9 Month Check-up

July 16-22, 2012

This is how Caleb looks when he's yell-talking: "baa baa baa baa" or just "aaaaaaaahh"

Our little explorer loves banging on the toilet lid and tried climbing into dresser drawer and up the dresser. I always have to remember to close the dresser drawers and the toilet lid. He also loves jumping in his crib while holding onto the rail. I need to lower the mattress. 

He also loves to dump out the trash in the bathroom. One day I found him chewing on a used Q-tip ... sick.

Monday he didn't nap once all day. He fussed anytime we were home. He was happy when we went on a run, to the pool, to Walmart, and to the church to play with Cathryn and Luke in the nursery. But as soon as we got home, he would cry and yell. It was our first time to the pool in over a week because of all of the rain.

 Tuesday was Caleb's 9 month doctor appointment. He didn't get upset at all when the nurse pricked his finger prick and drew blood from it to fill a couple of little vials. In fact, he kept smiling, talking and flirting with the nurse and she input his weight wrong and forgot to enter head circumference. The doctor was confused when she came in. I just gave her the right numbers and laughed.

He loves the swing

Here are his stats: Height - 29.25" (79%)  Weight - 18 lb 12 oz (19%)  Head circ - 18.75" (96%)
The verdict: he's still tall, skinny, with a large head.

The doctor seemed concerned he isn't clapping or waving and says we need to make sure he's communicating with his hands. I'm not worried at all. He plays games with his hands and has good manual dexterity. He also understands and responds to certain words: jump, kick, gentle, milk, food, more, outside, all done, up, sleep, bath. If we aren't sure what he wants, we will go through the list and he uses his "excited hands" to let us know when we've guessed right. He's got a suck that shows he wants milk (to nurse), a different one to indicate that he wants a drink (apple juice), and he reaches for whatever food he wants.

She also said he is anemic. She said I have to give him iron, but it makes him constipated. So she gave us anticonstipation medicine but that makes his tummy hurt. She also gave the okay to eat all foods, unless it's something he'll choke on.

I told her I thought my milk supply was starting to dwindle and she told me I need to gain weight. She told me to eat ice cream and pizza and to share it with Caleb since she says he could use some weight gain too. I told her that I do eat ice cream almost every day. I'm not sure if she believed me. It's mentally harder to gain weight than it is physically, especially since I'm back to a healthy weight for me (after being too skinny when Caleb couldn't have dairy). Anyway... Caleb won't take a bottle but we're going to try to get him to use a sippy cup more and start supplementing him with formula.

He still loves to read his books.

Friday night we had about a dozen 8-11 year-old girls over to our house for an activity days "slumber party". Everyone wore their PJs, we ate pancakes (The girls loved that, especially since they could put strawberries, whipped cream, powdered sugar and chocolate syrup on them.), sang karaoke, painted fingernails/toenails (only ruined our kitchen table a little bit), and played Twister. After a couple of hours of that many little girls, I think Allen was re-thinking if he wants to have a daughter in the future. :) Just kidding! But it was exhausting. And loud.

Saturday we went to the park as a family. After swinging in the baby swing, Caleb took turns swinging on our laps. 

I've been running every day again and it feels good to not be a slacker anymore. I've also still been helping my friend with her back twice a week. Her teenage daughter plays with Caleb while I work on her back and this week she brought me cookies to say thank you for letting her play with Caleb and for helping with her mom's back. She is so sweet and so good with Caleb! He is such a momma's boy, he makes her work hard to entertain him enough to not come crawling to me.

I'm not sure what else happened during the week. It is all a blur, but I'm sure it was exciting, as usual.

Nose biting and standing in his crib

Allen is going to be at a work party until late tonight, Caleb's in bed, the kitchen is a disaster, there are lots of weeds to pull, laundry to do but I finally have a minute that I can blog so I'm going to try my best to ignore everything else and have some "me" time. We'll see how many weeks I can catch up on in the next hour or two!

Check on those sweet new kicks! And his tan legs.

July 9-15, 2012
Caleb has been getting a bath in sink after almost every meal because he is so covered in food. One day he pooped at the end of his meal, so I was just going to rinse his arms and face off in the sink before going to change his diaper. He had other plans... he wiggled out of my arms, right into the sink. So he had a bath in his clothes and dirty diaper for a few minutes until I thought the diaper was going to explode and cause a big mess.
The sink bath pictures are on my phone, which I haven't put on my computer in a long time, so normal bath pictures will have to work.

Caleb loves giving kisses and drools all over my face when he does. This week he started something new in addition to the drooly kisses: he distracts me with large amounts of drool in my mouth and eyes and when I least expect it, he bites my nose and laughs!

Allen had another busy work week. Monday night Caleb and I had to drive downtown late at night to pick him up. He probably doesn't want me to write this, but there was a lot of work stress/drama that was very frustrating for him, this week in particular. I don't like when Allen is unhappy with work . . . hopefully things will change as things slow down and everyone in the office is under less stress.

Caleb has been practicing kneeling in his crib and I think it is partly what is keeping him up when he wakes up at night. By Wednesday, he had progressed from kneeling in his crib to standing in it every time I went to get him out.

Chowing down on watermelon

We had some more Bumbo fun this week; Caleb flipped it all the way backwards during dinner. Allen was feeding Caleb and I was farther away but as soon as I saw him tipping, I made the loudest gasp (that scared everyone more than the actual flipover did) as I dove to try to save him. Allen grabbed the tray before I did so I don't even think Caleb's head hit the table, but it sure made my heart race.

It's hard to tell from his face, but he loves it.

The weather cooled down a lot this week with lots of storms so we didn't get to go to the pool. Our scheduled changed to inside while it rained, go on a walk during the break from the rain, more rain, another walk, rain, another walk, and more rain.

Caleb no longer crawls around us to get what he wants. He does a seal dive over us to get to whatever he wants... unless it's something he knows he isn't supposed to have. Then he tries his hardest to get around me without me noticing that he is going to get the computer cords or fan.

We bought a piano! We found a nice Yamaha Clavinova on Woodlands Online for a great price so we went to look at it on Saturday and ended up driving home with it since the guy selling it had a truck. Unfortunately it started downpouring on our way home. Allen and the piano seller guy had covered it with a tarp but the last half of the drive home, I was freaking out, thinking that we just bought a piano that would probably be broken by the time it got to our house!

We have to take turns playing . . .

. . .because we're all so excited to have a piano now!

Caleb loves playing! I just have to remind him that we don't play the piano with our feet.

We dried it off as well as we could and blew a fan on it for a couple of hours before plugging it in and it worked! We love having a piano in our home again! We had church song books but needed some other things to play so we bought a Disney book, Broadway book and book of piano classics. It felt great to just sit down and play.

Since the piano music store was right next to Famous Footwear, we went in to buy Caleb some shoes. And what beautiful shoes they are! We bought two pairs and I love them both! We bought one size 5 and the other size 6, since he doesn't need more than one pair now, but I couldn't pass up on either pair.

The new shoes. Just wait until you see the other pair, they are amazing.

On Saturday, for the first time in . . . probably 15 months . . . I went on a run by myself. (If you're doing the math, Caleb is only 9 months old but I couldn't run during most of the pregnancy.) I felt so free. I didn't have to push a stroller. I only ran 2.5-3 miles but I did a lot of sprints at the end and it felt sooo good! I also found an iPhone toward the beginning of the run and found the owner a few minutes later. It felt good to return that too. She was very grateful and it made me feel good.

So, Allen and I watched ESPN's 101 celebration fails and laughed through the whole thing. After it was over, I went to take a nap and Allen went in to the bathroom. The next thing I knew, Allen was flying through the air to bodyslam me, and it was like I was watching a replay of one of those celebration fails: I tried not to flinch so I wouldn't hurt him, but he landed with his quad directly on my bent knee and instead of a victorious body slam, he was rolling in pain from getting a dead leg. It was definitely more funny in person than me trying to recreate the moment here, but I wrote it to help me remember it and give me something to tease Allen about later.

Caleb likes exploring. Here are some pictures of him exploring things in our house.

Uh-oh! Don't look Mom, I'm not getting the blinds again.

Caleb's favorite game to play with Dad: he shoves his face into the mattress/pillow/couch/floor to hide from Dad. Then when Dad tickles him or kisses him, he squeals. Then he buries his face again for Dad to come get him again. It is really cute! I started filming too late so I missed getting the game on film, but I got some cute footage of Caleb laughing as Dad gives him wuzzles and kisses.

I think I wrote last week that I've been helping a friend from church with her back. This week she got her MRI results back and she does have a herniated disc, and has probably had it for the past seven years. This has made me think a lot about the mental aspect of pain and healing. She had been improving a lot and was feeling much better from the first time I saw her and gave her hope that she probably wouldn't have to have surgery.

Nothing changed in her routine, but over a two day period from when I saw her and she got her results and I saw her again, her condition was drastically different. She was back to very limited mobility, pain with all movement and even without any movement. By the end of our visit, she was hopeful again as I reassured her that she had been making such great progress and could probably avoid surgery. She can't get in to see a neurosurgeon for close to a month, so we made a goal to have her doing much better by the time she sees him, so he will hopefully recommend a non-surgical route. Hope brings pain relief and improvement, lack of hope brings fear and further disability . . .

Let Freedom Ring

Patriotic family picture on the fourth of July, with Caleb looking at Dad instead of the camera.

Allen trying to get Caleb to look at the camera . . . and we caught him mid-snap. We were literally rolling on the floor laughing when we saw the picture! We told Caleb we'd explain why it was so funny when he's older.

And then Caleb was done sitting and still was not going to look at the camera.

July 2-8, 2012
Bumbo fun this week:

-Caleb tipped it over on its side while reaching to get more puffs or his apple juice and bonked his head. 

-Caleb has figured out how to pull the tray off.

-He hits the tray and watches the food bounce off of it and laughs.

-He splashes in the spilled food on the tray and sticks his face in it.

Caleb is still as fascinated with hands as ever. He imitates how I make a fist, one time with the thumb out and the next time with his thumb in. He often grabs my hand to open and close it for me, alternating when he shoves my thumb in before closing my fist around it. I think he's going to be a hand surgeon if he keeps this up.

Caleb's hand fascination now.

Flashback to Caleb's hand fascination at 9 weeks old.

Flashback to Caleb's hand fascination at a few days old.

Top right picture: Flashback to hand fascination in the womb.

His new hand discovery of the week is that his fingers fit nicely up Mom and Dad's nostrils. He sneak attacks all the time too! You'll just be playing with him and then . . . BAM! you get hit with a sharp, pokey fingernail as high up your nostril as it can go, which is pretty far!

I think last week I wrote about how Caleb likes to push his forehead up against Allen's and my foreheads and then talk. This week he did it to himself in the mirror (sometimes hitting his head against the mirror harder than he anticipated, I think) and he also did it to Grammy on skype!

The fourth of July was different this year without family to celebrate with and since Allen ended up working 7 hours. He was supposed to have a half day on July 3rd, but that didn't happen either. We did watch half of Independence Day that night before we got too tired to stay up any later (it was probably only 10 pm). 

We're so patriotic . . .

. . . in our red, white and blues.

Luckily, when Caleb and I were on our morning walk on the 4th, my friend Cathryn was on her run and stopped to talk for a minute. When she heard we didn't really have any plans, she invited us over for their barbecue. Allen took a break from working around 1:30 pm, so we went to the pool for an hour before heading over to the barbecue. She had made tons of delicious food! I was so stuffed when we left . . . and she sent us home with lots of leftovers! Being with friends and eating good food made it seem more like a holiday than just any other day. 

Picture of what we made with the delicious leftover burger and bacon... mmm!

We had planned to go watch fireworks with some friends but Caleb was exhausted by 7 pm and wasn't going to last until they started at 9 pm. We heard the fireworks and went on our roof but couldn't see enough to make it worth staying up there, so we went back downstairs for Allen to work and me to input our budget info from June. Even though Allen had to work, it was still fun to have him work from home so we could spend time with him while he worked. 

Thursday morning Caleb decided he didn't want to nurse. Then again around noon, would not nurse. A few hours later, would not nurse. I went to activity days and he was happy to play on the floor, watching all of the girls do their skits. On the car ride home he was screaming and tired and hungry so I thought he would eat when we got home and fall asleep . . . no such luck! By that point, I was so full that I was hurting bad and having him just scream and fuss and not eat was frustrating. He eventually fell asleep but my pump does not suck as well as Caleb does. Dang nursing strike caused a plugged duct that was painful, red and swollen for the next few days. 

Luckily the next morning Caleb ended his nursing strike, but only when I would let him nurse sitting up all the way and would only nurse on the side with the plugged duct if I let him stand up. I did get a picture of that to show Allen but it is inappropriate for this G-rated blog. :)

It's not summer without delicious watermelon. Here is Caleb "eating" watermelon for the first time.

Caleb likes to be chased. He will crawl to the computer (because he knows I will come grab him before he gets to it) and when he gets close, will look back to see if I'm coming. If I'm coming to get him, he will turn back toward the computer and squeal as I get him. Sometimes when he sees Allen or I coming to get him, instead of running away, he crawls as quickly as he can toward us. 

Caleb likes to try everything, but as you may have seen in the video of the watermelon, he usually spits it out if it's a new texture. He only choked on the lettuce once in ten minutes of gnawing on it. 

On Saturday we went with the primary children from our church to perform a patriotic program at a senior center. The kids from our class did a great job singing Texas, Our Texas, with words that help indoctrinate the upcoming generations about the greatness of this great state and pass along the state pride. :) The old folks loved all of the cute kids and the songs, even the ones who only woke up for the finale.

Afterward Caleb, Allen and I went to a pool that we hadn't been to that was near the senior center. Here is a video of Caleb talking as he walks under the fountains. 

Caleb has been a talker for a while. He'll just talk and talk and talk, but almost always just vowels and gurgling. This week he perfected babababa. He usually says it with his tongue sticking out, so it's more of a bla-bla-bla, but still really cute. Except when it's really loud during the sacrament. And if I try to cover his mouth, he thinks that means keep making noise because at home I help him do a little indian (native american) yell, "ah-ah-ah-ah" by covering and then uncovering his mouth. (I was trying to be politically somewhat correct, but I think referring to that as an native american yell can probably be construed as racist anyway.) 

Anywho... so, when I cover his mouth, he doesn't know that it means be quiet. He thinks it means, yell louder! Oops. Unfortunately the binky was in the car (that's the usual plug to help him be quiet) and Allen had the car keys in his pocket on the stand, since he was the organist that day. Luckily, with a little bit of sign language, he knew to go get the binky from the car and come find me in the foyer after the sacrament was over.

In summary, Allen had a really busy work week, as can be seen by the fact that he worked full days on his day and a half off and during the weekend. This week I actually got to use some of my skills too! A woman in our ward hurt her back and had heard I could help. She came twice this week and we're making some headway on it.

This one may take a while since it has been hurting for several years and just recently got bad enough to go to the doctor, which she's been avoiding since she thought her only option would be back surgery and kept putting it off. This injury is requiring a lot of problem solving on my part, which is fun when we make progress. Her thirteen year-old daughter comes and plays with Caleb while I'm working on her mom's back. She is great with him! He, however, has been a momma's boy and keeps wanting me to hold him while he plays with her. This is very good for Caleb. He needs to be separated from me more. He does really well with other people if I'm out of sight, but if he can see me or hear me, he thinks he needs me.

One thing I forgot to mention last week: we were at the store and Caleb started fussing so I went to pull him out of the cart and he wasn't coming out. I looked down and he had some how gotten his leg in little slat next to the big leg hole! It took Allen and I close to a minute to maneuver his little leg out of there. I was just glad that Allen was there with me so I didn't have to ask a stranger to help me get Caleb out!

Just another week in paradise

 

June 25-July 1, 2012

Caleb stood up on his own this week! He pulled himself to a stand on Allen and then just let go and balanced there for about three seconds. Then he reached forward to hold onto Allen again. Then I got the camera to try to get it on video and this is what we ended up with . . .

Here is another falling video. Caleb was trying to crawl across my legs to get to the coffee table. He was doing a really good job until we starting getting a video of it.

We got Allen in to the doctor this week and it turns out he has pneumonia and an ear infection. He got a shot in his butt, antibiotics, steriods, more asthma medicine and codeine cough syrup to hopefully help him get better. Unfortunately he didn't get much sleep to help with the recovery. Things were really busy at work so he got up at 4:45 am to get in to the office early almost every morning and didn't get home until after 9 pm a couple of nights.

Caleb must have known Allen was getting up and leaving early because he decided that he needed to wake up at 4:30 every morning this week! At least we got to keep Dad company while he was getting ready. I think his poor sleeping was due to his teething. He is getting in his fifth tooth, the top left middle one.

One night while Allen was at the office late someone tried to get into our house. It scared me but after trying the front door for a little while, the person/people left. I called Allen and he told me to call the police. I felt dumb calling 911 because the people were gone, they didn't get into our house but the police officers were nice when they came.

On Friday Allen was not feeling well at all so he worked from home from 6 am - 1pm and then we went out to eat at Chuy's. I love their creamy jalapeno dip! After we got back he took a much needed nap mid-afternoon nap so he could be productive the rest of day. .

What a trooper . . . he has been working so hard even with how sick he has been and then even musters up enough energy to play with Caleb

I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again: Caleb really loves books. We spent at least an hour or two every day, reading/looking at books.  

Caleb will not drink out of a bottle, sippy cup or straw. We have tried multiple times over the past several weeks with different yummy drinks. No luck. But, he sure can chug apple juice out of my glass. When it's water he usually just blows bubbles in it or chews on the glass. He loves apple juice and wants me to give it to him every time he sees it in the fridge when I'm getting his food out. He drinks out of a glass so well, it amazes me!

Reading with Dad

I have decided that I need to harness Caleb's love of chores and release it again when he is old enough to help. Since he loves to walk around the house holding onto my fingers, he leads me wherever he wants to go. He frequently walks me to the closet we keep the vacuum in, sits down, opens the door (if it isn't closed completely) and crawls in, grabs the vacuum and looks back up at me with a big smile.

So... we vacuum at least three times a week. On rough days, sometimes more than once a day. He also loves the Pledge spray can I use when I dust and tries to get it every time we go in the laundry room, which is frequent because he likes to look at the washer and he knows that's where the Pledge is kept.

Even more frequent than his "asking" me to vacuum, are his whimpers to go outside. He walks to the front door and looks up expectantly. When we walk up the stairs, he lunges for the front door. When we're in the kitchen, he walks/crawls over to the back door and waits for me to open it. When we get outside he LOVES to grab the roses (on Saturday he ate a rosebud while Allen was holding him), he LOVES the fire hydrant (not sure why...), he LOVES sprinklers that are spraying water but he will NOT step on the grass. It is too rough and prickly. If I hold him over the grass he will just hold his legs up . . . I wish I had that kind of strength.

How can you say no to a face like that?! I can't. Luckily, he doesn't look so cute when he is crying :)

Caleb knows when he is being silly. One example of that is when he is eating: he will bite down on the spoon as I'm trying to pull it out. While biting on it, he laughs that adorable little baby laugh.

Caleb likes to dribble the soccer ball around our house. It's still more of a kick and chase than actual dribbling, but it's pretty cute and here's a video! (Disclaimer: Allen said he would have at least said excuse me if he knew this was going on youtube/the blog.)

I took a rubber soccer ball to the pool this week and Caleb thought it was funny when I would bounce it. Here is what happened when we showed Dad when he got home from work. This video is worth watching if like to hear babies laugh!

When Allen builds a tower for Caleb to knock down, he won't just knock the whole thing down. He systematically knocks down one level at a time.

It may not looks like a great picture, but I just love the way his little feet look when he is up on his knees. Every time I tried to take a picture, he would turn around and try to get the camera. I love his little feet and bum in crawling position!

Caleb stopped being such a picky eater this week. He ate peaches, pears, chicken noodle soup (thick baby-style), real rice, in addition to his normal sweet potatoes, peas and puffs.

One day I wanted to watch a movie and the only way to get Caleb to sit still to watch 10-20 minutes of it without chasing him around is to give him food. So I pulled out the goldfish and he kept chowing down on them. *Time out*

Side note: He eats goldfish one at a time and doesn't put the whole thing in at once. He holds it in his hand and bites one side of the tail off, then the other and then slowly gnaws at the rest until it is gone.

*Time in* After a few minutes, he pooped so I was took him upstairs to change his diaper and when I laid him down, he started laughing and I saw that the roof of his mouth was a solid chunk of goldfish! I stuck my finger in there to try to scrap it off and it was at least half a cm thick! Every time I stuck my finger in there was dangerous; his teeth are sharp!

Caleb understands more than I realize. Sunday morning we were letting Daddy sleep in (until 7:15) and then I said, "Let's go get Daddy!" And Caleb immediately pulled himself to a stand so I would walk with him and he ran to our bedroom door.

Another thing he is good at, is untying things. One morning I found a piece of yarn on the floor and found where it came from... untied the yarn in his quilt! He also likes to untie my shoes.

He loves his Dad. When we've all been downstairs together and Caleb starts to walk up the stairs with me, he always stops at the landing to see if Dad's coming before we go up the second half of the stairs.

We are still down to one car, with Allen's being out of commission, and Al usually has to drive to work, which leaves me car-less. It isn't a big deal because I have nowhere I need to go, except on Thursdays. My daily routine consists of: 1- walk and/or run in the morning (with the occasional stop at the park), 2- pool in the afternoon and 3- get the mail in the evening while we are anxious for Dad to get home and can't stand to wait inside any longer. Sometimes we even walk about a mile to hopefully meet him driving home, but usually we turn around and get back home before he does.

Other than those three activities, we clean/play around the house, eat, and, if we're lucky, nap. The pool is only half a mile away so even when I have the car, I just walk. But on Thursdays our pool is closed for cleaning so I need to go to one of the twelve other pools that our pass gets us into . . . that means, there is no  pool on Thursdays if Allen drives, which means we're in for a long day, since it's too hot to take Caleb on a walk or to the park in the afternoon. 

104 degrees + lots of humidity = no afternoon walks anymore

This week Allen drove on Thursday. And when my day started at 4:30 am with a crying baby and no pool trip to look forward to, I knew I was going to try to have to get creative to keep Caleb entertained all day inside the house. And then there was a tender mercy! My friend Cathryn, who has a baby a couple of months older than Caleb, texted to say she was going to the pool and then gave us a ride. That just made my day so much better! And made me a happier wife for Allen to come home to. It's the little things . . .

Saturday we did a lot of yard work and our trusty Civic pulled out two stumps for us! Our neighbors were impressed at the power of the little engine that could. We got the second one on video. The first one broke a strap so it would have been a more exciting video. The second one broke our shovel.

Another little thing that I loved this week, was the torrential downpour on Saturday. We were in Walmart and kept hearing loud thunder every few minutes. After checking out, we saw the group of people waiting to go out to their cars. We debated waiting for a few minute to see if it would let up some, but we decided to just go. We were soaked within seconds. Allen ran with Caleb to the car as I pushed the cart and splashed in puddles along the way. It was fun! I love the warm rain and how hard it pours. It just makes me want to tip my head back and laugh.

This is a new toy we got at Walmart. I think it's the first time we have actually bought Caleb a real toy.