Lunchtime Fun

So I'm sitting at the kitchen table feeding JJ his sweet potatoes on bites of my cilantro & garlic bread  (that's cilantro & garlic baked in, not garlic bread like you serve with Italian), and JJ and John start mimicking each other.

Like, JJ looks at John and sort of lays his head to one side, so John lays his head over too.

Then John drops his head down more... and JJ drops HIS head to his little food tray.

Simultaneously getting sweet potato in his hair.  *facepalm*

JJ smacks his food tray... John pat-pat smacks his arm or the table.

And they go on like this for minutes at a time.  It's extremely cute.  I promise I'll do my best to snag video next time they get started.

Meanwhile, this will have to do:

Table banging... "MOOOM!! MORE FOOD!!!"

"OOH!!! FOOD!!!"

"OM-NOM-NOM-NOM-NOM!!!"

"I'm the baby, gotta love me!"

And one more just because it's adorable...

Nothing outdoes the classic cuteness of the OshKosh.

Except, of course, for teh babeh.

Helpless cooing in 3... 2... 1...

He so rarely lets me get the good snuzzle pics!

So you know those moments (hours... evenings...) where your child suddenly decides that all is right with the world, that 6:45 isn't such an unreasonable bedtime, decides to not only cooperate with the evening routine, but actively help you get it done and smile the whole time?  The rare and miraculous once in a blue moon evenings that tell you, yes, there IS a person in there, and yes, he IS learning, and no, he doesn't hate you for making him go to sleep when it's still light out?

We just had one of those.

In fact, the whole day has been incredibly smooth sailing, despite the atrociously early beginning thereof.

Yeah, JJ decided to get going at quarter past 5 today.  *groan*  Of course, it's tough to complain, because he also slept through from bedtime last night (almost 10.5 hours) with only one wake-up, and that was the post-bedtime top-off feed that I don't usually count anyway.  Once I realized that, well, I decided to stop being irritated about the 5am wake-up call.

Because of the early morning, it turned into a two-nap day, falling neatly into the ideal 2 nap day pattern, and baby was up for the afternoon at 2:30 on the dot, already awake when I went to go get him.

Ate his lunch (pureed squash ... but on toast fingers... yeah, I'm back to purées are EBIL, but that's another post)... drank some water...

Took a good half dozen sorta-maybe steps while clinging to my fingers...

Did NOT freak out during his evening play-time with Grandma (read: mommy's sanity-saving baby-free hour).  Normally he lasts about 40 minutes and then starts freaking out because Grandma is nice but she's NOT MOMMY!!!!

Sat (SAT) in his bath and played happily with his toys for fifteen whole minutes without making me constantly re-sit him.

(Here's the big one) REFUSED TO NURSE IN CLUTCH HOLD AND NURSED TO SLEEP IN CRADLE HOLD INSTEAD.  Y'all have no idea.  He is seven, almost eight months old, almost thirty inches long, and until a month ago was still exclusively nursing in clutch hold.  It's taken the last month to introduce it and for him to realize that it WORKS BETTER, so for him to actively refuse clutch is a huge big honkin' deal in the Nolan household!

So... seriously... who is this perfect little angel and what has he done with my child?????

He's sleeping now, and I'm waiting for the "Mooooooooooooooooooom, I'm still hungry!!!!!!!" cries to start, but I'm hoping a smooth day bodes well for a smooth night and it won't take too long to get him back to sleep.

ETA: Okay, so we're coming up on two hours since bedtime here.  At the hour mark I snuck into the bedroom, reeeeaaaaaal quiet-like, because I hadn't heard JJ fuss for his top-off feed yet.  And what do I find?  A peacefully sleeping baby who has flipped over on his tummy and clearly made it through the transition all. on. his. own.

One more bit of ultimate cuteness...

I can melt now, right?  Okay, just checking.  *melt*

Sleep Regressions SUCK!!!

It's official, my kid is the cutest kid ever. :P

That's his baby-mirror he's playing with... I recently figured out a way to attach it to his pack 'n play, so now I'm typically being woken in the morning by baby-giggles as he plays with his "friend"... infinitely preferable to being woken by "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH", let me tell you.

Okay, so y'all probably remember my moaning and whining about the 4 month sleep regression.

The 8 month?  Yeah, it's worse.

He's back to waking up an average of three times a night, and this time adjusting his reflux meds didn't fix it.  HELPED, oh wow did it help (he was up to 5-6x a night again and I was one cranky momma!), but the remaining three aren't reflux related.  Totally different cry, that.  Now, if they were spread out, I could deal with it, but they're all clustered between about 2 am and 6.

*whimpers*


He's also trying to drop a nap.  Yeah, he wants to go down to one nap already, he's been trying for a month, but until today I just wasn't seeing enough to indicate he was really ready.  Oh, we tried a couple of times, and there have been a few days where everything lined up just right and one nap did the job, but most days he just hasn't been up to the 4-5 hour wake times needed to pull off one nap.

Sacked out in the new pack 'n play.

BUT... that first nap in the morning keeps sneaking earlier and earlier.  Today he was only awake for an hour and forty before he got cranky and hungry and passed out at the breast in four minutes flat.  I haven't seen that short of a morning wake time since he was still taking three 2 hour naps every day.  Aaaand then he refused to nap again until 1:45, and only slept until 2:30.  Used to be he had to be awake by 4pm in order to sleep at 7.  Then 3:30, and it's been 3pm for a while now... so he was about due to back it up another half hour.

So, I'm thinking since John's off work tomorrow, it'd be a good day to take a real stab at the single nap day JJ apparently REALLY wants.

Kid's gonna have to get used to our Ergo (thank you, miss Elora!!!), if he's gonna only take one nap, because I absolutely cannot be stuck on my butt entertaining him all day with only one break.  Can't.  Won't.  Nuh uh.  Negative, Ghost Rider, the pattern is full.

Even if he is the cutest thing ever.

Lotsa stuff...

I realized this morning that it's been almost a month since I've posted!  Woops, sorry folks!  I owe y'all a major update!

So...

JJ turned 7 months old on the 2nd.  He'd been doing the all-fours rocking for a couple of weeks, so I knew it was time to retire the Arm's Reach and get him a deeper bed... but oops, bad Mommy, I didn't get around to it in time!  On the 4th (yes, Independence Day, how's that for irony), my son decided to let me know he was up from his nap by climbing out of the Arm's Reach, onto the night-stand, and riding the stereo down to the floor!

I swear to you, my heart stopped dead in my chest for the ten seconds between the massive THUDTHUDTHUD and the WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!  The fact that I was across the living room, through the door, and halfway around the bed before he started crying not withstanding.  And there's my baby on the floor, shrieking with the stereo cable in his hand.  Thankfully he was fine, but we watched him like a hawk and ran out that same morning to pick up a pack'nplay I found on Craigslist.

This, I captioned "There.  Climb outta THAT, ye wee beastie, ye!"

A friend promptly responded, 

"His expression says 'Okay, Mom, just turn your back and gimme five.'"

In the week since, he has made HUGE strides on his pulling up and cruising skills, because the rails of the P'nP are juuuuust high enough that he can reach them and peek over the side once standing, but much too tall for him to use to climb out.

For now.  *facepalm*

But each day he tolerates a little more time inside it in its guise as a play-pen, so I'm finally getting some baby-not-on-mommy time while he's awake on a regular basis, which is LOVELY.  

Lately he's started playing with more consonant sounds.  We've got "buh", "guh", and the most recent addition appears to be an attempt at "th", but there are a lot of spit bubbles involved.  ;)  He's also discovered that he can blow buzzers (or "tummy-flurbers", as John calls them) on my shoulder if he gets a good seal with that wide open mouth!

John & JJ being silly billies...

He's working his way through quite a range of table food, trying out whatever unprocessed something is on the menu, cut into fingers he can hold in his fist & gnaw on.  No teeth yet, but the symptoms resurface periodically, so it can't be far off.

We've decided not to bother with sippy cups, except for traveling, because he's so grabby for our glasses that we just started teaching him to drink from a cup.

And cups?  Not the only thing he grabs for.

"Hi, Mom!"

"Don't mind me... I'm just a cute little baby..."

"Dang... Missed."

The cat isn't safe either.