11 month update

I don't even know where to start. Once again, Jonathan is a different baby than he was just one month ago. This is the month of learning new tricks! Haha, he's like our little puppet. He has learned so much... ahh I have so much to write about!

Dangit I still can't find this chapstick...

Let's just get right to the fun stuff.
I don't know how he learns the stuff he learns. For example, I had been trying to teach him to clap for about four months with no success, and then he just starts clapping one morning at breakfast. And, he understood right away when I said "clap" and he started clapping. THEN, I said "play the drums," (which I had never said before) and he started banging on his high chair table and will do this consistently now. He also randomly kissed me on the mouth when I said "kiss" one day. I don't know where he got this. But it is super cute. It's a big wet slobbery open-mouthed kiss. But he won't give mommy any kisses lately.

He really has some rhythm, eh?

This month he has figured out that different things have different words so we do a lot of pointing at things when we read stories. When we were on our cabin weekend, he pointed intentionally for the first time, at the ceiling fan of course (we don't have ceiling fans and he is fascinated by them whenever we are around one). He has been pointing at things non-stop since then, so we do a lot of naming things around the house as he points to them. He learns things really quickly, like today we were sitting outside and I pointed to a tree and a few minutes later I said "tree" and he pointed to it. He also likes pointing to my nose. And just a few minutes ago he did his first definite sign for "milk."

Pointing at the "tree."

The race for the first word was a close one. Mama and Dada were close contenders, but in the end, it looks like Dada will win out. Dada is still his word for excitement a lot, so we haven't officially counted it as his first word, but it pretty much is. He definitely says it in relation to Jon. Oh, and he has completely refused to say Mama for the past week or so. No big deal. I bet "ball" will be his official second word and he will just not bother saying Mama for another year or something. Cool. We also have a lot of success with "p" words like Pop and aPPle and sometimes uP. He may or may not have said Pizza at dinner tonight. He also knows our friends Barton and Sarah and we think their "names" are something like Ba and Sa.

Buds.

Still no pulling up on furniture. He loves standing up though and is getting good at it. He will cruise along furniture a little bit. He has still not figured out the crawling thing, but manages to get where he wants to go. His fine motor skills have developed a lot this month. He is so good at manipulating small objects.

He WANTS to crawl but can't figure out how to move those hands!

sleep
Still sleeping all night. Still one morning nap for 1.5-2 hours. No swaddle. Life is good.

haha--Every mama's favorite picture!

Happy boy waking up from his nap.

personality
He is getting SO independent and opinionated. And it is hilarious to watch him play with toys and put them all where he wants them, which is often behind him. When we nurse, my hands have to be in exactly the right spots and he will move them into those spots if I haven't already. He is still such an "inspector," noticing all the little details about everything around him and having to touch them all. He will study the cause and effect of so many different things. ("What will happen if I drop this pancake on the floor?" "What about if I drop this Cheerio on top of it?" "Will mommy stop being mad if I start wobbling my head around and laughing?") He's definitely a thinker and an observer. And I still describe him as so eager. Eager to play with other kids. Eager to learn to things. Eager to start the day. Eager to let go of my hands while he's walking--oh wait, that's actually called fearless. Yep. He's definitely fearless too.

I don't know if this is playing or bored.

Wishing he was playing frisbee with the big kids.

Here are some more things that I don't feel like writing into paragraphs:
-He will make an attempt at a high five. A weak attempt though.
-He likes the swings at the park.
-He will eat just about anything now. That is, I will feed him just about anything.
-He has learned to spit things out that he doesn't like.
-Still nursing.


mama time
Gosh I am so crazy about this kid. So so in love.

I'm becoming more confident about and comfortable with his pace in life. Like sometimes I get worried that he's not doing something, but then he wakes up the next morning and does it. Like with the swaddle--he all of a sudden just didn't need it, but up until that day he needed it and that's ok. We have gone through enough of these cycles that I know we will eventually get there, wherever "there" is. I freak out a little thinking about starting whole milk and decreasing nursing, but then I remember that we will get there. When will he walk? He'll get there. When will he be better at feeding himself? Eventually.

He was on a little mama strike for a while this month. Of course he still wanted to be held and nursed and loved on, but he wouldn't say mama or give me a kiss or be as excited to see me when I got home. But he knows I'm mama. He knows I'm always there. Early on this would have freaked me out--"Why doesn't he love me more!??!?" But now I'm cool with it. I guess this will be my whole mom-life. Loving him so darn much with or without anything in return. And having such a strong desire to have him close and cuddly and mine, but also being so proud when he takes a step away from me and into the world. When he learns a new thing. When he becomes increasingly independent. He knows I'm here. I know I'm here. We're a pair.

why dinnertime lasts so long...

10 month update

Jonathan is a DIFFERENT baby than he was one month ago. The changes happen every day. It is so fun! I am writing this post a few days after his ten month birthday, and I feel like he has even changed so much in just 4 days...

I can't get enough of this face.

physical

I am very happy to report that Jonathan still has only eight teeth. Whew! We needed a month off from teething! He wears 12-18 month clothes and we have been enjoying wearing all the new spring clothes we bought at a consignment sale. (Except for today when we have a ton of snow. Thanks Grammy for getting us some big boy winter clothes too!)

eating

Jonathan's big milestone in this category is that this month he learned how to chew. We have come a long way with textures this month. He actually uses his teeth to chew up goldfish and cheerios. It is cute.

He is less interested in milk these days. We do a long nursing session morning and night, but we are lucky to get 8oz in him throughout the day. Our challenge these next two months will be to keep pumping breastmilk in him before we switch to whole milk.

Wind-swept and sun-faced

sleep

Perhaps our biggest milestone this month: Jonathan David Buck Jr is now SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT. Yeeehawww. We did the cry it out method and it went really well. He only cried a few nights and only for a very short duration. I was doing a dreamfeed (picking him up while he is still sleeping and offering him a feeding while he snoozes) around 9 or 10pm for a while, but we have dropped that because now that he mostly sleeps without a swaddle, it seems to wake him up too much. Yes, that's right, most nights he is swaddle-free. We kind of let him decide whether he wants it or not. I feel relieved about that.

Everyone is excited about sleeping through the night!

Last month he was showing hints of only needing one nap, but in the past week he has pretty consistently not taken his afternoon nap even when we put him down. He just lays in there and sings to himself or plays with his bumper. It's nice now to have the flexibility to plan something out of the house all afternoon, or be able to try to get in a second nap if he is extra tired that day. I must say I'm surprised we are already at this point of one nap; I thought it wouldn't happen for a few more months. I'm also surprised that he's keeping the morning nap but chucking the afternoon one, but whatev.  

development

He is SO close to saying mama and dada in the right context. If we say it, he will look at the right person about two out of three times. He has said the words while seeming to refer to us several times, but then he just continues to babble "mamammaamma" or "daddadddaa" while he plays with his toys or something. Jon's goal is to get him saying it for real by the end of the week. Ha.

My favs.

On the motor skills front, he still isn't crawling, and I still think he won't be much of a crawler. He rolls across the room in ten seconds flat and scoots and pivots to get where he wants to go. When he's sitting up he will let himself fall down (sometimes gracefully, most often not) so that he can get to his belly to roll. He is pulling up to a stand if he uses our hands, but hasn't quite gotten a good enough grip on the furniture to do this. He likes "walking" while we hold onto his hands. (This is a major development, and a recent one. The concept of taking several steps forward was pretty absent from his brain until this weekend. He usually just got so excited to be standing that he would start bouncing and dancing and then fall down.) We continue to be amazed at his fine motor coordination. His little fingers are amazing!

personality
Along with that fine motor coordination comes a lot of "inspecting." He really likes to see how things work, and will touch things with the tips of his fingers to see what happens. Often a Cheerio will get stuck there and he will be mesmerized. He is so curious about the world and likes studying it.

This is how Jonathan "reads" books now. He loves turning it every direction to see it from all angles. He does this with other things too, but mostly books. I love seeing his little brain working and hearing him talk to the book as he's turning it.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: this child loves being silly. This month he has started to make a really loud (and kind of fake) laugh, especially when we are not paying attention to him or we have a lot of people over. If we are laughing at something else, he will do his huge laugh to join in.

He likes showing us what he wants us to do, like if he's sitting down he will reach out for your hands to pull up. Or he will move your hand out of the way if he wants to get something. He's quite opinionated, while still somehow maintaining such a sweet, laid back disposition. I could really learn something from him--he has the perfect balance!

ten-month-old mama

Part of the reason there have been so many changes this month is because Jon and I have had to make some hard choices. Not hard because the outcomes would be hard, but hard because we didn't know what the process to get to the outcomes would be. It's hard because we had to make the conscious decision to change the status quo because we thought it was best for our family. Crying it out was one example, which ended up being easy. Another example has been pushing him to eat more solid foods at the risk of him getting turned off from the eating thing all together. On the flip side, though, we have learned to trust our son even more this month. Jonathan has shown us that he is ready or not ready for a few things, which makes our decision-making job easier.

I am so proud of our son. He is so full of joy and makes our lives full of joy. Jonathan, I LOVE being your mommy!

aunt Kate!

My wonderful sister Kate was here to visit us this week. Jonathan loves her so much. We had so much fun with her and were so sad to see her leave. Here are some shots from her visit!

The trip would not have been complete without an outing to IKEA, of course.
We had fun posing Jonathan on the different furniture and taking his picture. 

This is how Jonathan probably views most of Kate's visit: 3 adults standing around and staring at him and making him do things and laughing when he does. He learned "So Big" on Kate's second day. We were all very proud of him. Now he only performs this trick occasionally, but thoroughly enjoys watching mommy and daddy wave their arms around trying to get him to comply.

We brought Kate to the famous Red Rocks amphitheater. She was a champ and carried Jonathan up all those steps. Our legs and butts were killing us once we got to the top. And Kate pretty much couldn't breathe. Thanks, Colorado air. 

Family pic.

Love this one. 

We love you and miss you already dear sister! Thanks for coming to see us!

9 month un-update

Poor baby J doesn't get a 9-month birthday. There is no February 30, so sometime this week he will just magically morph into a 9-month old. I guess you call days that are not your birthday "un-birthdays." So today we celebrate Jonathan's unbirthday and give you an unupdate. Just go with it.

physical
Any of you that read the teething post on Monday already know about our major physical change this month: four more little teeth have emerged. Actually three more. This last one is a DOOZY and has barely broken through yet. Also, he's about grown out of his 9-month clothes that he has been wearing for the past 3 months. Bummer. I am going to look for some spring yard sales to stock up on bigger clothes!

Cool dude

eating
We are giving him more grown-up foods here and there. He ate a pancake the other day. I gave him an egg yolk (not his favorite). AND we are seeing no more evidence of dairy sensitivity so we are going to try some yogurt maybe next week. {More importantly, that means..... a Dairy Queen Blizzard is in my future! And maybe also some muenster cheese. Oooh and Double Stuff Oreos dunked in REAL milk. So apparently I have been dreaming in dairy that past few months.} I still don't really know how much breastmilk he consumes during a day, but apparently it is enough. As I say every month, I had a week that I was worried about my supply (Jonathan became part piggy for several days and we got down to only THREE bags of milk left in the freezer). I started pumping on my days off and now we are back to normal.

Rockin the prune-stache

The final note about eating is that poor Jonathan gets really constipated so we are trying to figure out the best balance of fiber-y solids for him. I've been sprinkling oat bran on his baby foods. And we are looking into making some of our own food so that we can feed him some more bulk in the form of fruits and veggies. I will definitely be doing a post about all this soon, once we get some things figured out (starting solids AND constipation of course).

sleep
We thought for a few days he was showing signs of not needing his morning nap. But we were wrong. Still two naps per day (to the relief of his parents). Nights are still pretty much the same except for when this pesky tooth keeps him awake. He generally wakes once for a feeding, and sometimes another time in the early morning hours. Jon and I have been talking about doing some cry-it-out once this tooth pops through. I think we are almost ready... sigh...

He also has been wanting to be put down in his crib before he actually falls asleep. Usually we nurse to sleep at night, but he has been making it clear when he is tired and does NOT want to nurse. I feel like I sigh in relief whenever he shows us he's ready for something different; anything that cuts out the guesswork of mommying is welcome. I am honestly not sure how we will ever wean him from his swaddle. We didn't make huge efforts to do it when he was younger, and now he's just so used to it. I wonder if that will be another thing that all of a sudden he just doesn't want anymore. I don't know why I feel like it's a big deal that my 9-month-old is still swaddled for sleep when it really doesn't matter at all. Just one of my things, I guess.

This has nothing to do with sleep, but this picture is so cute I had to include it.
Jonathan got to have some long playdates this week since our friend Anna's babysitter had a family emergency.
Obviously they are in love. 

development
Ok this is the fun stuff! He is learning so many sounds. No official words yet, but if you saw one of our recent posts, I mentioned that "Mama" and "Dada" do mean specific things, they just don't refer to Jon or myself. He loves when we mimic sounds back and forth. He definitely knows his name, and will turn to us whenever we say it. He also will follow a command when he wants to. I can say "Don't drop it," when he is dangling a toy over his high chair tray, and if he's in the mood, he will move it back onto the tray.

When he feels like it, Jonathan will do a tip-on-command. 

Afterwards, he likes to talk about how proud of himself he is. 

On the motor skill front, he is a rolling champ and will get from one end of the room to another pretty easily. He looks like he is thinking about crawling, but no actual progress there. When he's on his tummy he gets distracted by things on the carpet so he can't also think about getting his butt up in the air. Speaking of things on the carpet, this is that stage. The one where parents describe their babies as floor cleaners. His pincer grasp is very developed and he enjoys trying to pick up my freckles. Trying to grasp my collar bone will also entertain him for several minutes. The best part of his fine motor skill development is PAGE TURNING. He loves loves loves turning pages. It is so cute, but has made for some very fast story-reading. He also is starting to love rolling a ball back and forth and playing peekaboo!

One of Jonathan's favorite pasttimes is choosing two toys to bang together.
It's pretty fun. You should try it. 

personality
Another thing I say in every post: this is one silly boy. He really likes when we do silly things, and it seems that he starts acting silly himself when he wants us to be silly back. He loves when we jump out of a doorway to scare him. Overall, he is still pretty patient and easy-going, but is also learning that he can yell real loud if he wants something to go his way. Distraction still works great when he's doing something he shouldn't. I have noticed a bit of stranger anxiety these past couple weeks, which I thought would maybe not ever come up for our people-loving boy. It has only been when we are in a store or something and it is really a stranger. Oh and we found out one thing that will consistently scare him: blowing your nose! Ha! I shouldn't laugh I know but it is really funny how our sweet, mostly-unphasable boy will erupt into heaving sobs if someone sniffs in a quiet room. Poor thing!

Jonathan loves playing with people's lips. Watch out if you come in our house: your lips will be targeted. We were relieved yesterday when he started to make these sounds using his own lips. Perhaps ours will get a break. 

mama time
It is really cool that Jonathan can interact and communicate with us more.  No longer does he just need 3 things (milk, sleep, poop) to make him happy. He is more complex now, and that brings a more complex side of parenting. This month I have loved that not only is he trying to communicate with me, but he also understands what we say. Remember in Mr. Holland's Opus when the mom throws a tantrum to the tune of "I can't tell him who I am. I can't tell him that I love him. I WANT TO TALK TO MY SON!" Well, I never really got it, but now I do. It means so much to see that he knows who I am. That he knows I love him. That I can tell him things and teach him things and he responds.

Just this morning, he wanted to grab his juice cup while he was drinking but I said, "No, you can't hold it while I let you drink it," and seriously he did not touch it again. When we were reading books after breakfast I said, "Wait," when he was wanting to turn the page ahead of time, and he waited. Then I said, "Turn the page," when it was time, and he turned the page. This.is.awesome.

Along with Jonathan understanding me more comes more responsibility. A good friend was sharing how she worries sometimes about how her own issues will affect her little girl. That reality is becoming more present to me. Being a mommy to Jonathan is making me, no forcing me, to be more authentic and honest, to know what I believe and the reasons for believing it, and to check my petty frustrations at the door. I don't want my kids to grow up with a mommy who is hypocritical, judgmental, impatient. I don't want my kids to think they should compare themselves to others because I have an issue with comparing. Shoot, I know I will always be a far cry from perfect, but I welcome these challenges as opportunities to see myself, see my stuff, and grow from it.

Once again, little man, I learn so much from YOU! You force me to cut the crap. You are not allowed to say crap. You free me up to be more me. I love you and I delight in you and I ENJOY your company. Daddy and I loved every minute of knowing you in my belly, and now we have known you even longer face-to-face! You light up our lives, little bundle-of-love. Happy 9-months-ish Birthday!

sounds heard round the house

Jonathan is getting better at mimicking (sp?) our sounds

He loves to laugh, but sometimes gets lazy with making an actual laugh sound. 

Gurgle sounds work just as well.

Dadadada means "I'm happy," or "I'm concentrating," or "This is fun." 

For the record, Mamama or Mememe means "I'm annoyed," or "I'm hungry," or "I'd like to stop whatever I am currently doing." I don't take offense to this.