7 months old!

Yesterday was Eli's 7 month mark and  I took him to visit his great-grandparents.  My grandpa has had a crap ton of terrible health problems this past year so we try and see him when we can.  

As of 7 months, Eli is still not sleeping well.  The kid is constantly congested and I can rarely leave him to cry it out because it ends in gagging which begets more crying and ends in a fully awake babe.  Ugh.

As for naps, I never know what's going to happen.  He takes a nap about 1-1/2 hours after waking just because he slept so little.  His naps are generally 30-40 minutes and he takes anywhere from 2-4 a day. Sometimes there's an hour nap but that is definitely an exception to the rule.

He is eating more solid food, right now twice a day, once in the morning and once in the late evening.  His first solid other than rice and oatmeal cereals was sweet potato.  He has also had apple, pear, and peas.

In the past month, he has become a rolling fiend.  He wields his weight well.  He is also the nosiest baby, always grabbing and reaching for EVERYTHING.  Literally everything.  He wants it.  He needs it.  He is less into his exersaucer because it limits his ability to grab things he shouldn't have.

Eli is also sitting up pretty well now!  In probably the past week and a half, his balance has really improved and he can maintain a sitting position even when looking behind him and reaching for things that aren't directly in front of him.  He also sits straight up and not leaning forward.  This comes in especially convenient during bath time.

I keep waiting for real "babbling".  He babbles a bit; mostly he just yells (so much yelling) or makes one syllable noises that may or may not have vowel and consonant sounds.  Everything I read says he should be stringing together more complex consonant/vowel combinations but he doesn't do too much that seems like he's trying to convey a thought.  He will exchange sounds sometimes though. Ha.

He is also gigantic, still.  I haven't weighed him on my own but he is wearing 9 month clothes still, 12 months if it is one piece.

sometimes you win, but mostly you lose

Last night Eli was up every hour again.

That's all.

sweet potato

Yesterday Eli had his first taste of non-cereal, non milk-mixed food.  Sweet potato!  I pureed it with pear juice because we were at my mom's (doing laundry, our laundry machine/dryer and currently disconnected while our basement is being renovated).  He was entirely unsure of what to think about this new food.  The texture was new and we were still getting used to pear juice so I think that might be why he wasn't too sure.  

Today we tried sweet potato again.  We made it at home with milk and the texture was much smoother and based on Eli's reaction, more palatable.  He gobbled it down with similar vigor to his cereals.

By the way, he cut his second tooth yesterday, as well.

And he slept 7 hours straight last night.

PROGRESS.

first solid food!

....kind of.

Rice cereal is a lot like slightly grainy milk, at least the way I made it the first time.   We fed him his first bowl on Saturday morning and he has had it every morning since, though today I am going to wait until evening to feed him in hopes that it keeps his belly full through the night and maybe sleep for longer stretches.  WE'LL SEE.

Obviously we took pictures of this milestone.   Lots of pictures.

Here I am offering him his first taste.

Here he is pleased with the results.

He definitely thought he should be the one to hold the spoon.

See.

About halfway through, Rob took over.  Eli showed no bias.

He thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience.

Until next food....

6 months old!

Well, here we are at the half-way mark of Eli's first year.  I cannot believe how fast it goes.  People aren't exaggerating about kids growing up too fast.  They are FOR REAL.

Eli had his 6 month check up yesterday morning at 8:50 and we found out he weighs 19 pounds 2 ounces and is 28 inches long.  His head circumference is 42.5 centimeters, if you possibly care about that.

Anyway.

This past month has been BRUTAL.  

Eli caught a cold at the end of December/beginning of January and it completely destroyed any hope that his 5 hour sleep stretches at night were giving me.  Now I was lucky if he slept 2 hours straight during the night (it was usually about 45 minutes).  I took him to the doctor on January 2 just to make sure he didn't have anything more serious and the doctor did confirm it was just a cold, and recommended saline drops to help break up his congestion.  They helped slightly.  We put a humidifier in his room at that point, too.  And eventually added Vick's baby rub into the mix.

Well,  come February, ALL of his cold symptoms were still in play and he was still barely sleeping, so I called the doctor again.  He had an appointment for February 6th and we found out he had an ear infection and were prescribed amoxicillin for 10 days.

After one week of antibiotics Eli didn't seem to be doing much better.  In fact, now he was pulling on his OTHER ear and I was freaking out, so I called the doctor again.  We went in that day (February 12) and while Eli was free and clear of ear infections, we found out he had a VIRAL INFECTION in his throat.   It was mild, thankfully, but the blister was on his right side which was why he was pulling on his right ear, most likely, Dr. Herman told us.

Unfortunately there is nothing you can really do about a virus but he told me I could give him infant's motrin, which I picked up on the way home.  When we got home, Eli was fussing around and I decided to peek into his mouth and found he had finally cut his first lower incisor.  We had suspected him teething for months and so I had kinda thought his cold symptoms were being exacerbated by teething symptoms.  

Here we are a week later and he received a clean bill of health at his check up so now I'm  going to be trying to enforce sleep a little more.  I've completely backed off the last month and a half since crying it out was impossible (drainage and gagging and that whole bit) and I felt so guilty if I didn't immediately respond to his cries.  He has been spending the first part of the night in his crib and then somewhere along the line I bring him in and he sleeps the rest of the night on me.

NOW, moving on.

At 6 months old Eli's favorite things are...

+ his exersaucer!  he can spend a lot of time in there entertaining himself

+ baths/water!  he is really into splashing and trying to grab the water as it comes out of the faucet.

+ reaching/grabbing!  this baby is going after EVERYTHING.  

+ rolling!  last week he did a fully successful roll from back to tummy and he has been going crazy with it ever since.  sadly, this means i can't just lay him on the floor anymore while i try and get things done.  he has also been preferring to sleep on his stomach since he learned this new trick.

+ simon!  sometimes i think simon is eli's favorite person in our family.

+ the vacuum cleaner!  he delights in my efforts to keep our floors swept.

Things Eli may or may not enjoy...

+ reading!  he likes to eat the book, not look at it.

+ sesame street!  he seems to enjoy it when there are kids talking/kids singing but otherwise he ignores the tv.

Here's hoping the next month is at least a little easier than the last, at least as far as sleep goes.  It's kind of amazing how *little* you can handle when you haven't slept properly in half a year.

Still worth it.

5 months old!

Eli became 5 months old on January 18th!

Some things Eli is up to at this time...

Loves:

1. being in the exersaucer
2. silly faces/noises
3. bath time
4. mirrors
5. playing with his feet
6. squawking
7. being on his *back* in his activity gym
8. car rides
9. simon/macy/small living things that move in general
10. chewing on literally anything that will fit in his mouth
11. watching people talk
12. books (chewing on, of course)
13. sitting in the bumbo

He has not yet rolled from his back to his front.  He has rolled front to back a total of 9 times.  He has to be reeeeally motivated to do it.  Otherwise he's pretty content on his back and can't be bothered to roll around.

He has also been practicing "sitting up".  He can tripod sit for a few seconds and sometimes can balance himself the old fashioned way but obviously, being only 5 months old, he just tips over, haha.  I'm hoping he can sit up ;ong enough for his 6 month photos, which I am working on scheduling!

Eli on his 5 month birthday!

Here is a pretty crappy job on a panorama of Eli's room as it currently stands.  I ignored currently standards and got some crib bedding with a bumper pad.  In his case, I am more worried about his leg getting stuck in the bars than suffocating, as he was waking up many nights kicking the side of his crib.  Plus it's super cute and I got the entire set for $35 at Once Upon a Child!

Also, still no tooth yet, and he hasn't had any solid foods.  I'm planning on starting that after talking with his pediatrician about the best options at his 6 month checkup!

*Also to note, I recently received a mother/baby scale and according to it Eli weighs TWENTY POUNDS. if that's true, he gained almost 3 entire pounds in about a month and a week.

*Correction: He weighs 18.8 pounds.  I tried it a few more times.  It makes more sense, especially since he has had a cold this ENTIRE month so far and hasn't been eating as much as usual.

lately.

I am going to be honest, lately I have been having a lot of negative thoughts.

Eli has had a cold for about a week and a half now and for me that means only a few broken hours of sleep a night.  I'm tired.  I'm really, really tired.

Over the past couple years I've followed a lot of blogs.  These are usually the blogs of people who, to me, appear to have their lives together.  They are the type of people that cook all their meals from scratch (organic, of course...probably locally grown, too), build their own furniture, and still have time to look like supermodels while raising multiple children.

Initially (you know, before I had a babe of my own) this was really inspiring because hey! I would totally love to be that kind of mom!

Except...then I had a kid.

And every day is a lot like treading water, just trying to stay afloat.  I don't have time/energy/will to do all those things that looked so inspiring pre-baby.  Don't get me wrong, having a baby is really awesome.  But it's also really a lot of work.

And I'm tired.

Now those blogs that once inspired me kind of annoy me.  I am envious of their ability to even make their lives have the appearance of being so together.

I am annoyed because my husband doesn't come home from work and immediately become involved with our child.  He usually gets on the computer and we don't have a real conversation.  I am annoyed because if I even make it to the grocery store and buy fresh ingredients to make something for dinner, I usually don't even do anything with said ingredients and then they rot, and then I throw them away. I am annoyed because I get on Facebook and see friends post statuses complaining that their baby didn't sleep that night when my baby has slept through the night two or three times since I brought him home from the hospital (and for the record...through the night means 6+ hours...we've done 7).  I'm annoyed because I have bags under my eyes and no amount of concealer can hide the fact that I just need a freaking nap.  Mostly I'm annoyed because I can't choose to be happy despite these things.

I guess my New Years resolution should be to just "deal with it" in a positive way.  I don't know exactly what that would look like in my life, but when I do, I'll let you know...