9-Month Update and Some Catch-Up

Owen turned 9-months old yesterday, and he had his 9-month wellness visit today.  I couldn't choose the cutest picture yet again, so here is his 9-month photo collage:

Here he is at his doctor visit today:

The 9-months stats:

Weight- 17 lbs., 14 oz. (25th percentile)

Height- 28 inches (50th percentile)

Head Circumference- 45 cm/17.7 inches (50th percentile)

So, his body type is now like his older brother's measurements...long and lean :).

Owen is really on the move this past month.  He moves from room to room, he climbs up to the train table, he climbs under the island in the kitchen and the coffee table, and he tries to go outside on the porch to play with Jack.  He's very busy!

He's still only commando crawling.  He'll get up on his hands and knees like the picture above with the ball and lunge forward with one knee, but then he decides the commando crawl is just quicker I guess.  Jack was the exact same way, so I guess it's just their preferred mode of movement.  I like to give him the chance to try things out, within safe limits of course, so the picture below is one of his first attempts trying to come off the landing.  He struggled there for about 15 seconds and managed to get down.  He's a champ at it now, so practice makes perfect. 

This month he learned how to go from his stomach into a seated position on his own.  He started off using furniture, the landing, and toys to get up.  He also goes from the seated position back down to his stomach so he can move around the house.

Owen also learned how to pull-up into a standing position on 8/11/13.  He's very excited about it!

We practiced in the crib to start off with, and he started off making it this far:

The thing that finally helped him perfect his ability to pull-up was his obsession with the train table.  He is like a baby Godzilla with it, but he could seriously stand next to it all.day.long.  He just bangs the pieces on the table, destroys the set up, and eats all the pieces, but he loves it.

Now he just pulls up to play and leans against it for support.  He lets go with both hands to play with the tracks.

Just yesterday morning he started pulling up onto the toy storage unit and trying to scoot along grabbing what is on top of the shelf.

Owen is a lover of food!!  He'll eat just about anything, but his favorite foods are pear, cantaloupe, blueberries, plum, watermelon, avocado, green beans, and carrots and sweet potatoes cooked in bone broth.  He also likes chicken, egg yolk scramble with cheddar cheese, and salmon!  He fully feeds himself, so if I want him to eat yogurt or something like that I just dip little finger foods in the yogurt.  You can maybe get one spoonful of something in his mouth before he just knocks it away and won't open his mouth anymore.

We've been doing the signs for 'more' and 'all done' so he can communicate with us.  Just this week we realized he knows it.  Jonathan had an ice cream cone and gave him a taste this past Saturday, and Owen kept giving the sign for 'more' and grunting until Jonathan gave him another taste.  Ice cream really brings out the best in everyone :).

The only other major milestone I can think of is he started to do a wave hello on 8/7/13, but it's not really consistent.  

I wanted to include these two cute pictures of him in his pajamas.  Don't let this cute face fool you that he is an amazing, sweet sleeper.  He is still waking up at least once per night, but usually twice.  We had a four day streak where he was going to sleep at about 7:30 or 7:45pm, waking up at about 4am, and then waking for the day around 8:15am.  The past few days he has been back to twice a night, around 1:30 or 2am and again at around 5am.  I will say, though, he sleeps about 12 to 13 hours total.  

I think the longest stretch of sleep I've personally gotten since he's been born, since we obviously don't go to bed at 7:30pm, is about 5 hours at best...sigh.  

Anyway, we have been having a fun summer with beautiful weather.  This summer has been much more temperate than last summer's unusually hot days.  Owen loves swinging:

And Jack loves climbing:

Jack has been in love with sand for the past couple of weeks and digging for 'treasure.'  I mentioned above that Owen will eat anything, and that includes sand.  I spend a good deal of our time knocking sand out of his hand as he tries to throw it at his mouth before I can get to him.  His few times successfully getting it into his mouth have not deterred him.

It's fun seeing Jack and Owen play next to each other and thinking about how it's not too far in the future that they actually play together.

Before Owen started eating solids I didn't really make Jack sit at the table for lunch, but now that Owen eats at the same time it has been really nice to spend lunch with both of them.  We turn on Pandora, dance a little bit in our seats, and eat lunch.  For some reason simple lunches together remind me how lucky I am that I get to stay home with both of them.

After lunch I now have two helpers in the kitchen while I clean up.

There are two things that happened this month that I want to get into the blog for memory sake.  Last month was my birthday, and Jack gets really excited about birthdays and birthday parties now.  He is still telling me happy birthday almost a month later :).  We did a little family birthday party at home, mostly for Jack.  Jack and Jonathan got balloons, beaded necklaces (Jack's choice), party hats, and candles from Party City.  4 of the 6 balloons popped on a palm tree on the way out of the store, but 2 made it home haha.  Jonathan also got me red velvet cupcakes from my favorite cupcake place here.  I would definitely say my 29th birthday was the best I've had so far celebrating with my boys.

The other thing to mention is Jack's most recent dentist appointment.  We tried to watch a Peppa Pig cartoon about going to the dentist, but alas, he's still petrified.  Here he is before the major meltdown when the dentist came in.  

Owen started screaming because Jack was screaming.  He was probably like 'what terrible thing is happening here!'  haha.  The dentist said it's a 50/50 chance if kids let him do a cleaning at this age.  He said the majority of kids like the dentist by 4-years old.  The dentist just looked at his teeth and did a fluoride treatment.  Maybe a cleaning next time.  

8-Month Update

Owen turns 8-months old today, so it's time for an update!  I had the hardest time narrowing down what pictures I would use for the blog, because it has been a really great month full of cuteness!  Here is our monthly picture:

Owen has been trying new foods, and he is normally eating approximately 2-3 small meals per day.  Some days he goes on solid food hunger strikes, but I give him food when he'll take it.  I've had to forgo some of my baby led weaning due to some pretty bad constipation issues.  After researching foods that would help, I had to start purees to make sure he actually consumes a descent amount.  He eats a lot of prune puree, avocado and pear mixtures, banana, etc.  I still try to give him chunks of food, because he really does prefer to feed himself.  He does the windmill trying to block me with purees, but he'll gobble down a chunk of something.  He even ate some pieces of salmon last night while we were out to dinner.  He doesn't take a bottle, making it pretty much impossible to give him water, so I'll give him chunks of watermelon.  He LOVES watermelon...who doesn't though?!

Owen now has 3.5 teeth.  He has the two bottom front teeth, one of the top teeth to the immediate left of where his front teeth will be, and one that is just breaking through to the immediate right of where his front teeth will be.  I can see a bunch of them just waiting to break through, so we've got some serious teething going on.

Owen is a seriously happy guy that loves to play with all of 'Jack's' toys.  This leads to some frustration on Jack's part, but the sibling sharing had to happen eventually :).  

Such a cutie laughing it up at a restaurant:

He's sitting up really well, but I don't trust him without a pillow nearby.  He would rather be on his stomach, so he takes nose dives or falls backwards to get on his back and roll over to his front so that he can commando crawl around.  

The big developmental things that have popped up over the past month include:

• He started saying ba-ba, da-da, and ma-ma about a day or two after turning 7-months.  I think he was saying ba-ba a little before that, but I can't quite remember.
• He moves things back and forth between his hands.
• He has the beginnings of the pincher grasp.  He tries to pick up blueberries with his pinchers, but he's not quite there yet.
• As I mentioned before, he's commando crawling.  He is still pushing up and straightening his arms, but he hasn't gotten up on his knees yet at the same time.
• His sleep has been erratic to say the least.  While in Chicago and the week after he was waking up about 2-3 times per night, sometimes up to 4 times.  I think a lot of that was the perfect storm of having a cold, teething, traveling, bed changes, and constipation.  This past week has been better with two nights where he woke up only once, and the rest of the time he woke up twice per night.
• He is a really good napper who takes 1-2 hour naps twice per day with an occasional short third nap.  He even had one nap that lasted 2.5 hours earlier this week.
• He has some separation anxiety related to me.  I call him my little koala, because he hooks his arm around my arm when I hold him on my hip and if I try to hand him off or put him down he tightens his hook grip.  If he decides he wants to hang out with me I can't even hand him off to Jonathan without him crying.  One night I was trying to sit down in the nursing chair to read him books, but he thought I was trying to put him in bed.  He clung on for dear life as I was trying to pry him off of me to sit in my lap.  Once he realized we were reading books he calmed down and got happy.
• He really loves walks and facing out in the stroller to see what's going on and look at the trees.
• His favorite book is the Sandra Boynton book "Moo, Baa, La La, La."  He looks up at the reader (me or Jonathan) and smiles when we make animal sounds, particularly the cat, duck, and horse sounds.

Jack has his moments where he doesn't want Owen around or doesn't want to share with Owen, but he is a really great big brother overall.  I think they're going to have a lot of fun once Owen is a little bit older.  They make each other laugh every day.

Jack's new thing is to bury Owen under blankets and pillows.  It's all in good fun, but I officially cannot leave them alone in a room together for longer than about 10 seconds.  Jack has tried to put giant couch cushions on top of Owen.  Owen thinks it's funny and gets a kick out of the attention from his big brother.

Jack led Owen between the chair and ottoman and said they were crawling through a tunnel.

Jack has also started taking his position as big brother more seriously by always wanting to help with Owen.  He tries to comfort Owen when he cries and says, "I make Owen happy."  He also loves feeding Owen.  Messy but cute:

Jack also helps bathe Owen:

Jack has been cracking me up lately.  He has quite the sense of humor, and he is into everything.  Jack was using the Mr. Potato Head pieces to be silly the other day:

He is also obsessed with the jumper.  I constantly find him in it, and I have to help him out since he always gets stuck.

I think it's time for Jack to graduate to a normal pair of kids sunglasses, but he still loves wearing his first pair.  He will walk up to strangers while wearing them saying, "I wear sunglasses.  They're blue."  He thinks they are so cool!

I'm attempting to remedy making Jack mildly OCD when it comes to messes.  I let him finger paint the other day, and he was very hesitant to dip his fingers in the paint.  He kept saying, "I'm gonna dooo it.  I'm gonna dooo it," but he would pull his finger back afraid to get dirty.  When he first stuck his finger in the paint he said, "Oh no!  Mommy get a towel!"  By the end, though, his hands were covered in paint, and he was saying, "I'm doing it!!" 

Our everyday activity is taking a walk around the block or to the park while Jack rides his push bike.  We sometimes even do it twice a day the boys love it so much.

Jack is starting to exercise his will a little bit more these days, but he's still one of the sweetest little people around.  Every day he spontaneously tells Jonathan and me, "I love you sooo much!" and gives us hugs and kisses.  I really need to get it on video so I can watch it repeatedly during the teenage years ;).

The Nichols Go to Chicago- 4th of July

We spent the week of 4th of July in Chicago, which meant flying approximately 4 hours each way with our two little people.  I knew there would be some rough patches since Owen's waking periods are only around 2.5-3 hours, and he does NOT like falling asleep in my arms.  

There was a period of around 20 minutes where Owen was shrieking like a mad man until he finally passed out and took a 45-ish minute nap.  The rest of the flight we had to do a lot of entertaining, but it went smoothly.

Once in Chicago the fun started.  We visited several lake/river/park areas while there so Jack could run around and enjoy the outdoors.  He got to feed ducks:

One of the river walks we went to had a really great playground with a kid-sized zip line.  I was kind of surprised how well he hung on. 

The first half of the week was amazing weather in the mid-70s, so we tried to fully enjoy it while it lasted.

We spent one afternoon at the DuPage County Children's Museum, and I really wish it was located where we are.  They had a little infant area where Owen practiced standing at the bar.

Jack had the best time with all the mechanical activities they had.  He was obsessed with these walls where the pieces had magnets.  You stick them into different configurations so that the ball rolls down the track.  We've actually contacted the museum since we got back to see if they sell pieces or if they have building plans he loved it so much.  They don't though :(.

 Here's Jack in the wind tunnel:

They also had giant light bright boards where you insert the sticks to make a picture:

Their whole light section was really neat.  You could go in a room where an insanely bright light would flash and your shadow would freeze on the wall.

Who doesn't love these?!

There were two other track systems you could build that Jack loved.

A major percentage of our time was spent at this making different ball tracks:

 

We also rallied the troops and kept them up way past their bed time to see the fireworks at Lake Ellyn in Glen Ellyn, IL.  It was a lot of fun, and both kids enjoyed the show.  Owen lost it near the end from exhaustion, but he was a happy guy the majority of the time.

We took the train downtown one day.  We went to the bean and got a few pictures:  

 

We also walked over to the Buckingham Fountain since Jack is a fountain lover:  

It was a really hot day, so the water being blown on us by the wind felt really good. 

My parents took a few family pictures for us:

 Thanks to Yelp, we had some great dining experiences.

We also had a lot of fun just hanging out at my parents' house.  One of my mom's co-workers lent us baby items and toys for our trip.  Jack and Owen loved the bowling set.  

 

Fun on the floor:

My mom had some schoolwork to do while we were there, and she had a great study partner.

I wish that this picture depicted the truth of our entire plane ride home.  The guy across the aisle from us hated us and kept glaring, particularly at the end of our trip when Owen had a meltdown.  What do ya do?!

Owen was not the greatest sleeper the entire week and traveling is always a little difficult, but we had a really great time on our trip.  It was our first family vacation, so great memories.  Spending time with family, lots and LOTS of neighborhood park trips, and Jonathan and I having several date nights was a good way to spend our vacation!