Seven Months

Xavier is seven months old. We wouldn't normally have any stats, but he had an extra appointment for a weight check and flu booster shot. He tipped the scales at 19 lbs 8.5 oz, so that's 1 lb and 6.5 oz in five weeks. It didn't change his weight percentiles much: from 63rd to 64th CDC and 63rd to 71 WHO. He also grew half an inch to 29 inches long which keeps him in the 95th and 97th percentiles for height.

Xavier started rolling over in both directions right after his six month birthday. He can easily go from his back to his belly now. He will sometimes make it in the other direction and even put a few rolls together to reach something. But as often as not he can still get stuck on his belly - or stuck on his belly under something.

Right at seven months, he started moving around on his belly. That's mostly because our wood floors don't offer much resistance. I rarely put him directly on the floor because it's hard and I feel bad doing it. Usually he has a mat or blanket. But he was on the floor directly over the weekend and once he rolled to his belly, he had a fabulous time pushing himself around backwards and rotating to reach things. I don't feel like our house is too bad in the child-proofing department but now I know it needs some work. Mostly he's trying to eat dust bunnies, shoes, and old electronics we haven't gotten around to getting rid of much less of moving out of the living spaces.

Since he was losing weight at six months, we started feeding him three (and sometimes four when I am really on top of it, which is rare) times a day. Rice cereal was a close contender to avocados for his new favorite food - until we introduced oatmeal. Oatmeal is where it's at as far as Xavier is concerned. Mum mums are also a huge hit. I'm not sure if he likes the taste or just the fact that he can feed himself and that they feel good on his constantly teething gums.Other new foods we introduced included squash (no complaints), mangoes (pretty tasty), apples, and peaches (ambivalent about both).

He has object permanence for sure. I know this because if you try to take something away from him, for example the headphone cord he grabbed and tried to chew on the airplane, he complains.

He's fascinated with tags, cords, and straps of pretty much any variety. He loves balls and paper and electronics, as well as pretty much anything he probably shouldn't have (cords and the like) and anything his siblings play with or use.

We've gone from not quite four teeth to five through the gums. The ones on top are impressively large. The ones on the bottom are impressively sharp, as I found out to my detriment when he bit me during our trip and it took two weeks to heal. I feel like he's been teething since 4.5 months because, well, he has. Sleep has suffered for sure as  a result. It's the first time I can think of even for a couple days that one tooth is in and I can't see the next one getting ready to poke through.

As for sleep, since we spent most of the month traveling, it's been pretty ugly. Xavier definitely did not sleep well on any of the plane rides. I think he did not have enough room to spread out much. He's not a small baby and being scrunched on top of me to try and sleep didn't seem to help any. Since getting back and getting over jetlag he's settled in to a much nicer sleep routine. He's generally napping twice a day for an hour or longer each time. He can go as long as four hours awake but usually lasts less long in the mornings at only two to two and half hours. He's getting up for the day around 7 a.m. most days but it's by no means consistent yet. He's also going to bed much earlier, also by 7 p.m. or 8 at the latest.

If he isn't at home in his crib, his nap will last 25 minutes (aka one sleep cycle) and then he's up, but he needs another nap sooner. He will still snooze in the carrier, stroller, or car seat. His nap times both during the morning and afternoon are often subject to drop off and pick up times for his siblings, which sucks. He no longer sleeps through being transferred from one place to another, not even in the bucket car seat. And he hasn't made a successful transfer since before we left.

He's still pretty mellow, though he gets cranky when tired and fussy if he goes too long between meals or nursing. He also doesn't like for me to walk by him and not pick him up now, and that's generally cause for complaint as well. He's uncomfortable in super wet or poopy diapers but doesn't complain outright so that tends to be harder to diagnose. The best example of his personality: when he gets shots, he cries. Then I pick him up and thirty seconds later he's grinning at the nurse who gave him the poke(s)s. He likes to flirt now, smiling at someone, then ducking his head into my shoulder, then peeking back out with another smile. Overall he's just a super happy go lucky guy with some adorable fat rolls.

Happy half birthday Xavier!

 I managed to write most of this post before we left on our big trip, but failed to post it. I thought I would take care of that sometime on our journey. It will surprise no one (not even me) that I failed to accomplish that while having three kids with jet lag. 

Xavier is six months old and we are super excited to celebrate his half year mark with him! The big kids were both at school so Xavier and I had a fun low-key day to ourselves.  We went shopping for a few birthday presents (a new pair of booties and a stuffed animal he took a liking to) and had lunch.

The biggest development we've had is starting Xavier on solid foods. His first foray into good was avocados and boy is he a fan! The first week or so he would eat as much as we made for him - the more the merrier. I couldn't spoon it in fast enough and he opened his mouth like a little bird.

Then we tried bananas. He's not really a fan as it turns out. Mostly he seemed shocked it was not avocados. Then came sweet potatoes and he had a similar reaction. Pears went over somewhat better but by far avocados are the favorite. Lastly we tried yogurt and he was not sure but warmed up to it after several bites to adjust.

Xavier has been interested in eating since he was about two months old. He grew some teeth and I finally decided it must be time. He still loves to watch people eat. Spoons top his list of favorite toys and he will chase a sippy cup until it falls on the floor.

Xavier can identify the kitchen in almost any setting and will stare at anyone eating until they finish. If he thinks the odds are in his favor, he will smile and attempt to charm people into feeding him.

He has 2.5 teeth and the fourth one is definitely on its way as well. The bottom two middle teeth are well on their way and have very distinct ridges. His upper right muddle tooth had broken through the gum as well but you still have to work to see it. And finally there's a very distinct white blob under the gum on the upper left.

All the teething combined with the cough and cold that made the rounds of the house have made for some sleepless nights. Right now a good night has several two hour uninterrupted stretches. On a bad night he's screaming every twenty minutes to an hour and a half and not even nursing is of interest to him. Most nights fall somewhere in between. One night he will go five hours between feedings and the next can't be removed from nursing without crying.

He's nursing often at night but able to go about three hours during the day. He's getting solids once a day with the family at dinner if he's awake. Otherwise he gets his own snack later in the evening.

His naps are still not on any discernible schedule. He is waking up earlier in the day for the last two weeks. That means he's up around nine a.m. instead of between ten and eleven. At night I am still wrapping him up in the velcro to secure his left arm and swaddling in an attempt to get more sleep, and the room is still at 70 degrees or warmer.

Xavier is not at all interested in rolling over.  He can make it ninety degrees of rotation from his back to either side but no further.

Our check up was just a few days before we left. Xavier weighed in at 18 lbs 3 oz, which was 3 ounces lighter than he had been at my unofficial check two weeks earlier. The doctor, not having all the weigh ins I'd been doing unofficially, was not concerned. That weight was in the 63 percentile for both CDC and WHO. 

He measured 28.5 inches tall (97th and 98th percentiles respectively) and his head was 46.5 cm around (98th and 100th percentiles), so he's not exactly a light-weight even if he is losing weight. Because of our trip, Xavier got ten vaccines - all the regularly scheduled ones plus an extra round of measles and a flu shot. So that was one oral vaccine and five pokes - ouch!

Europe 2015

We just returned from a three week journey to see friends and family in Europe. We hauled 8+ pieces of carry-on luggage, 5 pieces of checked baggage, 3 children with an average age of 2, and two adults across five countries. (If you recall, we undertook a similar journey in 2012 which was blogged here as well: part 1, part 2, and part 3.)



As always, you can see all the photos online. I started a day-by-day breakdown but ultimately that takes a lot of effort, and I'd rather get something posted sooner rather than later. I've discovered that Google Plus will automatically generate "stories" if you upload a bunch of photos, so that's just what I did. Unfortunately they only process 2,000 photos at a time, and we have more than that, so I had to break it down into two stories. Without further ado:

Part 1: Days 1-18

Part 2: Days 18-20

The trip itself was great, but the weather left a lot to be desired. It felt like the forecast was always good, but what we experienced was cold and rainy (it even snowed three to four times!)

Tulips

You might have noticed that this blog suddenly stopped mentioning Theo's ski lessons. That's with good reason: the ski area closed after only 40 days of operation, because this winter in Seattle has been so incredibly mild that there's simply no snow in the mountains. The good news is that the ski area is offering 80% off the renewal prices for next year's season passes, so that works quite nicely for me. What does all this have to do with tulips? Well, the mild winter has the tulips in full bloom already, instead of next month! We took advantage of the nice weather today to sneak out of work and check them out.











Be sure to check out all the photos.

Vivian Hop-A-Thon

Vivian's preschool is doing the MDA Hop-A-Thon. If you are interested in contributing, please see her personal page. We'll have an update on Thursday with her hops!

Xavier at Five Months

Xavier is five months old! Since I never got around to posting his four month stats (and since there won't be any five month stats officially), I'll start with those.

Xavier weighed in about a week past his four month birthday. He tipped the scales at 16 lbs and 12 oz keeping him solidly in the 75th percentile for weight, where he has been since he was two weeks old. 

See all the photos here:
http://furchin.smugmug.com/Children/Xavier/Xavier-5-Months/

He's 27.5 inches tall, putting him above the 97th or 99th percentile according to whether you look at CDC or WHO growth charts. His head measured 17.32 inches (aka 44 cm - they aren't that exact in inches!) which was good for the 87th or 96th percentiles in head circumference.

In other words, he's pretty proportional and if anything, a bit underweight for his head and height percentiles. Zero cause for concern though. 

Xavier grabs toys and can get most of them to his mouth. He is better with soft toys than manipulating hard ones but is definitely making progress. He adores both his siblings and laughing at their antics. Just this weekend Theo played ball with him, which consisted of Theo rolling a tennis ball to Xavier and me and Xavier laughing hysterically because Theo was laughing. He also loves to watch Theo jump up and down and laugh, which gets them both going on a laughing loop. The more Theo does it, the more Xavier laughs. The more Xavier laughs, the more motivated Theo is to jump faster and higher in place. 

With Vivian, it's still almost all laughs but she loves to help change his diapers, pick out his clothes, and give him hugs and kisses constantly. Her new favorite thing is to feed him pretend food in a real bowl with a real spoon. 

As you might've guessed, we have started Xavier on solids this week. The first time he was into it but didn't know quite how to handle everything. He went crossed-eyed trying to track the spoon and would rear back from it trying to keep it in sight. If I held it still, he would focus on it then lunge forward with his mouth open. By the second day, he was still trying to tongue it a bit but caught on after a few bites and downed the whole bowl in about five minutes. We went with avocado for his first food, mashed up very well and mixed with milk. So far there have been no repercussions. 

Xavier still likes people best but is willing to play with toys as well. As he gets better handling items, he's more interests in them. The giraffe on his car seat is still a huge hit. I'm terribly grateful for that as it makes car rides much more bearable. 

He also likes the melon-sized plush rhino ball, and the singing monkey, hedgehog, and moose hanging on his playmat. 

Xavier is definitely still nursing for anywhere from an hour and fifteen minutes to an hour and forty five minutes each day. He likes to wait about twenty minutes after emptying one side before starting the other. 

He is completely fascinated with anyone who is eating or has food. He watches them like a hawk, leans towards them, and tries to charm them by smiling. 

Xavier is not rolling over yet. He dies get onto his left side if he's on a flat surface. He arches his back and that causes him to rotate over to one side. He's catching on to the fact that movement is useful for reaching things. He has not mastered it though, and for the most part is flailing around in hopes that something works. He's gotten stuck on his side several times.

He can also move on his bank by pushing with his feet while arching his back. It's a slow process and definitely not deliberate just a result of his flailing. 

Finally he can rotate around the fixed point of his head. If left on the floor long enough, he will move around ninety or one hundred and eighty degrees from where he started. 

He's sleeping less well, which isn't really a surprise to anyone. I knew it couldn't last. He can go about four hours once a night now and then he's up every two hours (or one or every forty minutes for an hour or two) after that. He's still not opening his eyes to nurse at night but he's much more emphatic about it and much quicker to complain. 

He's going to bed for the night between 10 and 11:30 most nights. He gets up for the day between about 10 and 11 a.m.  His naps aren't on any kind of schedule yet. He can't go more than two hours most of the time and often only 1.5 hours awake depending on how long his last sleep was. He's taking naps of about forty minutes frequently with 25 minutes being the norm if he's not on his bassinet. In there, he can nap as long as three hours though that happens much less frequently. 

He's peeing frequently but pooping only once every three to four days. His record was five days so far. I'm curious how solids will affect that schedule.  

Xavier, as a complete surprise to me, has two teeth now! I first got a glimpse of them when visiting Carrie. I have a hard time getting a good look as he always has his tongue out or fingers in his mouth. But I can definitely feel them both on the middle of his bottom gum. 

Xavier still loves tickles on his jawbone, collar bone, the tops of thighs, ribs and between shoulder blades. He is just starting to be amused by peekaboo.  I think that's more the tone of voice and repetitiveness than the actual disappearing act. 

We put him in the Johnny jump up too. He's the first of our kids heavy enough to touch floor. The others required a sack of chicken feed under them to not be dangling from our high doorways. He doesn't bounce himself yet (though he does love bouncing) but definitely controls his movements and turns to follow his head and check out the action. 

Xavier is still our chunk who is easygoing and relaxed. He rarely cries unless he is tired. He does puck up on social cues now which means he cries when his siblings are screaming or startle him. But he also laughs when anyone is laughing. His big gummy smiles from cheek to cheek charm everyone we meet especially paired with his still blue eyes. 

Excited about Swimming

We had the opportunity to spend a staycation night in a local hotel, and took the kids to the pool. Theo was incredibly excited about this opportunity, as you can see in the video below.

Xavier is four months old!

Our baby is four months old! I can hardly believe how fast the time has gone.

He has his check up later this week. I'll post stats once we have them. In the meantime we got giraffe photos with a few bonus pictures of the whole stack of kids.

Xavier is still a very charming guy. I'd say little guy but he's never really been little. He's wearing six month clothes now, and quite a few labeled six months are already too small. He fits best into the ones labeled 6-9 months. I don't remember that distinction being important the first two times. Pants and shirts are generally still ok at the six month size. But he's outgrown anything with feet especially and even some one piece outfits. I can still fasten them but he has a couple extra inches of leg hanging out at the bottom.

In other big news, he's just started to move around. He can't roll over on either direction yet. I suspect that's a reflection of how heavy he is as well as how infrequently he gets tummy time. (Once to twice a day in case you were wondering. Usually it's when I'm getting change or the bigger kids are both out of the house or confined elsewhere in the house.) although he can't roll, I found he migrated several feet from the position I left him on his activity mat. That happened for the first time on his four month birthday.

That means we can't have little choking hazards lying around anymore. It's not that we have had so many as much as I've been a bit lax about enforcing the pick up but no more.

Another big development happened on MLK Day. Michal had the day off for the first time in almost a decade and we all went out for lunch. I had Xavier in the front pack infant carrier. We've officially entered the stage where we have to clear at least a quarter of the table of everything. He grabbed my basket and thoroughly enjoyed moving it around. Everything was plastic or otherwise unbreakable as well as empty this time. But I had completely forgotten about this stage.

He's much better at reaching out and grasping things. One of his favorites now is his sister's hair as she is often in reach. Luckily he's pretty gentle and frequently lets go of his own accord at this point.

Xavier is one hundred percent on board with bottle feeding. We've done it enough times now that he recognizes the bottle visually and starts squirming with excitement when he sees it. He's still on a strict breast mil diet but if the choice were up to him, that would definitely not be the case. He is enraptured by people eating food and will lean, squirm, and lunge in the direction of food. I gave him a clean plastic spoon last week for the first time and he tried so hard to get some food out of it. He put it in his mouth every which way and had drool running all down the handle into his grasp.

Otherwise, he's nursing every two to three hours during the day, with less time between feedings in the evening before his biggest stretch of sleep. He ranges in total time from about an hour and a half to two hours over a 24-hour period.

He can easily grab soft cloth items and stuff them in his mouth. He also has no trouble with things that are firmly attached and can chew on those too. But he has not mastered untethered objects yet and quickly loses them when they drop out of sight and he forgets about them.

Xavier is sleeping about fourteen hours a day. Most of that is overnight. He's definitely not a morning person. He goes to bed between ten and eleven pm most nights and doesn't open his eyes again until ten or eleven the next morning. That's awesome except that Theo has to be at school at 9:30 four days a week.

Xavier has no napping schedule and generally cat naps four to six times during the day. Those range in length from about 25 to 40 minutes. He can fall asleep just about anywhere as far as I can tell and regularly sleeps swaddled in his bassinet, in the Bjorn infant carrier, in the stroller, in the car seat, in the bouncy seat, or in the swing. He'll also occasionally catch me off guard and just pass out on the floor while lying on his activity mat. I look over and he's peacefully snoozing.

Last week he started having a mega-nap about once a day. It's not at a regular time or even guaranteed once a day, but I think it happened about four to five times last week. It usually lasts two the three hours - much, much longer than normal, and almost always when's he wrapped up and in his own bed in the room with the space heater to keep him extra cozy.

Xavier rarely cries. Every once in a while a big burp will get him riled up as it prevents him from nursing. Otherwise, if he's fussing, he's almost always overtired. He rarely goes more than two hours between naps, and typically more like an hour and half before he's pretty much done. 









Xavier has outgrown the baby bucket! By the time we returned from our sundry east coast travels, he no longer fit into it. Instead we dip him into the big tub with his older siblings once a week or less to rinse him off. He's not opposed to the idea but doesn't really get much out of it either, except cold.

In the past month, he's also mastered sucking on his thumb. He doesn't do it super often (not every time he gets tired or fussy or anything) but when it happens he's really into it. I can often hear him slurping away at it, which clues me in to the fact that he's hungry again.

Xavier likes toys, especially the ones with faces, but definitely still prefers real people and interactions to any type of toy.I have yet to notice any color or pattern preference, but he's very willing to share his award winning smiles with strangers and familiar faces. He's got an awesome belly laugh that he employs when he's tickled about anything. Sometimes in the evenings he gets punchy right before he goes to bed and just making eye contact is enough to set him off. His dad shaking his arm up and down rapidly is always good for a laugh, and he still has tons of tickle spots on his jaw, collar bone, ribs, and especially his feet. His feet are hilarious.

Theo and Vivian Trade Candy

For his birthday, Theo got a $5 gift certificate to the local grocery store. He generously allowed Vivian to buy some bags of candy using his money (although he got more for himself) and the result is they ended up with different kinds of candy in their piles. This is the result of negotiating and trading:

A Tale of Five Christmasses

We are far, far behind on posting on this blog. In the case of Christmas, our laziness starts to look very prescient, as we just had our fifth (and, I think, final) Christmas last night when a box of gifts arrived. It was a very busy Christmas season which had us in both Atlanta and Cincinnati. Without further ado, presenting the five days of Christmas:

Christmas 0: Santa Photos at Red Apple



Christmas 1: Christmas Eve in Atlanta with the Bentleys

Theo made a train track out of Christmas presents, complete with a tunnel:



Vivian received pink butterfly wings with a pink tutu:





Another big hit was pretty much anything related to Daniel Tiger. Here's the trolley:



Theo received a simple Airbus airplane model as a stocking stuffer. It was incredibly exciting for him and he flew it around so much that we actually have almost no photos of it, except this one with him holding it.



After everyone went home and/or to bed, Sarah and I tried stuffing Xavier into a stocking (as we did with his siblings when they were babies). It was largely unsuccessful:



Christmas 2: Christmas Morning in Atlanta

The stack of presents was impressive:



Vivian, for scale:



Opening the stockings:



Afterwards we went outside to swing, but it was cold. With all the blankets, the kids almost fell asleep!





Xavier got presents too, and Theo and Vivian were very excited to help him open them:



Christmas 3: December 26th in Cincinnati

On the afternoon of Christmas day we flew up to Cincinnati for a brief two-day visit.



The letter mats were very fun!



Here's Vivian getting tucked in with the small subset of animals that we brought on the trip:





Theo got a vest:



Xavier looks forlorn at his siblings open his presents:



The coup d'etat was, however, the new LeapPad tablets!



Returning to Atlanta was exciting!



Back in Atlanta, we went to the Gift of Lights at the Atlanta Motor Speedway. Fundamentally you get to drive around the racetrack (slowly!) and look at light displays set up -- and you also drive through the access tunnels which are covered in lights!





We also took the kids to ride the Pink Pig. While it's "Atlanta's Christmas Tradition" I found it poorly organized and largely a disappointment.





We also went to downtown(ish) Atlanta and checked out the old fourth ward park, complete with super-fancy disk swings:



Playground at Senoia State Park:



Christmas 4: Seattle

The flight back went quite well; I sat in a row with Theo and Vivian and Sarah sat across the aisle with Xavier. A lot of horse-trading went into this seating arrangement, including calling Delta twice to get two seats in aisle 14 which we then traded on-plane to the folks on the aisles in the row with our other two seats. Fortunately we weren't too far back -- the back of the plane always sucks!



We managed to stuff Xavier into a larger stocking.







Vivian got a tent!



And a doll that uses the potty!



Theo got some trains!



Christmas 5: Box from the Masons

A box from the Masons arrived yesterday: