9 months!

I know I didn't write an 8-month post, but it's been unreal how much Soren has learned to do and develop over the last 1-2 months! It's crazy!

Eating: Soren eats 3 'meals' a day now, and has 3 bottles during the day, then nurses at night. His meals usually consist of a a combo of fruit, veggie, protein, and/or carb. The pediatrician said he can eat normal food now except for ice cream and nut products. He LOVES vanilla yogurt, and will often have that with a fruit for breakfast. For lunch we've recently been doing deli meat or chicken breast, a carb (rice, brown rice, potatoes, oatmeal), and a veggie. For dinner, he'll have protein (yogurt/meat), fruit, and a veggie. Soren's pediatrician recommended we let him essentially 'play' with his food so he gets used to feeling and tasting different textures; she said that the more textures he's exposed to now, the better eater he'll be as he grows up. He's a great eater and will take pretty much anything you give him. However, since he's been teething, he hasn't been eating the best. He only eats 4 oz. bottles during the day normally, and when he's teething he'll do 3 oz. or less. He is mostly holding his own bottle now, but often gets lazy and has us hold it.

Sleeping: Oh jeez, still not great. We FINALLY were getting him to sleep 7 hours at a time consistently but then daylight savings and teething hit, and he now sleeps 5 hours, then is up every 1.5-2 hours. It's also getting difficult to get him down for his naps, he doesn't like rocking, and when we put him in his crib, he sits, then pulls up to the standing position which really wakes him up and keeps him stimulated. The last couple days, we've literally held him down with his paci in his mouth and rubbed his back and he was out in a minute or two. When he wakes up, he is instantly awake, bright eyed, crawling around, it's the weirdest thing and I'm slightly jealous ;-). So far he takes a morning nap and 2 afternoon naps. Over the last week or so, his naps have lengthened so he's sleeping for more than 30 mins. at a time. Sometimes we get 2-hour naps out of him, and it's glorious! We are beginning to do some crying it out with him, but we do go rub his back while he's crying and try to keep him in a laying down position in regular increments. He has no self-soothing skills yet and doesn't really have an attachment object to assist him in helping him fall back asleep, except for the paci. He doesn't know yet to look for the paci when he wakes up and put it back in his mouth. He wants to eat to fall back asleep and we are working on breaking that. It's hard at 2am to not just give in and nurse, but for now we're starting to take him off feed-to-sleeps at bedtime and naps. One day we'll get there, right?

Time for bed

What he *thinks* is a good idea instead of sleeping

Development: Soren has made leaps and bounds in the past month. I swear he learned to sit, crawl, crawl-to-sit, and pull to stand in 1.5-2 months time! I'm guessing he will likely be walking in the next month or two. He's developing some object permanence now and when we play peek-a-boo, he looks for us where we were hiding. He unfortunately does not stop for even a second when we say 'no', so that has been a real challenge, he'll just keep doing what he's doing, and sometimes he giggles. He is a pretty social little guy and has not yet developed stranger and separation anxiety, except with my brother's girlfriend (silly silly boy). His pincer grasp is starting to get better, he's also beginning to be able to get ger.ber puffs from the highchair tray to his mouth with some concentration and effort. Soren is also 'clapping' now and beginning to wave (though not yet consistently, and not to say 'goodbye'). He is also babbling alot and just started using the consonant 'm'. His first two words have been 'mum' and 'yum'...both when he's eating foods :-). He also babbles alot in the car if the radio is playing, I'd like to think he's singing, as he makes many different pitches and volumes. Overall, we are mostly forgetting that he was 1 month early and he seems to be caught up now.





Likes: Bath time, swimming, food, electrical cords, cat food and water bowls, our kitties, my parent's doggies, touching daddy's beard, playing tickle games, newpaper or any kinds of paper on the floor


Dislikes: Getting his diaper changed, clothes, being restrained, not being able to roll over, not being able to have things he wants, going out to eat (man, will family dinners in restaurants be put on the backburner for awhile!), teething

Soren weighs 18.5 lbs (25%) and is 29 inches long (75%)...he's a long-and-lean boy and pediatrician says he's perfect, especially considering he fell off the growth chart a while back. He's transitioning to 12-month clothes. The elasticized waist pants don't actually fit around his waist and he sports the 'pants on the ground' look often. Length-wise for pjs and pants, he's needing 12 month pants though.

Reflux update- we will SLOWLY be weaning Soren off the Prev.acid soon. We can either start now and have him weaned by 12 months or wait until his 12-month appt. then start. It will be a very slow weaning, because cutting cold turkey will make his reflux terrible, and for that, we are in no hurry! His spit-up is finally getting better, most likely due to him starting to eat more solids. He still does spit-up, but not too much in frequency or volume.

Soren's hair is really coming in now and is a bleach blonde color, sometimes strawberry blonde in natural lighting. We will likely need to get his hair trimmed soon. His eyes are very interesting, they're gray on the ouside with brown on the inside like bicycle spokes...very dark and beautiful! He now has 2 teeth (the first one came in on March 24th, the second came in a week later on April 1st) , and I imagine more are on their way!

Daddy has been a stay-at-home dad and both Soren and daddy are developing a strong attachment and liking to one another! The other day Brian was holding him and I tried to take him, and Soren turned and nuzzled his head into Brian! It's so fun for me to watch my husband as a fun-loving, caring, involved daddy! He really is the light of our lives and brings so much love and joy!

Life Lately

Life has been very busy lately, and as I sit typing this, I realize I forgot to write Soren's 8 month post...woops. Work has been very busy for me lately, I've been putting in overtime and picking up shifts. I was also asked by my supervisor to be part of a committee that looks at internal policies and procedures to find strengths and areas for improvement... her invitation reasoning was because I have been able to identify 'system issues' quickly and work to improve them...lol. Hey, anything to get some brownie points with the boss, eh? I am excited and see the invite as an indicator that I'm doing well and am valued.

Along with my work being busy, the hubs has been completing orientation and such with his new school and is gearing up for registration in a couple weeks here. We're still working on getting some things figured out for getting it funded. For now though, he is stay-at-home daddy and is doing a great job! I think initially the change was difficult for him, especially given he's had pretty much no experience working with infants. There were a few S.O.S. calls I got at work, but since then, we've come up with a good plan and so far it's been working. I think the biggest thing was that Soren was getting bored in this environment and likes to be out and have a change of scenery (just like his momma). Once we've figured that out, Brian has been taking him shopping, on walks, to the YMCA, etc., and this has helped immensely. It's so fun for me to watch this amazing attachment forming between the two of them:



The last month has been CRAZY with the amount of things Soren is learning to do! On March 17th (8 months, 12 days), Soren was being a huge stinker in the bedtime hours. After a couple minutes of letting him cry (after 1 hr. of trying everything else), I went in his bedroom, and found this:

He pulled up on his crib for the first time! The next night Brian lowered the crib. Now Soren's been pulling up on anything and everything. He also has an attraction to any kind of cord. Because of this, we've had to build a barracade-of-sort during the day:
We're really needing to buy some baby gates, but funds are tight, so this works in the meantime.
We're finding that now he's mobile, we're quickly outgrowing this space. We won't be buying a house for a couple years, so we'll have to see what we're going to do when our lease ends in December.

Soren is also now using his walker, and I will guess that in the next 1-2 months he will be a walker.



We have also graduated from his baby bathtub, to filling up our regular bathtub. We bought a non-slip mat to put down, and so far he is loving all the extra space and bigger splashes ;-).


On March 24th (8 months 19 days), Soren cut his first tooth on the bottom. He's been pathetic since then, but today I'm noticing a little bit better mood. Baby tylenol has been our friend lately :-).

There's so many more things to update about with his growth and development, but I'll have to save some things for his 9-month post. 9. months. Wow!

Coincidental? I Think Not.

When I was pregnant with Soren, my family went on a vacation to the Wilderness Resort at Wisconsin Dells. I was super bummed about being 'limited' in my waterpark activities as I LOVE all things swimming pool and water rides. I did venture out and went on some hard-core water rides, and also went in the wave pool despite my better judgement. Comments from family left-and-right warned me that it would hurt him in-utero, but I was in-tune with my body and baby and could tell if it was time to quit.
I also attended prenatal water aerobic class and Soren would always be active while I was in the pool.

Now?


Water doesn't phase this kid one bit. Not only does he love the bathtub, he LOVES it when I take him swimming at our local YMCA swimming pool. I think we might have a swimmer on our hands...just like momma ;-)

Lots of Firsts

This week I feel like Soren took a huge jump in his development...I swear it all happened over the weekend I worked. Soren has now discovered his feet and loves playing with and trying to eat them. Soren also is sitting amazing well, and when laying on his stomach, he is beginning to push up and is working on pulling his legs under his body...we're gonna have a crawler before we know it! Also this weekend my sister watched him and I think he got alot of play in with his cousins...he slept 9 straight hours that night! He even kinda fussed just a bit on two occasions, but fell right back to sleep, I barely even remember waking up to it.

Here's a video from only a week ago when he was starting to sit, now he's a pro:


Last night when I changed his diaper, I noticed a really nasty diaper rash, and I was sure it was the dreaded yeast that I've read about. I was able to get him into the pediatrician this morning, and sure enough, it's the start of yeast. I also noted to her that it appears his legs were getting dry, so she recommended we use Eucerin calming creme. By tonight, his whole body is covered in a rash, and I have no idea what is causing it. It looks very similar to rashes I get from dry skin in the winter, and it wouldn't surprise me since we give him a bath every night. I just feel like it all came out of nowhere, which makes me now question if it's food-related, or the last 2 nights of new jammies that I mistakingly didn't wash first before putting them on him. Whatever is causing it, I hope it looks alot better tomorrow morning! I debated giving him a bath tonight, but decided to do an oatmeal bath then lathered him up. Also at his pediatrician appt., he weighed 16 lbs. 12 oz! She said length-wise he's growing out of his infant car seat and we need to get him into a convertible car seat soon... trying to figure out which one to get. My baby is literally growing every night and learning so many new things, it's exciting and heart-breaking all in one.

Here's another short fun one of him laughing and 'talking':

First Foods- Bananas

Soren has taken an interest to foods lately. He intently looks at food, and will follow food from plate/bowl to my mouth. He's beginning to reach for it also, and sometimes even opens his mouth when I put the food in mine. Tonight while at Babies R' Us, I bought some jarred baby food on a whim. I plan to make his own food, but wanted to see if he would even be interested in food first before I start making it. I bought 1 small jar each 'Earth's Best' organic bananas, sweet potatoes, prunes, and carrots. I was pretty excited to try them out, so I decided to give him a taste of banana tonight. I know you should try their first food in the morning so you have all day to see how they would react, but we've given Soren licks of banana here and there with no problems, so I wasn't worried about it. I think he was interested in it and seem to take to it well...what do you think?









And just too funny not to share:

Soren, Meet 'Sophie'

This evening my parents, my niece, Soren, and I went to the General Store in Minnetonka to do some holiday shopping. I absolutely LOVE this place, the bottom floor looks like Christmas exploded, and the top floor is all sorts of cool knick-knack gifty stuff. The place is HUGE! Last year we went and I had just found out I was pregnant, and was nauseous most of the time. This year Soren was in his stroller and squealing for most of the 2 hours we were there...he was definitely a fan! One of the neat things they have here are ornaments that you can have personalized for free while you shop. Here's last year's ornament grab:

And this years:

I still want to find a "Baby's 1st Christmas" ornament where I can put his picture in it, I'm gonna do a hunt online since they didn't have one in the store.

I have been eyeing this popular "Sophie" the Giraffe, which is basically a glorified squeaky rubber giraffe. I finally bit the bullet and bought it (at an outrageous price). BUT, after seeing Soren play with Sophie for the first time, I would say it was well worth the money:

For whatever reason, Soren woke up about an hour after I had put him down for bed tonight. While he was sleeping during that hour, Brian and I set up the tree. When he woke up I HAD to come show him our first family Christmas tree all decorated. He was too sleepy though :-(


Just a couple more days before work starts, and I have a to-do list about a mile long. Thanks for all the ideas on the last post, they're all very helpful!

Bathtime Giggles and Exciting News!

Well, to start off with the exciting news, I was given a job offer today and I accepted! I will be working as a social worker at an inpatient psychiatric facility for children and teens. It is a permanent weekend position (Friday-Sunday), 8-4:30. Although working the weekends will have its drawbacks, I am looking forward to not having to pay for childcare, and still get to spend Monday-Thursday at home with Soren! I will be leading two groups a day and also doing case management with the families. I am SUPER excited, it seems like a great place to work and has great pay and benefits! It will also allow me to work towards my clinical licensure so I can someday be an independent therapist! I start December 5th. It will definitely be a new transition and figuring out who can take care of Soren and when makes my head spin already, but it will all get figured out; I am very blessed to have so many supportive people in my life who are willing to watch him (and free-of-charge is always a bonus too ;-).

I thought I'd throw in this video of Soren's bathtime from tonight. The beginning is kinda slow (feel free to fast-forward to :55). I just LOVE his giggles, they totally melt my heart!

Soren's Baptism

Soren's baptism was on October 2nd, 2011, and it was an emotional and beautiful day. The weather was perfect, our family and friends were present, even congregational members stayed to watch him become a 'Child of God'. In the Lutheran church, we practice infant baptism, where parents and sponsors (aka godparents) affirm their faith in Jesus Christ and that they will raise the baby in the church, teaching them the 10 commandments, the Creed, etc. Once the child becomes 'of age', they participate in a confirmation program where they learn more and then confirm their own belief in Jesus Christ, and affirm that they want to be followers. My family celebrates baptisms and confirmations proudly, and Soren's baptism was no different. My mom made a vast amount of food, handmade his baptismal outfit, and we held a celebration after church.

Brian and I chose two sets of godparents for Soren, Monica & Kyle, and Jeanna & Ben. Monica & Kyle were the maid-of-honor and best man in our wedding, Monica and I have been friends for quite some time, and Kyle and Brian are cousins. After our wedding, Monica and Kyle started dating each other, and eventually got married, and had a daughter of their own a few months before Soren. They are very strong in their faith and values, which we feel will be good for Soren as he grows older. Jeanna is a longtime friend with whom I've grown in our church, and we still remain great friends today. Jeanna and I were raised very similarly in our values and we felt as though her and her husband Ben would bring another perspective on Christianity to Soren's spiritual growth.

Brian and I both want Soren to be raised in the Lutheran church, HOWEVER, we also want him to be educated on many different faiths and spiritual practices, so that when the time comes for him to make his decision on his own, he can do it with knowledge and confidence. Whatever path Soren chooses as he gets older, whether it be spiritual practice, sexuality preference, career choice, etc., Brian and I will support him, as loving parents do. We pray that as he grows and matures, that he will know the love of Christ and the love of his parents, family, and godparents.

Here are some pictures and video of his baptism:

Excited to See Daddy

Soren and I went down to IA this weekend while daddy stayed home because he was working. When we got home Sunday, I got him into bed and Brian got home shortly after. He went in to give Soren a kiss, and Soren woke up as soon as he heard Brian's voice. Soren was cooing and smiling at him, I just had to get video. Don't mind the beginning where I interrupt their bonding time ;-)

Catching Up

I've had so many ideas on blog posts, and, well, no time to get them all done, so for the sake of time and sanity, you get a hotdish post. We've been busy busy busy, but honestly, I'm not sure with what...it's kinda crazy how busy you get once you have a little one on board.

Soren's been making leaps-and-bounds in his development, it's so fun to see all the new things he's doing! Soren's latest favorite game is "airplane", see for yourself below:



Last Monday (October 10th), I took him in for his 3 month checkup and shots. He weighed 11lbs. 4oz., and was 24 inches long. He's getting to be a such a big boy, and his chunky monkey self is adorable! We brought pictures of him in for his pediatrician and the nurses and they all went nuts over his adorableness, especially this pic:

He received 4 shots that day and an oral vaccine as well :-(. I don't know why I'm letting them do that many all at once, it's just wreaking havoc on his little system. That night he SCREAMED in such a different cry, a cry of desperation and pain, and I cried too and had to call my momma for relief :-(. Luckily we headed over to grandma and grandpa's and they helped out! I knew to give him tylenol after last month's shots, so that helped. However, since last Monday, his BMs have been pretty much non-existent. On Wednesday, I gave him Miralax after he hadn't gone on his own, then had to do the same on Friday, though that didn't work. On Friday I caved and did a suppository because he just kept grunting whenever he passed gas and seemed to be uncomfortable. Since that Friday suppository I have been giving him 1 oz. a pear juice a day, and he finally had a BM on his own on Sunday! It's funny how I get so excited over poop nowadays.

As I mentioned before, I have been starting to get Soren used to his crib at night. After his night routine and I rocked him to sleep, I would put him in his crib, and he would sleep there for up to an hour, then wake up. Well two nights ago, he shocked both Brian and I, and slept in his crib from 11-3:30am (4.5 hours), and even woke up on one occasion and fell back asleep on his own. I will never let him 'cry it out', but now I've learned if he's just kinda talkin' or making silly noises, I let him be, and by golly, he fell back asleep! Last night he slept in his crib from 12-5! I myself am having a hard time sleeping now though, worrying about him and waiting for him to wake up...I don't really know what to do with myself. After he wakes up, I just bring him into our bed, nurse him, and we both fall back asleep. It's nice to not have the pressure of him *needing* to sleep through the night or under any parameters if I was working full-time.

Speaking of work, well, that's a current topic of discussion these days. I wouldn't even say 'discussion', I would say 'necessity'. Finances are getting harder to handle with me out of work, so I'm definitely starting to feel the pressure of finding a job as soon as possible. I had an interview but I wasn't called back for a 2nd, so I just continue to apply and apply and hopefully one of these days I'll find something (social-work career-related). It is what it is. That's life.

In other exciting news, Soren is now a roller! At his dr. appt. on Monday, she put him on his tummy on the exam table, and he rolled over, almost off the table! I knew he was getting close, but that was kind-of a shocker! Two nights ago, he rolled over from tummy-to-back 3 times in a row, and now he's doing it pretty consistently. He's getting to be such big boy! Here's a video I took this morning:


I also took some Fall pictures of him, but they didn't turn out the greatest as it was windy and he wouldn't fully open his eyes, but here's some of the better ones:

He totally has a "hey ladies, I'm a stud muffin" look on this one:

(He is a total stud-muffin!)

I think that's it for now, I will do a special post on his baptism hopefully this week, I want to try and take some cute pics in his adorable handmade outfit my mom made him! Just Soren and I are going down to IA this weekend to visit the in-laws and celebrate grandpa's birthday! Should be fun!

More Soren Talking

My Loves