44 weeks

Another great week!  Lots of new adventures!

44 weeks

Here's what's new this week:

- He drank a full bottle's worth of milk from a sippy cup yesterday! Something finally clicked with him about how those work and he quickly downed the milk. We're going to try to keep up the practice on a daily basis until he gets to be 1 (and we build up our sippy cup supply!)

- He tried some new foods this week. Mangos and french fries. Unfortunately, the first time I gave him mangos it was like 3oz of mangos to 2 oz of yogurt and apparently that was a little too "concentrated" for Chase. Poor thing gagged. The next day I gave him one ounce of mango to 3 ozs of yogurt and that was much easier for him to swallow! Then Drew and I ate Backyard Burgers this weekend. Chase was just STARING at me eating my french fries (as was Weezie) so I tore him off a tiny end and let him eat it (I also tore Weezie an end off too!). He thought it was tasty and he kept staring at me until the french fries were gone.

- He took a fun trip sitting IN the shopping cart at the grocery store this weekend. Normally when we go to the grocery store we bring along the stroller. I push the baby, Drew pushes the groceries. It was becoming a little too much, so we bought a shopping cart cover and used it at the grocery store this weekend. Chase was having a ball! Normally in the stroller he just kind of zones out, but this time he was looking around, starting at the ceiling, reaching backwards for stuff in the cart, and reaching out for things on the shelves. It was really cute. I wish I actually knew how to use my cell phone because I would have taken a picture.

- We've got a bed jumper on our hands!  We've walked into his room several times this week to find him standing in his crib jumping in his bed.  I guess I always thought that was a taught skill, but I guess it's just something fun that everyone just knows how to do! 

Also, there are a couple of other things I think I meant to put in his 43 week or 10 month post, but escaped me at the time of posting:

-Our baby is a drooler! This is probably most definitely related to his top tooth coming in right now, but when he sleeps now, he will wake up in puddles of drool. It's funny and gross!

- We've never really let Chase watch too much TV before, but he's starting to get into it a little. In the early evening, we usually put something on for about 15 minutes (it's about all we can stand) and let Chase watch it if he wants to. He has a standout favorite so far. The kind of annoying, but kind of catchy Fresh Beats Band. I would rather watch Yo Gabba Gabba, however it doesn't come on at the right time. But Chase will just smile through entire scenes of watching Fresh Beats.

- Chase is a budding musician.  Between singing "mama" (as shown in the video last week), banging on our glass top coffee table (obviously purchased prior to babies becoming a reality), and Chase playing the piano, he might be a little artist.  Here's a picture Drew took on his cell phone of him playing piano at his great-grandmother's.

Here are some other pictures from the week:

Stray foot (precious)

Post-bath, cleaned up boy (with annoying Kim G. from Real

Housewives in the background :) )

Cheese!

First time wearing big boy (18 month)

pajamas! Loved them!

Are you a funny boy??

I warn you that I'm uber annoying in this video, but Drew happened to be recording when I first saw Chase's new "trick", so I went a little crazy and for some reason I repeat "are you a funny boy?" about a million times. :)

10 months

Can someone please tell time to slow down (or at least make the day longer)??  I mean seriously!  I only get to see the little guy for about 2 hours on the weekdays and time passes by so quickly and he has new tricks everytime I see him.  I feel like I don't have time to absorb what's going on.

Yesterday Chase turned 10 months old.  I didn't use the camera yesterday, so here's a picture from this afternoon.

You see the little pink spot on his cheek?  I think I've finally figured out what that is!  That same pink spot showed up in mid-June right around the time he started getting his lower teeth.  Well yesterday I noticed his upper left tooth is coming in (I learned the hard way when he bit the crap out of my thumb!).  I think the pink spot is linked to some nerves in his gums so it gets pink and warm when he's teething.  I could be wrong, but that's my guess!  He's been a little uncomfortable with this tooth coming in.  He loved knawing on the frozen teething ring this afternoon and he happily opens his mouth when he sees the teething tablets now!

10 Month Stats:

Unofficial weight: 23lbs
Clothing size: 6-12 month clothes, but as I mentioned last time they are getting a little snug.  All new clothes we are buying him are now 18 months.
Diaper size: We're trying out the new Pampers size 3 and really like them.
Hair: Getting thicker and longer.  I love when he gets bedhead!
Favorite toy: Anything dangerous.  Cords, fireplaces, window blinds, pulling on the drapes...anything that could hurt him, he loves! :)
Favorite foods: Yogurt melts.  He will smile and kick his legs if he sees that package!
Least favorite food: The whole (not pureed) peas experiment was a massive fail!
Typical daily schedule: Wakes up between 6am and 7am.  4 6oz bottles each day and 3 meals, spaced out every 2 hours.  In bed by 7:30pm.
Words: Mama and Dada!
Tricks: Bubble blowing (see video post to follow)

He's gotten pretty good at cruising across the floor using tables, couches, and window sills.  He's learning so quickly!  I'm afraid we don't have too much longer until we have a toddler on our hands (which makes me sad...and nervous!).

Right now Chase is the third oldest kid in the "Darling Ducklings" room at school (and the oldest boy!).  Per Drew all of the older babies swarm to his baby carrier when he gets picked up in the afternoon.  His girlfriend (who I don't approve of...obviously not good enough for him) is named Zophia.  They like to steal toys from each other.  He still loves his teachers, Ms. Pam, Ms. Kayla, Ms. Laura, Ms. Bailey, and of course his favorite, Ms. Bettie.  I haven't dropped Chase off at school in 2 months since Drew's been off work.  I get that priviledge again next week.  I'm looking forward to it because it's a fun bonding time, but also I'm nervous about adding that back to my morning schedule!

Drew and I have been on a diet for the past 2 weeks.  It's gone well so far.  I've lost 6 pounds and Drew has lost about 5, so good progress thus far.

43 weeks

I can barely believe in less than 9 weeks I am going to be throwing a FIRST birthday party for little man.  Unfortunately I'm stressing over color choices so I'll probably be planning for a better part of those 9 weeks.  I've got it all planned out in my head except for the stinkin' colors!

I've got a 10 month post coming up later in the week, so I'll try to keep this post all about this week's highlights.

With Chase's adventures in moving and trying to walk, he's gotten himself in some little accidents at school this week - accidents that involved him coming home with one of the following notes on his report sheet: "Chase hit his head on the bookcase.  Applied a cold compress and gave TLC."  Also this week he fell backwards while trying to pull himself up on the dining table at school and apparently bit his tongue and it drew a little blood.  Gosh!  Poor kid must have really fallen back hard because he only has 2 teeth!  The picture below shows his forehead bruise from his impact with the bookcase.  Later on in the weekend, we noticed he had a bit of a black eye also!

On Friday night I thought I would see how Chase would do with an all solid meal, so I cooked him up some peas and chopped a third of a banana.  At first he thought it was interesting, but then he quickly wanted nothing to do with it!  When I showed him the yogurt melts though, he was happy again.  The all solid food experiment ended when he'd only had 2 bites of real food, so I gave him some of my newly made plum yogurt!  The food experiment did give me some cute Olan Mills-esque type pictures of Chase though! :)

Also this weekend, we bought Chase a pair of sunglasses.  As soon as you think you've seen your child as cute as you can see him, you can put sunglasses on him and he gets even cuter!! How does that work??

We think this next series of pictures are too cute!  We don't watch CSI Miami in this house, but we do watch the Soup on E that makes fun of the red haired guy on that show.  These pictures remind us of that guy.

"I just finished some crispy bread.  It looks like this meal...

...is TOAST."  YEAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!

Speaking of toast, the same night we took the pictures above, I gave Chase some cut up wheat toast to try out.  He HATED it!  He liked it in that he kept trying to put it in his mouth, but he hated the texture.  It literally made him shiver when he put the toast in his mouth and then made him shiver again when he tried to swallow it.  It was pathetically hilarious!

Also this weekend, we took Chase out in the backyard and let him see bubbles.  He didn't get to see too many because it was kind of windy and because Weezie was eating all the bubbles before Chase noticed any, but for the few he saw, he thought they were interesting.

Here's one that lands on his shoulder. 

 Some other cute pictures from the week.

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!