Chris's Day to Shine

Chris had his six month check-up this morning. All's well physically- we confirmed again he's a BIG boy

2 feet 4.5 inches = 99%ile

19lbs. 3oz = 80%ile

I've reported recently that he can sit on his own and babbles a lot. He also has 2 bottom teeth and will probably cut the top two in January if I had to guess. The teeth and the sitting surprised and impressed the pediatrician as he's early for both.

He babbles, as I mentioned, and mom teased me last night if his "dadadada"'s count as his first word or if I'm waiting for "mamamamama" before it counts. ha. ha. :P No, I'm not counting it as he clearly has no idea what he's saying, he's just making noise. Cute but just noise nonetheless.

Nicole was a great baby, or so I thought. Truly though, Christopher IS a great baby. He only cries when he's tired or hungry and when you lay him down he falls alseep on his own. Obviously he's a good eater. :) So far he's had avacado, blackberry, rice cereal, carrots, & banana. We'll be trying yellow squash for the first time tonight. He's also a wonderful cuddler much to my joy.

I'm SO in love with this baby! Maybe because psychologically I know he's the last baby we [intend to] have. Maybe because he's just so easy to take care of that I'm appreciative he fits so well into our busy life schedule. Maybe because I'm more comfortable being a parent and can enjoy the ride more than I did the first time with a 6-month old. Maybe because he still clearly prefers me to anyone else and it makes me swell with loving him back. But WOW, even more than his sister at this age Chris consumes my heart.

Bragging about Nicole Today, Chris Tomorrow

I get these weekly updates from BabyCenter.com that I've found very useful. I got this one about Nicole and out loud said "what?!"

Let's Get Verbal
At 30 months, your child can name a few body parts, some colors, or even a friend or two. Her memory and speaking ability work in tandem. If she says "dog sleep" you might say "yes, Spot is asleep on the doggy bed". She can't imitate your complex language patterns yet, but her brain is absorbing them. Every time you repeat her words or expand on them you're helping her memory practice.

OK, I know every mother thinks her child is brilliant but if this is all Nicole is "supposed" to be able to do then WOW, my kid is smart.

Allow me to brag:

• Nicole knows every body part, even obscure ones like "heel" or "armpit" and has for 8+ months.
• She knows all major colors (pink, purple, gray, brown, black, etc.)
• We routinely talk about other kidS in her class and what they did or wore that day.
• She always speaks in complete sentences, often with adjectives.
• She sings multiple verses of songs unprompted and unaided by Jim or I
• She changes the inflection of her voice given her mood or intention. For example she'll sternly tell Jim "don't eat my cookie" if she has to leave it unattended.

What she doesn't yet know that becomes obvious the more she interacts with Chris is the pronoun "his". She's got "hers" down pat but mis-uses "him". For example, "Chris dropped him toy." Our approach is to repeat the exact sentence she just said but use "his" instead and really stress it.

One thing she has gotten down that I'm proud of is relationships. If I ask her about who her cousins are she can rattle off several. She knows who my brothers are, who her dad's mom is, etc. She's not perfect in her answers 100% but normally will hit about 9/10 of them.

Breastfeeding

Mom and Dad kept Nicole while we went out of town for my company Christmas party. Nicole was Mom's shadow all weekend and followed her upstairs to get dressed. Before my mom put her shirt on Nicole touched her bra and asked, "You have Grandma milk?"

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Yeah, I know this is personal but it's my blog so I'm allowed to be personal.

I really don't like pumping. I especially don't like pumping at work.

At home I see it as something functional - gathering back-supply for Chris most often. It's not something I really want Jim to watch, not because I'm embarrassed but because I don't want him to think of my breasts in a milk-producing way. I want him to only associate my breasts with sex (how's that for blunt?).

I don't like pumping at work because I have to lock the door and pull the shades and all my co-workers automatically know what I'm doing. Again, I'm not embarrassed but I worry THEY are embarrassed. Further, I do feel guilty about the 20 minute, 2-times a day break I have to take to accommodate it.

Last, pumping in general isn't fun. I don't have hands to really do anything. I can't type and to read anything online I have to do this balancing act to free up a hand to scroll my mouse.

Love my kid. Love the nutrition he gets from breast milk. SOOOOOOO looking forward to a Christmas break of no pumping.

Starting in the new year Chris will move to a eating schedule that only includes nursing when I'm doing it, not milk from a bottle. I'm already excited and I don't feel guilty about moving him to a permanent formula injection into his diet.

• He'll be 6 months old tomorrow which was my base goal for breastfeeding.
• I think formula is just fine
• I'll still be feeding him 4X/day
• He eats 5-6 oz at a time and I can't always collect that much pumping
• He's eating baby food (avocado, blackberry, banana, & rice cereal so far)

Hooray for vacation and all the many and different ways it'll release stress.

In the Christmas Spirit

Last night we took the kids and my mom out on a Christmas adventure. We first stopped at our church for the live nativity. Nicole had no fear of the animals and, in fact, was very eager to let the goats eat cornmeal out of her hand.

After that the next stop was to a private residence near my grade school. My mom's bank customer put out 160,000 lights (all very tastefully done I might add) and the wife and next door neighbor dress up as Santa and Mrs. Claus and stand in the driveway for an hour and a half EVERY night for the children to wave to/visit. While Nicole did see Santa in the mall she was very shy and would only give him high-five and whisper that she wanted a "purple backpack" (like Dora). Here she was all about Santa and let him hold her and gave kisses.

I love people who are so nice and do things just because.

I know, I know...

The end of the year has me installing 2 phone systems a week which means late nights and days too full to blog. Makes me sad [too].


Some highlights since the last post which was, not coincidentally also a highlight post.


1) Chris can sit up now. His being able to do it on his own was a gradual process that was mostly me making him sit with his legs in a diamond until finally he could balance and sit straight. Sometimes he still topples but it's mostly from reaching for something and not being able to stay upright at the same time.



2) Christmas music, my favorite of all, is in full swing. I refuse to listen to anything else. I have preset 1 tuned to 98.5 and preset 2 on 99.9. If anything other than a classic that I like comes on I switch to the other station. Nicole likes the I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas song and doesn't understand why I can't play it again like i do Ice Ice Baby.



3) I tried to make cookies with Nicole like Laura did with Ella but my recipe sucked and cut-outs weren't possible without extending Nic's bedtime another half hour which I wasn't willing to do. They taste okay and she did have fun decorating them (and then sneaking the toppings off when I'm "not looking"). I put a big black X over the recipe in the cookbook with a comment to the side expressing that these cookies should never again be made.



4) Mike and Lindsay agreed to be Chris's Godparents. Which we're soooo happy about! he'll be Christened on 1/10/10 and so far it appears there will be a good turnout of both sides of our family.



5) Happy Birthday, Jim! The big 3-3. Jim wanted a hand-made card from Nicole which she colored and had help writing her name on the back. We shared some ice cream once he got home from his exam. I think he did particularly well with gifts this year (a wireless router for us to play Wii with distant friends, shooting range gift pass, under-the-cabinet lights, bullets, a skillet for cooking bacon, etc.). He was very touched with all the Facebook wishes he got too.




6) I sent the "present of the year" as crowned by my father this weekend. I was quite proud of it and hope that the recipient likes it too regardless if it ever gets used. Appreciating the sentiment is enough in this case. :)




7) We're #1 in bowling due to Jen's remarkable 160's game and my bowling 95 pins over average in my series! Now if we can just hang on to our lead through April....

Catching Up

I'm working on-site on a big project so blogging hasn't been possible lately. Fortunately my at-home arrival has gone back from 10 on Monday to 6 yesterday and today. :)

Some things have been happening amongst the chaos though....

Big sister Nicole starts the dressing up of her little brother early by trying to turn him into a purple flower.

1) Chris got his first tooth on 11/23/09 which happened to be his 5 month marker. It's his bottom left and i suspect that the bottom right isn't far behind. My suspicians are two fold - 1) his gums are swollen and hard and 2) he's been and continues to blow out of his clothes on a daily basis. These teeth are costing us a fortune in laundry.....

2) Thanksgiving was nice as was my grandparents
60th wedding anniversary party. Lots of family all crammed into one weekend but there was lots to celebrate.

3) Chris rolls but I have only seen it once. I find him on his stomach in bed or when I walk back into the room after stiring the pot but I can rarely catch him doing it. Strangely this doesn't upset me....

4) Chris can hold his own bottle but I've never seen this either. Apparently he's been doing it at daycare for a few weeks and did it for Jim on Monday. I'm always nursing him so this skill doesn't really come into play when I've got him.

5) Nicole and I made some Thanksgiving crafts and gave them to family and her school teachers (who seemed to especially love them). She liked making the hand-printed turkeys so much we made a batch both Monday and Tuesday before the holiday.

6) We started feeding Chris solid food last Friday. Here's how it went:

Since we've been practicing and he's sort of got the hang of it.... he eats a tablespoon of rice cereal each night for dinner. Trick is getting his thumb out of his mouth long enough to get the food in but, I will say, the thumb-sucking does help ensure that the cereal goes down....

Oh, we had our family picture taken too: