30 weeks

Be on the lookout for a 7 month post sometime this week.  Our little boy turns 7 months old tomorrow!

Boston and Baby

Earlier this week, Chase got an opportunity to wear the very first piece of clothing I ever bought for him!  I bought this at Macy's sometime last summer after I found out we were having a boy.  As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to have it!  He wore it to school that day and they mentioned that he was showing off his muscles! :)

Not sure what's going on with the eyes in this picture.  Chase has glowing red eyes and Weezie has green eyes!

Like Fathers, Like Sons

Here is a picture of Chase and Walter's daddies circa 1992

(side comment: I like how Drew grew into his nose and ears!)

Here's a picture of Chase and Walter from this morning.

Almost halfway to a baseball team!

29 weeks

This blog has turned into a way for me to note various milestones and memories to later transfer into Chase's baby book (please tell me why I bought a baby book that requires you to enter achievements each week for the first 52 weeks!  I haven't updated the actual book since December!).  Because of this, let me rattle off a bit of info for my recollection later on:

Chase is sitting up better.  He gets a big smile on his face when he sits up.  I think he loves the change of scenery from up high!  He likes being pulled into a standing position and he LOVES to bounce.  He does however refuse to roll over.  He has no interest whatsoever in moving around...yet.

He can pick things up lying beside him and he can easily pass items from hand to hand.

On the food front, we've tried rice cereal, sweet potatoes, carrots, avocados, peas, and squash.  I think his favorites by far have been sweet potatoes and squash (they taste very similar to me).  He wasn't liking his peas for a while, but then I realized he didn't like the texture of the peas I made him.  I thought I could skip the straining step of making the peas - WRONG.  It made all the difference in the world.  Once I strained them, he loved them!  I think it's almost time to move on to some fruits - apples, pears, and bananas.

His eyes look like they may begin changing colors.  They are still primarily blue, but have a bit of hazel/gold in the middle.  Also, as you can tell in his pictures, he's been entering a chubby phase lately.  His cheeks, his chins, his thighs...just more to love!  Hopefully though when he starts moving around some (if he ever starts feeling like it!), he'll get a little less round! :)

His favorite toys lately include his jingly taggie soccer ball, anything on his exersaucers, and his plastic keys.  I was also very proud of little Chase on Saturday when he stood up to his cousin who is 12 months older.  Chase had the plastic keys in his hand and Gray came by and wanted them.  Gray took a swipe at them and Chase wouldn't let go!  Gray came back a few minutes later and tried again and caught Chase off guard and then finally got the keys himself!  It was very funny to see them interact.

Picture time-

28 weeks

Best Friends

I had a rare visit to Sunday school this morning (since I don't yet want to put Chase in the church's nursery).  Chase received an open invitation to come to our class at anytime, so today we went.  Chase's BFF Walt was there too!  It was so great to see him and his parents!!  These two kids are destined to be best friends as their daddies have been friends for around 25 years.  They both intuitively knew to bring their favorite giraffe gear to church this morning!  Both behaved very well (Walt was a sleeping angel, but I did get to see his eyeballs for a few seconds...yay!).  Chase tried to embarrass us by "forgetting" how to drink from a bottle.  He's done this a couple times in public over the past month.  We feel like horrible parents because he starts choking on the milk and Drew and I are just saying "what's wrong with you??  DRINK!". 

We'll forgive Walt for the UT blanket!! :)

Sitting up!

I believe Chase just sat up on his own officially this afternoon (not counting sitting up on couches and beds which are soft)!  So proud!!

Saturday Mornings (with Daddy away)

Today begins the first of several Saturday mornings that we spend without Daddy.  He began a new class today that will keep him occupied from 8am to 3:30pm each Saturday for the next month and a half.  It stinks, but we'll survive!

I had to give my first parental "No-no" this morning. Chase was ignoring the toys I was giving him to play with and instead kept reaching out for my face to grab my glasses.  He would pull them off my face and then get his finger prints all over the lenses and then shove them in his mouth!  Gross!  He also likes the remote control.  I think it's funny to see what channel he picks (through his random button pushing), but then he tries to eat the remote and I have to be the "mean mommy" and take it away.  I wish remotes and glasses and phones weren't covered in nasty germs, then he could play with them all he wanted!

Here's a couple of pictures from the morning -

This is a pretty awful picture of me (although realistic of what I look like in the morning - Drew is a lucky man), but it's the only picture of my baby giving me a kiss, so I'll sacrifice.

Chase playing as I update the blog!

Avocad-NOs

Chase began his third veggie (fruit??) on Thursday.  Avocados.  Don't let the smile fool you - he hated it!!  He collected the avocado in his mouth and then usually spit it all out in one big glob.  It was gross!  I probably shouldn't blame the boy for not liking avocados.  I just began liking them about 4 or 5 months ago!!  The remaining portion of his food went to Weez.

The next food on the deck is squash.  I don't even like squash (unless it's fried).  I feel like a hypocrite! :)

 By the way, I'm going bib shopping soon.  There is nothing wrong with the one we have, but I'm getting sick of looking at it everyday!!

27 weeks and 6 month stats

Another week has flown by!  This afternoon we visited the pediatrician for his 6 month well-baby visit. It's official - we have a chunk on our hands.  I couldn't believe how much he weighed!  He got the usual set of immunizations while we were there today.  He also got the H1N1 vaccination now that he's 6 months.  He took the shots like a champ.  It seemed like he was having a harder time with the vaccination they drop into his mouth.  He kept wanting to spit that one out!

6 Month Stats:

Weight: 18 lbs 2 oz (50th to 75th percentile) - up 2 lb 14 oz from 4 month checkup
Length: 27" (50th to 75th percentile) - 1.5" longer than month 4
Head: 46 cm (75th percentile) - 4 cm bigger than month 4

The doctor also gave us an estimate of how tall Chase will be when he grows up.  I think the range was something like 6'1" to 6'4".  I can't remember the formula he told us, but you added 5" to the mom's height and 5" to the dad's height and averaged them together.  I cannot imagine Chase right now as a tall, grown man.  It blows my mind!

Over the past 2 weeks, we've increased the amount of milk he's getting in his bottles from 6oz to 8oz (he'd been receiving the same amount of milk since he started daycare in January, so I thought it was time he graduated to more milk since he was 3 months older!).  I've noticed that he's gotten a lot rounder since then - can you believe that his cheeks have gotten bigger??  We've also added one solid meal per day around dinner time.  Currently we are experimenting with carrots.  Chase liked them alright last night, but he would have no part of them tonight.

Drew and I have thoroughly enjoyed feeding Chase his vegetables everyday.  We have to work as a team to get Chase fed.  Since Chase doesn't grasp the concept of opening his mouth for food (or more than likely, he just isn't interested in eating the food) Drew has to be the funny man trying to get Chase to laugh and open his mouth.  At that time, I sweep in and spoon the food into his mouth. If Drew has done his job sufficiently, Chase is still usually laughing and he'll easily swallow the food after he moves it around in his mouth a little. If Drew fails, then Chase will smack the food in his mouth and then usually spit it all out.  Chase is also very "talkative" when eating his dinner.  Drew and I even thought we heard a word the other night when he was finishing his sweet potatoes - "India".  He's a genius! :)

Chase is getting stronger and stronger in the "sitting up" department.  While sitting on a soft surface (i.e. couch, bed), he can sit up unassisted for several seconds.  Even when he starts to fall forward a little, he can usually pull himself back up to a sitting up position. I'm just so amazed at how much stronger he is getting.  It seems like it just happened overnight!

On to the pictures -

Chunky legs!

Easter picture

Sitting up in his Easter outfit!

Happy Easter

We all had a fantastic Easter.  Chase was visited by the Easter bunny three times!  He got an Easter basket at our house and then he got Easter giftbags at both of his grandparents' houses.  He also got some fun summer one pieces from Aunt Mel for the beach this summer.

Here are some pictures from Easter morning after church when Chase dug into his basket.  The Easter bunny gave him a stuffed sheep, a couple of books, a lion weeble-wobble, swim shorts, and a t-shirt and khaki shorts.

I love this picture!  "What else did I get??"

His spread!

There is no real reason for this picture except for that I love those feet!

I had to get a picture with the Easter grass.  We then took it away.

LOVED, LOVED, LOVED the weeble-wobble!  He sat in the bumbo and kicked the lion with his feet.

Sweet Potatoes

As I mentioned earlier, I'm trying my hand at making my own baby food.  For those of you who don't know me well, I don't cook.  The extent of my food preparation are peanut butter sandwiches, brownies, and burritoes when I get adventurous.  However, in my own mind, I'm like Julia Child...a non-practicing Julia Child.  Cooking is basically just following directions.  I'm awesome at following directions. My husband would say that I sometimes stray from direction following due to laziness (i.e. not reading the recipe and winging it from memory or just dumping random ingredients into a pot when I realize we don't have something in the house that the recipe calls for).

Besides all of that, I've decided I wanted to give making my own baby food a shot.  Why you may ask?  There are no specific reasons, but I think it would be fun.  Various websites say that is it tastier, more nutritious, and cheaper.  That's all good, but I just want to challenge myself and see if I can actually do it on my own.  I know someday I will actually need to learn some recipes so we can have respectable meals as a family.  Currently Drew and I get a lot of takeout, or we make entrees with no sides.  Growing up, I always had a meat, some vegetables, and a bread on my plate for dinner.  I would hope that someday I could do the same for Chase, but that just seems like a long way off based on my skillset!  I think making the baby food will help build my confidence in the kitchen.  Also, hopefully the introduction of fresh vegetables in our fridge will rub off on Drew and I's diets.

So, after we introduced Chase to the rice cereal (which he eventually warmed up to, but still doesn't love), I made him sweet potatoes.  Here are the pictures of my process.  For those "experienced" cooks who are reading this, don't make fun of me for getting excited that I baked a potato!  A first for me!!

Baked the pototoes for approximately 1 hour.  I think that may have been too much time.  I got lazy and didn't check to see if it was 30 minutes or an hour.  Also, I forgot to set the oven timer.  After they were done, I scooped out all the insides and put them in my Kitchenaid thingie.

Pureed til smooth.  I also added a little water to thin.

I think each sweet potato cube is approximately 2/3 of an ounce.

I put them in the freezer for about 24 hours and put them in a freezer bag.  When it's time for him to eat, I take 2 out of the bag and defrost them in the microwave for about 45 seconds.  It's been very easy so far.

So far I haven't given him food poisoning, so SUCCESS!!

 Next on the menu I think will be carrots (organic...how hippie of me!), avocado, peas, squash, applesauce, and pears.  Note that when it comes time to give him pureed meats, I WILL NOT be making those myself.  That's just too advanced for me.