Father and Son

Scaring the hiccups into him:

Oh how I love them!

Hichi!

The Monster is 7 months old now! It's nuts!

-At his last appointment (10/22) L weighted 15lbs 8oz and was measured at 27" long. He also took his shots like a champ! He crieda little bit at the first round, but the second round (flu) didn't even phase him! I'm so proud!

- L has never been very big on cuddling (when awake) but the last couple of weeks he has been happy to just snuggle up against me and rest a hand on my cheek. It's quite sweet and I really hope it isn't a temporary thing.

-L is a little mover! He's not quite crawling, but he's able to roll, wiggle, and scoot his way around the living room now- which unfortunately means that we have to baby-proof pronto since he appears to have an appetite for cords.

- It looks like "dada" is going to be L's firsts words (tear!) because he spends most of his days saying "da da da da deet da da" (he gives the biggest smile when you say "deet" which I think means that he is very concerned about the affects of bug spray.)

- Not so fun for Daddy, L has this- uh- fascination with Nick's chest hair, and by fascination, I mean zeroing in on it, then diving at it and pulling out as much of it as his little hands can latch on to. I'm not sure if it's because L envies or detests it. Pretty soon Nick is going to have a bald spot. (I think it's hilarious, but for Nick's sake, we have to get him to stop.)

- L can now drink water out of a sippy cup! (with a rubber nubby on it.) He spends most of the time just chewing on the nubbyness, but he does drink from it as well. It's still kind of messy, but he's getting better at it.

- L has become quite the ham. No matter how upset he is, if I pull out my phone he's going to smile for a picture. One such example (he was not a happy camper when this was taken):

- All three of us just recovered from the plague, and I must say that the little Monster handled being sick for the first time a million times better than I expected. He was a breeze to take care of! (Of course he got his Aunty Hopie sick, so she may think otherwise about it.)

- We went with our friends, The Nuckols, to a corn maze Halloween weekend, but L decided to snooze while we went through it. Sad day. All we saw of L at the maze:

- L was the World's Cutest Monkey for Halloween, and boy, did he pull off his costume!

- The past couple of weeks, so many strangers have stopped me at stores/restaurants to tell me how adorable L is. As much as I love showing off my beautiful little boy, I am extremely weary of strangers and it's been stressing me out a little because they keep wanting to touch him. So I say to you, strangers: back off my baby, or I will cut you.

- I turned 25 a couple weeks ago and strangely, I didn't really want anything in particular (apart from a pair of rainboots, but I didn't have my heart set on those either). I think it's because in April I got the best present ever:

The Sleep Issue: Finale

Yeah, that's right, we have reached the conclusionof our 30 week journey. L can now self-soothe which means that Nick and I have a baby who sleeps through the night and it only took five nights!

The first night, he woke up cried (lightly) for no more than twenty minutes, and went back to sleep (he did this a few times.) I also didn't feel bad about doing it, one, because I think I was just so exhausted and two, because his cried weren't the ones for a changing or food, so I wasn't neglecting him (if that makes any sense.) The issue: when he started crying at 6:30, Nick and I didn't know what to do. Since he went down at 7:30 the night before, he should be able to sleep until 7:30am, but on weekdays, I will go get him if he wakes before 7 so we aren't rushing to get out the door (I have to drop Logan off at 7:20 in order to catch the early bus to school... yes I take the bus). So we didn't know if we should let him cry or pick him up. We picked him up. The day went pretty well, but he fought nap time pretty hard (eventually we got him to sleep though.)

The next two nights he only woke up twice and was back to sleep within ten minutes. He even slept until seven!

Night 4 he slept great, only waking up once that I noticed and nap time was much easier.

Night 5 second night of what is now a continuing streak of STTNs! He is a little bit harder to put down now, but it really isn't bad. And he's been going to bed at 7 which is amazing!

Then the time change hit. I want to go back in time and punch whoever came up with day-light savings time. Getting him to bed is fine (not easy like it used to be, but definitely do-able) but he's been waking at 5:30 and I don't really know what to do about it. He cried for an hour this morning. I know with time and patience it will work itself out... only to get messed up again in six months.

Anyway, here's some cute sleepy pictures of our little Monster: