Finally...

... a new post and an update...

Well the last time I updated Brian had just started crawling. I will do my best to hit the highlights of his growth and development. He is changing so much and so fast.

He now crawls like a pro and is pulling up on everything. He will stand for a few seconds on his own, but still likes the security of something to hold onto. He will walk holding on to someone (or something), but still has not taken any independent steps.

He is into everything. He is so curious and I love watching him study things. He notices every little detail it seems like. His favorite games right now are 'hide-and-seek' and 'spin around'. In 'hide-and-seek' I will go into the next room and call his name. He will start to laugh and crawl toward me. When he gets into the room where I am I say 'boo' and he just laughs and laughs. He thinks it is great fun. For 'spin around' he sits in our small desk chair and I spin him. After I stop spinning him you can see his eyes moving back and forth from being so dizzy, but he just laughs and starts trying to spin the chair more. It's pretty funny. He is going to be a thrill seeker like his dad and me.

Brian has FINALLY started sprouting his teeth. About a week ago I was feeding him with a 'real' spoon and I heard it click in his mouth. At first I thought I was just imagining it, but then next time he took a bite I deliberately tried to click the spoon and whad-a-ya-know it clicked! I couldn't believe it. (He was almost ten months old at this point, a little later than most babies). I could feel the tooth in there, but couldn't see it. The next day, Jason felt another tooth right next to that one. They are both on the bottom in the middle. We still can't really see them unless he is screaming, but they are there. He is noticing them too and has been playing with his tongue a lot on his new teeth.

He eats anything and everything. We are slowly moving away from jar baby food into more table like foods. I haven't really found anything that he refuses to eat. He loves food. He drinks well from a sippy cup and we are also going to be going to milk soon instead of formula.

He is starting to sign. He waves 'bye-bye' and signs the sign for milk if he wants something. He also just recently began signing the sign for more. He uses it if he wants more food or if he wants me to do something more/again that I have been doing. He recognizes probably 20 signs or so and I bet it won't be long until he is using a lot more of them.

Just last week he began shaking his head 'no'. At first I was pretty sure he didn't know what it meant, but he proved me wrong. I had a bottle, a sippy cup, and a snack on the table and Brian was signing for something that was on the table. I didn't know what he wanted so I handed him the bottle - he shook his head no! I thought it was a fluke until I handed him his sippy cup and he did it again. When I handed him his snack he began signing again and got all happy. It is more of a game to him than something he uses to communicate, but he does shake his head no if we tell him 'no' about something. It is kind of cute. I am just glad he hasn't figured out that he can tell us no yet!

Brian is trying to talk. He can say ma-ma and da-da and we are pretty sure he knows what they mean. He is also saying 'dog', 'frog', duck' and 'uh-oh'. We don't know for sure if he knows what these mean, and they don't sound exactly like they are supposed to, but they are the same word every time so he is saying them.

It is really interesting to me to watch him grow. He has reached a point where he listens to everything. He listens when he hears the fire trucks outside or the big trucks. He listens to music (and dances too - he LOVES to dance). He mostly listens to words. He wants to know what every thing's name is and wants you to say it several times. I just know he is storing all this information for later when he starts talking. He is figuring out too how to problem solve. If he can't around an object or can't get to something he wants he goes at it from a different way. He is starting to interact more. He will give us a toy or put something in our lap if he wants us to do something with it. He loves to read and have favorite books (and toys too). He has his own little ideas and knows what he wants and is starting to express it. I love watching him learn and grow.

Cape Cod Trip

I finally completed another year of medical school (way back at the end of June) and very quickly left for Cape Cod. Jason's whole family was there and it was nice to escape for a while. It was a lot of fun to see all three of the little boys playing together and to see how they are alike and also so different.

(Brian (~9 mo), Jackson (~10 mo), Lennon (~11 mo))

Brian had a blast. He LOVED the water. He would head straight for it every time we went down to the beach. Even though the water was freezing cold, that didn't stop Brian from "diving" right in. There was one occasion where we had to pull hi out of the water because his lips were actually turning blue!

My little fishy!

The fireworks on the 3rd of July (Plymouth's 4th) were amazing. We were right on the beach for the show and there fireworks everywhere. It was on of the most amazing fireworks displays I have ever seen. Brian didn't know what to think about the sound of them at first, but he really liked them. He caught on quick that there was a whistle type sound before the big sound and then being able to see them. He would look in the direction of the whistle and get excited when they went off. It was fun to watch him watch the fireworks.

While we were in Plymouth Jason's parents took Brian for a day and I took Jason to Martha's Vineyard for an areal tour of the island. Our tour was an hour long in a classic bi-plane with an open cockpit and everything. We had the leather helmet and goggles to go with it! I paid a little extra so we could also do aerobatics in the air - AMAZING! It was pretty scary. Way better then any roller coaster! We even had to have parachutes on! It was one of the coolest things I have ever done and Jason loved it too.

The cool plane we rode in.

While we were there we got to explore old town Plymouth. We went and saw the Mayflower (not the actual one, but a real replica). We saw one of the original water mills and even went to a mock plantation that was set up like it would have been after the settlers arrived on the Mayflower. It was very neat. Jason and I are history junkies like that.

Overall, the trip to Plymouth was amazing and we are beyond grateful to Jeff and Laura for making it possible. Here are just a few more of my favorite pictures.

Getting ready to go to the beach

The whole gang (minus papa/Jeff)

Our cute little family.

Another cute family photo.

Smilin' Brian!

Crawling

So it's 8:30 on Sunday night and I have been at the library since 11:00 this morning studying. I just received an e-mail saying that Brian started crawling today and I wasn't there to see it. I am so totally bummed. Jason said he got it on video (I will try and post it later), but it's just not the same. I knew I would miss out on some things with Brian from being in school, but I guess I wasn't really ready to handle it. I know Brian will never remember, but I will. Maybe I am just being too emotional about it. Hopefully I will at least get to see him walk for the first time.

On another note, it's been a while since I updated and Brian had his 6 month check-up not too long ago. He weighed in at 17.2 pounds (6mo. and 2wk.) which puts him in the 35% for weight. He was right around 26 inches long which puts him at 25% for his height. He is a little shorty!

We asked about the spot on his cheek and my doctor said it is eczema (which is what I originally thought it was). She gave us some lotion to use and a steroid cream to put on it and it is looking much much better. Hopefully soon it will be all the way gone.

Brian is getting much better at eating. He can handle solid foods pretty well as long as I make sure the pieces are small enough. He has tried scrambled eggs, french fries, and bread. We only really feed him solids when we go out to eat (which isn't too often). He gets quite angry now if anyone around him eats and he is not eating too - so we end up having to give him something to keep him from getting out of hand. I need to go buy some baby type finger foods instead of the unhealthy stuff I have been giving him. I am working on that.

We are practicing drinking from a sippy cup and he has gotten a lot better at that. He still doesn't hold it on his own (even though he holds his own bottle), but he has gotten the concept down that if he bites down on the "nipple" stuff comes out and when he isn't biting down nothing comes out. It won't be long until he do it himself.

Brian has discovered the joy of splashing in the bath tub which is fun. He is also doing much better in that if he sticks his face in the water (forgetfully) he doesn't automatically freak out and take a breath in. If he does, however, forget and breaths in a little water he just coughs it up and goes on about playing. No crying and no getting upset. He is just growing up so fast!

Lately, Brian has become obsessed with books and reading. He will sit in my lap and let me read to him (usually a Dr. Seuss) and on every page he tries to grab the picture. He still hasn't gotten the concept that it is a 2-D picture and not 3 dimensional. Toward the end of the book he tends to get angry that he cannot touch the object on the page and begins to bang his hands onto the book. Usually at this point I give him a cardboard book he can chew on which makes it better. He will also get mad if I try and take his books away from him.

I think that is all the new news for now. I hope I didn't leave anything major out. I will try and get the video posted of him crawling as soon as I can.

Here is a picture of what happened when we gave Brian a spoon to play with while we tried to feed him (the spoon didn't have anything in it - it was just for him to play with):

ba ba ba

Well I don't know what nana did to him, but Brian stayed with her for a day and came back a changed boy! Yesterday Jason and I went to go look at Pilot schools and left Brian with Jason's mom (nana). When we picked him up later that day he was blabbering on and on saying his 'b's. (bababa). Before we took him to see nana he only said 'g's (gagaga and googoogoo). Not only that, but every time he has gone to sleep since we left nana's all we have to do is lay him down in his bed and off he goes (unwrapped and everything)! Before nana's miracle touch we had to pat him and sing to him until he fell asleep. It was a lot of work. Now we just lay him down and walk out of the room - WONDERFUL! We may need to visit nana more often.

Something that Brian has started doing recently is giving kisses. I love it. He does it mostly right when he wakes up. He will grab my face with both of his hands and pull my face to his face. He will open his mouth and put it right on my mouth and wait for me to make the kissey sound (mwah). A lot of times he will try and kiss back but it mostly is just a wet slobbery chomp, but hey its the thought the counts and I love it!

Brian is getting closer and closer to crawling everyday. He now will get on all fours and rock back and forth trying to figure out how to move. It's funny to see him concentrate so hard. I know he is trying to just figure it out, but hasn't quite got it yet. It won't be long and he will be into everything!

We are hopefully going to get in to see the pediatrician soon - we are waiting for them to call us. He has an appointment with the cardiologist at the end of this month - hopefully we he will get a clean bill of heath. We think he will.

6 Months Old!

I can't believe Brian is already 6 months old! He is growing and changing so fast I can't even believe it.

Brian loves to eat. He moved pretty quickly through all the cereals and onto the veggies. He loves peas. We just recently started with the fruits and they are his favorite - of course. He likes it all. We haven't found anything he doesn't like. Sometimes we will give him tastes of our food (as long as it is soft enough) and he likes all of it too. I even let him suck on a lemon and he liked it. Not even a sour face! Crazy boy :-) He knows the sign for milk and for eat. He doesn't use them yet, but we can sign them to him and he knows what we are saying and what will come next. It's quite cute. If it's time to eat and we sign 'eat' he will get all excited, drop whatever he is playing with, and try to grab our hands and eat them. It's funny.

Brian sits up like a pro. He started sitting up by himself for more than a minute or so at about 4 or 4 and a half months. He can now also pivot very well when sitting. He just recently starting lunging forward from the sitting position to grab at toys. He will also get into the crawling position (hands and knees) from the sitting position, but he usually just plops down onto his stomach from there. He can scoot pretty well on his bottom when he is sitting. He actually gets pretty far. He can also "inch-worm" around on his stomach. He uses his feet to push himself forward. Unfortunately, he doesn't use his arms when he does this - he pushes himself forward on his face. I keep waiting for him to get carpet burn.

Just in the past few days he started rolling over from his stomach to his back. When he flops over forward onto his stomach from sitting he can now roll over. He prefers to be sitting, but if he is laying he would much rather be on his back - so rolling over is a good thing. He still doesn't go from his back to his stomach (that we know of), but he is making progress so it's no big deal.

The day after he turned six months we decided it was time to start weaning him from being wrapped/swaddled when he sleeps so Monday night we put him to bed without wrapping him up. We were preparing ourselves for a long night of him waking up and not wanting to go back to sleep, but we were pleasantly surprised. I think that first night he woke up 3 times, but went back to sleep as soon as we gave him his pacifier. Tuesday night he woke up once and last night he didn't wake up at all. So he id now able to sleep without being wrapped at night. The next step is getting him to sleep without being wrapped during the day. That is a little harder because he see and he is very distracted by things around him. It is too stimulating for him. We make his room as dark as we can, but it is still really bright. I think that by the end of this month he will be free from being wrapped.

I finally had to stop breastfeeding. I wasn't necessarily ready to quit, but I didn't really have much of a choice. He started teething in the beginning of March and when that happened he didn't want to breast feed - only bottle feed. I think it is because the bottle nipple was hard and felt better on his sore gums. He would only agree to breastfeed in the morning (once a day). As a result, my supply went down to once a day. Around the middle/end of March I went to Houston on Spring Break and left Brian with my mom and dad for 3 days. During that time my body pretty much stopped making milk even though I was trying to use my breast-pump. So, no more breast-feeding. I really enjoyed it. It was a lot of work and a HUGE time commitment, but I miss it. I will definitely do it with all of my children.

Brian is scheduled to see the cardiologist April 29th. We think his murmurs are all gone so we are going to get an echocardiogram done to double check. I will update after that happens.

The last time we went to the pediatrician Brian had a rash on his left cheek. It had shown up early February and continued to get a little bigger until the doctor's appointment. It is a red, raised, scaly, round rash that varies in its appearance from day to day. We asked the doctor about it and she very quickly remarked - it's ringworm put anti-fungal cream on it. (This wasn't my usual doctor). I didn't think it was ringworm and also didn't know where he could have gotten it from. It also didn't seem to itch and never spread. So we began putting anti-fungal cream on it twice a day like you are supposed to. We did this for 2 weeks and there was no improvement. We decided to try a baby eczema lotion (baby eczema is quite common). We did that for about a week and there was no improvement. We then bought a different anti-fungal cream (different chemical/medicine) and have been putting that on him twice a day diligently for about 5 weeks. There has been NO improvement. We are going to the doctor soon for his 6 months shots and will get it checked out then. I have a feeling they might send us to a dermatologist. I am ready to get rid of it. It doesn't seem to hurt or itch, but I am just tired of looking at it and feeling like an inadequate mom for not being able to take care of it.

We took Brian to the park yesterday for the first time. That was fun. He liked the swings.
He also was obsessed with the grass. What a new feeling!
He is such a good baby!

We have also been letting Brian play with new things and learn about his world. Here is a picture of him playing with the pots and pans in the kitchen.

We have also discovered that Brian LOVES to read. He likes to listen to you read, he likes to look at the pictures, and lately he has been wanting to turn the pages. The other day we gave him a 'book' of his own to play with and discover. Here are a few of my favorite pictures...
Turning the page...
My favorite...


What a blessing!