Updates on The Bug... since it's been awhile, again...

I can't believe Bug will be 8 months old in just a couple days. I mean, he's HUGE, so I suppose it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that he's getting older fast -- but it honestly doesn't seem like almost 8 months since he was born. I know every mother says that, but it's true.

Recent(ish) changes in him:

He army crawls like nobody's business. If he wants to get at something across the room he'll be there in a matter of seconds. He spins, on his tummy, in circles to change direction - if he wants to that is. If he's heading toward something he's not supposed to touch and I try to verbally correct him he completely ignores me. Keeps on keepin' on, refuses to even look in my direction, and keeps army crawling at the speed of light. He still rolls across the room to get around, but not as much. Army crawling has become his preferred mode of transportation. He gets up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth super fast. He's totally gearing up to crawl - for realsies - and then they'll be no stopping him. We're still able to keep him contained to the living room, but I doubt that'll work for much longer. In the last couple days he'll crawl up to the edge of the living room where the carpet meets the wood floor and he just stops and looks. He reaches out and touches the hard floor, and stares down the hall or into the kitchen, but he doesn't venture out onto the wood floor yet. He is unsure, and for that I'm thankful. Right now I have to pick up the living room floor about 6 times a day to (try to) keep him from eating things he's not supposed to. You know, the teeny tiny toys that Bean leaves laying around. Also backyard debris that the dogs drag in. And just picking up the living room that many times a day is time consuming and kinda stressful. (Especially when he manages to find the one piece of string on the floor that you missed and you don't realize until he's actively choking on it.) But once he figures out that the wood floor isn't something to be scared of, and he is running crawling amok through the whole house I'm going to be a crazy person trying to keep the floor picked up/swept/vacuumed/mopped. Now that I'm thinking about it, I suppose we need to put the child proof locks on the cabinets with chemicals inside asap. We never had to worry about these things when Bean was little. Yes, we did child-proof everything back then, but she NEVER got into things that she wasn't supposed to. You'd tell her no once, or "ah-ah!" at her once, and she'd never go near that thing again. Bug already ignores our warnings and returns to the areas/items we remove him from repeatedly. I'm talking 15+ times a day. He knows he's not supposed to be there, or touch that, but he doesn't care. He wants to do it, and he laughs at our attempts to stop him.

Hmm, what else? Food. Bean haaaaaaaaaaaated purees. I found this out after I painstakingly made 5 big batches of organic pureed baby food, froze it in ice cube trays, popped out the cubes of food and stored them all in the freezer in gallon freezer bags ready to be used 2-3 cubes at a time. I was so proud of myself and my efforts to feed her the best foods. She completely refused to eat ANY purees. It didn't matter the veggie or fruit. She didn't want them. So, instead she ate small bites of soft "real" food. Peas, steamed veggies chopped up into tiny cubes, fruit galore, Cheerios, scrambled eggs, etc. With Bug if there is ANY texture he gags and spits like he's about to swallow a giant jaw-breaker whole. Relax, Child! That tiny piece of banana/black bean/scrambled eggs/carrot, the one that's about 1/4 the size of a pencil eraser isn't going to choke you!!! Just gnaw it up and swallow it! You'll be fine! I promise. But, no. Instead it's a production of loud gagging, throwing his head back, drool EVERYWHERE, red watery eyes, coughing until he finally gets the offending piece of food out of his mouth. Now, we feed him pureed baby food 2-3 meals a day. I'm still buying store bought baby food until I have a good list of things he actually likes and then I'll go buy the foods to make my own purees. I'm not going to be stuck with gallon freezer bags full of pureed peaches/sweet potatoes/green beans in my freezer for months again. He definitely prefers savory vegetables to sweet fruits. Which is foreign to me. I have SUCH a sweet tooth that I can't imagine snubbing sweets. He likes what he likes, though. Some days he only eats 2oz of purees, and then some days (like yesterday) he eats 3.5oz each time! I couldn't believe he ate 7oz of baby food yesterday. I'm not sure what the "norm" is since I can't compare it to what Bean used to eat, but I guess it's good that he's eating his veggies (and some hidden fruit) without complaint.

**Side note/rant because UGH. Yesterday was the first day Bug got to try any grains. (We don't do baby cereals since they have no nutritional benefit.) The puree was "Organic Butternut Squash, Harvest Apple, and Mixed Grains." I know he loves butternut squash, so I was excited/hopeful that he'd eat the apples without complaint since they'd be hidden by the squash. He happily ate the entire 3.5oz container. I was shocked. After I cleaned him up and threw away the empty I started to wonder what the "mixed grains" were, so I went to the pantry to read the ingredient list.... "organic oat flour.... brown rice flour.... TUNA OIL (for added DHA)" UH.................WHAT?! As a vegetarian I was/am so squicked out!! Why on Earth would I have thought to check for animal products in a baby food that says Butternut Squash, Apples, and mixed grains?! I don't search out baby food that has "added DHA" since Bug is fed primarily breastmilk, which has plenty of DHA. I don't supplement with formula (which usually has added DHA to compete with breastmilk), I don't give vitamins with DHA in them -- again, because I don't need to! He's a breastmilk baby. It's not something I'm concerned with. I felt like such an idiot for not checking, but like I said WHY WOULD I HAVE THOUGHT TO CHECK FOR ANIMAL OIL IN A VEGGIE/FRUIT BABY PUREE?! First time mom Me, back with Bean, would have read every ingredient list before putting it in the shopping cart, but second time mom Me thought I had it under control. Blech! I'll be reading all the labels from now on... Side note part 2: I know he'll be fine after ingesting some fish oil, it just goes against my ethical code to eat animals/feed them to my children. I'll let them make that choice on their own when they're older. Side note part 3: He gas and poo has never smelled so disgusting. I don't know if the fish oil is to blame or the grains, but SO GROSS!! It's totally like man farts/poo, not baby gas/poo. This is the worst part about starting to feed your breastfed baby solid foods.

Ok, moving on... Sleep: For now, Bug seems to be sleeping better. He's no longer waking up 5-10 times a night. Now it's 1-3 times a night. I can't figure out any rhyme or reason as to why he wakes up 3 times some nights and only once other nights. I imagine tummy gas or teething or alllllllmost crawling are the culprits, but I wish I could better anticipate the nights. The nights he only wakes up once I feel almost human again the next day. And, because I'm out of practice, the nights that he wakes up 3x I feel like a zombie the next day. I'm not complaining, just making observations. I'll take 3x a night over 5-10 ANY day!!!

Speaking of teething, Bug has 6 teeth. Four up on top, and two on the bottom. (!!!) At this age Bean had 2 teeth. Bug may be slower at doing some things (like crawling) but he's not messing around when it comes to growing and popping out teeth! You'd think with 6 teeth he'd be better about eating solid food.... ;)

His preferred form of communication is yelling. Both happy squeal-type of yelling, and angry/sad-type of yell-crying. When he's happy talk-yelling you can't help but smile and laugh. He just sounds SO happy! But when he's upset watch out. He doesn't have any sad baby-cry left in him. His cries are all yell-crying now. Yell-growling, Yell-complaining, Yell-crying. He's such a happy baby 95% of the time, but he knows how to throw a tantrum when he's tired, hungry, hurt - or just pissed that his sister dared to take something away from him.

Bug is such a joy to have in our lives. He makes me laugh and smile every day. He makes me smack my forehead in disbelief at his antics at least once a day. He's a huge tank-sized baby, but he's healthy and happy and we couldn't ask for any more. But we're totally in for it with him. I imagine my next blog post will be one where I'm hastily typing out an S.O.S. because he will have taken over the house by then. haha!