but then there are the OTHER nights (usually on weeknights when I am the only parent on duty) when Leo decides that he just isn't happy eating and going back to sleep he wants to be rocked/bounced/walked until he falls back asleep.   I usually get an hour and a half of sleep to an hour of holding baby :-/  Those are the nights when I just want to cry.  It is also those nights (and the incredible frequency of those nights) that have led me to my decision to teach Leo how to sleep...

I am currently using Sleepeasy Solutions for Exhausted Parents as a guideline but it basically sounds like a combination of other cry-it out methods.  Yes...it is a cry-it-out method : /  Not the direction I want to take with him but he needs to sleep better and so do I... if I am going to be the parent I want to be.  I like the idea that Leo will be learning how to put himself to sleep and finding ways to self-soothe, I don't like listening to him cry and I don't like that I am not supposed to let him fall asleep while eating or while being held.  Pretty soon my little boy is going to be moving all over the place and he isn't going to want to be held during the day and I will be giving up nights as well.  It makes me want to cry just thinking about it.  So I think I will be having the greatest difficulty with this process or at least I hope so.

I hope Leo surprises me and figures self-soothing out quickly, with minimal crying but I doubt it. This is going to be hard regardless.  Our plan was to start this weekend but now will have to wait another week till Leo is better (he has a cold right now).  Keep us in your prayers as we try to learn (as parents) how to step back and let our child struggle with one of his first great hurdles.  I'm pretty sure it will break my heart...

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I wrote the above last week... we decided to start sleep training this week and set the date for Thursday Aug. 9, 2013, which was last night.  We borrowed my sister Emily's awesome video monitor and prepared for the worst.

So here is our results for the first night and day (naps)

Bedtime 7:00
Cried when put down
1st check in- 7:05
2nd check in- 7:10
Asleep at 7:17 pm!

Wow... were we surprised and definitely hesitant to say anything about it for fear of jinxing it.  Even now I hope that not saying it aloud (just writing it) will be okay.  I am weaning him off of night feeds so I am doing something called a dream feed and cutting the time feeding him by 2 mins each night.  Basically, it means I go in there before he wakes up for his usual feeding, and I feed him without him ever really waking up.

Dream feed- 9:00 pm (8 mins)
Dream feed- 11:00 pm (8 mins)
Wake- 1:57 am
1st check in- Didn't happen! He got quiet before the 5 min check in and was asleep at 7 mins.
Dream feed- 3:04 am
Wake- 5:45 am
1st check in- 5:50 am
2nd check in- 6:00 am
At which point he fell into a restless sleep so I watched him for a bit then fell back to sleep myself.
Wake- 7:07 am
Since it had been over 12 hours (had to be at least 11 hours) I went and got him and realized he had pooped and it had leaked all over his shirt.  Poor thing had been laying in it for an hour : (  I felt horrible.
It took awhile to clean everything up (almost an hour) than I started playing with Leo so that we could make it to the 2 hour time span the book recommended between wake up and the first nap but while I was playing with him the poor little guy started falling asleep on the floor.  I decided to "throw the book out the window" on this part and put him down to sleep early.  He cried for 10 mins that was at 8:46.
Wake- 10:00 am
Nap- 12:30 pm
1st check in- 12:35 pm
2nd check in- 12:45 pm
3rd check in- 12:55 pm
(This was a very hard nap and broke my heart to see and hear him crying so much)
Asleep 1:10 pm
Wake 1:40 pm
Nap- 4:25 pm (fell asleep)
Wake- 5:00 pm

End of night and day 1! Whew!

Tonight Leo went down at 7:40 pm (He had two poopy diapers while I was trying to feed him so we were late.) and only cried for about 2 seconds!  I hope (fingers crossed) that this will be the worst of it but I somehow can't fully believe that.  Dream feeds are continuing tonight at 6 minutes a piece and hopefully tomorrow morning will go well.  Naps (I am sure) will continue to be difficult but I have hope that they will get better.  

So I am going basically "by the book" in our scheduling and methods except in two things 1) I am not always putting him down completely awake because 2) I am letting him fall asleep on the breast.  The book wants you to rouse the baby every time you see them falling asleep while feeding well I am just not cool with that.  I feel like that would be very annoying (from Leo's perspective) and I don't want him to associate being rudely awakened with feeding... another mother from my mom's group said she had been doing that and the sleep learning had still been going smoothly.  SO glad I talked to her as it doesn't seem to be making Leo's time more difficult.

On another note...

The last weekend in July there was an air show at the Hillsboro Airport which is 5 mins from our apartment.  We had some pretty good views of the happenings from our apartment and on Sunday we laid out a blanket in the patch of grass by our porch and played with Leo (who was ready to watch the planes) but we got out there after the show was over. : /  Here are some pictures from our time outside...

 Well, I'm off!  Hope you learned something new and/or enjoyed the post and pictures : )