two more teeth

Posted on November 16, 2010 by mommyinthemidwest

We broke new ground, er, new gums over the weekend…. Baby T has two more teeth poppin’ through his swollen, tender little gums. He got his bottom two front teeth when he was about 4 1/2 months old so I thought by 6 months he’d be getting the top two. Nope, they took their sweet time and now I must say, I’m glad they did. He’s not lovin’ the new teeth so far.

He seems to do better during the day, but he’s still a little clingier and hard to please. He won’t sit and be entertained by things for as long as he could before. There’s a lot going on in that little mind of his though – he’s really trying hard to crawl. He gets in the perfect position and rocks back and forth a few times, then PLOP. He’ll get there and honestly, I’m in no hurry. Well, I’m excited for the accomplishment on his part and definitely want to witness the first successful moves, but aside from that, I know our lives are going to change. Just in time for getting the ol’ Christmas tree out too. Not sure how we’re going to navigate that catastrophe in the making.

And I thought the cats were tricky at Christmas time.

Wow, I’m all over the place…back to the teeth – last night he was grumpy and didn’t want to be put down at all but he did fall asleep in my arms around 8 o’clock. The night before, it was bloody murder in his bed, bloody murder in my arms, just bloody murder no matter what. I remember when the bottom two came in, this only lasted for maybe a week tops. Hopefully we are halfway through and he’ll be good by the weekend because my mama’s coming to town! And she’s bringing my niece and nephew. I haven’t seen the little ones for 3 months and I can’t wait! (I haven’t seen mama in over 2 months so I’m equally as excited to see her…she just doesn’t change quite as much as the little squirts do between visits).

Just wait til they see Theo, if they want to see someone who has been doing a lot of changing!

Fun times ahead. 🙂

Have a happy day!

~C~

caution: wandering, babbling baby ahead

Posted on November 9, 2010 by mommyinthemidwest

This past weekend offered a scary, scary glimpse into the near future. I swear, last Friday, when Theo was on his belly, he would only put his hands out and extend his arms, pushing his shoulders and some of his chest up off the floor.

Saturday afternoon, he was pushing his entire chest up off the floor.

Saturday night, he had his chest completely off the ground and his butt up in the air.

Sunday afternoon, he had his chest off the ground, butt up in the air, and was rocking back and forth! Are babies supposed to go from barely doing a girl push-up to practically crawling in 24 hours!? It was unbelievable and so exciting (yet frightening) to watch.

But like I said, it’s a glimpse into the very near, very terrifying future! He will be roaming free. It wasn’t until recently that I noticed just how many things we have down low. Books. CDs. DVDs. Video game consoles. Photo albums. Glass cabinet doors. Electrical cords. Speaker wires. And that’s just the living room. Oh deary.

On one hand, I know that we can’t put away EVERYTHING that he shouldn’t be playing with – that will never teach him that some things are “hands off.” At the same time, doesn’t this mean that I’m NEVER going to be able to take my eyes off of him? Sure, I knew it would happen eventually but now that I’ve seen his little butt rocking back and forth as if he’s revving up his engine, I can only imagine that he’s already laid out his path of destruction. Something tells me that he’s not going to be so content in the jumparoo once he truly is mobile.

My little baby is growing up and moving on. He’s 8 months + 1 day today and I guess he knew that it was time to work towards the crawling milestone. I don’t even want to think about walking – oh, walking. That’s verrry scary!

Oh, this was something else super exciting that happened in the weeeeeeee weeeeeeee hours Sunday morning (when Theo decided to celebrate the end of Daylight Savings Time). His dada got up to use the bathroom and Theo was watching him intently. I said jokingly “say Dad! Don’t leave!” Without breaking his gaze towards his dad, I SWEAR Theo said “Dad.” His voice had that raspy just-woke-up-and-I-need-to-clear-my-throat gravel in it. I was pretty certain my ears were playing tricks on me so I said “Say Dad” again and he said it, plain as day “Dad.” Of course, when dada came back from the bathroom, I told him about it and he didn’t for a second believe me. Naturally, the only thing Theo would say was “gah,” which OKAY, could be easily confused for “dad” but I know my boy. We had a moment. I gave a clear instruction and he responded obediently. I’m sure it’s just the first of many of these mother-son moments. Oh yeah, and he totally said “dad!” I guess that was kind of a big deal, too! 🙂

~C~

partly lame, partly awesome Halloween

Posted on November 2, 2010 by mommyinthemidwest

We knew ahead of time that we were not going to be taking our 7 1/2 month old trick or treating. Really, what’s the point? He can’t eat the candy and we knew we’d have plenty left over of our own so it’s not like we needed the temptation to eat poorly just sitting there, taunting us.

We dressed Theodore in his little bat outfit and when 6pm rolled around, we waited.

And waited.

I don’t think we had our first trick-or-treater until about 6:45 or 7pm. And trick-or-treating was only supposed to last from 6-8pm. It’s not that we were surprised…I guess every year we just hope that there are more kids than the year before. We had maybe a dozen kids. And I think the last one came by 7:30pm. It wasn’t even completely dark. What in the world has happened to trick-or-treating? It’s just kind of sad and depressing.

It was SUCH a big deal when I was a kid. It was always so exciting to wait until dark and then go up and down the streets in your very own neighborhood. The streets were lined with heroes and gypsies and monsters and princesses. It was fun seeing everyone else’s costumes. Comparing candy at the end of the night. Eating it for the next month and a half ’til all that was left were Smarties and individually wrapped Double Bubble. Now? Now, we’re lucky to get a dozen kids. And in the past it has seemed like half of them were middle schoolers wearing their j.v. football jerseys with jeans and a hoodie. At least this year, we didn’t have any of those costumes.

We did take Theo to the neighbors’ so they could see him in his not-so-scary bat costume. They appreciated the gesture so that was fun. (They had individually wrapped Double Bubble and Smarties. No lie.)

I don’t know why but I just want to fight back. But how can you compete with the malls and the churches and all those other “safer” options? We left our light on until 9pm hoping there were some stragglers, but there weren’t. The streets were pitch black and it looked like any other chilly autumn Sunday night.

My mom told me last week that when she was a kid, they did trick-or-treating for two nights instead of one. She said that my grandma trick-or-treated for a whole week!?! Now it’s down to 2 hours in the broad daylight. Is there going to be anything left for Theo by the time he’s old enough to enjoy it? Or will he just have to envision it through his mom and dad’s memories?

I try to justify it by saying that our neighborhood is full of mostly-elderly folks and there are very few street lamps so it is dark when the sun goes down. There are no sidewalks. The houses are further apart and the driveways are longer in our subdivision than they are in the newer, cookie-cutter editions. But there are also 100 foot tall trees with leaves cascading in beautiful fall colors. There are jack-o-lanterns or at least pumpkins on most front porches. To me, it seems like a traditional, idyllic place to go trick-or-treating in the midwest.

Apparently I’m in the minority.

Regardless, we had fun playing with our baby bat and letting him “help” us pass out candy to the few cute kids that bothered to dress up and trek around the neighborhood.

On a random, unrelated note, I was craving meatball subs like mama makes so we went to the store and got the ingredients to prepare them for lunch. Can’t have them without pickles and Provolone or Mozzarella cheese (I chose Provolone). Amazing. We had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. Equally as amazing. It hit the spot on a chilly fall day. I love, love, love comfort food. Theo also ate the equivalent of about one meatball for dinner, which he enjoyed thoroughly! (Much more than the green bean pureed baby food we tried to make him eat for lunch). He might be just about sick of baby food already. He’s always reaching for our plates. Can’t say I blame him (although some of those fruity purees are quite tasty). It’s kind of fun feeding him new things and seeing the expression on his face. I hope he’s not a picky eater.

Rambling!

~C~