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.  :)

1st boat ride...

Deacon got to take his first boat ride a few weeks ago.  Since we live on the coast, we have friends who own boats, several of which are in our Connect Groups at church.  We decided to plan a little outing one Saturday morning and that became Deacon's first experience on a boat.

I don't have too many photos to show the boat ride because, of course, once you get going, you're moving.  :)  But we did get one of our cutie in his life jacket:

We borrowed the jacket from a friend who has a son a month older than Deacon.

Once we got all our gear loaded in the boats, we headed across the Intracoastal Waterway to Figure 8 Island.  This is a perfect place for the little ones because there is a beach for us to hang out on, but there are no waves (unless a boat comes by and we get a few from their wake).  The day we went out, we had quite a bit of shallow water for the kids to play in; it was perfect for Deacon.

He really enjoyed being in the water -- never once whined or whimpered like he does when we try the water at the beach.  Guess it really is the waves.  And hopefully he'll get over that with time.

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]

2nd beach trip...

We took Deacon back to the beach yesterday.  He is so dang cute in his little bathing suits and sunglasses, I can hardly stand it, ya'll. :)  He loves being outside so for the most part he likes the beach.

The sand part of the beach, anyway...

Considering it was a bit warmer this time, we had high hopes that he would enjoy the water/waves more, but no.  It was not to be...

It sure ain't for lack of tryin', though!

The tide was going out so we had lots of shallow waters for Jeff to walk him out in but he was definitely NOT a fan of being any closer to the water.  I could hear him whining from back where I was taking photos... :\

So we brought him back and I sat with him a little bit in the sand, right where the water would only come up just every so often...

He still kept an eye on those waves.  :)

We took him back up to where our chairs were after a bit and just sat him in the sand.  Jeff found a large enough shell that had all worn, rounded edges for Deacon to chew on.

The first couple of times he dropped it I rinsed it off for him.  It was a lost cause.  He left with a mouthful of sand.  Yick.

1st trip to IL...

In my last post, I mentioned that we took a trip up to IL to visit with Jeff's family over the 4th of July weekend.  It was a great opportunity to introduce Deacon to a lot of his side of the family that hadn't met him yet.  Everyone fell in love with him, of course.

What's not to love about this??

We were up there for about 5 days so Grandpa Duane and Grandma Sherry got to spend some good quality time with him...

Grandma Sherry had some little toys and books pulled out for Deacon -- so sweet.  :)  He enjoyed playing and exploring those toys that he didn't have anything like at home...

Grandpa Duane & Great Grandpa Wenzel worked together to add a swing just for Deacon onto the swingset they have in their backyard -- he loved swinging!

[photo credit goes to my husband -- LOVE this shot!]

The main reason we took this trip is so we could be there to help celebrate Jeff's mom & dad's 40th wedding anniversary -- most definitely something to celebrate!  They had an open house of sorts to celebrate.  We had lots of yummy food and a great turnout of family & friends.  It was good to see a lot of Jeff's family there.  We took advantage of that to get some recent photos of the fam...

[Duane & Sherry with their grandkids]

[The Wenzels with their boys]

We had a lot going on that day, and Deacon met a lot of folks -- it eventually got the best of him...

One other thing we got to do is take Deacon to this AWESOME park they have up there, Krape Park.  I'm in love with this park, ya'll.  Everytime we go up to IL we try to fit a trip to the park in somewhere.  It's great in the winter because there is usually snow and there are lots of beautiful photo opps to take advantage of.  It's also great in the spring & summer because there are lots of playgrounds, trails to walk/hike, a pond with paddleboats and even a merry-go round!

So guess what we did?

Despite the intense expressions in some of these, I think he did like the carousel and swing.  :)  He got on the teeter-totter with Grandma Sherry and cousin Brittany and he also got to "drive" the old fashioned fire truck they have in the middle of the park for kids to play on.

I told you -- this park is awesome!

The rest of our time there was spent just relaxing at the house -- playing, eating, reading, sleeping.  Deacon didn't last long enough to go see fireworks with us -- he was sound asleep at home with Grandma Sherry while Jeff, Duane, Brittany and I went to find some locally.  He'll enjoy them much more in future years, I'm sure.  :)

We had a nice visit with everyone and we're glad that Jeff's family got to spend some time with our little guy.