growing up

I'm writing this from my phone, so please excuse any errors. On Tuesday Bax decided he could walk. He pulled to standing and then took two steps before falling on his bum. He's really good at walking while holding hands (great with two, and fine with one!) but he's just now turning 8 months old... I'm so not ready for him to walk.

Right now I'm holding him as he sleeps and lets out huge man farts. He still hasn't broken his top teeth, I think they will remain in his gums forever. We may have a two year old with dentures like two of his grandpas....

So far my store opening has gone really well!! I sold 5 diapers yesterday, which is virtually unheard of for a new WAHM.

Oh!!! And I ordered my camera last night, I'm so excited for it to get here!

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

He thinks he can, but he can't

Baxter thinks he can stand up on his own and walk around. But he can't so it makes him mad. Seriously mad. He can pull up on a few things, and can "walk" while holding hands. He's so enamored with it he's hardly crawling at the moment. He wants to spend every moment practicing. 

He's also teething really bad, and super clingy. And not great naps. And bad timed naps. He also is pinching while nursing, so I just ordered nursing necklaces for him to grab instead of me. We'll see how it goes. Still have quite a bit of stuff left to do, but most of it is reading now. Fun stuff. Oh, and I posted a bunch of textbooks for sale on half.com. Lets hope they sell!!!

Sleep, or lack thereof

I think Baxter knows when I have something to do. On nights when I have school the next day, he sleeps badly at night. On days that I have a ton of homework to do, he either naps terribly or is super clingy. I suppose I should be happy that I'm so close to graduation. But in the mean time I have a LOT to get done, and I could use some cooperation from the Goomba!

applesauce no, paper yes

Well Baxter still isn't very into solid foods, unless it's what we are eating. I had my friend and her daughter over last week, and Baxter kept stealing her apple to suck on. So I tried giving him applsauce. First thing he's actually spit out. But later I found him eating paper, which I had to fish out of his mouth. He is fond of puffs though, which are like sweet melting cheerios.

Today he got up early again, so I'm laying on the futon in his room while watching him explore the floor. He's not quite army crawling, he's more pulling himself around with his arms, but he's pretty good at it. He can almost get into a sitting possition by himself too. He's so amazing. Someties when I put him down for naps he has to talk to himself for a while first. Yesterday it sounded like "da da da geez oh right da da (thump head on mattress twice) da da" on repeat. I was trying not to laugh and wake him up!

Ok, he's starting to want my attention. Excuse any errors, since I wrote this post on my phone. I do have a video to upload, and maybe a picture/story too. I'll try to get to that later.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Stand by me

So Baxter really likes standing. A lot. His new favorite toy is the laundry basket because he can hold both sides and stand on his own. See Exhibit A:

The only problem with this is that laundry baskets are prone to tipping, so we hold both sides. The picture is blurry because it's from my phone as I'm gripping the basket with my ankles.

He's getting better at crawling. He does this funny arm pulling thing, and still tries to get up on his tip toes. It's not really coordinated yet, and he still rolls over to get there faster some times. I'm not sure I would call it an army crawl yet. But it still gets him where he wants to go.

He has discovered the cat food and water. He hasn't tried to eat it yet, but he has pulled the water onto his head. Jason and I can't figure out where to move it to so that he can't get it anymore.

I've made a lot of progress with my diaper order. I'm learning silly things like remove the lint from my machine every night and it doesn't break as often. I'm also getting significantly faster. But Jason was laughing at my inventory skills. I ran out of elastic yesterday so I went to get more. But JoAnn's was having a huge President's Day sale, so I came home with a bunch of thread too, you know, for inventory. This weekend I also realized that I had ordered snaps from China forgetting about the Chinese New Year, so I wasn't going to have them in time. But then I recalculated and realized that I had ordered enough for this order but would still be short in the future, so I ordered a bunch more locally. Luckily it's only a tad bit more expensive, but the shipping is a lot faster.

This morning Baxter woke up with a bit of a cold, at 5am. He wants to be upright (so his nose drains?) and I'm too tired, therefore he is in the jumperoo. But he's starting to make whiney noises, so it might be close to naptime.

The last few days he's been trying to eliminate his third nap of the day. Which would be fine if his second nap of the day didn't start between 10 and noon, and only last an hour or two. Being up from 11 to 6pm is REALLY hard on him, but he fights that last nap. It might be because he was starting to get sick though. So today I'm going to try to push the middle nap back in case he fights number three again. Oh, and I'm going to use Tylenol.

Ok, there was yawn #3 in the jumperoo. It's still a bit on the early side for his first nap, but now he might need more mommy time. Off to my full time job!

It has started

Yesterday Baxter was moving a tiny bit, but today he was moving several feet in kind of a half army crawl half scoot. He wore himself out! He has also slept awesome the past few nights, which means it will be terrible tonight. Ok, since he's now sleeping, it's shower time!

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Ungrateful

I realized how ungrateful I had been when Baxter was sleeping though the night. If he starts again (which I know he will eventually, but I want it to happen now) I will be ever so thankful. I was so used to it, and now I'm sleep deprived! He's gotten a little better, but still not great. He was up 3 times last night, but one of them was for over an hour and a half. Last Thursday he woke up at 2am, and we tried for an hour to get him back down, but Jason ended up holding him and watching a movie until 5am because he would not sleep. He had to be held, not just cuddled in bed. But since then we got the teething necklace, and at night I wrap it around his ankle under his PJ's. It did reduce the number of wake-ups from 5 down to 3. And he's not nearly as fussy during the day and naps are a snap to put him down. Except for today, because I had meetings on campus that conflicted with his naps, and he was NOT happy. He's currently napping on Jason, even though bed time is less than an hour away.

I better go check on the boys, Jason lost the remote so he's probably irritated with what he's watching and unable to change it and unable to yell for me to go change it, hehe.

Pain and Peeing

Yesterday Baxter was doing some naked tummy time and started to get fussy. When I picked him up he had his finger stuck in his mouth and it hurt him so he started crying. I laid him down naked on the bed and was about to put a diaper on screaming baby and he started to pee all over me. He hasn't peed outside of a diaper for at least 5 weeks, so I wasn't expecting he. He thought it was hilarious. As soon as he peed on me he was all smiles and giggles. Stinker.

And after a week of terrible evening naps, he slept from 5:30 to 9:15 last night. He woke up happy, so we changed him, fed him, and he was back to sleep by 10:00. He then slept from 10pm to 6am. It was amazing! And he didn't cry when he woke up this morning either. I picked him up and it was grins for mommy. His smile is such a heartbreaker, it makes all the little things worth while.

Big Boy!

This boy just keeps getting bigger and bigger! Baxter is now up to 12lbs 9oz. He looks a lot bigger too.

My mom got married last weekend, and Baxter was great. He slept through the whole ceremony, and was quite the attraction at the reception. The wedding was beautiful too.

But now he's going through a phase where his digestive system is maturing and he's pretty fussy. So I get to hold him. A lot. And my snap press came in so I've been wanting to finish diapers, but that's not in the cards at the moment!

Red?

Baxter is turning into a redhead. I'll try to get good pictures soon, but it's going red. Who knows if it will stay or not. My great-grandma Eva (his great-great-grandma) was a natural redhead. When Jason grows his beard there's a lot of red in it. So it would be possible.

And man, this boy can POOP! He's now pooped three times today. I guess I shouldn't pray for that much poop. Maybe I should pray for normal newborn poops instead of these blowouts he's been having. He's also gaining weight, but not quite enough. So my job this week is to feed this boy as much as possible. Which I would be doing if I could wake him up! He's such a heavy sleeper. It's amazing. I wish I could sleep like that.

He's been sleeping really well at night too. He'll go for 3.5-4 hour stretches. Nice for mommy. Sometimes he falls asleep in the middle of a feeding, so we have to change his diapers to wake him back up so he finishes nursing. So far diaper changes are the only thing that will wake him up, but those don't always wake him up either! He sleeps like Jason.

I don't think I told you all this story, but the day he was born they were moving us to the recovery room. The recovery room had nicer beds (that didn't convert for labor) and less extraneous medical equipment. Anyway, they rolled me there in a wheelchair. By that time I'd spent close to 7 hours sitting in a bed and my tailbone and back were hurting, and the wheelchair felt really nice to sit in. So I asked the nurse if I could stay in it for a little while and I would call when I wanted to get into the bed. She said sure, and showed me where the call button was (on the other side of the room). After she left Jason asked if he could lay down for a while, and I said sure. I was having a nice time holding Baxter and resting my rear. Well, Jason fell asleep. Hard asleep. I was shouting (as loud as I dared) to wake him up, and he wouldn't even flinch. I tried for an hour to wake him up. Since I was holding Baxter, and was attached to an IV, and my right hand was useless to try to wheel myself (from the IV line) and the brakes were on the wheelchair, I was completely stranded. For an hour and a half. Until a nurse wandered in to check to see if I wanted to move yet. Honestly, after labor and everything, that was the closest I was to wanting to cry the whole day! And then that night I couldn't wake him up to help me to the bathroom, or to get Baxter when he cried. I had to call in the nurse instead.

But it's fun to tease him, he's actually been more than wonderful. I feel sooooo blessed with how well he has been treating me, and how much he loves his son. He will (usually) change diapers in the middle of the night without complaining. Bring me icepacks and water, make all the food, and he's even talked about baking cookies.

I love my family :D

Grumbler, Squeeker, or Growler?

Baxter makes the cutest noises. Sometimes he grumbles, sometimes he squeeks, and sometimes he makes growling noises. So he'll end up with a nickname, I'm sure, but I'm just not sure which one yet!

Oh, and HE POOPED! After a day of super fussing, he's now feeling much better and napping peacefully. He's also a master nurser now. After a visit from the mother baby center yesterday I learned some new tips and tricks. He's also a supersoaker. It's amazing how much you can learn in one week.

ONE WEEK! He's a week old already! I can't believe it. I'm falling more and more in love with him each day. The chub in his cheeks is starting to come back. He lost weight to just about 8lbs 14oz. Perfectly normal, and now he's back to 9lbs 1oz. He's just great.

His umbilical cord stump is just about to fall off. I can't wait for it to be gone. It kind of looks like a dirty raisin with a corn flake attached to the top. Yuck. Hopefully it will be gone soon.

A whole new life!

We came home from the hospital on Saturday afternoon. Great Grandpa and Grandma Spears came to visit us at the hospital before we left, and it was so neat! After we got home, Jason's parents and his younger sister came to visit. I was a long day, but so neat to see everyone.

Life is definitely different now that Baxter is home with us. He's such a blessing. He's really strong for a newborn, and the nurse that came to visit says he's about as active and social as a 6 week old! He takes really long naps, and he's nursing really well. He had his days and nights mixed up a little bit, but last night he slept from 2:30am to almost 8am! It was soooo nice.

Since he's a big baby he needs to suck a lot, even though he's not hungry the whole time. We haven't used a pacifier yet because I really want to make sure that breast-feeding is established so we don't confuse him. In the mean time my fingers almost look like permanent prunes!

Jason is doing a bit of tutoring this morning, so I've been cuddling and taking LOTS of pictures of Baxter this morning. They're not there yet, but expect Flickr to be filling up with photos... :D