11 Months Old

Guess who is so over having his picture taken with the month stickers? This guy!!!

Height: 30.25 inches
Weight: 20 pounds, 0 ounces
Head: 18.5 inches

We had a heck of a time getting these pictures taken! Why? Because Aaron has a hard time sitting still these days! He is an expert crawler, and he stands and walks along pieces of furniture holding on with one hand with ease. It feels so good to go where you want to go, so no Mom. I will not sit still while you take my picture! And furthermore, I want to explore this sticker you just put on my shirt!

Aaron’s rampant mobility is also the reason why this post is so late. I am either off chasing after him or am completely pooped! Frequently both at the same time! I have loved every stage that he had gone through (Admittedly, the older baby stuff is more fun given how hard it is to be around brand new babies after what we went through with Noah) but this one is a tough one. Seeing more of his personality come out, and his joy over what he can do now does make it more endearing though!

Last time I posted, we had just started at the feeding clinic to begin working with him on solid foods. We have kept that up, and have learned a lot. Where we left off was trying to get him to try “hard munchables” or food that is in hard stick form like carrot sticks, celery sticks, baby biscuits, and yes, slim jims. Now we have moved on to different textures. He has pudding (he really likes vanilla), pretzel sticks, dum dum suckers (seriously. He is just gross with these things, and gets so mad when it’s time to take it away!!!), townhouse crackers, cheese puffs (like cheetos), baby puffs, mandarin oranges and chopped pears. He is doing a great job of tasting everything, and the whole point of our feeding practice sessions with him is just play. Our therapist calls them “painting parties” since we try different textures and just see how it feels and maybe tastes. He doesn’t really swallow very much if anything. Our therapist promises us that that is not the concern at this point. I must say that he didn’t want to put anything in his mouth before, and now he will at least try things, so it is progress. We go once a week to meet with an occupational therapist, and will keep it up as long as we need to!

Painting Party!!!

Dum Dum Sucker...Yum!

Aaron has started at his new daycare at this point. Last month, much to our shock and horror, his wonderful, perfect babysitter quit so she could go back to school. A massive search ensued to find a replacement, and now Aaron is happily enrolled at the local Montessori school. It took about two weeks for him to get used to it and decide that he likes it. Good lord, that was so hard. We felt guilty, guilty, guilty leaving him there, and second guessed our decision multiple times. It was awful. Honestly, we were at our wits end trying to find somewhere that we felt good about. This was pretty much the only option. Hindsight? We are so glad he is there! He is learning so much, and is really enjoying his teachers and getting to be social with the other kids. It is really bizarre. I grew up in a house where my mother stayed home with my brother and me, and I always thought that would be what I would do. I never really saw the benefits of doing it the other way. Now that I am watching my kiddo go to a great daycare, I see how much he is learning, and how much fun he has with the other kids in his class. He is getting so much out of it!

For example, I spent his first day there hanging out in the class with him for a few hours. When it got to be snack time for the older babies, they got them all set up at the little table with bananas and goldfish crackers. You know how much trouble Aaron has had having any interest in solid foods so as you can imagine, I didn’t think he’d care much about it. But, lo and behold, he went crawling up to the table and looked interested in what everyone else was doing. The teacher asked if he’d like some. I thought sure, what the heck? Give it a try. They sat him at the table with the other kids and gave him some. You would not believe the look on his face. He was so proud and excited to be there with everyone else, and even took a taste of the goldfish crackers! I think a little peer pressure will definitely help our food issue!!!

The hardest part for him about getting used to it is that all the babies are in the same room whether they are napping or not. The cribs are on one side of the room, and the play area is on the other, separated by a half wall. They learn to sleep with lights on and noise all around them. Aaron was a mess for the first several days because he was used to sleeping in a dark, quiet environment. He got no naps in for several days. After about two weeks, he got the hang of it, and then everything started to settle into a new normal, and it has been great ever since. We are glad he is there and that he likes it. It really is a great daycare.

With the new daycare and all the crazy food (uh…pudding and dum dum suckers? Guess where that ALWAYS ends up?! His hair!!!) Aaron is getting baths a LOT more often than before. I did a big cleanup job on our bathtub, putting some of our things up, as well as getting the toys installed in a toy caddy in the shower wall. He has really gotten to the place where he thinks it’s fun to take a bath. He loves to splash and play, and he sings and talks to me while we do this pretty much on a nightly basis. I can get him cleaned up and out pretty quickly now. His hair looks so funny when I am done! It is really getting long. (I am not ready for his first haircut yet though!) It wipes him out pretty well at the end of the day, and helps to get him down for the night. Our evenings are a bit of a marathon with getting him home from daycare, doing our “painting party” with solid foods, bath time, books, and bed. Once he’s down, I madly clean and prep all the bottles for the next day, and then I crash as well. It is exhausting, but fun!







Life just continues at the Wilkerson household! We are getting ready for his big first birthday! It is amazing to look back at the blog posts just after we had him and see how far we have come in a year. I look forward to posting on all of that soon!

10 Months Old

Weights and measures this month are as follows:

• Weight: 20 pounds, 1 ounce


• Height: 30 inches


• Head: 18.5 inches

I feel like so much has happened this month! First off, Aaron had his first flu bug. I cannot believe we have made it this far without him getting sick! I know perfectly well that this will not last forever, though I am incredibly grateful that he was not sick while he was so small and vulnerable. This first flu bug was not a bad one at all. I got a call from his babysitter saying that he had been throwing up. It was a super hot day, and they do not have air conditioning (a common thing in Colorado. Seriously…) so that might have been part of it. She stripped him down to his diaper, which helped, and I left him that way the rest of the day. I got him home and fed him a bunch to keep him from getting dehydrated. He had a fever of 100, though once we got some ibuprofen in him, his temperature came down to normal and he felt great! It was so hard to keep him down once the medicine had kicked in! I am seeing the beauty in using a little bit of TV to keep them entertained in circumstances like this. It has been something we’ve been avoiding, but seeing him feeling like he wants to party when he is technically sick made me re-think that a bit.

Therefore, I started to TiVo Sesame Street! He LOVES puppets right now, and laughs and does a little baby dance when it comes on. His favorite character is Murray, the red fuzzy one that does interviews on the street throughout the show. I really don’t want a zombie for a son, so he doesn’t get access to it all the time. I got some Sesame Street CD’s from the library, and we got some of their books as well, and he is having a blast with it all.

Here's Murray:


We also took our first vacation with him as well. We really enjoy doing the Courage Classic in the summer to help raise money for the Children’s Hospital. In particular, we raise money for the Gene Team that benefits the Inherited Metabolic Diseases Clinic that helped us so much after Noah died to understand his illness and how to prevent future children from getting it. The event takes place up at Copper Mountain, and Chris and my father ride the 200 or so mile route. We get a condo, and my mom and I relax while the guys ride. It was the perfect first vacation with the baby because we had a great home base with the condo with plenty of room to take care of whatever he needed, yet we had easy access to Copper Mountain Village to be a part of the activities as we could. He did great with it all, and had fun seeing all the activity. The air is cooler (in the 70’s every day) so we got to enjoy a lot of fresh air too. It was a fun, relaxing weekend, great to see our Gene Team friends again, as well as meet other families with the same class of illness that our family has faced.

Here's our favorite photos from the weekend:

Aaron with Dad at the finish line. Aaron is wearing a zebra print bib for the Gene Team (team mascot)

Taking a really relaxing nap!

Waiting for Dad and Pawpaw to cross the finish line!

They made it!

Family photo on the last day.

Last month I wrote about possibly switching pediatricians. We have decided to go ahead and do it, however, we decided to put it off until we get some visits in with a pediatric dietitian I found to help us figure out Aaron’s continuing problem with adjusting to eating solid foods. There is a bunch of referral paperwork that has gone back and forth, and having a well established relationship with a pediatrician has been helpful.

Let me back up a minute here and explain. I attended a health and wellness webinar at my work, where they let us know that we have access to six visits a year with a dietitian if we would like as a part of our insurance. The thought immediately clicked in my head that that would be just the sort of expert we need to work out this whole food issue with Aaron, so I got on the phone and had them set me up with the best one in town. This lady works as a part of a team that includes a dietitian, a speech pathologist, an occupational therapist, and a pediatrician that handles special food issues and disorders in children. They evaluated Aaron and sure enough, they absolutely believe that he has some sensory integration issues with food. Basically, it is a behavioral issue that he can and will grow out of, but some special care with how we present food to him must be taken so that we avoid some bad habits down the road. Because he has been reluctant to do this the ordinary way, his tongue only moves up and down (not side to side). This is a muscle that he needs to develop. His ability to manipulate and swallow solid food doesn’t work the way it should as a result of how he functions now. What do we do? To start off with, they have us feeding him in a booster chair on the floor (so it is different from his high chair, which has gotten to be a traumatic experience for him with all of our force feeding). We put applesauce on his tray, and let him put his hands in it. We give him what they call “hard munchables.” These are basically hard food that is in a stick form that he can easily hold onto. They gave him Slim Jims, licorice that was a bit dried out so it is hard, celery, and biter biscuits (hard baby biscuits). He can dip in the applesauce if he wants, though if he doesn’t, it's no big deal. If he holds it out to me, I am to put it in my mouth. It is his way of asking “Is this safe Mom?” By putting it in my mouth, in his world, I am saying to him “yes, this is safe.” Then he will feel more comfortable to put it in his own mouth. I am not allowed to wipe his mouth. We just make a mess, and play. They also have an empty honey bottle (the one shaped like a bear) filled with water, and a straw in it. They want him drinking water by straw now rather than use a sippy cup.. Again, they are trying to get his tongue moving in a new way, and this helps. The whole thing is like a big conversation and play. The goal is NOT the number of bites he takes and swallows. It is just for him to interact with the food in a positive way. When he puts his hands up and gives any sign that he’s done playing, we’re done. Nothing is forced. So far he loves it. He mutilated a Slim Jim last night. It is clearly his favorite. I guess at this point, he is developing taste buds, so really flavorful things are good. What an odd thing to give a baby! We are going to do a bunch of follow-up appointments, and I feel encouraged that we are finally on the right track with this.

Here's a picture of Aaron's dinner plate. Going counter clockwise starting with the applesauce are: Slim Jim sticks, biter biscuits, celery, carrots, licorice, and his honey bear with water is at the top. Yummy!

When Aaron holds something out towards us, we are to put it in our mouths to show him that this is safe. No kidding, he will then put whatever it is in his mouth in response afterward.

Aaron is taking a turn putting the Slim Jim in his own mouth. He loves it!

More than worrying about the number of bites he takes, the goal is mostly to just have fun! Mission accomplished!

Enjoying a cool drink of water from his honey bear!

One big stressful thing that has happened this month is that his babysitter quit! Chris and I have both been grieving losing her! Our babysitter while we are at work has been a wonderful stay-at-home mom of a kindergartner. She is such a loving and caring person. Aaron was her only full time kiddo, so he has gotten so much special attention. He lives on her hip all day long, and has done so well with her. She has decided to go back to school this fall, so her schedule is going to be a bit erratic now, making this situation no longer work. We immediately started pounding the pavement trying to find someone else. The area of town we live in is nice, but has pockets of not so great neighborhood not that far from us, and it seemed that all the home daycare settings we found were in the not so great areas. I would comb the state daycare license website to check people out, and find complaint after complaint on just about everybody. It hardly inspired confidence when considering leaving Aaron in the care of a complete stranger! Finally, we decided to check out the local Montessori School since they take babies. After the tour, Chris and I both felt that warm fuzzy feeling that we were on the right track. It is ridiculously expensive, but wow, do they have a great program.We decided the cost was worth it for the peace of mind. He is now enrolled and starts on Monday! This is a very different environment from what he is used to, so pray it goes well. If he likes it, he will be grandfathered into their awesome pre-school program when he is older. Everything is educational and exploratory and caters to what he wants to do. I think it will be so good for him, especially as curious and mobile as he is these days!

Speaking of being mobile, my little guy is getting to be quite good with crawling, getting more comfortable moving with his belly off the ground (he has been army crawling like a pro for a while now). The big new thing he loves to do is to pull up standing! With his crawling, he keeps getting over by the coffee table and bonking his head, so I went out and bought a new coffee table that is a brown leather ottoman. Once that was put in the house, he quickly discovered how much fun it is to pull up to standing on it on his own and holding onto it, to play with toys on top of it, and to take a few steps around it! I think we will have a walking baby very soon as he continues to get stronger and more comfortable doing this. I can't seem to get the house baby-proofed fast enough! It is amazing how now that he can get around so much easier, how he manages to find even the smallest things I wouldn't think he'd get to. Pine needles or other things that come in with the dog after she's been outside, clumps of dog hair that's been on the floor for a nanosecond, anything really, and it all goes in his mouth so we really have to watch him closely.

Standing!

Here he is crawling:


And, here he is standing:


He is just so cute, and communicative. He points to things a lot these days, and is very inquisitive. We are just head over heels in love with him. Watching him grow is so amazing. Thanks for reading along with this particularly long post!

9 Months Old

(Look who just discovered that that thing on his shirt is a sticker! I think the coming months' photos may be a bit more difficult to capture!)

Good lord I am late on this! I have actually had it written, but just not posted. The reason? Aaron hasn't slept in a couple of weeks! I never get those precious few minutes between when he goes to bed, and when I go to bed to get a few things done. Oh well. Better late than never!

He’s 9 months old, and ready for another update! Here’s his weights and measures:

• Weight: 19 pounds, 5 ounces (25th percentile)


• Height: 30 inches (95th percentile)


• Head: 18 1/8 inches (75th percentile) – This is smaller than what I measured last month. It is hard to get a baby to sit still to get accurate measurements! We just take our best guess I suppose!

Aaron had a doctor’s visit today. Immediately, I was concerned about his weight. He has been tracking at the 50th percentile since he was born, and now all of a sudden he is at the 25th percentile?! It has been so difficult with getting him to eat solid foods. Is he not gaining weight the way he is supposed to be as a result? The doctor said that this is typical. As babies learn to move on their own, and work so hard at it, they burn more calories, and their weight gain can slow down. Whew!

Everything looked great with where he is developmentally. He can sit pretty well on his own (with a bit of help at times). He mostly prefers to play while on his tummy. He couldn’t really care less about sitting, but he will do it. He is doing great with doing an army crawl to get to where he wants to be. I think this is really a very instinctual part of being a baby with how much he has developed in this regard. He gets to where he wants to go doing the army crawl, so why learn to do it with your tummy off the ground? Who cares? The need has been satisfied! The doctor agreed and said that he has seen some babies never do it with their tummies off the ground! They go straight to walking from here. We will see what Aaron chooses to do. I am not too worried about it.

Top on my list with the doctor today was to talk about Aaron and solid food. This has continued to be a problem. We’ve tried it all: homemade baby food, store bought baby food, bits of fresh banana and avocado, mum crackers, baby puffs, different eating utensils, changing up feeding him in the high chair vs. his bumbo chair vs. just sitting in one of our laps, feeding him with me in the room, with me out of the room (I smell like breast milk to him), and everything else in between and none of it has worked. The doctor was quick to say that he is still growing as he should be, so he is obviously getting what he needs. Aaron is breastfeeding well, and it is a comfort thing as well as a food source. He is pretty attached to it. I did some research, and my insurance will pay for six visits a year with a nutritionist. I did more research and found the best pediatric dietitian in Colorado Springs, and got the doctor today to write us a referral. I can’t wait to see her and see what ideas she has for us. The doctor was eager to say that we need to watch our expectations, because this may not work either, but I think we have to try. I wonder, is this typical of breastfed babies over formula fed ones? There are so few women out there that I know of that have breastfed exclusively as long as I have. If you did it over the long haul, and had this experience, can you send me a note to let me know? Lord, it is so stressful!

I am really kicking around changing pediatricians. I have such mixed feelings about it. I love our doctor. We went with him because he is currently treating patients with MCADD, the illness that Noah had. We wanted an expert in diagnosing and treating it in case Aaron had it. We now know that he is free and clear of the illness thank God. We’ve known for months now.

Reasons to go:

• The doctor’s office is as far away from home/work as you can get. It is a hike to get there for sure.


• Our doctor is in his mid-sixties. He will likely retire in the not-too-distant future.


• The last few visits, they have been out of stock of at least one of the shots that he needs. Their answer to this is “That’s ok! You can just come back in a couple of days and we’ll get you right in.” Right… I have to take off work, go yank Aaron out of daycare, and drive across town to the office. There’s half a day gone, when I already had to take half a day to make the original appointment!


• I had a terrible experience with a PA. She basically freaked me out and had be bring Aaron in for something innocuous that could have been resolved over the phone if she’d taken 5 minutes to ask me some additional questions.

Reasons to stay:

• I do like the doctor. He has a ton of experience.


• If Chris and I are lucky enough to get to have another baby (a big “if” considering we have to do IVF to have a healthy baby. $$$$$$$$$) we will need an MCADD expert again to make sure that all is well. He is the best in town. I am uncomfortable being “that guy” who uses this doctor and then bails once we know everything is ok.


• It’s a pain in the rear to switch everything over. The easy thing to do is to just stay.

Chris and I interviewed a doctor at an office that is closer to home. It is a huge practice with a lot of nice benefits. In a perfect world, I’d find a doc that can roll with my hippie self, and be encouraging when I feel like taking my kiddo to the acupuncturist to handle certain issues, or trying herbal remedies and such. The problem is that being a grieving mom, there is also a huge part of me that needs someone more cerebral and aggressive when it comes to modern western medicine. I don’t know that I would find someone that I would feel totally jazzed about since those are two conflicting things on my wish list. The guy we talked to is a brainy type. He had heard of MCADD, though never treated any patients with it (it is extremely rare after all). He spouted off enough info to us that said that yes, he really does get what it is. Who knows. Since we have this referral to the dietitian going on, we plan to sit tight at the moment until that all goes through. Then it will be time to figure out what to do.

Here's a couple of videos of our boy for this month. The first one shows his new trick: waving good-bye! He feels a bit self-conscious doing it, so he doesn;t do it that vigrously all the time. He gives us these looks like "is this right? You want me to do this with my hand, yes?" He is too funny, and very cute!


Another thing he's doing is getting VERY squirmy when it is time to change a diaper or clothes. You can tell he thinks it's fun to be wrestled into and out of his clothes. (FYI, please know that right after he started moving around like this, we moved the crib mattress down to a more reasonable level!) Take a look:

8 Months Old

I had to post two pictures this month because I love them both! It was an impossible choice!



Here we are at 8 months! Aaron’s weights and measures are as follows:

• Height: 30 inches


• Weight: 19 pounds, 4.5 ounces


• Head: 19 inches

I can hardly believe it, but I spent the other weekend packing away most of Aaron’s 6 month sized clothing since he’s wearing the 9 month sized stuff every day. I got out the next size up, the 12 month stuff. I pull these outfits out and they look so long, until I hold them up against Aaron and see that he really doesn’t have that much further to go until they fit. Good lord, he is so tall! All the little baby stuff is gone. I was sad to see it go, and to remember the excitement of him wearing those things. This all happens so fast.

The big new development this month is crawling! Life is really about to change in our house with this one. Aaron has figured out how to get on his hands and knees and rock back and forth. You can see the wheels turning in his head. He just KNOWS that he’s supposed to do something with this! He’s tried hopping on his back end to move forward. He’s beginning to get the hang of moving one knee forward in conjunction with the appropriate arm. He can now do the army crawl, rolling and wiggling to get to where he wants to go. I turn my head away for one second, and he’s off his play mat and somewhere on the floor I wouldn’t expect. Oh my lord, I need to baby proof my house! I went to Babies R’ Us the other day to get a bunch of stuff, and I need to clean out our things from pretty much everywhere. It is so exciting to see him learn this new skill, yet there is a small sense of dread over what it means. We will figure it all out though!

Videos of Aaron's first attempts at crawling:





The weather has really warmed up in Colorado, which means we get a lot more outside time and fresh air, which is so much fun to do with Aaron. We live down the street from a ranch made up to look like Colorado during the time when the settlers were first here. There are all kinds of farm animals that live there, and we’ve had so much fun walking through to show them all to Aaron. His favorites are the chickens. He giggles at them as they bob their heads and cluck around the coop. They have three new baby chicks that are so cute. They also have two new 5 week old piglets. One is quite vocal, and Aaron laughs at their oinking noises. We walk through and sing “Old McDonald” to him as we come across the animals. My new favorite thing is to take him there around naptime. He’ll fall asleep in his stroller, and I’ll roll him over to one of the park benches in the shade. He sleeps in the warm breeze, and I sit and read my book until he wakes up. Then we proceed on through the ranch to visit any of the animals we may have missed.

Aaron at the ranch:






Aaron continues to grow teeth like you wouldn’t believe. His four front teeth have come in, as well as his two bottom ones that he’s had for a while now. I just peeked the other day, and I see four more that are now coming in. Two are up on top, and then the other two are coming in on the bottom. My acupuncturist has a remedy she prescribes called Tender Teeth that I’ve found works amazingly well. Aaron had a week where he was fussy and didn’t sleep as his two front teeth were breaking through. As soon as I started giving him the Tender Teeth, he was back to his old self, and sleeping so much better. I am grateful to have found this stuff, though it is a bit pricy at $20 a bottle. I’ll just use it as he needs it I guess.

We have kept up with trying to feed Aaron solid foods, but it continues to be a challenge, and I feel so guilty a lot of the time about it. We’ve been at this for two months now, and he still really doesn’t have much interest in eating solids. We can get a few spoonfuls in him a night, but that’s about it. He turns his head, clamps his mouth shut, whines and gets annoyed, and spits out what we manage to sneak into his mouth. Seems like all the books say that at this point he should be getting multiple feedings a day and he should be eating a lot – way more than his few bites of food. He still breastfeeds like a champ, and he is growing, so do I worry? Is he just not ready? Am I doing it wrong? After Noah, food is definitely where I feel the most anxious and self-conscious. He has been such a great eater since he was born, thank God, but on this issue I am really struggling. Ideas or suggestions would be most welcome if you have any.

I hate to even talk about sleep since I feel like it takes so little to get us derailed and I suddenly haven’t slept in a week. To be honest, he has had more and more nights where he has slept through the night. A round of teething will kick up and he’ll be up a lot in the night, but then we will have stretches of time where we put him down and don’t see him until morning. I’ve been trying to start the process of putting him to bed between 7-8pm. I still nurse him to sleep. He falls into a light sleep pretty quickly, but then it takes longer, maybe an hour or so, to get him to deep sleep where I can lay him in his crib. I don’t mind. I sit quietly with him and read my book until he’s ready. I love feeling him snuggled up next to me. It’s pretty peaceful time together. He is such a sweetie, and I love to look at him and just enjoy him during this time. I wonder how we will do this when he’s older, and I can no longer nurse him down. How am I teaching him to go to bed on his own? I’m not. But, I try to take each day as it comes, and this works for now. Sleep has become such a precious commodity since he was born. It is a matter of survival to just do what works. We’ll figure out how to get him down on his own later I guess.

Finally, I wanted to post some additional pictures of my little guy. When he was 6 months old, I had pictures taken of him by my favorite photographer, Chrisie at Blue Columbine Photography. Love, love, LOVE how they turned out!

7 Months Old

Hi everybody, and happy 7 months! I always like to start with how big he is, so here goes:

• Height: 29 inches (95th Percentile)


• Weight: 18 pounds, 7.5 ounces (50th Percentile)


• Head: 18 inches (75th Percentile)

Some of his new things this month are:

• He gets shy now sometimes when people say hello to him. It is sweet because whoever is holding him gets the pleasure of feeling him bury his face in your neck and snuggle closer as he hides!


• He is starting to reach for us. Like, he will be sitting with Chris, see me and reach for me, like he wants me to hold him and vice versa.


• He is doing big push-ups when he is on the floor playing on his tummy! He can get up on all fours for just a few seconds. He has been fighting to figure out crawling for a while now. He is just so desperate to do it! He doesn’t have any interest in sitting up. When he is on his play mat, all he wants to do is practice crawling!

Last month I was excited because Aaron’s first tooth popped through. Now, he doesn’t just have one tooth, he has teeth coming in all over the place! Very shortly after the first tooth came in on the bottom, the one next to it came in. As you can see this month, his smile is really changing now that those bottom two are there. His top two incisors have broken through, and now his front two teeth are very swollen and are close behind. We went from one to six teeth total so fast! We are therefore a little sleep deprived. I talked to a mom whose daughter always had four teeth coming in at a time, and she said to hang in there. While it is tough on our little ones to be such over-achievers in the tooth department, it also means that this whole painful developmental milestone will pass a lot faster. God bless her for saying that!!!

Aaron's Teeth (You can click the picture to make it bigger):



We have been working hard teaching Aaron to eat solid food. He gets a serving of it every evening at this point, and then he is on breast milk the rest of the time. The only thing he doesn’t like is carrots, granted, everyone says to wait a while and try it again. He has had sweet potatoes, squash, pumpkin, peas and prunes. I wish I could say that it has been a piece of cake, but it takes a bit of coercion to get him to eat. Our neighbors must think we are nuts, because we put on his kid CD’s and sing and dance around and do all the motions to keep him from realizing what we are doing to him. It is exhausting! Part of our problem has been that the boob nazi’s all say that you should breastfeed them first before giving solids. What happens in actuality is that he fills up on milk and doesn’t have room left for solids…duh!!! We’ve learned from that mistake. He still tolerates it, but it isn’t his favorite thing to do. Another thing the boob nazi’s say that I think I disagree with is to start with veggies and do fruits last since fruits taste better and that’s all they will want. It has been a month, and we aren’t getting anywhere, so I think I am ready to do fruits and whatever happens we will just deal with it. I have bananas and pears ready. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

Another new development that is very near and dear to our hearts is that Aaron has discovered Maggie this last month! She has, of course, always been around since he was born, but he has decided that he is absolutely in love with her. He lights up like a Christmas tree when she comes by him, and is desperate to pet her (granted, he doesn’t quite understand petting versus grabbing, so he needs quite a bit of supervision). We’ll let her give him a few kisses, and he just squeals with delight!



His sleep has been up and down this month. The nights he has sweet potatoes, he sleeps awesome. It is a slow-release complex carbohydrate, so I think it tides him over well. If only it were logical to give that to him every night, huh? But then, with teething, he will have several days in a row where he really doesn’t sleep that great. Then we will have some nights sprinkled in where he sleeps the whole night without getting up once. All we can do is take it as it comes. He has so much going on developmentally, this seems to just be life right now.

We celebrated our first Mother’s Day with Aaron here. I’ve been a mother since 2009 with Noah, but this was my first one with Aaron here. It’s kind of funny, but I feel like every day is Mother’s Day for me. I have worked so hard and been through so much to be here, child in hand on this holiday. I don’t take it for granted. Every day I look at him, and I get butterflies and my heart squeezes in pure happiness. I love him so much, and feel so grateful that he is here for me to love, care for and play with. I know this holiday is supposed to be about appreciating all that a mother does, but I look at him and am beside myself with appreciation that he’s here to make me a mother again.

It was an easy going day. It started off with a great gift from Aaron: he slept through the night AND slept in! I couldn’t believe it!! Chris made me breakfast, and then we all went to church together. The boys took me out to lunch afterwards, then when we got home Aaron and I snuggled up on the couch and took a nap together, which was just heaven! Chris surprised me with an incredible gift. I have been feeling paranoid for a while now that as time passes, and I am busy with a full time job and Aaron that I am losing my memories of Noah. He created a book for me of all the things I wrote about Noah, complete with pictures and everything! He is leaving it to me to pick out whatever kind of binding materials I want (he just did the formatting of it so it is ready to go.) I got a little teary-eyed when he showed it to me! I have a truly awesome husband.

One last fun video I’ll share is Aaron saying “DADADADADAAA!!!” He’s learned to make a “D” sound and loves it!

6 Months Old

Happy six months! Here we are again, ready for more updates. Aaron is doing great. It is amazing to watch him grow and change every day. Here’s what’s new this month:

• Weight: 17 pounds, 8 ounces (50th percentile)


• Height: 28.5 inches tall (95th percentile)


• Head: 17.5 inches (75th percentile)

The doctor was pleased again with how well he is doing at his 6 month checkup. He commented on how alert Aaron was and how well he paid attention when I would talk (we’ll see how long that lasts!). He is growing just beautifully as you can see. Some developmental milestones on the doctor’s checklist were:

• Rolling over and beginning to sit by himself – we prop him up and help support him sitting up a lot, and he is getting stronger, but he’s not quite there yet. He is a champ at rolling and is just all over the place when he plays!


• Squeal, babble, laugh and cry very loudly – check, check, check and yes, check (though not all that often!)


• May be afraid of people they do not know – he is a pretty social guy if you give him a chance to warm up when entering into a new environment. He’ll cling to Chris and I until he gets his bearings, and then he is happy to hop laps and say hello to everyone.

It has been a busy last few weeks! Aaron was baptized on April 10. Chris’s parents and grandparents came into town for it, and it was a wonderful weekend being surrounded by the love of family and friends. I think Chris and I both viewed this as a milestone not just for Aaron, but for our family as well. It has taken so much to get to this day of celebrating our amazing healthy little boy, and we were all feeling pretty grateful to be at this stage. My church did a beautiful job. They acknowledged Noah, which we appreciated, as well as making it very special for Aaron. He was given a baptismal shawl as a keepsake that we can wrap around him and remind him how blessed he is. Because we were coordinating a wiggly little boy, as well as being up front for the actual ceremony, we don’t have pictures that we took ourselves of course. I hired a friend of mine who does photography to take pictures for us, and those will be coming to us soon (likely next post). We are eager to share them with you all!

Aaron is baptized! (Video is about 5 minutes long):


The weekend of Aaron’s baptism, I was getting Aaron into his car seat for more activity with Chris’s side of the family, when Aaron grabbed my finger and bit down. Lo and behold, there was something hard in his mouth! Oh my goodness, he just got his first tooth! When I took him for his 6 month checkup, I had the doctor look to be sure since we had thought he had one coming in at 4 months, and it ended up being something else. He confirmed that yes, we have entered into teething! Aaron is doing pretty well with it. He rarely acts like it bothers him, aside from wanting to chew on everything and drooling like you wouldn’t believe! It is just a little nub right now. Once it is fully in, I will post pictures! It has made breastfeeding a bit interesting (read: painful) but we’re working it out. I have gotten some great advice from some experienced moms that has been working pretty well so far. If you have any pearls of wisdom for me, please do share!

Speaking of breastfeeding, the doctor told me that Aaron is quickly outgrowing what I can provide for him, and it is time to do solid foods! To start, he will still be on breast milk 90% of the time. We will just give him some baby food once a day, just a few spoonfuls as get gets used to it. We will build up from there in the coming months until he is totally on baby food. It makes me a little sad that after all this hard work with breastfeeding that it is the beginning of the end! I hope to get him through his first year with breast milk, and so far that is going well, but as time goes on from here, he will need me less and less. I have to say that breastfeeding has been a love/hate relationship, which makes this so ironic. It is hard with pumping all day while I am away from him, and worrying about having enough, as well as the stress of being the only one that can feed him. But, in the quiet moments of the day when it is just me and him, and he’s snuggled into me and perfectly content and we have that wonderful time together, I get sad that this will be ending.

We started him off with carrots this last weekend. He hated it! He kept looking at us with an expression that said “Mom and Dad, why are you doing this to me?” We quickly moved onto sweet potatoes which he seems to like. It takes him forever to swallow it, but I have to say he’s doing pretty well so far. We have also tried him out using a sippy cup with a little bit of water. He LOVES it and gets mad when you take it away! One of us has to distract him while the other hides the cup. Glad that part is easy!

Aaron eating carrots:

Aaron loves his new high chair!

Enjoying drinking water from a sippy cup!

Sleep is going well. We have kept on trucking along with the advice in the book “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.” Aaron sleeps great about 5 out of 7 nights. He will still fall off the wagon a time or two a week. It is so hard on those nights when we know that he can sleep well because we’ve seen him do it! But, we try not to complain since life was a lot tougher just a couple of months ago before starting this. The trick has seemed to be that when he goes down for the night, so do I. I am in bed about 8:30 or 9:00pm if I can swing it. He will sleep all night, but he gets up early, and I have to be prepared for it. Fortunately, I have finally fully adjusted my life to him, and really, all I want to do with my free time is sleep anyways, so it is a no brainer to go to bed early!

I used to look at my friends that had kids back before I felt the itch to do it myself, and I would wonder why? Why the push to do it? It is no small thing to give up your freedom, to spend huge amounts of time at home rather than out doing whatever you want. Now? I would take all the poopie diapers, big spit ups, late nights, and the challenges of learning new things on the fly every day because being somebody’s mother is to spend every waking moment head-over-heels in love in a way that I never could have imagined before having kids. I look at Aaron doing the simplest of things and my heart just squeezes and I get butterflies. He is completely amazing and fascinating to me, and to watch him grow is such a tremendous joy. His laugh is just the definition of heaven to me. Watching him focus on a toy I have put before him, and to see him interact by reaching out and exploring it himself just fills me with pride. Hearing him “talk” and feeling him squirm and cuddle up close to me is the makings of a perfect day. This is good stuff being a parent. I feel very fulfilled at home these days. It is pretty amazing, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything!

Just for fun, Aaron was being silly, practicing making fierce, roaring noises tonight:

Other Favorite Pictures:

Aaron can not only grab his feet now, but he has discovered he can get them in his mouth! His flexibility amazes me...

Running around doing fun stuff!

5 Months Old

Aaron is 5 months old, and it’s time for another update! As you can see from his picture this month, he has found his feet! He loves to lie on his back, grab onto his toes and roll around. It is very cute to watch! This month it appears that his growth is more in his weight, rather than his height and head. He was so big for the charts at the doctor’s (that shows children’s growth in relation to one another) that that’s really ok. Here’s where he is this month:

• Weight - 16 pounds, 11.5 ounces (60th percentile)


• Height - 27.25 inches (95th percentile)


• Head - 17 inches (50th percentile)

I feel like there’s been so much that he’s doing that’s new this month. I think I’ll start with food. Last month, I was hoping and praying that his doctor would tell us that it’s ok to start giving him rice cereal. I had hoped that doing so would help him to sleep better. I thought that maybe as fast as he is growing, that he wasn’t getting enough. The doctor said to go ahead and give it a try. It was so much fun to watch him try to eat with a spoon and learn a new skill. He spit out so much of what we put in his mouth! He’s been a good sport to keep trying it with us. I have to say though, that it brought about no change in his sleep habits. He still got up 3 or so times in the night, and it took some work to get him back down again. We have since laid off the rice cereal in favor of doing a new sleep regimen that I’ll tell you about in a minute. He is, as of this writing, still exclusively on breast milk, and it’s going well. I am breathing a sigh of relief that we’re five months in, and still going strong! It is lots of work, but Aaron and I keep at it as best we can.

Aaron Eating Rice Cereal:


As for sleep, he is FINALLY sleeping through the night! Wahoooo!!! It has been a difficult transition, but we are so very relieved to find a routine that is working. One of our favorite baby books says that babies are neurologically mature enough to soothe themselves to sleep at four months, and are therefore at a great age to start putting a more organized sleep routine in place. I think I had resigned myself that I wasn’t going to sleep again until Aaron went to college (and even then it would still be sketchy). Chris on the other hand was on the verge of desperation and willing to try anything. He was adamant that we would figure this out, and wanted to start trying some new things. If we were really going to do this, I felt that we should have an organized plan in place. A co-worker told me about a book she and her husband swear by called “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.” She was falling all over herself telling me how fabulous it was. I told Chris, who rushed out to get the book, and proceeded to devour it. He is now our household sleep expert! Basically, here’s what we do:

• Contrary to what you’d think, the earlier you put a baby to bed, the longer and deeper they sleep. At this age, they need to go to bed about 6:00-6:30pm or so. If they go to bed this early, they should sleep for about 12 hours with minimal wake up calls in the night.
  
• Babies this age should only be awake for 2 hour stints during the day. You will start to notice them giving you sleepy signals at the hour-and-a-half mark such as yawning, rubbing their eyes, fussiness, etc. It’s time to put them down for a nap.
  
• If you ignore the signals, their bodies will produce a hormone that fights fatigue. Over the course of the day, this will build up in their system, making it very hard for them to sleep well at naptime and at night.
  
• A typical schedule would look like this:
  
  
  
  • Up at 6:30am
  
  
  • Nap in the morning at about 8:30 for 1-2 hours
  
  
  • Nap middle of the day for 1-2 hours
  
  
  • Nap in the late afternoon – this may or may not happen depending on how well they’ve napped earlier in the day.
  
  
  • In bed at 6:30PM, and sleep through the night, maybe getting up once or twice for food in the night.
  
  
  
  
• If you don’t make it a priority to teach him good sleep habits now, they could end up having sleep problems forever (insomnia, etc). The guy who wrote the book is a pediatric sleep expert at the Children’s Hospital in Chicago, so he sees the worst of it all the time.
  

I have to say that this program works!!! Aaron is following this regimen perfectly. When he is up at night for food, he eats and usually falls asleep on me. I lay him back in bed, and the whole thing takes about 20-30 minutes tops, where we used to be up an hour or more trying to get him back to sleep.
The problem is that when he sleeps from 6:30pm to 6:30am, we hardly see him. That was a pretty painful transition. I now get up at 5am every morning to rush through my morning routine so that when he gets up, I have an hour with him before work to play and hang out. Then, I get a small bit of time when I get home in the evenings before I put him to bed. It is really tough. But, when he is awake, he is the very best version of himself. He is all smiles, coos, wiggles, and squeals. He feels so incredibly good now that he gets enough sleep. It really is the best thing for him.

I have also learned through this process that I don’t think I can be a cry-it-out parent. Meaning, some of these methods are all for putting a baby in bed awake, and letting them cry until they wear themselves out and go to sleep on their own. We did this the first couple of nights, and you had to peel me off the walls afterwards. I don’t believe that at this age he is being manipulative by any means, doing stuff to make me want to keep him up longer. So, when I put him to bed at night, I snuggle him until he is completely out, and then put him down. It takes about half an hour, and is so worth it for the emotional peace on all of us.

Another fun development this month is that Aaron is rolling around so much now! His strength has always amazed me. He could go from front to back for a while now. This month, he is flipping from back to front like a champ. A neighbor made us this huge fleece baby blanket when Aaron was born. I always wondered what we’d do with a blanket that big. Now, seeing how much Aaron rolls, doing 360’s all over the place, it makes sense! I am grateful to have that blanket now! The crazy part is that he has also figured out that if he could just get his legs up under him when he’s on his stomach that something cool would happen. I think crawling is on the way! He grunts and pushes and fights so hard to do it. He can kind of get a baby downward facing dog going before his front end collapses! He can’t quite get his front end and back end working in tandem the right way. Oh my, it seems too early for this, but Aaron may have other ideas!

Favorite pictures/video from this month:

Aaron LOVES to be read to! Here we're doing "Pat the Bunny"

We found Aaron this way after a nap! He was in there goofing around when he should have been sleeping...oops!

Chris and Aaron got a hiking backpack for Christmas. Looks like it fits!

We live down the street from an old ranch (made up to look like Colorado when the settlers first came in the 1800's). We went down to look at the animals yesterday. The horses were enjoying being petted by the neighbors!


Aaron, rolling over:
This video takes a while. Every time he starts doing something new and I want to get it on camera, he stops doing it as soon as I start trying! He eventually decides to comply, but it takes about 3 minutes!