Month of Love

February heralded some more developments... Mom has been working from home since the beginning of January and has seen a lot of Alex that would otherwise be unusual. Another business trip to Sacramento separated them, and some very busy planning of Mom and Dad's trip to Ireland in March has resulted in a stark lack of photos once again. Unfortunately, Alex won't be traveling internationally this year, but he did have some more accomplishments: mastery of the pincer grasp and a huge variety of solid foods. He mostly eats finger foods at this point. Valentine's was a low-key affair, and Alex got a T-shirt that said "Future Hunk" but we didn't even get a shot of that before he outgrew it. At this point he's in 6 month pants and 12 month tops. His 9 month doctor appointment gave stats of 30 inches, 20 lbs which puts him at 95th percentile for height, 50th percentile for weight, and 15th percentile for weight-to-height... meaning he's tall and skinny! Totally buttless, I might add, like many Teeter men. We can only imagine what walking will bring him. Next month he will be mainly away in Grand Marais while we're in Ireland, and there is another Charlotte business trip so photos will probably be supplied by grandparents. Still, here's a couple more photos of his insistence on touching electronics and big smile... plus a classic shot at the Superbowl party showing our team spirit!

Cruising into 2011

Just days after mastering the stairs, Alex began standing on furniture and cruising around it. What should be months of development has been compressed into about 5 weeks and is the main cause of a lack of time to blog. Also, a shortage of photos abounds since he's too fast to be caught on camera or video, but a high-quality camera (Thanks, Grandpa Chris!) should hopefully improve on that issue. He does this super cute little thing where he grabs onto the furniture with his hands and then pulls himself up by clamping on with his teeth. This month's photos include him sitting in his new pirate gear (brash as ever), being defiant about touching the lamp, an example of the teeth-climbing technique (new revelation for rappelling?), a happy moment when the Packers won the AFC championship, and one of snuggling down for the night and reading with Daddy (a favorite winter activity, as it's too cold to snowshoe).

Grand Marais trip

For Christmas, Mom took Alex up to Grand Marais for two weeks (Dad joined us after one "bachelor break week") and enjoyed working remotely for the first time. All the grandmas and grandpas always have a positive effect on his development, and his vocabulary of babble started to expand along with his gross motor skills. He went from a 50% self-feeding success rate to about 80%. He also became so proficient at crawling that he was able to master stairs (up, not down) in just two weeks! He also had the advantage of meeting Uncle Tony for the first time since June, and of course, he had a lot of laughs. Uncle Alex and his fiancee Louise also got to visit with him and hold him - he's a lot more interesting and less fragile than June, so everyone had a good old time. Here's a shot of his joy in wrapping paper, one of Tony making him laugh, and documentation of the stair mastery. His first New Year's was a success... he fell asleep before midnight and Mom stayed up later!

Holiday spirit!

Mom went on her first ever business trip for her new job, so she was away in Charlotte for the first time in Alex's little life. Five days was hard but relaxing, and Grandma Michele came to the rescue and took care of him with Daddy.
Many other people visited at home, and Alex was fascinated by the Christmas lights and tree that were put up as a surprise for Mom when she got home. Our first gift opening was with Joe and Erin, his godparents. Auntie Heather also did a great family photo shoot there, too.
This month marked Alex simultaneously sitting up and crawling - all within a few days of each other. Suddenly he's on the move!!! There are a couple of crawling shots here, one family photo, one shot in Christmas pajamas with Dad, and one that we hope you're not too offended by... it's of Alex pretending to drink a beer, and this joke goes all the way back to when I was his age and there are photos of me reaching over my dad's lap for the Point beer can and everyone laughing at me.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has been an exciting time this year because Alex is just venturing into the kinds of solids people actually eat for Thanksgiving! He has eaten the veggies, potatoes, even tried a little turkey and we're feeling very festive about it. He continues to roll over frequently and clearly wants to be mobile like his cousin Isaac. Here are a few pictures of him lazing around while I fold the socks, posing in his "tough guy toque" before heading outdoors, wearing a cute Thanksgiving onesie that shows what he actually ate, and posing in a very dorky, but very cute, "My First Thanksgiving" turkey costume. Sorry for the blurry photos!

The Major Blog Catch-Up Project

OK. I accept the blame. It's been four months since my last blog post... *sign of the cross*... well, once I put up all the individual posts as if I were doing them over time, you'll see that Alex kept us very busy! :) Enjoy the subsequent posts and I'll try to keep it more up to date - promise!

Fall photos!

As we near 6 months old, the days darken and the weather gets colder. Alex's milestones this month have included a lot of physical leaps, such as easily rolling over both ways, doing push-ups and airplanes on the ground, and short periods of self-supported sitting. Of course, along with the sitting have come some amusing tip-overs and some much less amusing knocks on the melon, but no real injuries so far.
Solids are the adventure of the month with bananas being a real hit and apples the next adventure tonight. He's not a big fan of spoons, but will be getting used to them soon. He now has cereal in nearly every bottle (oatmeal is the favorite) and is growing stronger. Many sounds come out of him at all times of day, and giggling is getting more frequent! Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming soon, and we think he'll like them. Here are a few fall and Halloween photos. As this time of year comes around, I have also enjoyed reflecting on last year, the pregnancy, and all of our favorite time of year (Sept-Dec). Enjoy the switch to Daylight Standard time today - we're certainly enjoying the extra hour of sleep!

5 month photos

Here are the better-late-than-never more recent photos of Alex throughout 4 and 5 months - the best of them, anyhow! Enjoy.

Whoops... almost 5 months!

So, as you can see, the posts dropped off when I returned to work and it got worse when I started class in September again. Sorry! Alex is growing well, and at his 4 month appointment he was 16 pounds 6 oz, which was 80th percentile for weight and head size and 85th for length - he's really long! He has to wear 9 month clothes which fit him shoulder to toes but are poofy on the sides because he's not really fat enough. :D I'll be posting pictures and hopefully a video or two later as well, just not tonight. In other news, he's rolling over (almost from back to stomach), getting accurate with his hands, giggling, and eating rice cereal in his bottle once a day. He plays more on his own now and even fusses to be left on the floor instead of being held (sad and wonderful all at once) and he sleeps through the night. Sometimes we have to get up and replace his pacifier so he can fall back asleep, but he no longer nurses or has bottles (whew)!
Our little dude has picked up several more nicknames - little pumpkin, little man, little dude, stinky butt, lil' seet, little Alex and droolbuckets. All are amusing and he answers to pretty much anything. He charmed the nurses today while Mom had a doctor visit, and he has also flirted with many a store clerk, shopper, coworker, neighbor, and plenty of total strangers! His cousin Isaac is being very cute, he rocks Alex in his carseat and can give him hugs and kisses. Then again, he can also throw blocks at his head and make him cry, so really it's like they are brothers.
We are very excited about the arrival of fall and have tried to do some fun family outings. We have had plenty of short and long fall walks, we went to the State Fair, we had visits from family, we changed into winter clothes and got acquainted with soft blankies, we visited the Fox Family Farm and bought pumpkins to carve, and I've been eating fall food. It's a pity he's not ready for veggies yet, because the squash I've been roasting for myself would be the perfect first pureed food for him! I'll have to pick up a baby food mill and freeze some - but our freezer is still full of breastmilk. He's no longer breastfeeding due to work and school time constraints (it just became too much), but he still puts away a couple of bottles of Mama's milk daily. And it's true that formula poos are much stinkier.
Well, sorry for the gap - I'll try to do more frequent postings with a couple of photos instead of monster mega stories! Anyone who would like to see frequent large volumes of baby photos and some various pet ones should probably visit my Facebook page.

3 months!

Alex turned 3 months old this week! 3 months truly is a fun time with a baby. They really interact with you, laughing, giggling, babbling, rarely crying, and showing some signs of a little independent playtime (whew). Sorry folks, but we still haven't gotten the video recorder to work properly yet so that the video looks right on the computer. I think we need to mess with the format or something. However, there are plenty of photos and for many many more go ahead and make friends with us on Facebook!

Last week we had a BBQ to raise money and supplies for the kids in the area needing help with school supplies for the coming year. We're taking a big box of supplies today including all kinds of things down to Hastings Family Services today. Thanks everyone! The day was nicer than any we'd had all summer and we had some great burgers and brats thanks to Josh! Alex had fun at his impromptu-3-month party, which was his first outdoor grilling party at our house. He got to see his cousin and 2nd cousins - it's so much fun to see the boys in all their different stages of development!

Among the new things Alex loves are playing in his play gym, playing airplane with Daddy, and not-quite-hating his tummy time. There's a lot of laughing, shrieking, and babbling like I said. He sits and stands with help, but doesn't really have those fine motor skills down at all yet - he's just starting to learn how to grab a toy and stuff it in his mouth. Oh well, I hear the 3rd month is "hand play" month and that's when they often learn those sorts of things.

We're all waiting anxiously for fall - the leaves are actually turning here and the corn is becoming yellow too. Back to school and football are looming, so we're excited for our favorite season. We're really in the mood for chilly weather and fall food... come on September! Then it won't be too hot and humid to walk with Alex outside, although we've taken some great trips in the Moby now that he's facing forward.

In other news, he's got me making so much milk that I had over a hundred frozen ounces in the fridge when he turned 3 months! I have signed up with a milk bank to be a donor for premature and sick babies, but they won't take any of the milk I have since I'm on Depo-Provera. Once it runs out in September, I'm going to switch to a low-dose Pill and then they'll take the extra. It just makes me sick to think of someday pouring it down the drain, right?

Meanwhile, we're dealing with Alex's first non-well-baby-visit to the doctor - pinkeye. Hopefully it's bacterial, not viral, and will go away shortly. Meanwhile, it doesn't bother him at all, but it was no fun missing Nicholas's 5th birthday party yesterday and it's just not quite the same being around other people, because they're wary of holding him. Well, he's pretty content whether he's with Mom and Dad or in someone else's arms for now!

It’s been a month since I went back to work and Alex has had a lot of fun! He’s doing great staying with his daddy in the morning and his auntie in the afternoon, plenty of time to socialize and has a great routine now. He’s started to sleep in his crib for 6-8 hours a night in the room next to ours, although he’s still cosleeping when he’s not in the crib – he has trouble getting back to sleep after any night feedings. He can now laugh, grin, wiggle, grasp the bottle or breast and is batting at toys. He does well with tummy time, keeping his head up for long periods of time – I think he’ll be working on push ups soon! There’s a 5am party each morning with Mom and Dad when Mom is getting ready for work and Dad has to feed him, but other than that he sleeps well. He’s got great chubby cheeks and seems to be growing well – in fact, I have so much milk that I have to wear cloth diapers at night to keep from leaking, and we have nearly a hundred ounces of milk frozen – so I decided to apply to donate extra milk to a local milk bank for preemies and sick newborns to drink. Hooray! All that milk makes a lot of diapers, but not too bad – we definitely found that Gdiapers didn’t work for us, so we ordered some Bumgenius Flip diapers and will be trying them when they ship. We heard about them at the awesome Bradley reunion last Sunday, where we got to see Meisha and Henry and some of the other babies from the class and tell our birth stories – it was really great to see everyone! It seems Alex isn’t the only kid with persistent cradle cap, either – I spied a few cases while I was there. He’s into playing now, in the play gym, with his toys, in the swing, and we have a lullaby and dancing selection in his room now for his entertainment. He smiles practically anytime he sees someone smiling at him, which is really enjoyable but makes it hard to leave in the morning. We even have conversations now where we talk and babble back and forth – he’s very active and talkative, which makes it fun. On the plus side, Mom’s getting back in shape really well, almost back down to the prepregnancy weight and we just bought a Mom and Baby yoga/pilates/dancing/playing video that looks really good – we watched it last night to see! All in all, a great 2nd month and Alex will turn 3 months old on Monday.