40 Weeks

40 weeks - that means Will has been on the outside almost as long as he was on the inside.  He was six days late...so almost there!

Will and I are in the middle of our two-week vaca at my parents house.  Billy drove down with us last week, but he had to go home for work.  Luckily, Will and I have nothing locked into our calendar!  We have been having so much fun and more family will be coming this week.  He is excited to meet his cousin, who is only 4 months younger!

We took Will back to the beach, which is different for him this time, now that he can crawl.  He still like to eat sand and put shells in his mouth.  I showed him one of those sand crabs, that bury themselves in my hand, and without hesitation, he took it from my hand and it was going straight for his mouth!  What a surprise that would have been for him if it made it! Ewww!

 He also went on his first boat ride!  About 20 minutes in, he conked out!  I enjoyed the ride and getting some sun though!  Summertime with a baby does not lend it self to getting a tan!  Being here during the summer is great though, because there is so much to do with the dock, fishing, crabbing, the beach, and I know as he gets older, he's going to love it even more!

My mom and I were able to find a great jogging stroller on Craigslist so we can take him on our morning beach walks now.  The big, inflatable tires make it a breeze to push on the sand and now I don't have to lug my Bob back and forth from WV.  Clearly, Patton enjoys the morning beach walks too.

I just love summer!

9 Months

Will is nine months old! I can't believe we only have 3 more monthly updates to do! He is still hanging out around 27lbs, and we have a doctors appointment soon to get his height, but I'll guess he's still in the high 90 percentile.

His eighth month was a game changer with crawling. He has his hands on everything that isn't nailed down! Patton is his favorite destination, by far!  He is also an expert at pulling up now, and seems like he prefers standing to sitting.

Still nothing really new with food. We're done with purées and have moved on to cut up fruits, vegetables and puffs. I offer it at every meal, but only a couple pieces make it into his mouth, with the rest on the floor.  I did find a grape in his diaper the day after Kelly's shower though!

Sleep has improved slightly since I cut out caffeine last week. I had no idea that my one cup/day was affecting him, but the day I stopped drinking it, I got the best night from him in months.

Some other things Will likes right now are being read to, having his teeth brushed, looking in the mirror, wrestling with Billy and bath time. 

We're headed back to the beach this week, which should be a different experience now that he is mobile.

We're loving that we're getting to see so much family this summer!

38 Weeks

We had a whirlwind trip to the DC area this weekend, and are now recovering.  Will's routine was totally thrown off, and has woken up around 5am, ready to go for the past 2 days.  Who needs an alarm clock?  We woke up Saturday morning, and hit the road by 6am.  We made it to Billy's grandmother's house by 11:30, and we are at his sister's bridal shower by 12:30.  Somehow, we were very efficient travelers with a baby and a dog!  We still have one more trip to NC, and to Virginia Beach for the wedding...both will be much longer times in the car.  We were hesitant about the trip this weekend, but we're so glad we went.  Billy's extended family is loud, energetic and we always have fun.  Will was just so entertained by everyone, he didn't eat or sleep for close to four hours while we were there!

Speaking of eating, I think he's over the pureed food.  I gave him yogurt, which he seems to enjoy.  But I think it's being spoon-fed, that he doesn't prefer.  It's hard to know what the deal is though.  I gave him some puffs on his tray, and after a day, he figured out how to put them in his mouth.  What I do know, is that he has a sensitive gag reflex, so there is usually a mess to clean up.  On the Oct 2012 baby board on babycenter.com, it seems like there are quite a few babies around Will's age that aren't crazy about food.  Obviously, he's still nursing as his main source of food, gaining weight and isn't lacking in nutrition.  What was funny this weekend, is that there was only a one-pound difference between Will and his 2-year old cousin.  So am I worried that he doesn't eat a ton of solids yet?  Not so much.

Now that Will is a crawling machine, his consistent goal is to get to Patton as fast as possible.  Patton wins over any toys or other sources of entertainment.  We're trying to teach him to be gentle, because Will's form of "petting" is more of a hit and he likes to grab handfuls of fur.  Patton, so far, is very patient.  We put baby gates up last week, which Patton is not the biggest fan of!  And we tell Will that he is in Baby Jail.  Ha!

Billy's grandmother told me this weekend that she read an article about how forward facing strollers can be stressful and damaging to babies.  My goodness!  With every little thing we do, I'm sure there is some body of evidence, big or small, that can prove there is a better way.  I'm certainly not running out to buy a rear-facing stroller. My mom said that she thinks this generation of moms has too much information.  While having all this information at your fingertips is obviously helpful in most instances, what an added stress is can be too!  I think especially with the social media aspect seeing other moms do something one way, and then beginning to second-guess the way you do it.  And all the article posting.  I'm hesitant to repost baby rearing articles on facebook because I don't want to make it seem like I know better, or I'm telling other moms what they should be doing.  It's just overload sometimes!

So yes, nine months next week!  3/4 of a year over!  Ack!  He's looking less like a baby, and more like a little boy all the time!

37 Weeks

Surely, I will be blessed with a good sleeper with the next child.  Rarely, do I hear of other babies Will's age waking as much as he does, but these are the cards.  Two wake ups, is what I consider an ok night.  Three or more, is when a night is filed into the bad folder!  There is nothing that I have read, that I can do, so this is just a season and we're getting through it!

Poor guy has been hit with what seems to be allergies though.  I think I had it coming, because Billy and I were just talking about how he had not been sick yet.  He woke up on Saturday with his eyes almost crusted shut and gross stuff all over his face.  He doesn't seem to be too phased by it though.  We took him outside on Saturday, and it seemed to get worse.  Neither Billy or I have allergy issues, but we have been hearing that they are notoriously bad in this area because we are in a valley.  At his age, there isn't much we can do in the way of medicine either.  It seems to be getting better, and I just hope it goes away soon!

So we lowered his crib to the lowest setting and dang is it low!  I'm 5'7'' and I have a tough time basically doing a dead lift in the middle of the night with this 28 pound bowling ball of a baby!  With bending all the way over to get him, if I were much shorter, it would be seriously difficult!

Wiggly Will is not a snuggly baby.  Not even when he's tired.  Some babies will put their head on your shoulder and let you rock them...not this guy, not anymore, at least!  Even just sitting on my lap is not enough for him.  He tries to wriggle out of my arms and leap off the chair.  His arms and legs are always going.  Sometimes Billy and I just stare at him and wonder what he is going to be like in a couple years!  Occasionally, I even have to pin his arms down while I read a book!  We listened to a book recently, where a mom talked about having to pre-exercise her son for 2 hours before soccer practice, so he would be on the same energy level as the other kids.  I thought it was hilarious, but I hope that is not our case!

Will and I are hosting our first Moms Club play date on Tuesday.  I have never really been around kids, so I have no idea what to prepare...and it's for ages 0-2, which seems like a pretty wide range to me.  Will doesn't have a ton of toys, so I hope they're ok with some blocks and his sparkling personality!

36 Weeks

Such a big week for Will!  I had to write everything down to try to keep track of what happened this week.  After 12 days away from home, we were happy to arrive back in West Virginia last night!  He was a trooper though, and did better than I expected with sleeping in new places.  The car rides, however, were not as pleasant.  But, how can you blame him, being strapped into a seat for hours on end?

In the car, it's tough for him to fall asleep, because at home, he almost always nurses to sleep.  And we never really got the hang of the pacifier.  So he tosses and turns his head in frustration, while I pet his head and try to "shhh" him to sleep.  Once he's asleep, he'll go for a while.  The way up to DC from NC was NO BUENO though.  With traffic starting from 30 miles out, pouring rain, and Will refusing to eat for more than 6 hours, everyone was miserable.  I think I sang Wheels on the Bus for close to 2 hours.  Billy momentarily cancelled the rest of our summer travel plans.  I think they're still on though ;)  Next time, we might try to drive at night.

Back to big things for Baby Will...we have a crawler!  My mom and I spent the majority of the week trying to get him to crawl, and finally, the morning that we were leaving, he did it!  And now, of course, he's into everything.  His favorite is electrical cords.  So this morning, I have done some baby-proofing in his room, and will have to inspect the rest of the house later.

He also can pull himself all the way up now.  So time to lower the crib mattress again too!  He's not too stable, so I have to watch him on the harder surfaces.  Thankfully, the basement is fully carpeted, so we'll hang out mostly down there during playtime.

We're on the 7th tooth and they're coming in like rapid fire now!  He is looking so much more grown up with a mouth full of teeth!

While we were in DC, we were able to attend Georgia's baby shower, which was clearly exhausting for him.  When he took naps at Billy's aunt's house, I figured out how to leave him upstairs(her house is 5 floors) since I didn't have my baby monitor with me.  I used facetime between my iPhone and iPad and just left the iPad with him, and carried my phone around the house.  Good travel tip!  Another quick one is, if you're checking a car seat at the airport, you can stuff smaller items in the car seat bag, that won't fit in your luggage or carry-on.  I believe the car seat checks for free with most airlines!

And we also got to celebrate Billy's grandfather's 78th birthday.  It was nice to have a smaller group of people, rather than the huge family gatherings that they usually have.  We'll be back to DC in 2 weeks for one of those!

I'm hoping over the next few days, we'll get back to our schedule and maybe start introducing solid food breakfast to Will.  I don't think we'll go to the fireworks, because it's so late, but Happy 4th of July to everyone!