So, this past week was AMAZING for the milestones Anthony hit. But first, lets rewind a little bit more. On Sept 19th, the In Laws came and helped baby proof. They helped anchor things to the walls and build the cube storage, and lower the mattress in the crib. Up until then, we still had our Little Man sleeping in the Pack N Play (PNP) in our room. We were also still doing a lot of co-sleeping (he wakes up in the night, I grab him out and nurse him back to sleep, which I typically fell asleep before I remembered to put him back in the PNP. Well, after we had the mattress lowered, we decided that we would start putting him in his crib and get that phase of his life going. That way I can reclaim my side of the bed and he might be able to sleep better. Also, he woke a lot during the night. We waited until the next night before starting this, starting out slowly with putting him in there asleep, and when I finally went to bed, if he woke up, I'd scoop him out of the crib and bring him into our bed. Worked for a night or two, then the devil possessed my child. We thought it was just that he wasn't used to all the changes we were making. It wasn't until about the 23rd or so we decided to check out his gums and see if that was the issue. Sure enough, his gums were swollen and had that "tooth" feeling to them. We got excited and made sure to keep the oragel and tylenol nearby for the total melt downs. Well, it was about 10 days later when we were still dealing with the teething thing. Took another look and sure enough, there was another "toothy" feeling on the other side. I was secretly scared, but kind of happy because it meant that he was going to get both at once again! Totally explained why he kept shoving his fingers up his nostrils! He was trying to trigger the nerve to make the pain go away! (I can relate from when I had to have my front teeth worked on and my face hurt for a full 2 days after!) So he now has both bottom front teeth and 2 top front teeth...here's the funny thing, he has the bottom two in the middle of the front, but not on top. The teeth on top are actually the next one over on each side. His smile looks something like this
FX**XF
F*XX*F
F being his fangs, X being the teeth he has, and * being where there aren't any teeth yet. Its pretty funny to see him smile and see the while bumps not line up. But his teeth seem to be feeling better.
BUT, on to the main topic I'm sure is burning on everyone's mind. Yes, my little man has taken his first steps. On the 7th, Anthony showed us that the barricade we have up to keep him just in the living room and out of the pantry and garbage can wasn't enough to hold him anymore. That's right, he climbed over a basket I had put at the end of a line of rubbermaid totes. Then, the 8th, he climbed over the totes. The totes being about 3 inches higher than the basket. Of course he didn't know what to do when he was on top of the totes and fell off more than once (We did catch him when we saw he was about to fall), but he knew just how to do it every time. Lovely. No sleeping EVER now! Going back to the 7th, he also took full advantage of me laying down my head on the couch. He went up to the entertainment center (which we have blocked off best we can so he doesn't play with things he shouldn't) and pulled down the one side of that barricade and pulled down a tub of something we were using for his bum when the diaper rash came around. That's right, VASELINE. (you mix equal parts of vaseline, lanolin based diaper cream, zinc diaper cream, and cortizone cream and it works like MAGIC!) My kid then proceeded to smear it all over himself (all over in his hair and ears down to the tips of his toes and in around his diaper line). When I woke up, I noticed he was where he wasn't supposed to be. I called him back over to me and he came crawling over quickly. That's when I noticed the weird glowing sheen on his face. I thought he had chewed through the tube of A&D (without zinc) and was thinking "Oh boy, I'm in for it now!". I started cleaning him up with baby wipes (because they have that little bit of cleaning agent whereas a towel doesn't really get all the greasy feeling off) when I noticed that his toys were covered. I got him cleaned up and then noticed the tub of vaseline.
Now, we had used about 1/4 of the tub for putting on his circ so it wouldn't stick to the diaper, along with using it for diaper rash. Well, I picked it up and set it on a wipe on the couch so I could keep it out of his reach and clean it after I cleaned the toys. I knew I didn't really want to see how much he had used, but I had to know at the same time. I took off the top and looked in to find (to my horror) that about 1/3 of what was left was GONE. I didn't freak at first about him swallowing any because its petroleum jelly. Same stuff as in chapstick, just means his poops are going to be interesting for a while. Well, I saw on the back of the vaseline tub that you need to call poison control RIGHT AWAY. I make the call (gotta see why its so urgent to call) and he tells me that Anthony is going to be fine, they just worry that the vaseline will get in their air ways in which they will cough A LOT and that's when its a problem. So, Anthony is fine, the toys are clean, and it took scrubbing down my little terror twice to get all the slimy feeling off, but we learned a lesson. NOTHING in his reach. Put it 5ft up or back so he can't get to it.
But, getting back to the time line. Adam comes home early on the 8th and starts playing with Anthony. I had the laundry basket (the tall kind) in the living room looking for something while the boys played. Then Adam got this wild idea and told me to hold out my hands and call Lil Man over. So I do. And he TOOK THREE STEPS my way! HE WALKED to me! Of course as soon as he could reach, he took my hands, but point is he walked to me! He hates standing alone, let alone moving also! We tried like crazy to get him to do it again, but he pretty much refused. Kid has no fear. He just leans toward the person he wants and makes them catch him if anyone tries to make him stand alone. Just today (the 11th) I made him take 2 more steps toward me. I can't get him to walk to Adam yet, but we are pretty sure that he's going to be walking a lot more by 11 months. Pretty scary! He's also vocalizing like a MAD MAN! He was jabbering for about 30 mins solid without anyone there to provoke him to keep talking. I swear many of the sounds sound JUST like words we say a lot. Time to cut back on swearing!
He's also eating his food with bigger chunks. I don't have to send the bananas through the food processor anymore! And he'll even eat them off a bigger adult spoon! Time to make him slow this growing business! His appetite also seems to be growing, which is scary. He was polishing off about 10 oz at every meal and about 6 oz for his snack by the time he was 9 months. He's also starting to develop a little belly, so we know that he's packing on some weight. We shall see soon enough if he's back to where he was on the growth charts. I'd really like him to be back in the 50th percentile, but I'm not going to punish myself if he doesn't. We all know that he's healthy and growing. Heaven help us, though, when I stop nursing him. If he catches a glimpse of boob when I'm getting out of the shower, he instantly wants to nurse. He'll even grab my boob and stuff it in his face when I carry him to the bedroom so I can get dressed. He likes his Momma Milk! LOL shall be interesting to see how he takes weaning off that in about 6 months, but we'll cross that bridge later. I'm sure he'll be busy exploring all the other goodies around him!
Well, I'm exhausted and going to head to bed so I can get some shut eye around him waking up. We now try a little bit of sleep training, but more relaxed on some of the rules. Seems to be working well for us! He still wakes up, but he's sleeping longer stretches in his crib!
