Carter - Twelve Months

12 months.  One Year.  I just can’t believe it.  We’ve said goodbye to the newborn and infant stage and are welcoming toddlerhood with open arms.   I can’t wait to watch Carter grow into the person he’s going to be.  The past year has been by far the best of my life because of this little guy (and has also been the quickest year of my life).  I can hardly remember him as a newborn these days!

Diapers

Still wearing 3’s.

Shoe Size

3 1/2 wide. He only has one pair of shoes and he wears them all the time. This is why I got brown shoes. They go with everything!

Clothes

There are still 9 month clothes that he wears, but he has just recently started wearing 12 month clothes.  They’re still a bit big on him, but they are wearable.  He got a lot of 12 month clothes for his birthday so we’re trying to start wearing those.  But there are still so many 9 month clothes that still fit too.  It appears, however, that he’s finally wearing his age!  He’s been behind his whole life and thanks to the growth spurt he’s going through right now (see below), we can finally wear the right clothes!

Feeding

Feedings will change once we go to his one year appointment.  We’ll switch from formula to whole milk (kinda dreading that because I’m not sure if he’ll like it or not) and he’ll begin to join us for our three meals a day with some snacks in between instead of him eating separately and more often.  I’m sure we’ll still puree some of his foods for a little bit (depends on what pediatrician tells us to do), but we’ll also begin making him actually eat a green bean instead of having it blended all the time.  We’ve tried to get him to eat string cheese, but he doesn’t like it.  We’re going to try shredded cheese to see if that’s any better.  He also started eating ham and loves it.  He will sometimes eat turkey sandwich meat, but he doesn’t really like the texture so it’s a 50/50 shot on whether he’ll eat it or just throw it.  He began eating bananas too.  He was hesitant at first because of the texture of it (I really don’t think he likes things that are sticky) but he loves them now.  Also worthy to note, he hit a growth spurt about a week before his birthday and it’s still ongoing.  He is eating everything in sight.  We’re just doing our best to try to make sure he’s not eating significant amounts of puffs or some snack related things like that.  If he wants to eat all day, it’s going to be fruits and veggies and protein!  Oh and we tried eggs for breakfast the morning of his birthday and he was NOT a fan.  I’m going to keep trying with that.   Lots of changes coming once we go to his appointment!

Sleep

Carter is still a 12 hour/night sleeper with two naps that last anywhere from 1.5-2 hours.  The only exception to this is the nap at MDO.  That nap is usually between 20-45 minutes.  In his 12th month, he must have had a growth spurt or something because he was sleeping ALL THE TIME.  His naps were over 2 hours each and he frequently had to be woken up in the morning as late as 9:15am!  This lasted about a week or two.  Then his naps got to where they were about an hour or an hour and 15 minutes instead of the normal hour and a half or more.  I am still reading the Babywise book series and am currently reading “Pretoddler-wise”.  That book talks about growth spurts and  how at his age, some pretoddlers decrease the time of the nap because they are hungry and their little bodies are ready for more table food and more calories than they had been getting as a baby.  We tested this theory and started giving Carter a mid-morning snack right before his first nap.  It’s working well so far.  His naps went back to being 1.5-2 hours in length. 

The only other thing notable regarding sleep is that his nighttime sleep routine changed about halfway through the month.  Carter used to eat his bottle while being read to and then after the bottle was gone, he would cuddle for about 5 minutes or so (unless dad was the one putting him down and they would play and tickle each other for 5 minutes) but then he would go in the crib.  He wouldn’t fall asleep immediately, but he would play with his stuffed animals for about 15-30 minutes and then would go to sleep.  But now he no longer does this.  He has gotten to where he throws his bottle away and then desperately wants to be put in the floor to play.  Of course we won’t allow that though.  Bed time is for sleeping, not a few extra minutes of playing with toys.  So instead of cuddling or playing with us, he cries because he wants to go to the floor to walk around.  Since we don’t let him do that, he goes straight to the crib and then he’ll cry when we leave the room for a good 5-10 minutes.  He has NEVER done this before.  I am HATING this!!

**UPDATE 12/30/12 - This stage ended already.  He still takes a bit to fall asleep, but he lets us cuddle and play with him a bit before bed again.**

Waketime

Waketimes consist of one thing and one thing only these days:  walking.  Carter loves to walk all over the house.  He frequently will stop to play with something but he is constantly testing how far he walks and what he can do while he’s walking (such as holding onto something without dropping it and walking at the same time).  He was so proud of himself the first time he was able to walk a few steps, stop, turn around, and then walk back.  All without falling.  Mommy was pretty proud of him too.  I think he could just walk around the house for hours.  Seriously.

Mother’s Day Out

Nothing interesting to note in this area.  He still goes two days a week from 9-1pm.  On December 18, the kids were all asked to bring one wrapped gift to a birthday party for Jesus during which the kids took to the nativity set in the church and put next to the manger.  In reality, these gifts are all going to families in need.  Carter gave baby Jesus some hooded bath towels :)  Last week was the last week at MDO for the holidays so Carter didn’t have school all week AND I didn’t have to work.  Also, Justin was home from work too!  Lots of family time this week!!!

Statistics

Carter’s 12 month appointment isn’t until January 2nd.  I’m a little irate about it.  Don’t get me started.  I’ll come back and update this section after his appointment.  My guess is that by that appointment he’ll be around 21lbs (which is the 25th percentile).  Height is much harder to measure.  If I had to guess, I’d say around 29 or 30 inches (about the 30th percentile).  Short and skinny!

UPDATE:  We went to Carter’s appointment yesterday.  Carter was 30.5 inches long (75th percentile) and weighed 21.6lbs. (25th percentile).  Our pediatrician even asked what heights Justin and I were and we told him and then he told us that we may be looking up to our son when he’s older.  It’s still too early to be set in stone, their height is more predictable around 2 years old, but at the rate Carter’s height has been, he’s most likely going to be taller than us.  His head was 18 inches around which is also the 25th percentile.  I thought he’d be short and skinny but it turns out he’s tall and skinny :)

Abilities

On his 11 month birthday, he took his first step without holding onto anything.  He stood for a little bit afterward but then fell.  The next day he took 3 or 4 steps and he’s been increasing the number of steps he can take ever since.  Now he can walk across our whole house and back without falling.  The only thing, as of about 3/4 of the way through his 12th month, that he couldn’t do was stand up on his own from the ground.  He always has to pull himself to a standing position by pulling on me or a chair or a table or something like that.  Once he was pulled up, he could walk for a long time.  On the morning of December 20th (at 11 months 3 week sold) I saw him walk to his sippy cup (it was on the ground), squat down to pick it up and then stood right back up.  This doesn’t seem like a big deal but it was the first time that he was able to do that!  Starting to use those leg muscles!

He said “mama” for the first time while I was in NYC with my sister (on November 30th to be exact).  He was 11 months and a couple of days old.  Took him FOREVER to say it and I guess he was saying it because I wasn’t there and he was wondering where that lady that says “mama” to him all the time was :)  You can see a video of it here.

He also started waving.  I have been working on this with him forever.  After bathtime, like clockwork, I wrap him up in his towel and we leave the bathtub and stop in front of the mirror.  I wave in the mirror and say “hey” so he can see my hand.  Seems like months now he just stared at me and never tried it.  He finally started trying it and now waves (mostly with his left hand - kind of wondering if he’ll be a lefty like his Papa) really fast, almost like he’s going to hurt you if he hit you with his hand.

As far as speaking goes, Carter can say multiple things now.  But what I’m most proud of is not what he says, but that he tries to say everything you get him to say.  During bathtime, we go over colors.  He has a ton of alphabet letters that he plays with in the tub and they’re all different colors.  I try to focus on the main colors; blue, red, green and yellow.  I think blue is his favorite color because that’s the letter he was trying to repeat first.  I would pick up the letter and say “blue” and he would stare at my mouth when I say it then he says “bu bu bu bu” trying to say blue.  Justin noticed this week that Carter keeps saying “yea yea yea yea”.  We were confused until just last night I was in the bath with him and we were working on “yellow”.  I realized that this is probably what he was trying to say.  Granted, he has no idea what the colors actually are.  He’s only repeating what I’m saying.  But I’m just so happy he is trying to say new things!  Oh and he also says “hey” when he waves because that’s what I say in the mirror as I wave at him.

Teething

He cut tooth number 8 on December 4th.  I can’t believe he has 8 teeth.  Early teether for sure!  Also, towards the end of the month, he started putting his index finger WAY in the back of his mouth.  Me and Dad are wondering if a molar is coming in.  His attitude is great though and I have heard horror stories of molars affecting personality, so if one is coming in, I’ll take it!

Discipline

I made him cry this month :(  I’ve made him cry before by doing things he didn’t want to do (diaper changes, bath time, putting in a car seat, etc.), but this month was the first time I made him cry because I was disciplining him.  I was trying to feed him dinner in his high chair.  During dinner, he always drinks a juice and water mixture from his sippy cup and usually drinks it fine with no tantrums or mischief, but this time, he would drink from it and then throw the sippy cup as hard as he could to the floor.  I picked it up and looked at him and told him “No Carter, don’t throw the cup on the floor”.  I gave it back to him, he took another sip and then threw it again.  I did the same thing but with a little more stern of a look and a slightly harsher tone.  I gave him the cup back and he did it again.  This time, I didn’t pick up the cup but I grabbed his hand (not firmly by any means, just a little squeeze), looked him straight in the eye with my face much closer to him than it was the previous two times and said the same thing again.  This time he started bawling.  I immediately felt so bad, but this is part of parenting.  I know he’s going to cry and get upset in the future when I’m disciplining him, but he must know boundaries.  I’m trying to set good mealtime manners and unfortunately for him, throwing the cup off the table three times after being told no is not acceptable manners. 

Other Notable Things

Carter’s first birthday party was on December 15th and he was such a good boy!  He was shy at first because he was still napping when everyone got there so when he came downstairs, our house was packed (he is usually shy when he’s around someone else for a few minutes until he warms up to them).  Daddy went upstairs to change his clothes and feed him his bottle (he would NEVER have eaten a bottle with so many people around him) and then brought him downstairs.  He was surprised at all the people there saying his name and reaching for him, but he adjusted quickly and started being his normal outgoing self.  He showed off his walking skills a bunch!  We had a great time and he got great gifts! 

Likes

Carter still likes everything I’ve put in this section in the past several months (golf cart rides, being outside, Baby Einstein, puffs and mums, etc.) so I won’t repeat all of them, but will just list the new likes or the likes that seemed the most prevalent this month:

• Walking.  Anywhere and everywhere!
• Remote controls…he loves these so much he got two in his stocking just for him (because mom and dad are honestly sick of not knowing where remotes are since Carter takes them off and leaves them in random locations in the house)
• Talking - he is seriously talking all the time now.  I am so confident that he has babbled every letter in the alphabet, with exception to Q and X of course.
• Teething pacifier and other teething rings
• Eating his shoes. He likes the rubber at the bottom for some reason. When we go to get him out of the car, he almost always has taken his shoe off and is chewing on it. Gross, I know.
• Watching older kids move and play.  He loves watching older kids at church and was following our friends Chase and Allison’s little girl, Brantley, around at his birthday party.
• Doors . Still loves experimenting with opening and closing doors.
• Diapers.  Not diaper changes, just diapers.  He pulls them out of the diaper bag and carries them all over the house.  On Christmas night, we let him watch a Baby Einstein so that I could cut his fingernails (see dislikes).  When I was done we left the room and let him watch his movie.  A few minutes later Justin called me back into the room only to find Carter leaning back in his chair, feet crossed, sucking his thumb on one hand and holding the diaper in the other hand.  So funny!
• Animals.  He’s always loved Gizmo, but he loves ALL dogs and even cats too.  For some reason, animals just crack him up!
• The rollercoaster toy he got from the Smith’s for Christmas.  More posts to come on this later.

Dislikes

• Being put in the car seat first thing in the morning.  On the days that I take him to my MIL’s house for the day, we literally come from upstairs and go straight to the car seat to get in the car and drive to Nana’s.  He doesn’t like this.  He wants to play before leaving.
• Still frequently cries during diaper change time.  He doesn’t like being burdened with diaper changes.  There’s too much world to explore!
• Lord help me…he will NOT let me cut his nails.  He hates it.  Hold the breath scream, hates it.  I can never get all 10 nails in one sitting so it usually happens twice.  I have never even clipped his finger before so I have no idea why he hates it so much!
• Lately he’s been seeming to not like bathtime as much.  He doesn’t play with things like he used to and is starting to whine a bit.  I am really beginning to think it’s because he knows bedtime is next and he really doesn’t want to go to bed (see “Sleep” section above).

Sippy Cup

We use the sippy cup very frequently now for water or apple juice.  The big test will come when we start feeding him whole milk instead of formula.  Once we get him used to that change, we’ll begin using the sippy cup for milk.

Goodbye

Well my friends, I’m impressed if any of you actually read all twelve of these posts.  You deserve an award if you did.  I write these down, not necessarily for readers, but for my own documentation purposes.  As you probably saw from Carter’s birthday party post, I put all of these posts (minus this one of course since he wasn’t 12 months old yet) on a word document and made a little book to put on the table at his party so everyone could see these posts and the pictures with them.  I plan to give this book to Carter when he has his own baby…or maybe before that.  We’ll just see.  I probably won’t give it to him until he’s married or his wife is pregnant.  I’m too afraid that if I give it to him before that, he’ll lose it.  But in addition to doing that for Carter, it is also for me.  Whenever Justin and I decide (or rather, whenever God decides) we’re ready for a 2nd baby, I will probably have forgotten the ways I trained Carter in sleeping, eating, behavior, etc.  It will help to be able to go back and read these posts to see what I did with him so that I can apply that to our next baby!

So needless to say, the monthly posts are over!!  Thanks for hanging in there with us!

Carter - Eleven Months

11 months….are you kidding me?!?!  I was having a hard enough time being in the double digit number of months but we are a mere one month away from having a one year old.  I may be tearing up a bit as I write this.

Diapers

Still wearing 3’s.

Shoe Size

3 1/2 wide. He only has one pair of shoes and he wears them all the time. This is why I got brown shoes. They go with everything!

Clothes

9 month tops now fit him pretty well and some are even getting snug, but those are the ones he wears frequently and have been washed and dried a ton.  He is just now starting to wear 9 month pants exclusively.  We’ve put up most of the 6 month pants.  For sleepers, he is wearing 9 months even though they’re still a little big on him.  I ordered the shirt he is wearing for his birthday party and got it in 9 months size.  My 12 month old will be wearing a 9 month shirt…and as of now, it swallows him.  More wash and dry cycles to come before it will come close to fitting.  Overall on size - he’s a small baby, has been for a year now.  The pediatrician isn’t worried about it at all and says that he’s just active.  There is no truer statement!!!

Feeding

Still rocking the homemade foods!!  He now eats a set group of fruits and veggies, I think we’re done experimenting.  The majority of the time he eats:

• Veggies:  Green Beans, Peas, Sweet Potatoes, Carrots, Broccoli, Lima Beans and Squash
• Fruits:  Pears, Apples, Bananas, Peaches, Avocados and Blueberries

This month, he also started eating various yogurts, kid chicken fingers and bites of whatever we’re eating at restaurants whenever we take him out with us.  He likes pieces of chicken quesadillas and rice from Mexican restaurants.  For a snack, he also started eating the Gerber Graduates Cheetos.  Some are just flavored with cheese and others have veggie flavors.  Now that he has seven teeth, he’s able to use them to chew things like Cheetos and we’re trying to provide as many opportunities as possible to teach him that teeth are for chewing food.  We’ve been blessed with a great eater, that’s for sure.  Don’t let his petite figure fool you….this child opens his mouth WIDE when anything comes near it.  He will eat ANYTHING.

Sleep

Still 11-12 hours at night (with a rare 13 hour night every now and again) and two naps during the day that last anywhere from 1 to 2 hours.  Rainy nights still make him sleep longer.  If I’m woken in the middle of the night by thunder and rain outside, I can guarantee that Carter will sleep in late the next morning.  Another guarantee for later sleep is the temperature.  Boo Boo may as well sleep in an igloo.  The colder it is, the longer he sleeps.  He also got sick with a cough and bad runny nose this  month and the doc told us to give him baby Zyrtec.  It has antihistamine in it so that  made him sleep super long and like a rock too.  This is certainly another area where Justin and I realize how blessed we are with Carter.  He sure loves his sleep. 

But I must be honest.  I don’t like it when people say how “lucky” we are that he sleeps that long.  I sleep trained Carter for weeks to get him to sleep like that.  I was upstairs “sleeping” in the spare bedroom because I was in and out of his room so much.  It would have been so easy to give in and feed him in the middle of the night because we both would have slept more, but I was headstrong and refused to back down.  I did everything under the sun to get him to go back to sleep except feed him.  It meant a lot of long nights for me and for him, but we did it and now we both sleep extremely well at night!!

Waketime

No changes. Outside is his favorite still.  It’s harder to play outside now that it’s so cold, but we try to work it in when we can.  Carter still loves walks around the neighborhood but I’ve been hesitant to do it since it gets dark at 4:30pm here.  We also never use the golf cart anymore which I know he misses, but it’s just too cold.  The only time we even think about using it is on the weekends in the middle of the day when the temp is at its highest.

Mother’s Day Out

Nothing interesting to note in this area.  He still goes two days a week from 9-1 and has only been sent home one time because of a fever.  The teachers dote on him frequently as does the teacher that keeps him on Sundays when Justin and I are in Sunday School.  They love him :)

Justin’s Travel

November was excellent.  Carter and I both got lots of daddy time!!  Justin’s parents traveled to Russia to visit our church’s sponsored children at an orphanage in Kirov.  While they were gone, Justin didn’t travel at all so he stayed at home with Carter for two weeks while I was working.  Justin only traveled 7 days total this month.  December is another story though.  He’ll be out of town every week in December except the week of Christmas.  We’ll be utilizing Face Time next month for sure!

Statistics

No 11 month appointment, but at 11 months, I measured him at roughly 29.5 inches (57th %) and weighed him at 20.4 lbs (24th %). Next pediatrician appointment is on his actual birthday, December 28th.

Abilities

Give the kid a walker and he’ll be gone in seconds.  He LOVES to walk around the house with his walker or by holding on to me or Justin.  He still can’t stand on his own just yet, but he experiments ALL THE TIME.  Starting at 10 1/2 months, he was constantly letting go of both hands when holding onto something to see how long he can stand there.  Right now his favorite thing to do is hold a remote with one hand while hanging onto the coffee table, or chair or dog kennel or something else with the other hand. He’ll frequently stop holding onto the furniture and put both hands on the remote.  This usually lasts up to 30 seconds or so before he falls to his booty or grabs the furniture again for assistance.  This is his way of learning that he can stand up on his own.  The ability to walk with come after he is able to stand up with no assistance.  I’m still hoping he’ll take those first steps around his first birthday, but I will by no means be upset if he doesn’t.  With a walking toddler comes all kinds of new challenges for a parent.

Another sweet sweet thing he started doing this month is trying to say the dog’s name (yes, he is trying to say the dog’s name and STILL hasn’t said mama.  Trust me, I’m FRUSTRATED).  When we put him to bed one night he chatted himself up for about 15-20 minutes before actually going to sleep as he usually does.  As Justin and I were listening to his jabber, we recognized that he was saying “Gi…Gi…Gi”.  And not “Gi” as in “Gigi”, but “Gi” as in “Gizmo”.  We were confused because he had never said G’s before that night but we didn’t think anything of it and went to bed.  The next morning, both of us went to get Carter from his room to get him ready for church.  After changing his diaper, we all came out of his room which is right at the top of the stairs.  Gizmo was at the bottom of the stairs watching us.  Carter caught the Giz in his eye and smiled really big and said “Gi…Gi….Gi”.  Justin and I looked at each other and a light bulb went off in both of our heads.  He’s trying to say Gizmo.  Sweetest thing ever.  He says it all the time now (not the full word, but just that first syllable).

He can recognize pictures really well too.  There are two pictures over his changing table from his newborn session.  One is of me and him and the other is of Justin and him.  We let Carter stand up on his changing table (holding onto us of course) and look towards us (which means he’s looking away from the pictures).  While he’s doing this, we’ll say “where’s mama” and he turns around and points to our picture.  Then we’ll say “where’s dada” and he’ll turn and point to Justin’s picture. 

As far as saying “mama” goes….OMG.  Y’all, the frustrating part is that I think that he thinks he is saying it, but it’s coming out as “nana” instead of “mama”.  Trust me, I work with him on this daily, multiple times a day in fact.  When I say “mama” he frequently comes back with “nana”.  I’m really thinking he just doesn’t get that the “m” sound and the “n” sound are different.

Teething

No new teeth this month, but he is drooling a ton and chewing on everything in sight so I’m wondering if one is coming in soon.  It hasn’t affected his mood though.  So in total, he has 7 teeth.

Discipline

Nothing new on the disciplinary front either.  He still tests our limits with some things as any kid does, but he usually backs off after we tell him “no” a few times.  I’ve been working with saying “no” to the banging of the tray on his high chair, but I think he’s just so excited to eat and that’s why he keeps doing it.  It’s the only time he really won’t listen to me when I say “no”.

Other Notable Things

Oh my oh my.  Let me just tell you the fun mom experience that I got to endure just a few days ago.   Carter took a longer second nap than usual which means that he wakes up, eats his bottle, plays a little bit, eats his solids, takes a bath then goes to bed after one more bottle.  All this happened within 2 hours.  So naturally, I was trying to spread out the feedings as much as possible to ensure he would get more food in his belly and not reject it because he was full.  So I fed him his solids and then immediately put him in the tub.  MISTAKE.

Carter pooped in the tub.  Yep.  “Stage 2 floater” as my bro-in-law calls it.  Well, in this case it would have been “floaters” plural.  The worst part was trying to keep him from grabbing the poop with his hands.  I had to get Justin to get Carter and take him to bed so that I could clean it up.  It’s one thing cleaning up poop in a diaper.  The poop is mainly on the diaper and with a quick swipe of a wipe, you can throw it away and be done.  Not so with the tub.  I had to drain the water and then pick up his poop.  And since he was sitting in it, it was nice and smashed into the bottom of the tub which meant lots of Clorox!!  I never want to do that again!  No more solids right before bath in this household.  There will always be at least a 30 minute interval to let him “poop it out” before I give a bath!

The past few days Carter has been a true mama’s boy.  He has NEVER been a mama’s boy in his life.  I think it’s because he has so many primary caregivers.  Me, Justin, Debbie and Gordon, my mom, his school teachers, etc.  He’s never been clingy because he’s used to being “passed around”.  But the past few days he’s been all about the mama.  Not even daddy can cure those tears.  Only me.  I loved it for the first day but now it’s just plain frustrating!  I can’t even wash the dishes without him on my hip!  This only popped up just a few days ago so I’m hoping it passes soon!

 Likes

Carter still likes everything I’ve put in this section in the past several months (golf cart rides, being outside, Baby Einstein, puffs and mums, etc.) so I won’t repeat all of them, but will just list the new likes or the likes that seemed the most prevalent this month:

• Having his teeth brushed. He smiles SO big when he sees that brush!
• Walking with his walker.  It would be useful for us to have an airport runway in our backyard.  Mom and Dad are SO sick of turning the walker around when he gets to the end of a room.
• Teething pacifier and other teething rings
• Eating his shoes.  He likes the rubber at the bottom for some reason.  When we go to get him out of the car, he almost always has taken his shoe off and is chewing on it.  Gross, I know.
• Walking around things like a coffee table or toy while still holding on to it
• Watching older kids move and play
• Doors.  This was a new one last month, but he still loves playing with doors.
• Peek-a-boo.  I should change this to hide-and-seek because that’s more what it’s like.  Carter will see me or Justin and then we’ll run into another room and he follows us smiling and laughing the whole time.
• Lately he has been crawling into his bouncy seat and trying to stand up in it.  Nerve racking!!
• Baby Cheetos (it’s Gerber Graduates, but Baby Cheetos is what we call them).  I used to break them up because I worried about his choking on them, but little man knows how to use those teeth now and he chews them up before swallowing them like a champ!

Dislikes

• Falling. He is experimenting more and more with walking and I can’t catch him every time he falls. But needless to say, he gets upset when he falls and bangs his head on something. Usually picking him up and walking outside cures those tears though.
• Having his diaper changed.  He use to cry a lot when we changed his diaper but then he stopped for a long time.  Now he tends to get fussy again.  He doesn’t like laying still when there’s things around he wants to play with.

Sippy Cup

Got some good advice on the sippy cup last month and we’re still trying.  We found one that he drinks relatively well out of, and trust me, we’ve tried every sippy cup we can find.   He seems to favor the Babies R’ Us brand so now we are only giving him that one in order to not confuse him.  I can usually get him to drink about an ounce and a half or so of water/apple juice mixture around dinner, but we still can’t get him to drink his formula from the sippy cup instead of the bottle.  I plan to keep trying and just see what his pediatrician says at his appointment. 

Party Planning

Carter’s first birthday party is on December 15th.  A mere 2 1/2 weeks away.  Invitations have already gone out and I already got the cake and decorations ordered and planned out.  There’s still several things I’ll have to get taken care of as we get closer to d-day but for the most part, I have his first birthday party planned.  I can’t believe it.  He’s almost one.  Where did the time go? 

**Side note - I will not be continuing the monthly posts after his first birthday.  I may do them every 3 or 4 months so that I can keep up with his growth, but doing them monthly is extremely time consuming so I plan to be done after 12 months!**

Carter - Ten Months

Diapers

Still wearing 3’s.

Shoe Size

3 1/2 wide.  He only has one pair of shoes and he wears them all the time.  This is why I got brown shoes.  They go with everything!

Clothes

6-9 month tops (even though most 9 month ones are still a little big on him), 6 month pants and 9 month sleepers (and all of the sleepers are big on him, but the 6 month ones are too small)

Feeding

We are rocking the homemade foods!!  Carter loves it all and eats it all.  If he doesn’t eat it, it’s usually because he’s not hungry, not because he doesn’t like it.  The only thing I’ve found that I really think he doesn’t like is cantaloupe and it’s because it’s kind of runny.  It’s such a pain to make and with it being as runny as it is, it’s difficult for him to eat with a spoon.  I stopped making it after the first batch I made!  This month, I started making combination meals for him.  Such as chicken with brown rice and green peas and sweet potatoes with turkey.  But it’s still all blended together in baby food form.  He needs protein though so we’re starting to give him  meats.

Sleep

No issues on the sleep front.  Still 12+ hours at night and two naps during the day that last anywhere from 1 hour to 2 1/2 hours.

Waketime

No changes.  Outside is his favorite still.

Mother’s Day Out

The teachers have told me how much of a joy he is at MDO now that his two top teeth have popped through.  He still only takes a 20-45 minute nap, but the teachers say that’s all he needs.  They tell me that he isn’t fussy or anything, he just naps then wakes up and plays some more until Justin or Debbie come get him.  He really doesn’t like missing anything which I’m sure is why he takes such a short nap.  I’m so glad he has gotten adjusted to being in school!  The only time he gets somewhat “fussy” is right when he’s dropped off and he knows we’re gone, but it’s a 50/50 shot on whether he cries or not when we leave.  Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t.  He did get sent home one day this month because he was sick.  See below for info on that.

Justin’s Travel

October wasn’t too bad.  Justin was out of town 3 of 5 weeks and those weeks he was home on Thursdays instead of Fridays.  The two weeks that he was in town, he played stay-at-home dad because his dad was out of town so he didn’t have to work.  It does suck that Justin travels as much as he does, but weeks like those where he is with Carter all day while I’m at work make up for it and they happen on average about once a month. 

Statistics

No 10 month appointment, but at 10 months, I measured him at roughly 28.5 inches (40th %) and weighed him at 19.7 lbs (24th %).  So still a pretty small little boy.  Next pediatrician appointment isn’t until he’s one year old, but he does have to go in this Friday to get his flu booster.

Abilities

The biggest thing he learned this month was to say “dada” and “nana”.  He said “dada” for the first time on October 6th after Justin and I had gotten back in town.  We went to the Auburn vs. Arkansas game that day in Auburn and my mom was keeping him for us.  When we got back in town we picked him up and brought him home and then went on a golf cart ride to the playground and played in the swing.  Justin said that he thought he heard him say it on the way back to the house, but I didn’t hear anything.  I was giving him his bath before bedtime and he said it over and over again!  He’s been saying it non-stop since then.  He has also learned how to say “nana” and says it about as frequently as he says dada.  He’s said “baba” a couple of times and did say “mama” one day, but I haven’t heard him say it since.  These are all words he is learning to vocalize.  He doesn’t necessarily understand yet that dada is Justin, mama is me and nana is his grandmother (or a banana, depending on what he’s doing while saying it).  That will come with time and more practice :)  Right now we’re working on saying “mama” and on clapping (and of course walking).  Oh and speaking of walking….little sucker walks FAST with his little walker.  Good lord it is hard to keep up with him once he gets a hold of that thing.  Justin and I joke that he’s going to skip walking and go straight for running!

Teething

HOLY TEETH.  So remember in Carter’s 9 month post where I said month 9 was AWFUL because he was getting his top two teeth?  Well they finally poked through at the end of September (and even now they’re still growing  and pushing through) so I thought “wow that was a pretty fussy month for two lousy teeth”.  Oh no.  Boo Boo literally has FIVE teeth coming through (yes we call him Boo Boo sometimes - like from Yogi Bear).  He has those top two teeth and also has two on both sides of those top teeth as well as one additional one on the bottom.  I see now why he was so fussy.  One tooth is bad but I can’t imagine five!  So now we’re up to a grand total of seven teeth!!

Discipline

My mother in law told me one day that Carter definitely knows what “no” means and he obeys it for everything…except jewelry.  He LOVES to play with jewelry and won’t stop even if you say no.  I guess there are worse things for him to continue doing when told no.  He hasn’t done anything major yet for disciplinary purposes.  He has tried to go out Gizmo’s doggy door in our back porch and that is NOT going to be one of those things that we let him figure out when he hurts himself.  There are brick steps that he would fall down if he was able to get out that door.  This is why we watch him INTENSELY when he’s in the kitchen. 

He still pulls up on the cabinets in the kitchen, which I’m ok with him doing, but I’m not ok with him opening the cabinets, which is something he’s learning how to do.  He hasn’t quite figured out how to go through the things in the cabinets and I’d prefer he not get to that point.  Any time he opens a cabinet, even if it’s accidentally, we tell him “no”.  He also still tries to stand up in the bathtub sometimes, but when he does that I really only have to look at him and point at him and then he sits back down.  No “no” necessary :) 

The only other time, other than jewelry, that I have noticed him ignoring my “no” is when he’s about to take a bath.  I usually let him stand up on the floor holding on to the tub while I take his clothes off.  He loves to walk towards the bottom of the tub where the shampoo and conditioner sit on the edge and knock them into the water.  I have told him no repeatedly on this and he still does it.  It’s pretty frustrating.

Other Notable Things

We got our first high-grade fever this month.  Carter was sent home from Mother’s Day Out on October 23rd because he was fussy and they assumed he had a fever because his head was hot.  My MIL picked him up and brought him home.  She said he was happier to be at her house but she could tell he just didn’t feel good, but she didn’t have a baby thermometer at her house to take his temp.  When I went to pick him up after work he had just woken up from a 3 hour nap (I know a lot of babies have sleep issues when they are sick or teething, but Carter is the COMPLETE opposite.  He sleeps like a log when he’s sick or doesn’t feel good).  I could also tell he just wasn’t happy because he whined a lot.  Not so much crying, but a constant unhappy whining.  I touched his head and it was ON FIRE.  So I took him home to take his temperature. 

He does NOT like having his temp taken in his ear.  He moved his head so much and I couldn’t get a good reading but the first reading I got was 101.5.  So I stripped him down to a diaper and gave him some juice.  I propped him up in his bouncy seat in front of the TV and let him watch back to back episodes of Baby Einstein, which I NEVER do.  He loves Baby Einstein, but I’m trying to limit his TV time so he only watches one episode a few times a week.  But I could tell he hurt so bad and I wanted to help him forget the pain, so I let him watch a couple of episodes.  

Once he was sitting down and glued to the TV, I took his temp again since he wasn’t moving as much.  Three times in a row (and in both ears) it was over 102, the max being 102.5.  My heart hurt for my baby.  I also called the after hours pediatrician.  I knew 102 wasn’t worthy of emergency room, but I didn’t know where that line was that I should do something, so I called.  Shockingly, they say not to take a baby to the ER unless they have over a 105 fever.  If I had a 105 fever I would be dead.  Seriously.  But babies temps are different than ours.  They can handle more than we can.  Anyway, the doc said it was most likely a cold and told me to do the things I was already doing. 

After watching some episodes, I fed him his dinner (carrots and green beans) and he ate all of it.  I was grateful because I know they tend to not eat when they’re sick.  After dinner we got a bath and I made it a lukewarm bath in hopes to help the fever break.  I put him straight to bed after a bottle (which he barely drank from) and he was out cold by 7:30pm.  He didn’t wake up the next day until 8am.  I needed to go to work, but I didn’t want to wake him.  And if he still had a fever I was going to stay home anyway, so I just let him sleep.  Luckily, his fever broke and he was fine the next morning. 

Likes

Carter still likes everything I’ve put in this section in the past several months (golf cart rides, being outside, Baby Einstein, puffs and mums, etc.) so I won’t repeat all of them, but will just list the new likes or the likes that seemed the most prevalent this month:

• Having his teeth brushed.  He smiles SO big when he sees that brush!
• The swing at the playground
• Walking with his walker
• Teething pacifier.  Yes, my child that has REFUSED a pacifier for 10 months now actually likes chewing on the teething pacifier.  But he will still throw a normal paci away, he only likes the teething ones because of the texture:

• Walking around things like a coffee table or toy while still holding on to it
• Watching older kids move and play
• Doors.  This is a new one.  He LOVES to play with our bedroom door.  He likes closing it and opening it and the sound the door makes when banged against the stopper.  I’m scared he’s going to lock me out of our room one day.  A couple of weeks ago, I was in the kitchen making dinner and he crawled into the bedroom and all I heard was the door slam.  I was freaking out hoping that the door wasn’t locked.  Luckily it wasn’t.  He just likes the sound of the door closing for some reason.
• When daddy says “UH OH!”.  I don’t really know why, but he thinks it’s hilarious.

Dislikes

• Falling.  He is experimenting more and more with walking and I can’t catch him every time he falls.  But needless to say, he gets upset when he falls and bangs his head on something.  Usually picking him up and walking outside cures those tears though.

Advice

I need some advice from the momma’s out there.  I’m trying to transition Carter to the sippy cup.  We introduced it a month ago but it was very casual.  We didn’t force it and most of the time we just let  him play with it so that he could get used to holding it.  Well, now I really want him to start drinking from it.  And he won’t.  I use to put apple juice in it and he wouldn’t drink that, so I thought it was the sippy cup and put the juice in his bottle but he still wouldn’t drink it, so I thought it may just be the juice he doesn’t like.  So then, I tried to put his formula in the sippy cup and he refused it.  I put it back in a bottle and he sucked it dry.  How do I get him to drink from the cup??  Anyone have this problem??

Carter - Nine Months

After a couple of pictures, he got bored and decided to climb the chair….

**I am totally aware that Carter’s monthly posts have become small novels.  I can’t help it….I want to remember everything so I’m as specific in possible in my posts.  Apologies!!**

Diapers

Still wearing 3’s.

Shoe Size

3 1/2 wide.  Yes, he has wide feet.  I hope this changes as he grows.  Wide shoes are hard to find!

Clothes

He wears 9 month tops (even though they’re still slightly big on him) and 6 month pants.  I bought two pairs of Koala baby 6-9 month shorts when he was around 4 months old thinking that he would be able to wear them soon.  They’re still gigantic.  My guess is that by the time he can wear them, it’ll be winter, therefore, I wasted money on those.  Note to moms out there….Koala Baby clothes run BIIIIIIGGGGGG.  I went on a shopping spree at Carter’s in the Leeds shopping center.  Since it’s turning into fall pretty quickly, I racked up on some jeans and several long sleeve shirts for him.  This BEAUTIFUL weather the south is having is causing clothing changes.  Evening golf cart rides definitely require long sleeve shirts, pants and socks now!

Nursing

Gave up nursing right when Carter turned 8 months old and my milk is now dried up.  This will be the last month that the nursing section will be in the posts.  Tear :*(  On the bright side, weaning from nursing didn’t hurt me at all!!!  It was uncomfortable right when I started, but never painful.  Super easy.  I think this is attributed to the fact that I did it for 8 months.  Had I weaned when he was nursing more than 4 times a day, I’m sure it would have been incredibly painful.

Feeding

Carter is still eating Stage 2 foods as well as various table foods from us when we’re eating.  Table foods he has eaten include bananas, peaches, bread, strawberries, peas, pork chops, mum mums, lima beans and brown rice.  We’re also trying to introduce the sippy cup.  My plan is to have him fully weaned from the bottle by a year old or sooner, but I’m not going to force him.  I’ll let him wean at his own pace.  I bought a sippy cup that he apparently wasn’t a fan of.  I’m learning that sippy cups are like pacifiers.  You gotta find the right one for your baby.  He liked the one Nana and Papa have at their house so we ended up just buying the same one.  Also, Carter’s appetite decreased quite a bit this month.  He got to where he was rarely finishing his bottles, leaving as much as 2 or 3 ounces in some.  This is a side affect of teething which is what has hit him BAD this month. 

A major change that happened in the feeding area is that I started making Carter’s food.  About a week and a half before turning 9 months old, I purchased the baby bullet and started making Carter’s food using real fruits and vegetables instead of buying him the packaged stuff that has TONS of preservatives in them.  It’s been quite a change and we’re still adjusting to it.  It’s actually much easier than I thought it would be to make his food, that’s for sure.  But for Carter, the taste is completely different.  He is resistant to eat the real stuff so we’ve had to slowly adjust him to it.  He usually eats about 3-4oz of baby food 3 times a day.  Right now, we give him about 2oz of the real stuff and then 2oz of the packaged stuff.  I plan to do this until he can eat the real stuff only and he’s almost there.  I am aware I waited too late in the game to do this.  I should have done it when he started solids at 6 months and that way, he would have had no food taste expectations other than what I created for him.  Even though he’ll only be on baby food for a short period of time, I want him to eat the real stuff as much as possible.  I think it will make the transition to real fruits and vegetables easier for him.  Not to mention it is SO much healthier and don’t even get me started on how much cheaper it is!!  So far he loves the real sweet potatoes.  He didn’t initially like bananas or avocado, but they’re growing on him.  He HATES raw carrots.  That’s my bad.  I should have cooked them before making his food but I didn’t.  He cried anytime that stuff even touched his mouth.  We’ll try the peas and green beans next week…and I definitely WILL remember to cook them first ;)

Sleep

Still takes 2 naps a day that are roughly an hour and a half or longer.  When he does something particularly exhausting (like going to the zoo like we did this month) he’ll take a super long almost 3 hour nap.  He still goes to bed somewhere between 7:30-8pm.  There was a period of time when Carter was 8 1/2 months old that he was waking up SUPER early between 5-6am.  Fortunately, he always went back to sleep after about 30-45 minutes of talking to himself.  This waking early phase only lasted a little less than a week though and then he was back to sleeping until 7:30 or until I woke him up.  Carter was teething pretty bad this month and even though it made him fussier than normal, we are extremely lucky that it never disrupted his sleep. 

Waketime

No major changes this month.  He still loves being outside doing anything.  He loves golf cart rides and playing on the swing set.  I also bring him outside in the front yard to practice standing up without holding onto something and walking.  He is starting to grow tired of playing with his Ocean Mat and I may be packing that up soon.  Now that he can stand up he does it all the time and wants to play standing up, not laying down.  So I had to buy him a stand up toy for him to play with.  He still plays with the piano on the music mat though.  I absolutely love watching him play.  He literally does circles in the living room.  He starts with the stand up toy, stays there for a while, then crawls to the exersaucer, then he crawls to the piano mat, then he crawls to the center of the room and plays with handheld toys.  Then he starts the process over again with the stand up toy.  Kid cracks me up just doing circles in the living room!  When he tries to do something and succeeds, he looks at me like with the biggest smile on his face as if saying “mommy I did it!!!”.  He is truly such a joy.

New things he’s done at waketimes this month included going to the Birmingham Zoo and also going to story time at the public library with Nana while mommy works (daddy also took him to story time this week because he was in town all week and played the role of  “stay at home dad”).  I’ve finally found the best way to read to Carter.  He is such an active little boy and refuses to sit still to let me read him a book.  The only way I’ve found that I can do it is while I’m feeding him his bottle before bed.  The lights in his room are off and just his closet light is on (so that I can see what I’m reading - I really need to buy a lamp) and he sucks on his bottle while I read a book-usually either “Just in Case You Ever Wonder” by Max Lucado because it’s my favorite or chapters from his baby bible.

Mother’s Day Out

Naps are still decent at MDO, but nothing like what he does at home.  He takes anywhere from a 20 minute catnap to a 45 minute nap.  Shockingly, he sometimes sleeps in the swing in the nursery, but occasionally will only sleep in a teachers lap.  He has NEVER wanted to sleep in a swing at home.  I’m impressed that he’s broadening his horizons.  He is still slowly adjusting to someone taking care of him other than us or the grandparents.  He is fine when I get him there but the second he sees me head for the door he bawls.  I read in the What to Expect the First Year book that separation anxiety peaks around 8-10 months.  Awesome.  I’ve noticed this in other areas too.  He won’t let anyone hold him that he isn’t really familiar with and if he does, it isn’t for long.  Any suggestions on how to help the separation anxiety would be extremely helpful!

Justin’s Travel

Now that it’s fall, Justin’s travel is in full effect.  My husband travels almost every week during the fall.  And not road trips.  Cross country trips.  This month he went to Washington, New York, Oregon and Oklahoma.  On big trips like these, he usually gets home Friday night and leaves again Sunday morning.  Needless to say, we’ve begun using Facetime on the I-Pad/I-Phone so that he can see Carter.  I tend to get lots of sympathy from people when I tell them that I work full time and my husband is only in town on the weekends.  That’s when the “oh honey you must be superwoman!  How do you handle that?” comes in.  It’s honestly not that hard.  Debbie (MIL) keeps Carter while I’m at work and by the time I get off work to go get him, he’s only awake for about 2-3 hours before going to bed for the night.  And I love that time I get with him since I haven’t seen him all day.  I also love seeing Carter’s face when he sees daddy for the first time all week.  That smile will light up the room!

Statistics

Carter’s 9 month appointment was today.  He is 28 inches tall (50%) and weighs exactly 19lbs (30%).  His head is 17 1/2 inches around (30%).  Looks like his height is starting to slow down but so is his weight!  It’s hard to get a baby to gain weight when they’re as active as Carter is!  At this appointment Carter had 3 shots (I think - it may have just been two) and got his finger pricked to test for anemia.  We have to go back in a month, not to see the doctor, but to get the flu booster.  His next appointment will be when he’s a year old.  Wow.  It’s almost heartbreaking to say that.  A year old.  Where has the time gone???

Abilities

Carter learned an insane amount of abilities last month.  This month, I think he’s solely focusing on standing up on his own without holding on to anything.  He will frequently pull up in his crib with both hands on the crib slats and then all of a sudden let go of both hands and stand on his own, however this only lasts for about 2 seconds before he loses his balance and falls.  But he does it over and over again!  He has also showed a HUGE interest in walking already.  I frequently get him to walk with my assistance around the house or outside and we also practice standing outside.  I’ll hold both of his hands and then let go of one and then count “one….two….three!” and then let go of the other.  He’ll wobble for a few seconds and then eventually fall onto me, laughing hysterically because he thinks it’s a game.  But he is incredibly good at balancing by only holding onto something with one hand.  It’s quite impressive.  Also, while Justin was playing the role of stay at home dad this past week, he taught Carter to high five. 

Teething

I HATE TEETHING!!!  Carter’s bottom two teeth came in when he was 6 months old and they never affected him.  Not so with these top teeth.  I started seeing white “bumps” on his top gums right when he was 8 1/2 months old but he started having teething symptoms for these top teeth right when he turned 7 months old.  These teeth have taken almost 2 months to finally cut!  I could tell he was in so much pain because he was CONSTANTLY putting his hands in his mouth and crying while he’s doing it.  He also started sucking his thumb pretty much all the time (he used to do this a lot but stopped for a long time and has picked the habit back up this month). 

See?!?  He is officially a thumb sucker again.  Other symptoms he experienced were a massive increase in drooling and decreased appetite. His top left incisor started poking through the gums around September 20, 2012 (8 months 3 weeks old). The top right incisor was right behind the left one and came out around September 25, 2012.

Discipline

I’m adding this section this month because I’ve started “disciplining” Carter this month.  I’m using that word in the absolute loosest of translations.  By “discipline” I mean that anytime Carter is doing something I don’t want him to be doing, I pull him away, make sure he’s looking at me and say “No Carter, we don’t do that” (except that I say what he’s doing) and shake my head.  Shockingly, I think he knows what I’m telling him.  He kept trying to pull up on the entertainment center that is under our TV that has shelving that holds the DVD player, DVR player and all kinds of electronics.  Anytime he even starts crawling in that direction I get ready for it, but I don’t usually pull him back and say “no” until he touches the shelving.  I don’t want to correct him for doing something he hasn’t done yet, even though I know he’ll do it.  In the past two weeks, I’ve noticed that once I tell him that one time, he’ll go play with something else.  A few minutes later, he’ll start crawling back to the shelving and then he stops mid-crawl before getting there, looks at me (and sees that I’m staring at him) and then he crawls towards something else.  I’m so impressed with this!  At 8 months, they are supposed to be able to understand what you’re telling them not to do, but this is the first time I’ve really witnessed it.  I don’t want to start off telling him “no” to everything, so I’ve been picking my battles for now.  I’m focusing on him not getting into those shelves under the TV, not getting into the little corner of the kitchen that holds Gizmo’s food and water, not standing up in the bathtub during bathtime and not banging his hands on the high chair tray during meal times. 

Other Notable Things

This month was Carter’s first time to go to someone else’s house and stay for a long period of time and even take a nap (not including grandparents houses).  We went over to our friends Devin and Mary’s house to watch the Auburn and Alabama games and brought Carter’s pack-n-play so that he could take a nap there.  It was his first time being away from his own home or the home of the grandparents for such a long time and I was afraid he would get upset and want to go somewhere familiar.  He did great though!  He played with his toys and pulled up on absolutely everything and loved watching the dogs.  When it was nap time he went to sleep easily even though he was in an unfamiliar place and slept the normal hour and a half.  Justin and I forgot his rain machine but Tiffany was going to her house anyway to get some clothes and she just brought us Harper’s rain machine.  I have no idea if Carter would have slept without that machine or not, but I didn’t want to risk it.  We should totally do this more now that we know we can.  Both Justin and I were afraid to take him out of his comfort zone for such a long time and were certain we were headed for disaster, but he proved us wrong!

Likes

Carter still likes everything I’ve put in this section in the past several months, so I won’t repeat all of them, but will just list the likes that seem the most prevalent this month:

• Golf cart rides
• The swing at the playground
• Puffs and mum mums- absolutely loves puffs but still struggles with using the pincer grasp to feed himself.  We’re working on this.  He can pick up the puff with his whole hand and bring his hand to his mouth, but he can’t get the puff out of his grasp to get it into his mouth.  Mums are bigger so it’s easier for him to feed himself with those.  One pack has two mum mums in it and I will break it into several pieces and he’ll feed the whole pack to himself.  Also, Gizmo is loving this pincer grasp training because she picks up anything Carter drops on the floor.
• Standing up in general.  It is literally the cutest thing in the world when he sees me out of the corner of his eye, turns and looks at me, drops whatever toy he’s playing with and crawls to me and then uses my legs to pull up on and then hugs my legs once he’s standing up.  Justin doesn’t think this is funny because when he pulls up on Justin’s legs, he ends up pulling his leg hair.  Carter wants to pull up all the time but he doesn’t want you to do it for him, he wants to pull himself up to a standing position on his own.  He’s so dang independent…and kind of stubborn!  He gets that from me.  That and his lack of interest in cuddling.
• Watching me or Justin jump.  Yes, this is weird.  But he gets the biggest kick out of just watching us jump up and down.  Crazy kid!
• Older kids.  I can’t even begin to explain how much he loves to just sit and watch other kids, preferably older ones that can walk and talk.  It’s like he studies them.  He just stares.  So weird!
• Mornings.  You wouldn’t think he loves mornings since he typically is a late sleeper, but he is a hoot when he wakes up.  I’ll come into his room and he will immediately stand up and look at me and start cooing.  I love it!!  I have to get a video of it because it literally is the cutest thing!

Dislikes

• Not a lot of dislikes this month other than those related to teething.  Due to the teething he had to be kept busy to keep his mind off the pain, which meant he really didn’t like sitting still.  Though I think this also is attributable to the fact that he’s a boy (boys are typically more active than girls) and that his parents are me and Justin, two people that have no idea what “relax” means.
• Being away from me or Justin or the grandparents (separation anxiety)
• When you wipe off his face.  He HATES having his face wiped, whether it’s to wipe off food or to wipe off buggers or snot.  HATES it.

Overall, I must say that this is my FAVORITE baby stage.  I am loving the 6-9 month time frame and I know I’ll love the 9-12 month one even more.  Don’t get me wrong, I love me a little newborn baby, but this stage is so FUN!  Newborn babies are cute, we all know that.  But with newborn babies come sleep deprivation, crazy schedules and really not knowing what on Earth they’re crying about.  Those burdensome traits are long gone now and I am loving watching Carter now that he’s mobile.  He crawls all over the place, pulls up on any and everything and is even walking with assistance (holding onto me or someone else or some kind of furniture).  His personality is so fun at this age and I can’t wait to see what the next age bracket brings!

Carter - Eight Months

Diapers

Literally just started wearing 3’s a week ago. 

Clothes

We are finally wearing 6 month clothes (though most of his shorts are still 3 months)!  I’ve even packed up all his 3 month stuff (minus the shorts mentioned above) and have gotten it ready to give to Tiffany, one of my best friends who had a baby boy in May.  He’s been “lending” all of his clothes, one stage at a time, to Harper Lobdell.  And can I just talk for a second about how much I love my baby’s fat??  I mean, he’s now in the 25th percentile in weight (see below) but he somehow manages to have the CHUNKIEST thighs, knees and feet.  I often talk about how  much I love his “knee fat”.  And the dimples in his thighs…LOVE IT!

Nursing

Well, I finally did it.  I said bye bye to nursing.  Literally this past weekend…and I am pretty sure my  milk is still in the process of drying up.  I made it 8 months folks.  I’m proud of that!  My original goal was only 6 months and I made that.  My second goal was 1 year and even though I wish I could have made it that long, I just couldn’t handle pumping at work anymore.  It was a HUGE inconvenience.  Mainly when I was working out at client offices and had to go to the bathroom multiple times a day and sit on a toilet for 15 minutes.  It’s just not feasible.  I truly feel that if I were a stay at home mom, I would have continued breastfeeding.  Carter and I never had any issues with it at all and I thoroughly enjoyed nursing him, however since I worked, I only got to nurse him once a day (twice when he was younger).

Solids

Carter is now on Stage 2 solid foods.  This means that instead of the 2 1/2 oz. of food that comes with Stage 1 foods, he now gets 3 1/2 oz. of food.  There are also so many more options of food with Stage 2.  New ones we’ve added are Hawaiian Mangos, Mixed Berries, Garden Vegetables, Turkey and Rice, Macaroni and Cheese, Sweet Potatoes and Corn, I could go on forever.  I’ve noticed that Stage 2 is a lot of combinations of two different foods and Carter LOVES that.

Sleep

Most of the month, Justin was in town, so Carter has gotten used to waking up late since daddy goes in to work late.  Many times, Justin has had to wake Carter up at 9am, but mostly, the past couple of months Carter has been waking up between 8:15-8:45am.  Justin has now kicked up his traveling again and unfortunately for Carter, that means he has to wake up at 7:30am again so that I can take him to my mother-in-law’s house before I go to work. 

Also, on the sleep front, since Carter started being able to pull up on the bumpers in his crib, we’ve stopped using sleep sacks at night because I’m afraid that he’ll trip over the material and fall.  He now just sleeps in footie pajamas at night.  For the time being, we still use the sleep sacks during naptime because he’s not in the crib unattended like he is at night.  We are always looking at the monitor during the day but at night we’re asleep and if he woke up and tripped and hit his head I would never forgive myself!  We also lowered the crib as low as it can go now that he can pull up.  And this morning, on his 8 month birthday, I came into his room to get him up for the day and the kid was standing up in his crib.  STANDING UP.

Overall, he still sleeps around 11-12 hours at night.  Usually he’s in bed by 7:30ish, but lately we’ve been pushing it back to around 8pm.  We’ve noticed that sometimes when we put him down later, he wakes up later (this is helpful on days that he goes to MDO - if he wakes up later, he’s happier longer at MDO).  However this isn’t always the case.  There’s several days that I’ve put him down around 8pm and he still wakes up around 7:15/7:30.  I’m going to experiment with it some more in his 9th month and see if I can find a pattern.  Naps are about 1 1/2 hours a piece (he takes two a day), but can sometimes be 2 1/2 hours long depending on how tired he is.

Waketime

No major changes to the waketimes this month. His favorite things to do during waketime are still watching Baby Einstein DVD’s and taking strolls around the neighborhood or just sitting outside.  Now that he crawls a lot, you can usually put him on the floor in our living room and he’ll crawl around and play with toys on his own for up to an hour before he gets fussy and wants to do something else.  But also, now that he can crawl around like crazy, he doesn’t like watching the Baby Einstein in the bouncy seat anymore.  He prefers to just sit in the floor like a big boy!  See for yourself:

Mother’s Day Out

Carter started going to MDO at our church this month.  His first day was August 23rd but Justin and I went to a “meet and greet” with the teachers on the 21st.  He did well on his first day.  You can read more about it here.  I was so worried about the nap he’d take at MDO.  I honestly wasn’t expecting him to take one because he’s not used to sleeping with other people in the room with him.  Shockingly, he did sleep, but it was only for 30 minutes.  I’m still impressed though.  I’m sure that as he gets used to MDO, he’ll learn to sleep through anything!

Statistics

Carter didn’t have an 8 month appointment.  He won’t have another doctor appointment until he’s 9 months old.  At 8 months, Carter weighs 18.3 pounds, which puts him in the 25th percentile. He is around 27.5 inches long (extremely hard to measure a squirmy baby) which puts him around the 50th percentile for height.

Abilities

Oh my oh my.  As soon as Carter turned 7 months old, it was like he turned on the developmental ability switch.  Here’s what he can do now and this is the order in which he did everything:

• Sit up from a laying down position
• Army crawls from one end of the room to the other (see video of this here)
• Pulls up on the bumpers on the crib to his knees
• Clapped for the first time on August 6th - but unfortunately hasn’t done it since then
• After learning to army crawl and mastering that skill, he started crawling on all fours on August 14th.  The first time he did it was when dad was in the shower and I had Carter playing in the bathroom while I was getting ready for work.  Gizmo came in the bathroom and sat down and Carter crawled to her.  Man….my kid is in love with that dog.  Just like his daddy.
• He can also push up from a sitting position to where he’s standing while bending over.  I know that’s hard to imagine based on the way I worded it.  This is better:

• In this “baby downward dog” as I like to call it, he is now taking steps.  Oh yes.  Steps.  He’ll put his hands on the ground and stand up like he is in the picture above (with his hands still on the ground) and he’ll take up to 3 steps like that.  I think he gets this from watching Gizmo walk on four legs.  Regardless, mark my words-this kid will be walking before he’s one year old!
• Stand up while holding onto something (the crib, the side of the bathtub, the couch, etc.)

Carter’s overall mood was rough towards the middle of his 8th month.  I’ve read that once they start learning new things, this can affect their mood.  It’s like sensory overload to them.  He had the same thing happen to him during week 27 of his life.  He was extremely fussy for a week and then all of a sudden, he was able to get on all fours and rock back and forth.  So I imagine that his fussiness in the middle of this month had to do with the huge list of abilities above that he started doing.  Of course, it could be teething related (see below-though I really don’t think he’s teething).  Also, I was starting to get afraid that Carter is slightly “shy” and doesn’t like big crowds of people or when people he doesn’t know get in his face because he started getting fussy when people he didn’t know were holding him. But he hasn’t gotten like that the past week or so and he met a bunch of new people at MDO, so I really think the fussiness was because of all the new stuff he learned.  Parenting side note - I think this is the WORST part about parenting so far.  Not knowing what’s wrong because they can’t talk.  I can fix it if I just knew what was wrong!!!  Regardless, he was much better by the end of this month and wasn’t near as fussy.

Teeth

No new teeth yet.  Still only has the bottom two central incisors.  I was thinking he’d get his top incisors by now, but no such luck.  Like I mentioned above, towards the middle of the eighth month, Carter started getting really fussy.  He was constantly drooling, hands in the mouth all the time (though I don’t know that I can blame teething on that because that kid ALWAYS has his hands in his mouth), he started waking up earlier each morning than usual and his overall mood just significantly decreased.  Carter never showed signs of teething when he got the first two teeth so between that and the fact that I don’t see any visible signs of teething (nor do I feel anything in his mouth), I was hesitant to say he’s teething.  But I don’t really know what else would cause these symptoms other than teething. 

Likes

• Thunderstorms!!  Carter’s best sleep happens when Thor is knocking on his window!  It’s so weird.  There was a really bad series of thunderstorms in Birmingham right after he turned 7 months old and it was LOUD and CONSTANT thunder and lightning.  It lasted from about 1am all the way to 8am.  And little man didn’t budge all night.  I was shocked.  But that wasn’t the only time he’s done it.  He’s slept through several thunderstorms in his short little lifetime.
• Crawling anywhere and everywhere and the past couple of days, he frequently crawls towards me.  If I leave a room, he follows me.  I love it.
• TV remotes and cell phones.  He’ll play with the “toy” phones and remotes you can buy at a baby store, but he can TOTALLY tell the difference.  He prefers the real thing.  He also really likes to watch his Baby Einstein on one of our I-Pads.  Carter may be just as “techy” as his dad.  My in-laws were joking around the other day saying that Carter would be the first ever baby to bring his I-Pad to Mother’s Day Out!!
• Still loving golf cart rides and he now likes to grab the steering wheel.  And we’ve also started walking/jogging in the BOB jogging stroller (the most expensive stroller on the market that I managed to get for $8 at a church garage sale - SCORE!).
• Being outside in general.  I’ve started putting a blanket in the grass in the front or backyard and letting him sit out there and play with toys (supervised of course)
• Loves Gizmo more and more every day.  She’s the first thing he looks for when he gets up from a nap or nighttime sleep
• Pulling up in the crib.  He tries so hard, but we’ve made it a little harder on him by lowering the crib mattress to the lowest level
• Being thrown in the air
• Peek-A-Boo
• Puffs….oooooohhhhh do we love puffs.  It calms a fussy baby QUICK.
• Balloons - something we discovered while at the twins’ birthday party this month.  Not so much a fan of when they pop right next to his face though.
• Standing up on the music mat.  It has become his FAVORITE floor toy all of a sudden.
• The lion that is attached to his carseat that makes noise.  He’s always played with this but for some reason in the past month, he is obsessed with it.  We have two of them and the second one is upstairs in his room on the changing table and he plays with it while we change his diaper (it’s the only thing that will keep him still during the process).

Dislikes

• He used to really hate being strapped in the carseat, but I haven’t seen him cry while we do this in a LONG time.  He just plays with his little lion that is attached to the carseat while we strap him in. 
• He also used to despise the period between bathtime and bedtime where we’d change his diaper and put PJ’s on.  He doesn’t really hate it anymore.  On a rare occasion, he’ll still cry, but for the most part, he just stares at Gizmo while I’m changing him or start sucking his thumb.  Also, during this particular diaper change is when he feels the need to crawl.  I’ll take the towel from the bath off of him and that’s his cue to roll over onto all fours and crawl to the dog or remote or anything within reach to play with.  I keep having to pull him back to put his diaper and PJ’s on and that’s when he cries.
• Getting bored if he’s been doing one activity for too long.
• Apparently he doesn’t like having pictures taken.  We went to my sister’s studio on August 4th to have his 7 month pictures taken.  She got some great shots, but Carter was F-U-S-S-Y!!!!  He was totally content when you picked him up, but when he was put down to take pictures, he wailed.  As if he doesn’t get enough traits from his daddy, hatred of professional picture taking may be another one to add to the list.

Carter - Seven Months

**There were several good pictures from his 7 month pictures that I wanted to post.  I couldn’t pick just one!**

Diapers

Still rockin’ the 2’s.  I really thought he’d be in 3’s by now, but 2’s are still fitting pretty good.  I haven’t actually tried a size 3 on him yet, but they look huge so as long as he’s still fitting into 2’s, we’ll stick with those.

Clothes

Baby boy is still on the small side!!!  He still wears a lot of his 3 month clothes and is just now fitting into some 6 month clothes, though most still swallow him, especially pants/shorts.  Even three month shorts fall off of him for some reason!

Nursing

Carter still likes nursing and eats so much more quickly now than he did when he was a newborn. I remember the days of nursing for 45+ minutes. Now he only nurses for maybe 10 minutes! He has certainly gotten more efficient with eating. Of course, as was the problem last month, if Daddy is in sight, Carter loves to stare at him and laugh which makes the meal take a bit longer.

Carter eats cereal and a 5-6 oz. bottle for breakfast, then a solid with another 5oz bottle for lunch, and his 3rd meal is a bottle only (usually 7oz). Finally he has solids for dinner and then I nurse him right before bedtime. I should specify that he eats from bottles during the week when I’m at work, but on the weekends he rarely gets bottle and is mainly nursed.

On the pumping front, I’ve decreased the number of times I am pumping at work from twice every day to only once. I can’t handle that much pumping anymore. It’s too much of a hassle when I’m at work, particularly when I have to go to a client’s office. As of now, I pump in the morning when I wake up, then again after lunchtime and then I nurse Carter before he goes to bed. I plan to keep this routine up for as long as possible. Once I made this decision, the amount of milk I was producing decreased. Because of this, the 7oz bottle that Carter gets when he eats from a bottle only is sometimes a formula bottle. The rest are always breastmilk.

Solids

So far, Carter has been introduced to all stage one foods: carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, peas, green beans, bananas, peaches, pears, prunes and apples.  He loves them all except for peas.  He’ll eat the peas, but they are definitely not his favorite.  We’re almost done with all the stage 1 foods we have in our pantry.  My next round of purchasing baby food will include only stage 2’s.  Most of the foods are the same, there’s just more.  Stage 1 is 2 1/2 ounces and stage 2 is 3 1/2 ounces.  Though there are some additional foods in stage 2 that I’m interested to see if Carter likes.

Sleep

He is still the best little sleeper in the world.  He sleeps anywhere from 11-13 hours at night and his naps are, for the most part, pretty good.  He’s gotten to where he can stay awake longer, so his naps are little bit shorter.  Right now he takes two naps a day, both of which are usually 1 1/2 hours, maybe more, depending on how tired he is.  Very rarely do we have a 3rd nap but sometimes it will still happen.  I’m trying my hardest to get him to drop that 3rd nap all together.  I’m also doing everything I can to keep him awake for longer during his first waketime, but he seems to want this waketime to be the shortest.  I’m trying to do this because starting next month, he will be going to Mother’s Day Out at our church from 9am-1pm two days a week.  They do allow for a nap during this timeframe, but my guess is that it won’t be until around 11am and right now, Carter is doing good to make it to 10am without needing a nap.  So I have a month to get him used to making it longer in the morning!

Waketime

No major changes to the waketimes this month.  His favorite things to do during waketime are still watching Baby Einstein DVD’s and taking strolls around the neighborhood or running errands out and about town.  My kid LOVES to be outside.  LOVES it.  If you try to make him play with toys inside for a 2 hour waketime, he’ll get extremely fussy.  But the second you take him outside, he’s golden.  He loves trees and grass and the sky and animals he sees outside.  This is a pain for us right now because it’s friggin 100 degrees outside so it’s hard on US (heat doesn’t seem to bother him) to keep him entertained outside.  But I will love this later in his life.  I would much rather have a child that loves being outside than one that does nothing but play video games all day.

Statistics

Carter didn’t have a 7 month appointment and, in fact, won’t have another doctor appointment until he’s 9 months old.  I have a copy of the pediatrician graphs for weight and height percentages though (they come in the back of the “What To Expect The First Year” book)  so at least I have an idea of where Carter is on the growth scale.  At seven months, Carter weighs 17lbs, which puts him in the range of the 35-40th percentile.  He is around 27 inches long (extremely hard to measure a squirmy baby) which puts him around the 60th percentile for height.  Still relatively tall and skinny.

Abilities

Things he’s doing:

• Sits up extremely well on his own, but will still sometimes tip over and fall.
• He is very capable of holding his own bottle now and is even starting to figure out that in order to get the last bit of food in the bottle, he has to tip it up so the food can come down into the nipple.
• He finally figured out how to get on all fours when he was about 6 months and 1 week old.  He keeps rocking back and forth, testing the boundaries of his balancing abilities.  His favorite place to practice used to be in his crib.  He hated doing it anywhere else, but now he likes to practice anywhere and everywhere, thankfully.  He is definitely mobile now.  He is ALL OVER THE PLACE.  You put a toy in the corner of the room and he will get to it, he just doesn’t do it on his hands and knees just yet.  He uses a combination of scooting, rolling and army crawling to get there.  It’s actually pretty hilarious to watch!
• Last month, when we started rice cereal, I mentioned that Carter likes to suck his thumb in between the times when there’s a spoon in his mouth (I’ll put solids on the spoon and put it in his mouth, he swallows it then puts his thumb in his mouth until I get the next spoonful in there).  Well, I’ve been working really hard with him on this and on banging the tray at mealtimes.  I’ve told him “no” numerous times (and had a serious look on my face when I said it, which was hard) and now Carter never tries to suck his thumb during mealtime!!  In fact, my husband and mother-in-law pointed out to me that Carter’s thumb sucking has significantly decreased (he used to have that thumb in his mouth ALL THE TIME).  I’ve noticed it too….the only time lately that I’ve seen him suck his thumb is at bedtime.

Teeth

Carter still only has his bottom two teeth, the central incisors.  I swear, everyone I talk to about his teeth have asked me how I’m still breastfeeding since his teeth have come in.  Teeth (at least the ones on the bottom) don’t affect breastfeeding because their tongue goes on top of the teeth, so you shouldn’t feel anything….unless they bite you on purpose.  Thankfully, Carter hasn’t quite figured that out just yet :)  As far as teeth up top, I’m not sure how that affects breastfeeding, but usually the top teeth (according to APA) don’t usually come in until 8-12 months.  That might be a good time to stop nursing if he does learn to bite!  I’ve also purchased some baby toothpaste (already had a toothbrush that I got at a baby shower) and started brushing Carter’s two teeth, once after breakfast and then again during bathtime right before bed.

Likes

• Sleeping on his tummy, but now switches up between sleeping on his stomach and his back.  He also loves sleeping on his side.  He just loves sleep, no matter the position!!
• Loves playing with a water scoop in the bathtub.  This is not even a toy!!  It’s meant for me to use to get the shampoo out of his hair.  But he loves it!  He also loves being in the bathtub BEFORE you fill it with water.  He likes seeing water come out of the spout.
• Being put in the Baby Bjorn and taking golf cart rides.  This has become a nightly event in our household.  Riding the cart over to Ross Bridge is his favorite thing to do by far.
• Being outside
• Animals, particularly dogs
• Sitting up in his crib and playing with the music mobile attached to the crib
• Being thrown in the air
• Playing on all fours
• Going to the pool
• Riding in buggies at the grocery store and other stores.  We just started letting him sit in the buggies at stores this month and he loves the freedom to look at the whole store without the confinement of  the car seat.

Dislikes

• Still doesn’t enjoy being strapped down in the car seat, but he doesn’t always cry anymore.  He just kind of whines until we’re done strapping him down.  He also doesn’t love being strapped into the highchair for meals, but just like the car seat, he doesn’t always cry.
• Despises having clothes put on him. 
• Getting bored if he’s been doing one activity for too long.
• We bought him one of those bouncy swings you hang in a doorway recently.  He does NOT like it.  AT ALL.

Like I mentioned above, we’re trying to keep Carter awake longer in the mornings before his first nap.  Today, he woke up at 8am and my goal was to not have a nap until 11am.  In order to keep our sanity, that meant we had to take a golf cart ride.  We rode over to Ross Bridge this morning and there’s no telling how long he was asleep in the Baby Bjorn before Justin and I realized it:

See.  It’s hard to keep him awake that long, but we’re trying.  I think he fell asleep around 10:30ish.  He stayed asleep until I took him out of the Bjorn and just held him the rest of the ride home.  Sweet boy.