So big!

I can't believe that in just 3 more days our little man will be 1!

Where has the past year gone? It seems like just yesterday I was holding a tiny baby in the hospital and now we have a toddler.

All the preparations for his party on Saturday and under way. It's turning out to be way bigger than I'd expected with about 50 people coming. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the weather will be good as we're hoping to have the party outside. That way the kids can make the most of the swing set that we just got.

So here's the latest with the boy

• walking well all the time, even handling inclines
• climbing like crazy, couches, the stairs, jungle gym, anything in his way
• clapping
• waving bye-bye
• does the actions for 'how big is N' - very cute :-)
• turns the pages of books and loves to read
• posts (mails) stuff through the cat door all the time!
• takes off shoes and socks, especially in the car
• down to 1 bottle a day at bed time
• drinks whole milk in cup during the day
• sleeps 11+ hrs a night (most of the time)
• takes 2 good naps - unless we're at work as he doesn't want to miss anything so doesn't nap as well
• loves dogs and says 'dog' for almost any animal
• babbles non-stop. He totally knows what he's saying, and we can figure it out most of the time
• loves to be outside
• eats everything we do - although we're still working on fruits, he would rather eat veggies, not sure if it's the texture as he ate/eats them pureed so it's not the taste
• loves music and music class
• dances. It's so cute to see him bopping up and down
• just moved up to size 5 diapers, can't wait to see what he weighs next week

We were getting ready for the car seat turning milestone. But are following the new AAP's recommendation and will be keeping him rear facing for the time being. Not sure he'll stay that way until he's 2, but definitely for now. Our Britax car seats let him rear face comfortably so it works and keeps him safe.

Down on the farm with the Easter bunny

We were at work yesterday and it ended up being a full day, with lots of time outside thanks to the great weather. We flew kites, rode cars and went to the playground before heading to the farm for an egg hunt with the Easter bunny.

N had a great time and called all the ponies and the bunny 'dog' - his favorite word right now. (Thanks mommy for working on that one, but we're still NOT getting a dog!)

He had his first horse and carriage ride, out to the water hazard while the big girls rode their ponies and then helped to find eggs with everyone. He ended up with 2 eggs that he thought were like the shakers from music class, so had a fun time shaking them. Luckily he didn't figure out they were filled with candy and horse treats so didn't try to open them. It was pretty windy but the perfect spring day for it. He wasn't fazed by the bunny at all and was happy to talk to the bunny and get his picture taken with him, unlike the big boy who just wanted to check him out from a 'safe' distance.

The pony club

Hunting for eggs

With the bunny and his eggs

Not sure about the headless pony

Shakers or eggs?

N loves the big kids and all the attention that he gets - with hair the color of his it's hard to go unnoticed! We did see another boy at the playground yesterday who had hair the exact same color, although he had more hair and curls! There are a few red heads in the extended family that I work for and when N and I are out with the kids people often ask if he's my boss' sister's baby.

Good Friday today meant that N got to stay home with Mommy while I worked today. The kids missed him, but it was a good day for him not to be here. I've been running around like crazy trying to get things together for their Easter party on Sunday. We baked sugar cookies, made paper mache eggs, ran errands and spent 2 hrs at the farm. No Easter bunny today and it's a lot colder than yesterday but the kids still had a good time. I'll be working tmrw too, it's strange being here without the baby and being the working parent for a change!

Feeling better

It has been a really long week, but N is finally feeling better. He finally started to feel better on Thursday afternoon and we were so relieved to see him starting to act more like himself. The poor guy ate nothing from Sunday when it started until Thursday. Every time it looked like he was doing better and we offered him something it came straight back up. There were times when it was hard to keep him hydrated, at one point I was setting a timer and using a medicine dropper to get some pedialite into him. He is still not that into food, but is taking milk again and hopefully that will pick up as he feels better.

J is on vacation for the next week and I only have to work Tuesday so we are looking forward to spending lots of time together and getting lots done. First up is painting the family room. We also want to take N to the zoo, are getting family pics done and may make a visit to the Easter bunny!

Stomach bug.

Saturday night the wife and I headed out for dinner for a friends birthday. N's grandparents came to watch him and he had a good time with them. He loves his grandparents, and absolutely adores his Pop. They are such great buddies and as soon as he sees his Pop he reaches for him. We had a good night but both admitted on the way home that we missed our baby and are happy that we don't go out that much and spend lots of time as a family of 3.

When we got home N was fast asleep and his Gram told us that he'd refused his milk before bed. Neither of us were that bothered as he has started to take less and less of that bottle and we knew he'd let us know when he was hungry. He slept thru to 7.30 and drank his morning bottle. That morning he was a little cranky and we thought that he's 6th tooth may be bothering him and put him down for his morning nap. He got up and ate lunch and I headed off to work. Then at 5 J called to say that he'd thrown up, which was followed by an explosive diaper.

That was just the start....he threw up multiple times that night and gave us many yucky diapers. Just when I think he's starting to get over it he throws up again. We took him into the Dr's on Monday but were not surprised to hear that it's just a bug that needs to run it's course. Yesterday he was taking milk but not food, but he threw up again at 11.30 last night, so we started again with a small milk feed this morning.

It's sad to see him feeling so bad. He just wants to be held and often falls asleep on one of us. He'll occasionally perk up for a little while and walk around the house a couple of times, before crashing again. He's been sleeping in bed with me, which is a first as he's never been a good co-sleeper and it usually resulted in none of us getting any sleep. I'm hoping that'll he'll transition back to his crib without too many problems once he's feeling better. He went down for a nap in his crib without any problems this morning, leaving me free to tackle some laundry, bake some brownie (for energy :-D) and blog!

Walking

I finally got some decent footage of our little man walking. He is doing so well and has pretty good balance for a little guy :-)

Sleep

After much thought, debate and research we finally sleep trained N.

Now that it's over and he's sleeping 11.5+ hours each night and taking 2 great naps I can say that it was so worth it. But there were times when we were in the middle of it that I thought we were making a huge mistake. I'm not sure how it happened but as N got older his night waking got more frequent, then he started to take longer to settle, sometimes staying up for close to an hr. We were all exhausted and my patience was shot, which left the night time stuff more and more to J....not good when she's working full time!

When we were pregnant I totally thought we'd sleep train our baby, but of course after he arrived I couldn't imagine leaving him to cry for even a minute. There were different times when we thought and talked about it, but never did it. Hoping that this was just a phase that he would grow out of......

He never cried for really long periods - we always had a 15 minute limit and he got it so quickly for going to bed. The night waking lasted longer but I was told that it takes 21 days for a new habit to replace an old one.

The funny thing is that I always said that we couldn't talk about having another baby until the one we had was sleeping through the night....!!

Now that N is getting so close to his big birthday we've started planning his party. The invites just went out. We are planning on doing something here at the house - just a 'small' party with 30+ people!!! I'm planning on making him a smash cake myself, so have been researching ideas and trying to decide how healthy to make it and what I want it to look like. We're not really doing a theme so it doesn't have to fit in with anything.

N is getting so big. Weighs about 22 lbs now and has 5 teeth, 2 on the bottom and 3 on top. He wants to be on the move all the time and won't really sit and play with his toys. He's taking 3 or 4 steps by himself and loves to push his ride on or walking toy around. N loves to play outside and we did see spring for a little while and got to put up his swing and play in the yard. But winter is back and we have had snow 3 days this week. His other favorite thing is pointing! He points at things he wants to see and touch, it's very cute! Check out the pic from this weekend at the playground.

Baby behind bars

It's official - our baby is crawling!

All it took to finally get him moving forwards was the fun and activity at music class. Trying to get the best instrument and wanting to hang with the big kids.

So I started the task of baby proofing. I had originally wanted to just put gates at the top and bottom of the stairs, leaving the whole downstairs for him to roam around. But we can't get a gate to fit at the bottom of the stairs, so have resorted to gating him in the combined kitchen/family room at the back of the house. Mommy wasn't that impressed to get home from work and have to figure out the gates, she was sure we didn't need them quite yet....our son soon proved that they're needed. Now he's moving there is no stopping him!

I'd like to know when they started making gates that close automatically. Even when the baby is in bed we still have to open and close the damn gates to get around the house.

We just have to figure out what to do about the cat...she can't make it over or through the gates so is basically stuck on the opposite side to where we spend most of our time and where her food and water is. Not that the food and water can stay where they are as N has already found the hiding place under the desk.

I stayed home from work today as the weather is not great. It started out with snow early this morning, but it's basically a nasty mix of snow and freezing rain making driving no fun. Sadly it's not supposed to get any better tmrw, maybe J will even get to stay home too. I can't wait for spring when we can get outside without snowsuits, hats and gloves.