Nine!

This month L has been sick. The plague went around our house during Christmas and then made a second round a couple of weeks ago. The second time hit our poor little Monster really hard. He’s now on probiotics and a soy formula until the lining in his stomach heals. Poor little guy. He’s a million times better and happier after a few days on the new formula, so hopefully in a week or so he’ll be back to eating like normal.

Now that he’s feeling better, he’s been really mobile. He’s been getting a little bored just hanging in the living room, so lately we’ve been roaming around the nursery and hallway. (Though he often stops to strum the radiator thingy.)

He’s been trying to open doors... when he’s not crawling into them.

He enjoys hiding from me. The first time he snuck into our bedroom and second he hid under the crib. He laughs like crazy when I find him... and then he tries to crawl away from me. He’s so freakin’ cute!

L was having some difficulties sitting back down while standing, but he has it mastered now! He’s so much happier now for it!

L finally let me get a picture of his little tooth! In two months he will go to the dentist for the first time. He’s supposed to be the best in town, but I’m still super nervous about it (I have a crazy fear of dentists.)

We’ve been spending the weekends watching the NFL playoffs and L seems to enjoy the game almost as much as his daddy. We’re trying to get him to do the “touchdown” sign, but haven’t had much luck yet.

The diaper situation looks like it has finally been resolved. He still has one little patch of rashiness, but his pediatrician says that it’s nothing to worry about. Words cannot explain my relief.

In other news, Nick is enjoying a semester off from school before starting back up this summer at CNM and I go back for my final semester tomorrow. I am in no way ready to go back to school, especially since the monster and I have been having so much fun lately, but it will be nice knowing that I’m almost done.

So 2011 isn’t off to the best start, but we’re still excited for this year. Now if only I can make up my mind on things for L’s first birthday party...

Everyone's a Lobo

Woof! Woof! Woof!

Only L didn't have as much fun as his Daddy and I did. The noise kind of freaked him out and we had to leave a little early. But he LOVED looking at the cheerleaders. No matter how loud the crowd was, he would calm down the second the cheerleaders hit the court for time-out/halftime performances. It was kind of funny.

The Diaper Fiasco:

The past couple of weeks have been a non-stop battle against our diapers. I love cloth diapering, but I have to admit that I'm reaching my limit. L's diapers were hanging onto the ammonia smell a little bit, so we picked up some of Rockin' Green's Funk Rock Ammonia Bouncer. After an overnight soak, we washed as normal and the smell was completely gone. It was amazing! However, we soon noticed a rash on L's belly, which we learned was from his diapers. So now after more soaking and a ton of washes our diapers have never been cleaner, and he's still getting a rash from them. I'm washing them for the eight time right now with the All Free and Clear stuff (not what we usually use) and praying that it gets the allergen off. I'm seriously at my wits end. And I don't want to see our upcoming water bill.

At least our little monster is super cute!

Happy New Years

I can't believe 2010 is (practically) over already! This was quite possibly the best year ever and I am so excited to see what 2011 has in store for us!

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

I totally stole this idea from my wonderful friend Tree, who is a million times more creative and blog-savy than I will ever be. Please don't be mad at me!

How what should have been the best Christmas ever turned out not so great... and 8 months.

Sorry all, I've been a slacker, but in my defense, I had finals/a giant research paper, then I got a seasonal job, and the holidays are always insane and a half. In case you didn't read the very creative title of this post, Logan is now 8+ months old. And very sick.

On Thursday night I started feeling pretty yucky, which turned out to be the plague stomach flu. I was sick until Christmas afternoon, Nick got sick last night (and is still battling with the aches) and now our sweet little boy is sick. He seems to be handling it better than I did, and I'm hoping that the worst of it is behind us. Yes, I am the worst gift-giver ever.

On to happier news, a lot has happened concerning our little Monster's development, some of which happened in the last week (so not a terrible week, all things considered.)

-L is sleeping through the night! He wakes up every once in a while, but soothes himself and gets anywhere from 11 to 13 hours of sleep a night. And he still naps a couple times a day. It's amazing.

- Logan is crawling! It's more commando style than full-on crawling, but he's super fast and I don't know if he will switch styles since this one suits him so well. We ended up having to get a safety play yard fence thing to keep him away from cords and the Christmas tree. It's exhausting at times, but so exciting.

- L is definitely a big boy now. He eats two to three servings of solids a day, though his current favorites seem to be carrots, cheese, and these organic baby cheerios.

- L's first word is "Dada" and Nick is thrilled (even if he won't say it.) I'm still a little sad that he hasn't said "ma" at all, yet, but I love how excited my boys are to see each other.

- December has been relatively warm in NM, so L got to go to the park for the first time. (I know, I'm a slacker.) The one we went to didn't have a swing set (the whole reason we went), but it did have a slide and L loved it. Sadly our trip was cut short once I heard the coyotes yipping. Thankfully I was able to get some great pictures of L before we ran to the car.

- As the previous post demonstrated, L loves to be scared. It is the one thing that is guaranteed to make him laugh. It's the funniest thing. I just hope he doesn't become a horror fan in the future.

- L can now sit up from any position and even more exciting, he can pull himself up to stand on his own! Ok... so exciting, but scary and tiring at the same time. There have been quite a few tumbles (nothing serious though). I promise to take a picture soon.

Now for some Christmas pictures!

Below left: L opening one of many gifts. I was still pretty sick. Below right: L lovin' on his grandma

Left: L playing with his new Leap-Frog book (complete with British accent) and me just happy to be alive. Right: L riding the rockin' dino that Nick and I bought him.

All things considered, it was a very exciting month and it wasn't a completely horrible holiday after all. 2010 was a great year for the Tafoya family and we can't wait to see what 2011 has in store for us!

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: