Watermelon!

Johnny was given his OWN slice of watermelon this past weekend while Grandma was over.

Looks like he enjoyed it, no?

Mommy and Johnny play time

It's funny how kids can have all of these great, fun children's toys, but all they want to play with is stuff is off limits (i.e. cell phones, kitchen utensils, cable modem, etc.). Johnny was having a lovely time with the sliding glass door and I felt like I had to get it recorded because his funny faces were too hilarious.

Click here to view on YouTube.

P.S. That mechanical noise you hear in the background? That's John working on the deck... just in case you were wondering.

Standing

Remember how I told you about how Johnny could pull himself to standing? Well, up until recently he could only do it in his crib. That was easy because of all the potential hand holds. After a while, he started trying to pull himself up on our coffee table:

Eventually he figured out how to do that and the rest was cake. He can pull himself to standing using the toilet, my leg, a barstool, a heavy cardboard box... the possibilities are endless.

Click here to view on YouTube.

Crying it out

Up until a month ago, Johnny didn't sleep through the night. Our night would go something like this:
7:30pm: Put in crib after nursing to sleep
10pm: Wake up, nurse back to sleep.
12am: Wake up, nurse back to sleep.
1am: Wake up, nurse back to sleep.
2:30am: Wake up, nurse back to sleep.
4am: Wake up, nurse back to sleep.
4:30am, 5am, 6am: Wake up, nurse back to sleep.

Finally, after a few weeks of this, John just put a twin bed in Johnny's room and I would go in there around 1am (when Johnny woke up) and I'd try to sleep on my side while Johnny nursed the rest of the night. Now, this sounds like it shouldn't be a big deal, right? I mean, I could just bring Johnny to bed with me and then he could feed while I slept. Not as great as it sounds. I am not a particularly "well-endowed" woman, so sleeping on my side with Johnny latched on and sleeping like that is about as easy as sleeping on a 3-inch wide balance beam--there isn't a lot of wiggle room. I also couldn't handle having Johnny sleep in bed with me and John because I like having time alone with John (even if we're asleep). So, I was sleeping in Johnny's room half the night.

Finally, after getting back from Lake Powell, I decided I was done with this nonsense. He's eight months old, he should be able to go at least six hours without a feeding. I decided I wanted to try crying it out. My friend Jill had a lot of success with it for her little boy so I thought I'd give it a whirl.

It was hard. I'm not going to lie. Waking up in the middle of the night and not going to him was really difficult. However after the first night, which was full of awakenings, the second night he only woke up a couple of times. Then the third, only once. And now a month later, hardly ever. If he does wake up these days he will whimper a little, readjust, and fall back asleep, BY HIMSELF! Magic, I tell you.

We also tried the whole cry it out thing for naps, but that didn't work out so hot. He's not one to conform to any kind of schedule. While the CIO strategy didn't help with establishing a nap schedule, it did help him learn to fall asleep during the day by himself. So now we have a little routine that we do when he's showing signs of being tired. After fifteen minutes of soothing he goes in his crib and he will either fall right to sleep or cry for a little while and fall asleep... and STAY asleep. As in, for more than 45 minutes.

Have I damaged my child for life? I doubt it. Being with him all day every day, I notice small improvements in his demeanor and behavior. No one notices these things but me and you may say that I'm cruel for making him cry so much for such little things, but you know what? Johnny's quality of life is better because my quality of life is better. Hell, ask John, I'm sure he'll tell you that being in the same room is me is a heck of a lot easier. Having fewer than 6 nights of decent sleep in 8.5 months will made me a wee bit snippy... and the people close to me got the brunt of it. Plus, now I know if he cries out the middle of the night and doesn't stop within a few minutes, there is something wrong.

All around crying it out was tough, but it worked for us. Hopefully the next child will be a little better at this sleep thing... or he'll just be more ignored than Johnny and will learn to be by himself sooner...

Yay sleep!

Non-baby-related: Highlight

When I was teaching, I was very careful to avoid being "friends" with students on facebook until after they graduated. Once they graduated, we could be "friends," but until then, I felt it was inappropriate since, well, I was practically their age. Now that I'm not a teacher anymore, I am "friends" with some of my former students on facebook, which often can be a weird experience (especially when they post pictures of themselves doing things like consuming alcohol while underage or wearing scandalous clothing), but sometimes it can make my day week. One of my students posted the following comment on my wall:

So sweet, right? Thank you, my former student, for making me feel like a made a difference in your life.

Toof!

We have a tooth! 

 It's barely poking through, but it's still there. Johnny's been pretty tough through the whole teething thing. It doesn't seem to bother him, actually. He's still been sleeping okay (which is another post in itself... remind me) and he's no fussier than usual. Basically, my son is hardcore. Like I expected anything else!

Guests for Johnny

Last week, Uncle Scott, Uncle Dylan (my brothers) and Dylan's girlfriend, Lindsay, came up to the house for a visit. Johnny had so much fun with his uncles, making funny faces at them, shaking his head when they did and just being all around cute... as usual. :)

Eating solid food

I tried giving a Johnny half of a banana unsmashed (closely supervised, of course) to see how he would do with it. He ate about half of it and then I finally remembered to get out the video camera.

Click here to watch on YouTube.
At the end of the recording (there was a minute more), he got the banana stuck on his finger and then flung it on the floor. Ah, a small glimpse into what feeding a toddler will be like...

Fun new toys!

Grandma Durso was kind enough to get Johnny some new "bigger boy" toys, since all of the ones we have right now are baby toys and Johnny isn't as interested in those any more. So, Grandma Durso took us out to Babies 'R Us for a little spree and we picked out all kinds of fun things for Johnny to play with. One of the biggest hits is this little number:

The little blue part that he's playing with is a small "laptop computer" that makes noise when you open or close it... he figured that out pretty quickly. Now that he's pulling himself up on things, I attached the legs that it came with and he can cruise around the toy to look at all the fun things it has to do.

Looks like he's having a good time, right? He really likes that little phone. After we're done playing, he'll carry it with him around the house.

Nooo...

Johnny's learned a new trick! Check it out:
 
Click here to view on YouTube
I'm not exactly sure where he picked it up... okay, who am I kidding, he picked it up from me. Just goes to show how much I tell him "no" I guess.

9 month doctor's visit

I completely forgot to give a rundown of Johnny's visit to the doctor last Thursday... so here are the statistics:

Height: 29 inches
Weight: 20lbs. 5 oz.
Head circumference: Don't remember! Oops.

They didn't give me exact percentiles this time around, but the doctor said that Johnny's average height and weight, but his head is larger than average. He didn't need any immunizations this time around, which was nice. Just a quick check up and everything points to good health. Yay!

Non-baby-related: Why my husband is the greatest.

My husband is awesome for many reasons, but the one that is heading the list right now is this:

He spends his free time putting this deck together. And it will be awesome. I'm already imagining having dinner out outside on our beautiful deck watching the sun go down... *sigh* My husband rocks.

Cutest clothes around

A couple of weeks ago a couple of John's family friends were down for dinner and were kind enough to bring some uh-dorable clothes for Johnny.

Freakin' cute, right? They also got him a little dog outfit that is too warm to wear right now. I'm thinking I'll exchange it for the next size up so that he can wear it during the winter... especially since we'll be going back East for Christmas where winter actually exists.

Sucked in.

John and I don't watch television. Really, we don't. Every now and then I find myself wishing that I had a show to follow, but most of the time we just watch movies. Well, since we have this aversion to the TV, Johnny doesn't do much TV-watching. I'm not saying that's good or bad, it's just the way it is. So, whenever I play something on the computer that is kid-friendly he gets sucked into it! I don't think the kid even blinks. His favorite video right now is this one below called "1, 2, 3, 4" on Sesame Street sung by Feist.

Totally catchy, right? I find myself humming it at random times during the day.

So this is what Johnny looks like when I play it for him:

Thank you Sesame Street and Feist for giving me 2 minutes and 27 seconds to clean up the mess wrought by breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

9 months!

I'm 9 months old today!

Basically, I'm a big deal now. I can pull myself to standing using my crib, the coffee table, and Mommy's leg. I can even play at my new fun table standing up! I haven't quite figured out how to sit down gracefully though, which has resulted in a few bumps and bruises on my head. But hey, I'm still cute even with the bruises... and chicks dig body damage, right? I can sit up all by myself now and can get around the room pretty quickly even though I haven't mastered crawling. I mean, why would I need to crawl when I can army crawl any where I need to go and I have a mommy to pick me up and take me places? It's all about efficiency, people!

Hello 12 month clothes!

One of my major gripes about baby clothes is their sizing method. Johnny was in newborn clothes for circa four days. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, but it wasn't very long. Then he was out of 3 month clothes before he was 3 months and out of 6 month before he was 6 months! The 9 month clothes have lasted the longest and he's ALMOST 9 months, so I guess that's not so bad... recently he went through a major growth spurt and now he's wearing 12 month clothes with the occasional 9 month outfit... Yeah, are you confused yet? I guess I don't have a better system for sizing baby clothes so I'll just deal with the system in place now.

Johnny modeling his 12 month clothes from Grandma. This is the "thoughtful" pose.

Hippie hair

As you can see from the photos below, Johnny's hair is getting quite long. He has, as John would say, "hair like a hippie." Considering Johnny can't really sit still for more than 2 seconds, getting his hair cut is probably an experience best saved for later... when he can sit still for at least 10 seconds. Finally last week, the hair on the side of his head was growing over his ears, so John held his head in place while I clipped some hair away and now he looks much better. I don't think that counts as a first hair cut considering I didn't cut away enough hair to save in the baby book... well, I don't think it counts and that's what matters.

On the left, Johnny is 8 months and on the right he was 3 months. Look at the difference!! Crazy, huh?

And here's another one, just for fun:

 

Thrill seeker

Despite the fact that Johnny isn't too fond the G forces of the swing, I think he's going to be a roller coaster-loving kid. He loves to be thrown up in the air and be upside down and it hasn't made him sick once!

CU Buff

When we went to Colorado for a wedding, John got Johnny a little CU Boulder shirt. Now that he's grown quite a bit he fits into it quite nicely! 3rd generation Buffalo maybe?

Look what I can do!

Yup, he's figured out how to pull himself to standing, but only in his crib. I came in once after naptime and there he was, standing there looking at me. So Daddy lowered the mattress as far as it would go. The last thing we need is for him to plummet over the side...

At the park

Johnny has issues staying in the house all day so I try to get him out of the house everyday. We visited our local park for the first time the other day. There isn't much for him to do at the park, but just being outside was enough for him. He was enthralled by the teenagers that were hanging out at the park, so he was content to sit on the blanket, hold his brush, and watch the teens do their thing. We also tried out the baby swing and he seemed to enjoy it. He makes a funny face when the swing goes forward, almost like the G forces are too much for him to take... see the last picture.