Dressing...

Oh my...I thought dressing Xander when he was a newborn was tough. I remember I had to change his clothes a lot because he leaked a lot during the first month. I always thought it was tough as he was so fragile. Well, boy oh boy, it is definitely tougher now that Xander is mobile.

Tonight, I was trying to put his pajama pants on. He was squirming every which way. After several minutes of trying everything (including belly-raspberry-distractions), I just laughed and and gave up. It was like one of the common phrases that we use at work quite frequently, "hearding cats". Xander and the PJ Team score 1, Mommy Team score 0!

Thank goodness for sleep sacks. I was able to distract him with some nursing, while I zipped the sack around him. Whew!

Speaking of his mobility, he's getting really fast. I came home today and he came racing towards the door for me. Maybe Copper and Peanut taught him that one. I hope he doesn't start jumping on me and licking me in the face. Then, I'll know he is spending too much time with them.

No bink?

Xander seems to be very anti-pacifier the past couple of weeks. He will immediately spit it out if I try to give him one. I don't know if this is a temporarily thing or if he is just done with it. One of his teachers at school asked if I was trying to wean him. Um...no, but I guess I will take it if he is giving it up. That one less worry to think about.

He doesn't seem to be replacing it with his thumb or toys. He still has about the same amount of mommy sucking need though. He's figured out he can crawl right over to me and bury his face him my chest to get the real deal.

Shopping

Xander has always been really good with shopping. Bright lights and noise don't seem to bother him. He loves watching people and looking around. Here are a couple of shopping pictures.

This was at Barnes and Noble. There was a little boy there, maybe 2 years old. Who kept saying "share" and "baby" as he handed trains over to Xander. It was so cute.

Daddy put Xander on this tricycle. I think it is so funny that he can reach the handle bars and not the pedals.

Books

Xander was having one of those must-be-in-mommy's-lap-at-all-times moments this morning. So, I decided to see if he was interested at looking at some books. We hadn't really looked at any of his little picture board books in a while. He seems so much more interested in them then when we looked at them previously. He used to only want to chew on them. Now, he kind of puts his fingers on the pictures when I talk about them. He even picked out and pointed at a sun on one of the pages. It's so much more fun to look at books with him now.

On his languages skills, I'm starting to think that he is recognizing some works. I think he knows what Da-da and Xander mean. Every chance I get, I point at Dolphin and say Da-da. I don't know if he gets Ma-ma. Sometimes he says it but it's not consistent.

Lop-sided crawling

Inspiration/Motivation - Mommy & Daddy

First Steps

There's video of Xander's first steps on Grandma Jo's Blog.

First movie

Xander saw his very first movie this weekend. Daddy and Grandma Jo took him to the Alamo Drafthouse to see a movie. On Tuesdays and Fridays the Drafthouse has Baby Day. They are supposed to turn the lights up a little bit and turn the sound down. Dolphin said that the sound was louder like someone actually turned the sound in the wrong direction. Oops!

There were a few other families there as well. All were watching a rated "R" movie. Given the language involved with the movie, I think that once he gets a little better with words, we might have to avoid those kind of movies.

Purple Water

Grandma Jo introduced us to Color Dotz. These are little tablets that turn the bath water colors without turning babies colors. Xander's reaction was interesting. He definitely noticed that it was different. He stared at the water and then looked at me and Grandma Jo. "Whoah...something weird is going on with this bath!"

Dry run

Daddy picked up the coolest new toy last night. I think it needs to be a little bit warmer outside to take it for a wet run. It's plenty of warm in the sun, but the shade is still cool. I think I want Xander to try this out in the shade of one of our live oak trees.

Tummy sleeping

Xander has started sleeping on his tummy. Almost immediately after I put him into his crib on his back, he turns over onto his tummy. I figure if he does it on his own, he can stay that way. I'm not going to flip him back and risk waking him up.

As it turns out, he sleeps a bit better on his tummy. Before, on his back, he would not sleep longer than 60 minutes in his crib before waking up. In fact, you could said your watch to him waking up and crying. On his tummy, he all of a sudden sleeps 2 hours.

Too bad he hated being on his stomach for the first 7 months of his life or maybe we would have gotten a little more sleep. Well, and too bad about the whole SIDS things and needing to put him on his back in the first place.

It's nice to have the time back from having to try to put him back to sleep so frequently. It is a little weird though. I keep feeling the urge to go check on him.

Super Cute

We made another trip Terra Toys today. Daddy found these cute little construction vehicles. There's a tow truck, cement truck, and dump truck. They all have googling eyes on the front instead of headlights. He hasn't really pushed them around on their wheels yet, but he still thinks they are pretty cool.

Full body work out

Daddy and Grandma Jo helped Xander practice walking today. He seemed to really enjoy it.


Handy Manny and Xander worked on their abs.


Here, he did just a few push-ups (next week maybe with one-hand behind the back).

Clowns!

Xander met his first clown today, and I think he handled it pretty well. The Waterloo around the corner from our house (which happens to be owned by an old co-worker of mine) has a clown out on the patio some evenings. She was making balloon animals and doing face painting for all the kids running around. Xander was staring at her and the big commotion of all the kids in line, and she kept making googley eyes at him. When she finally got a break she ran over to come say hi and made him a little puppy and asked if she could take a picture with him.

Xander was very sad when we had to take away the balloon animal, though i think we would have cried harder if we had left it with him until he chewed a hole in it and popped it.

Starting young

Uh-oh, what is daddy teaching Xander now?

Climbing and standing

The couch is perfect height for pulling up and holding on to while standing.

Roomba chasing

The next few posts are some pictures from Dolphin's iPhone since my camera is currently dead.

Here dad thought that the Roomba would be good motivation for Xander to crawl. Xander is creeping around these days, but not crawling much. When he does crawl, it is backwards.

Happy Easter - Belated

We had a nice Easter brunch yesterday at Z-Tejas. This is one of the few good restaurants in Cedar Park. There was an Easter Bunny there, but Xander slept through most of the meal and didn't get to seem him. I was thinking that he probably would be scared of a man-sized bunny. People in bunny costumes kind of creep us out every since we saw "Donnie Darko".

No candy for Xander this year. Although I have been trying to give him a lot of different flavors lately. He recently tried cheddar cheese. He likes that because it is a finger food (entertainment). I have been mixing some different spices into some of his veggies like tumeric in squash and cinnamon in sweet potatoes. I have avoided chile-related spices yet. I think he needs to be really good at using utensils before we go there. I don't want him accidentally rubbing his eye after eating some chile.

At school, he has just switched to 3 solids a day (sounds like something from prison). Last week, there was left over milk every day. I am wondering if this is the beginning of weaning. I have mixed feelings about that.

Probiotics

OK, I'm impressed with probiotics. When Xander was ill last week, he was on some pretty strong antibiotics. The antibotics killed the good bacteria in his intestines and skin. This causes diarrhea and yeast diaper rash. Yeast are evil itchy things. I got some lactobacillus acidophilus probiotics. These are "good" bacteria that kill yeast and "restore the balance of the flora in the gut". They are the kind of bacteria found in yogurt. I gave Xander just one oral dosage and put a little topically on his yeast diaper rash. The diarrhea was gone and the yeasty diaper rash was gone in one night. This was after several days of trying to air out his bum and trying all sorts of creams and ointments without any luck.

I had first tried giving Xander yogurt, but he wouldn't eat very much of it. Plus the only kind that I could find at the store had sugar in it, which is sort of counter-productive to killing yeast. So, that's when I headed back to the store and found some straight probiotic powder.

Anyhow, I'm really impressed and I'm glad that Dr. Spender recommended them.

More teething

Xander's has quite a few teeth popping out lately. He has started scraping his front teeth together. It's like listening to nails on chalk board. So, I try to give him a lot of things to chew on like this spatula.

He also tried some teething crackers. I think they smell like dog treats and so do Copper and Peanut.

Bear hat

We bought this hat online before Xander was born. We wanted something special for his first picture. Well, it was one-size and that size was too big for his new born head. Between then and last week, I lost it in his closet. I was cleaning out his closet and rediscovered it just in time for it to barely fit. It's also just a little bit too warm outside to be wearing a yarn hat.

Magical Motrin

Well, something we learned this week is the magic of Motrin. Xander's conjunctivitis (from last Friday) turned into congestion and ear infections. Once the ear infection started, his fever was up to 102 even with infant Tylenol drops. Both Dolphin and I received independent advice from experienced parents that once the fever hits 102, you use Motrin instead of Tylenol. Then, when we saw the ENT specialist yesterday, he told us that Motrin has anti-inflammatory properties that help with the pain of ear infections that Tylenol does not. Plus, Motrin last longer and has fewer side effects. Good to know!

We learned a lot from the ENT Specialist, Dr. Spencer. Unfortunately, the bug that Xander got was resistant to amoxicillin. After 3 days of high dosage amoxcillin, Xander was agetting worse plus he was getting the bad side effects of amoxicillin. I seriously hate that stuff. There are side effects and then there are secondary side effects. We switched to Suprax anti-biotic and he has started to improve. The fever is gone and he is in a much better mood. He still needs the Motrin for the ear pain. He also needs his nose to be bulb syringed a few times a day so that he can eat and sleep.

Poor Xander...he was really miserable this week. Not only was he suffering from illness, but cutting his 6th tooth at the same time.