Bowen's Growin'

What happened to my little baby? He's all of a sudden a BOY! Not quite a toddler, but well on his way. No more army crawling for him - it's a full-fledged hands and knees crawl now. He can sit himself up and is pulling himself up on everything. He can even get back down now, instead of standing somewhere and yelling to be rescued. Oh, and he doesn't get scared every time he tumbles or bumps his head, either. He's into absolutely everything and has his special "toys" in the kitchen because the thing he wants is the thing that he's not supposed to have. He's absolutely obsessed with shoes. If he's playing happily and all of a sudden I notice that he's been quiet for a while, it's almost a guarantee that he's found a shoe. The dirtier, the better and he'll go straight for the bottom and stick it in his mouth. He's worse than the dog!

He's decided that he's terrified of the vacuum. Yesterday, I vacuumed during nakkie time and he sat and held his penis and stared warily at the vacuum. He was sure that if he let go of his willie, I would certainly vacuum it right up! Luckily, Daddy was around to protect him.

His new sound is "ya-ya-ya-ya-ya". He hasn't quite gotten da-da-da-da yet, but I think the ya-ya-ya thing is going to morph into it. He is an expert raspberry blower and I absolutely love when he gives me raspberries on my shoulder or my belly.

He has 2 teeth on the bottom in front and the top two have cut through, but you can't really see them unless you look closely. He's been nice so far and has only bitten my nipple a couple times, and not hard. It was when he was falling asleep, so I don't even think he meant to.

Well, my little man is in the livingroom yelling his little head off, so I better go play with him.

Best baby in the world!

I can't believe it's been so long since I've written about Bowen. I guess I've been too busy playing with him and mothering him and watching him grow. He amazes me every day. I'm sitting here feeding him while he's in the highchair. At the moment it's puffs, mango and cottage cheese. I'm cracking up because he's currently working really hard on making a poo. I love his poo face!!

He's at such an amazing age. So fun. He had his first real bath tonight - no bath chair. He sits up so well that I decided to just lay a towel on the bottom of the tub, for friction mostly, and filled it a couple of inches. He had soooo much fun! He had a couple of toys and he just had a blast splashing and exploring. He hasn't quite realized that he is the one that splashes all of the water in his face. It's too cute. Lately one of his favorite games is to crawl over to me and blow zerbits on my arm. He'll do it for 5 minutes at a time if I let him. I'm usually soaking wet by the time he's done. His bottom two teeth are coming in - they've cut through, but are still really tiny. I'm pretty sure that his top two are on their way - I see little bulges on his gums and he's cranky. And by cranky, I mean that he whines a little here and there because really, he's just the happiest baby. I love him more and more every day. He's been trying to pull himself up on stuff lately, too. He's so incredible mobile. I just can't believe how fast it all goes. Also, it seems like it's just been in the past week or so that he's really advanced. He's not crawling on hands and knees - it's more of a fast army crawl. I have a feeling that he's going to skip the whole crawling thing and just go from the army crawl to walking. We'll see, won't we.

First Solid Food

I'm a bad mother! The first solid food I give to my son is ice cream! It was so cute, though. He totally loved it. I'm not sure how much he actually swallowed, but he had fun grabbing at our cones and playing with the ice cream with his tongue. I wish I had gotten a picture of the ice cream all over his face.

This morning he's blowing raspberries and being his amazing cute self. He's getting so good at reaching for things and actually holding them and bringing them to his mouth. He can actually hold his teether in his mouth now. Woohoo! There's just nothing better than being Bowen's mom!

1/17/11

So, I started this yesterday and it didn't save my post. I'll try it one more time. Anyway, Bowen is 4 1/2 months old and I haven't kept track of his milestones and stuff, so I thought I'd start writing them. So, he's been rolling over from back to front and front to back for about a week now. He actually rolled from front to back about a month ago, but only did it once and then not again for a couple of weeks. He can now pretty much roll both ways at will, but sometimes it's an accident and sometimes he gets "stuck" on his belly and can't figure out how to get onto his back again. He's starting to get really grabby and really interested in what Erik and I are eating. He had his first experience with food on Saturday while we were at a friend's kid's birthday party. I was holding him while Erik and I were eating fried rice off of the same plate. Bowen was very interested, so I decided to see what he would do if I let him have at it. He grabbed a handful and brought it to his mouth, but didn't actually get any in his mouth. He opened his hand and dropped rice everywhere and got some stuck to his face and made a lovely mess on the floor. It was funny. He also dumped a cup of water all over himself and his father's lap when I was 1/2 a second too late in moving the cup out of his reach. Oops.

He's finally taking naps off of me. In fact, he doesn't like the moby anymore and I don't put him in carriers around the house. He will still fall asleep in the Ergo while I take a walk, but he doesn't nap in it like he used to nap in the moby. He's still nursing on demand around the clock, which ends up being every 2 hours it seems. I've decided that I must not have very much milk storage in my breasts which is why I can't pump anything out ever. I can pump for 20 minutes and get 3 oz at the most, but usually only 1 1/2 oz. It kind of sucks because I don't have a stash of milk if Erik wants to bottle feed him. I'm not interested in giving him formula at all. But, oh, well. I stay at home with him and don't have the desire to leave him for any extended period of time anyway. In about a month, he'll be starting on solids anyway. I'm excited for that, but at the same time it seems like he's growing up too fast already.

What else? He's starting to laugh for real more. Before, it was just this little cough-like sound, but now he's added this really cute nasally sound with it. Erik really gets him laughing sometimes. He loooves super baby and upside down baby. He really loves hair! It's his favorite thing to grab and I'm shedding like crazy right now, so my hair is constantly all over him. I knew he'd eventually swallow one and I'd find one in his diaper, and sure enough, the other day I pulled one of his butt! He thought it was hilarious and so did I! Oh, and we pretty much have to strap him into his vibratey chair because he can squirm out of it. He fell out of it last week, but didn't get hurt. He ended up on his back and he thought it was pretty funny. He's such a happy baby. He's really pretty darn mellow and only gets upset if I don't feed him quickly enough when he's hungry or if I let him get over tired. He doesn't seem to have gas problems or colick or anything like that. He's past the crying for no apparent reason thing that newborns do. He sleeps pretty well. I wish he'd wake up less during the night and take longer naps during the day, but it will come. I guess the easiness makes up for all of the ordeal surrounding his birth. I really don't think there is one thing wrong with him.

1/16/10

So, Bowen is 4 1/2 months old now and I haven't written a thing about him. I haven't recorded his milestones in any organized fashion. I post them on my online forum, but they're all random and stuff. Anyway, this morning is awesome. He's on his play mat half naked this morning rolling from front to back and back again. He's squealing and grabbing at things and cooing and watching his sister. He started rolling from his back to his tummy sometime last week. He first rolled from front to back about a month or so ago, but it was a fluke. He can pretty much do it when he wants to now, but sometimes he seems to get stuck on his belly and forgets that he can roll back to his back. Yesterday I let him experiment with food for the first time. Erik and I were eating fried rice in front of him and he was very interested. I know he's not actually ready for solids, but I thought I'd let him get at the food and see what he did. He grabbed a handful of the rice and brought his hand to his mouth, but pretty much dropped all of the food on the way. He managed to get a grain of rice stuck on his face, but that was about it. None made it into his mouth, but he did make a lovely mess on the floor. A little later, I got a cup of water and had it sitting in front of me while I was holding Bowen. I was about 1/2 a second too late as he reached out and grabbed it and dumped it all over his father's lap. We were at a kid's birthday party and Erik had to spend the next 1/2 hour with a wet lap. I guess we'll have to be more careful with our newly grabby little boy.

Oh, I know why I haven't kept a baby journal; it's a pain to type with one hand! I'm still exclusively breastfeeding on demand around the clock and he eats every two hours ( or less). He doesn't really take a bottle, but I can't pump worth a damn anyway. I can pump for 20+ minutes and get maybe 3 oz. Apparently Bowen is more efficient at getting the milk out than the pump, otherwise he would have starved by now. I also don't think my breasts have a lot of storage space, which may be why Bowen eats so frequently. Who knows? He's healthy and growing. My house is still a mess most of the time, but I wasn't the greatest housekeeper before I had a baby. He's finally sleeping off of me, but sometimes it takes me forever to get him to fall asleep and stay asleep. Sometimes he'll only sleep for 1/2 hr. and sometimes he'll sleep for 2 1/2 to 3 hrs. It's still very random, but I try to give him at least two naps per day.