Garrett - 11 Months Old

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.

**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.

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!!

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.

**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.

**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.

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.

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. 

**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.

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.

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.

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.

**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.

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!

Garrett - 10 Months Old

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.

Shoe Size

He doesn’t wear shoes yet so I have no idea!   I bought Carter’s first pair of shoes around this time, but I think I’m going to hold off with Garrett until he actually starts walking.  I did try on a pair of Carter’s old shoes on Garrett one day and they seemed to fit.  I have a feeling that Garrett will have a wide foot just like brother did.

This is Garrett looking at our family section of the church courtyard.  We have a brick for me and Justin’s wedding and for both Carter and Garrett’s births.  And right above us is my SIL and BIL’s wedding brick with their kids birth bricks (Celia, Cynthia and Charlotte).

Clothes

9 months.  I just packed away pretty much all of the 6 month clothes.  There’s a couple of onesies that he can still wear but other than those few, he mostly wears 9 months.  He’s slimming up that’s for sure!

Carter is so sweet y’all.  When Garrett cries when I put him in the carseat (he’s not a fan of being strapped in) he always gives Garrett the Buick.  I want to be like “kid-not everyone enjoys Buicks like you”, but I can only praise him.  He adores that Buick so for him to give it to Garrett to comfort him is HUGE.

Feeding/Solids

Big changes in this department.  I officially quit nursing Garrett when he was about 9.5 months old.  But he had frozen milk in the fridge that lasted him until almost 10 months.  But he is now 100% formula.  I wanted to make it a year, I really really did.  But y’all, it’s tough to nurse that long when you have 2 kids.  And exhausting.  My once kick butt supply severely diminished around 8 months and I would nurse him and then have to give him a bottle because he wouldn’t get enough from nursing.  That got tiring REAL fast.  So at 9.5 months I was just done and stopped.  He took to the formula like a champ.  There was no difference or adjustment for him.

He still eats 4 times a day.  At the first meal he gets about 5oz formula with breakfast and then around noon-ish he gets another 5oz with a lunch food.  The next bottle is 5oz and is served by itself (no solids).  He eats dinner (solids only) around 6:30 or 7 and then gets one final feeding before bed.  This past month, however, he hasn’t been eating all of his formula.  He’s got 4 teeth coming in right now and his eating has slacked a bit because of it.  Carter was the same.  When he was cutting teeth, he barely ate.  I’m actually tired of wasting formula so I may start giving him 4oz instead of 5. 

The big changes I was referring to are in the solid foods served.  Most of the month, he was still getting strictly pureed foods (all of which was homemade from real fruits and veggies and meats).  However towards the end, we kicked up the adult food a ton.  He began eating actual bananas, pieces of pancakes or waffles, blueberries, peas, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, spaghetti, oranges, grilled chicken, etc.  All chopped into insanely small pieces of course.  At his 9 month appointment (that didn’t occur until literally last week) the doc even told me that the rules for allergies have changed.  It is now ok to give your infant peanut butter and eggs!  He has tried very small bites of peanut butter and he liked it, but I still would rather wait until he’s one to introduce that some more.  Haven’t attempted the eggs yet but feel the same.  Would rather wait until he’s one. 

Oh yeah-he’s on sippy cups now.  It took some adjusting.  This is about how he took it for the first few tries!!! 

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.  We have had several things pop up that we’ve had to rearrange his schedule around and he frequently ends up only getting one 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.  School started last week and he’s in school 3 days a week from 9-1pm.  This means that he may have a quick little catnap at school, but will mainly just have one long nap a day.  He still goes to bed around 7-7:30, depending on when he woke up from the last nap. 

How cute are these sweet cousins?!?!?  I hope they love each other as much as their older counterparts do!

Sleep

If he takes two naps, they’re between 1.5-2.5 hours each.  If it’s one nap, it’s between 2-3 hours.  At night he sleeps anywhere from 12-14 hours.  Just like brother, Garrett is able to wake up and play and keep himself entertained for a while before we go upstairs to get him. 

Waketime

He typically does the same kinds of things he has been doing.  We rearranged the house a little bit and all of the toys are in one room now.  Most of the time he plays with a Cookie Monster/Elmo kitchen set that Carter got at his 2nd birthday party.  He loves standing up and holding onto it and listening to Cookie and Elmo sing songs.  He does not use his ocean mat or piano mat anymore-one has been packed away in the attic and I sold the other one.  He also doesn’t use the exersaucer anymore either, so I sold that to one of my friends.  I brought a couple of toys down from the attic that are for kids learning to stand up since he really enjoys standing up.  We had to get something to put underneath our rug in our living room to give it some extra cushioning because when Garrett would fall over his head would hit the floor and it was LOUD and he would cry and cry and cry.  What we got seems to work pretty well and it doesn’t hurt as much.  He absolutely loves chasing balls around a room.  He will crawl after a ball and touch it with his hands, but when he touches it, the ball tends to get even further away from him, so he keeps crawling and repeating the process over and over.  This can take up a solid 20 minutes of his waketime.  He doesn’t watch DVDs at home anymore because he doesn’t really stay in the bouncy seat to watch them.  I’ll play them on the DVD player and sit him in the floor, but he ends up not paying attention and playing with other things so I don’t even bother anymore.  He does watch tv in the car now.  I set up the DVD player so that he and Carter can both watch TV.  Though I don’t think he’s interested.  He’d rather watch his brother and interact with him over watching TV.  He is constantly disobeying his mom and dad and even big brother when we tell him to stay away from the fireplace and from Gizmo’s water bowl.  Like a moth to a flame!!  He only has a million toys he can play with and he chooses to constantly do the two things he’s NOT allowed to do!  Kids…

Mother’s Day Out

School started for Garrett on August 20th.  But for the month of August, his school gets out at noon instead of 1pm.  This is beyond inconvenient when brother goes to school in the same building and doesn’t get out until 1.  I’ve had to arrange to have Justin or one of the grandmother’s go get Carter while I go get Garrett.  Sometimes that wasn’t possible so I would go get Garrett and feed him his lunch at the church and then go get Carter (and I would still be getting Carter a half hour early).  Ready for Garrett to go to 1pm like brother does.  Garrett goes to school Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.  When Carter was his age, he only went twice.  But with Carter being in preschool now and going those three days, I figured that if I had to go all the way up there on Friday to get Carter, I may as well sign Garrett up for Friday too and let them both go 3 days a week.  This will definitely be good for Garrett to get used to being around someone else.  I worked the first two years of Carter’s life so he was always around other people (teachers or grandparents).  But I’ve been a stay at home mom the entire time Garrett has been on this Earth so he isn’t real used to being taken care of by someone else.  His separation anxiety issues are starting to show so it really was time to just put him in MDO and let him become accustomed to being cared for by multiple people.  Also, I’ve agreed to be a sub for the 2 year old class on Fridays once a month.  It’s not much by any means, but pays for gas!

First day of school!!!

Statistics

He didn’t have a 10 month appointment, but his 9 month appointment was just last week.  The timing was awful because when he turned 9 months was when all the kids were making appointments to get updated immunization forms and vaccinations to go back to school.  So we had to wait a couple of weeks.  Anyway, last week he was 19lbs, 13oz.  I weighed him today and he was 19lbs, 10oz.  This loss doesn’t surprise me.  He hasn’t been a stellar eater since these 4 teeth have been popping through.   This is 50th percentile for weight at his age.  As far as height, I didn’t re-measure him because I doubt he’s grown much in a week.  But at that appointment last week he was 28 inches tall which is the 30th percentile.  I feel like this is why my kid still looks “chubby”.  He’s technically not because his weight is right on average.  But because he’s short, that weight is stacked in tighter than normal, so he looks chubby.

Always following big brother around…

Abilities

When I wrote his 8 month post, I said that Garrett was very good at turning in circles on the ground but that he wasn’t really crawling just yet.  Not long after I posted that, he began crawling!  Kid is all over the place.  We’ll leave him in the front bedroom (which is our playroom) and I will literally walk into the kitchen to get something and then go back to the bedroom and he’s gone.  9 times out of 10, I will find him in the laundry room.  He’s obsessed with the washer and dryer.  I also mentioned in his post last month that I thought that he has been saying “mamamama” but wasn’t sure he was truly doing it intentionally.  Well he does it all the time now so I’m gonna go on a limb and say that this kid has said his first word and his first word was “mama”.   All my time spent saying “mama” and pointing to myself has paid off.  He has also begun to say “ba” “ga” and “pa”.  He is definitely experimenting with his voice trying to say things!  He started saying “dada” last week too.  He began clapping this month as well.  I don’t think Carter clapped until after his first birthday, but Garrett does it constantly.  Oh and I almost forgot, we are 100% on the sippy cup!!!  I’m about to pack up the bottles all together!  It took a while to find which one he liked, but once we found it I purchased like 8 of them and that’s what he drinks from now.

Teething

Yowzas!!!!  4 teeth coming in at the same time y’all!  No joke.  Both of my kids were cluster teethers for some reason.  Carter had the exact same 4 teeth come in all at the same time too.  Neither of them were too fussy though.  Garrett has his days when I can tell they hurt more than normal, but overall we haven’t been miserable.  The pain doesn’t interrupt his sleep. 

Discipline

When I tell him “no” the most is when he is getting on the fireplace, playing in Gizmo’s water bowl 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.

Other Notable Things

Likes

• Sleeping
• When Carter “talks” to him in the car.  Carter will look at him and say “tickle tickle tickle tickle” and Garrett laughs hysterically at him.  He loves watching Carter while they’re both in the backseat.
• The cover of my phone.  It has a little band on it to put around my wrist and he’s constantly trying to put it in his mouth.  See above picture.
• Washer and Dryer.  He loves to climb up and touch it and watch clothes spin around inside.
• The toy that is connected to his crib.  It lights up and plays lullabies for a few minutes and then it turns itself off.  Now that Garrett is getting more and more mobile, he’s figured out that he can put his hand in between the crib rails and the toy and bang them together.  I think he likes the noise.  Gizmo, on the other hand, goes crazy because she can hear the noise but can’t see where it’s coming from.  Also now that Garrett can pull himself up in the crib, he can turn the toy on himself, but he’s only done it a few times.  
• He really likes it when you hold him upside down and blow on his tummy.  He loves it!
• Shoe strings.  I have no idea why this is a fascination, but he is ALWAYS going after my shoes in the closet so he can play with the shoe strings!
• Medicine.  Thank God I have two kids that like medicine!!!  I have heard horror stories of kids that hate medicine.  Having to hold them down while they are screaming can’t be easy on a momma’s heart!  Thankful both boys really enjoy medicine.  Carter actually gets sad when the 10 days to be on an anti-biotic is up and he can’t take it anymore!
• 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!

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 .
• Being put in the carseat.  He is still not a fan of being strapped in, but once he’s in and you start moving him, he’s fine.
• 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.
• Blueberries.  I have no idea why, but as of right now, he is not a fan!

Carter’s Swim Lesson

2 weeks ago, Carter had his first swim lessons.  We did them at the YMCA by our house and it was for a two week period, Monday through Thursday from 9-9:45am.  Carter isn’t afraid of the water.  He loves swimming with his puddle jumper on.  But we knew he needed to work on the way you are supposed to swim.  Kicking legs, moving arms, holding your breath.  Those things.  He also isn’t a huge fan of his whole head going underwater, so we knew he needed to get more comfortable with that too.  All of this was worked on during his lessons.  He had a great teacher!  There were 4 kids in his class one week and 5 the next week.  It didn’t take long to realize that what Carter needs to work on most is closing his mouth.  He gets so excited about being in the water and his mouth is wide open grinning and laughing and then he gets upset when he swallows a mouthful of chlorine water. 

Overall, he did awesome at swim lessons.  He still can’t swim 100% by himself, but those lessons definitely got him more comfortable with kicking and using his arms and floating in the deep end without us and jumping into the pool knowing his face will go completely underwater.  He likes it so much that he wants his bathtub full of water during bathtime so that he can “practice”.

Here’s a few pics I was able to snap of him during his lessons:

Fun times!!!  We will probably enroll him in the same swim classes again next summer as a refresher and maybe then he will be more willing to take the little life float off his back.