vidalicious.com

As always Maddox is a growing boy. It is time again to start buying him another round of clothes, especially pants (he is finally starting to lengthen!). I just made a pretty good dent over at Childish Clothing. They have really cute punk rock stuff.

(And how cute are these boys?! I love the hair cut on the bottom right.)

Now that the weather has been better, we have been spending more time in the back yard. I’ve ripped up a big ugly bush/tree that was taking up valuable yard space and replaced it with a bed of shade plants. The area is a bit raised from ground level, so I had a carpenter build me a cute little retaining wall out of that fancy modern hardwood, Ipe. According to the history channel it’s fire rating is the same as concrete! I’ll post photos once I’ve finished putting in all the plants. This past weekend Dallas and I put in the 3 giant Hostas, but I have some smaller filler plants to install still. These sorts of projects get dragged out for a while when there is a kid involved.

Here he is sitting in his little bouncy chair by the lavender.

He has been getting increasingly more mobile. He is not crawling or pulling himself up yet, but he does somehow move around just by rolling and sitting and rolling and sitting. Every once in a while he’ll smack his head on the floor which makes mom freak out on the inside, but he handles it all in stride.

Eating is the current focus. I’d love to wean him sooner than later. I figure it is a long road ahead, so I’m going to start trying now. Baby steps. He eats 3 “solid” meals a day, and has for a while now. These meals make up a good amount of his total food intake. For breakfast today he had pureed blueberries with smooshed banana and multi-grain cereal. I tried to get him to eat the smooshed banana chunks with his fingers off the tray, but no go. He just pulled them off his tray and threw them on the floor then demanded real food. Ugh. Same thing happened when I offered him tofu pieces, and cereal soaked in milk. Moving on from purees is a whole other thing I realize.

Yesterday I introduced him to mango puree. He hated the first spoonful, but he always squishes his face at the first spoonful of anything (even the beloved apple). So I gave him a second spoonful – same reaction. Then he made a funny sound and Blegggha… He threw up all over himself, the highchair, and the floor. Guess mangos are a no-go. It hadn’t even occurred to me they would be offensive.

Maddox has been growing up so quickly. He is so fun to photograph these days – so animated and interactive.

The last couple weeks we have been hard at work on Project Upper Center Teeth (PUCT). Last Thursday the right fang came in. Then on Sunday, the right center tooth popped through – and today, after much crankiness, the left center popped through. To be honest, in the whole scheme of things, his “much crankiness” really wasn’t that bad, and most of it was directed at whatever he could fit in his mouth. Unfortunately he bit me 5 times today – so not fun. One time he was trying to chew on my tank top strap and got my shoulder by accident. I yelped loud enough that he let go immediately and gave me a look like he was about to cry (but he didn’t, and neither did i).

Here are some photos from this afternoon hanging out on the couch.

[Images can be clicked to view a larger version]

 

Oh, and yeah, we got a new camera.  😎

We went up north and spent the day with family. Maddox was given a head start for the easter egg hunt! He did really well. I found the egg then held him near it and he would lean over and pick it up. It took a couple times for him to realize what he was supposed to be doing – but he did get it!  Over and over again, we collected eggs from around the yard. He really enjoyed chewing on the plastic eggs, but even more than that he loved the grass. It occurred to me that he has never actually sat on grass. Is that sad? He stroked it, and picked it and ate it. Good day in the country.

 

After about an hours work and almost as much crying, Maddox is taking what is pretty much his first solo nap in his own crib, in his own room. I’m guessing he’ll wake up after about 10 minutes and realize where he is (not in my arms), and freak out.

We got back from Hawaii a few weeks ago. Things have been a little bumpy since we’ve been home in terms of sleep, and health. We have all been dragging a bit. Its hard to tell if it is sickness trying to take us down, allergies, or just general exhaustion. All of a sudden Maddox no longer wants to sleep in his own bed, and on top of that he wakes up crying . He is not hungry when he wakes up, so the pediatrician is guessing it is teething pain waking him. Awesome.

Here are some cute photos from Maui:

The pediatrician recommended we introduce only 1 new food a week. We just completed the 3rd week of “solid” food.
Week 1: Rice Cereal mixed with breast milk
Week 2: Spinach Purée (in addition to rice cereal)
Week 3: Pea Purée (in addition to rice cereal)

Yesterday before the actual completion of week 3, I decided to introduce apple purée at dinner time. Maddox’s system was beginning to get clogged up from all of the greens and I figured apples were the best way to sort that out. It worked, btw. I’ll spare you the details.

Today he had apple and rice cereal for breakfast (much easier to deal with the apple aftermath when its not 4am), and peas with rice cereal for lunch, then just rice cereal for dinner  (we went out to dinner last minute and i didn’t want to deal with the frozen purée).

I’ve been making all of the fruit and veggie purées myself from farmer’s market organic produce – of course. I use Earth’s Best Whole Grain Organic Baby Rice Cereal (I opted for not bothering to make my own). I’ve been making medium sized batches of the purée and freezing it in baby ice cube trays, then popping them out, individually wrapping them and putting them in freezer bags. So far I’ve made spinach, pea, butternut squash, apple, broccoli, and carrot. Its been really neat being able to introduce him to produce during the Spring. It is my favorite season for produce. Especially all the peas and fava beans! yum! 

Maddox has taken the new food in stride. The first meal of any new food has resulted in funny faces, full body shutters, gagging, and eye watering – but in the end he has eaten all of every meal. Usually after 2 meals of a new food, he is pretty adjusted to it and no longer squishes his face up.

Here is his first taste of peas…

I was able to get a couple decent shots of Maddox’s teeth…

We finally have a shot where you can see Maddox’s two bottom teeth! They are very cute and very sharp. Our little Mr. Snaggle-Tooth.

{Kahana, Maui}

He is still getting the hang of nursing without getting his teeth in the way. It isn’t so bad when he accidently rubs me with his teeth, but when he bites for real…  OMG.  So un-cool.  

Teething has picked up as of late – especially the painful, crying, crazy part. His incoming teeth seem to bother him most in the evenings and through the night. He gets really frustrated when the pain doesn’t stop when he bites on things. He chews on toys then rips them out of his mouth with enough force that I keep half expecting one of his teeth to come flying out of his mouth. 

One night (on the 5 hour flight home from Hawaii), the pain and crying was enough that we gave him baby Tylenol. It seemed to help some, but you could still tell he was uncomfortable. How much of that was the teething, and how much was the airplane/time change/sleepiness who knows.

For the past week or so he has been waking up numerous times in the night. The pediatrician is guessing its because of teething pain. Yesterday I dragged my sleep deprived self (and baby) down to Lullaby Lane and cleaned them out of nearly all their teether toys. I admit I may have gone a little crazy, but if he gets any relief from the pile of plastic colored rubber and water filled things then I am satisfied. So far the favorite is this berry silicone teether.