One of my New Year's resolutions for this year is to ressurect the blog. It's a much better way to keep those who want to follow Will up to speed on how he is doing. I'm hoping to have the time to update it every week or two, but at the very least I figure I can update on the 5th of every month, his "birthday." So...today is Will's 8-month birthday!!
Our road trip to Indiana and back was mostly successful. Will was about as good as you could expect him to be. He took some naps in the car, is good at eating in public and he'll let us change his diaper just about anywhere. We all got a little antsy, though, toward the end of the trip. David and I have learned a couple of things as well. First, we need to plan out stops in advance. There are large stretches of the trip from San Antonio to Evansville that go through the middle of nowhere with no good place to stop. Second, I think we're instituting a rule where we only stop at sit-down restaurants- not fast food places- at night. A couple of times we stopped at fast food places, they did not have baby-friendly facilities and they turned out to not be in as safe an area as we had thought. Cracker Barrels from here on out.
Since we've been home, Will has been a very happy baby. He has been playing with all of his new toys and can entertain himself for long stretches. We are working on getting him into a good sleep routine. The one problem we have is that sometimes he is a great sleeper and sometimes he fights it because he wants to be held and rocked the entire time he naps and sleeps at night (which just doesn't work out for us- we need to sleep too!) Today, I put him down after lunch and he fussed for about 10 minutes then crashed. He usually wants to be rocked completely to sleep and then put in his bed so I think it's a good sign that he put himself to sleep for his nap. The last few nights he's been staying up later, until about 8:00 or 8:30, and sleeping in later. He gets up around 1-2 a.m. for his first feeding and 5-6 a.m. for his second feeding, then sleeps until 7 or 8. I don't mind getting up with him twice a night if he is hungry, though I wish he were one of those who could sleep through the night. I do get frustrated, though, when he doesn't want to go back to sleep in the middle of the night. Sometimes he just wants to party. He's been pretty good about going right back to bed after eating since we've been back.
We may be entering another growth spurt (hard to believe, as big as he is). He has suddenly started eating much more and finishing larger portions. I've been making our own baby food when I can and freezing it in cubed, 2 oz portions. We're still doing trial and error to see what he likes homemade and what we need to keep buying. For example, it seems to be very difficult to get peas and green beans to puree smoothly. They are too lumpy when I puree them in the blender and he chokes on the tiny spoonfuls I give him. So, we will keep buying the Gerber peas and green beans. I have had luck, however, with yellow squash, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, pears and apples. So we have a large stockpile of those frozen for him. We tried our first homemade meat puree today- ground sirloin puree mixed with sweet potatoes. He made faces at first but he finished all of it, so he must have liked it. We also tried kiwi for the first time today, which he seemed to really like. Kiwi doesn't freeze well, though, so I have a little in the fridge that will last a couple of days and that's it until we buy some more. After that is gone we are going to try avocado and zucchini. I also have some lean ground turkey that I'll cook and freeze to mix with veggies. As we introduce him more ingredients I'll be able to make him purees that are more tasty and varied than what Gerber offers, though I have no problem giving him the Gerber jarred food now and then.
This morning we went to Wilford Hall Medical Center on base and Will got his second H1N1 vaccination. So we are now all caught up on all of his vaccinations until he is 12 months. He's had his two doses of both the seasonal flu and the H1N1 vaccines. Now that is is vaccinated against the flu and a little older, we are going to try a few different churches to see if we can find one we like. We had been waiting because we didn't want to put him in nurseries with a bunch of kids with all of the bugs going around. I think he's old enough now, though, so we're going to try to get out a little more. I am also looking into joining a Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) group on base. I want Will to have some chances to start socializing with other kids.
It's been very cold here in San Antonio and it's supposed to get even colder later on in the week. Will and I are both missing our walks around the neighborhood. Hopefully we won't have too much more cold weather and we'll be able to get out of the house more.
Will is still babbling a lot (blowing raspberries and squealing are his favs) but no words yet. I keep trying to get him to say "da da." I've heard him say "da" once but that's it and he hasn't repeated it yet. He's also close to being able to sit up from laying on his back. He's working on those abs. Other skills we are working on are drinking from a sippy cup and a bottle on his own. He can hold both the sippy cup and the bottle on his own and he puts the nipples in his mouth, but he hasn't figured out how to tip them so that the liquid comes out. He is also working on pushing up onto all fours. He can stay on all fours but he hasn't tried to move forward from there. He still prefers to roll to get where he's going- and he's good at it.
That's about all that Will's up to. Like I said, I'll try to post as often as I can but he's keeping me pretty busy so I don't know how often I'll have to time. Hope everyone had a great New Year!
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