Danny Got Married!

April 23rd-29th, 2012

What a cutie!

As you may remember, I was invited to play basketball with some moms at the church. Monday was my first day to play with them and first time touching a basketball in 18 months. I shot surprisingly well and had fun, other than feeling terribly that Caleb was crying the majority of the time. The other kids tried to cheer him up but he wanted to be held. As a result, Caleb cried any time I put him down the rest of the day... while I showered, when I tried to put him in the stroller for a walk, etc.

Hiding under the quilt when I came in to get him in the morning.

 Caleb is super inquisitive. He wants to grab everything and while he's grabbing one thing, he's looking for something else to grab. See the example below:

Ooh... shiny knobs. Must grab!

Luckily the mirror keeps him from pulling himself all the way out of the tub 

These pictures don't show him then grabbing the hand soap because I had to take it away before he put it in his mouth.

Caleb likes to sleep up against the edges of his crib. It must be genetic because I used to sleep up against the wall when I was little. I did it because I was scared of bad guys and thought if I could wedge myself between the bed and the wall then they wouldn't be able to find me.

Standing on Dad's face!

Dad imitating Caleb.

Caleb's first time using a spoon by himself. Not feeding himself, but just exploring the spoon. 

We bought Caleb a swimming suit! 

What a big boy!

When Caleb doesn't sleep up against the side of the crib, this is his favorite sleeping position... on knees and face.

 Then, the rest of our week was in Utah for Allen's brother, Danny's wedding.

Getting our wiggles out before the plane ride. This angle makes Caleb's head look teeny on a huge body!

 The day before Danny's wedding, we all (minus Mike, who had to go back to work after Mama Chu's) went to the park to play tennis.

Caleb and Caroline swinging with Grandpa and Sam.

 Sadly, I took no pictures with Danny or Brittany, whose big event made my fortune cookie come true. (Explanation: Allen went out to eat Chinese food the week before we went to Utah for the wedding and brought me home a fortune cookie, which read, "An enjoyable vacation is awaiting you near the mountains." Allen's cookie said, "A pleasant surprise is in store for you soon." Still not sure what it was referring to...)

 We didn't take any pictures at the temple either, but it was beautiful and cold and a success! Brittany looked beautiful (and Danny did too). Their reception was packed and had yummy sandwiches.

Caleb wouldn't leave my necklace alone so I had to take it off after this picture. And I don't think I'll be wearing necklaces again for a while.

On our way home on Sunday afternoon I was pleasantly surprised to find a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory store right next to our departure gate! Maybe that was Allen's fortune cookie coming true for me! I LOVE their caramel apples. That is probably my favorite dessert ever. I told Allen that he can get me that instead of flowers any time, but they don't have them here.

Getting wiggles out at the airport again. But Caleb likes the diaper bag's buckles more than his toys.

Just another week, with lots of videos and pictures

April 16-22, 2012

Caleb likes to play with his food. He blows raspberries with his pureed food and sprays it everywhere. He grabs and squishes when he's nursing and sprays milk everywhere. He also tries to do sit-ups while nursing... it doesn't work very well. 

Exhibit A: he just squirted himself with milk

He gargles his spit in the back of his throat and kind of sings as he does it. I haven't gotten this on video yet but it's pretty funny! But here's a video of Caleb playing catch (sort of).

While nursing Caleb, I usually read or play games on my iPod but he always reaches back and grabs it. Sometimes he gets it with his hand, other times he hits it with his elbow, causing me to "like" things on facebook or accidentally go to a link I didn't mean to go to. If he sees me not looking at him, he looks to see what I'm looking at... the iPod, the fan, the window, etc. But if I look right at him, he stops eating and starts smiling and talking.

I went to the bathroom and heard a thud. I came back to the bedroom to find Caleb had kicked the fan over and then was crawling on top of it. I'm glad it wasn't on.

I couldn't get a picture of it, but this week Caleb managed to get his toe in his mouth while sitting in his bumbo! I didn't know it was possible, but he did it and got sweet potato all over his sock.

The nasty vitamin made Caleb gag when I fed it to him. I guess it didn't mix well with avocado... he kept gagging and it looked like he was going to throw up everywhere so I stopped feeding it to him. Let's be honest, it would have made me throw up too. I wouldn't even try it.

Here's a really cute video of Caleb playing peek-a-boo with Grammy on Skype.

Since I didn't run while we were in Utah, this week I was getting back into it and Caleb was a great motivator: he cried whenever I stopped running and walked.

Caleb knows what he wants and does whatever he can to get to what he wants. In this example, he was trying to get to the fan's cord. I put the boppy pillow in the way... he just crawled over it.

Thursday morning I went to an Old Testament institute (Bible study) class at the church. I was a little apprehensive about going because I didn't know how quiet Caleb would be or if there would be any other moms with kids there. As I got out of the car, I was happy to see a mom in basketball shorts carrying a kid into the church. I was worried I wouldn't be dressed up enough in my T-shirt, jeans and flip flops... when I got into institute, she was nowhere to be seen.

So I followed the sound of the basketball to the gym. Lo and behold, moms playing basketball! It turns out that a bunch of women get together twice a week and play ball. They're good too! The kids play/cry in the chapel overflow connected to the gym. They invited me to come play next time.

My baby's getting chubby!

Caleb is good at finding his binky in his crib and puts it back in... sometimes backwards. He is usually happy in the morning but on Friday when I went in to get him, he was laying on his stomach, crying, looking between the crib slats, staring at his binky that had fallen on the floor.

Caleb chilling in his crib in the morning.

Caleb sleeps best on his belly but won't let me put him in the crib like that, he has to roll over on his own.

He's so cute that I can't resist taking a picture when I go in to check on him before I go to bed.

Caleb still doesn't like naps. He lays there holding his eyes open forever. Any time I move, like I'm going to put him in his crib, he immediately opens his eyes again.

Here's a video of Caleb doing his "pick me up" move.

On Wednesday I was doing laundry and found a large cockroach leg on the washing machine. It was gross but I left it there to remind me to ask Allen if he had killed a cockroach and if I needed to be aware of possible cockroach infestation. I forgot to ask him but on Thursday I found, not only a cockroach leg, but part of the face of a cockroach. Sick.

Saturday I finally remembered to ask Allen and brought him in to see the evidence. We have not seen a single cockroach in our house previous to this (or since) and are hoping it was a gecko that found it and ate it. That is our favorite solution to the mysterious, randomly appearing cockroach body parts.

Caleb watched Sesame Street for the first time and loved it!

Watching Sesame Street with Mom

Perched up on the couch

The last Sesame Street-watching angle.

Pampers 12 Hours Baby Dry are not enough to contain our little boy at night. In twelve hours, he has completely peed through the diaper, his clothes, the sheet, his blankets and the mattress pad. The problem is that I'm so tired during the night that I don't want to get him more riled up by changing his diaper because then it takes so long to get him back to sleep after he eats.

Caleb likes to read.

Caleb fake coughs all of the time. I don't know if he's just doing it for attention or what... it's not like he doesn't have attention all of the time already! He likes to rip newspapers apart and tries to rip apart his blankets, washcloths and burp rags the same way he does the newspaper ads in this video.

I found the jackpot! 

Hey Mom... it wasn't me!

Caleb loves his bath toys. He always chews on them but he made it squeak by chewing on hit for the first time. It surprised him a little. He has also decided that whenever I am washing his face, the washcloth needs to be eaten and sucked on. Hopefully our soap is tear-free when ingested too... Here is a video of him playing with one of his bath toys.

After bath time

We may need to get Caleb a new car seat soon. His is supposed to last a long time, up to 30 pounds. Unfortunately, he is probably going to outgrow it before he hits 20 pounds. He's 17.5 lbs and is already so long that the straps barely reach far enough to buckle him in. By the time we're done at the grocery store, his diaper is no longer dry and so it is really a tight squeeze!

We are always glad when Daddy comes home from work. Here's a video of Daddy and Caleb playing.

Six months old!

April 9-15, 2012

What a cute little man!

Caleb rolls and scoots from toy to toy so quickly! He will be so focused on playing with a toy and then all of the sudden, I look at him and he is pressing all of the keys on my laptop or trying to pull the cord out of the wall or trying to chew on the cord. I'm in trouble once he figures out how to crawl, he is already so fast! He rolls around in his sleep too and wakes himself up when he runs in to the bars of the crib. I didn't make/get bumper pads because of all of the warnings about SIDS but now I think I need to get some because he keeps hitting his head on the crib.

A picture from about a month ago, but Caleb still does this. He rolls over to the quilt draped on the crib and plays with it. How can he resist all of the bright colors?!

Another picture from a month ago... we roll up a blanket and lay it around him because he likes to nuzzle his face into it at night. He has started to unroll it and cover his face up.

He sits up really well when he wants to. He can stay up for a few minutes with some wobbling but without tipping over unless he decides he wants to lay down while chewing on his toy. My favorite is when he is sitting up while skyping with the grandparents and then he all of the sudden lunges forward on to the laptop! I have to have my arms in ready position to catch him so he doesn't break it or hurt himself.

Here he is playing peek-a-boo with Grammy on Skype

Then he looks away from Skype and gives Mom a big smile!

Caleb is a really good "solid" eater now! He downed three ice cubes worth of sweet potato, avocado and apple one day at dinner. It almost all went in his mouth and he was even licking it off of his lips and was ready to eat more if I would let him. I nursed him to top him off because I was worried how his little digestive system would handle that much food at once. I think he's going through a growth spurt! That, and he is back to waking up every 3 hours at night to eat. 

I had told some of my friends I would be on vacation but didn't even think about telling our neighbors, I didn't think any of them would even notice I was gone. Saturday we were working in the yard and the older man who lives next door came over and said that he had begun to worry about me. He said, "I started to think that something happened to you like that woman from Utah whose husband took her camping..." (Susan Powell) I guess I'll let him know next time I go out of town!

This is Caleb asleep on the airplane.

My baby is half a year old! For his 6 month doctor's appointment we went to a different pediatrician and she is great! She is a mom of twins, she listened to my questions and answered them before she did the normal parts of the exam. She treated us as individuals instead of just cookie-cutter approaching us.

Caleb is 27.75" long (89%), 17 lb 7.5 oz (50%) and head circumference of        (99%). No wonder it has taken him a while to enjoy being on his stomach... with a head that size, it takes a lot of strength! When the doctor talked to us about Caleb's cow protein allergy, she asked how I was doing, which I really appreciated. I have a lot of questions and have been trying to just take care of them on my own.

Having just come back from Utah, where I wasn't at home and not in control as much as to what and when I ate, I had lost 5 more pounds and weighed less than I have since 7th or 8th grade. (I was still eating three meals a day, just not getting as many snacks in between as I needed.) I told that I keep getting sick and don't have the energy to exercise like I used to. I tried to go on a run while I was in Utah and couldn't make it more than a mile before I "hit the wall" (depleted my glycogen stores) which I had only had happen to me once in my life before having a baby and that was toward the end of an Olympic Triathlon.

She talked to me about gaining some weight back (which I had been trying to do) and putting Caleb on a multi-vitamin (it smells and tastes and looks like poop). I was also very grateful she didn't try to convince me to stop breastfeeding him or supplement him with formula.

She said that every couple of months I need to try eating some dairy to see if Caleb has outgrown the allergy yet. Most babies outgrow this allergy by 1 year old but are usually on a special formula, so their parents don't bother testing them to see at what point they have outgrown it. She said in my case, where I should not be off of dairy any longer than I have to, to start eating it again as soon as I can.

After a week of eating a lot, I was able to go on a three mile run today! I know I shouldn't complain about weight loss when most people are concerned with weight gain, but eating enough isn't easy or delicious when I can't eat all of the yummy fatty foods I would like... I'm getting sick of my snack foods that I've been eating every day, even Oreos!

Saturday was the day we celebrated our birthdays... Allen and I just celebrate in the middle of our birthdays (April 2 and 28th) but this year we didn't have cake since Caleb and I can't eat it. Instead of getting presents for one another, we went to the mall and each bought a new pair of jeans. Neither of us fit in to our old jeans. I get so excited when I get new clothes that I just want to wear them all of the time! I wore them around our house all Sunday after church.

Here are pictures from my ipod that I forgot to put in the last post about Utah: