We have a crawler!

In my last post, Punkin was working on his crawling. Since then, he's mastered it. He's absolutely everywhere and into everything. Note the evidence:

This was taken at my Mom's house while she was babysitting. He crawled off of his blanket with all of his toys and went for the DVDs. He enjoyed himself immensely and was not pleased when he was taken upstairs for a much needed nap.

The same day he started crawling, he started sitting up on his own. Honestly, the first thing I thought was how this is one step closer to him climbing out of his crib. I have no idea why.

On the baby food front, I've upped his meals to two a day. He's getting two cubes (2oz) at each meal now and he eats them up no problem. He gets fruit in the morning and veggies at night. He really loves his fruit. I think peaches are his favorite. I accidentally left the baggie with his apples in it out when I was getting his food ready for the day so I had to toss them. It was really sad. Almost a whole ice cube trays worth of apples, just gone. I'm going to have to get back to New Leaf soon to get some more for him.

We're still working with the sippy cup but it's slow going. He drinks out of it great and will even hold it but he hasn't figured out that he has to actually tip the cup up to get the water out. He'll get it soon enough I think.

On a personal note, I'm finally taking the necessary steps to start becoming a lactation consultant. The Breastfeeding Center is coming to town in January and holding a week long teaching session that will grant me a CLC (certified lactation consultant). I'm really excited about it. It's one step closer to becoming an IBCLC (international board certified lactation consultant). After I finish with the CLC program, I'll still have 40 hours worth of continuing education to take and 1000 clinical hours of actually helping women with breastfeeding, and then I'll have to sit for the IBCLC exam. It's going to be a long road, but I'm so passionate about this. I feel like if women had better access to lactation consultants and were better educated about breastfeeding, more of them would choose that option.

I see a lot of changes happening for our family next year. It's a little scary, but I really can't wait!

These Boots Were Made for Crawling!

Punkin is so close to really crawling. He can get up on his hands and knees and rock back and forth and scoot himself around, but he hasn't really taken off yet. It's so fun to see him try, though.



He does what I like to call "baby push-ups".

I love watching him try to figure things out. It's like I can see the wheels turning in his head trying to understand. I love it. :)

I wish I could spend more time with him. Going back to work has not been an easy thing for me. It's really odd because I never thought I'd want to be a stay at home Mom. At work they made me sign a maternity leave agreement stating that I would work through the next tax season or forfeit my maternity leave. Nice, huh? Honestly, at the time I didn't think twice about it. Now, it kind of makes me sick to think about.

Not that I could stop working if I wanted too. We rely pretty heavily on my income and as many times as I've tried to work it in my mind, I just can't see a way to make it happen. I'm hoping by the time we're ready to have another baby we will have found a way. Keeping my fingers crossed.

In baby food making news, I took another trip to New Leaf on my lunch break and bought some more fruits and veggies to cook. This time I got squash, green beans, plums, avocado, apples and carrots. I'm excited to get cooking. I'm steaming green beans as we speak!

Apples, and Peaches and Potatoes! Oh My!

I have really enjoyed making Punky's food. So far I've made apples, peaches and sweet potatoes. I've frozen them all in my nifty ice cube trays and transferred them in to Ziploc freezer baggies. I just take out a cube of whatever I want to give in the morning and it's defrosted by that night. It's surprisingly easy.

 I think he's really getting the hang of this whole eating thing. When we first put the food in his mouth, no matter what it is, he makes this hilariously horrible face. Here's his sweet potato face:

Also, note the awesome Invader Zim bib. Loves.

We've also started giving him a little water in a sippy cup and he loves it! It's his favorite treat.

I have mesh feeders for him so we've been putting an ice cube in them and he sucks it dry. I'm not sure if it feels good on his gums or if he just really likes water, but either way it's a nice treat for him. I also have chunks of frozen banana in the freezer so I think I'm going to try him with that in the mesh feeder.

In Mommy news, Haley and Daniel came over last night and brought me the most wonderful spaghetti and chicken casserole-ish meal. It was delicious. It was nice to sit around and talk and catch up. And finally meet Daniel! I love having a Mommy friend who lives so close. Soon, it'll be cool enough that we can walk over there.

Tomorrow's agenda holds a Mommy and Daddy day while Grandma baby-sits for us. I have no idea what we're going to do but I'm very much looking forward to some one on one time with Austin. It's been too long. I think we've only gone out twice since our little Punkin came along. It's time, again!

And just because I'm feeling nostalgic, here's a picture I found of Austin and I from a very long time ago. I think we were maybe 19 or something? Man, we're getting old.

Busy Weekend

Punk and I have been very busy while Austin has been away. Saturday we woke up to go to our first Musikgarten class. He is definitely the youngest by far (the only one not walking), but I still think he enjoyed listening and watching all of the other kids. We have a CD and song book at home so hopefully tomorrow we can find some time to have some fun with it.

After Musikgarten and a much needed nap, we went to the Jr. Museum with my sister and her kids. That was fun, but very hot in the beginning (luckily it cooled down while we were there). Last night we had some very yummy homemade Shepard's Pie with Haley and her little Benjamin. Unfortunately, it was cut short when poor Benjamin hit a rough mood, which I found out later was caused by a stomach bug. Thankfully all is well now and I hear little Benjamin is asking for Baby Jax to come over. We will gratefully oblige, hopefully soon.

Today after Punkin's morning nap we took a trip to New Leaf to see what organic fruits and veggies we could find. We got just a few.

We got some more bananas, apples, peaches and sweet potatoes. I've already baked the sweet potatoes and they're in a pile of mush cooling on my counter at the moment. I bought some ice cube trays with lids so that I can freeze the food in one ounce servings and defrost as needed.

I figure this will be a good way for me to send food to my Mom's when she has him while I'm at work. He still isn't sure about the banana. He'll take a bite and make the most horrible face. I don't know if he's just figuring out the taste or if he just doesn't like bananas. I guess we'll find out soon!

Austin comes home tomorrow, and while I'm glad I've also really enjoyed this one on one time with Punk. It's been really nice to have him to myself these past few days. Tomorrow I'm hoping to just relax around the house and take lots of naps.

This food is Bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

My baby food making class really ended up being more of a what to do class as far as starting solids goes. It was pretty informative, but I'm a compulsive over-googler so  I had pretty much read everything that was taught. It did confirm my feelings about starting with cereal, so that made me feel pretty good. I'm always scared every decision I make is wrong...welcome to parenthood!

Yesterday we took the plunge and gave Punkin a taste of solids. I was going to wait until today and start with sweet potatoes, but Austin really wanted to be there and as he headed out of town today for his geeky fanboy convention (which I'm sorely disappointed about missing...Draco Malfoy is making an appearance!). So I stopped by the store and grabbed some bananas as they're easy to make (mash with fork and voila!) and easy to feed. Here was his initial reaction:

Needless to say, he wasn't too sure about the whole thing. In my baby food making class they said the best first spoon is your finger, so Austin and I were able to get a little dirty as well, which is always fun. By the end of it I think he was enjoying himself.

I still need to stop by Fresh Market or maybe New Leaf to try and find some organic fruits and veggies. I think I have everything I need to build a food stash for when I'm at work. I'm really excited to get started.

Today he had his 6 month check up and shots. He was 18 pounds even and 25 inches long (he's short for his age, but I'm 5'1 and daddy is 5'4 so not exactly a surprise). He did really well with his shots. He cried for about a minute and stopped as soon as he was in my arms. He's getting to be such a big boy.

Meanwhile, I'm looking for a good read right now. Currently I'm re-reading the Harry Potter series in preparation for our trip to Harry Potter world in October (squeeee!) but I'd really like something I haven't read 23402983409808 times. Suggestions welcome! :)

Six Months

So tomorrow Punkin will be six months, and I'm just now trying to keep a blog going. This is really more for myself than anyone. I want to have a record of his milestones that's not in a a very ugly baby book.

He's gotten so big so fast. At three months we was rolling over, at five months he was sitting up and now at six months he's trying desperately hard to crawl. He gets up on his knees and rocks back and forth, but can't quite figure out what to do next.

The next big step: Solids.

He's exclusively breast fed so I waited until 6 months, as he gets all the nutrition he needs from the breast milk up until now. I've been agonizing over how to do this for the past two months. I've been reading and researching and I think I finally have a plan. I'm going to skip cereal all together. I don't really get the point of it. It has next to no nutritional value and while some say it's to help them practice for real food, I think actually eating the real food will be better practice. Not saying anything against using cereal first, I'm just going to take a different route.

I've decided to make my own baby food, which I'm ridiculously excited about. I have no idea what I'm doing, but I figure it can't be too hard, right? I'm going to start with sweet potatoes so tomorrow after my baby food making class (yes you read that right) I'm going to stop by Fresh Market and see if I can find some organic sweet potatoes. Friday Punk has a doctors appointment and shots (which I have to go to alone...gulp. I'm a notorious immunization crier) so I figure maybe some real food will make him feel better.