Eight Months

Another month has gone by and our boy here just keeps growing and getting more and more handsome by the day. No doctors appointments this month, but he is still in his 3-6 month jeans, his 6-12 month onesies still fit great and his 12 month hats are too small, so I think that give us a general idea of his stats :). 

He is still a toothless wonder (although he currently has two bottom teeth that we can almost see, so it may just be another day or two of having a little gummy!), but can chew and chomp like no body's business. Eating, jumping, walking around with mine or Roberts hands, jumping up the stairs, and kicking a ball are his favorite recreational activities. He could walk around all day, but it gets old after about 5 minutes (for me, that is). After a few minutes of playing with his toys on the ground he will find me, speedily army crawl over to me and grab my fingers. Or if he is sitting on my lap he grabs holds of my fingers and stands up or slides off my lap. He is a mover! If I don't walk with him he has a ROYAL melt down until he can walk. The kid knows what he wants.

He loves bath time still. He can splash up a tsunami and is all smiles around water. He is very routine based and gets excited at the end of bath time because he knows right after he gets in his PJ's it's eating time! Right before he nurses or has a bottle from Robert he will start to smack his lips together and pant. He just started this and it's hilarious.

 He is loved by the ladies. Actually, it's just his friend Emmeline-who is a doll- and she always gives Calvin a hug when she sees him. But by the look on his face below, I think he already hit the Elementary age when girls have "cooties". He is still our champion sleeper- Robert usually puts him down between 7:30-8 and he sleeps till 7, sometimes 7:30 the next morning. He just dropped one of his liquidfeedings three days ago so he is down to just morning, mid-day and evening. He eats three full meals a day and loves every one of them.

He is a smiley little guy when he wants to be; when we are out and about he is usually just soaking everything in. People will try and get him to smile, but only a few strangers have succeeded in getting a smile out of him, especially at Costco when his focus is primarily on finding samples.

A few weeks ago we transitioned him into a convertible carseat which has been a game changer for the car. He was getting a little too big for his carseat and looked terribly uncomfortable. I also just felt like our steel framed convertible carseat was so much safer than our plastic infant seat. He is a fan! A baby gate is also in our near future as he seems to be very intrigued by our stairs now.....

Depending on the day we usually go for 1-2 walks because he is like his mom and gets a little bit stir crazy in the house. He LOVES being outside, especially the wind. He usually giggles when a breeze blows his hair everywhere. Milestone, he now can be in all 3 positions in the Bjorn! He loved being on Robert's back for our little walk.

He also learned how to get to the sitting up position on his own! One morning I heard him babbling and turned on the monitor to find him sitting up! It was an exciting day in this household.

We sure do love this kid!

Seven Months

Our little friend Calvin is getting closer and closer to one year and it is just making me a little bit sentimental. Good news is that he is probably the sweetest thing that has ever existed (not that I am biased or anything), so I'm pretty happy to watch him grow up and take on a strong personality. We went to the doctors today and the stats are................ 26.5" (17%) 18.7 oz (51%) and 18" head circumference for his genius brain (91%). We are still deciding who he got his big head from. ha.ha.

He is a little toothless wonder still, although we seem to think he is teething every other day because of all the drool and finger chewing. We think he is just going to be a gummy for life. He started solids at 5 1/2 months and hasn't looked back. He hates baby cereal (unless I mix it with Vanilla Yogurt and applesauce), saurkraut, baby food (unless its some sort of applesauce). His favorite thing by far is probably eggs (good thing he isn't allergic!) and bread. He is getting much better at feeding himself smaller items, so we usually just put his food on his tray and let him go at it. If we are eating something that we need to spoon feed him he has a meltdown if we don't feed it to him fast enough. It was funny the first few times.....now it's just a little crazy. We are teaching him the "more" sign in sign language. He knows what it is, but doesn't do it. Silly Boy. 

He is a champion at sitting up, and knows how to get onto his stomach or back without just flopping over and banging his head. He will scootch a little bit, but he definitely prefers to be sitting up and playing with his toys. When he is playing with something he usually hits it like he is giving it a "high 5", over and over again. It's pretty funny. 

He is a very curious little boy and has to touch EVERYTHING or else he gets hoppin' mad. He loves to scratch the sofa or his rocking chair. When he is nursing it has to be dead silent; whenever he hears a nice his eyes pop open, looks and me, and then looks around until he can see what is going on. It's cute, but also somewhat irritating when I just want him to eat so we can move on to the next activity.

 He nurses about every four hours, and dropped his last nap, so he is just down to two naps a day. His bedtime routine is the same (bath, lotion, PJ's, song, bottle from dad, and down in crib). When he sleeps, he falls asleep with his bum in the air, and curled up with his blanket. He sleeps from about 7:30 pm till 6:30 or 7 the next morning. Every once in a blue moon he will wake up around 4, have a nice chat with himself and fall back asleep. He LOVES bath time and has figured out splashing. It's the cutest. When he gets excited he does a cute little high pitched squeal/chirp noise like a tiny dog or a bird.

He has discovered that he can roll over while staying on his changing table, which has made both dressing him, and changing his diaper an adventure. The little man doesn't like to stay still, that's for sure.  He has started his own way of communication; when Robert gives Calvin a bath he usually puts his hand in the water and squirts water at Calvin. The other day Calvin grabbed Robert's hand and put it into the water and started to get so excited when Robert started to squirt him. He also will grab both of my hands when he wants me to pick him up.

Whenever he gets excited or is just playing with his toys he started doing this head bang thing and it's hilarious. He also loves it when we shake our head, and then he will do it and laugh and laugh and laugh. I love it so much.

We are loving this little bundle of joy more and more each month. I didn't think it was possible to love him even more, but I do. At night if Robert is studying and I am out of a good book to read I miss the company of this little sweet thing and am tempted to wake him up. He really has a genuinely sweet disposition and has cheeks that everyone just wants to pinch. We got pretty lucky with this guy.

Viva Las Vegas, Again.

The first week of February my sister Natalie and her little boy Emerson headed down to Vegas. It also happened to be the week of one of Robert's exams, WIN! Since we don't really see much of Robert during exam weeks (let's be honest, every week :), and he seems to do much better when we aren't there, we decided to meet down in Vegas. It was absolutely beautiful, I LOVED it. 

We had a jam packed week. We did a lot, and it was nice that Calvin was older, and he is much more flexible with his eating times and naps (which is mostly due to the fact that he is a crazy solids eater now). He also got to use his cousins convertible car seat while we were there and loved it. We finally bit the dust and got one (which should be coming soon!). 

              

We visited grandpa-pa at work, where Darwin frequents, and knows how to answer the phone. 

 We went to story time at the library, and I was able to see one of my life long friends and her little boy!

Calvin was even big enough to take a wagon ride with Oma!

 We visited the Bellagio gardens:

And we went to the Children's Discovery Museum. We went last time we were in Vegas but Calvin LOVED it so much more this time. Mostly the water world, since he is obsessed with water. 

The little boys got really enthusiastic about a rollie pollie.

Vegas, you didn't disappoint. Robert even rocked both of his exams and got the highest score on his anatomy exam! Whoot Whoot. We are already planning a trip for his next exam ;).