Tuesday, July 12, 2011

11 Months of O

I'll continue to say this because it will continue to be true: wow, time is flying by!

I didn't do a 10-month update on Oscar because it was a busy time as we were getting prepared to have Eli back with us and getting ready to go on the Grand Beaver Tour. Sorry I let it lapse. So this is pretty much an update covering the span of two months, and a LOT can happen in two months.

For instance, when we last spoke exclusively of O, he had just finished cutting his bottom center teeth. While we were in Canada at the end of June, Oscar cut one of his top front teeth (his upper left), and the week later he cut the other one. Now my boy has a sweet little gap-toothed smile. (Sweet, except when he's trying out his new chompers on my knee, then it's a sharp gap-toothed smile.)

Also when we last visited O's development, he was just beginning to pull up. Yeah, that lasted all of ten minutes before we was a cruising machine, hanging on to furniture and making his way around the room. In the last week or two, he has been letting go of whatever he's holding onto and standing unassisted for around 10 seconds at a time. He also has started coming up behind me, grabbing onto my pant legs and walking with me as I walk..very slowly. He's going to be walking on his own very soon. Then the family dynamics and child-proofing shift! What did Eli say to me the other day, kinda' dumbfounded like? "We're going to have two toddlers." Yup. It's the end of the world as we know it, again.

As for food, I haven't been really consistent with solids, but he's starting to eat anything. Last week I made sweet potato fries, and he loved them. I wasn't sure if he would go for the whole lumpy texture, given his gagging history. Light night, Eli said he pretty much put away a whole spinach manicotti like it was nothing. He's eating animal crackers and gets all hyperventilate-y when he sees me with them and I'm not giving them to him fast enough.

Two connected things also happened in the last month: Oscar started sleeping "through the night" (aka, we let him cry himself back to sleep) and I weaned him. We had dropped down to only nursing at night when he woke up every 2-3 hours, and finally once he started eating solids better, I made the decision that this mama needed to get some decent sleep again soon. So, the weekend we got back from our trip, Eli went to B'ham to watch soccer with some friends and that night Mama slept. Since then, he wakes up about once a night and puts himself back to sleep. That is, until 5 a.m. Where he got this ludicrous time, I do not know. Pretty much since school has been out, he's been waking up earlier. Boo. Used to be I could put him in the swing in the morning and he would go back to sleep for an hour or so, but then he got too strong for the swing and was trying to lean forward out of it, burning up the motor and scaring his mother. So, we get up earlier than during the school year most days. Ugh.

Last night, however, Darth Vader woke up screaming at 2 a.m., so for the first time since he's been born, we had to use the NoseFrieda snotsucker to get him breathing through his nose again, where he could go back to sleep. He didn't hate it. He didn't like it, either. I'll take that any day.

Some cute pics of Oscar:

The Kleenex didn't have a chance:


In Cheerio heaven, little rascal:



Some cute sibling pics:

Coloring in the front hallway (book courtesy of Aunt Julie!):


Sharing a ride at Kroger yesterday:




Some other cute things about Oscar:

*He loves balls of all shapes and sizes. Want to get his attention and be his new best friend? Get a ball!

*He loves the cats, smiling whenever they are near and often chasing them to say hello. The other day he tried pulling Coco off the arm of the chair by Coco's tail, and had the claw marks on his face as evidence that Coco tried very hard to get some traction to get back on the couch to counteract the pulling.

*He plays with the little retro Chatter telephone like it's a car, pushing it around the floor like little boys do.

*He's incredibly sweet and will put his head on my shoulder to snuggle any time I pick him up.

*He loves to bounce, particularly as I put him on my hip and we go up the stairs. His little giggle just melts me.

*He's obsessed with opening and closing doors. If he sees a door open even just a little bit, that's an invitation for him to play with it. Any time the door to the backyard is open, he tries to make an escape. More recently, this is true to the inside door to the garage.

*His new nickname around the house is "Shredder." If it can be shredded, he's on the job. Kleenex, TP, tissue paper, newspaper, notebook paper, magazines--he does not discriminate. He does not, however, like the fact that dryer sheets are difficult to shred.

*He's got noggin issues, and it's not even that big! But he bumps it on everything, every table lip and low clearance objects that he encounters. Even funnier, he'll clear his head under the coffee table with ease, but then will try to sit up and hasn't cleared his body for sitting up right there, so he bangs the back of his head on the table. He is just beside himself when this happens. And at least two times a day, he smacks it on the floor (usually with a little assistance from Elsie). Poor kid.

*Playing at the water table, he doesn't seem to mind when Elsie pours water over his head. Now that's a good brother.

*He's obsessed with toilets, particularly the little caps that cover the screws that hold the toilet down. He loves taking them off and putting them back on. I discourage this behavior, but he has a big sister who opens doors, and again, when he sees an open door...

*He still uses one knee and the other foot to get around in a crawl, so the "knee" leg is rug-burned, dirty, etc. The only time he crawls differenly is when he's out on the patio and it's painful to drag his "knee" leg under him, so he gets up on two hands and two feet in a full-on bear crawl. It's so cute.

I can't believe he's almost ONE!! Sigh.

Cheers.

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