almost crawling...

Samuel started babbling last night! I was on the phone with Heath because he was letting me know he would be home late because of a thick sheet of ice on his windshield, and Samuel said "Da-da-ga-ja," or something to that effect. Apparently, he was telling Heath to get home quickly and safely.

His babbling had been limited to one or two isolated syllables up to this point. But today, he has been stringing together many syllables, and providing a continual monologue about his adventures. It is delightful. I am listening closely and hoping to hear him say "ma-ma" soon.

We went to Samuel's 6 month appointment today (a little late, I know). He is 16 lb. 4 oz. (20%) and 27" tall (63%). His head circumference was in the 45%, but I don't remember what it was exactly. In honor of over 6 months of life, I compiled an album of pictures to show how he's grown and changed so far.

Feeding Samuel

Samuel is 6 months old now, so we have started solid foods. He loves the rice cereal with formula. You might be able to tell in the pictures that he is lunging forward for more bites, and pulling my arm with the spoon toward himself.

The green beans provoked some funny faces, but he kept taking more bites anyway.

Samuel sat up by himself for the first time Saturday. Here he is demonstrating his new skill in the bathtub and discovering bubbles for the first time.

almost 5 months old

Samuel loves to practice standing. He rolled from back to tummy for the first time this week, after going from tummy to back since 2 days old. He travels all over his crib by rolling now. On his tummy, he tries to scoot forward - scrunches up his legs and puts his butt in the air and/or wiggles forward with his arms and chest. Watch out world!

His verbal development is much the same as last month - lots of growling, squealing, and vowel sounds. He seems to still be nursing well, and we are working toward a sleep schedule. His smile is huge and almost always easy to get. He has started really manipulating things with his hands, including purposefully spinning the toys on his swing and attempting to put his binky (and everything else) in his mouth. No teeth yet, but lots of drooling and mouthing things.

A first we weren't excited about...

Samuel's first cold!
(you can imagine his upper lip covered with snot if you want - I wiped it away for the picture)

 

In other news, we went to the fire station and had a wonderful tour and educational program today, in honor of Fire Safety Month. Also in honor of Fire Safety Month, Jacob burned the tip of his thumb on our vehicle cigarette lighter, and I filled the house with smoke by accidentally turning on the stove burner that still had a cover on it. The good news is, I already had silver sulfadiazine to put on Jacob's thumb burn (from Ethan's burn two years ago), and the kids demonstrated their retention of the fire safety presentation by "fall and crawl" -ing when they saw the smoke.

PS - I did have the cigarette lighter hidden in the glove compartment. Jacob dug it out and found the outlet for it, figured out how to operate it, and then touched the center of the hot lighter with his thumb. He said since it was gray he didn't think it would be hot. This happened when I let them out of their car seats while I was cleaning out the car.

Now that Samuel is 4 months old, I have picked up Dr. Marc Weissbluth's book again. He advocates beginning sleep schedules around four months of age. He emphasizes the child's need to get enough sleep ("sleep begets sleep"), at the right times ("perfect timing produces no crying"), with consolidated sleep as much as possible (one or two night wakings may be unavoidable until 9 months).

An example of our schedule using his method is waking at 8 am, taking a morning nap around 10 am, an afternoon nap around 2 pm, an evening nap around 6 pm (which phases out around 9 months), and bedtime around 9 pm with one or two feedings during the night (which also phase out around 9 months). I think I'd like to push each of those times back an hour so that we end up with an earlier bedtime, but then again it's nice when he doesn't wake up until 8 am. Once he no longer needs the evening nap, bedtime will be earlier.

I have done this for two days now, and so far it is amazing! For instance, I laid Samuel down for his morning nap awake this morning, went in to check on him and give him his binky a few times, and in a short time with a minimal amount of fussing, he was asleep. The key is putting him down for a nap at the ideal time, when he is drowsy but not overtired. When I did this yesterday, he slept for 3 hours, and I had to wake him up for his next feeding. He also took about an hour long afternoon nap. What a difference that made on a Monday! We actually had a good Monday, and I didn't know if that was possible any more. I was able to focus more attention on the big boys and keep them occupied, and I felt more like I knew what was happening in my world and how to plan. I even got some housework done.

I think it's safe to say I thrive on predictability and order, even if I'm not much for schedules with rigid times.

In other news, Jacob is riding his bike without training wheels now! Check out Heath's blog for a video and link to more pictures.

In accordance with my tendency toward a split-personality as a parent (which I mention in my last post), I am now making a post about how lovely and adorable my children are.

Samuel is growing and changing so much! He is very strong - a friend of mine likes to say he has "good posture," and it's true. Just now I went to check on him as he was falling asleep in his crib, and he had almost rolled himself onto his tummy from his back. (He's been rolling onto his back from his tummy since his second day of life.) He has started to really laugh, but not very often, so we really treasure the moments when he does. In fact, right after I wrote my sad post below, I went to change his diaper, and he laughed and laughed about it. It was great. Diaper changes are his favorite part of the day, so neither of us mind doing them.

His favorite vocalization right now is a growl, which sounds like a burp at first but then you realize he's doing it intentionally. A week or two ago, he went through a phase of blowing bubbles - it seemed like there was a continuous fountain of bubbles at his lips and a trail of drool to match. He's moved on from that now, and his new focus is simply getting everything in his mouth, as you can see above. These two pictures represent how I usually see him nowdays - mouth open awaiting object, or object in mouth.

He is a very content, happy, smiley baby. He only cries if he is hungry, usually only if he's quite past due for a feeding (or if I've stopped a feeding before he was ready).

comparisons

Here are pictures of each of my boys at 3 months so we can compare how they look. First is Jacob, then Ethan, then two of Samuel.

tiny charmer

Samuel is getting bigger! :-) I tried to illustrate in these pictures just how long he is (for his weight) - almost 23", which is about the 50th percentile for his age. He's over 9 lbs now, about the 5th percentile for his age. His head circumference is also in the 50th percentile. He is smiling, cooing, and rolling over, and generally becoming quite charming. :-)

(Sorry the first two pictures are so grainy/washed out. I couldn't figure out how to get Heath's sunshade thing off the camera, so there was a shadow on Samuel's face. I had to fix it with fill light.)