Fun things this month:
- The little man loves to eat. All the foods. Current favorites are peaches, strawberries and oatmeal (who can blame him??). He is also happy to eat salmon and beets and sautéed zucchini with garlic and other healthy-but-so-adult foods that James (or even Stuart...) would never put in his mouth! We haven't seen any allergies yet, and he's tried all the common food allergens except soy, shellfish and peanut (I just can't bring myself to try it). He eats 3-4 food "meals" a day - I try to get fruit/veg, protein, fat and carbs in each one, and the colors of the rainbow to ensure variety. Still waiting to try things like cut grapes and crunchy things... because he only still has the two bottom teeth!
- He is mobile! Speed-army-crawl, crawling on hands and knees, or (his favorite, because it allows him to carry toys around in both hands) crawling on his knees and elbows. He pushes himself to sitting and gets around really easily (we moved his crib mattress to the lowest position when he started pushing up to sitting and climbing up onto his knees). He pulls to standing sometimes, mostly to reach toys that are on higher surfaces, but no cruising yet.
-Has almost mastered the pincer grasp. Usually doesn't pick up whole handfuls of food and shove them in his mouth, but only one little piece with his thumb and raking his index finger.
- Toys. He loves them. He and James struggle to take turns (obviously I don't really expect this to happen yet, but we do practice) and he gets angry when James takes something from his hand. But parallel play is happening big time around here. He loves to crawl over to wherever James is playing and sit right next to him and just explore all the toys.
- Language! He definitely calls Stuart "da" or "da da." He started clearly signing this month - all done, more, food/eat, milk, and sometimes I even think he signs "I love you." Maybe that's just mama-wishful-thinking.
- Breast feeding is still going so well. He is quick, like 5 minutes per side each session, though before nap and bedtime he lingers for the snuggles. Nursing 4-6x/day, depending on the day. I have been struggling to pump enough to have on hand for the days I go to work, and I have decided to stop stressing about it and just enjoy it at this point. I considered having formula on hand for my mom to use instead, but a few weeks ago we started giving him some cow's milk instead and he's done great. I think on my work days (1 day/week) he gets about half of the amount of breast milk and just eats extra food and drinks some cow's milk. To future Mandy who will, inevitably, stress about this with future babies: don't worry! He is doing so great. (ALSO can I just say: WE HAVE ALMOST BREAST FED FOR A WHOLE 12 MONTHS. Rocking my world. Never imagined we could!)
- For the record: He currently has reddish (strawberry blond/auburn-y) hair and beautiful hazel eyes!
Less fun things this month:
- Separation anxiety was through the roof for a week or so this past month. While we were at the beach, he did NOT want to be set down or held by anyone else. Ever. As much as I love his snuggles (and know all too well that in the next several months they will decrease drastically!), that makes for an exhausting day, especially for this introvert mama.
- We all had monster colds at the beginning of this month, but little Sam worried us a bit when he started wheezing. We went in to see one of the partners of our pediatrician for a sick visit (Dr. Kwee - he's the one we first saw when James was a newborn and had to go the day after discharging from the NICU... he is a bit... odd). Anyway - Samuel turned out to be fine and they didn't even do a neb treatment, but Kwee told me that he has reactive airway disease, which is basically irritant-induced wheezing (an irritant such as the cold virus), which is basically asthma that is acute and intermittent, though it could progress to normal asthma. But who is surprised in our atopic family? So, we'll be watching for that over the next few years.
Samuel, you are our sweetest punkin and we are so proud of the little person you're becoming. We like you a lot and love you to the moon and back!
