Cardiac Stress Test

Exerpt cross posted from I Like Sparkly Objects

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Well, in addition to walking Caleb has unveiled another new skill. Yesterday I look up from my vacuuming to see that Caleb can now climb up on the couch, which he has done and is now STANDING on top of my lap top reaching for my water glass. 

Yeah my heart just about stopped. 

Also with his new found mobility is a whole new level of opinionated stubbornness and I have to say I really miss my mellow, laid back, easy going, happy baby sometimes. 

On the positive side, I informed Caleb now that he's walking perhaps he should dedicate some time to figuring out the whole communication bit. I don't care if its speech or sign I'd just like him to perhaps express in some terms other than screaming what it is that his new found opinionatedness wants. He seems to be taking my advice actually. Today I stepped over the baby gate into my bedroom and left him in the hallway. He screamed for a minute like he usually does and then started to call after me, "MA!.... MA!..... MA!...." It was really cute. I'm like you're gettin there kiddo! Good job!

We had a good day today though. Some how I managed to go to bed at a reasonable hour, fall asleep and stay asleep all night long. Of course tonight its 3 am and I'm blogging but hey you can't expect miracles every night. But so after a shockingly good nights sleep we had a good morning and I fed Caleb grapes for the first time with his lunch. They were big fat green grapes so I chopped them into little wedges and he really liked 'em. The first one he put in his mouth and then went "HHMmm! MMMmmm!" It was really dang cute. He's a very enthusiastic little grape eater. 

We're actually planning on making an afternoon snack a habit for him now b/c starting with his first birthday we get to ditch the formula and go with milk. So he's gonna need more of his calories from food  and since his stomach is the size of a ping pong ball we're gonna have to increase the number of his meals from 3 to more like 5. 

We're also working on getting him more used to real food. He had mac and cheese for the first time the other night. And it turns out he loves broccoli (well steamed) and is generally a greedy little food moocher who hasn't found anything on Mommy's plate he doesn't like. 

Caleb's WALKING!!!

So yesterday morning around 9:40 am I picked up the phone to call my girl friend and was watching Mr. Caleb playing around at his toy table thing. He turned around and let go of the table to free stand, which he's done before, and then decided he wanted the coffee table instead. Well the coffee table was about 3.5 - 4 foot away from the toy table. So one VERY shaky step at a time Mr. Caleb went step, step, step, step and then grabbed the coffee table with his hands and walked the rest of the way!!!

I was SO dang excited and proud!! If I had a lick of sense I'd probably be terrified but I'm still just so thrilled for him! He's doing so good!

And he seems to like this walking thing. Its like he went "Holy Crap! I can do this!!" and is now attempting to walk every where in the living room. So far he's getting better and can walk in straight lines on flat surfaces with no obstacles. lol. And he's doing better about keeping him self standing upright and balanced.

I would have tons of pictures and videos except for one significant problem. Mr. Caleb is a serious fan of the camera. He likes it better than the kitty cat and thats screaming something. So every time the camera comes out, he get so excited he turfs it and crawls at high speed to me as quickly as he knows how and proceeds to have a fit until I let him have the camera or it mysteriously disappears.

Never fear though, I'll suceed.... eventually.

But for now, shout it from the roof tops: MY BABY IS WALKING!!! YAY!!!

Caleb 11 Months

Well our darling boy is now 11 months old! No, I can't believe it either. lol

Caleb is now so huge that he now can only wear 18-24 month sized clothing! He has also got three whole toofens (two on bottom, one on top) and is working VERY hard (and keeping Mommy up LONG nights) on cutting toofen #4. Right now I'm gonna bet he'll have it in by the end of the weekend.

We've also hit a couple other developmental milestones. The first of which is imaginative play. He has started trying to "feed" me his toys. If I smile and pretend to eat them, he gets a huge grin, then stops trying to force feed me his toy and goes back to feeding it to himself. I have to say prior to this week I didn't know I could fit a whole alphabet block into my mouth....

Caleb also waves Bye-Bye and Hello VERY enthusiastically to Daddy and I when we're at home. He'll do it most of the time when we're else where but not always. We're working hard on the signs for bottle, food, yes and no. He likes to shake his head "No" very enthusiastically as well.

He love to sing songs with Momma and have her help him with the arm motions. Thus far the part he likes best is in Eensy-Weesy Spider when the suns comes out and dries up all the rain. I don't know what it is about that particular part/motion but he thinks its just hysterical and giggles every time. But you have to do the whole song to get the giggle. If you just do that line he'll smile but not get super excited like he does if you do the whole song. Caleb also likes to read stories and is a big fan of helping to turn the pages and close and open the book, repeatedly. lol.

Caleb is a good little eater and is a BIG fan of anything Mommy and Daddy are eating. If we have it, he wants some. He's also a greedy little water moocher. I always have my big water glass near by and he'll come up and pitch a fit if I don't share with him.

And I have to admit that while the American Academy of Pediatrics says not to allow your child to watch any TV at all until they're at least two years old, my poor child only made it to about 10 1/2 months old before I got desperate enough to turn on the TV. I've only done it like a half dozen times but he LOVES those Baby Einstein videos and sometimes when its been a really long day (or night) and Mommy is about ready to flush it down the toilet, I just pop one of those videos in and like magic he is just captivated and will happily watch for 15+ mins which is sometimes exactly what Mommy needs.

Caleb has also decided that Mommy is no longer allowed to use the bathroom by herself. Should I attempt to go to the bathroom with out him present, he will open the door and let himself in, or should I have locked the door, he'll stand up and bang and shriek the entire time or until I open the door and let him in. Once inside he's a big fan of opening the cupboards and pulling out the towels (memo to me: install cupboard latches on cabinet doors), or attempting to unroll the whole roll of toilet paper, or hanging over the side of the tub trying to get at the toys in bottom of the tub, or just standing up in front of Mommy, holding on to her knees and chattering and laughing loudly. I have to say that a trip to the restroom is not the quiet moment of solitude it once was....

Caleb is SOOO close to walking. He can free stand for a minute or two easily and likes to stand and play with toys with both hands. He can get one foot forward no problem, but bringing the other foot forward to take the step usually results in him turfing it. Sometimes he'll get the foot all the way forward and stay up for about a second or two and then he turfs it. He's got the crawlin' thing down pat though. He is FAST! I call him Mr. Speedy McSpeedy Pants b/c that boy can GO!

He's also discovered climbing up things. He can now - with no help from me - crawl over to me when I'm sitting on the couch, pull up to standing, and then grab my clothes and pull himself up on to the couch and into my lap. I'm not ready for this. He can also climb up on to the ottoman that we were using to block his access to the TV (I looked up and he's STANDING on top of the ottoman reaching for the Wii sensor on top of the TV. Mommy ran REAL FAST across the room to get him down). We need to come up with a new plan because he's gotten his finger stuck in the VCR door once already.

Now I just have to figure out what we're going to do to celebrate his 1st birthday!

Roadtripping Review

So I've been more than a little home sick for the last couple weeks/months so I when I discovered two weeks ago that Adam had last Weds off of work for Caesar Chavez day I hatched a crazy plan to drive to Texas for Easter to see my family and because my sweet husband loves me he agreed to it. And his boss is my new favorite person for letting him have Thurs, Fri and Monday off at the last minute so we could pull off my crazy plan.

So we left Tues nite and drove straight through the night, I made it driving solo all the way to Kerrville and about 2 pm before I decided that I cannot in fact drive that entire distance by myself with no sleep, which is what I was afraid of. And so I was very grateful to have my sweet hubby along so he could take over and I could get some shut eye. Caleb didn't sleep as well in the car as I hoped he might. He did okay but the lights from the big trucks as we passed them kept waking him up. Making a blanket tent for him to block out the lights fixed that one but he still woke up and was less than happy every time we had to stop for gas.

And because I was pushing it trying to get to Houston as soon as humanly possible, he had a couple of melt downs. I've determined the trip is not possible solo in less than a couple days because while Caleb is capable of holding a sippy cup, he hasn't caught on to the fact he has to hold it UP while he's sitting to get the milk out. He does fine laying down, but sitting up in the car seat didn't go well. I think if I got the straw kinda sippies it could work b/c he's a good little straw sipper but the ones you suck like a bottle? He starts out holding them up, and then they fall down, and then he's sitting there trying to suck the milk out like a bottle, but its down in his lap, and the milk aint coming and he gets TICKED.

So you either wind up with the person in the passenger seat losing all feeling in their arm while they hold the bottle/sippy over the back of the chair for the kid (does not help things that his car seat is still rear facing until he's 1 year old), or you have to pull the car over, get him out of the car seat and hold him and the bottle while he eats. And since he's the world's pokiest little eater, either option takes a long frigging time. On the way there, since we were in a hurry we opted for the hold it over the seat option.

We did try drugging the kid with benedryl one time on the way there (don't worry we asked the doctor first) b/c he was having a melt down and we were in the middle of NOWHERE. Didn't do a lick of good. Made him slightly groggy for an hour. And since he'd gotten crap for sleep the night before b/c we were on the road and he wasn't cooperating about napping as we continued our trip he was just a smidgen on the whiney side. *ugh*

On the way home since we were in less of a hurry, we tried decided to try regular stops etc in an effort to have the child be less whiney. This initially worked rather well. Every 2-3.5 hours or so when we needed more gas, instead of just filling and going, we'd stop, get him out of the car and let him play, have a snack, bottle, whatever for 20-30 mins. That definitely seemed to help him be a happier child for the first chunk of the trip. But it added massively to the time the trip took. So instead of making it in about 18 hours or less, it took more like 23 hours. Which sucked, massively. And by the end of it, he wanted a break every 30 mins for 30 mins to be happy and that just wasn't happening b/c I wanted to get home some time this year. So added stops helped with happiness short term, but the cost of the time increase was long term not worth it in the toll it took on us and him.

So next time I make the trip I'm going to do the following:

1. The trip will take TWO days. We'll start at like 9 am after rush hour clears out, and stop in a hotel over night. And we'll plan to take short breaks every 3 hours or so with a longer break for lunch (the stop at the McDonalds with the big play place was GOLD).

Yeah I don't think he'll like two solid days in the car but I think he'll be happier if he at least gets a good nights sleep, and since I can't drive the whole thing solo in one go thats how its gonna have to work if I wanna do this trip alone. We'll get there sometime on day 2. If the kid is feeling cooperative it will be early, if not it will be later. Either way Mommy will have a good nights sleep and be less inclined to thwack people b/c she's sleep deprived and irritated.

2. We need a better sippy cup strap. Sippy Pal looks awesome but its not yet available in stores and I didn't have time to order one online, so I grabbed some generic piece of crap sippy strap from the store and yeah it was worthless. Too short and a pain in the butt to use.

3. Caleb needs to be big enough to be a in a forward facing car seat, which he will be in another month and a half. I think this will help with a lot of my issues. Also when he gets bigger I see a portable dvd player being a god send.

4. Caleb either needs to catch on to holding the sippy cup UP to drink from it, or we need to switch to the straw variety.

5. If at all possible, the length of time between the to and from trips will be MUCH longer. 4 days was not long enough of a break between LONG drives. In the future, 10-14 days sounds MUCH better.

In other news, the time in Houston was WONDERFUL. It was so good to see my family and get spoiled rotten for a few days. And it was so dang cute to watch Caleb play with my nieces. He and Leah are just 18 months apart and they both thought the other was the coolest thing ever so they played and jabbered at each other in baby talk. It was so cute. I loved it.

Having the time in Houston be so wonderful has not helped my homesickness one bit though. lol. Now I want to move more than ever. I think I'm going to start searching job listings in Texas. lol.