In preparation for Mother's Day

For those of you scratching your head for Mother's Day ideas, please consider Underhill House Handmade.  This is my friend Kendra's Etsy shop, and she's got a lot of great homemade knitted and animal artwork items.

Big Boy

Next week is going to mark a new stage in Felix's development. He will be eating daycare-provided breakfasts, lunches, and snacks. No more making baby food every weekend. Sweet.

Felix has realized that he's mobile. Uh-oh. While I was at the store this morning, Nick left Felix playing in the middle of the floor. He walked away to get breakfast started (a minute max, he says), and Felix crawled over to the computer power cord. He repeated this performance several times this morning. :o) By crawling, I mean the worm or army crawling. He's actually getting pretty quick.

Felix: 9 mos

Felix is Data

Yesterday was an exciting day for us.  First off, Felix got to visit me at my workplace (and meet lots and lots of my coworkers).  While there, he ate an entire fresh banana.  I really didn't think that he had the stomach room for that, but I was wrong.  After the visit, we went to his appointment at the UW Infant Learning Lab.  I contacted them a while ago to see if they needed a test subject.  The whole process of infant learning amazes me, so I hoped Felix would be able to help them figure out how babies' brains work.  The study he participated in was a vision study.  We went into a special, small, soundproof room.  I put Felix in a car set in front of a TV screen with a video camera on top.  The camera had special eye-tracking software that could tell where Felix was looking.  I was given a pair of sunglasses that blocked me from seeing anything (the camera would have picked up my eye movements, too).  According to the researcher (since I couldn't see it), an image was shown rotating to each corner of the screen at a set interval (long-short-long-short).  They wanted to see if he would figure out the pattern and timing, then be able to figure out where the image was supposed to be if he looked away.  I have no idea how he did, but at least they have more data for their study.  I do know he looked at me a fair bit, maybe to see what I thought of the image, or trying to figure out why I was wearing such huge black glasses.  Pretty cool.  He also got a little t-shirt for his participation.  :o)

Felix: 9 mos

Butt-dancing, Break-dancing Baby

Felix also made huge strides (figuratively speaking) when he managed to move forward yesterday.  I figured out the perfect motivation to get him moving: put a piece of paper just out of his reach.  (Nothing but paper or food elicits the same "gimme!" response from Felix.)  He howled for a second, then did a variation of the Worm to slowly move himself to get the paper.  He repeated the performance this morning.  Yay!  At least he's starting to put two and two together about moving.  He know he needs to move his legs (his left one has begun sweeping out to the side in an effort to gain traction or momentum or just look silly), but his arms are just doing pushups.  Pretty soon, he'll get his arms and legs figured out to get there faster.  

Yesterday, he woke up 180° from how he started in his crib.  This morning, he awoke on his tummy for the first time.  He seems to definitely want to move, even in his sleep.  It looks like it's time to drop the mattress in the crib, to the dismay of my poor back.  :o)

Felix: 9 mos

Nine Months

Felix turned 9 months old on Monday.  Wow!  Every day he's getting bigger (chubbing up, even), and doing more and more things.  He figured out how to say ba and ma last weekend (which have been added to his repetoire of repeated-sound babbles and growls).  Still no crawling per se, but he is able to move himself backward very slowly.  That's progress, I guess.  He's much better about tummy time now, and rocks when on hands and knees, but he hasn't figured out how to use his hands for movement yet.  He wants to stand up more than anything, and last night surprised us when he was standing holding on to a bar stool - he took his hands off the stool and made to step toward me before tumbling into my lap.  It gave Nick and I an "OMG, are you about to walk?!" shock.  Maybe he'll end up walking instead of crawling.

He may finally be getting a long-awaited pearly white.  He's certainly showing all sorts of signs (again).  Drooling, crying at night*, but now it looks like his gums are a little swollen and red.  Maybe soon!  *Felix has been waking up at around 4 am the last few nights, pretty wide awake.  We tried letting him cry himself to sleep one night (after giving him baby tylenol and baby orajel), but I didn't like doing that.  Last night, I rocked him back to sleep for a half hour.  I really hope that this waking at 4 doesn't become a habit.

We go to the doctor this afternoon for his 9-month checkup.  Dreaded shots, but this time is a little disconcerting also because I had to fill out a developmental survey for him.  Is he doing this or that, how often, that sort of thing.  Nothing like making me feel like my baby's behind in some way.  Sheesh.  We'll see how it goes, plus get his length/weight for the baby book.

Felix: 9 mos

What Felix Eats

I thought it would be interesting to post the foods that Felix has been introduced to by now, as something to look back on.  With the exception of a few jars received as a baby shower gift and the cereal, everything he's been given I've prepared myself, freezing pureed foods in ice cube trays.

* Rice/Oatmeal/Mixed Grain Cereal  * Bananas
* Sweet Potatoes                                * Apples
* Peas                                                 * Pears
* Green Beans                                    * Peaches
* Squash (butternut and acorn)          * Tofu
* Carrots                                            * Chicken/turkey
* Pumpkin                                          * Pork
* Avocado                                          * Egg yolks
* Cauliflower                                      * Pasta
* Spinach (big mess!)                         * Puffs/Os/crackers
* Lentils (not a fan)                            * Bread
* Potatoes                                           * Rice
* Mushrooms                                      * Blueberries (also messy)* Cheese/Yogurt/Cottage Cheese (do unhappy things to his tummy - we're going to wait until he's a year old before trying again)

Several of these items get all mushed together when I make baby food or when we prepare dinner.  Last night, he had a chicken/peas/rice mix.  This morning, in an attempt to get his to eat up the lentils I made, I mixed one cube with mixed grain cereal and pears.  It wasn't as bad as it sounds, I promise.  :o) 

As spring turns into summer and more fresh fruits and vegetables become available, I will be adding them to his diet.  I'd much rather feed him fresh peaches and pears than canned in any kind of syrup.  I think I'm going to try some "soups" soon, as well as beets, nectarines, and more big people foods, depending on what we're having for dinner on a given night.  He already likes turkey tetrazzini.

Felix: 8 mos

Happy Easter!

Felix is coming up on his first Easter tomorrow.  We'll be spending the better part of the day driving up to and having lunch at Nick's aunt and uncle's house in De Pere.  Hope you have a nice one!

Felix has already learned to share (he passed on a rather horrid cold to me this past week), and he's so happy about it he learned to clap! He's happy and he knows it! I also made him happy on Thursday when we went to the park and I put him in the baby swing for the first time. He's getting bigger and stronger, and it won't be too long before he's crawling and pulling up on things. Then look out!

Side note on past posts... Still no teeth yet and no idea what was causing his discomfort a few weeks ago. Gas? Growing pains? Any guess is a good guess, but at least they haven't continued. No, now he just finds a way to rotate himself (sometimes up to 180 degrees) from his initial position in his crib. What a funny boy.

Felix: 8 mos