Turtle Monkey

Mark finally put together the changing table yesterday. We cleaned out the pack and play and washed the sheets. For the first night ever, Elias spent the entire night sleeping on his own. It’s been getting very obvious that Elias needs his own space to sleep. He likes to move around in his sleep a lot, which is not so fun for me.

He slept so well; I was quite surprised. He didn’t wake up once between 7pm-6:30am. He’s taken a couple of naps in it today without a problem. I know my boy loves his sleep, but I was expecting the transition to sleeping on his own to be a bit more difficult. We’ll see if it remains this easy.

Our bedroom is really coming together. It’s almost baby-proofed, but he keeps going for the glass cabinets on the TV stand and the standing fan. Not sure what to do about those other than sit in front of them (luckily they’re together). It’s nice to have an organized, spacious bedroom space again.

Note to self: I need to start taking some photos of Elias sleeping.

This week, we’ve started putting Elias to bed awake-but-groggy. Prior to this, I would lay down in bed with him stroking his hair, arms and tummy until he drifted off to sleep. When we first started this night-time routine around 3 months, this process could take up to an hour. Since then, it’s become gradually shorter and now usually only takes a couple of minutes. The other night, I put him in bed and he immediately closed his eyes and fell asleep. A couple days later, Mark put him to bed and had to go to the bathroom before he was fully asleep, so he left while Elias was calm and relaxed, though his eyes were still open. He fell asleep on his own that night and didn’t make a peep for hours. Last night I put him down and stroked his hair a few times until I saw his eyes were getting heavy, then left.

The boy clearly likes and appreciates sleep. I hope we can maintain good nap and nighttime routines when we’re in Texas. He’ll have his blanket and his stuffed Yertle the Turtle, so I hope that’s enough to make his sleeping space feel like home.

I am grateful that my son takes teething in stride. He takes everything in stride, really. Even when he’s sick, you can tell his spirits are up and he’s eager to play. Elias’ teeth started breaking through at five months. Now that we have 7 confirmed and 9 suspected teeth in the collection, I realize there are definite signs and clues that he is actively teething.

Since five months, every few weeks his teeth start growing again. I find the way they break through and grow in so interesting! When he’s teething, Elias drools in ridiculous amounts. It will come from absolutely nowhere. His mouth will be dry, then he’ll smile and a deluge of water descends upon his chin and chest. Naturally, he’s more interested in putting things in his mouth and gnawing on them when he’s teething. He’ll bite down on something and it’ll hurt, so he’ll cry for a second and then get over it. He’s more whiny in general, probably because his mouth is constantly aching. He doesn’t whine or cry very much period and it’s usually only mildly different when teething. If he’s constantly uncomfortable, I’ll give him some Tylenol which almost always helps.

Other than that, he’s himself while teething. Thankfully, his sleep isn’t usually disrupted. (This boy loves his sleep. I’m very interested to see how naps and nighttime will go down while we’re in Texas. The last time we were there, he refused sleep toward the end of our trip. His sleep routine is so much better now though.)

He started with two breaking through at once in the middle, on bottom. Then two on top in positions on either side of where the top two would be. Before long, the top two started breaking through. The final confirmed tooth is the one on the right side of the bottom two. We’ve also suspected that his bottom molars are making their way up. He focuses a lot on that area and his past couple teething spurts have been crankier than usual. His room teacher at daycare brought up to us separately that she thinks those teeth have started breaking through as well. Mark hasn’t been able to feel them and it’s hard to get a good look back there to see what may be just under the gums.

Dental health is very important to us, so we’re trying to be diligent about brushing his teeth. It’s really easy to get distracted and forget. At night he starts to melt down very quickly. He’ll be active and playing one minute and the next minute it is clear that he needs to be put to bed ASAP! He doesn’t mind having his teeth brushed and gums massaged, but he has other ideas for our fingers when the little finger brush is in his mouth. He prefers to bite down and gnaw just as hard as he possibly can. The little finger brush offers a bit of protection against his sharp little teeth.

Elias has definitely perfected his pincer grasp to pick up bits of food and put them in his mouth. He knows exactly what his teeth are for. Every morning I see him place Cheerios very deliberately into his mouth so he can bite them in half. I find it funny that most guidelines for finger feeding site both crawling and the pincer grasp as milestones needed before this should be accomplished. I don’t know what mobility has to do with eating. I really don’t think he’s anywhere near starting to crawl.

He still can’t stand being on his tummy. He refuses to roll himself over, though he is perfectly capable. He has started rolling onto his belly to sleep. If he wakes up even a little bit, he’ll get angry about being in that position and I’ll need to roll him over. Usually, he’ll sleep on his side. Unless it was a dream, I am almost positive I woke up this morning to find him flipped around entirely, with his feet pointing at the head of the bed. I have no idea what was up with that. We’re still cosleeping and hoping to get a crib as soon as we get the study cleared out so there’s room for it. We just got a bed rail to fit our king sized bed which we love because it gives us all a lot of extra room in the bed. Before, we were using a pillow between him and the edge of the bed, plus pillows on the floor. He didn’t move around much in his sleep and this was never even remotely a problem. Now he’s starting to move around more in his sleep, so I’m thankful for the bedrail. It really is time for him to move into a crib, though. He likes sleep a LOT and I know he’ll appreciate a space to sleep all of his own.

Elias’ “real” hair is finally starting to come in. Every week, my mom comments that it’s looking lighter and lighter, but I don’t see where the color has changed. His hair is more or less the color mine is now. It is light brown with red highlights when he’s in the sun. It does seem to be getting a little wavier, though no full blown curls yet.

He’s been clapping for a while now, but he does it solely for his own amusement and not in response to anything. He will also wave at people if we start the waving action with his arm, but he doesn’t wave at people on his own yet. He’s still sitting up like a pro and he’s starting to contort his body into different positions while sitting (usually when he tries to reach for something), but he’s still not showing signs of crawling or scooting. I’m not in a huge rush for him to be mobile, so I can’t complain.

Elias enjoys playing peek-a-boo and anticipation/tickle games (though he is not really ticklish). He’ll grab for any object remotely near him. Mark and I are also a little amazed by his strength. I’ve started referring to him as Bam-Bam. For example, we have a little toybox for him stuffed full of tiny toys. If I lift it with one hand, it feels a bit heavy. Elias has no problems picking the whole thing up and dumping the toys out. He doesn’t seem very interested in putting toys back, but he does enjoy dumping them out.

We cannot wait for our trip to Texas in a few weeks! I still need to make lists of what to pack and where to pack it. I hope that getting out of our routine will not cause a problem for Elias, especially sleep-wise. He’s such an excellent sleeper and you can tell he appreciates sleep as much as I appreciate him sleeping.

Elias is doing really well. He has a runny nose and a mild cough, but otherwise he’s healthy for a change. He’s teething something awful. We got a fish teether toy switcharoo for his exersaucer and he’s been going to town on it. Last night, there were streams of drool pouring out of his mouth and the front of his shirt was sopping wet. We haven’t been able to feel any additional teeth poking through and the four he has don’t appear to be growing in any more, so I’m not sure what’s going on. Elias is more fussy than usual, though he’s just not a very fussy baby at all unless he’s tired.

The boy LOVES to sleep. Unless he’s sick, he almost always sleeps through the night. We put him down to bed usually between 7-8pm. I usually join him around 11-12. Before he started teething, he was starting to stay asleep during this time, or waking once between 10-11. Since he started teething he’ll usually wake up at least once an hour for some extra comfort. I haven’t been giving him pain reliever because he doesn’t seem so bothered by it that he can’t do without.

A lot of baby references mention that babies around this age go through some intense mood swings and can get cranky if you take a toy away from them or they otherwise don’t get what they want and not need. I’ve noticed this with Elias. He loves our cell phones and will try to grab them at every opportunity. We let him play with them sometimes, as long as he doesn’t try to put it in his mouth. Sometimes he plays and plays without putting an object in his mouth, sometimes he can’t even think of playing with an object unless it’s in his mouth and usually it’s a mixture of the two. If he’s not in the mood to play without putting the phone in his mouth, we’ll eventually have to take it away from him. Usually we can then distract him with another object (have I mentioned he loves red cups? Red specifically) or activity.

But when he’s tired, the corners of his lips curl under and quiver, tears come to his eyes and he responds as if his whole entire world is crushed. There is nothing, nothing on this planet that will replace the hole left behind by the phone, which he can no longer have. You know, a mother never likes it when her baby is crying, but seeing this sort of crankiness, it is hard not to laugh. This isn’t an entirely bad thing; he sends very clear signals such as this when he’s tired, so I know exactly when it’s the right time to put him to sleep. I know that when something like this happens, the moment I put him in bed and tuck a blanket around him he’s going to start drifting off.

I love watching him fall asleep. Sometimes he’s obviously tired, but still has some pent up energy. We’ll lay in bed as he plays with his hands, my hands, my face, reaches out for his stuffed Yertle the Turtle; plays with his pacifier by taking it out, examining it, turning it upside down and popping it back in. I’ll stroke his hair and the side of his face and rub his tummy or hold his hands and he’ll gradually succumb to sleep. His eyes roll around as his lids grow heavy despite his best efforts at keeping them open. They’ll close for several seconds, pop back open and repeat the process several times until they finally keep closed. It is rare for him to be so overstimulated that he just can’t get to sleep. That usually happens when friends are over; I guess he wants to stay up and observe them.

I really feel lucky with how well Elias has slept since birth. I keep waiting for his sleep patterns to change, but they only improve. I feel like I’m on borrowed time and any day now he’s going to decide that sleeping is for losers and it’d be better to stay awake even if the world is a lot more annoying for him if he’s tired. It’s like a ticking time bomb.

I gave permission for Elias’ daycare to start offering him some food during the day. Any vegetable, fruit or grain should be okay. One of the teachers started listing some foods asking if they were okay. Bananas, applesauce, carrots, crackers, etc. Yes. Then another teacher asked, “How about cheese?” I thought it was kind of funny. Is cheese a vegetable, fruit or grain or even contain any of those things? I was polite with her (why wouldn’t I be?) and asked for nothing with milk, eggs or sugar. We’re still not very consistent about offering him food at home, but we’re getting better. He still doesn’t seem to love anything we feed him. Last night I got some Cheerios and placed a couple handfuls on his highchair tray this morning. He batted at them and picked up a few (he has a clumsy pincer grasp, but it’s getting more refined), but didn’t seem to want to put any in his mouth. I turned my head for a moment, and when I looked at him again he had a “food face” with his mouth half open and I could see a Cheerio sitting on his tongue. He started chewing and moving the Cheerio around in his mouth. After about five minutes, the entire Cheerio was finally dissolved and swallowed.

Elias is getting very coordinated with his hands. He easily passes objects between hands and as I mentioned, he’s starting to work on his pincer (thumb and index finger) grip. He just recently started lifting his hands up in the air (halfway) if he wants to be picked up, which we find incredibly adorable. In fact, we find everything he does to be incredibly adorable. I’m in constant amazement. Seeing his brain work and solve little baby life-puzzles is fantastic. It’s hard to look at him and not be incredibly excited about the life ahead of him. I try not to because I know it’ll all come too soon. He is just an absolutely perfect baby.