Nakey Eating Baby

We've started feeding this guy clothes-less. This is a Montessori philosophy that is rooted in the fact that dressed, bibbed babies can't tell when they spill foods. This makes developing a cause-effect relationship during eating much more difficult. When you spill cold water on your chest and it's bare, YOU KNOW! So we'll feed him in his diaper at home so that he can begin making the connection. He already gasps when his water spills down his chin onto his chest. :)

Mmmm, carrot!

While weeding on Thursday I accidently pulled out a whole carrot. I cleaned it off, steamed it in the microwave, cooled it, and gave it to Beck to munch. He spit out all the pieces he bit off, but he got good practice at holding his own food, chewing, and dealing with chunkier food. He LOVED it and was so excited! He also dropped it a gazillion times. Wet carrots are slippery!

And Alie took care of clean up.

5 Months

Beckyboo is 5 months old!

Eating:
He is a very eager eater! Foods he's had so far include avocado, sweet potato, pear, banana (may be allergic--had a red rash after eating for a couple days so we stopped and will try again another time and see if rash repeats), brown rice cereal mixed with prune juice, and for finger foods he's had some tiny pieces of wheat bread, gnawed on a whole-wheat cracker and chewed on a whole steamed carrot. He drinks water during each meal. His BIG accomplishment this month is that, after ADAMANTLY giving up the bottle, he started drinking formula out of a sippy cup. Last Friday night I shot a wedding and Matt's mom kept him from about 2pm until the evening. I knew he'd have to take milk somehow, and we were not having any success with the bottle. He screamed bloody murder the second he SAW a bottle. Some friends of ours with a baby the same age had been out of the country for a week and left their son (who also has a strong preference for nursing and refuses bottles) with his parents. I asked for tips and found out their son would drink out of a sippy cup with a hard spout--the silicon spouts were too similar to bottles and made him mad, but the hard spout was fine. They also realized he did better with the liquid Similac instead of the powered Enfamil. So I got out a hard-spouted sippy (thankfully Matt's mom had gifted him with one before he was even born and I'd put it away for when he was bigger) and bought some liquid formula. He took to it instantly and now is no problem at all to leave him longer than 3 hours.
He is still nursing about every 3 hours, sometimes a little longer during the day if he's eaten a lot of food. We usually feed him twice a day, and try to time his eating times with our meals. We want to start teaching him about mealtime and I don't really believe in doing the "feed the baby separately" thing. It takes up too much time and I also love for him to be a part of the rest of us eating, and there's no reason he can't be at the table with us. So we just put him in his little seat that hooks on the table and take turns feeding him bites. We did this with Quinn too and really loved that we never had to play the "tag team eating" game with one of us having to feed the baby first. We just fed her along with us. And as he eats more finger foods we'll offer those while we eat, too. We've started feeding him shirtless to help him make the connection between spilled food and the way it feels on his chest.

Sleeping:
He's still in his cradle, still swaddled, still taking paci, still loves his heartbeat bear, and still puts his little lovee over his face while he sleeps...or half his face, actually. He sleeps from about midnight till 6am-ish, nurses, goes back to sleep until 9:30 or 10. He is up for about an hour and then takes his morning nap--2 to 3 hours. Then he's up for a couple hours and takes an afternoon nap--2 to 3 hours. Then he either takes an early evening nap or we just put him to bed earlier. We have been trying to time the kids' bath time together to not use as much water and maximize our time. Then we all do books/prayer time in Q's room and he goes to bed. He usually wakes up around 11pm-ish and nurses and acts cute for about an hour--it's our time to really enjoy him one-on-one, and then he goes back to sleep.
He's gotten old enough that if we are out and about he will often stay awake and alert the whole time, wanting to see what's going on, even if it intrudes on nap time. Not always, but more and more often.
He goes to bed and naps so easily--we just lay him down and he puts himself to sleep. I have Q's bow organizer hanging on the back of the bathroom door and he can see it from his cradle, so usually he falls asleep staring at all her colorful hair things!

'Talking':
He makes lots of sweet baby sounds, can scream really shrilly, can do "cranberries," makes an "mmmmmm" sound, smacks his lips, and coos. He will look at us and want our attention and if he doesn't get it, he'll start making cooing sounds. Also if we look at him, he'll smile and coo in response. When he is eating he will make a sound if he wants more food and we're not feeding him fast enough. We are starting to introduce the signs "more," "eat," and "water" with him during mealtimes. He smiles super easily. I love that!

Moving Around:
He can roll from front to back in both directions super fast and multiple times, so he uses a series of rolls to get where he wants. If he runs into something and gets "stuck" it makes him really mad and he screams or cries. He usually wants to be on his stomach so he can see around. He can roll all around the room! I've seen him trying to push his arms and legs, so crawling isn't that far away. Yikes. He likes to stand on your lap and jumps up and down. He wants to be facing out when carried so he can see the world, but will still snuggle when he's in the mood. I put his little arms over my shoulders and he will hold onto me like he's hugging. He is a big wiggle worm and everyone who holds him comments on that. He is into a stage now where he uses his right arm extended and slaps his leg with it over and over. Or when I am nursing he slaps me repeatedly. I know he's trying to tune in his gross motor skills in his arms and make the connections between his brain and arm muscles to coordinate movement. He also pinches, and loves to pinch me when he's nursing or playing with me.

Playing:
He likes his playgym still, loves looking in his mirror, has to have SOMETHING in his mouth to gum on at all times. He likes his green gnome, his carrot rattle, his wooden teething ring, his piggie.....He likes to be with Q as long as she doesn't get in his face too much. She is a little loud for him quite often and he doesn't love it. He also loves to touch the dog and cat and watch them whenever they're in the room. He loves for me to sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and do some movements I always do with it. He likes to look at board books, he loves swinging, and he still enjoys being in the wrap. He likes to roll around on the floor in the studio when Q and I work. He likes me to "eat" his neck and it makes him giggle like crazy. He also likes he to hold him over my head and that causes giggles, too. He loves being on the dresser where we change him. That ALWAYS puts him in a good mood....not sure why. :)

He smiles whenever he sees Daddy.

He's moving into quite a bit of 6 month clothes.

I tell Matt every day that I want 5 more Beck's. He is SOOOOOO sweet and SOOOOO cute and we are having so much fun with him!

Diaper-changing Daddy

Birthday Weekend

For my birthday a sweet friend planned a birthday picnic in the park. The weather was gorgeous, the food was yummy and we had a great time! Here's our attempt at a timer picture. :)

And....
Friday night some of our favorite friends came to town. We had birthday pizza at Guidos and then came home and I got some presents, ate the birthday cookie Matt and Quinn made (all of it...half for the kids, half for me...not joking...) and once the kids were in bed I stayed up talking with Carly until 3:45 on the AM! Our hubbies were crazy impressed with us and our staying up/talking abilities! It was the PERFECT way to end my birthday! Saturday we ate breakfast and lunch together and the kids played and played (and got along!!) and played. Here's Q in her new skirt...Somehow SHE scores presents in my birthday packages, too. ;)

One of my new projects is making "Babylegs" from adult knee socks. These are one of my creations she is wearing:

I will get Matt to upload the birthday cookie video he made of the kids singing to me. :)

Swaddle Baby

I made the little name pennants before Beck was born....so I made one with our girl name and our boy named and planned to take a picture at the birth center with the correct name on the door. That obviously didn't happen, so plan B involves putting his name up over his bed! I moved the banner from his cradle to his bedroom today!

Butterflies!

A while back (like many weeks ago) we caught some caterpillars and put them in Q's bug box. We kinda forgot about them. Last night I was taking stuff out of the washer and some movement on top of the dryer caught my eye--the butterflies had hatched in the bug box! So this morning Q released them! She was so gentle with them and found the plant to release them on where we'd found them since we know they like those leaves for their eggs.

Okay, her hands seriously look like mine in this picture.....I never realized ours were the same shape.....

Quinn....as of late

Here's a little update on Quinn....

She loves berries and fruit--she can put away a pint of blueberries, blackberries or raspberries in one sitting. Also loves kiwi, pear, apple, grapefruit. Not a huge fan of bananas.

She loves yogurt (especially with granola), oatmeal, any type of nuts (cashews, walnuts, pecans, peanuts, sunflower seeds, soy nuts, almonds, pumpkin seeds....), hummus, crackers, granola bars, milk, sweet potato fries, french fries, mac and cheese, and her all time favorite is gingerbread!

She can set the table and she can make her own oatmeal which involves measuring out 1/4 c. oatmeal, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/8 tsp salt, and 1 T brown sugar. She is also a pretty helpful cook when I can convince her not to eat what we're making.

She sneezes several times each morning and they are snotty and gross. We've been working hard to get her to cover her sneezes.

She can brush her hair herself and has started washing her own hair and body in the bath....She can also get herself out and dry off and get dressed all on her own. She likes to pick her own hair clips and put them in herself.

She is doing great with the big bed in her room! She hasn't fallen off or had any problems at all. She HATES sleeping under covers, so she just sleeps on top of everything with her two small blankets on top of her and Pig next to her. She falls asleep with a little nightlight and usually some soft music on.
She wakes up between 8-9 each morning and is happy to play for about 30 minutes in her room before she comes out.

She LOVES school and is just fine with me leaving her there. Her favorite person is Mr. Ryan, the guy in charge of the building and grounds. She has to hide her face from him every time she sees him, and the second we pull into the parking lot she starts wondering where he is. She also really likes her two teachers and is learning a lot at school! She has started wanting to help me pack her lunch the day before and have a say as to what goes into it.

She hates for Matt to say, "Big trouble in Little China" when she's done something wrong--she'll burst into tears and get very upset. We think it's pretty hilarious.

She has a maniacal laugh that she can turn on that drives us up the wall. Also a 'fffffffffff" sound she does right in our faces that is super annoying. Some days Matt and I are convinced she couldn't find more annoying sounds if she tried. However she can also say the sweetest things to her brother and makes up precious little songs for him when she's playing with him or he's upset.

We've been working on obeying (like as in today....right now...not on her schedule) and telling the truth. We've also had some tantrums, which usually occur when she is really tired, because no matter how tired she is she still will not take a nap. She does have an hour to two hour rest/quiet time in her room. It's not really very quiet because she sings and talks the whole time, but she does spend some time playing alone, which helps a teeny bit to give her some rest.

We've been putting her to bed earlier this month because she is seeming so tired. Actually a couple nights she's been in bed before 7 because she was just so grumpy. Again, the no nap coming into play.

She is obsessed with hiding from Daddy every night, starting about an hour before he gets home. She's really into hiding from people she likes, especially guys. I guess it's her way of playing hard to get.

She is reading so much environmental print and knows all the common brands she sees on stuff. She can tell by the labels which generic items come from HEB and which are from Walmart. She can identify all her letters and tell almost all the sounds (if she's in the mood....). She can write a bunch of letters and her whole name. She can count to the teens, still gets mixed up in the middle of the teens. She can recognize all her single digit numbers written and calls 11 "one-one." She saw it today and she said, "Next we need one-two (twelve)." She has started saying, "Mom, what does 'AFMGDR' spell?" And she doesn't understand when I tell her "nothing."

She loves playing Memory and has 3 memory games. We cannot convince her to stop dumping ALL the games together at once, though, which is annoying to sort them all out again. She really doesn't fully understand the concept of winning and even competing, but she is really starting to enjoy playing simple games. She also has a dice game that uses cats and mice.

She loves putting Alie's leash on her in the house and dragging her all around (which she isn't allowed to do). So she's started tying scarves on Alie like a leash.

She calls Grandbob "Bam Bam."

She wants Beaux to sleep in her room every night. Sometimes he cooperates, sometimes he doesn't. He's a cat, after all.

She really wants to put her carseat straps on herself, but sometimes takes a long time so we have to help, which makes her really upset. Not matter how tight they are, they're always "
toooo tight, toooo tight, tooo tight." Matt has made up an arbitrary number for the tightnesses and she always asks for whatever tightness she wants. Which just means he puts it how he wants and makes her think she's getting her way.

She LOVES singing and songs. She makes up her own songs all the time. She loves the Seeds cd in the truck. She also likes putting on cds in her playroom. She has recently discovered Dr. Jean and likes her stuff.

She has about 6 Bibles, all of which she keeps on a shelf next to her bed. Every night she knows exactly what story she wants to be read. Sometimes she and Daddy go through the Bibles in order from OT to Nt, but other times she makes requests for particular stories. Lately it's been Jesus on the Cross or Mary--when she comes to the empty tomb. She has been asking a lot of faith questions and she's really perceptive about what she hears in the Bible and hears us saying. She's started talking about Heaven and the Devil and has lots of questions about both.

Her favorite books are still the fairy tales (Jack and the Beanstalk has recently made the list), she also likes the Jan Brett books THE HAT and THE MITTEN. We've been doing a winter/snow/snowmen unit casually at home and so we're reading lots of wintery books.

Honey (one of her dolls) is Q's alter-ego. Everything Q ever gets in trouble for Honey seems to do a couple days later. Q can go on and on about all the things Honey has done or what Honey's mom told her. It's pretty funny.

Quinn is in love with watching birds and squirrels out her window each morning. She can give us a full report of the on-goings of the backyard.

She can make us roll on the floor laughing and want to pull our hair out in frustration in the same 5 minutes. She can be the sweetest little girl in the world and then do or say something just to hurt your feelings....And there are definitely days we enjoy her more than others. We are working hard to try and teach her to have the heart of God while not squelching the personality He gave her. She definitely keeps us on our toes, this little girl of ours!

Playing together.

Which usually involves her covering him with a huge pile of blankets. Which he does not seem to mind. And then wrestling around with him. Which he also does not seem to mind.

But he still loves his cradle..

He has actually not slept in his own room yet. He sleeps SO WELL in his little corner of our room in the cradle. He loves being nestled down with his heartbeat bear turned on and a soft burp cloth over part of his face to burrow into. I think he might be part vampire because he doesn't like any light in his eyes when he sleeps--he finds some way to burrow his face or cover his eyes. He will generally go right to sleep when I lay him down according to the formula. When I can tell he's tired he gets swaddled and a paci, burpcloth and bear and he's out like a light!
I know his cradle days are coming to an end and he's getting ready for his big room....so I had to snap a picture!
And we can't keep him swaddled--the small ones are way too tight and the large ones are so big he can escape easily. Why aren't there medium swaddles? I remember the same problem with Quinn, too.
And what's up with the hot nights? We've been putting him to bed in just a diaper because he gets too hot in his swaddle if he has pjs on. This is the strangest January ever!

On his bed....

I finished up most of Beck's room last week. For now I am not going to use the crib--we're going to stick with the mattress as a pallet for him. If we decide we need it at some point we'll get it down from the attic and paint it. I had considered going Montessori all the way with Q and just using a pallet, but I was too excited to use the crib. This time around we're gonna give it a go and see how it works, with the crib always an option if we need it.

He is very much mobile now! He can roll wherever he wants to go in a series of rolls, and I have seen him trying to scoot himself forward with his knees a few times today. Yikes.

Little guy

Likes to have something to play with in his carseat now....

And also quite enjoys a nice swing!

Our fashionista

Complete with the tongue.
I am doing a camera phone dump if you didn't notice by now. :) Time to catch up!

Starbucks

One day last winter I had some errands to run and it was a cold day, so I got Q and I Starbucks at Kroger. Matt and I try to be good and we only get Starbucks with our respective Prayer Groups on evenings when they meet....so that was a rare treat for Quinn. She has never forgotten it and asks for Starbucks every time we pass one. I had been promising her that the next Thursday it was cold we'd go get hot chocolate. And of course this has been the winter of the 60 degree days....So a couple weeks ago it was FINALLY a little chilly on a Thursday and she requested Starbucks. In we go (to an actual store, not Kroger). It was packed with people studying, having meetings, etc. All that was left was one table--the high ones with the really high stools. Lovely. So Quinn scales her chair and sits precariously on one edge...then the other....and I am nursing Beck in the other chair...all while reading books and trying not to get my super hot tea anywhere near Q (on a teeny tabletop). Here she is with one of the books about Winter that had a picture of a wolf in it. So...fast foward. We read our books, she drinks her cocoa, I just look longingly at my tea, because I am holding Beck and trying to keep Q in her seat and read aloud all at once. We finish our books and are ready to leave and Q gets upset about something (probably actually NOTHING) because it's well into naptime and she's tired from school all day. So she throws a screaming, on the floor fit at Starbucks. All studying/meeting/reading patrons are staring at me as I drag her out the door, with Beck flopping under the other arm. And yup, she does have the audacity to ask me, when we get to the car, if we can come to Starbucks again next Thursday. Um, no. She won't be setting foot in another Starbucks until she can drive herself there. :)

Bear Tea/pj day

Last Thursday Q's school had pj day/bear tea party day, complete with breakfast for lunch of pancakes, sausage and juice! Mommy wasn't up to snuff on laundry, so all the pj's that are Q's favorites were in the dirty laundry, so she wasn't thrilled with the ones she wore. She got over it, though. She chose Army Bear that Aunt Meg and Uncle Matt sent from Germany to take for the tea party. So Uncle Matt will be proud to know that Army Bear drank out of the little flowery teacups like a gentleman.

Of course the tongue.

Notice the shoes on the wrong feet. Which is surprising...Q is the pickiest person about her shoes in the world. EVERY time she puts them on she starts yelling, "too tight, too tight," and kicks them right off again. No matter if they are super loose and too big. Then her socks have to be lined up just so and the laces or velcro have to be super loose. So I was surprised she could handle the way wrong-footed shoes feel.....

Guarding the diaper laundry