42 weeks

It's been another busy week for Chase...with some VERY important milestones!

First (and most importantly), Chase said "mama" on Sunday morning!!  It may have been more like "mah-mahm", and he's only said it 3 times in a short period of time and hasn't yet said it again, but it very much counts.  I started crying instantly!  It was the most wonderful thing I'd ever heard!  I very much look forward to hearing him say it again soon!

I think the reason he's not speaking very much right now is because he's focusing every last bit of energy on MOVING!  So last week he began army crawling.  Well that's been mastered and now he's showing interest in crawling on his knees, but he hasn't really figured that out yet.  He can now officially pull himself up on anything and he's showing the very smallest abilities in cruising alongside the things he's pulling up on!

Drew and I really need to take a trip to Babies R Us and buy some baby proofing stuff STAT!

Here's a picture from last Wednesday when this whole "pulling up on things" was new!  Now it's old news and I don't take pictures anymore! :)

 What else has been going on this week?

Chase is no longer a vegetarian.  I gave him a little bit of chicken torn off my sandwich on Saturday.  He thought it was strange, but ate it!

His crib is now bumperless.  After me walking in his room too many times and seeing his face smushed against the bumper, it was removed.  It makes his bed look a little institutional now and not as cozy, but as my nephew would say - SAFETY FIRST!  Also, we don't keep the baby monitor on top of his crib anymore because twice last week we woke up with him playing with the cord in his crib.  That's now been moved on the other side of the room!

Chase went swimming again this weekend but this time with his buddy Walter.  I didn't get any cute pictures of them together, but here are pictures of us with Chase (separately).

Chase has piano skills.  I didn't get any pictures of this, but on Sunday Chase played the piano at Nini and Papa's house!  It was precious and didn't sound half bad. 

We got our family portait back from our photographer last week!  I ordered the large picture you see below with the frame and several other individual prints from the session.  They all turned out so cute!  The hardest part is trying to figure out where to put everything! 

Lastly, here are some cute pictures that caught my eye as I was reviewing pictures from the past week.

Finally caught the lip suck with my camera!

Weezie politely asking if we could please put Chase to bed so he'll stop crawling after her and poking her!

Happy B-day Weezie!

Happy 8th Birthday Weezie!! We love you!

41 weeks

I couldn't decide which weekly picture to post this week.  Both were cute.

(if you notice the pictures look different this week, there are two reasons: 1) I've used nearly half my storage capacity on blogger, so I'm experimenting with smaller picture sizes (I went REALLY small this week) and 2) I used photoshop to do a quick edit on some.  They don't look all that great, but I just wanted to play around.

Ok, lots of stuff has happened this week, so let me start documenting! 

In no particular order:

- Chase surprised us by sitting up on his own this week!  On Friday night he was crying in his room, I walked in there and he was sitting in his crib all dreary eyed!  It was extremely strange walking in there and him not lying down!

- I caught him standing up on Saturday!  I was in the computer room organizing all 23GB of pictures on my computer (not an exaggeration...I'm a picture hoarder. I have a problem!).  Chase was a little quiet so I turned around and he was standing up next to his little toy.  He pulled himself up on it and he was just standing there rocking and jiggling in place.  The irony is I didn't have my camera with me at the time to capture another 100MB of pictures.

- Chase earned a new nickname this week.  The Ghost Whisperer.  He tends to breathe through his mouth a lot, but now that he's kind of mumbling, sometimes when you look over at him, it's like he's telling quiet secrets to no one.  It's kind of creepy and a lot funny!

-Almost immediately after I posted last week, Chase found one of his new favorite things to do - sticking out his tongue. I've even seen him crawl across the floor with his tongue hanging out.  It's like he's pretending to be Weezie! :)

- Also beginning recently, he sleeps on his stomach.  I'm having a hard time getting used to this one.  I try rolling him back over, but then he quickly and almost violently flips himself back over.  Not only does he sleep on his stomach, but sometimes I see him sleeping with his nose buried in his sheet.  He's just living a little too on the edge for me!  Now that he's sleeping on his stomach, Drew and I check on him every hour or so while we're still awake to see if he's breathing.  I know it's dumb, but I can't help it!

Umm, yes we went into his room when he was sleeping and took a flash picture.  What about it? :)

- It's amazing how quickly mobility sneaks up on you!  Just two weeks ago he began rolling.  Then last week he was rolling about 80% and army crawling about 20%.  Now he's 90% arming crawling and only 10% rolling.  And he's fast!  And he has a knack for speed crawling towards the one thing in the room we don't want him to crawl towards (e.g. fireplace, dog toys, dog water bowl, dog leash, mini-blinds, diet coke cans, etc).

In crawling position.  That poor elbow is going to be calloused soon!

Can we say "handful"?

- Drew and I went to eat lunch on Friday at Dixie Cafe.  It was a slightly strange experience.  Our waitress was slow as Christmas and complained to us about how a guy got impatient waiting for a drink and left the restaurant and stiffed her (hmm, wonder why??).  As we were trying to entertain ourselves waiting for our waitress, we gave Chase a little bit of Drew's green beans.  I cut them up really small and gave them to him.  He loved them and he chewed them up really well!  Also, you can tell I was really bored when I let Drew give him a little of the roll we had at our table.  Wheat is a controversial first food.  I think the general rule is after 8 months, but some people wait far longer than than because of gluten allergies.  I knew there was a little wheat in his puffs, so I figured it probably wouldn't be terrible.  Drew gave him a little bite and he LOVED it!  He chewed on it a little bit and then started opening his mouth wide and making whiny squealing noises until we gave him another bite!  He's definitely a chip off the old blocks (mommy and daddy) if he's addicted to the carbs!  No issues with the wheat that we noticed, so I guess maybe I can introduce more breads in the coming months.

Also, the other strange experience at Dixie.  Oh my goodness...one of the waitresses came up to us as we were trying to leave asking if she could hold Chase.  I begrudgingly said yes as I was giving Drew a look.  She sat with him on her lap for a good 5 minutes (it felt longer than that though) and gave him weird lingering kisses on his neck and smelled his neck and head.  IT. WAS. WEIRD!  Drew and I just politely laughed and tried to somehow figure out a way to get our child back.  Will this keep us from going back to Dixie in the future?  Heck no!  The rolls are too good! But we may not bring Chase back with us.

 Some other cute pictures from the week:

Chase's new favorite way to be held by Daddy!

Photoshop Skillz

I just redesigned my blog and I did it all by myself!  Now that I know how to do it, I may change it a little more, but I'm very proud of my first attempt.

40 weeks

I don't know what passed by quicker - 40 weeks of pregnancy or 40 weeks of baby-dom.  Off the top of my head, I think it was baby-dom.  During my pregnancy I layed around a lot, watched TV, and had a lot of time to think.  That time just isn't as plentiful anymore!  I have lots of things on my to-do list now, but since it has to be taken care of after Chase's bedtime, it's been getting longer and longer!  Usually by Chase's bedtime I just want to veg and watch Real Housewives of anywhere on TV. :)

Is it just me, or does he look different in this weekly picture?  Maybe because it was taken in the morning.  I also chose this picture to share because if you look closely you can see his little bottom teeth!

New things this week:

Army crawling - Late last week he learned how to do a little army crawl.  Pairing that skill with his rolling over, he is ALL over the place!

I have to share with you why I find the picture below so funny.  One - it's his new crawling position.  He's rarely just sitting on his bottom anymore.  Two - You can see his diaper over the top of his shorts.  Like his mommy and daddy!  I think it's in our genetics that we can't keep our underwear private! :)  Obviously, we all like to wear our pants too low!

Routine - After 9 months of life, I've finally developed a little routine for Chase (took me long enough!).   We can only use this routine on the weekends or his days off from daycare.  The picture below was taken after his first morning nap which usually begins about 30 minutes after his first solids of the day (which is 2 hours after his first bottle!).  Sometimes after this bottle, he wants to nap again!  Sweet!

Words - Still not saying Ma-ma.  I think he's saying ba-ba randomly now, which is what we call his bottle.  Yesterday, he even said ba-ba after we said ba-ba!  So proud! :)

Foods - I gave him a new food yesterday.  White potatoes.  It's strange how much everyone likes potatoes, but mashed up white potatoes with no salt, pepper, or butter are disgusting!  Chase didn't really like them very much either.  I think I may have mashed them a little too much, and they ended up having a weird consistency...kind of like wallpaper paste.  He ate a good bit of white potato mixed in with sweet potatoes and then I think the texture got to him and he spit it all up.  I don't think I'll be giving him the remainder of the potatoes I made him.  First, they were gross and bland and two, they don't really have any important nutritional value so we'll be sticking with our other foods for now.  I'm going to be making a new squash - acorn squash - soon.  That one is totally new for me!

His rash is almost totally gone now.  There is still some remaining pink on his face, but for the most part you can't tell he ever got that gross rash!  Yay!

Update on Chase's parents:  We're beginning a diet soon!  Wish us luck!  Around the beginning of June, I reached my pre-pregnancy weight.  I was really excited about that, but then around the same time, I quit nursing.  I guess the surge of hormones and me not adjusting my diet caused me to gain 10 pounds in one month!!! I don't think I gained that quickly when I was pregnant!  Gosh, so something needs to change.  I'm going on Nutrisystem again.  I did it for 2 months back in 2006.  I lost 10 pounds the first month and 5 pounds the second month and kept it off for about a year until my old eating habits returned!  Drew is doing it with me this time around.  It will be easier with him on it with me since we won't have to worry about him getting dinner on his own.  Maybe to keep me motivated, I'll post our weight losses (just plusses and minuses, not actual weights - this isn't the Biggest Loser or anything!).  We should be starting it in the next week or two, whenever the food arrives.  We are planning on doing it for 2 months and have 2 "free days" per week to eat normal food.  Neither Drew or I have a goal, but we're just going to see what happens.  Hopefully it'll train my stomach what a "normal" amount of food is again since I've been eating like a football player for the past 18 months!

9 months/39 weeks

On Monday, Chase turned 9 months old!  Wow, another big milestone! 

That morning we took our routine trip to the pediatrician.  Most of our time was spent discussing his rash, but we did get his 9 months stats and a routine check-up as well.

9 Month Stats:

Weight: 21 lbs 10 oz (50th to 75th percentile) - up 3 lb 8 oz from 6 month checkup
Length: 28" (50th percentile) - 1" longer than month 6
Head: 44.75 cm (50th percentile) - 1.25 cm SMALLER than month 6...we think the 6 month measurement was wrong!

One of the big surprises that day was that there were no shots! That was a relief because I was pretty sure they wouldn't give him the shots anyway with the rash, so that just saved us from making another trip to the doctor later!

Some other stats:
Clothing size: 6-12 month clothes. Although some of the one-pieces are getting a little snug and we've had a hard time squeezing his head through some t-shirts.  We may be moving on up soon!
Diaper size: Huggies size 3.
Eyes: Beautiful blue eyes with long dark lashes!
Hair: Getting thicker with just the smallest amount of texture.
Favorite toy: Hmm, he's not obsessed with any one thing right now.  He still loves his bear head, Silly town, talking rolly ball, music table, any sort of paper you may have in your hand, remotes, phones, glasses...just exploring EVERYTHING!
Favorite foods: Yogurt!
Least favorite food: Nothing new.
Typical daily schedule: 6:00am Wakeup (get in bed with mommy and sleep more); 7:30am - Wakeup for real and have morning bottle (6oz); 8:20 to 8:40am - Arrive at daycare; 9:30 - oatmeal w/ pureed fruit (5oz); 11:00am - Bottle (6oz), 1:00pm - yogurt (4oz), 2:30pm - Bottle (6oz), 5:30pm - Bottle (6oz), 6:30 - Veggies (5oz); then bedtime (7:30)!  Quick little 30 to 45 minute naps scattered in between!
Words: See below!

So Chase has had a ton of developmental milestones since my post last week.
 
First, last Friday he said his first word!  Da-da!  Of course!  I should have know that Drew has been campaigning for that since he's been home for the summer.  He said it when Drew was changing his diaper Friday afternoon.  I was on the other side of the house at the time, but heard him say it through the baby monitor.  I sprinted across the house when I heard it to double check with Drew if I heard it correctly!  He's said it a ton since then too.  Now, if only he could start practicing his "M" sounds!
 
Chase has a new nickname as of late last week.  Roomba!  He's like that little robot vacuum the way he rolls all over the floor now.  Sometime last week, he learned that if he just rolls over and over again he can get to where he wants to be, so now he just rolls all over our living room area from one side of the room to the other going where ever his little heart desires (or until he gets stuck, bumps his head, or trys to reach for the "dust buffaloes" under our couch).
 
I don't know how this happened, but today he managed to go from laying on his belly to sitting up on his bottom all on his own.  I would have seen this milestone today, except Drew made me watch this.
 

**edit: removed image of goblin shark because it was too disturbing**

 

It distracted me so much in its weirdness, that I missed a cool milestone.  Yeah, thanks Drew!  Also, sorry for now putting this image in your mind as well! (Edit from Drew:  That shark is a goblin shark and it lives in Japanese waters for the most part.  It has protrusile jaws to extend its bite.  AWESOME!)

 

Since last month, Chasie has gone from being bundled every single night to now it is a rare occurrence.  Now he's back in his sleep sacks!  He's been waking a little more in the middle of the night lately for some reason.  It's been a little annoying but he goes right back to sleep with a little help from his pacifier or Drew putting him in bed next to me at 3 in the morning!  Ugh.

 

Chase has discovered Elmo!  I've had an Elmo in his room since before he was born, but we gave it to him today just to see how he liked it.  He thought it was hilarious!  The Elmo is of the Tickle-Me variety and was originally mine back whenever the Tickle-Me-Elmo was all the rage.  Chase gave Elmo big smiles and loved sucking on Elmo's eyeballs. :)  It was cute.  I see all sorts of annoying Elmo videos and stage shows in my future!

 

 

His lower teeth are getting more and more noticeable!  Also, we are starting to see his upper teeth beneath the gum.  You can't feel them yet, but you can kind of see them!

 

 

I've already started thinking about his first birthday now! I've got the theme worked out in my head and I'm very excited to start planning. Now, I've got to make a couple of more big decisions - cupcakes or a big cake; homemade or professional! I'm glad I've got 3 months to work this out!

Saddest rash ever!

I think by the end of this year I may have a PhD in Childhood Illnesses. 

Over the weekend Chase has slowly started developing a rash.  When I first noticed it on Friday, I thought maybe it was just a few little pimples on his face.  Then I noticed a few more tiny bumps on his legs so I thought maybe it was some sort of bug bite.  Then on Saturday as we were hitting the road for a wedding, I noticed even more so then I started thinking maybe it's the beginning of chicken pox.  Then I was assured over the phone by my mother that it wasn't that, so then we thought maybe it was a heat rash.  Then later on into the evening and the next morning it got way worse.  By this point I was convinced he was having an allergic reaction to the new blueberry yogurt he had on Tuesday and Friday.  Luckily, one of the wedding guests staying at our hotel was a pediatrician so after looking at Chase quickly he thought it was just a harmless viral rash.

This morning Chase was already scheduled for his 9 month well-baby visit, so it was a perfect time to inquire about this sad, pitiful rash.  Dr. Owen was a little confused by his rash.  It has characteristics of an allergic reaction and a viral rash.  At one point during our visit, he thought he had Fifth disease but then he changed his mind when Chase didn't have more of the typical symptoms of that rash.  They did some blood work on Chase and the results leaned towards a viral rash, but it was right on the edge of possibly having an allergy as well.  So we left the doctor knowing nothing more than when we went there!  :)  All the rest of his vitals were good.  He's the picture of perfect health except for his yucky rash!  Luckily Chase doesn't seem to be itchy, so he seems to be very comfortable despite the rash.  Dr. Owen said it could take up to two weeks for it to clear up.

You'll see from the pictures below it is FAR worse on his face than the rest of his body.  I think that's what makes me so sad for him.  I think I'm projecting my own insecurities about my skin onto him.   Growing up I had the worst skin and I still consider myself having horrible skin (I liken it to body image issues that people with eating disorders have...I will always see myself that way regardless of what I may actually look like).  And now that Chase has this horrible rash, I see myself in him and I feel like I foresee what it may be like for him as a teenager and it just makes me want to cry!

38 weeks

Chase is now 38 weeks old!  The weeks have just been flying by way too quickly.

Some of the latest happenings:

The teeth are coming, the teeth are coming!!  Chase is full-on teething now.  His first one is now fully through the gum (and it's sharp!) and now it has a little buddy coming through right next to it (it started coming through on June 18th - I know you don't care about that, but I need to document this all someday!).  Chase has moments where he is so fussy because of what I imagine to be pain from teething.  We've been giving him teething tablets very consistently lately.  They seem to do the trick which is good!

Still not crawling, but SO close.  I mean, SO close that it's ridiculous!  Drew is convinced that Chase will stand up before he crawls.  Chase is getting great at pulling up on our hands to stand up.  He just plants his feet on the ground and lifts up!  He gets a little stuck when pulling up on other things around our house, but I believe at daycare they said he pulled himself up on a little chair and then proceeded to get scared when he realized he didn't know how to sit down!

Still no words, but Drew heard da-da like sounds coming from Chase this afternoon.  I think it went more like ga-da, so maybe he'll put two of the same sound together soon.  I hope it's ma-ma though, but my real wish would be that I'd be present when it first happens! :)

Yesterday as Drew took Chase to the highchair for dinner, Chase reached his hand up and put his fingers in Drew's nostrils.  This is not a new occurrence.  What is new is that Chase must have really dug his fingers into Drew's nose and he must have torn something because all of a sudden Drew was in intense pain and blood was starting to pour out of his nose!  It was so gross!

That's all for now, I believe.  Next Monday Chase will be 9 months old!  How is that possible?!  Will have all the latest stats next time!

Latest Baby Purchases

So it seems lately I've been making a lot of baby-related purchases. I thought I would share some with you.

Chase is teething like crazy lately, so I saw these cute teethers online.  The were cheap (relatively speaking) and I was ordering a bunch of other stuff from this website and needed just a little bit more for free shipping, so I threw these in the cart.  Glad I did, because he likes them.  Unfortunately, Weezie likes them too.  She got a hold of and claimed the foot for herself.

Then I got some of these rice crackers called Baby Mum-Mums.  They taste like a rice cake/ice cream cone.  Chase LOVES them.  When he first got one, he was a little awkward with the coordination of putting the crackers in his mouth and I was super nervous he was going to choke.  He QUICKLY got used to the cracker and now he just munches on them and smacks his gums and can quickly eat both crackers in the package.  Oh my gosh!  It is just the cutest thing to see him eat these.  It's like I get a little preview of what he's going to be like in a few months when he's eating chunks of "real" food (as opposed to the "fake" pureed food I give him now!)  I could just stare at him eating these crackers FOREVER.  Seriously.

Then I got him this little Octotune thing.  Drew and I saw this at Toys R Us one day and we decided Chase must have it.  It came in the mail today.  Chase doesn't really know what to do with it, but I'm afraid by the time he does, Drew might have worn out the toy.  Drew already knows how to play various tunes on the toy (see how it works is that each leg of the octopus makes a different tone so you can play songs on it if you are talented like Drew!).

My BIG purchase is a big boy car seat for Chase.  And I got it in a cute cow pattern.  Chase isn't really close to outgrowing his infant seat yet, but the carrier is becoming a little too much for me to carry (10lb carrier + 21lb little boy = HEAVY!!).  So, I thought I would upgrade him in my car and keep the baby seat in Drew's car.  It's so cute!!  And roomy!!  At first I thought the cow pattern was a little girly, but then I decided girls shouldn't have all the fun.  Plus if you understood my obsession with Chick-fil-a, you would know that this is a must have for me...I mean Chase! :)

Because the new car seat doesn't have a shade like the carrier and because it is incredibly HOT outside, I made two more purchases for my car.  Sunshades for the front and a sun screen for the back to keep the sun out of Chase's eyes.  Just got these today, so I haven't tried them out yet, but I'm very much hoping it helps with the sun and the heat!

Another big purchase is our new ABC foam puzzle mat!  This was an awesome purchase.  We have tile and hardwood through most of the downstairs of our house but NO rugs, so I needed a soft spot for Chase to crawl since he's getting so close to mobility.

Of all the purchases though what has Chase taken to the most?  A little package of tissues I found on the kitchen table.  Typical.