Fast on the move

Caiden's crawling skills are rapidly improving. He used to only gimp around to get to toys. Now, he can motor across a room and likes to explore. This kid is trouble!! He gets better and faster every day.

Here is what having a mobile child means:
-Lots of bumps and bruises. Caiden crawls under something low and then tries to sit up, crawls over to pull up on something unsturdy and falls over... etc.

-Toys are everywhere

-Cleaning up toys is pointless as Caiden can redistribute them around a room in about 5 seconds.

-He always wants to go directly to the one thing in the room that we don't want him playing with. A floor lamp. A full trash can. Anything with any element of danger.

-He is simultaneously easier and more difficult to manage. Easier because he can entertain himself so well. More difficult because we really must watch him every second!

-My new fear is of Caiden getting his fingers slammed. He has already done it once. I was getting some clothes out of his dresser when he crawled over and pulled himself up to standing on the lowest drawer. The drawer was open a little bit and as soon as he put his weight on it, it slammed shut and crushed his little fingers. The poor little guy. He rebounded quickly but the cry of real pain was terrible, and he had a bruise on one of his fingers for a few days. It makes me nervous any time he heads near a cabinet or drawer, and I've seen him with his hand in the crack between an open door and the wall it's attached to. We need to do some more baby-proofing!

Sunday Funday

On Sunday my work had an outing at Kimball Farm in Westford. It was an all day thing, but we worked around nap times and hit the event during the most critical time... ice cream buffet hour.

I hadn't been to this Kimball Farm location in a few years, and man- has it grown!! It used to be ice cream, pitch & putt, and a driving range. Then they added bumper boats and mini golf. Now, they also have an arcade, batting cages, a mini-zoo, and pony rides. The place is bonkers. Caiden was overwhelmed, but had a great time people watching, meeting a few of my co-workers, and watching the ponies. I am sure that in a few years, this place with be Caiden heaven. As a non-appreciator of crowds, lines, and any location filled with hundreds of sugar crazed children, I can't say I am looking forward to those days.

Sleepy Saturdays

We're noticing a sleep pattern here. At home, Caiden always naps well. At daycare, not so much! We're lucky if he gets in two 45 minute naps (but two 30 minute naps is typical), and usually he is so tired when I pick him up that he falls asleep on the car ride home. But the last several weeks, Caiden has taken monster naps on Saturdays. As in, 5 hours worth of napping. We figure that he is catching up from all the missed sleep from the week. On Sunday he's back to normal.

Yesterday Margaret and Doug came to babysit while Dan and I went out for a belated birthday celebration for Dan. Caiden had a lot of fun playing with them. Thanks, guys!!

Margaret said she heard Caiden screeching up in his room as he was falling asleep, but when she checked on him she found him bouncing up and down, and he gave her a big smile when he saw her. Silly guy. Bouncing is a new favorite activity, and sometimes he gets going so much that he looks like he might do a face plant.

Sunday - Happy Father's Day

Dan is home now, he got home in time to get a few Father's Day hugs from Caiden before bedtime. Welcome home Dan!

Earlier in the day, Grandpa Jack and Aunts Elizabeth & Margaret came over for Father's Day brunch.

Now that Caiden is so mobile, he keeps falling asleep in funny positions

After I snapped a photo I unfolded him to keep his circulation going!

Later in the day Caiden and I took a long walk, goofed around in the house, and made dinner. Well, I made dinner. Caiden did this:

We are both glad that Dan is home now!!

Saturday

Caiden had a good night! We played in the morning, and he crashed for an early nap (he's in a waking-up-at-5am trend).

We did some errands in the morning, and went to Costco. I looked away for a second, and he managed to grab the post-it note with the shopping list, and cram the entire thing into his mouth. Yet, later at lunch, all he would do was stare at the chopped up food. Grocery lists? Yes, he will eat those. Food? No.

He took some monster naps today. His midday nap was almost 2.5 hours. He slept like this

Then, Aunt Elizabeth came to play! We went to the playground, Caiden hung out in the swing and then we played in the grass.

Give me that coffee!!

Ahhh... delicious (don't worry, it was empty)

We came home, Caiden napped again (I woke him up after an hour and a half as it was too close to bedtime). Before his nap we tried giving Caiden a quick bath to wash the sunblock off. It did not go well. I don't know what it is about bath time that he no longer likes... but he hates it. I don't just get tears, it's screams! We played in the living room for a little while. Here is another look at the crawling. He still has the "bum-leg" thing going on :)

The above photo reminds me of Dan in this photo. I think we know where Caiden gets his full head of hair from!

Then it was dinner, Aunt Elizabeth was cracking Caiden up

Then it was off to bed!!

Friday - Happy Birthday Dad

Hope you are having a good birthday! We miss you.

I was able to leave work a little early today, and I got some great Caiden time. He was in such a good mood, surprising considering he got no more than 9 hours of sleep last night.

We played upstairs for a while, Caiden found a new favorite toy

And despite my attempt to quickly hide my kindle charger under the bed before he got a glimpse of it, those little eyes don't miss anything. He fished it out just as soon as I had tucked it away.

A little later we goofed around on the bed. He was very snuggly and laughed like crazy when I gave him kisses

give me that camera!!

Caiden played on the floor while I got dinner ready, he loved his reflection in the dish washer

Bath time drew some serious tears again, so I did my best to splash him off while he stood in the tub clinging to me. Afterwards, as I was getting PJs out, Caiden breezed right by all of his toys and went for the only dangerous thing he could find in his room. He almost tipped the lamp over on himself...

And finally... as I promised... Caiden will be crawling when you get home. It's a bit of an unconventional crawl for now, but he will figure it out soon enough.

He is thoroughly pleased with his new found skill, and was motoring all around the place. It made me laugh every time, he was beyond cute!

Thursday

Unfortunately my camera died during lunch yesterday, so I only have a few photos.

Caiden had a good day at daycare, and took good naps.

When we got home, Nanna Nan was there to help! She helped with the dishes, feeding Caiden dinner, and getting Caiden ready for bed. She even brought me dinner. Thanks, Nanna! Having Nanna around to help made things go so fast that Caiden was in bed at 6:30- I didn't realize how early it was, I just followed our normal evening routine. He didn't fall asleep till 7, but he entertained himself pretty well up there.

How he falls asleep with his bunny on his back, I don't know.

Unfortunately, as I feared, we are in trouble in the sleep department now that he can sit up on his own. He woke up at about 12:45. I let him fuss, and about 10 minutes later he was quiet. After a few more minutes of silence from his room, I assumed he had fallen back asleep so I peeked my head in to make sure he was okay. Well, he was okay- but not asleep at all. He was sitting in the middle of the crib, looking around. Uh oh. I retreated back to our room. I could hear him in there making noise for a half hour. I had a decision to make- go in there and lay him down (which I knew I would have to do repeatedly) to help him understand it was still time to be sleeping, or just let him alone and hope he would go to sleep. I chose option A. It did not go well. It was 2 hours until he was asleep again and there were lots of tears involved. I think tonight I will go with option B and avoid entering his room at all.

He fussed a little around 4:15, but (I think) he went back to sleep. I didn't dare check on him this time. My alarm went off around 6, and as I hadn't heard a peep from him I thought I was safe to hop in the shower. Of course I had to go peek at him to check though. This is how I found him:

I have no idea how long he had been sitting there. Hopefully not since 4:15 :). I think we need to invest in a video monitor.

We really miss you, Dan. Happy Birthday... we are sending lots of hugs and kisses and Caiden is letting everyone know it's his Dad's birthday.

Wednesday

Dan is away for 5 days, a work trip to VA and then straight to a wedding in PA. I'll try to blog more to show him what we're up to!

It was really nice out, so we played outside during my lunch time visit.

Caiden took 2 great afternoon naps at daycare, and was happy when I picked him up. He stayed awake for the trip home, so we even made a quick stop at the supermarket. As always, he loved it. For dinner it was butternut squash soup (which he couldn't get enough of), avocado, and some fruit.

We're working on self-feeding. I really don't understand how this kid, who will put anything in his mouth, will not pick up food and put it in his mouth. If I put a piece of avocado on the table, he would just stare at it.

But if I hold it in front of his face, he will take bites off. He does a good job taking bites and chewing (gumming) up the food. Sometimes he bites off a little too much and immediately ejects it.

As dinner was winding down he had fun waving to himself

For the first time in a while, tears were shed in the bathtub. We made it a quick.

We played for a while, then read some books before bed. Caiden might be crawling when Dan gets home. He has finally figured out that he can use his arms/hands to pull himself forward. He was locking his ankles though, and was just trying to drag himself without any assistance from his lower body. Now he just needs to figure out how to get his knees involved.

I think whatever was bugging him earlier this week is finally going away. He fell asleep easily, and slept until 3:30. He was up for the day at 5am, unfortunately. I was able to get him to take a nap before we left for daycare, which was a relief- I was able pack the bags and load the car. Oh, and shower. It's not easy to get a shower in if he is awake and you aren't home. I used to just bring him in the bathroom and let him sit in a bouncy chair or lounge on a towel on the floor. If I tried that now, I am relatively certain that his little hands would wind up in the toilet.

Happy Thursday! We miss you Dan.

We're in trouble

Caiden was taking a long time to fall asleep last night, and started making strange noises, so I peeked my head in his room to see what was going on. Little squirt was standing in the crib. I got a huge smile from him when he saw me- he was very proud of himself. I yelled for Dan to come, and bring his tools. We had only dropped the crib down to the middle level when we lowered it a few weeks ago. We needed to drop it all the way down this time! He can also go from lying down to sitting up on his own. I think bedtime just got harder!!

8 months!

If I had to describe this month in two words they would be: personality and movement! I really feel like this month was a big transition- from a baby who needed us for everything to a little man exploring the world. He is so much fun! He is a happy little guy, full of smiles and giggles.

Movement/Milestones: No crawling yet, but we do regularly see Caiden rocking on his hands and knees. The lack of crawling doesn't keep Caiden from moving. He can roll, spin, swivel and scoot all over the place. He will pull himself up on anything (or anyone) he can. A few days ago I saw him waving at a favorite daycare teacher, and sometimes he sits and waves at himself, watching his hand as he does so.

Activities: Caiden loves goofing around with people, playing with toys, investigating everything, babbling, and climbing. Oh, and hair pulling. See all these toys? His favorite one is the water bottle.

The older he gets the less snuggle time we get (sniff, sniff). He lets us know when he would rather be down on the ground playing by doing this:

Things he doesn't like: having his body manipulated (clothes being put on, being put in car seat/stroller straps, etc), having his face or nose wiped, or having favorite toys taken away.

Food: This kid will eat just about anything. Avocado, fruit, and squash are favorites. He is starting to get chunky foods and handles it like a pro. When he is enthusiastic about eating he gets what we call "dance pants", he kicks his legs and opens his mouth. Very funny.

Beets were a recent food addition, he looked so funny with beets all over his mouth!

Sleep: We turned a corner this month. After way too many months of sleep deprivation we broke down and did some "cry it out". Because Caiden has almost always gone to bed easily on his own, it look me a long time to accept that there wasn't anything physically wrong with him that was causing him to wake up crying in the middle of the night. So we decided on nighttime rules, and would only go into his room accordingly. He cries harder when he sees us, so it's better to stay out of his room, although we would peek in to make sure he was still in one piece. The first couple of nights involved a lot of crying, and I can't even explain how horrible it was to listen to, but got better in a few days. And over the 2 weeks following (the Cape trip set us back a few days otherwise it would have been quicker), he slowly started sleeping longer and longer. He was waking up around 2am for a night or two, then a few nights only waking at 3am, then it was 5am, and finally- we had a few nights of no wake-ups*. Sometimes he cries for a few seconds at various times of the night, but quickly settles himself back down. I feel like a new person! He is usually up for the day around 6 or 6:30.

Caiden's naps are good, but he isn't very consistent with the schedule. I think it's because his days vary so much between daycare, home, and Nanna Nan's. At home on weekends, he will nap for a combined 3-4 hours. It might be broken up into several 45 minute naps, or he might take two jumbo naps.  But at daycare, he usually only takes two short naps and might snooze in the car. The daycare people just commented that Caiden is their only baby who goes to sleep on his own. Go Caiden!

*I wrote this post a few days ago. Caiden must either be coming down with a cold or actually be teething, because he was very upset on Sunday and has woken up a few times the past 2 nights, seeming to be in pain.  We will revisit the sleep training once he is feeling better, if necessary

Cape Escape

Dan went away to a friend's bachelor party in West Virginia this weekend, so Caiden and I made sure to keep busy so we wouldn't miss him too much. My friend Jen invited us to spend the weekend with her at her family's home in Chatham and we thought that would be a great idea. I was very nervous about making a long car trip alone with Caiden, but he did okay (I did have to stop and let him take a wiggle break though).

The weather was beautiful, but it was a little too cool for the beach. Instead we hung out at the house and strolled around Chatham center. It was very relaxing weekend.

Mmmm.... chocolate!

Chatham Bandstand

We left the Cape early on Sunday and made it back in time for "Horseshoes and Hamburgers" at Nanna Nan and Bob's. It was also Bob's birthday... happy birthday Bob!!

It was a great weekend, but I am sure glad that Dan is home (for now anyway- a longer trip for him is just around the corner). Caiden was very happy that Dan is home too