11 months...

Oh, my word.  One month to go before my baby boy turns a year old.  I can't hardly take it...

We had to lower Deacon's crib mattress at the beginning of this month -- he started to like standing up in his crib and that was just not okay with me.  He was too much in danger of leaning too far over so we dropped the mattress down a couple levels.

We continued to try new foods like broccoli & carrots with cheese, lasagna and apples w/oatmeal (all baby food) and Deacon is not too big a fan.  About a week before he turned 11 mos, we started trying to give him some table food from our dinner -- baked spaghetti, french toast w/bacon, real sweet potatoes, baked beans and peaches...he does pretty well with it all.  My fear of him choking is fading.  :\  We've also begun to introduce whole milk as my supply of breastmilk continues to wane.  As it stands right now, this is what his feeding schedule looks like:

an 8 oz bottle first thing in the morning (whole milk, breastmilk, formula or combo of the 3)

some rice cereal and yogurt for a mid-morning snack or "breakfast"

an 8 oz bottle for lunch

some goldfish, cheerios or puffs and water for snack

dinner with "the fam" (table food from whatever we're eating)

an 8 oz bottle before bed

Since we're talking about his feeding schedule, I'll just mention here that I stopped nursing Deacon at the end of this month.  I had planned to try to nurse through his 1st year and I think we probably would've made it (I had gotten down to just nursing him first thing in the morning by this month) but I went away for a weekend retreat the end of Sept/first of Oct and rather than take the pump with me just for that one feeding, I thought it was time to just be done altogether.  He did great, of course.  He's so easy-going.  :)  I had a little trouble for about 6-7 days with pain & discomfort but within about 10 days I was done with all of that.

[if I'm working on loading or unloading the dishwasher,

he's right there, with his "Dr. Seuss hair"...]

Of course, he's crawling everywhere now.  I mentioned in my last post that he'd finally begun to pull up on everything and was crawling intermittently.  Well, he's really been doing great, getting more fluid and taking less time to get where he's going.  He will crawl right up to me or Jeff where we're standing, grab a hold of our pant legs and stand right up.  It's so endearing -- I just love it!

10 months...

Here we are, another month milestone.  Can't believe my little guy is 10 months old already!  This year is flying by too, too fast!

I have a feeling that won't be the last time I say that.

We had another big month with the foods.  We are trying pretty much anything we can get our hands on.  He's in the 3rd Foods stage (by Gerber) -- jars that hold a little more quantity.  Some new things we tried this month:

a banana fruit medley

apricot

pear & mango

We also tried giving him some meat for the first time toward the end of the month.  He's not a fan of the chicken noodle dinner.  It's fairly chunkier than he's used to and has lots of herbs in it.  We've tried it several times and so far he's not coming around.  He IS still eating a lot of the same veggies he's been eating: sweet potatoes, squash, mixed veggies, etc.

We also gave him "puffs" for the first time this month.  You may or may not be familiar with this little crunchy concept that dissolves fairly quickly when the baby puts them in his mouth.  It's a good way to get them used to that kind of texture in their mouth, and it also helps them practice their motor skills with their fingers.  You can do the same thing with Cheerios (surprisingly, they dissolve fairly quickly, too), and we did.  But we have more flavors in the puffs, so we do both.

He did pretty good.  It took some practice because to begin with, he would get it to the back of his tongue and then start to gag a little bit, not quite sure what to do with it (swallow or spit it out).  But practice makes perfect, they say, so we're doing that throughout the day, here and there.  And he's getting better.  At picking them up, and at eating them.  :)

We also tried giving him baby yogurt for the first time this month.  He likes that stuff!  Our grocery store carries the Yo-Baby brand and we've tried the peach and the blueberry flavors of those.  He likes both.  Jeff also picked up a bulk pack of baby yogurt at Sam's (may have been Gerber brand) that has peach, banana and strawberry flavors, and Deacon likes all of those, too.  We've started substituting his morning meal at 10am, which used to be breastmilk, with a couple tbsp of rice cereal mixed with water and the yogurt.  We've been doing that for about the last 3 weeks now and it's working for us.  It's like giving him breakfast so we're working toward that transition to 3 meals a day.

I'll be honest with you, though: when it comes to changing his schedule in some way, or adding something new in, it's hard on me.  I don't know if any of the other mamas go through that, but it's tough for me.  I get pretty used to the schedule as it is and then the next "stage" just throws me for a loop!   Such a learning experience for both (all) of us...

One other thing we've done this month in the meal department is tried giving Deacon a sippy cup for the first time.  We have a sippy cup with a soft, silicone spout and we're just giving him water in it for now.  He seems to be doing okay with it.  We offer it at random times during the day, mainly when he's eating his "breakfast" (the cereal and yogurt) and when he's having a snack (the puffs or Cheerios).  He does drink a little bit of the water and then sometimes he plays with the cup.  We have cups that don't have handles on the sides, but I think I'd like to get one that does have handles and see how he does with it.

Most everyone reading this will be aware of the hurricane we had blow through here last week, the first hurricane of this season, Irene.  Well, that was Deacon's first hurricane!  Of course, nothing was different for him.  We stayed here and just prepared ourselves for what could come.  He had no trouble sleeping through the wind and rain that Friday night/Saturday morning that the storm came ashore.  Our work offices closed around noon that Friday so we just spent the day hanging out, taking (and uploading) cell phone photos of the storm around our house, waiting for and wondering if our power would go out.  It never did.  In fact, we fared really well through the storm as compared to other areas around us.  Praise the Lord for that.

This was pretty much the extent of our "hurricane party":

Deacon does have a couple more tricks but I'll be posting about those in a separate post soon.  I've written enough in this post about my sweet boy, right?  :)  You know I could just go on and on...

We did weigh Deacon at the end of this month and he is now 19.5 lbs.  Up 3 lbs in 4 months.  I was kinda thinking that he would weigh more than that by now.  He seems like a little chunk to me but then when I see him up against other kids his age, he's on the small side. 

Regardless of his weight, height, head circumference, or whatever else they want to measure, he's my perfect little doodle.  :)

9 months...

Wow, 9 months already.  3/4 of year.  *sniff*

Well, this month it was all about the food!  We finally got past the "solids strike", as I was calling it.  The turning point, I would say, came right around the middle of the month when Deacon tried squash.  Don't know what it was about the squash but he loved it and ate the whole container!

Well, after that it was on!  We revisited carrots the next night and he ate them all.  Then we tried sweet potatoes again and he ate the whole container of those.  I was a happy mama.  :)

But it didn't stop there.  Since then, we've been giving him bananas, pears, peas, mixed vegetables, green beans, apple-blueberry, peaches, apple-strawberry-banana.  With the exception of the peas and green beans, he's been eating everything all gone.  The peas and the green beans...well, I kinda don't blame him for not eating those.  :]

We had another couple of big deals happen this month -- we finally saw Deacon roll over!  Just a few days after he started eating his solids really well, I saw him roll over with my own eyes.  I know that he'd been rolling over because I would leave him laying one way and when I came back into the room, he'd be laying the opposite.  Little stinker would wait until I left the room to do his tricks.  :)  But I finally saw him do it one day and I was so excited!

[this cracks me up: he's watching Jay-Jay on Daddy's phone...]

Since then he'll roll over if he's trying to get to something or just not paying attention to what he's doing, but he's not a "roly-poly" by any means.  We do have to watch where we put him now so he doesn't roll off the couch/loveseat or bed.  And he's ALL.OVER.THE.PLACE. in his crib!  My goodness, that boy can get around in that crib, with the sides to help him push off.  You never know how he's going to end up!

Deacon also learned to clap his hands this month!  About a week after I saw him roll over he started clapping one day.  I can't even tell you how excited I was about that.  More excited than I thought I would be!  I mean, it's just clapping, for pete's sake.  But for me, I think I see it as the first step to him being able to communicate something to us.  Right now, he's not really using clapping to communicate yet because he does it at pretty random times, not necessarily when he's happy, and not always when he hears music or something.  But soon we'll be able to see his clapping as a sign of happiness or contentment or playfulness or whatever it turns into.  And THAT is exciting to me.  :)

[Deacon with his great Gram & Buppa, 9 mos]

8 months...

8 months...gone like THAT.  Craaaaazy.

So Deacon now has 5 teeth.  Yes, that is FIVE.  Teeth.  In his mouth.  He has both bottom center teeth, both top center teeth and then one over on the side, top left that popped through but not much else.  And that happened probably 3 or so months ago.  Nothing much is happening with that one.

He also moved up to size 3 diapers around 7.5 months.

He is growing SO fast...

[handsome little fella, all ready for church]

Around the middle of June Deacon got in his first big pool.  My sweet friend who keeps him for me Mon-Wed each week has a really nice above-ground pool and one night we went over to grill out, hang out and swim.  Deacon loved the pool!  He was so relaxed in it, whether one of us was holding him or he was just floating by himself in the little floaty that the Squires' family had.  I'm so glad he likes the water.  :)

[7.5 mos]

That same week, we had friends over to do the same (in our itty-bitty pool :).  Deacon's buddy, Grady, came to play so that was fun to see them interact together.  Grady is just about one month older than Deacon.

We've still been trying to give Deacon solid foods here and there.  We're not super-diligent with it but we try different things here and there.  So far there's still a lot of frustration as he just doesn't seem to be interested in solids, only taking a few bites each time we try.  We've given him green beans, sweet potatoes, carrots, bananas, apples and most recently peaches.

The peaches were not a hit to begin with -- I'm thinking they may have been a little on the tart side -- but the 2nd time we tried them, he actually started leaning in with an open mouth for more by the time we were done.  That was VERY encouraging for this mama...

You've never seen someone get so excited about their kid eating some peaches!  :)

This kid loves his pacifier. 

We try to limit how much he has it but there are definitely certain times of the day that he wants/needs it and we don't mind letting him have it if it calms him (which it does) and helps him to fall asleep (which it also does).

He's pretty funny with it now because he can "do it himself".  If it falls out, he just picks it up and pops it right back in.  If he wants to play with it a little bit, he just takes it out of his mouth and plays some and then pops it back in at will.  That's kinda nice.

I distinctly remember a recurring thought in the early days...

"How can I strap this pacifer around his head so it won't keep falling out?!"

Aaaanywho, I don't think I've included enough photos in this post, do you?

Here.  Here's a few more for you... :)

[yes, he gives kisses now!  I LIVE for those.]

[8 mos]

7 months...

Seriously?  Over a month since I posted?  Ridiculous.  You can't just go an entire month without posting something on a baby blog -- too much happens in a month!

Yes, I know.

But things have been busy around here!  These days are just racing by me and before I know it, my child is 7 months old!

Well, now he's almost 8 months old, but let's just leave that for now.

We've had some busy weeks/weekends since I last posted.  The day after Mother's Day, Jeff left for a business trip in VA so it was just me and Deacon for a few days.  We did great but it gave me a whole new appreciation for moms who do it on their own -- whether they're single or their husbands are deployed or whatever the reason that they end up raising their child(ren) on their own.  It's tough.

[27 weeks]

At the beginning of May, Deacon popped his 3rd tooth out.  It's over to the left on the top -- kind of coming in at a weird angle but we'll see.  Not much more has happened with that one.  It's popped through but hasn't really progressed any further than that, that we can see.

[27.5 weeks]

We've tried some more solids here and there throughout the month -- he's just not into it.  We tried sweet potatoes and I really thought he would like those or at least not spit them out.  He did do better with those than the green beans and bananas, but still made faces and stuff.  Later we tried carrots and I guess they were a little less offensive but he's still not gobbling anything up.

Except cheese puffs.

Yes, we took Deacon to another birthday party the middle of May (one of his "brothers" that he stays with Mon-Wed had his 2nd birthday party at the park in Surf City) and Jeff decided to try giving him a taste of cheese puff.  No offense there!  We made sure he didn't bite anything off but he liked the taste of the cheese.  Well, who wouldn't??

[29 weeks]

We've been going to lots of Jeff's softball games.  Deacon loves to be outside so he usually enjoys the games.  And the girls that come out to cheer their men on enjoy seeing him.  :)  The boy doesn't get any attention at all, you know?  Totally ignored and unloved... :)

Right around 7 months, Deacon really started making more and more noises.  Different sounds like "blah" and "bah", long "a" sounds.  He's really becoming more vocal, to the point that we have to shush him sometimes if we're in a public place.  He can get pretty loud...where could he have gotten that from??  :)

Like I said, we've had lots going on so there are more posts to come on those happenings.  Check back soon!

[this cracks me up -- yoga, anyone?]

[7 mos]