Sunday, August 28, 2016

Standing & Climbing

It seems like William just learned to crawl and get around on his own. Now he is standing up everywhere he goes! Anything that can be pulled up on, William grabs onto. This means couches, baby gates, spindles, his crib, chairs, boxes, and people's legs.

 

NOT READY for stairs!!!
His favorite thing to pull up on is his new activity table (thank you, Nana & Papa!!). His daycare has one and I knew he would love one. Nana offered to get one for Will for home. We got it one week ago and he is obsessed with it! It has three levels of games/entertainment so hopefully it will be a fun toy for a while :)

Thursday, August 18, 2016

William: 8 Months



8 Month Stats
Weight: _____
Length_____

Eating: Continuing the same schedule as last month-- Five nursings four hours apart a day (7/11/3/7:30/DF) with solids at noon and a formula sippy cup with dinner at 6pm. We are doing chunky purees for his solids. I have pushed his DF back far enough that it should be dropped within the week! (Update: dropped cold turkey on this 8mo birthday; so far, so good!)


Foods Will has tasted so far:
Fruits--> apple, avocado, banana, peas, mango, peach, plums, prunes, & blueberry
Veggies--> sweet potato, acorn squash, green beans, carrots, peas, yellow squash, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, & tomatoes
Grains--> baby oatmeal mixed in with bananas/blueberries/yellow squash
Protein--> chicken (need to try this again)
Dairy --> whole milk yogurt (but he gets flushed every time he has it; not sure why, it doesn't seem to bother him)

BedtimeBedtime starts about 7:30pm and Will is usually asleep by 8:15pm. With the dreamfeed where it is now (at 9:25pm), he is going without milk for about 9.5/10 hours. Trying to stretch that out.

Naps: Will still takes two solid naps at home on the weekends. They are usually about 1.5-1.75 hours. At childcare, his naps are shorter and he usually needs a snooze during the 5 o'clock hour. This is usually with Bret & he loves getting his William snuggles in for the day :)

Diapers: Will is squeezing into those size 2 just barely. He wears a size 3 at night so he doesn't leak and I'm thinking he is going to be fully in size 3 soon.

Clothes: He is wearing mostly 6mo & 6-9mo clothing. It's crazy how an outfit changed the way he looks. We can put him in just a onesie and he still looks baby-ish, but if he's wearing pants (especially jeans!) or a shirt and pants/shorts, he looks like a little boy. He's so grown up!

Favorites: Being with me. I am his favorite person right now. Whenever I am near him, he needs to be touching me. If I am sitting on the floor in his room, where all of his toys are, he wants to be climbing all over me and pulling at me and giving me raspberries. I tell myself that I will miss it all very soon ;)

His daddy. When Bret comes in the room, whether he's getting home from work/up for the day/just left for a moment, Will yells with delight to see him! It's so awesome to see the huge smile on his face when he sees his dad.

Ruby the dog :) Ruby is the little dog of Alisa, Will's childcare provider. I think Ruby is a Yorkie. But Will loves to watch her run around and just stares at her. When I drop him off in the morning, he looks around trying to find where she is in the room. I think it's because they are both redheads!

Right now his favorite toy is his rattle. We have to pry it out of his hand for outfit changes and when he goes in his carseat.

Dislikes: Will now understands that when we leave the room we have left him alone. Sometimes he is okay with this, but other times he lets us have it! If the door is open, he crawls after us. If it is closed, he sit right next to it and cries, cries, cries. And cries...

Development: William is working on moving faster and faster! His crawling ability is awesome and he can cross a room just as fast as we can. He also enjoys his police car even more now as his legs are stronger. The car is less about the buttons he can push and more about helping him move around better.

This month, we had to lower Will's crib twice because he was starting to pull up on it. He gets on his knees and extends his arms over the side. We thought lowering it just once was going to be good enough, nope! The crib is on it's lowest setting now. At childcare, he sleeps in a pack-n-play (sometimes at home, too).

We have just begun the pulling up on things stage. Will is constantly showing us what we need to put away or find a higher place for. He loves to play with things that are not his toys, even if the toys are surrounding him. He's into everything right now, little explorer!

He's also quite the noise-maker. Bret said this week that when he crawls, he has to shriek & that Will isn't going to sneak up on anyone any time soon! We think we have heard him say "mama" and are trying to get him to say "dada" now. 

Looking Forward To: I look forward to the weekends each week now, then he & I get two days together! He adjusts back to his home schedule pretty well and has even "slept in" instead of waking early which he seems to do during the week.

I think we are looking forward to hearing more "words" from Will. And it seems like every day he learns how to do something new!



Playing all day at childcare is exhausting!
"I'm comin' for you!!"

the reason for lowering the bed...twice this month!
First day of childcare & mom back to work
He's on the move, so baby gates go up!
 

new tricks!
  

sitting up is easy now!
peek-a-boo

Sunday, August 14, 2016

Sensory play

I found these activities off Pinterest/on a blog. They are sensory & exploratory toys and games for 6-10 month olds. All of them were easy to make and fun for Will.

Squishy Bags (gallon baggie, hair gel, sequins & poms, and duct tape)
He can push around the objects inside the bag and see the cause & effect of his actions.
  


also, check out those leg rolls ;)

Colored Ice Cube Chase (water, ice cube tray, food coloring, and shallow pan)
The ice cubes moved all over the water as Will tried to grab them. He had fun chasing them around!



This seemed like a good idea to Will, until the cold got to him ;) Then he wanted out immediately!


Saturday, August 13, 2016

End of Summer & Back to Work

Whew! I never knew you could miss a little person so much! I went back to work this past Monday for three inservice days & students on Thursday and Friday. This means that Will went off to childcare instead of being at home all day.

Monday was a ROUGH morning for me! First off, Will decided this would be the day he wanted to wake up at 6am and cry cry cry (he normally wakes about 7am). I was just getting up myself and starting to get ready. Bret had worked overtime until 4am and (thankfully) went in a held Will until I was ready for work. Not sure how the morning would have gone if it would have been one of Bret's work-til-8am mornings. I was fine driving over to Will's at-home childcare and even with the physically dropping him off; Will was smiles the whole time. But once I was back in the care alone, I just got so sad (and am sad even typing this!!). I headed to work and there was a train on the way, so I had a quick cry session while I waited to be on my way again. Our meetings that day gave me a distraction from missing Will constantly and his childcare provider sent me a few pictures which made me happy. Sidenote: his childcare provider watches only teachers kiddos, so there are three other teacher's kids at my school who go there as well. She is super highly recommended & I am so happy she had an opening for my babe.

In my opinion, it is important for kiddos to see both parents work. Not only for financial reasons, but for Will to see that men & women both serve a need in the workplace. I love that I had the entire summer with him, getting to know his little personality and seeing how much he grew in those short months. But I want to be a teacher as well. I want to be with my third graders during the day & with my baby in the evenings.

On Monday after work!
Tuesday: We were so happy to see each other again after childcare!
He snuggled with me to sleep! This hadn't happened in MONTHS!!
When did he stop being a little baby?!



"Why is there a gate here?"

Hangin' out with dad

Helping mom organize for school
  
Mom is a jungle gym now
wherever mom is, I want to be there

newest trick
peek-a-boo
Beginning of summer: May 2016
End of summer: August 2016