11 months

So I know I missed 10 months and am really regretting not doing one, but, well, life gets in the way. So, I chose to forgive myself (how dare I not be a perfect mom ;-) and move forward.

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!

My First Mother's Day

Today was my first Mother's Day of celebration where I'm the one being celebrated-pretty cool! I worked in the morning then enjoyed the afternoon and evening with the fam. Soren and I took a walk down to the park while daddy worked on homework. Soren enjoyed the swing and I also put him in the sand area, and he loved picking up and dropping sand! We went over to my parent's house in the evening for burrito bar and enjoyed time with the family. Here's some pics of the day:

 Unfortunately the camera battery was dead for the park and evening festivities, oh well.

Other moms we are celebrating today:

 Brian's Mom Denise who is no longer here on Earth

 My mom (Jodie, MorMor, Grandma)

Brian's Step-mom (Cheryl, FarMor, Gamma Cheryl)

And of course, many more :-)

Our First Famiy Easter

For our first family Easter together, we started off by going to church. Brian and the bell choir he directs played at the 3 morning services. We had some Easter breakfast at church, Soren especially loved the pumpkin muffins. After service we quickly packed the car the headed down to IA to visit Brian's family. We were able to make it down around 4pm and catch some family which was nice! We then stayed down in IA until today just hanging out and doting on Soren. I think grandma and grandpa are smitten ;-). Soren slept great the night before and Easter nights, he slept 7 hours straight and only got up once that night! Last night was another bad night, we'll see how tonight goes. He has been chewing on his finger alot today, I'm beginning to feel more confident that these setbacks lately are due to teething. We didn't snap a whole lot of pictures Easter morning as we were rushing to get out, but here's a few:

His Easter basket, included 'puffs', dollar spot books, teething rings, and play rings

Reaching for the book first :-)

At Gma & Gpa Johnson's house- he LOVED all the ceiling fans!

Trying out the stairs for the first time

Overall, it was a great, low-key holiday

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!

Weaning

We're closing in on the last of our breastfeeding days and I am so very very sad. Soren's not ready to be done, and I'm not either. Unfortunately, my body seems to think otherwise. Because of the increasing demands at work and the inability to pump, my supply has dropped drastically. I could take all sorts of measures to increase my supply, but it would only be a band-aid fix to the larger issue of a hectic work schedule. Our other issue is that Soren is only taking 2 bottles during the day of 3-4 oz. now that he's eating many more solids. He's still nursing a ton at night but it's getting to be more and more as a pacifying measure than a feeding measure. It breaks my heart when he tries to nurse during the day and gets frustrated because there's not much that comes out. It also hurts because he clamps down and pulls as a last-ditch effort to get some milk. This breaks my heart, I'm so not ready for this. The closeness and the bond it has brought us is nothing short of amazing.

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!

On the move

It's becoming increasingly more difficult to get clear shots of Soren because he's so busy now! See what I mean?!?:





Unless, of course, he gets distracted by the TV ;-)