One Was Johnny by Theo

I have zero photos from the show itself mostly because I was handling Xavier and Vivian (who shockingly survived the almost hour long elementary school production). But here's Theo singing the song his "beginning room" class performed (by himself in the car on the way home so audio isn't great) as well as a couple photos featuring him. The production was Really Rosie by Maurice Sendak, and Theo was one of two dogs (each role was assigned to two kids) in his twenty kid classroom. They performed the song "One Was Johnny" and acted out the motions. Theo re-used his coyote costume for his dog role in his first-ever performance in a play. (He also performed in his holiday concert at preschool at age 3, where he was one of three kids out of twelve willing to talk into the microphone to introduce songs then.)

Skiing: Day 4

So what do I do while Theo has ski lessons from 10am to 2:30pm (and often later, as his class rarely returns from the slopes until nearly 3)? I ski! Here are my stats from today's session (the fourth day so far this year; three Saturdays during Theo's lessons, and one Monday night ski):

Christmas 2015 (and Theo's Ski Lessons)

We had something like 5 Christmases this year (although just two days ago Theo took issue with the count and feels he only got four) there's a lot of updates which we should cover. I won't do it justice at all. So check out the Google Photos Story. (For the record the four -- or five -- Christmases are: Cincinnati, Atlanta 12/24 evening, Atlanta 12/25 morning, Atlanta 12/25 afternoon, and Seattle.) Here's a Google Photos Story. We got to see everyone, and the kids got to ride ponies. What's not to love?

Theo's taking ski lessons again this year (really just picking up after last year's disaster of a ski season) -- check out this brief Google Photos story. He's out of the corral and doing the magic carpet routinely. He was extremely resistant to going -- he's rightfully noting that he only gets two non-school days away (go self-awareness!) but after the first lesson he told me "I might have been wrong about how much I like skiing" -- that is to say, he had a fabulous time. To make stuff even more awesome, Theo's new school apparently does a "Winterirm" where they take 3 Wednesdays in January and February and take the entire school on a ski trip to Crystal Mountain!!

Vivian at 3.5

Vivian turned three and a half and we forgot to tell her for a couple of weeks. The kids have been into their half birthday marks for the last nine months or so, since Theo could claim to be four and a half. He overheard me saying that to other adults and adopted it for himself. This year marks the first time Vivian's observed her halfway mark herself, and she's very pleased. She's already making big plans for her fourth birthday. Those include inviting all her preschool friends and getting a big boy bed like Theo's.

Vivian is a hoot. She is extremely independent and once she makes up her mind, it's hard to change it.

The biggest change for Vivian - which had not happened at the official 3.5 mark but did shortly thereafter, was that she's fully potty trained. She wanted to wear underwear so much and I had a giant bag waiting for her to switch from diapers. Finally I pulled out the bag where she could see it and that seemed to be enough to push her over the edge. Plus, her teacher at school said we could send her in underwear and that helped tremendously. She's in school three days a week this year, so every other day I had to put her in diapers or a pull up to send her to school safely. Once we switched to all underwear she did great. I let her run around the house without pants a couple of days and reinstituted her potty sticker chart with purple box rewards and we were off to the races.

Vivian is in school on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 9-2. She is still napping every afternoon though it's getting tougher only because we have to pick up her brother at 3, and that pushes nap well beyond the point where she is tired. She used to nap from 2:30-4, but now there are days where I've barely gotten her in bed by 4. That means it's often 5 or after when she gets up, and it skews bedtime later as well. Since she sharing a bedroom and her brother is an all day energizer bunny, she's getting shafted on morning sleep too. She's sleeping in her toddler bed with the small sides and green gate to close the open space between them. The gate isn't to keep her from falling out. It's to keep all her lovies and blankets and pillows in. She sleeps under five or six blankets which are described as warm, cold, or "with holes" which means hand-knitted.

After many months and one very useful teacher conference, Vivian is finally settling in at school. This is her second year there. She started the summer of 2014 and had been going ever since. Her favorite friends from last year didn't return this year, though, and that really threw her for a loop, it seems. For the first several months she would only speak to the two teachers but never a kid. She refused to take part in most group activities except snack and lunch and would even bury herself under a pile of blankets in a corner instead. She spent a lot of time sitting in a chair for refusing to clean up and she gave the teachers her full tantrums at times when she refused to have her diaper changed. She is only the second could the teacher has ever had to physically restrain because she refused to stay seated in a chair and was often closed into the bathroom (which she didn't seem to mind) because it was the only space where they could contain her.

All of which sounds very familiar. Her mother had a similar effect on preschool teachers. :-)

Vivian has an unerring fashion sense and loves to pick her own outfits. She puts together things I would never dream of combining. And it works! I don't know if her small stature helps but it's always so super fashionable and trendy. She wears leggings almost every day but sometimes adds a skirt of shorts to mix it up. She is often cold and layers tops to keep warm and adds socks and dresses to the mix as well.

She's still very much a lightweight. I think she's around 28 lbs and 37 inches tall these days. She loves shoes, pink and green are her favorite colors, and if she's not stubborn she is the sweetest most polite child I know. She's so nice to both get brothers and absolutely positively cannot get enough of her baby brother. She loves him so much. She likes to help change his diaper, pick out his clothes, feed him her food, read him books she's memorized, and give him hugs and kisses galore, especially before bedtime.

Vivian is extremely pleased that she's a big girl now and takes every opportunity to point it out. She adores swimming and fireworks, garbage trucks and diggers, and anything sparkly. She's very very good riding her balance bike now and goes faster than I can walk to keep up with her. She can bike a mile round trip most days no sweat. She's getting better on her pedal bike which has training wheels and, well, pedals. Her biggest issue is it's a very heavy bike and she doesn't have enough weight to get it moving well.

Vivian is an excellent finder and can count all the way to thirty. She knows most of her letters and almost all her numbers until 20 something by sight.

She's finally got enough hair that I put in pigtails for her for the first time today. It was so cute I couldn't handle it.

Vivian's favorite meal hands down is macaroni and cheese, preferably shells and cheese. She will horde and savor any treat, like candy or dessert. Her Halloween candy lasted until Christmas despite her brother's best efforts to help her out with her stash.

She loves her leappad and is very very good at the maze puzzle game all on her own even though the electronics are reserved for long travel trips. Her favorite shows are Bob the Builder, Calliou, Curious George, and Daniel Tiger who is by far the best.

Vivian loves her baby doll. If I had to pick one toy as her favorite (besides Ryba the clownfish who we cannot live without), it would be her baby.

I wish I had the right words to sum up her sunny sweet stubborn personality but she is an individual unto herself and words don't do her justice. Luckily she's still small enough I can pick her up or tickle her out of a recalcitrant mood, but I'm certain that won't last much longer.

Happy halfsies Vivian!

For all the giraffe photos:
https://furchin.smugmug.com/Vivian-35-Years/

Theo Turns Five!

Well I wrote this at the correct time, but never managed to post it. Surprise! Fall was awfully chaotic, well beyond the norm here. So....

Holy crap, Theo is five years old! Can you believe it? I am having a hard time adjusting to the concept. It does not seem like five years since he was a newborn.

Theo turned five and he was super excited about his birthday. He's pretty much been counting down to his birthday since Vivian's birthday in late spring. He's already got a long list of what he wants for his sixth birthday, too.

Interestingly, Theo did not want to have any kind of party or invite any friends to celebrate with him this year. He was very adamant about both those things. He wanted exactly what and who Xavier had for his birthday just a few short weeks ago. (We had a very quiet low key celebration for Xavier.) These requests are a dramatic departure from the last two years when Theo was very excited to have his party at school and invite all his friends. (Though in all fairness his school has been super chaotic this fall and perhaps that's contributed.)

Instead we had a very pleasant day mostly at home. We started the day off with our usual traditions of balloons tied to Theo's seat at the table. He had four balloons this year: a giant silver 5 he calls an "s", a Spider-Man balloon, a Thomas the train cube balloon, and a happy birthday cube balloon.

Theo also had a big stack of presents waiting for him on the coffee table when he woke up. He zeroed in on those, though he had to wait a bit. (With my recent foot surgery I am very slow to get out of bed and upstairs.) He tore through everything while we Skype and FaceTimed grandparents in to watch the excitement.

Theo got a Spider-Man hooded sweatshirt, a George t-shirt, a wooden track drawbridge, fingerpaints, a big kid two-wheel scooter (in blue, his favorite color currently), a stealth airplane, an SR-71 airplane, a marble run set, a Spirograph set, a Berenstain Bears train book,

Vivian scored a my little pony coloring book and a carrier for her babies. Xavier got two new airplanes - one small blue one and one larger one with a door that opens, three people, one piece of cargo, and it talks and sings.


VIP day at school

Buffet and eats five hot dogs

Weight and height

Dr visit drama

Surgery Postponed!

We had Xavier's pre-op appointment today and he's improved enough that they postponed Tuesday's adenoidectomy surgery indefinitely! He's put on almost a pound (from 22 lbs 5 oz to 23 lbs 1 oz) in slightly less than a month. His last biggest weight gain was six ounces in six weeks and growth only goes slower as he gets older. It's just enough weight gain for him to cross back over a percentile line. He's sleeping 9-10 hours consecutively most nights which is a huge difference from previously. While the sleep improvement could be the humidifier or the pillow we added, it's enough of a difference that they can wait and see.

Since it takes two weeks for the nasal steroids to kick in and he's only been on them since Dec. 11th, the doctor wants to give it another couple of months to get the maximum benefit. We have another check up in a mid-March to see how he's doing and re-evaluate him for surgery if needed.

Model Train Show

We attended the annual holiday model train show at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma as we do every year. This year we went on the very first day it was open and we arrived minutes before the museum opened. Most of the model trains weren't even running! Check out the Google Photos story, or watch the brief video below:

Vivian's Holiday Concert

Vivian's preschool puts on a holiday concert each year (Theo's concert was two years ago!). This year Vivian was one of three soloists! Given the auditory nature of the performance, there are no photos of the performance itself, only videos. You can experience the Google Photos Story, or see the after-party photos and some of the videos on Smugmug, or see the entire set of videos on YouTube. I've embedded the playlist below for your convenience as well:

Holidays 2015: Pacific Place Snow

Last night we took the kids to Pacific Place, a mall which does indoor (fake) snow nightly at 6pm.

Halloween 2015

This year for Halloween, Theo wanted to be a Sounder Train, and Vivian wanted to be a digger. Fortunately Xavier's and Theo's birthdays in the preceding month provided a lot of raw cardboard material. Coupled with a $50 trip to Lowe's which would make any graffiti artist proud, we had proper outfits -- complete with glow-in-the-dark paint for headlights and windows!



Xavier had a costume too!



We did tons of Halloween-related activities. First we had Vivian's friends from school over to decorate pumpkins on Friday (since Theo had his friends over to do the same the prior week). Afterwards we went to Jefferson Park Community Center to partake in their Halloween Festival.



Then on Halloween (Saturday) we went trick or treating in Greenwood...



...followed by Amelie's 5th birthday party. Then we headed home for a quick 2.5 hour nap before hitting up the neighborhood for trick or treating.



See the entire collection.

Halloween Hoedown

Lake and Park, Theo's new school (and Kindergarten!) which we started attending this past Wednesday, had a Halloween Hoedown. Amazingly, Theo took off and danced on his own with complete strangers while the rest of us ate. The entire collection is available here.

Theo's Day Out

Theo's new kindergarten had a teachers' in service day so there was no class. I'd already booked a sitter for my co-op working shift, so instead I got to spend a large part of the day with Theo. Here's what he wanted to do with his exclusive time:

Go to the neighborhood park and ride the zip lines. (I pointed out we could do this anytime so he moved to option number two.)

Stay at home building train tracks.

And finally settled on option three: ride the light rail to the stop with the water fountain and buy lunch from the coffee shop to eat there. Sold!

The coffee shop we planned to patronize had gone out of business but luckily there was another one open very close by so we went there instead.

Theo refused to take a jacket so he got cold at the water fountain almost immediately and crawled back into the stroller (which he hasn't ridden in the front of for quite some time). We spent most of our time inside the coffee shop then went joy riding to the airport to watch planes and eat our lunch.

Theo's Last Day at Coop

We withdrew Theo from coop, and today was his last day. His classes made a super-sweet farewell card for him.

Ola Visits Seattle

The radio silence on this blog doesn't indicate abandonment so much as incredible business. For instance, my cousin Ola came from Poland to stay with us for almost the entire month of August ahead of my sister's labor day wedding in Boston. We did so much, from hitting Seattle's tourist hotspots like the Space Needle to traditional summer favorites on Alki and the fairs, and we even snuck in trips to Mt. St. Helens and Los Angeles. You can check out all the photos as usual, but there's so many of them that I had Google auto-arrange them into a coherent story (which of course misses a lot of individual items, but it's a good starting point.)

Xavier's First Birthday

Xavier turned one last week! We celebrated his big first birthday in several ways. First, as is our custom, we got him balloons and tied them to his chair at the table so they would be obvious as soon as he woke up and went into the dining room. He had a first birthday balloon in baby blue (the only color they had), a red happy birthday balloon, and a new kind of ball shaped mylar balloon with Mickey and friends on a clear background. He very much enjoys batting at the balloons and watching them spring back and bounce around.

We laid his presents out on the coffee table and had several things set aside in separate places for his older siblings. Xavier was singularly unimpressed with the concept of gifts. I thought he would be interested in taking things out of bags and boxes as he likes putting things in and taking toys out of containers very much now. But he looked at all the stuff and moved right along.

Earlier in the week I had taken Theo and Vivian to the toy store and let them pick out presents for Xavier. Vivian in particular debated long and hard but settled on a red water bottle with a rocket ship on it for him. She had gone on hoping to find a red dish, though there was a surprising lack of red toys suitable for toddlers. Theo of course wanted to get Xavier a train, though once we got to the store and there was an actual train table set up to play with, he couldn't care less about shopping for presents. After he ran out of time at the train tracks, he got serious about selecting a gift. He stumbled across a brio train starter set marked for ages one and a half (instead of the usual three plus) and we were all set. Theo got Xavier his own track so he would stop messing up Theo's creations.

Back at home the kids decorated some packing paper and wrapped their gifts. So on the actual day, they were both super excited to "help" Xavier unwrap the gifts they had chosen for him. Theo then proceeded to help him unwrap everything else.

Because it was a school day for Theo, we had to rush a bit. After presents we took all three kids to the local bakery to select breakfast goodies. Xavier got a cream puff, and Theo and Vivian both selected cupcakes. We lit the one birthday candle and sang to him. Xavier was intrigued by the fire on the candle but had no idea about blowing it out. He did enjoy the cream puff though. He ate mostly the cream parts until I broke off some smaller pieces of the bread for him. It was large, though, and difficult for him to manage on his own.

Xavier has been pulling up to a standing position for about three weeks before his birthday and he's very stable on his feet. He's also remarkably good at getting back down to his knees and then his belly so he can army crawl around the house. So he was at the perfect height to reach presents on the coffee table despite his lack of interest.

He got the gifts from his siblings as well as a wilk (flat wolf lovie), a zutano blanket with a forest friends theme, a big yellow dump truck, a rocking horse (which is actually a giraffe) that talks and sings, a red car, a stuffed badger, a small red barn toy with wooden doors that open and close, a new shirt and jacket, a remote control car that makes music and noise, and a waterproof octopus with three rings that can be hooked onto its legs.

Vivian scored a stuffed digger ( she declared that's all she ever wanted and asked if she could keep it "for all the days"), a new hat and booties for her baby, and a magic pen coloring book. Theo was less impressed with his spider man raincoat, but liked his volcano book and magic pen coloring book.

Xavier is still napping twice a day, so by the time we dropped Theo off at school and returned home, he didn't have any time to enjoy his new things. He went straight to nap. When he woke up, I fed him cheese quesadilla for lunch as that's by far his favorite food right now. He's willing to sign more for quesadilla but not for anything else. I've also started giving him a sippy cup with whole milk in it at meals and he likes that a lot. I think the cup is just as intriguing to him as the contents though. He's mostly mastered the art of tipping it up to get milk out.

He also loved the sloppy joe we had for dinner one night and is still a big fan of beans. He likes cheese more than he used to, and loves to have an entire apple to chew on. Watermelon is definitely one of his favorite foods followed closely by blueberries.

He's not quite cruising along the furniture yet but has enough upper body strength he can pull himself up onto the coffee table if he wants. He still loves to play "ball catch" which is just Theo's way of saying roll a ball back and forth while sitting on the floor.

Xavier's still nursing about four times a day (upon waking in the morning, before both naps, and at bedtime) but gets formula or breast milk in a bottle after three of those sessions as well. He generally has about 24 ounces of supplemental fluids from the bottle per day. If he's nursing I give him four ounces. When I'm not available, he gets six ounces in the bottle and generally empties the bottle.

He's eating three solid meals and an afternoon snack. He loves these Gerber baby vegetable flavored poofs we discovered during our recent trip to Massachusetts. He would eat the entire container if allowed.

Sadly both Michal and I had a meeting we didn't feel comfortable skipping the evening of Xavier's big day. I left him a container of the veggie poofs with the sitter and let him gorge.

To make up for the birthday dinner we normally do, we invited friends over for Sunday evening. Oliver (3.5 and one of Theo's best buddies) and his sister Pearl (exactly a month older than Xavier) came over after to nap to play and have dinner. They brought Xavier a new touch and feel book which he loves, though I have since been unable to locate it. (I suspect older siblings in this disappearance.) Then we had a birthday dinner of steak with tomatillo salsa, black beans and rice, and cheese turkey dogs for the kids. Xavier ate his half a hot dog and rice and beans and Theo devoured five hot dogs!!!

We followed dinner with a small chocolate cake with raspberry filling and chocolate frosting with raspberries and chocolate swirls on top. It was about the size of a bocce ball with two layers and split amongst us all quite nicely. We put a blue candle in and sang to him again and then let him at the cake.

Xavier is still hit or miss on sleeping at night. We haven't had his twelve month check up yet because I scheduled it simultaneously with Theo's five year check up. But I suspect Xavier has a mild to moderate case of sleep apnea since most of the advice for that condition (colder air, inclined surfaces, side sleeping position) seem to result in much better nights for him. On a good night he's up around four a.m. and several times in the last month he's gone ten and a half to eleven hours straight. He's usually in bed by 7:20 something though now that he's pulling up he sometimes spends time playing before settling down to sleep. He likes to throw things overboard but doesn't fall asleep well without his favorite Taggie brand lovie, which is a small pale green (well it used to be pale green - now that he's dragged it along the floor multiple times it's closer to a dirty gray color) fuzzy blanket with ribbon tags sewn around all four edges.

Xavier loves airplanes. It's the only thing he signs for consistently. When we are outside, whenever he hears one, he swivels his head and signs until he spies it. He recently discovered that on clear days he can see them from inside the house at the big front picture window and I think that rocked his world. He stayed standing by the window watching and signing for quite a while.

He's still the happy go lucky guy who gets so excited to see all of his family members when they come back. Whether we've just been in the other room or gone all day, he kicks his legs and grins and hustles over with his army crawl to greet us. He still pats my back when he wants me to pat his back for comfort and it's pretty much the sweetest thing ever. He's got that big toothy grin with eight teeth in the front and at least one tooth coming in further back. His smile is enough to light up any room and strangers often stop us outside when we are walking to comment on what a happy baby he is.

He's growing up so fast and we are blessed to have Xavier as part of our family and to celebrate his first birthday together!

Xavier at 11 Months

Xavier is eleven months old! I know I say it every month, but this month in particular it seems so crazy that he will be one in a month and no longer a baby!

Xavier still loves to eat. He consumes four meals a day these days starting with breakfast around 8 a.m. That's usually oatmeal or rice and whatever finger food is handy. He loves oatmeal baby food cereal in particular. In fact he's our first kid to eat processed baby food cereal. The others wouldn't think of letting it past their lips.

Lunch is around 12:30 though often Xavier is starving by noon. He has lots of veggies or fruit cubes if we are home. Out and about he has baby food pouches. He won't eat the meat pouches and only occasionally shows interest in deli meat. He loves beans though and eats them as fast as he can shovel them in. He's okay with cheese but it's far from guaranteed and with nuts off the menu, most of his protein and fat calories come from yogurt.

He has a snack around 4 or 4:30 after his afternoon nap. That's almost always finger foods whether it's goldfish or snap pea crisps or buttered toast cut into strips. During our travels we got him done veggie puff baby finger food and he can eat the entire container of those in one sitting if we would let him.

Dinner is still Xavier's biggest meal of the day. It seems the later in the day it gets, the hungrier he is. He often has little interest in breakfast which is why we made that meal consist of his favorite food. When we feed him baby cereal at dinner he easily ate three or four bowls at a time. Now he usually had yogurt mixed with applesauce or a mashed banana. I've upgraded to the largest plastic kid bowl we have at dinner and it's rare he doesn't finish it all.

Xavier also loves finger food. He's almost to the point he prefers to feed himself. He's earned to suck from a pouch now instead of spoon feeding him. I have the most success spoon feeding if he has something else to entertain him - whether that's watching the show his siblings are always putting on or having something like a spoon or cup to manipulate with his hands. As soon as he's busy he opens his mouth like a little bird and lets me shovel it in.

He loves drinking water from a sippy cup with no valve or an open cup at mealtimes. Depending on what's he's eating, he needs the water to wash the food down. Since it had no calories I try to keep him from more than a few ounces but I'm considering offering him whole milk at mealtimes instead.

Xavier is nursing four to five times a day these days. He nurses as soon as he wakes up in the morning which is usually between six and seven. He can lay in the bed nursing/soothing for a solid hours a lot of the time. He nurses again before his first nap around 9:30 or 10. He has a third nursing session before his afternoon nap which is supposed to be around 2 p.m. but they really depends on if we have managed to leave the house or not.

He nurses and takes a bottle of breast milk or formula at bedtime which starts around seven p.m. Our giant stash of pumped milk, which took up an entire shelf of the stand alone freezer, is down to just a few remaining bags (though we did donate quite a few ounces). Coupled with all our recent travel, and he's been taking formula no problem as well. He generally has four ounces at bedtime after nursing and I've added a second two ounce bottle in the morning before his first nap as well.

Overnight Xavier is down to one nursing session usually around 4 (ranging from 3:30 to 4:30 most nights). Despite that, sleep is still totally hit or miss around here. He generally has an excellent night and sleeps straight through to that one feeding for about eight consecutive hours. On those nights he wakes up to feed again about two hours later before getting up for the day around seven something.

The alternative is much uglier and totally unpredictable. In these cases, he wakes up three to four hours after bedtime screaming. He will fall back asleep totally on his own after a few minutes, then wake up six or seven minutes later screaming again. Eventually after half an hour or so of this, I pick him up and put him on my shoulder. He squirms for thirty seconds or so, sighs, and passes out. Then I put him back in the crib and he sleeps an hour and a half to two hours before we repeat the whole process over again. At three or sometimes much earlier I nurse him and get him back on the crib but it's still every hour to two hours waking up and crying.

He doesn't cry much during the day though he does fuss now. He doesn't like going into his room if he thinks I'm going to put him to bed and he always cries for a couple minutes after I put him in the crib. But he has no trouble falling asleep and has very consistent naps at an hour and roughly ten minutes both in the morning and afternoon.

Xavier is getting around very fast these days. He's definitely still doing the army crawl with one hand and one elbow to wrist pulling him along. But I often see him getting his bell off the ground and he kicks his legs like a busy little frog. I've even seen him get up on all fours and rock back and forth a couple of times.

His biggest new move is getting up on his knees by pulling himself up on anything he can reach. He's mastered tucking his knees under him now and once he's up on them, he can let go with one hand and reach out for things. He can get pretty much anything he wants off the coffee table these days and can even reach the edges of the sofas.

Xavier loves to pull up on the handles of the toy kitchen and rummage through there. His favorite thing is the red dish washing brush the kids have. It has a suction cup on one end that is apparently just right for chewing. He still loves the color red.

He's completely obsessed with his lovey, which is a taggie blanket. He might sleep without it, but I'd hate to try nursing him or giving him a bottle without it for him to fiddle. He fingers the tags and loves on it so much.

He's very good with his fine motor skills and likes taking something out of a container and putting it back in again.

As for chewing, his eight tooth finally made an appearance! He's been sporting four on top and three on bottom for three months now with no new teeth. Now he has a matched set of four on bottom and top.

Xavier loves playing peekaboo and can hide himself under a napkin or blanket or anything else and peek out. He also loves tickles and the "I'm going to get you!" game. He's so cheerful and mellow pretty much all the time. He's perfectly content to sit in the stroller for two to three hours while we are out and about keeping the other two entertained. Even if the stroller is parked, not moving, it's extremely rare for him to complain.

He loves to swing and has outgrown the exersaucer because he is big enough ( both height and weight) to just lean over in it and pick up whatever he wants. We've retired that piece of equipment for sure. We don't go too many places where he can get out and roam because his army crawl isn't comparable with concrete and I don't relish the idea of him cleaning any floors in public spaces. But he doesn't seem bothered in the least by that or much of anything else.

He still loves to smile and grin at people though he has a bit of separation anxiety now if I hand him off to someone. Overall he's this charming mellow guy and we can't wait to celebrate his big day with him next month!

Xavier at Ten Months

Xavier is ten months old! Wow-wee! He hasn't changed much in the past month, but he has definitely gotten faster getting around. He's still dragging himself around army crawl style on one elbow and one hand. He kicks his legs and feet it doesn't get up on his knees or get his belly off the floor. As a result, our floors are much cleaner and his clothes collect a lot more grimy stains. Light-colored stuff is not our friend.

In the last two weeks, particularly at Grandma's house where there are many horizontal bars in low reach, Xavier had been pulling himself up. He's not getting into his feet or even his knees. He uses brute force to drag himself into a chin up and clear the ground with his belly then let's himself back down.

He's gotten better at sitting up as well. While I still wouldn't be out of reach when he's sitting upright (yesterday I was right beside him and he still face-planted while trying to transition from sitting to his belly), he can sit for much longer periods of time. Instead of flipping over or backwards immediately, he slowly puts him palms out flat and tries to lower himself down. His feet often get in the way so it's a far from perfect method. But it's definite progress. In fact during his last bath, he sat upright unassisted for longer than he spent splashing around on his belly.

Boy does he love the water! We got to go swimming three times in outdoor pools during our trip to Grandma's house. He is so happy splashing and kicking and moving around in the water. It's so much fun to watch.

He also still loves stripes and buckles and peekaboo is his favorite game. His favorite color is red and he loves doors that open or close - big ones, little ones, doesn't matter.

Xavier is super sociable and although he's getting some separation anxiety, he doesn't really meet a stranger. He was quite happy being passed among relatives he hadn't seen in six months or more with nary a complaint. He smiles at people then hides his head in my shoulder then peeks out smiling again. And if you have food, he's your new best friend. That kid loves to eat.

Xavier has a confirmed peanut allergy that's severe enough we are required to have an epipen with us at all times. He also has possible allergies to walnuts and pecans. That hasn't slowed him down any though, and the good news is he isn't allergic to hazelnuts. (Yay for Nutella!) We've added beans, which are a huge hit, blueberries, beef, strawberries, turkey, eggs, and raspberries to his diet. There aren't many other things left to introduce to him, but he still loves baby cereal. He can eat three to four bowls of it. He's a big fan of puréed vegetables and fruit mixes as well, though he eats so many ounces in a sitting (10-12 if not more) that I have trouble keeping the supply of mushed food in stock. Applesauce and yogurt are go-to foods because they come already in the correct consistency for spoon feeding.

I'm feeding him solids four times a day now - three meals, which consist of puréed solids and finger foods, as well as one snack in the afternoon. Snack is almost always finger foods like beans or fruit flavored puffs or goldfish and the like.

You wouldn't be able to tell how much he loves to eat by his weight however. We had a follow up visit with the doctor to check his weight and gross motor skill development. Xavier tipped the scales at 20 lb 9 oz. That's up from 19 lbs 11 oz at his nine month visit. But it's not much change from 20 lb 6 oz, which is what he weighed the very next day when we went in for his peanut allergic reaction. He is smack in the middle of the percentiles in weight on both CDC and WHO charts.

He's 30 inches tall, which keeps him in the 90th percentiles on both charts. That's a quarter inch taller in the last month (though the allergist measured him in the drawing two lines and using a tape measure manner and he was 30.5 inches at the beginning of the month). It would be nice to have some consistency among measurements. At the pediatrician for the allergic reaction visit, they weighed him in his diaper and got 20 lbs 14 oz so it looks like he's lost weight since then. I re-weighed him naked that day to have more accurate records and I'm glad for it.

Otherwise the only other big thing right now is sleep. Xavier takes two naps and has no trouble falling asleep at either time. The morning nap is around 9:30 most days and the afternoon nap starts between 2 and 2:30 depending on if I have to pick his sister up from school that day or not. He sleeps about an hour and a half both times with no wakings, sometimes as long as three hours in the afternoon.

He does not nap if we are out and about. During our trip he could go six hours even if we spent an hour or more driving. It was impressive in a scary kind of way. But at home with the white noise machine and the dark he goes right to sleep after three hours of awake time.

At night, it's totally hit or miss. He just did four nights in a row where he didn't nurse for more than eight hours. Since bedtime is around 7:30, that gets us to 3 am or so. Then he usually nurses again 2-3 hours later around 5. He might wake up before the first feeding, but he fusses only a bit and goes right back to sleep with zero interventions.

That's a great night. Then there are the not great nights. On those nights, he wakes up after only 3-4 hours and can't get back to sleep and stay asleep for sometimes as long as two hours. He falls asleep and quiets down repeatedly for seven, eleven, maybe even twenty minutes but wakes screaming again. He will calm down if I pet his head, or pick him up and rock him a bit. Sometimes that's enough to get him sleeping again. Sometimes the only thing that works is nursing. After the first waking on those nights, he's generally awake every hour and a half and I'm so out of it I nurse him. Often he ends up crashing the rest of the night in the bed with me as a result though it isn't intentional. Otherwise he's in the crib on his own for the entire night.

I can't detect any pattern or reasoning to determine ahead of time if it will be good night or not. I thought it might be if he had good naps during the day. Then I thought maybe he wasn't eating enough during the day. Taking care of both those things didn't make it any more predictable.

Here's to hoping for more good nights and fewer rough ones in between.

Talapus and Ollalie Lakes

Since the previous family hike to Denny Creek went so well, I figured I would try something a little more complex: a 5-mile round trip to some lakes. This time it was only Theo and myself.


Theo really enjoyed hiking with Tetley and over assorted bridges, of which there were many.


Our first view of Talapus Lake:


Our lunch spot:


Getting in:


Things went swimmingly (pun intended) so we hiked another half hour up to Ollallie Lake:


The hike down started off great -- Theo was singing a song and basically ran half the way back, but then the tiredness shone through as he started stumbling more and more. Eventually we made it back to the car without needing anyone to carry anyone else, but both Theo and Tetley immediately crashed:


Check out all the photos from the hike.

Xavier at Nine Months

Xavier is nine months old and boy has he had an exciting week to mark three quarters of a year! He's officially been outside the womb now as long as he was inside it.

We had our nine month check up which I will get to shortly. Tuesday night around 10:35 he had a sudden terrible cough. He sounded so bad we debated taking him to the ER. I decided if he could sleep that was probably better than keeping him up all night at the hospital. He did fine while I held him upright but every time I laid him down he had this awful hacking cough, almost like a barking noise and he couldn't seem to breathe. So he slept on me off and on for three hours until he finally turned himself horizontal in my arms and I managed to get him back into the crib without a massive coughing fit awakening him again.

Strangely he didn't have any cough during the day after. His regular appointment was the following day and he seed so happy and peppy we didn't go to the doctor unscheduled.

At his regular visit, he was diagnosed with croup. Since it's a virus there's not much you can do besides wait it out. Luckily we are past the worst of the scary cough.

Unluckily, Xavier had gained only two ounces since his last weight check at seven and a half months. He weighed 19 lb 11 oz., aka the 36th and 51st percentiles.

He hasn't grown a smidge in height so they came back and measured him again, at which point they decided he was 29.75 inches, up from 29 inches. That moved him to the 90th and 94th percentiles for CDC and WHO for height.

His head circumference is dandy at 18.90 inches (40 some centimeters) which basically puts him off the charts or at the very least "greater than 97th" percentiles.

He is not sitting up unassisted. I would never dream of leaving him sitting anywhere, even the floor. He just flips over to one side or the other, or back. He just doesn't seem to be interested in sitting up. I've seen him do it once about a week before he turned nine months and I was amazed.

He is getting around much faster now. He finally figured out how to drag himself forward via the brute force method at eight and a half months. I believe the move is also called an army crawl. He doesn't get his belly off the floor at all. In fact his belly is generally the part of him most in contact with the floor. He hauls himself around using his elbows and forearms. And boy! In two weeks that boy can move! He can get all the way around the "loop" through the dining room and hall now in under five minutes. He can get to basically anything on the floor he is interested in.

And he's interested in everything. He is filthy after five minutes of scrubbing my floors with his stomach. So we are flying through onesies, which he is currently also wearing as pajamas in our heat streak. The weather is awesome but it is not cool.

He loves anything he can get his hands on. Legos, train tracks, and magnet tiles which are almost always on the floor are top contenders. He will empty the ball basket too and can pull the Lego boxes off the lower portion of the coffee table and distribute those.

He does not mind spending time in the exersaucer and loves the Johnny jump up. Pretty much the only thing that upsets him is Mama walking by or in sight and not picking him up. If he is not contained he will come to me now.

He shows excitement by kicking his feet in the air when he is on his belly on the floor. He can also sit on toys like the rocking horse in the backyard (which has a high back and low seat so it's particularly good for him), the rocket (ship not the cat), and the digger.

He's sleeping terribly. It's been so bad at night that I no longer even nurse him in the bedroom during the day. He wakes up at 11 something every night despite the fact that I haven't fed him at that time for weeks. He cries and goes back to sleep on his own ten to twenty minutes later. Every night. That first stretch from 7-11 is by far the longest stretch of the night and sadly it hardly overlaps with my night at all. After that, he's awake every hour and a half to three hours though three hours is a very good stretch. I nurse him around 1 or 2, and again sometime between 4 and 5. He's been up for the day as early as 5:45 am and as late as 7.

Part of this sleep issue is inconsistency during the school year as I regularly had to drop Theo off right around nap time. Now that I can be more consistent with naps and bedtime I am hoping overnight sleep improves.

Xavier takes two naps a day. The first starts between 9:30 and 10. A regular nap is an hour and ten minutes. A crappy one is 25-35 minutes. If he's had enough sleep, he wakes up quiet and it can be a while before I think to check if he's awake.

In the afternoons he likes to nap at 2, but twice a week I am picking up his sister from school then. He can make it until 2:30 and it isn't like he complains. He sleeps another hour and ten to fifteen minutes in the afternoon though over two hours happens about once a week.

Bedtime is around 7 pm if I manage to stay vaguely on schedule. He sleeps with two small blankets and really loves the pale green one with all the silky tags around the edges. He fiddles it whenever he is awake and nursing or taking the bottle.

We are supplementing him with pumped milk once to twice a day. It was twice a day, about 2-3 ounces each time, but my frozen supply is dwindling so I've slowed down the consumption to once per day at the last feeding before bed.

Xavier loves to eat. He gets yogurt with fruit I the morning and that's by far his smallest meal. For lunch he had Frits and veggies and eats about eight ounces of baby food and whatever finger foods he can get his hands on. At dinner he regularly puts away 16 or more ounces of baby cereal. Any kind seems to work - oatmeal, rice, multi grain. He also has some sort of finger food with that meal. It's generally either a veggie like peas or beans or something from our regular meal (pasta etc).

In an effort to improve sleep, and in case acid reflux was causing the sleep disturbances, I took him off rice a couple weeks back. He seemed to improve, going from waking five or six times a night to three to four so I haven't put it back in his diet yet.

With his weight down the doctor suggested more protein. So the next day I put some peanut butter on a waffle for lunch finger food. That was clearly a mistake though doing it at lunch, in hindsight, was brilliant. Doing it at the park? Horrid idea. He started itching his neck constantly. He had a rash about ten days earlier under his neck of undetermined cause so that didn't immediately concern me. Then I noticed the hives popping up on his neck. Then on his face. Then his eyes. He's clawing at his neck and face constantly at this point even though he had two pinkie fingernail sized bites of waffle with peanut butter. He's had waffle before, too. It was very ugly and super scary. We drove home and he had some Benadryl but I took him back to the doctor anyway. We have an appointment with a pediatric allergist now as well as a suspected peanut allergy.

Other new foods we have tried in the past month with no problem include broccoli, green beans, watermelon, cheese, and eggs.

Denny Creek Waterslide

Way back on June 20th we went on a family hike to the Denny Creek Waterslide. It's just an area of the Denny Creek Trail where the creek flows over very large smooth expanses of rock, and you can sit and slide on them. The water is all snow melt so it's incredibly cold, but that didn't stop Theo and Vivian from getting in. According to the GPS the hike was 5.8 miles but that counts all the running around in the creek we did; the guide book says it's only one mile from the trailhead (so a 2 mile round trip -- but it sure felt at least a bit longer). Here's the GPS track:









See all the photos.