Eating: Soren eats anything and everything except for the common allergen foods (nut products and honey). We just tried 2 new fruits, apricot and cantaloupe, and he LOVES them! I'm really struggling with incorporating the variety of veggies and such in his diet because I don't puree them anymore. We have bags of frozen peas, carrots, and mixed veggies and I pureed butternut squash, but that's about all that he's had lately. I think our biggest struggles are our own eating habits and not incorporating veggies into our meals regularly :-/. I'm wondering if I can buy fresh stuff and freeze it into finger-size portions...hmmm. We also just recently started giving Soren organic whole milk...he's not a huge fan but he drinks it. He definitely prefers water in his sippy. Soren still gets bottles of formula and naps and bedtime. At any rate, Soren is a great eater and will eat pretty much anything you offer.
Sleeping: Best news ever...Soren FINALLY sleeps through the night! We now know that our extensive sleep issues are likely due to Soren getting one tooth after another and then getting strep. Soren came down with a bad diaper rash that the pediatrician and I both thought was yeast and treated it as such; luckily she swabbed it for strep just in case, and it came back positive after a 3 day culture. That's right...my son had butt strep. Who knew it even existed? So weird. But anyways, as soon as he was on antibiotics for a couple days he started sleeping through the night and has done so ever since. He wakes up at 5/6am for a bottle which I just hand him then he falls back asleep until 8. I'm not sure I will ever forgive myself for working on 'crying it out' with him those nights when he was sick with strep, but he hadn't had enough 'good nights' to know those were bad nights.
Likes: Baths, water, swimming. Electronics, opening cabinets and drawers, pulling books off shelves, books in general, throwing balls, keys, Wheel of Fortune (no joke), throwing things, hitting faces (we're working on teaching him 'gentle touches'), pacifiers (but only the newborn green Soothie ones and we're trying not to give it to him during playtime), squealing, his retractable toy cars
Dislikes: Car rides (I hypothesize it's because he can't see us and thinks we left him), diaper changes, being told 'no, grass
Development: Soren is now a walker and takes small steps frequently! On May 27th, 2012 (10 months 22 days), Brian called me at work and shared that Soren was holding a toy and took a couple steps. In the last few days he's been taking more sequential steps and is gaining confidence in his walking abilities. His pincer grasp is getting much better as he practices more with finger foods. Soren still has not said 'mama' or 'dada' yet. When he notices we are preparing or eating food, he will say 'mmm' until we feed him, but that is pretty much the extent of intentional communication. I am starting to get concerned about his lack of speech which I will discuss with his pediatrician. My guess is that he has been so focused on teething and walking that his speech development has been put on the backburner. Brian thinks Soren will be talking soon (and he is home full-time with him most days so I'm hoping that's true!). Soren is very interested in interacting with others, though tends to be shy to unfamiliar faces. He does well when others take him (except for Auntie Laura but we're working on that) and can be pretty social. Soren really likes books and sits well when we read to him; we are working on teaching him to turn the pages.
Reflux: We started weaning him from his Prevacid, he is currently taking 1/2 a pill each night.
Other randoms: Soren has 8 teeth now, and they all came in back-to-back. He's currently drooling and chewing on his fingers a ton so I'm sure more are in coming in soon. He is currently in 12 month clothes and will likely be wearing them through the Summer. His hair is really coming in and is blonde and his eyes are a dark green with brown on the inside. He is quite the character and can give some looks to kill! And as if I needed to say this, he's pretty much the most handsomest little boy I ever did see!
