Christmas

Yes, I'm cheating and back dating posts, but we've been pretty busy with the holidays.  Christmas was great.  He had just enough interest in the paper and ribbons to sort of open a few gifts himself.  Christmas morning started (not so) bright and early at 4am, so we were downstairs by 5am,

There were some pretty cool presents...

and boxes were thoroughly enjoyed

It was a great day with our handsome little man.

Santa's little helper.

The timing of Christmas with Colton's age is really just perfect.   He loves paper, ribbons, bows...you name it.   I've been able to do all my wrapping right away because he is fascinated by it.

This first Christmas is so much more exciting for him that I thought it would be, which of course, makes it all the more exciting for us.

Sleep training

I have to be honest, these past 2 or so weeks have probably been more trying as a parent than the first few weeks he was home.  We've reached the stage where he just wants to be with us all the time, including when he sleeps.  Shortly after he hit 6 months, Colton decided that naps in his crib should rarely be longer than 20 minutes and the past 2 days he set a new record of barely 15 minutes.  I'm not sure that even counts as a nap.   I had somewhat anticipated this, so back around Thanksgiving I picked a training method and bought sleeping through the night by Jodi A. Mindell, Ph. D.   Similar to the Ferber method, she allows a little more leeway when it comes to periodic checks (as frequently as you need, but the longer apart the better) and soothing aids like a pacifier.   At the time I read this book, Colton was still sleeping through the night like a champ.  That all went to hell shortly thereafter.  Mindell advises that you begin with night time only, continuing to do whatever is necessary to soothe the child to sleep for naps.  Once self soothing at bedtime is accomplishing, you wait a week and begin with naps, but supposedly, self soothing should follow naturally once it is learned.  We'll see.   This is technically night 4 of sleep training, but the last 2 nights the poor kid was so worn out that I'd practically have to yell at him to put him down awake, so really it is night 2 of self soothing.  Saturday night he went down awake and started fussing immediately....I did a real quick check after dumping his bathwater, then did a 10 minute check and planned on a 20 minute check.  Half way through the 20 minute time block he fell asleep.  Unluckily that only lasted 3 hours and we resumed our waking every 2-3 hours for the pacifier.  Sunday night he went down asleep, but was up at 1:20 and would not go back to sleep.  I'm pretty sure it was gas pain originally, but after Rich took over an hour into it, it was clearly just wanting to be held.  So after feeding him, we let him cry it out with the same checking pattern.  He was out in 30 minutes.  He woke again an hour later and soothed himself in under 10 minutes.  Last night he slept through the night and tonight he was again asleep before the end of the 20 minute check.   I should also add that we are now swaddle free and in the sleep sack now, so all in all, progress is good, but it certainly is tough.

6 months

This past month has been so exciting....last month seemed huge developmentally but it never ceases to amaze me what changes a few weeks can bring.  The beginning of November Colton was just started to sit, take a real interest in familiar toys, and get control of his hands.   Now, he can sit well enough that I can walk away for a few minutes and he'll still be playing with his feet or a toy when I come back.  He is completely aware of his hands now and loves to feel new things, particularly if they make a crackling noise.  Seriously, the kid can destroy a magazine faster than a 6 week old puppy.   He reaches out to touch things and has definitely shown a preference for red shiney christmas ball ornaments over the other colors.  He is now ticklish under his arms and responds with smiles and giggles to peek-a-boo.  Within the past two days he has been able to roll completely from back to belly (he has been getting hung up on one arm for a week or so) and back again.

Getting closer to catching a smile!

We've also been experimenting a little with solids.  Carrots got a big hell no, but green beans were a maybe, I think?  And he seemed to like sweet potatoes.



Thanksgiving and "real" food.

We decided to give Colton his first taste of rice cereal today.  He has been chewing on everything lately and can sit on his own now so it seemed like a good time to try.   It went a lot better than I expected, so it would appear we were right!

5 months

Probably closer to 5 and a half months now...all 3 of us have been sick so blogging has not been near the top of my list lately.  Thankfully we are all recovering, because that was a special kind of hell.  Sleeping with a bad cold is hard enough, but when there are 2 other people who also can't breathe well, no one sleeps at all.  But other than that things are going great.  This month has brought so much development-wise.  

At 5 months, Colton is/was about 15lbs11oz.  He is fully aware of his hands, and though he hasn't started really reaching for things, what he does get his hands on goes right to his mouth.  If he isn't chewing on his hands, he is talking and blowing raspberries.  He can sit unassisted for a short period, and just within the past few days he can get his butt up off the ground while on his tummy.  I think he will probably crawl before he bothers to roll.  He loves playing in his exersaucer and is now big enough to "stand" in it without a box under his feet.   He has started to exhibit some signs of shyness around new people, but he is still super easy going.

I didn't have any of the sticker paper that I'd used for the other months labels on hand, so I printed it on regular paper, which worked for a little while, but....

We came....

We saw...

And we conquered.

Halloween!!

I decided about a month ago that I was going to make Colton's halloween costume and he was going to be a crab.  All in all, it turned out really well and was much cheaper than buying one (plus I couldn't find a cute crab costume anyway).  I found scrap material at the fabric store, cheap craft foam, and used a onesie I'd already bought at a re-sale for $.50.  The tights were the most expensive piece, coming in at $9 (WTF, right?).   I sewed the hat, legs and claws and used velcro and a glue gun to stick everything together.   Getting him to stay still for a picture was an entirely different problem.

I had this grand idea that I'd get to take him all around and show the neighbors how cute he was, but we only made it to a few houses before calling it quits.  Not sure I'll get so elaborate in future years, but it was fun to do this time through.