Some videos from last month

As Amanda rests from her creme cheese gastro-attack, I volunteered to post videos for our family viewings. Editing of these video took about an hour, so it's been a while and I unfortunately don't quite remember which clips are from what events. Suffice it to say that these are of Andrew's out and abouts for the last several weeks. Enjoy.

The First Present

We opened the first present this weekend - a new outfit for Andrew from Grandma and Grandpa so he could wear it to church. He looked smashing, of course. We had a fun weekend. We had a free night in the local Hampton Inn that was going to expire, so we went last night to enjoy ourselves. The king bed was SO comfortable and sitting and watching TV was a blast (we don't get any reception in our apartment and are too cheap to pay for cable - well, we do get a fuzzy Animal Planet). They also had a really good breakfast with hot eggs and sausage even. But now, I have a horrible stomachache and feel SO sick - I wonder if it was from breakfast. ICK.

Snow

Yeah!!! The semester is done!!! I finished with my poster presentation yesterday - from 3:30-7:30 - four whole hours! I am so glad to be done and am taking off until we get back from Japan when I really need to buckle down and get a lot of research done.

Anyways, we had a BIG snowstorm on Saturday / Sunday. Biggest one we had in a long time. Thankfully, Katsu went to the grocery store in his pajamas on Saturday evening before it got too bad to pick up a gallon of Pumpkin Pie ice cream. Andrew and I both had colds, so we were planning on staying home from church anyways, but almost a foot of snow later, church was canceled. Katsu did go outside some to shovel and also to throw snowballs at our patio door while Andrew watched. We mostly just watched Gilmore Girls all weekend, which of course, is the perfect way to spend the weekend.

Early Christmas

Katsu got his Christmas present a little early - yesterday. We are both excited about it.

(Sorry the pictures is dark - that's what Michigan in the winter makes our apartment - dark).

Or you can see it here.

Andrew is 7 months old!

It's taken me a few days to get the post up, but Andrew is now seven months old. I can't believe how fast he is growing up. This was another challenging month for us. Andrew has become very stubborn and basically stopped taking naps for me, except after nursing or in the car. And if I am lucky enough to get him to nap in his crib, it's for 30-45 minutes tops. He arches his back if I try to calm him before putting him in the crib, but if I just place him in the crib, he cries and cries and does not go to sleep. As you can tell by this diatribe - it's very frustrating for me, especially as another month has gone by without research done.

Anyways, after a month and some of trying, he has finally seemed to get how a sippy cup works, well, for at least one sip a day, though the rest of the time he just bites it. He also eats maybe three tiny spoonfuls of food a day. We just have to let him hold the spoon and essentially feed himself. Messy, to say the least. Still not a fan of solids, what can we say.

He has been kind of fussy this month from teething and we can finally see the top of one of the teeth. And the last few days he has been sleeping much better, so we are all grateful. Very grateful. Very very very very grateful. We've been a tired lot.

Andrew loves to sit still and hates hates his tummy, though he is ending up there more and more as he is more ambitious trying to reach things. Maybe it will eventually lead to creeping or crawling. Occassionally, he seems to kind of creep backwards, so maybe there is hope for his future crawling.

On the other hand, he LOVES to stand. And just this last week, he has figured out how to pull himself up on the crib or with our fingers or clothes. He is SO proud when he does this and laughs and smiles from ear to ear.

For pictures, just a few. A family picture we had a friend take for our newsletter which we will eventually get out. Christmas things are happening a little slowly this year. Also, a picture of Andrew's favorite game - the "Andrew bed" - where I sit him on the bed and make the bed around him, usually with the cat Joe jumping in and playing too. Andrew laughs and laughs and laughs and thinks its the funnest thing ever! Also, some pictures of Andrew standing. Sleeping gave him a cute Bam Bam hair through his helmet.

Andrew & Santa

We went to a local garden / variety store and took a picture of Andrew with Santa. He seemed to quite enjoy it, plus there were snacks for us to eat - chestnuts and freshly smoked duck. Yum! We also stopped by a local home built back before the Civil War all decked out for Christmas and enjoyed some cookies. It was not too bad of a day!

Some Pictures

We had to get new batteries for our camera, so it's been a while since I posted about stuff ...

So, here are some new pictures of Andrew.

Andrew is getting into EVERYTHING. And he's not even mobile left. He loves to get into his "toybox" - aka the laundry basket and pick out toys and dump them on the floor. He also goes for any piece of paper he can find to rip it up. And he seems to have a special affinity for electrical cords.

We had a nice Thanksgiving. We went to my (Amanda's) advisors house. There was lots of people and good food. Andrew fell asleep during the dinner. Afterwards, everyone was jamming - singing, playing on the guitar, vibraphone, piano. Katsu gave a try on the drums and sounded really good - and he's never played them before. Definately interesting to see a different side of my advisor.

The day after Thanksgiving, we hit all the sales. Ever since Katsu learned about Black Friday, he has loved the idea, so it's the one day, I really let him shop, shop, shop till he drops. We went to 10 different stores!!!

Then, on Saturday, we cooked our own turkey. Katsu got a huge 19 pounder because he loves turkey and especially turkey leftovers (Which we will have FOREVER). We did the whole dinner - mashed potatoes, yams, gravy, cranberry sauce, turkey, stuffing. So, Andrew already had his first two thanksgiving dinners - although he didn't really eat anything.

We put up all our decorations on Wednesday because Katsu had a really bad day at work. And it was really fun and cheered us all up. We love Christmas.

6 Month Visit

Andrew had his 6 month checkup yesterday. He is only 90% now (20 lbs 5 oz) for weight and still 85% for height. His head circumference has gone down, but probably because of the helmet, I would guess. The doctor proclaimed the reason(s) he is not sleeping - his helmet looks like it is bothering him (um, yes), he has fluid in his ear, and he is teething. What a great combination!!! The poor kid got his shots even with his cold. Poor kid. And then he had a relatively high fever of 102.6 last night and was very hot and had a hard time sleeping. So, hopefully, he gets better soon! Sick babies are so sad looking.

A video of sweet potato

6 months

Andrew turned six months old yesterday. This has been a bit of a hard month because of having the helmet. The first two weeks were like having a newborn with him waking up every hour or two. It got better ... but this week is worse with him up 3-4 times a night again. IN the beginning, he also always swatted at his helmet, so much so that he got a blister on his finger, poor kid. He also figured out how to wriggle out of it at night, but he hasn't done that since the first week. Although today I caught him trying to lift the thing off (and he almost accomplished it!), the sneaky thing.

Other than sleep and helmet, it was a good month. Andrew is fabulous at sitting up which is SOOO nice. He sits and plays most of the day. Refuses to do tummy time now and just rolls over immediately, but oh, well. It has made it much easier for us so we don't have to carry the heavy boy all the time. He loves playing with blocks, cups.

He has become really aware and has a really big personality. If he wants to play with a toy, he stares at it and then you and then the toy until you take him over there. He also is very talkative and makes these little high pitched "Hi!" and "Hey" sounds all the time. He also started giving us kisses on our cheeks, which I thought was really cute since we didn't teach it to him at all.

One other bad / good note - our babysitter quit which has made things a bit more difficult but was probably better since he cried the whole time he was there. We tried another friend to see if it was the babysitter or Andrew - it was definitely Andrew. He cried at her house the whole time. Even after I comforted him, as soon as he saw her he would burst into tears. He is somewhat better if he is at our house. He definitely has preferences for people, even strangers. Some he goes straight into conversation with and others he just eyes skeptically.

We are starting to give him solids a bit for the next week, but not much interest, so we'll have to keep going on it.

We're having fun, even though its been a really hard month. Happy 6 months baby!