March 12th - March 21st

Note: my hair looks huger than it is because of the shadow from the flash. 

As I look back at my notes to myself from four weeks ago, I am amazed at how quickly Caleb is growing and changing. For example, I was surprised a few weeks ago when we were Skyping with Grammy and Caleb was able to get the computer by rolling over. I kept it out of his reach by moving it away from him and he ended up eventually turning 360 degrees by following it while on his tummy.

Now he is so quick, he can drop whatever toy he was playing with and roll over a couple of times and grab the computer before I realize what he's doing. He loves the computer and gets frustrated I won't let him play with it. So I'll suspend reality for a little bit and go back to March 12-21 and write this as though then is now. :) And may be I'll get to writing about now now too. (Now has begun to look like an unreal word.)

Caleb likes to play peek-a-boo. While folding laundry on the floor next to him, he grabbed my shirt and pulled it over his face and kicked his legs excitedly until I pulled the shirt off of his face and said "Boo!" Then he would cover his face again and again and again. It was pretty cute! Maybe he just wanted to cover his face up, but I think he was playing with me.

Caleb ate carrots for the first time and liked them, especially when we did a mixture of carrot and banana. Bananas make everything else so much sweeter! He likes to gnaw on my apple slices and carrot sticks because they taste better than everything else he gnaws on. He is teething so he gnaws on everything!

Example of him gnawing on an apple chunk. 

 Caleb has discovered the elasticity of my bra straps... while eating, he grabs on, pulls back and lets go. He is amused by the snapping sound it makes or something. It is pretty funny to watch him but sometimes more painful than I expect.

Going out on a date: we got Caleb ready for bed before we left, hoping he would sleep in his car seat during the date... no such luck. He is a pretty cute third wheel though! Actually, we went on a double date that night so he was the fifth wheel.

Caleb talks in his sleep now and loves to play with the quilt draped over his crib when he wakes up.

He still likes to hang upside down frequently. I just have to be careful and hold on to his legs because he can really launch himself off of my lap.

Caleb likes to help me look for the best deals in the weekly ads. It keeps him entertained for at least twenty minutes. I think I know what he's going to get for Christmas: everyone else's wrapping paper! 

I bonked Caleb's head a the park this week, which I think may be his first owie (sp?) other than scratching himself. He likes to watch other kids at the park and I like to have other moms to talk to. We were at the park and an 8 year-old girl (that I don't know) got stuck upside down on some of the equipment so I went to help her out and she flung all of her weight on me when I wasn't expecting it. I lost my balance as I lowered her to the ground and Caleb's head hit one of the bars she was stuck between. He only cried for a minute and then got a little bump where his head had hit. I felt so bad! It didn't even bruise and there seems to be no lasting damage :)

Caleb has a fascination with my shoes and slippers... a bit of a shoe fetish. He likes to try to eat them.

Caleb gets very excited to go on walks. He recognizes when we're putting him the stroller and his eyes get wide as he smiles and flaps his arms and kicks his legs. While on a walk this week he was doing his happy scream for at least ten minutes. There was a couple on the path ahead of us who kept looking back as though we were beating our child.

Teething is making Caleb tired, he has starting falling asleep at the end of our runs. This has been nice because it gives me 20-40 minutes when we get home to stretch, clean and then shower without entertaining a baby. Because he is teething, he is now back to eating twice a night instead of once (midnight and 4 am) but still nothing to complain about!

Caleb has started to whine and cry when Dad leaves the room at night after family prayers. It is really cute! He arches his back to see if he can still see him.

I am very, very ticklish on my right side... whenever anyone whispers into my right ear or touches the right side of my neck, I get goosebumps and squirm. Caleb seems to be the opposite: more ticklish on his left side!

No, we aren't torturing him... just helping him imitate Michael Jordan, ball and all!

We had tickets to the Houston Rodeo (awesome!) on Saturday (March 17th) but Allen was feeling sick and Caleb was teething so I thought it might be a better idea to not go... I'm glad we went! It was a blast! It was a 45 minutes ride downtown and then 15 minute metro/train ride to the stadium. Caleb loved looking at all of the people, smiled and reached out to touch their faces and hair as we walked around for the first couple of hours.

We had to try something deep fried, so we opted for deep-fried cookie dough... I wouldn't recommend it. Next year we'll try the Snickers or twinkie. I've heard they're better.

Our seats were way up in the nosebleeds but it was still fun to watch the rodeo.

After the rodeo there was a Brad Paisley concert. Caleb was tired by the time that started and slept through it after singing along for the first twenty minutes. And then he slept as we carried him around the fairgrounds and the whole ride home!

Pretty sweet revolving stage.

I took a picture of a quilt they had there. Mom: this is an Old McDonald quilt! Click on the picture and you can see it up close.

Caleb is a rolling machine! He can roll quickly and only stops when he runs into the wall... except when he watches TV. He must have an ear for quality music because he laid still for almost all of Music and the Spoken Word.

Caleb can thrust and arch his way completely out of his Bumbo. 

Five months old! (I'm only a month behind)

Caleb turned five months old this week. And by this week, I am referring to the week that I'm writing about (March 5-11) and not the week we are actually in. I'm just a little behind!

Caleb wants to be held when I'm cleaning or cooking because he likes to see what's going on but he wiggles so much now that it makes him hard to hold onto. He especially loves to watch when I fill my cup up from the water dispenser or do dishes. He likes to see the water flowing.

For at least two minutes Caleb stood up just leaning against Dad's leg. They were dancing to the music... until I started videotaping it, then he bent his knees. When I watch this video on repeat it makes me laugh so hard. No babies were harmed in the making of this video.

We had gorgeous weather and went on a run every morning and lots of afternoon walks.

Bundled up for the morning run.

For some reason I love running on garbage day and seeing all of the neatly lined up garbage and recycling cans...

One morning after our run, Caleb took a nap and I went out to do some yard work. While mowing the lawn I almost ran over a dead bird, which reminded me of a story from last week. For some reason birds frequently crash into our windows and I'm not sure why, they are not that clean! Last week we were sitting in the living room and all of the sudden it was like a machine gun as four birds smashed into our windows one after another. Apparently one of them hit so hard that he died.

Caleb always wants to eat what we're eating. Here he is gnawing on Dad's pizza crust.

Eating avocado

Caleb has started laughing more and one day I heard him just laughing on his own while laying on the floor. Here he is with the hiccups. He took a bath with dad on Saturday and he kept floating up to the top! It was so funny. It was so deep that he wasn't sure what to think as he stood in the bath and had the water moving all around him.

He started off sitting up in the chair but tipped over when he started to eat his toes.

Just chillin!

We had some major thunderstorms, went on a double date with some friends, cleaned the church, and Allen had a really busy work week ... all in all, it was a good week! I'll end with something I wrote while holding Caleb after he had fallen asleep one day:

I am struck with what a gift and a blessing it is to be a mother. I am so grateful that I get to be a stay-at-home mom. I love getting to watch Caleb roll over, make him laugh, get slobbery kisses that literally leave my face dripping, give him wuzzles (some people call them raspberries I think) on his belly as I change his diaper, hear him pant and fake cough in anticipation that he is about to eat, pick him up out of his crib to be rewarded with a huge toothless smile and enjoy every time he looks at me as if to say, "Mom, did you see that? Are you still watching me?" When we went to the store, I stepped away from the shopping cart to grab something and he started to whimper in a way that says, "Mom, don't leave me. Pay attention to me please."

Here are the pictures I took as he was laying asleep on me.

Sleep in heavenly peace!

I don't know if last week was heavenly for Caleb or Allen but it sure was for me! I feel like a new woman! Caleb slept better than he has ever slept before! He slept from 7 pm-3 am (and back to sleep til 6 am) TWICE! And he slept from 7-10 pm, ate and back to sleep from 10:30-6 am TWICE! The first time he "slept" all night, he actually woke up and cried and rolled himself onto his stomach and fell back asleep on his tummy. He hasn't done that since.

I got four nights of 6-7 consecutive hours of sleep. I cannot explain the difference sleep has made in my life. Not only that, but he has also started taking a 1-1.5 hour nap every morning and the occasional half hour afternoon nap! Hallelujah!

In addition to sleep, I also ran four days last week. On one particular day I ran 3 miles in under 30 minutes and Caleb pooped three times in under thirty minutes. He can poop as fast as I can run! Here's a cute video (post-diaper change) of Caleb blowing spit bubbles and playing with his foot.

Yup! He still loves to suck on his right foot toes.

Speaking of poop and running... I got hit with the runs on my run while still half a mile away from home. I made it home... barely! I'll spare you the details, but the next day on my run I realized that spot half a mile away from home was exactly where the shortcut to our street is! I could have gone across the street and through the trees and been home much more quickly. Next time...

Shoes from Grammy and Grandpa. His feet are long enough but not fat enough so as soon as he kicks (which is all of the time) they fly off.

I've been wanting to try gardening but knew I should do a trial run before spending time and money to prepare a garden in our backyard. So Caleb and I went to Lowe's to get a couple of pots, soil and seeds. We ended up going home with two pots, soil and two plants. For my first attempt, I got a tomato plant and red bell pepper plant. If those don't die, next time I will try planting seeds.

Some little squirrel has dug up my pepper plant twice already... he actually dug in the dirt next to it and kind of uprooted it. I don't think he disturbed the roots but I had to replant it. Hopefully some cayenne pepper will keep him away. (Although, that didn't work to get rid of the cat that keeps sitting on my car. A few weeks ago I decided it was time to get rid of the cat that always leaves muddy pawprints up and down my car because he likes to sit on my sunroof. I poured cayenne pepper all over my sun roof. After it rained, the cat came back... kind of like this cartoon.)

This angle is just a reminder of how HUGE Caleb's head is and what a great feat it is to hold it up while laying on his tummy. 

Whew! Had to give those neck and back muscles a break!

Allen had a very busy week at work and had to work from home until late at night a couple of times. I felt sorry for him, but went to bed early without him. Throughout the next day I found cute little post-it notes from him on the almond milk, in my journal, on the i-touch (that I keep in Caleb's room to look at while feeding him), and hidden among the dishes that were drying on the counter. It made my day! What a great husband!

Caleb thinks he's pretty great too!

Caleb has begun to get very excited when Dad gets home from work. One day he was standing on my lap on the couch, heard the door open and looked at the door, looked back at me, I said, "Dad's home!" He got a huge smile on his face, looked back at the door and when Allen said, "Hi buddy!" Caleb started laughing and smiling even bigger. It was adorable! And then he loves when Dad throws him up in the air.

I didn't want you to get bored of reading, so I inserted a picture of Caleb playing... that's all.

Thursday night I had a Women of Houston Conference, where RS, Primary and YW leaders of the Church came to Houston to speak to all of the women. It was being broadcast to our building but I still wanted to get there early to have some time to write in my journal. I planned to leave at 6:30 pm since it started at 7. At 6:30 Allen had finished giving Caleb a bath and I went in to say family prayers as Allen started to feed Caleb a bottle. And then Caleb decided (for the first time ever) that he did not want a bottle. He screamed and cried and screamed and cried. Finally at 6:40, I gave in and sat down to feed him. I got to the meeting at 7:20 instead of 6:45... oh well. The talks were great! Hopefully Caleb will start taking a bottle again since he's getting to the point where we'd like to leave him with a babysitter soon!

He got my blue eyes and blonde hair (at least it was blonde when I was little, but at least my eyes are still blue)

Saturday we dusted places that have never been dusted before. Ever. Namely, our living room ceiling fan. I started doing some deep cleaning while Allen was studying for his next actuarial exam and then he joined in the fun. It required acrobatics, duct tape, vacuum, dust rags and time to remove 9 years-worth of dust that had accumulated on this fan (we probably could have just bought a ladder, but where would the fun be in that?!). Now we can even turn it on without being afraid to sit under it.

First we attacked it from the walkway windows you can see above and then got it from beneath.

Last post I mentioned that Caleb sniffs in through his nose when you blow across his face... I got it on video this week!

In conclusion, the past two weeks of not cheating on my dairy-free diet have paid off. Caleb has slept better and not screamed in pain once! However, he has liked squealing a lot this week.