Months thirteen and fourteen

So keeping up with the monthly posts is getting more and more difficult now that we have a toddler to keep up with, a new house to take care of and life in general to manage. I love trying to keep up with the changes he makes though because they seem to come all too fast. So for this year, I'm going to try combining months two at a time.

Stats: 20.8 lbs, just over 30 inches, wearing mostly 12 month tops but 3-6 month bottoms (the three month sized shorts are thankfully starting to get a little tight), size 3 diapers and size 4 shoes.

Conversations: Just after his first birthday he started responding to us when we would try to have conversations. Most of his answers are just repetition of what we say or are limited to words he was already saying but having him say "Night, night" will just about melt your heart. He'll say Hi, Bye, Night night, kitty, doggy, Mama, Dada with minimal prompting. He also finally started signing over the last few weeks although the only consistent sign we have is for "all done" which sometimes is hard to tell from his clapping.

Accomplishments: It's hard to believe that two months ago he could hardly stand up by himself and now he's practically running. He started walking two weeks after his birthday and while he still hold his arms up in the air most of the time for balance he is everywhere. When he tries to run the balance becomes a bit more unsteady and he looks like a drunken sailor. Standing is no longer a problem and he can stand up from sitting without holding onto anything. While he loves being able to go where he wants to go, probably his favorite new skill is clapping. Initially he started out clapping the palm of one hand to the back of the other but now he loves clapping for anything he considers an exciting accomplishment (with a loud Yea! to go with it).

Attitude: While the molars have caused us several miserable moments overall he is still a ray of sunshine. He wakes up giggling almost every morning and spends a good part of his day laughing. Everywhere we go people comment on how smiley and happy he is. While his joy is usually infectious, he's still got just enough cranky moments to keep things "real". We definitely get a few tantrums at night when he starts to wind down but distracting him with a game of peek-a-boo will always draw the smile out again.


Transitions/Milestones: It has been a time of many, many changes in the last few months. We've settled into our new house and Josh loves his new room and all of the places to explore. Soon after we moved in we lost both of our kitties - Hobbes to kidney disease and Ella to the great outdoors. Josh loved his kitties and they have been missed. In their honor we adopted Callie from the local shelter and Josh is her biggest fan. Originally we were going to look for an older cat but they were completely put off by our screeching baby so a kitten to grow up with seemed better. While Callie isn't completely enamored with Josh (or the dogs for that matter) she is holding her own and searching for her under the furniture is good for at least an hour of entertainment everyday (for Sadie too). Probably our two favorite transitions this month are to the one nap a day and we no longer have to worry about formula. While J might still prefer to take one short morning nap it was getting ridiculously short and then he wouldn't sleep again until later afternoon. With a little bit of "forced" activity late in the morning he's now down to a midday nap that will usually last between 2 and 3 hours. It is so nice to have such a big chunk of time free in the middle of the day. Beware though if you try to keep him out much past 1230 but the trade off seems completely worth it. The one nap baby is also incredibly easy to put to sleep which is another bonus. For most of his naps we can just lay him in his crib with some books and putting him to sleep at night is now usually involves less than 10 minutes of rocking which is a huge improvement and overall the change has been pretty easy. Switching to whole milk from formula also went way better than I had expected. I split two bottles half and half and then we were out of formula and he's been on milk ever since. If only all the other changes these next few years could be so straightforward.

Favorite Toys and Games: We are definitely in the explorer phase and he loves things he can hide and find in buckets or things that open and close. His absolute favorite thing these last few months though has been his baby pool. We have spent many hours after dinner letting him skinny dip on the back deck and his birthday boat served as a great base for his "deadliest catch" game where we would make waves with our feet and he would try to catch his fish and dump them through the cargo hold. Captain Ahab however was usually left out to sea.

Things we love: It's so fun to see his mind work and to start to see his opinions and personality start to come out. It's great to see how friendly he is and we love how much he waves and talks to us, the animals and strangers alike. It also cracks us up that when he is "talking" he only does it in this very high pitched singy-song voice, but the rest of the time he sticks to a guttural grunt.



These months in pictures

A belated birthday party in the new house

Pool time

Sharing a fish "meal" with cousin Lily

More loving from the ladies.

Playtime

Our new house

Teething leads to lots of chewing and drooling

Our first Reds game

New Heart Day 365

One year ago today we did the hardest thing we've ever done which was to hand our seven week old baby to an anesthesia team so he could be carried off to the operating room. I really wanted to hold him close and run the other direction but we knew it needed to be done. I'm so thankful that he had no idea what was going on and was smiling at all of the people who were helping us. Then and now, he just seemed to be so little to have such big things done to him but true to his personality he just took it all in stride.

Looking at him now

 

It's so hard to believe that a year ago he looked like this

I'm still kind of amazed that our surgeon is able to work on patients and organs that are so small. Their work must be so delicate and precise. We're celebrating again today that everything was a success and that hopefully a lifetime of good health is all that stands in front of our precious boy thanks to their good work.

Name That Tune

One thing that has always worked to make J calm when he's upset is singing to him. He's very particular however about the type of music though and will not respond to pop, country, folk or anything contemporary. Kids songs though are always almost instantaneously successful though. I don't know if it's the lyrics, the melody or the rhyming that does it but they work pretty much every time. As everybody with kids knows singing the same songs over and over again gets old very quickly so we've made up a few special verses/interjections to keep things interesting. The rest of this post is of interest probably to no one but us but I have to document for our memories the songs we sing to Josh.

Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes is probably the number one but since he can't really point to body parts yet we've made up our own verses to keep it interesting. Here are the ones I can remember right now...

Head and Shoulders, Knees and ......, Eyes and Ears and......
Tummies......Babies that are yummy
Tushies......Eyebrows that are bushy
Shins........Little double chins
Bones........Sleepy baby moans
Thighs.......Babies who don't cry
Gut..........None existent Butt
Gums.........Tasty baby thumbs
Teeth........Chubby baby feet
Hair.........Skin that is so fair
Hearts.......Stinky baby farts
Lips.........Skinny baby hips
Heels........baby laughs and squeals



The itsy-bitsy spider is another favorite even without the hand movements and on one extended car trip, Scott decided to add some interjections at the end of each line and now we can't think of the song with out them.

The itsy-bitsy spider went up the water spout (Because he could)
Down came the rain and washed the spider out (It's a flood)
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain (Now a drought)
And the itsy-bitsy spider went up the spout again (He's tenacious)


For twinkle, twinkle little star I've made my own second verse which I think is an amalgamation of other verses out there but I like mine best

When the blazing sun is set, little light your shining yet
Up above the milky way, twinkling on until it's day,
Twinkle, twinkle litter star how I wonder what you are.

Other favorites that we haven't been creative with are "Home on the Range", "You are my sunshine" and the "Wheels on the bus". I think we've about maxed out on those though so a new toddler music CD may need to be purchased soon for all of us.

Our Top Ten Baby Items

Just in case we need a refresher for the next time I thought I'd make a list of the things that have been the most useful for us this first year.

1) The Wub-a-nub pacifier
We weren't sure at all if Josh would be a pacifier baby but after his heart surgery he loved having them for soothing but only the green soothies kind would do. We quickly discovered the wub-a-nub with the beanie baby attached and have been hooked ever since. When he was little we could swaddle them into his blanket or tuck it into his car seat strap so he wouldn't lose them. As he got more coordinated, the animal kept him from trying to put them in backwards and likely has saved us hours of frustration. Now they serve mostly as chew toys as he keeps working on new teeth and we hope that when the time comes to wean the pacifier that the stuffed animal will be +an acceptable "lovey" to cover the loss.

2) Swaddling blankets/sleep sacks
Josh also loved being swaddled from the beginning and keeping him all snug and tight was a great way to help him snooze. Given that he was a summer baby the Adan-Anais muslin blankets were our favorites since they were big and lightweight. Once he discovered he could move his arms our swaddling didn't last much longer but the sleep sacks worked great at keeping him snug and warm. They were so warm we were actually able to skip jammies for our hot box even in the winter and just use a onesie. This made middle of the night diaper changes so much easier once we didn't have to try to line up all those snaps and buttons. Once he started pulling up we had to switch back to pajamas since he would trip over the extra sack length but for the first eight months he loved his "sleeping bags".

3) The rocker/recliner
We debated buying a cute or trendy rocker/glider/ottoman for the nursery but since we weren't sure how much space we would have, getting a recliner seemed to make more sense. I was very opposed though to getting anything that looked too much like a "grandpa chair" that might ruin the aesthetic of my cute nursery but luckily we were able to find a great Lazboy option in which we have each spent many hours rocking our sweet baby. Sometimes it's a bad thing that the chair is so comfortable since it makes us want to fall asleep way before Josh wants to fall asleep but especially in the beginning and during our several "crib strikes" it has been our favorite piece of furniture.

4) The bouncy seat/swing
Even though Josh as a great sleeper as a newborn, he still spent most of his naps and nights sleeping in his bouncy seat or swing. While the movement/vibration sure did help he also seemed to breathe easier when he was at an angle. Even once we started the Lasix he seemed to rest more comfortably in his bouncy chair and he slept in it every night until after we came home from his surgery. The swing lasted a bit longer for naps but since it was on loan it went away after Thanksgiving.

5) Collapsible wagon
We have gone on before about how much we love our collapsible wagon and I'm sure it will get a ton of use this year as well. For the many festivals, airplane trips, museum and zoo runs and outdoor activities it has served us well as a way to carry all our gear, keep our fair skinned baby shaded, and offer a space for naps.

6) Pacifier/Toy lasso's
These ingenious inventions were surely invented by another parent who was tired of picking up pacifiers and toys. Since Josh loves to drop things just to watch them fall, they are a staple in our diaper bag and around the house.

7) Sunny Sunshine
While the sunshine has lost his allure over the last few months, it was a godsend for months three through seven. Since it fastended to his crib, the flashing lights and lullaby tune soothed Josh back to sleep probably at least two to three times a day during that time. It's portability helped the pack and play seem more like home and often in the middle of the night we'd wake up to the sunshine tune playing after Josh turned it on.

8) Activity table/exersaucer
Once he had head control and grew long enough to reach the floor, Josh loved his rain forest exersaucer and the Little Einstein activity table. While the sounds (especially the singing iguana) wore on our nerves a little bit, he loved all the lights, music, dancing, and buttons to push and slide. Once he could pull himself up, he could play with each of them for hours.

9) Baby carriers/hikers
In addition to the wagon, we often want to go places where a stroller just doesn't work. From the time I went back to work, Scott and Josh go out on their almost daily hikes. The started with a baby Bjorn type setup and have graduated to the full baby backpack. After a change in model for something that fits his size better Josh loves going out for a "ride" and will even nap while Scott carries him around.

10) Movable baby gates
While these are a recent addition for our new house, we are loving our big five panel expandable gates from the Frontgate outlet. The open floor plan of our new place is great but it is exhausting trying to keep up with Josh and without standard doorways to block we needed something big to keep him contained. I think these gates were actually designed for animals, they work great even for our climbing baby since they're extra tall. We love that we don't have to mount them into the great woodwork in our new place and if we want to be in a different room or outside we can just move them where we need them to be. We only wish we had bought them earlier.