Week 49

This week we had a nice visit from Grandma Judi. She was here from Tuesday afternoon until Saturday morning and it was great for Hayden to get so much time with her. Even Mommy and Daddy got to go out on a date!


On Friday, Grandma Judi, Hayden, and I went to the Seattle Aquarium. Hayden really enjoyed the colorful fish, putting his hands in the cold tide pool, and watching the cute sea otters dive around in their tank.





My mom just couldn't get over how easy-going Hayden is. He rarely gets cranky and took good naps every day. He was on his best behavior for Grandma! Crazy thing is that my mom fractured a rib while playing with Hayden, so that's not such good news.

Zoom! Zoom! Hayden is on the go! He is crawling so fast and walking along all the walls and furniture and behind his lion walker toy. He can also stand for 2-3 seconds without holding on to anything!

Week 48

Hayden is 11 months old today.

We don't have a well-baby doctor's visit until his 1-year appointment, so I don't know exactly how much he weighs or how tall he is, but I can tell that he has definitely grown in height but his weight gain has significantly plateaued. I have been reassured by a number of Moms that it is totally common for a baby to slim down once they become mobile and are burning more calories. The way Hayden crawls around the house, walks around all the furniture, and climbs up the entire flight of stairs (with me right behind him, of course), I amazed he isn't down to a stick! :) So I won't be surprised if he's fallen into more of a "normal" weight percentile at our next doctor's visit. I think he'll still be off the charts in height.

His hair seems to be growing more and I think it's going to be a reddish dark blonde. I love it!

I think his 1-year molars are starting to pop through. I can see tiny spots of white already through the gums. I've been giving him frozen quartered banana and grape chunks to help soothe his pain. He frequently has a finger back there and drool down his chin.

Despite the molars cutting through, this week Hayden has been sleeping SO WELL. He's been taking two good naps (almost always 2 hours each) and sleeping from about 7:30pm until 7:30am STRAIGHT. It's amazing how much better I feel after a few consecutive days of 8 uninterrupted hours of sleep.

He is down to drinking milk (nursing or a bottle of pumped breastmilk/formula blend) just 4 times a day and eats 3 solid food meals:

7:30 am - nurse
8:30 am - breakfast
11:30 am - nurse
12:30 pm - lunch
4:00 pm - nurse or bottle of 70/30 milk/formula
5:30 pm - dinner
7:00 pm - bottle of 70/30 milk/formula

For his meals, he mostly eats fruits and vegetables so for a drink I give him a milk/water mix because I think it helps to get the protein, fat, and calcium in him since he still can't have any dairy. He drinks out of a straw or directly from the glass. He actually can even drink from the glass and hold it himself without spilling unless he's in a playful mood. And I try not to laugh when he blows bubbles in his drink, but it's so cute sometimes it's hard not to. He thinks it's hilarious.

Hayden is developing a really fun sense of humor and people frequently comment on how smiley he is. It doesn't take much to get him to laugh and we have developed fun "inside jokes" and games we play with each other. He likes to mimic whatever Phil or I do and thinks that's pretty funny. Like when he's in his high chair eating, he tilts his head to the side and waits for us to do the same, then he smiles and tilts to the other side. He is starting to have favorite songs from his collection of CDs and likes to dance! And he's super ticklish!

He is so fun! I'm such a lucky Mommy!

Week 47

Hayden made tremendous progress this week with his babbling vocabulary. I am so excited for him to enter this stage of learning to talk. We have a set of Baby Einstein Alphabooks that we like to look at, so one day I "quizzed" him on which letters/sounds he could say. These are the ones that he is able to repeat back to me:

A ("Ah" and "Uh")
B ("Buh-Buh")
D ("Duh-Duh", but not Da-Da yet!)
F ("Ffff" and "Off")
G ("Guh")
H ("Heh-Heh")
J (more like "Jrrah")
L ("La-La-La")
M ("Mum-Mum")
P ("Puh-Pa")
V ("Vvah")

Here's proof:


He attentively looks at our mouth and watches us say words. Then he works hard to mimic the sound. Sometimes getting it completely and histerically wrong but the inflection in the voice is there, and other times very close! Things I frequently say, like "We're home" as we pull into the garage, he repeats, "Hummum". When he is playing with his trucks and we say, "Truck", he makes an amazing word that I don't even know how to spell (Jrrugh?!), but he clearly thinks he's saying "truck". And that's a hard word! Other words he is trying to say: "Ball", "book" (this one sometimes he can say almost recognizably!), "Brrr" (with cold wipes, and ice water), "Mama", "On", "Off" and "Uh-oh" (usually just the "Uh!" part).

We also enjoyed a Saturday afternoon at the park on a beautiful sunny 68-degree day. (Hard to believe that 2 weeks ago it snowed 2 inches here!) Hayden loved all the activity at the park and even went down a big-kid slide:




On Thursday this week we hosted PEPS at our house. It's always so great to get together with the other moms and babies and share our highs and lows with parenting. And it's getting interesting now that a lot of our babies are very mobile!

My low for the week has been Hayden's refusal to take his morning nap. For 5 days straight I would do his nap routine, put him in his crib and leave the room. He would be quiet with just small rustlings for about 20 minutes and then I would hear him gradually make more babbling noises, then start hearing the mattress springs squeak as he jumps up and down in his crib and finally I go in to check on him and he has a massively poopy diaper. Like clockwork! After I change him, I try to get him back down for a nap, but he's too worked up and after another 30-45 minutes of babbling/screeching and jumping in his crib I decide to go back into his room and give up on the morning nap. The good news is that around noon, he goes down for a 2-3 hour afternoon nap. The so-called "sleep experts" say babies at this age should still be taking 2 naps, and it's not until around 13-15 months old that they drop the morning nap and just take one mid-day nap, but I'm starting to feel like Hayden has other plans. Weird thing is that today we actually got him to fall asleep after the diaper change and he slept for 2 hours, then took another 2+ hour late afternoon nap. So who knows what's going on!

My high for the week has been that my freelance clients have been very pleased with my design work. It's nice to hear positive praise and to feel like I actually do still have some creative energy in me! Even though it's been extremely challenging to work from home, it actually is kind of nice to have that professional outlet other than being 100% Mommy all the time. And it's even better to hear a "good job" (that's still not in Hayden's vocabulary!!) :)

Week 46

Sorry I'm just crazy busy with work and can't write a long post. For this week's update, here's a little 2-minute video montage of Hayden being cute.