Look what I found...

This is what I found this morning when I went in to get Luke this morning:
Guess it is definitely time to lower the crib mattress....

Getting Faster and Pull-Up Proof

Here's a quick video of Luke and his quickened crawling. When he has a purpose now, he can really scoot.

And here are a couple of pictures I snapped today of Luke showing off his pulling up skills. He would pull up, play a minute, tumble down, cry a tear or two, and then go right back up.

Bring it On

OK, actually, I'd rather not have anything else "brought on." This has been one tough week. Actually, it has been a tough month.

So, as feared, Luke's RSV test came back positive. After reading up on it a bit, I feel more informed on the virus and not quite as worried about Luke. Yes, he will likely be coughing for 3-4 weeks and yes, he is contagious while he is coughing, so yes, we will be in semi-quarantine until his symptoms subside, BUT, it isn't life-threatening to him, so that is good. It does leave the door open for secondary infection to set in since his immune system is compromised with the virus plus he has a bunch of crud sitting around in his ears/sinuses/chest festering. After he seemed to take a turn for the worse on Wednesday afternoon/evening, I took him back to the doctor yesterday to be checked out again. He had an ear infection in both ears. He's now on his first antibiotic, and wow, what a turn around. He's still coughing and not eating much, but he's sleeping better, has a lot less snot, and is in a MUCH better mood.

Meanwhile, when I picked up Jacob from school yesterday afternoon his teacher said he began coughing midday and it just got worse and worse. He came home and fell asleep on the easy chair almost immediately. He slept in until 7:45am (really late for him!) and was crabby and fussy all morning. He asked to take a nap at 10:00am. I took his temp and it was on the rise. So, off to the doctor we went for the 3rd time in 4 days. Turns out, Jacob has an upper respiratory infection (hence the coughing and wheezing) and strep throat. So, now he is also on breathing treatments and an antibiotic. I hope his turnaround will be just like Luke's and he'll be himself again soon.

Don't you all wish you could have been in my place this week? :)

If it isn't one thing, it's another

We had some more unseasonably warm weather in Houston last week, and we took full advantage of it. We played outside during a playdate at a friend's house and also one at our house with a trip to the playground a couple of days in between.

Jacob's school had a petting zoo and siblings were invited to attend. So Luke and I went to ride the train and the horses with Jacob. I was surprised J actually rode on the horse and enjoyed it. He rode the train at least twice too. He still had little interest in the actual petting zoo part, but that was no surprise to me. He told his teacher "I don't want them to bite me." I'm not sure why he has this fear as he's never had an incident with any type of animal.

Luke has picked up speed in his crawling skills and now pulls up often too, especially when he thinks there is something he is missing out on and needs a better view. He also cut his first tooth last Saturday. Growing up fast!

Jacob had success this week in that he pooped in the potty for the first time. We haven't put much effort into potty training (ok, no tried and true effort to speak of), so I was surprised when he actually did it over the weekend. No success since though.

Luke and I now have "the crud" and though I think I'm on the mend, his seems to have gotten the best of him and has settled in his chest. The doctor thinks it is viral so no antibiotics can help him heal. Poor guy is miserable I really wish there was something we could do to help him heal faster. We will start breathing treatments today and go back to the doctor for a recheck on Friday. If he hasn't improved, it'll be off to the hospital for chest x-rays to check for pneumonia. 2 years ago to the week J was diagnosed with acute pneumonia, so I'm hoping for a better outcome with Luke. The other possiblity is RSV, which would almost be worse. We'll find out about that in a couple of days. I'll keep you posted.

Here are the rest of the pictures for the week.

Luke's First Tooth

So, I know you can't see it in the picture, but Luke finally had his first tooth cut through yesterday. I was "brushing" his teeth (using my finger) in the bath last night when I noticed it. If you were to look at his bottom gums anytime in the last few weeks you would have sworn he already had teeth. The outline of the teeth through the gums was so prominent, but they just wouldn't cut through. Jacob cut his first one at 5 1/2 months, so Luke is about 1 month behind him in that category...

The bug

Somehow I am 3 days late on this week's update post. Time just gets away from me.

Last week started out pretty rough. Jacob came down with the stomach bug on Monday night but thankfully seemed much better by Tuesday midday. Unfortuantely, I caught it from him on Tuesday night. It was a rough couple of days for the two of us. Luckily (or unluckily if you look at it from David's perspective) David returned from his trip to Russia on the day that I fell ill, so he was able to take care of the boys when I was at my worst. Thankfully, neither David or Luke caught the bug. By Wednesday afternoon we were both feeling better and ready to get back to our routine. Jacob returned to school on Thursday and I took Luke to get his 6 month pictures that same day.

In "honor" of his 6 month picture day, Luke decided to really crawl - taking a whole lotta "steps" in a row, moving all over the place. He hasn't slowed down since. He isn't always fast, but he sure is creative in his style of crawl.

He's moved into 9 month clothes now and seems to be hungry all the time. I can barely keep up. He's eating cereal or baby food 2-3 times a day and still nursing every 3 hours during the day and at least once overnight. At this rate, he'll be into 12 month clothes before I know it.

The weather has been great lately (January in Houston is often like this), leading to lots of outside play.

Here are the rest of the week's pictures.

Luke Crawling - take 2

Another little video

Here's our crawler...

Here's just a quick video of Luke showing off his crawling skills. It isn't the quickest, but it gets him where he wants to go.

We have a sitter...a crawler...and a puller

Yep - it seems like overnight Luke has figured out a whole bunch of things. I wasn't sure I was ready for this stage, but it is ready for me. Wow, what a week. He turned 6 months old this week and it triggered all sorts of things.

As I've described in much detail here, we have been doing the cry-it-out all week with progress and setbacks along the way. Last night was pretty good after a rough few nights, so hopefully it will continue in the right direction.

Luke also started crawling this week (with real 'steps'). Right after Christmas he began pushing up to the crawling position and rocking back and forth. He would then drop to his tummy and do a 'worm' manuever to get where he wanted to go. I thought he would have been crawling before they left, but he waited a few days longer. Though he has only taken a handful of 'steps' at one time, he definitely is getting around. Thankfully it isn't too fast yet, so I can get things out of his path before they end up in his mouth. With Jacob and his toys around, this task will be much harder with Luke than it was with Jacob.

Also, one morning late last week, Luke from the hands and knees crawl position to a sitting position. I only saw it once until this morning when he did it several more times. He likes to sit up and play since he rarely topples anymore (unless he has 'help') so that may be his motivation for getting back up.

And the biggest shocker of all happened this morning. He scooted/crawled his way over to the laundry basket I was folding laundry from and he pulled himself up to standing from a sitting position! I couldn't believe it. I am definitely not ready for that. I guess we'll have to think about putting the crib down soon. I don't know why, but for me, that big time signifies a stage change. He is getting big so fast! They say the 2nd (and 3rd, 4th, etc) kids often do things quicker than their siblings just because they want to keep up, and so far, this has held mostly true with Luke. Now if he walks before 9 months (which is what J did), I'll be positively amazed.

Because I am so lucky to have David in town most of the time, I was a bit concerned how we would fare without him for a week, but thankfully things went just fine. Jacob was glad to be back in school and in his routine which made my time as a single parent easier. David's plane should be touching down now, so we are looking forward to seeing him again. Since he was in Russia, it'll be a couple of days before he is back on schedule (they are 16 hrs ahead of us), but at least he'll be around.

Unfortunately, David will be coming home to a 'contaminated' house. Jacob caught a stomach bug last night and was up and down all night. I hate to see him sick, it is so sad. He couldn't go to school today, which saddened him. He seems ok today, so hopefully it's gone and no one else in the house will catch it. I spent hours disinfecting this morning so we'll see.

Here are the pictures from last week.

Sleep - Part II

**This was another post that I started back in mid-November, but never wrote past the first few sentences. I don't remember all that I was going to write (except that good sleep still wasn't happening in my house at the time) so I decided not to finish it. I'm posting mostly because I think the picture is cute. :) We quit swaddling him a few weeks after this picture was taken.

I just had to post a follow-up to my sleep post of a month ago. The same night I posted about Luke not regressing in his sleep patterns, things changed drastically for the worse, and have not improved. So good sleep is still not happening in our house, this time because of the other child. Luke went from 7-8 hours of sleep at night before waking (sometimes 9-10hrs) to an average of 4-5 hours before waking ready to eat. It has been a month and things are still bad.

Jacob's Words

**This was a post that I started awhile back, but evidently never finished or posted. I came across it in my drafts and decided to finish it and post it.

Kids say the darndest things...that is how the saying goes, and boy is it a good saying. So true. Jacob is no exception. Once he started really talking (which at the time, seemed a bit late to me, but I'm sure it was right on track), he's never stopped.

He picks up new words all of the time - and actually uses them appropriately for the most part. He used the word plenty the other day. And discreet. Both of them correctly. Yes...he's 2.

For awhile, when Jacob wouldn't know the name of something or the right word to use in a situation, we would try to come up with a 'kid-friendly' term to describe what was going on. We quickly learned that Jacob has an amazing memory and a knack for taking information he has learned and using it in situations different than the one he learned it in. We decided then to go ahead and tell him the correct names for things, explain what is going on when he asks questions, and basically talk to him like he was older than 2. I am still amazed at how well he comprehends what we say and stores away the information.

Sometimes though, when we say a word, Jacob hears what he wants to hear. Occasionally, he makes up a new word based on what he heard us say. Like 'ruffin'. This is what Jacob says when Luke is fussin. Other times, he hears a word he already knows for something else. Like elevator, for example. When he asked what they were, we told him. But instead of hearing elevator, he heard alligator. And that is what he calls them, even though he has been corrected. Another example of this is naked. He knows what it means, but instead he calls it bacon. This one flat cracks me up everytime he says he or Luke is 'bacon' at bathtime.

Some words, he learned early on when he couldn't always make the sounds he wanted to, and he continues to say them incorrectly today. Two examples of this are milk - which he says nilk, and sandwich, which he calls fuenich.

And finally, in song. This situation happens to just about everyone. When you hear a song, you aren't always sure of the words. Some people just don't sing the words if they don't know them, and others insert words they think might fit. Classic example in CCR's "Bad Moon Rising" song "there's a bad moon on the rise" sounds like "there's a bathroom on the right." For Jacob, it is a much simpler song. The Farmer In the Dell. In the second verse, the farmer takes a wiPe, according to Jacob, not a wife. And the cat, takes a raP, not a rat.

We've tried to correct Jacob, but now that he knows he's wrong, he thinks it is hilarious, so he continues. Oh well - it's cute. There are probably many many more examples of Jacob's word mixups....I'll have to add more as I remember them or he says them again.

I did it to myself...

Well, in trying to be consistent with the whole CIO thing so that Luke will indeed go 10-12 hours as the doctor said he should be doing, I have made my life a little bit harder, at least for the past couple of mornings. Friday morning, Luke woke at 5am. This was 9 1/2 hours without waking. I was pretty impressed and happy with that, but wanted to see if I could let him cry and see if he would go back to sleep and reach the 10hr+ mark. Big mistake. At about 5:10, I heard Jacob awake and at 5:45am, Luke was still crying. Wonderful. I waited until Luke was down to a whimper and went to feed him. I didn't want to go while he was full out crying, as he would think he 'won.' Of course, going in at all, probably defeated it anyways. Oh well. He did go back to sleep until about 6:45am, but no such luck with Jacob. He was up. And boy did I pay for it. He was quite the grouch all morning until after he took a good long nap in the afternoon.
So, did I learn my lesson for this morning? Obviously not. Luke woke at 4:30am (this time only 8 1/2 hours as he went to bed later). I let him cry it out for about 15 minutes when I heard stirring in J's room. I quickly went in and fed Luke. He was still screaming. So, I definitely messed up there, but I just didn't think I could handle another tough morning. He ate and slept until almost 8am. Luckily, J didn't wake up then, but it must have been enough to break him from his full sleep because he was in his room making all sorts of noise by 6am. Joy. He was being pretty good until about 11am when he obviously was getting tired.
Oh well, I'll survive. At least they both took good long naps today. In fact, I hear them both now.

It's Working

The cry it out is working - at least so far. Luke went to bed a little after 7pm last night and didn't make a sound until 4:30 this morning. I went ahead and fed him then because he had gone 9 1/2 hours, and I was pretty happy with that. In talking to the pedi today, she said by 6 months babies should be able to sleep at the very least 8-9 hours without waking at night and really should be able to go 10-12 hours. I told her what I have been doing for the last 3 nights. She said it is best if I don't go in at all except to make sure he doesn't have a leg stuck or something and maybe to say "goodnight" just so he knows he wasn't abandoned. Don't pat him, don't talk to him, and definitely don't pick him up. She said 95% of babies improve within 3-4 nights. So...that will be the plan to see if we can get him to that 10hr mark. If it happens, we'll think about shifting his last feeding and bedtime by 30 min to an hour so that he makes it to 6am or so. We'll see. I like having both boys in bed by 7:30 (as I've mentioned before) so we may just deal with a pre-6am wake up call. I don't know.

As for the little guy's stats today - he weighed in at 17lbs 6.4oz (50th%), 26in long (25%), and 44.5cm head circumference (90%). So, just like Jacob at this age, he is in the mid-range for height and weight with a big head. :) As a comparison, Jacob's stats for this age were as follows: weight=16lbs 4oz, length=26in, and head=44.2cm. He seems to be developing wonderfully as well.

And finally, the weather today was almost too good to be true for the first week in January. Of course, we are in Houston, so this does happen. We started off cool and crisp but reached the upper 70s with low humidity and not a cloud in the sky. Here are a few pics we took on our trip to the park.

Tough Love

For those of you who have had a baby who gets up to eat during the night 'just because' and you finally realize it and decide to do something about it...you know what I am going through right now.

Luke is now 6 months old (today!) and up until a few nights ago was still getting up to eat 2 times a night. On a few occasions he has slept for an 8-9 hour stretch before waking to eat, but those nights are far and few between. But, the fact that they exist tells me that it is possible and he doesn't really need to eat - he is doing it out of habit. For some reason or another, I have postponed 'working' on it, but now that he is well and there is only Jacob and me to hear him cry, we have moved to the 'cry-it-out' method. And y'all, it is hard. Luke is usually such a happy child, it pains me to hear him cry - and boy does he cry with gusto.

I vaguely remember doing this with Jacob, but mostly when putting him to bed. I think we ended up just rocking him to sleep so we didn't have to deal with the crying and gave him a pacifier at night to get him back to sleep when he woke during the night instead of feeding him. Luke usually goes to sleep without too much trouble, but when he wakes at night, he thinks he needs to eat - everytime. He won't take a pacifier, so I can't pacify his obvious need to suck and go back to sleep.

Lately, his routine has been to sleep for about 6 hours and then he is up ready to eat. He goes right back to sleep after eating and sleeps for 3-4 hours before getting up to eat again. It really has been pretty easy to handle. But....he really needs to quit it. (I know that is exactly what the pedi is going to tell me tomorrow at his 6 month checkup.)

So - the first night, he woke up at 11:40pm. He cried for nearly 1 1/2 hours straight. Seriously! I went in every 6-8 minutes trying to calm him. I rocked him to sleep the first 2 times, but he immediately woke up when I put him back in bed. Every other time, I would just pat his back to get him to sleep. It didn't work. Finally, at 1am, he cried himself to sleep, and didn't wake to eat until 3:45am. I couldn't do it again in one night, so I fed him and back to sleep he went. At least we were down to one feeding before waking for the day at 6:45am. The next night, he woke a bit later, and this time only cried for 30 minutes before giving up and going back to sleep. He was still up at 3:45am to eat. So, no progress there, but at least I wasn't sitting in bed with tears in my eyes and earplugs in my ears to muffle (too loud to completely block it out) the crying for an hour and a half. This gets easier, right? We'll see tonight...

Mia and Papa's Visit

We had a wonderful week with Mia and Papa. The boys enjoyed the extra attention, fun, and snuggles and we all enjoyed their company. Even though the boys weren't always at their best (both boys were struggling with a bit of a cold while Mia and Papa were here) I think Mia and Papa enjoyed every minute. Jacob showed off his extensive vocabulary, love for cars, and his overall exuberance for life. Luke was his usual smiley self and no doubt captured their hearts just like Jacob has. We were all sad to see them leave this morning and can't wait for the next visit. Jacob talked about them a lot today.

In other news, Luke came much closer to mastering the art of sitting up this week and is very close to crawling. I thought he might do it during Mia and Papa's visit, but he didn't make it before they left. He gets around and where he wants to be, but no 'formal' crawl yet. We also introduced a few more foods lately and he seems to like them all-carrots, prunes, and pears. He's quite the eater and is weighing in at 17lbs. We go to the doctor on Thursday for his 6 mo checkup. I'm interested to see his stats.

Even with all of the extra solid food eating (twice a day now), he is still waking at night to eat. :( I guess I'll have to instill some tough love to get him through it. I struggle with letting him cry too much though because he will wake up Jacob if he gets too loud, and then I'll have two kids to deal with. A few nights ago, he ate a full jar of baby food just 30 minutes before bedtime and he slept from 7:30pm to 4am, so maybe he just needs more food before bed. We'll have to experiment.

School starts up again for Jacob tomorrow, so we'll start to get back into our regular routine. Luke will enjoy the extra one-on-one Mommy time and Jacob will enjoy getting to see his teachers and friends at school.

Go here for the rest of this week's pictures.