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Thursday, March 31, 2011

9 months Stats

OMG!!! I have a 9 month old! That means my baby is 75% through his first year of life and as he slowly portrays less of a baby and more of a toddler every day I notice I am not sure how much I like this growing up thing!! He is moving too fast!

So lets see where we are:
He is 17lbs even, 27 inches long my little man is tiny but umm so is his mommy....lol.

Food:
He is eating solids like a champ and has began eating more of what we eat and less purees (now that I have let go of my irrational fear of choking).
His favorite foods are:
cut up Bananas, cut up blueberries, sweat peas and yogurt. He will also drink water out of a cup we have not fully begin the weaning off a bottle process and probably will not until his formula intake lessons a little more. But we do plan to be off the bottle by a year. He has already self weaned off the pacifier which was a complete surprise.

Other Milestones:
He is cruising, crawling, sitting up, saying da da and ma ma, beginning to understand No and Yay! He also understands "come here" and will respond to his whole name "Alexander", his nickname "Alex" or the occasional first and middle name "Alexander Kelson" we have been alternating since birth so in hopes that he would not get confused lol. He will also respond to common pet names we may use for example I call him "stink" a lot. He is also standing on his for about 5 seconds. He loves to play games and is just such a fun baby!!! We are still waiting for him to start clapping and waving.

Separation/Stranger Anxiety:
He has this bad. I noticed over the last week he had been waking up at 2am didn't want a bottle or anything just wanted me or dad and he would instantly go back to sleep once he saw one of us. Pedi says this is a sign of separation anxiety and he is just waking to make sure he is still with us. She said it will go away in a few weeks. He also becomes super clingy when we are out and when people talk to him that he does not know.

After reading my friend Jins blog I was also inspired to create a list of my favorite things so far. So here are the top 7 from birth to now:

1. Fisher Price Little Lamb Swing- Alex loved this thing as an infant! Since he loved it I loved it. It was often a great way to settle him down on a particularly fussy day.

2. Moby Wrap/Ergo Carrier: I used our Moby A Lot until he was about 5 months now I use the Ergo. Both are great carriers and I use them almost daily for store runs or just moments when Alex simply wants to be held and I am trying to accomplish some other task.

3. Food Processor- I didn't get a baby food maker because I was not sure how much time I could commit to it but we have a great food processor my grandmother bought us. In the early baby food days it was great for purees. Now I use it a ton simply for everyday cooking needs.

4. Shopping Cart/Highchair cover- Alex is a teething machine and puts his mouth on everything! We have a cover we keep in the car and it has proven to be a life saver for moments Alex decides he wants to eat his cover or high chair.

5. Jumperoo-Alex still loves this thing and gets in it about 3 times week.

6. Sophie the Giraffe- we have a trillion teething toys but she is Alex's favorite and I actually had to replace it after I ruined the squeaker trying to sterilize it. I initially thought this was a ridiculously over priced toy but I could not imagine taking that thing from Alex we keep the broken one in the car and the good one in the house.

7. Evenflo Symphony 65- We switch Alex out of his infant seat about a month ago and I LOVE this seat. It received great ratings for safety, ease of use, and comfort. Alex loves being about to see out the window and I love how easy it is to install. I also love that it can be used RF, FF and as a high back booster. We received a lot of recommendations to go with Britax but I chose against it because this seat and the Evenflo triumph received similar if not better ratings in some places I looked and because we needed 2 seats because I always drop Alex at daycare and Amir often picks up I was not going to carry this seat in and out of daycare.

Things I hardly used...
A wipe warmer (I felt they dried out wipes, I usually just warm it in my hand a few seconds), The Extremely large Diaper Bag I own ( I love my Petunia Pickle Bottom bag a friend got me as a baby shower gift but, its huge. I use it mostly when we are going out of town for a few days. Other times I default to a tote coach bag that triples as a purse/diaper bag/ and work bag or I use Amirs smaller "manlier" diaper bag), a bottle warmer (Alex will drink bottles room temperature so I just keep bottled water out to mix formula. When he was still doing a night feeding I kept formula and water in our room.) Bottle sterilizer (I just use the medela microwave bags or go old school and boil).

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Longest weekend EVER

So my step-grandmother died last week. It happened out of no where and its been pretty overwhelming. Like my step-mom this woman has been in my life forever and the word step is just a formality she is one of my grandparents. The funeral was Friday and because of a big meeting at work Amir was unable to attend with me so in true April fashion I over did it big time. I left Chemo, picked up Alex, grabbed my cousin and we drove to NY. I was exhausted when I got to NY and have pretty much been going since then. I just got home and I am beat. Not to mention emotionally drained from the weekend.

In other news...

Chemo is almost done! I have about 5 weeks left. We spoke with my oncologist about next steps and the plan is that I will take an oral form of chemo for 1.5 -2 years and then go off of it so we can try to have a second child. THEN I think we are calling it quits in the baby department.

We also decided to definitely get a new car. This trip to NY proved that my carolla is no longer big enough for me with Alex in tow so I am going to look a few small SUVs and crossovers this week. I hate car shoppping.... its one thing Amir and I always end up debating about lol so this should be interesting.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Family Pictures


We decided to go take a few pictures today. No real reason other than I had a coupon for The Picture People and we had no real plans for the day. We bought a few pictures had lunch and ran some errands.
































In other news.....

Not cursing is so hard! Needless to say I haven't quite made it a whole day without doing so but I am trying. The no meat and no soda I have been pretty successful at!

My Step-grandmother died today. I was really upset about it this morning but my day has kind of helped to keep me a bit grounded. I am just starting to feel like I can't catch a break. I am just looking forward to a good six month streak of no bad news.....

My step-mom has been in my life since I can remember. She is essentially the only mom I know because my mom died when I was so young. Needless to say her family is mine and I am very close to them. I am really sad and just hoping things calm down.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Lent

Today is the start of the lent season. I usually use this time to self reflect and start new. It is also an exciting time for me because I know the spring is near which is my favorite season!

I am giving up quite a bit for lent:

Soda (I have an addiction to coke, day one without it has been not so bad and I gave it up when I was pregnant and only recently started drinking it again. I think this will be easy to give up)

Meat (This is more so me taking an opportunity to get healthy and re-evaluate some of the things I eat especially because I should be eating a lot better considering my health.)

Cursing ( I curse like a sailor lol and I have failed miserably already today lol but I am working on it)

Saturday, March 5, 2011

A Little Bit of Everything

I have been SOOO exhausted lately. Work has been very busy but super productive and I am really loving my job this year. I have so much to get done in the next week or so and I am just tired.

Alex on the other hand is doing great! He has become such a talker lately. We have "Da Da", "Ma Ma" and as of recently "Ba Ba" which I think is what his babysitter has been teaching him for bottle. I would much rather her say bottle but we will cross that bridge later. He is also cruising out of control!! He pulls up on everything and then goes for it. This literally happened over night. I took all his toys and created like a Play Corner for him in our living room. He has about 3 toys that he can pull up on to play with usually he plays with just one but the other day I noticed he pulled up and started playing with one and 2 seconds later he was on the other side playing with another. The babysitter says he does it all day with her as well.

We switched pediatricians recently and I am SO happy with the switch. My only regret is not doing it sooner. His old Pedi Dr. C was super nice but the office was chaos! We always waited an hour plus to be seen they closed at 3pm and the last time I had an emergency he took 6 hours to return my call. That was the straw that broke the camels back for me. By the time he called me back I had already taken Alex to urgent care. So we met with a few Pedis this past week and chose one Dr. T I love her! She is also a lot more thorough. She won me over when she and I discussed my going through chemo and she expressed she was so happy I shared that with her. The main reason being Alex can not receive any live vaccinations until I am done with Chemo it can be extremely dangerous to my health. Dr. C has known about my going through chemo and NEVER mentioned this to me. I know their priority is my child but UMMM yeah I need to be advised of any possible health risk to myself as well.

I also like her a lot because she is very holistic. She is is a breast feeding, healthy food pushing, alternative vaccination believing pedi. She is just what I wanted!

Any who here a few pictures of my love: