Busy little boy!

Since my last post, Gavin has been a busy little boy.  He celebrated, well not really, Valentine's Day; had his first table food; started drinking from his sippy cup, sort of, and moved up classrooms. The first three happened all on the same day!  He is also increasing his daredeviledness, which is giving me ulcers.

I was worried that Valentine's Day would sort of suck this year for two reasons, one it was on Monday and who in the world feels romantic on Monday, especially during tax season. And number two, although I love Gavin more than life itself, a child does not add to the romantic mood, in the least :-).  But I should have known that Clay would go above and beyond as always and make me feel super special and loved.  We had a good time sharing our "romantic" dinner with Gavin and seeing how much he enjoyed his first table food and dinner sitting with the family.  Clay and I had tilapia and crab cakes with green beans, Gavin had to settle for green beans, cheese and fruit.  Not that he knew he was settling.

This boy LOVES cheese.  We had to start weaning him off by the end of the week because he pretty much stopped going to the bathroom :-).  Guess we went a little overboard, imagine that!

 I was really excited that he started to eat regular food because that meant that we could start eating together as a family at the table and not stuffing our faces from the couch while watching TV.  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE to watch TV, but lately I feel like that is all we do from the moment Gavin and I get home until we go to bed.  I don't want to be that family that has no idea what is going on in each others lives but could tell you the entire familial history of certain TV characters.  Clay thinks I am over reacting a bit but he is fully supporting me.  Which is CRUCIAL since it is he who cooks our dinner and now has to have it pretty much ready as soon as I get home to keep Gavin from melting down from hunger/impatience.

Gavin's favorite table food so far has been tilapia, cheese, black eyed peas, asparagus, and Smokin Pig BBQ :-).  These also happen to be some of my most favorite foods!  He still eats his fruits, but seems to be most interested in meat and veggies, also like his Momma.

Thought this was a funny picture of him with asparagus in his nose!

This is just a really good and cute picture of him and his favorite playmate Daddy!

Look at that shirt, isn't it adorable!!

Gavin also moved up classrooms last week, on Tuesday I think, not that it really makes a difference.  Apparently Monday he was trying to play with one of the babies that was in a bouncy seat and almost flipped him/her out!  So he got to move up to the creepers room, which made me sad because we all LOVE Ms. Amanda who has been keeping him since he started, she treats him like he is one of her own and has tons of great advice.  A plus to him moving up is Ms. Mae who has also kept him in the late afternoons since he started and we all LOVE her also, now she keeps him from 12:30 on. In fact Gavin loves her so much that he has separation anxiety if she leaves before he does in the afternoon!  How sweet!! Although, he doesn't even do that with us, so what does that say???

 An unintended downside to him changing rooms is that he has pretty much quit napping.  Normally he sleeps from about 9 - 10 and then from about 1 - 3.  His morning nap has completely disappeared and his afternoon nap was down to a whole 30 minutes yesterday!!  This is not going to work, I am not sure what the problem is but it MUST be resolved!!! I put Clay in charge of talking to them about it this morning :-).  I need my good napper back because there is no way we can deal with him getting into this habit and then not napping on the weekends either.

The weather has been so wonderful lately that we have been able to go on walks on the weekends and let Gavin have play time outside better known as Gavin eating grass time. Isn't he precious!!!  

One other thing I have failed to mention in previous posts is Gavin's love of his toothbrush which I count as a huge blessing.  He is stubborn though and likes to do it, or chew on it, himself, but what the heck, at this point I'm just glad that they are getting brushed at all.  Clay and I don't look so hot in the pictures but Gavin is so cute with his toothbrush, I have to post anyway.

9 months

Just keeping it real

Well, my big ole baby turned 9 months old on Saturday.  It is so hard to believe that he is growing so darn fast!  It really seems almost like yesterday that it was last tax season and I was counting down the weeks/months until he was born.  I know that people say you get pregnancy amnesia but so far it hasn't taken over yet.  Don't get me wrong, I would love to have at least one more kid, but leaning heavily towards adoption instead of birthing.

Gavin has seemed to really made a lot of progress this month.  I'm not really sure if it is just because this is a speedy development time for him or if he finally has felt good enough to get more active.  Don't get me wrong, he has never been a sluggish baby, he has always been a mover.  But this month he has taken it to an entirely new level.  It is like he is at 150% pretty much his entire waking life.  It is a lot of fun but also extremely exhausting and I know that this is only the beginning!

The tubes he had put in his ears in late January, haven't been a miraculous cure like they seem to have been for a lot of the kids we know, but the two ear infections he has had since then have been easily taken care of and I would assume a lot less painful since there is no pressure.  He did go almost an entire week without having a cough or a runny nose after they put them in, but since then it has been back to normal :-(.  Oh well, I know he will grow out of it eventually.

Gavin started trying to pull up when we took our trip to the mountains, but really mastered it this past month. A couple of weeks ago, I walked into his room after he woke up to get him out of bed and he was standing up in his crib holding onto the rails.  I knew it was on then. He pulls up on absolutely EVERYTHING, no matter how wobbly, how sharp or hard the corners are, and no matter what the risk of bruising.  He has also learned to cruise or walk holding on to things, he also does not care  what it is he is holding on to and if it will move as soon as he puts any pressure on it.  Clay and I just know that someone is going to think we are abusing our sweet boy since he is so incredibly pasty white like his Mom and bruises show up so easily.

Below are a few pictures I took with my phone which as you can see doesn't always get the clearest ones.  But I wanted to post as an example of just what he will pull up on and try to cruise on.  For those who don't know what that is that he is hanging onto, it is a jumper and that piece in the middle is as unstable as you can get!

One thing he has really started doing that is dangerous is flipping over and trying to crawl off of everything.  He really got to be a wiggle worm in the last couple of weeks and will seriously crawl straight off the couch and has absolutely no fear!  He has also become a handful on the changing table.  He immediately starts to flip over as soon as you lay him down.  Then he likes to get on his hands and knees on the end of it and stare over the edge like he wants to leap off.  To say the least diaper changing and putting on clothes has been a new test of patience for all involved.  Good thing I just started a Bible study on the Fruits of the Spirit, one of which is patience :-).

Gavin really loves music which is great, because so do Clay and I.  He watches his Your Baby Can Read videos every morning and just claps and claps his little hands when the songs come on.  It is so precious!  He also claps when we sing songs to him that he knows or just when he seems extra pleased with himself or something we have done.

He has also developed a bit of a sense of humor.  He has been saying dada for a while now but lately he says it non-stop.  He seems to take extra pleasure in saying it right after I ask him to say mama.  I wish I could describe well in words the pause he takes after I say mama and then his response with a mischievous glint in his eye, "Dada".  Little monster, you can tell he knows exactly what he is doing.  But he is so darn cute, that I can't possibly hold it against him.  Especially when I pick him up and he gives me a big hug.

I couldn't quite capture it in the video below but here is an excerpt of his daily conversation

His food has expanded to more finger foods.  He had his first cheese this month but his favorites are still veggies.  I have purchased almost every kind of sippy cup sold trying to get him to latch on, but as of Saturday no luck.  In the past week, he has really cut back on his formula consumption.  Our baby boy who normally loves to eat and never misses an opportunity to do so, has self reduced his intake big time.  It seems like he has become more interested in playing and getting into things than eating.  Don't worry, he is still getting plenty to eat believe me, but now instead of being at the top end of the spectrum for food intake recommendations he is at the lower end.  One item he has increased his consumption of is paper.  This boy likes to chew on paper like it is gum!  Which is kind of a problem because Clay has a bad habit of using half of a roll of paper towels and leaving them in various places.  So Gavin has quite a selection of paper to choose from.

First Cheese!  

Gavin wasn't in a particularly great mood when I took his monthly birthday pictures so I didn't get a lot of great smiles, mostly what I would call "thoughtful" expressions :-)  Since he insists on tearing up my paper each month, I decided to try something new and tape it on something he couldn't reach.  I think it is so funny how he rides with one arm on the handle bar and the other just hanging.  Like he is a teenager cruising in some car.

His "I am too cool for this" look

Finally, a sweet smile!

I imagine we will see this disgusted look many, many times in the coming years.

 And finally just some sweet and cute pictures from later that day when we were playing outside.  I couldn't choose which ones were my favorites so I just posted all of them.

Trying to figure out how he will get the paper out of Clay's hand.

Decides to just chew on Clay instead

Random pictures

Some cute pictures from the past week or two

Gavin's first sucker, thanks to Granny Kay.

 Fun times at the Valwood playground

The shirt says it all!!

My terrible attempt to catch him pulling up on something 2/1/11

His first bite of cheese!  Boy did he like it!! 2/4/11

Gavin really started pulling up all the way to standing on absolutely everything last week.  I am so scared that he is going to seriously hurt his self because that kid has no fear.  He also has a few bruises to prove his daredevilness.

Blessed!!

I know that I can never say it enough but I am truly Blessed!  The Lord has bestowed on me an abundance of blessings.  Clay is a wonderful husband, the best that there is and Gavin is SUCH a good baby.  I have known this since he was born but each time he exceeds my already high expectations I am reminded of what a blessing he is to Clay and I both.

His latest act of exceptional behavior was Saturday. First a little background, for those of you not aware, I have begun the wonderful tax season tradition of working until lunch  on Saturdays.  So when it occurred to me Thursday night that Gavin had no pants or shoes to wear to our first family portrait session and that he would be in no mood for shopping after I got off work Friday, the shopping responsibility fell on Clay and Gavin for Saturday morning.  I wasn't too concerned with the purchases, Clay has good taste and I knew he understood how important this was to me.  I was more concerned with keeping Gavin on his "schedule" because I had scheduled the pictures so he would get a decent afternoon nap and hopefully not need a bottle during the session.  Well of course my well laid out plan got blown all to bits mainly due to having to squeeze a shopping trip in between feedings and a morning nap.

So poor Gavin got short changed on his morning nap and to make matters worse he got shorted at least an hour on his afternoon nap.  So I was saying some major prayers that the photography session go quick before my child had a much deserved melt down from his lack of sleep.  I think I forgot to mention the portrait sitting was at our church, they are doing directory pictures but will also allow you to do different poses and buy the prints.  So we wake Gavin up as late as possible and break our necks to get him into his WHITE button down shirt, pants and cute little big boy shoes.  I immediately put his body bib on him to hopefully save us from any spit-up or drooling stains.  We had tried to give Gavin his bottle before his nap but since he had eaten so soon before he wouldn't really take it so we were forced to give it to him on the way to church which normally wouldn't be a problem except that lately he has developed this nasty habit of turning the bottle upside down and watching the milk pour out on his lap.  And of course he did it this time also, luckily I caught him quickly enough to keep it from soaking through his body bib.

We actually arrive about 10 minutes early for our session so I was pretty happy thinking we shouldn't have to wait long and we could be out of there, go grocery shopping and be home before Gavin needed to eat again.  Luckily the Lord told me to bring an empty bottle and some formula just in case. I immediately realized something was amiss when the two LoL's (little old ladies) that were supposedly checking people in ignored me for 10 - 15 minutes even though there was no one standing in line in front of me.  Finally the one that was apparently in charge told me, sweetly,  to have a seat that this would take a while.  So when I sat down in a chair next to her I noticed her checking names off of what appeared to be the schedule.  Our appointment time was at 2:40, guess what time she had finally just checked off......1:40.  Meantime Clay has taken Gavin to the bathroom to change what was almost a disaster of a blowout.  Another Praise the Lord moment that it didn't leak out too much :-).  So I finally get checked in which consisted of her putting my name and address on a form and me signing it a little after 3.  I mean seriously what in the world about that could take over 30 minutes??

Anyway, so there are two families in front of us.  I still think to myself how long can this possibly take?  There are two photographers it appears so I figure one is probably taking the pictures while the other manipulates you into buying 3 dozen different poses afterwards.  I was so wrong, so, so, so wrong.  After the first of the two families in front of us go back, we wander around until we found a room with kids movies on and a couple we know from SS that were the other couple in front of us.  So we get to chatting and come to find out their appointment was at 1:40 and here it is 3:15 or so and they still haven't gotten their pictures taken.  The little brochure we got said to plan for the entire process of check-in, pictures, and portrait selection to take about an hour.  Nothing was mentioned about having to wait an hour before all that began.  So at 3:45 when they still haven't gone back, Clay and I are getting a bit testy.  I just know Gavin is seconds away from melting down because why wouldn't he be, he has had almost no sleep and been in a room with no toys and only another 6 year old to entertain him.  So fast forward 15 more minutes and the family in front of us finally get called back.  At this point we have been there for an hour and a half and I am about to lose it.  I mean if that 2nd of the 2 families takes as long as the 1st one did that means it will be at least another 45 minutes.  I sweetly ask Clay to go inquire of the photographers as to how much longer this was going to take.  He comes back with some snarky answer about how it won't take 5 minutes once we get our picture taken or something like that.  I am fit to be tied and just waiting for Gavin to unleash the fury.  Praise the Lord that the 2nd of the two families was in no mood for multiple poses or picture packages by the time they got in there because we got called back no 15 minutes after they went back.

So we finally get out of there about 4:30 and head to Wal-mart because neither of us are in the mood to go home and then try and make another trip back to the grocery store later.  If we were not out of everything necessary for life we would have just skipped the trip altogether.  When we pulled up I noticed that Wal-mart seemed a bit busy for middle of the afternoon on a Saturday.  Boy was that an understatement!  That place was a freaking madhouse!!!  Millions of people everywhere.  So of course what should have been a short trip of grocery shopping turned into another almost two hour event.  And Gavin still hasn't had a nap, thankfully I had brought that emergency bottle along so he could at least have something to eat.  Gavin entertained the entire store with his talking and smiles and thoroughly enjoyed his people watching.  He also pulled his bottle trick and dumped out an ounce or two on the floor before some sweet employee called my attention to it.  She was so nice and instead of making me wait and clean up my child's mess, she told me to go on and she would handle it!  

So we finally get home at almost 7!  For those of you with children you know that an almost 9 month old who has not had a nap in 5 hours and the naps he had earlier were much shorter than usual, should be past, I mean way past the point of no return by now.  But not Gavin he is just as happy as can be and joyfully entertains the household for another 30 minutes or so until the inevitable sets in and he loses it.

Sorry for the super long post about a Saturday afternoon.  But I just couldn't get across how good a baby Gavin is in just a few short words :-)