G'n'R Out West

Yep, he’s already past the 1/2 year mark by one full month. Devastating, really.

He is growing up just too darn fast I can hardly stand it.  He is such a little smiley ball of happiness it is impossible to be grouchy with him around.

Sleep:
I have mixed feelings about Simon’s sleeping.  He is a nice peaceful night time baby.  He very rarely cries and when he is awake he just wants to nurse and snuggle.  Ah, as I write this, I just can’t even believe how lucky we are to have such a peaceful little guy in our midst.

He usually goes to bed sometime between 8-9 pm.  He usually wakes between 10-12pm for a feed.   Then again around 2am, 5am, and then is up for the day anytime between 6 am and 7:30. 

 He sleeps in his crib for the first part of the night.  After his first waking I usually put him back to bed in his crib, but at the next waking he joins us.  I think he would happily sleep in his crib if I had the energy (or desire) to put him back, but I’m too tired to stay awake long enough to do it, and I think he is growing up entirely too fast so I am enjoying the extra time we get to spend with him.  Adelle demands so much attention during the day, that Simon often doesn’t get the time he deserves.  So the nights is when I am all his.

Sometimes I think it would be worth our while to start trying to convince him to go back to sleep without nursing for at least some of those wakings as I am getting very tired of getting up so often.  But I can’t decide if that is the right thing.  I know he doens’t ‘need’ the milk, but maybe he needs the closeness.

Napping is good.  He is a pretty easy baby to read in terms of when he is tired.  He gives all the textbook signs.  It is funny because with Adelle I always wondered how you could actually tell when your baby was tired.  But with Simon he gives all the clues the books say he should give.  So that makes life easier.  He also usually goes down without a fight (everything was a fight with Adelle).  

If I put him up in the wrap for his nap, he’ll sleep for hours, in this crib, more often than not it is just a 1/2 an hour.  He usually wakes up happy from his little naps though, so I can’t complain.  If he is having short naps he’ll usually have 2-3 in a day.  If he gets a big long one in, that might be all he does. 

Eating:
Simon is very slowly coming around to the idea of food.  He was perplexed by it in the early days, but he certainly is getting on the bandwagon now.  He doesn’t necessarily enjoy the act of eating, but he is often hungry, and feels satisfied after eating.  He started with beef, but has now also had rice cereal, turkey, lentils, sweet potato, green beans, puffs and bananas.  He is the least indifferent about lentils, I think turkey and bananas come next on the list…but I still think he could take or leave it all tomorrow and never wonder what happened to food. 

He LOVES to have his milk in a sippy cup.  It gives him the freedom he craves to keep his eye on his sister because there is never a dull moment with a toddler in the house…

Getting Around:
So far there has been no independent motion.  He has rolled both front to back and back to front.  However, he has only done this a handful of times and sees no value in ever being left on his back or his front.  He does however enjoy sitting  and in the quest for a toy just out of reach has been known to end up on all fours.  He has no clue that this is an important step in life as his hands are both tied up and he just gets mad and ends up lying down, which makes him even more mad. 

He is, however, very interested in walking.  He can pull himself to standing (or almost standing) if he is sitting next to you and he pulls up on clothes.  He has never pulled up on furniture.  He also really likes it when you hold his hands and he walks around.  If he had his druthers, I’m guessing he’d skip the crawling and just get up and walk tomorrow. 

Hair:
His hair is a dusty blond.  I’m not sure if it will be brown or blond.  There isn’t all that much of it still, but some of it is getting long enough to hang over his ears!

Eyes:
Sometimes they look grey, sometimes brown.  If I had to guess, I’d guess they’d be brown.

Personality:
Sweet and lovely and so happy.   He really really really likes me a lot and I find it an incredible ego boost.  He likes Adelle a lot too, I’m sure she enjoys the attention as much as I do.  He doesn’t like anybody as much as he likes Adelle and I.  He loves giving Greg a hard time, and he has certainly given many an adult a run for their money. 

When he is in a good mood, he’ll make eyes at anybody.  He loves to share a laugh with somebody, especially from my arms.  He’ll catch thier eye and then get all shy and hide his head in my chest.  It is a coy move that totally melts your heart.

He seems very interested in other kids and likes to touch them.  He usually keeps pretty quiet, with the exception of his infectious laughter.  He is most vocal just as he is going to sleep or just when he wakes up  (he’s a bit of a groaner).  Sometimes he yells and coos during the day, but it isn’t that often.  I think I heard him make a ‘D’ sounds 3 weeks ago…but I haven’t heard it again, so I might have just wanted him to enough that I heard it without it being said.

He adores his jolly jumper and he can spend a really long time in it. 

Simon loves the water both in the bath and in the pool.  He loves to splash in the bath and has a great time as long as he is sitting up.  In the pool he finds it hilarious when you jump up and down.  He even loves getting water splashed in his face.

He loves everything fast…especially fast upside down stuff.

 Stuff that happened this month:
- Grandma Fran and Grandpa Ron finally came out for a visit
-He put his head underwater for the first time in a pool, it was surprising, but not terrible
- He tried food for the first time and is fairly indifferent to the experience
- He started jolly jumping and he has been bit by the bouncing bug
- He tried the swing at the park and loved it
- He went to the university as part of a volunteer study and they did some test on him in the speech development lab as part of a larger study on how babies learn language.  They didn’t outright say it, but I’m pretty sure they think he’s a genius. 

Our smiley little 7 month old

We are 10 days into our visit with Greg’s parents.  Only a few days left.  Adelle will be DEVASTATED when they leave.  She’s had both her Grandparents wrapped around her little finger since they arrived.  I know it will be hard on all of us when they leave.

Greg has been in Houston the better part of their visit, so it has been an extra bonus for me to have some help around the house. 

Some very exciting news on the home front is that our girl Adelle is toilet trained!!!  Yipee!  She’s been accident free for a good few days and for the last 10 days or so we’ve had an accident only every other day.  I am sure there will still be some days that things don’t quite work out in that department, but I think we are done with daytime diapers.   FREEDOM!

Adelle’s little tomato plant is doing us proud.  Yesterday I spotted 2 little pea sized tomatoes (or momatoes if you speak toddler).  I pointed them out to Adelle and she had a hard time keeping her hands off them…today one of them has some brown spots on it, so it may have received a little more love than it needed yesterday.  I might keep the next one I spot a secret until it gets a little bigger!

Sometimes you get lucky and capture a moment….

Our very enthusiastic neighbour came over tonight to help Adelle plant a few tomato plants. She is VERY excited about it. Hopefully we don’t kill them!!

We finally pulled out the jolly jumper.  It wasn’t something Adelle was ever into, so we totally forgot to bring it out for Simon.  Big mistake…he loves it.  It is a fair bit of work though.   Adelle LOVES to help Simon get some impressive height on his jumps!
 

We also finally got out to the mountains!  We spent the morning with Kevin, Kathleen and their little Aidan.  The kids had a great time on our walk, but had even more fun after the walk when Kevin chased them around the picnic area.  That guy has more energy for kid playing than anybody I have ever met!  It is so wonderful.

It is the punchline to a joke in Chirp Magazine. Adelle’s cousin Lily read the joke and told it to us 100x while we were in Ontario.

Adelle thinks that the entire  joke is: ‘Get it? – Shampoodle’ and says exactly that as often as she can remember to.  It can get a little tiring. The best part is that she is so excited about the joke that she usually gets Simon laughing too.  So as it turns out, both Simon and Adelle get the joke…and Greg and I just sigh…and occasionally laugh too.

Last week we were at the park and Adelle was playing on the teeter-todder with some of her friends.  She is totally convinced it is called a peter-cauter and convinced the other kids who where around of her nonsense.  By the time they were done playing, everybody was calling it a peter-cauter.  I am sure thier parents were just as pleased with the correction as I was with whatever kid taught my perfectly reasonable daughter to stop saying bird and start saying birdie last year.

Adelle’s favorite sport these days is hockey ball…her favorite position – Golder.

Yesterday we spent the day at the park.  Adelle really gets worn out on our big park days.  She fell asleep on the way home.  I got her into the house and she insisted (half asleep) to be put down on the floor and covered with a blanket.  I obliged as she clearly was not to be reasoned with.  When she woke up 30 min later she had a big mark on her forehead and was very confused as to why she had a blanket on her.  It was pretty cute.

Greg ran his first half marathon this weekend.  It was so much fun to watch him come in at the finish.  He looked wonderful and still appears to be walking so I guess he did well.
 

The big news with Simon is that he went in the swing for the first time at the park.  He absolutely loved it.  He was so proud of himself just to be sitting in it.  We also went down the slide, he couldn’t believe his luck!
 

Adelle is riding her trike like a pro.  She can peddle it all by herself and if she finds her foot position isn’t ideal to get the bike moving she has even figured out back peddling to get it exactly where she wants it.  Sometimes she is so grown up, and other times, like today when she peed in her underpants 3 times…I wish she was older!  arg.