Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Movin' and Shakin'

While little man isn't crawling yet, he has a way of getting from one place to the other that you'd have to see to believe.  I was sitting with him on the floor yesterday and thought I'd try to document some of his moves.  Since it is better to see the "time lapse", one after the other, I decided to make it a movie.  I promise he was never actually stuck and after all this moving around, he did decide to take a nice long nap.  Hopefully it's not too big of a movie and it loads pretty quickly!


Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Could crawling be far behind?

Colin and I spend lots of time playing on the floor while we are at home.  When we were at a friend's house yesterday he was very interested in all the toys that they had out and I realized that he had really just had the same toys out for a while at home so I thought I'd bring in some of the other toys that we have.  He was really enjoying it, especially the rattles and "car keys" that make noise (as much as a teething 6 month old can enjoy anything at least).  But that's not the point of this post...

During one of our play times on the floor today, I noticed this (Colin doesn't have much to say in this video but you may notice Oliver is happily purring away right next to my phone it seems)...


It's definitely one of his new favorite things to do (well, for today at least...).  And on top of that, yesterday morning while we were playing he used my shirt to try to stand up - and he did a decent job of it at that!  I don't really know if I'm ready for him to be more mobile than he already is.  He can make it from one side of the room to the other just by scooting and rolling!  I noticed him trying to get his knees underneath him the other day but this is the first time he has done it for any length of time and multiple times in a row.  He's still working on getting back down from sitting up without falling and bonking his head, but maybe the rocking and eventual crawling will get his core the strength he needs to do that?

We are also having a long week of teething.  I can actually see the inflammation on the gums but no teeth yet.  As many friends remind me, it could take a while for the teeth to come through.  It makes me sad because my smiley, happy Colin has been replaced by one who has to be held ALL. THE. TIME.  (To clarify, I'm not sad that he needs to be held all the time, I'm sad he's so miserable.)  I got some Hylands Teething Tablets today and, whether or not it's mental, they did seem to help.  For the first time since he's been Mr. Cranky Pants he actually let me look in his mouth without fighting.  The Tylenol and Motrin that I am giving doesn't make much of a difference either and honestly he does not like the Motrin so that's no help anyways - it's quite a fight to get it down.

Eating solids has gone by the wayside as well with this whole teething thing.  He had such a great first time with his sweet potatoes when Mike was home last weekend but since then he has had no interest at all.  I try to give him one bite and he spits it out and/or turns his head away.  But he sure did look cute the one time he did eat!


Wednesday, August 17, 2011

6 month stats

My sister once pointed out that Colin doesn't actually smile, he just opens his mouth really big... I must admit, since she mentioned it, I have noticed that is entirely true!  Lucky for him his eyes are smiling so people can tell he is happy and not angry.

I'm such a big boy!
Anyway, on to the point of our post...  We had our 6 month checkup today and all is well.  In typical fashion, I made sure that everything was okay the whole time she was doing her assessment - no murmur? his lungs sound good? any teeth yet? is he growing well?  I was reminded by both the nurse and the doctor that in our profession, we really know too much.  The nurse and I agreed that it can be good and bad...

But that aside, here are the stats from today:
  • 16 pounds 6 ounces - 45%
  • 25.75 inches - 40%
  • Head Circumference - 70%
She was happy with his growth on the growth chart and impressed with his developmental milestones.  I have been concerned lately that he is not growing as well as he should - or rather than I'm not producing as much as I should - so I wanted to really get those questions answered.  She said that we really have nothing to worry about but since his next well child exam isn't until 9 months, it wouldn't be out of left field to have him come in for a growth check in a month.  Better to catch at 1 month than at 3.  So we will go back in about a month (more to appease me, I really think) to make sure he's following his curve.

We still have no teeth but I think I can see where they are on the way.  With my luck though, they'll be "on the way" for months...  Colin continues to chew on anything he can get his hands on and drool like crazy.  I keep thinking I see something coming in but every day, no dice.

He moves all the time - I guess I just assumed all babies moved like him but everyone seems to comment on how much he moves and that he doesn't ever stop.  I guess he is continuing to live up to his nickname, Squirmy Worm (sometimes just Worm for short).  When he gets mad and wants something you are not giving him fast enough, he kicks his legs.  When you change his diaper (which he is not a fan of these days), he rolls to his tummy and tries < unsuccessfully > to eat the wipe warmer.  When he is laying on his tummy he moves backwards very well.  In fact, on the table at the doctor's office today, he moved from one end backwards to the other end twice while we were waiting for her to come in for his checkup... pre-crawling here we come!

Friday, August 12, 2011

Surprising us every day

Mike came home this afternoon for a last minute trip since it will be a while before he can come home again.  We were in Atlanta together just a couple weeks ago and Colin has changed so much in just a short time...

He turned 6 months old this past Sunday - amazing, I know!  He has started sitting up on his own and depending on how tired he is will stay that way for quite a few minutes at a time.  He did fall over and bump his head this morning while sitting (even with me right there) and he wasn't a fan of that, but overall he loves his new found view.

He loves to make - or attempt to make - raspberries.  I noticed it for the first time while he was playing on the floor right after we got back from Atlanta.  Then the sitter said he did it plenty the next day and continues to do it more every day.

After 6 full months, he is officially becoming a thumb sucker.  He comes by it honestly, since mom and dad were both thumb suckers... let's just hope he kicks the habit well before either of us did.  Colin has always appeared to have the tendency for thumb sucking from the first days home from the hospital (and even before, as a matter of fact) but it was always few and far between the times he would keep it in his mouth for any length of time.  Colin was hanging out with Allison and Charlotte while I got to sleep in a little bit on our excursion to Westcliffe this week and when I got out of bed he was asleep in Charlotte's arms with his thumb in his mouth.  I didn't think much of it since we'd had times here and there where he would suck his thumb but never more than once in a day.  So that afternoon after we got back to Denver, he was throwing a fit about being in the car and I clearly couldn't get back to him to give him his paci again so he decided the thumb would do it - he fell asleep twice in the car with his thumb in his mouth.  Then that night, I was curious if he would do it in bed, too.  (For the record, I haven't encouraged or discouraged thumb sucking; I figure if he's going to do it, he is going to do it.)  I put him down with his paci in this mouth but went back in to check on him and found this instead:


He tends to do it when he is sleepy but still hasn't fully figured it out.  Tonight for example, when I put him down for bed I didn't give him a paci because he had already been sucking his thumb as we were getting ready for bed.  After about 20 minutes, though, he was started having "panicked" crying (the crying he does when I know he isn't going to fall back asleep on his own) so I went him, snuggled for a few minutes, was a sucker and brought him back out of his room since daddy was home for a visit, and then daddy put him back in bed with the paci.  By the time he fell asleep, the paci was no where in sight and the thumb was in his mouth.

Our current fun with sleeping will be another post altogether but I am happy to report that Colin has figured out sleeping 10-12 hours a night!  He goes down between 6 and 7 as a rule and is up around 6 or 6:30 for the most part.  Usually once per night we'll have a wake up but I don't go in there and he puts himself back to sleep within 5 minutes or so.  So now we are working on day time naps.  Yesterday he did two separate 2 hour naps for the sitter but not so lucky for me today...

I have many more updates I'm sure, most importantly, his official stats from the doctor for 6 months.  The appointment is next week but I'm guessing he is somewhere near 26 inches and 16 pounds.  He has the cutest rolls on his legs so at least I know what he's getting from me is doing him good!  We may try some solids this weekend so Mike is here to see it!  It should be interesting!!

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Raspberries... with a side of drool

Here's one of Colin's newest tricks...


Tuesday, August 2, 2011

A VERY late 5 month old post

I know, I know... we are 5 days away from 6 months.  I have had this post sitting ready to be edited for almost a whole month now, it just didn't get done.  All last week I tried to edit on my Nook from Atlanta but for some reason it wouldn't let me so I just let it go.

I can't remember specifically things that Colin has done at 5 months but I will share some of the random things we have done by way of a couple of pictures.

Lots of watching the rain
When I first moved to Denver almost 8 years ago, we had rain almost every afternoon.  Lately (as in the past few years), it has been incredibly dry.  This year, however, we had a period of rainy afternoons - for 8 days straight I didn't have to worry about watering the lawn, which was wonderful!  Colin didn't know what to think about the rain but it was so nice to just sit out there and watch it.  It usually happened just before his bedtime so we'd get him in his pajamas and hang out on the porch.

Using the BOB for the first time hiking in Evergreen

Enjoying the rocky terrain
After a long, exhausting hike!  :)
While Mike was home one weekend we both felt the need to get out of the city and enjoy the mountain air.  Granted, we only made it to Evergreen but it was so nice all the same.  We went to Alderfer/Three Sisters Park to hike and got to get the BOB stroller out to enjoy the path.  When Mike and I were newly dating, we used to come here to ride mountain bikes... it's very different when you are on foot instead of on a bike and you are taking your own child.  It was very nice, though, and I loved hiking with the BOB.  It never occurred to me that there were options for hiking with the stroller (since we don't have a hiking carrier at this point) but Three Sisters provided great options for using the stroller - we hiked between 3 and 4 miles that day.

Colin is also very excited to be rolling over all the time.  He scoots himself from the middle of the rug in the living room to the far edge of it without me fully realizing how he's doing it.  I swear today I even saw him try to get up on his knees - I'm hoping I'm imagining that and it's not really happening quite yet.

I think that teeth aren't very far off.  I keep looking and have yet to see anything starting to come up but he is drooling a ton (more than normal - a lot is normal for him), practicing biting on anything he can get his hands on, including our hands (and boy does he have a strong jaw!), and is kind of cranky.  Lately, I'm not sure if I'm dealing with a growth spurt, teething, getting used to being back home after traveling, or just general crankiness.

While I don't have a Pooh Bear picture with him this month, this was taken on his 5 month birthday - edited slightly with Instagram on my iPhone.