Friday, October 30, 2015

Garrett - ONE YEAR OLD!!!!


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Diapers
Still in size 3’s.   Big brother was also in size 3 when he turned 1 year old.
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Shoe Size
We went to stride rite to get fitted for shoes and he is size 3 wide.  Carter was 3 1/2 wide at this age.  Both my kids have wide feet.  UGH!!!  Wide feet shoes are so hard to find and tend to be more expensive.  Carter has now outgrown the wideness and can wear regular shoes.  At least Carter was wide too, so that all the shoes Garrett inherits from Carter are the right size.
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Clothes
Still wearing 9 months and starting to wear a few 12 months.  A few of his 9 month shirts and onesies are a little too small, but most of the 12 month stuff is still too big.  Both my boys are a little on the small side.  Which is odd to think because Garrett used to be HUUUUUGGGGGEEEEEE!!!!!
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Feeding/Solids
When we began the sippy cup a month ago, Garrett struggled with knowing that he had to lift the bottle up and tilt his head back in order to get the milk.  He doesn’t really have that problem anymore.  Though I will say he does prefer to drink from the bottle while laying down on the floor (he lets gravity do the work for him) or leaned back in the high chair.  We also jumped the gun and began whole milk.  He drinks it just fine.  We have already begun to see that Garrett prefers the same thing Carter did at this age-to have the milk heated up.  We transitioned to milk the way most pediatricians tell you to.  You gradually mix it in with formula.  If they normally drink 5oz formula, give them 4oz formula/1oz whole milk.  Gradually increasing the whole milk over the period of a couple of weeks and before you know it they’re on whole milk and don’t even realize they aren’t drinking formula anymore.  But that’s why he prefers it warm.  He never drank formula at room temp, he always preferred it to be heated up.  I would rather him not need the milk to be heated up but if he does-oh well.  Carter did the same thing and when he was close to 2 we stopped heating it up and he just drank it from the fridge.  Garrett will grow out of it too.  This is the best part of 2nd children…you learn not to sweat the small stuff.
Best eater ever.  He eats everything.  Literally.  He’s always taking bits and pieces of things me and Justin eat and he’s never not liked or spit out anything.  Kid loves food.  At this age, Carter still ate blended foods with very few adult food items.  Garrett is already ahead of the curve on that one.  We have some sweet potatoes that is blended with grilled chicken that we just haven’t used yet.  It’s in the freezer and we use one of those every now and again.  We have a couple of baby food packages left but I’ve been using them as snacks.  After we use what we have we won’t buy anymore.  Garrett truly prefers big people food.  At school he will usually have a yogurt or cheese quesadilla or peanut butter sandwich.  I’m going to start mixing up his foods at school a lot more.  He is also already eating the Gerber Graduate toddler meals.  Haven’t found one that he doesn’t like yet either.
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Schedule
For the most part, he’s still doing a 4 hour schedule of feed, wake, sleep.  This means he takes 2 naps a day that last anywhere from 1.5-2.5 hours each.  Sadly, he doesn’t have 2 naps quite as much as I would want.  On Sundays and the three days a week that he goes to school, he usually only has 1 long nap that’s about 2-3 hours long.  I don’t want that to become the norm because he still needs two naps at his age, but some things you just can’t avoid.  He usually wakes up for the day around 7:30-8am and his first nap is around 10:30.  He wakes from that around 12:30 or 1 and then takes another nap around 2:30 and sleeps till about 4-4:30 and then stays awake until bedtime around 7-7:30.
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Sleep
Still the best little sleeper ever.  11-12 hours at night and two naps that are about 2 hours each, or 1 long nap that’s 3 hours.
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Waketime
He does all kinds of things during waketime.  Sometimes he runs errands with me, sometimes we ride the golfcart, sometimes we sit outside or take walks around the neighborhood.  But most of the time he plays in his playroom with an insane amount and variety of toys.  He is not very interested in TV.  Carter use to LOVE watching Baby Einstein at this age.  Garrett will watch it but only in the car.  He’s shaping up to be just like Carter and only watch TV when strapped into a seat.  He loves walking with any and everything.  He isn’t 100% walking on his own yet, but he pushes things across a room as far as he can get them and then he will walk up to 10 steps if he needs to. 
At this age, Carter was walking completely unassisted (though falling a lot).  Garrett, just last week, began to try to walk.  He would hold onto something and steady himself and you could tell the wheels in his head were turning trying to figure out how to put one foot in front of the other.  Then he would take that first step and let go of whatever he was holding on to…but then he’d fall.  Just this week he has begun trying to walk all the time!!  He can’t get more than 8-10 steps or so without falling.  But he’s learning a lot about balance.  He used to couldn’t stand up on his own at all, but then he was able to stand by himself for several seconds.  Now he’s able to stand up and steady himself, then walk a few steps and stand still again to steady himself, and then walk a few more steps.  He really is starting to figure it all out! 
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Mother’s Day Out
Nothing big to note here.  At least not with Garrett.  I did start subbing with their school this month.  My first day was October 9th.  I will never sub in the nursery because Garrett’s in there, but I’m used for any other class where a teacher has had to call in for whatever reason.  October 9th I was in the older two’s class and at the end of October I was in the toddler class several times (they range from 12-24 months).  Garrett absolutely refuses to take naps at school.  Apparently there’s just too much to play with.  Carter was the exact same way when he was in the nursery too.  Garrett’s teachers say he’s still the happiest baby in the class even without a nap.  So I guess that’s good!
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Statistics
Garrett’s 12 month appointment was on October 30, 2015.  He weighed 20lbs, 14oz (50th percentile) and was 29 inches long (25th percentile).   His head is 18 inches (50rh percentile).  It’s crazy to me that Garrett weighed LESS at his 12 month appointment than Carter weighed at his.  Carter was a little over 21lbs.  I know it’s still close, but I’ve always thought of Garrett as my bigger baby.  The cheeks and the way he sticks out his belly is what throws me off!
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Abilities
Still working on walking!  He can stand on his own for up to 20-30 seconds without falling which is impressive and can take as many as 10 steps without falling.  Garrett attempts walking ALL.THE.TIME.  He didn’t start trying to walk this much until this week, literally.  It’s like he turned one and then decided he was ready.  At 11 months, Carter had just said mama for the first time.  His brother has him beat on this one.  He was saying mama around 8 months.  As of now, Garrett has said mama, dada, car, papa, and ball.  He jabbers a TON but it isn’t always words.  We still go over colors in the bathtub just like I did with Carter at this age.  I think he’s tried to say blue and purple before but just can’t form the word yet.  We also read books a lot and sing the alphabet a lot and when we sing the ABC’s he babbles as if he is trying to sing a long with us.  He also does this when we sing patty cake.  I’m hoping these things are exposing him to words so that he can speak to us soon.
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Teething
Still at 6 teeth right now.  He’s been a little whiney lately and chewing on his fingers a ton so I wondered if  I was about to see some white buds on his gum.  Then I went to his 12 month appointment and the doctor laid him in the perfect position to show me those white bumps that are his ONE YEAR MOLARS!!!  I though we were going to get a few more teeth before hitting the molar motherload, but apparently not.  Hopefully they’ll pop through soon and stop bothering him.
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Discipline
When I tell him “no” the most is when he is getting on the fireplace, playing in Gizmo’s water bowl, standing up in the bathtub or trying to open cabinets and drawers.   I’m still only saying no and removing him to distract him.  We began timeouts at this age with Carter.  We used a pack n play in the corner and put him in the pack n play for a minute or two when he did something he wasn’t supposed to be doing.  With Garrett it’s more difficult.  Since we are trying to sell our house, there’s not really room for a pack n play anywhere, so I’m not sure where I can do timeouts.  I’ll have to think about it more.  Right now I just pick him up and put him in a different room.  He cries of course, but eventually he stops and just plays with something else.
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**I must document this.  This kid has FINALLY begun to let me rock him at night!!!!  He refused for a whole year.  Finally I sat down with him one night and he fought me like the dickens.  But eventually he gave up and laid on me and fell asleep.  I tried it again the next night and he still fought, but he did significantly less fighting and fell asleep again.  By the third night he just laid right down on me and fell asleep!!!  I should say that as much as I love this, I still don’t want it to become a necessity for him, so I pick and choose when I rock him.  I don’t do it every night!**
Birthday Party
We had Garrett’s first birthday party at our house on October 23rd.  We decided to have it on a Friday night instead of a Saturday afternoon because of football.  This is an issue I’m going to run into his entire life because he was born during football season in the good ole south.  I may not mind future parties being held around a house where the parents can watch TV while the kids play, but not the first birthday party.  I love him too much for that.  I don’t want people huddled around a TV and not even paying any attention to him.  If you’re gonna do that then just don’t come, seriously.    Not to mention that our family is split in half with Alabama and Auburn fans and the tension would have been crazy and not what I want to remember when I think of my baby’s first birthday.  Anyway, so we had his party on a Friday night instead.  We had a great turnout and, of course, it was Halloween themed.  You can see the post on his party HERE.
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Other Notable Things
Likes

  • Sleeping
  • Balls.  He loves to chase balls around the house.
  • Cars.  He enjoys playing with Carter’s little hot wheels cars almost as much as Carter does.  In fact he has pretty much bypassed the whole Thomas the Train or Elmo stages of infancy and gone straight to cars.  Whatever big brother is playing with is where little brother wants to be!
  • Washer and Dryer.  He loves to climb up and touch it and watch clothes spin around inside.
  • He really likes it when you hold him upside down and blow on his tummy.  He loves it!
  • Baths.  LOVES LOVES LOVES baths.  He also loves to attempt to stand up and touch the spout.  As well as pulling at the stopper.   I think he’s trying to figure out how it works.  What’s funny is when he tries to play with the stopper while the bath water is still running…which means his head gets soaked.  It definitely takes him by surprise!
  • Right now he loves crawling into our master bathroom and going through the bottom drawer and pulling out everything he has in it.   That’s not annoying at all…
  • Walking with his walker or anything he chooses to use as a walker, such as the end tables in the living room.
  • His brother.  He seriously just loves watching Carter.  He studies every move he makes!
  • Patty Cake monkey book.  We have a book that has a monkey puppet on the front and I put my fingers in it and I make the monkey clap.  He absolutely adores it!
  • His momma.  Ask anyone who has been around him and they will tell you.  Garrett is a 100% bonafide momma’s boy!

Dislikes
  • The new carseat.  He wasn’t a fan of being put in his infant carseat by any means, but he wasn’t a crier either and if he did cry, it didn’t last long.  He stopped as soon as you picked the carseat up.  Now that he’s out of the infant carseat and is now in the convertible carseat (still rear-facing, don’t worry) I get lots of tears and lots of him trying to rollover to not be buckled in.  It’s baffling and extremely frustrating. Momma intends to nip this in the bud STAT.
  • Being kept awake for too long .
  • Being held by someone when I am in his line of sight.  If he can see me, he wants me holding him.  No one else will do.
  • When you take too long to feed him.  My garbage disposal needs his food fast!

Saturday, October 24, 2015

Garrett’s Birthday Party

Yesterday we celebrated Garrett’s first birthday!!!  His actual birthday isn’t until Tuesday, but since Halloween was next weekend we decided to have his birthday party this weekend instead.  We had a great turnout of friends and family!  I am reminded, however, of the reason I despise having birthday parties at my house.  The setup and cleanup is brutal and I feel like I don’t get to talk to people as much since I’m playing host.  First birthday parties are the only ones I have at my house.  Anything after that is always somewhere else.  Carter’s 2nd birthday was at our church with a bouncy house (Garrett’s probably will be the same) and his 3rd birthday was at Jump Zone in Pelham and his 4th birthday coming up in December will be at Let’s Play on Hwy 280. 

Since his birthday is so close to Halloween it was natural to do a Halloween themed party.  I won’t do this every year from here on out, that’s just not fair to the poor kid.  But it made the first party easier.  We took a video of Garrett getting into his cake.  You can see it here.

Here’s a few of my favorite pictures from the party:

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Aren’t the cakes fabulous?!?!  One of my friends mom did them.  She’s fantastic!

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Hot dog mummies!!  Gotta love some pinterest!

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More pinterest!!  Mummy hand favors!

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On the left:  Garrett was LOVING his gift from Cici and Uncle Jeff.  That picture was taken mid belly laugh!  And on the right:  Best gift ever.  Carter shockingly got 2 gifts at his brother’s birthday party.  One was a firetruck and he has been carrying around with him everywhere.  And the other was this bad boy.  My brother in law ordered a Buick iron on from Ebay and bought Carter a jacket.  He is IN LOVE with this thing!!!

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This was the best I could get of the four of us!

We had so much fun!  I can’t believe he’s just days away from being O-N-E!!!!  Happy birthday sweet boy!!!

Monday, September 28, 2015

Garrett - 11 Months Old

11 months

Diapers

Still in size 3’s.   He’s in that weird stage where he fits into 3’s as well as 4’s.  We’ll just keep buying 3’s for now.

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**First time riding in the car buggie at Publix happened this month**

Shoe Size

He is just now beginning to wear shoes.  I haven’t gotten his feet sized yet, just letting him wear Carter’s old shoes.  They seem to fit for now.

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Clothes

9 months.  12 month stuff is too big so he’s still rocking 9 month onesies/shirts/jeans.  And yes, he finally wears jeans.  They make him look like such a big boy in my opinion!!

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Feeding/Solids

Still rocking the sippy cups.  Can’t remember the last time he drank from a bottle.  He still struggles to lift his hands in the air when he’s only got about 1/4 of his formula left so I usually have to lift up his hands for him so he can get that last little bit.  Some days he kind of transitions to 3 meals on his own instead of 4.  Most days he drink his formula and cereal for breakfast, formula and some kind of lunch solid food, formula again after his second nap and then dinner and formula again right before bed.  But some days he skips the formula at night before bed because he’s so full from the other stuff. 

He pretty much eats everything.  Literally.  He’s always taking bits and pieces of things me and Justin eat and he’s never not liked or spit out anything.  Kid loves food.  I have to keep reminding myself to vary up his foods so that he doesn’t become a picky eater.  That’s what ended up happening with Carter.  Carter is a much better eater now, but around age 2, I stopped making foods if he didn’t like it because I hated wasting food and then he never liked it because I never offered it.  I can’t make that mistake with Garrett so I do my best to switch up his foods frequently.

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**These pictures are from school.  They have a fun little contraption that they call the “bye bye bus” that holds all the kids so that they can go outside and walk around the parking lot.  Garrett loves it!**

Schedule

For the most part, he’s still doing a 4 hour schedule of feed, wake, sleep.  This means he takes 2 naps a day that last anywhere from 1.5-2.5 hours each.  Sadly, he doesn’t have 2 naps quite as much as I would want.  On Sundays and the three days a week that he goes to school, he usually only has 1 long nap that’s about 2-3 hours long.  I don’t want that to become the normal because he still needs two naps at his age, but some things you just can’t avoid.  He usually wakes up for the day around 8am and his first nap is around 10:30.  He wakes from that around 12:30 or 1 and then takes another nap around 2:30 and sleeps till about 4 and then stays awake until bedtime around 7-7:30.

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**This is our church directory picture **

Sleep

Still the best little sleeper ever.  12+ hours at night and two naps that are about 2 hours each, or 1 long nap that’s 3 hours.

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Waketime

He does all kinds of things during waketime.  Sometimes he runs errands with me, sometimes we ride the golfcart, sometimes we sit outside or take walks around the neighborhood.  But most of the time he plays in his playroom with an insane amount and variety of toys.  He is not very interested in tv.  Carter use to LOVE watching Baby Einstein at this age.  Garrett will watch it but only in the car.  He’s shaping up to be just like Carter and only watch TV when strapped into a seat.

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Mother’s Day Out

Still doing great at school.  He rarely cries at drop off but he always cries when I pick him up.  I haven’t quite figured that out.  He sees me and immediately starts crying.  I kind of think he’s just so happy to see me and is hoping I don’t leave again and that I actually take him home.   He got pretty sick this month and had to miss one day.  He had been showing signs of illness for a while but I was hesitant to take him and pay $40 for them to tell me that he had a cold and that there’s nothing he can take (that’s happened to me a few times).  Well when it didn’t get better and particularly when I noticed that he basically stopped drinking his formula, I took him in to see a doc.  Turns out he had a stomach virus, ear infection, was dehydrated, all on top of teething and cutting 4 teeth at the same time in his top gums.  It was like the perfect storm.  He got a lot of medicine and finally started drinking again.  The doc told us that if he didn’t begin drinking more the next day that they wanted to admit him and give him fluids via IV.  Praise the Lord he started drinking because I don’t know any mama that could watch her 10 month old receiving fluids at the hospital.  It took several days to get him back to normal again. 

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**His teacher sent me this picture of him sleeping at school.  Almost a year old and still sucks on those two fingers upside down!!!**

Statistics

No 11 month appointment but he weighed in at 19lbs, 9oz and I was able to measure him about 29 inches tall.  This puts him in the 25th percentile for weight (clearly some weight loss has been going on due to the sickness he had where he basically didn’t eat for a week and a half and all the extra calories burned by moving so much) and 50th percentile for height.  These are obviously rough estimates.  I will know more exact numbers at his 12 month appointment that is scheduled for October 30th.

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Abilities

Trying so hard to get him to walk!!!  Carter took his first steps the day after he turned 11 months old.  Garrett has been consistently behind Carter on the milestones, but not usually by far.  Hoping Garrett will start walking soon.  He walks with a walker all the time.  It’s one of his favorite things to do.  He just hasn’t mustered the courage to do it on his own just yet.  He also learned to wave this month.  He does it all the time too.  He can now say Papa and Bye Bye.  He came close to saying Nana.  One day, Carter gave him one of his cars (the car is from the movie Cars and her name is Sally) and when Garrett took it from Carter he said “Sa”.  I think he really was trying to say Sally.  This makes me happy because even though he can’t say all the things he hears me say, I know he is listening and can recognize names of objects and people, even though he can’t say it on his own yet.

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Teething

Those top 4 teeth finally came in so we’re up to 6 teeth.  Haven’t noticed any other teeth coming through at this point.

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Discipline

When I tell him “no” the most is when he is getting on the fireplace, playing in Gizmo’s water bowl, standing up in the bathtub or slamming his hands on the table during a meal.   Still just saying no and removing him to distract him.  We’ll start very small timeouts after his first birthday.

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**Daddy thought that, instead of teaching little man to not stand up in the bathtub because he may slip and fall and get hurt, it would be a better idea to just pad him up head to toe with spoungy bath letters to keep him from getting too injured.  My husband thinks he’s hilarious.**

Birthday Planning

I can’t believe it’s already time for this!!!  Garrett’s invitations have been mailed out and I am already planning things for the big day.  His party will be before his actual birthday.  He turns 1 on October 27th but I am having his birthday party on October 23rd.  It’s a Friday night.  I struggled with this as most moms do that have fall babies in the south.  Football season.  I could have had it on Saturday, but to be honest, I don’t want people glued to the tv while at his party.  Not to mention we have some intense Bama and Auburn fans in our family and getting them in the same room on gameday just didn’t seem like a good idea.  Justin leaves on Sunday to go out of town so we decided to have it on a Friday night.  Naturally, it will be Halloween themed.

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Other Notable Things

Likes

  • Sleeping
  • Balls.  He loves to chase balls around
  • Cars.  He enjoys playing with Carter’s little hot wheels cars almost as much as Carter does.
  • Washer and Dryer.  He loves to climb up and touch it and watch clothes spin around inside.
  • He really likes it when you hold him upside down and blow on his tummy.  He loves it!
  • Baths.  LOVES LOVES LOVES baths.  He also loves to attempt to stand up and touch the spout.  As well as pulling at the stopper.   I think he’s trying to figure out how it works.  What’s funny is when he tries to play with the stopper while the bath water is still running…which means his head gets soaked.  It definitely takes him by surprise!
  • Right now he loves crawling into our master bathroom and going through the bottom drawer and pulling out everything he has in it.
  • Walking with his walker

Dislikes

  • If you put him in the middle of a room and walk away, he will be fine.  But if you’re within eye sight, he will cry because he wants you down there with him.  It’s the funniest thing.  We’ve tested this theory several times and the result is always the same.  If he even spots you around a corner, the flood gates open and the tears start falling. 
  • Being kept awake for too long .
  • Rocking-I’ve tried so many times to rock this kid and he just won’t have it.  He would rather you just put him in the bed and leave him alone.
  • Having his nose wiped
  • When you take too long to feed him.  My garbage disposal needs his food fast!

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