My little William,
You have mommy wrapped around your finger and give me this happy, tingly, squirming in my own skin-i’m going to burst feeling when you flash your huge smile at me every time we make eye contact. I just don’t know how to contain my love for you sometimes. You are the smiliest little guy ever. You smile at everyone all the time and twinkle your eyes while stealing everyone’s hearts.
You are all boy in every way little man. You have a very ‘boy’ look to you and are always on the go. I’m sure this statement will only be compounded by 10 in the next couple months as you become more mobile, but you are always wiggling in our arms, on the ground or bouncing in the jumparoo.
You have a strong affinity to me. You’ll be with daddy playing and doing just fine, but the moment you see or hear my voice, game over. You only want me and will start whining and following me around with your eyes until I come get you, to which you immediately stop whining. This month, you also learned to put your arms up when you want to be picked up. Most of the time I love it and don’t mind carrying you around on my hip while I do things in the house.
Your two little bottom chiclets are dared to not be the only little pearls in your mouth as you’ve been showing lots of teething signs. Your top two teeth are on the verge of cutting through. These two teeth have been a dosy and causing lots of pain. We can just see the pain in your eyes and it is heartbreaking to know there isn’t a whole lot we can do to help. You’ll wake several times in the night to nurse and won’t let me put you down without a full on cry fest when you’re in a lot of pain. Given the fact you only have two teeth, you love table food and by month end, pretty much refused baby food. Foods you’ve had include: banana, raspberry, blueberries, apples, pears, avocado, broccoli, graham crackers, rice, chicken, cheese, noodles, ice cream, cookies, cake, Kiks, cheerios, toast, english muffin, pizza, cream cheese, turkey, chicken wild rice soup, juice, pancakes and I’m sure many more I don’t remember. We have yet to find something you don’t enjoy. You can also successfully drink from a sippy cup and a straw, and prefer the sippys with straws.
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With your strong affinity to food, you’re still nursing like a champ. Usually, you nurse when you wake up around 6:30ish, again at 10, 1:30, sometime around 5:00ish and then right before bed. I quit pumping in the mornings this month and it really helped with my sanity. I can get an extra 30 min of sleep every morning and it has re-energized my mentality to nurse longer than what I was thinking. Now that you don’t need to eat on the 3 hour mark every day, it is much easier to plan my days with meetings and still make it work to come down and nurse. I’m usually down 2-3 times a day and LOVE having an excuse to come and snuggle with your everyday and am just not ready to give it up yet.
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You love to cross your legs while your sitting and playing, in your carseat or in the bathtub etc… I think the funniest thing about it is, your legs aren’t very long so to always have them crossed just looks silly.
I think you might be my water-baby. So far, you love the bath. As soon as I turn on the water, you start squirming to get out of my arms and into the water. You love to splash with your hands and feet and are very comfortable laying on your back while I wash your hair. You also loved the hot tub at Grandma and Papa’s house. They put you in your life jacket and you relaxed your head back onto the little pillow and just floated around like a little duck.
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Sleep is a questionable topic for you little bud. With the exception of teething and being sick, you’re a great night time sleeper and are sleeping through the night from between 7:00-8:00 pm to about 6:30ish am. Naps are another topic and there isn’t any kind of consistency. On daycare days, you almost always sleep in my arms after your nurse for about 25 min. The moment I stand up, you wake up. Occasionally, you’ll take another nap in the crib but it usually don’t last more than 20 min. At home your morning nap will range anywhere from 15 min to an hour and a half, which usually is around 10:00. Your afternoon nap is around 2:00ish and will last anywhere from 30 min to 2 hours. There really is no rhyme or reason for how long it is. Overall, you are just a really light sleeper. If someone sneezes, you’ll wake up, and that has been the case sine your very first days. You’ll fall asleep in the car, but I think there have been less than 5 times, where we’ve been able to transfer you into the house and keep you sleeping. I’m hoping this will change as you get older. With that said, you do a pretty good job falling asleep when we put you down awake. About half the time you just roll over and go to sleep without a peep and the other half, you’ll cry for 5-10 minutes and then fall asleep. You’re mostly sleeping on your stomach or side these days. I’ve started to notice that you’ll sleep better and longer if you are on your tummy and try to position you to roll that way if I put you down after nursing. When you do wake up, you start crying right away to get us to come get you. Occasionally, you’ll chat a little. Either way, the moment I walk into your room you start kicking your legs and waving your hands in excitement to see me. It is the best!
This month, you’ve made major progress in the mobility department. You willingly spend a significant amount of time on your tummy and have become a master spinner and roller. You reach for toys has really expanded, especially while you’re sitting. You lean over so you’re almost on all fours, but haven’t figured out how to move your foot behind you to actually get on all fours. Sometimes, gravity gets the best of you and take a little nose dive, but are usually Ok.
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By the end of the month, you officially started army crawling to get things–mostly to me. I usually get super excited and start clapping and saying ‘Yeah William’ and keep scooting myself backwards to force you to go longer distances, which royally pisses you off. Sorry bud.
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Overall, you don’t seem too interested in crawling, but do want to try and pull yourself up on anything and everything. You do pretty good, but need to keep building up your arm strength and learning how to get your foot out from under you leg. You can usually pull yourself onto your knees but then get stuck. You can successfully pull yourself up when you’re in the bathtub. It is just the right hight that you’re able to get your forearms on the ledge and then pull yourself the rest of the way up, and that is all you want to do in there. It’s also probably one of the most dangerous places to practice, but you seem to have no fear of anything at this point. You have fallen down a couple times head under water in all. I grabbed you right away, but you didn’t seem to mind. Shook your head a little and that was it. (Big Sister would have had a big tearful melt down, even at almost 3) When you do pull yourself up, you are so darn proud of yourself. You have the biggest grin and just start giggling. If you’re giggles could be translated, I swear you’d be saying ‘Look what I did, Look what I did!!!’
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Another favorite milestone this month was learning how to give kisses. When I kiss your checks, you open your mouth and turn your face to me. It is a little gross as my lips are pretty much inside of your mouth but you make this sweet little noise and my heart melts when you randomly grab my face and initiate a kiss. Small body but big heart in there my little William. You’re also a pretty snuggly little guy. You love to nuzzle your face into me or rest your head on the crook of my shoulder. Whenever this happens, I feel like life kind of stops. No matter what I’m doing or where I need to be going, I just stop and hold your warm little body next to mine and just try and soak up your warmth and love because I just know it won’t last forever and really, there isn’t anything more important to me than enjoying these sweet moments with you.
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I’m pretty sure you can clap too. I’ve only seen it once or twice and wonder, are you trying to sign ‘more’ but I’m pretty sure you are clapping. When we play patty-cake, you are able to open your hands all the way (most babies keep their hands in a fist) and clap. More to come on this next month.
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Noteables:
- You wear a size 3 diapers and 6-9 and 9-12 month clothes.
- You pretty much always have a runny nose. I used to look at other kids and see the snot or the dried crusties around their nose and think ‘how come parents don’t wipe that off?’ But no more judgement here. I get it. Sigh. You can’t, it is always there. You wipe it off and then next minute, it is there again. It’s not even that they are necessarily sick, it is just always there. And the annoyance you have of me chasing you around with a Kleenex all the time just isn’t worth it.
- One final major milestone this month was spending your first night away from Mom and Dad. You spent the night and Grandma and Papa’s and did great. You made it all the way through the night and were a sweet cuddle bug with Grandma.
We love you so much little bud.
Love,
Mama
Peanut Smiles 