From dad: 06/22/12

OK, big news... we're officially saying you started walking on 05/20/2012.  But, even a month later you don't seem to take more than 10 or so steps, and we can't quite figure out why.  You'll walk walk walk, step step step, then... just decide to sit.  Maybe your legs are tired, maybe you lose confidence, I'm not really sure.

You had your first birthday ever.  We took a trip down to Sarasota Florida where much of your dad's dad's side of the family lives, but many of your dad's mom's side of the family came too (so, grandpa Jerry's family and grandma Jeanie's family).  During this trip, we stopped in Galveston, TX where your sister Charity took you to see the beach for the very first time; we went to your first water park, Schlitterbahn (I'm not sure I'm willing to say you really experienced this park since 80% of the time you were just in a tube zonked out); we took a day in New Orleans, walking mainly around the French Quarter, but we also took a trip across the Mississippi on a ferry.  In Florida you actually went in the water at the beach with grandma and grandpa Powell; you seemed to LOVE the sand in your toes there.  You fell in love with a little blue shovel you loved to take with you.  We went to Busch Gardens, but of course you were too small to ride anything :-(.  Your mom made you both a delicious and beautiful cake, and she also made a little one just for you.  So, you got to just make a mess of yourself while 20 or so people all gawked and laughed, you were very entertaining.  You took the driving in the car VERY well, your mother and I both thank you greatly for that.

Living in Colorado means swimming opportunities are somewhat limited, especially compared to a state that has both a warmer climate as well as ocean access, so we haven't really had a chance to get you swimming.  I really hope you love the water; in fact, just the other day I was thinking you being on a swim team would be a good example of a sport you might do that I could get behind even though it wasn't a sport I participated in (an example of a sport that might be difficult for me to get behind might be wrestling just because it doesn't particularly interest me though I've got nothing against it, but your mom loves wrestling so she could teach me all about it).  But this trip showed that you do not like that water.  Every time we get you in the water, you get clingy with whoever it is that's putting you in and it's clear you want out.

Maybe it's cold so it's painful to a degree, maybe you're scared of the unknown, maybe you're worried about something, I'm not sure.  Eventually you warm up to and you have these spurts of laughter and splashing, but mostly you just kind of zone out; maybe you've given up on trying to get us to let you out, or maybe whatever it was that was giving you problems to begin with go away.  This summer I want to take you into the pool more, probably do the baby swim class with you.  Even though we're in a land locked state, I still think it's somewhat important that you be a relatively strong swimmer.

From dad: 05/18/12

Wow, I really dropped the ball on staying up-to-date.  Six months have gone by and not a word from me; you've doubled in age since my last post.  A few things have happened; I started a new blog for a different purpose and this was turned into a blog (originally I just had this down as a document) and your mom and I decided to do this one together.  However, apparently I wasn't clear on what exactly she was expecting this to be.  I had just copied all the entries I had made and post-dated them.  Your mom wasn't happy with it, at least the first post, and we haven't really talked much about what she was wanting this blog to be.  I've been waiting a little to talk to her about it before posting more, but things are really busy right now and the longer I wait to make an update, the more stuff I'll have to remember and will probably ultimately miss.

So let's see... I've gotta look back on previous posts.  I banged your head when tossing, but I've only done that once.  That's when I learned that the ceiling in our bedroom is slightly lower than the rest of the first floor; I'm thinking that's because that's where all the air ducts are.  You gave me the look like you had no idea what just happened, but you knew you didn't like it.  You only cried a little for about ten seconds.  No tears.  There's been a plethora of times where you'll fall, throw your head back, something and bang your head; you rarely cry for more than seconds or so.  I don't toss you as much in general simply because you don't react to it as much as you used to.  You still seem to love it (usually) when I grab your legs and hold you upside-down.  Usually I'll then put you on my head (which you usually squeal with laughter, I think because my pointy head pushed into your stomach), then move you to my shoulder and hold you like a bazooka (I call it my babe-zooka, though I've never figured out which end is the more deadly... I suppose it depends on what you've eaten).

Bath time doesn't seem to really do much for you one way or the other.  You're just sitting in the sink now, but we'll be moving you to the bath tub pretty soon here.  Sometimes you like to play with the water as it comes out of the faucet, but I can't really tell if you "like" it or "dislike" it, or maybe you're just intrigued by it.  You usually like to hold your blue rubber ducky, but sometimes you'll hold on to your blue cup.  In the past month, you've gotten very interested in... a certain body part.  Maybe you just discovered it, maybe you're intrigued by the feelings since it's one of most sensitive parts of your body.  Generally speaking though, you put your hands down there which makes changing your diaper messy sometimes.

I didn't document the first time you crawled, but I marked the video as the end of March, so it was a little earlier than that you started crawling.  We were a little "worried" for a while because you didn't crawl, you did like your daddy did and did the "army crawl."  But you put your own twist on it; you did this wounded army crawl thing where it was like your right leg was dead and you were always pulling yourself forward with your right arm.  But we all worked hard with, trying to put you in the crawling position, letting you watch me crawl around (you always seemed so interested when I crawled, so I think you were taking pointers), etc.  I wasn't too worried because I supposedly never crawled myself, but you were also still so focused on standing and walking.  I find it interesting because once you started crawling, you seem to become less interested in walking. I mean, you still stand and scoot yourself around by hanging on to things, but before you could crawl, you would always put your feet down to stand if we put you near the floor.  Now that you realize you're mobile and there's a different way to get around, sometimes you don't want to stand (which is normal, but you didn't start doing this until you started crawling).  You've stood a few times by yourself, ranging between 4~10 seconds.  I've seen you take 2 "falling" steps (they were more like shuffles, and by the second step you were more falling into the chair that you were heading to).  You seem pretty reluctant to let go of things to try and walk towards us, but I've seen you transfer from one item to another without holding on (e.g. you'll let go of both hands that were holding onto the ottoman and switch to holding onto the couch).

You've got a total of 7 teeth (one was just discovered about a week ago).  You've got 4 on the top, two on the bottom, and a molar has popped through on the top on your right side.

Let's see, anything else... you're eating real food now, but still plenty of bottle (though your mom says that's going to stop in about month, when you turn 1).  You love Goldfish and Cheerios, but I refuse to let them become your "chicken nuggets" (there's kind of this... fad now where there are a lot of kids who only eat chicken nuggets and/or mac 'n cheese; your mother and I are firm believers this has more to do with the parents not forcing their children to expand their horizons).  You say "ma ma ma ma" and "da da da" regularly, but it never seems like you're calling us, or referring to us, so they're just sounds really.  Every once in a while you do this buzzing thing.  I don't know if you're just playing, experimenting, or maybe it provides some degree of relief to your mouth.

I think that's all I can remember for now.  I'll try to talk to your mom in the mean time to decide what's suppose to be here, and next time there won't be such a span between updates.

From dad: 11/30/11

11/30/11 - 5 ½ months

I skipped a month, OOPS.  The big oops is because shortly after writing my previous entry, I tossed you for the first time and you LOVED it.  And you were strong enough to hold your body straight (there was a very unfortunate fad at the time called planking, look it up and you’ll know what you were doing), so I could do “airplane” with you (even though you weren’t really putting out your arms).  I would hold you above my head, make the airplane sound, then I’d do a machine gun and lightly shake you.  You loved that machine gun too; you’d squeal when I did that.  But I would also toss you above me.  As of the time of this writing, I haven’t banged you against the ceiling, or any other object yet; I barely let you out of my hands, just enough to give you a moment of free fall without being what I consider too risky (e.g. if you balled up when I let go of you, I could still catch you, but I might not be able to if I tossed you too high).

You still love your baths (usually), still love to stand, you love to smile... like, a lot.  Grandma Jeanie came to visit you during Thanksgiving.  We went up to Estes park and actually had our big dinner on Wednesday.  Grandma Jeanie was very relieved to see you weren’t fat.  From the pictures she gets every day from Grandma Judy and the video chatting, they saw your cheeks and were worried you were one of these blobs of a baby; but she was glad to see it was just the cheeks, the “biggest cheeks in the world” she said.

In Estes park, you hit two big milestones.  Your mom and I were slightly worried that you hadn’t gotten the hang of rolling over; the only times you did was either with a little bit of help or out of pure frustration.  But in that condo we stayed in, you rolled over, and you did so every time we put on your stomach.  You rolled over both ways; you didn’t always immediately roll over and you still would get somewhat upset because you just don’t like being on your stomach for the most part.  I was a very late walker, Grandma and Grandpa Powell were worried something was wrong (they’re still worried... they’re pretty sure actually, but not about walking), but when I did start walking, I was very good at it; Grandpa Jerry seems to think I was practicing in my crib.  I say all that to say, maybe you were practicing too, though I don’t know when; Grandma Judy watches you during the day, you’ve got us in the evening and your “crib” is in the bedroom with us.  But once you started, you were doing like you’ve been doing it for month.

You also got your first tooth on this day.  Between the last writing and this one, you enjoyed chewing/sucking on my finger occasionally, with gusto.  Sometimes you’d be fussy and we couldn’t quite figure out why, thinking maybe you were teething.  So at Estes park you seemed to be a little in that mood so I offered my finger and you greedily took it.  That’s when I felt it; the inside of your mouth used to be all gummy, now there was something sharp.  So, it was mom who put you on the floor and was paying the most attention to you when you rolled over (I saw it out of the corner of my eye), and it was me who discovered you got your first tooth.

Grandma Judy had mixed feelings, vastly joy.  But, there was a twinge of sadness because she had been working so hard with you, especially rolling over.  That sadness was overcome with happiness because Grandma Jeanie got to see not one, but two firsts.

In case things have changed, your mom and I have a deal with Christmas.  She likes white lights, with red decorations, especially outside,but also inside, and a fake tree.  I like colors everywhere, silly ornaments, and a real tree (I want things to be as festive as possible).  So, we decided that every year, one person decorates the outside, the other gets the inside.  So, this year I got the inside; since I got the inside, I decided to get a train to go around the tree.  I set up the train because this was my first train and I had just bought it; I wanted to see how it works and whatnot.  During the test, you were entranced by it; it could’ve just been a moving object that moved in a repetitive path, or maybe it was the choo-choo sounds it made, but you could barely take your eyes off it.

Grandma Jeanie is absolutely over the moon about you.  Everyone says how lucky I am because you are such an easy baby and happy guy in general.  You being my first and only, I can’t truly be grateful since I have nothing to compare it to, but I am as much as I can be.

From Dad: 09/21/11

09/21/11
Three months old, fourteen weeks tomorrow.  You are smiling a lot, and you’re starting to actually laugh, vocally; your mom loves it when you do your fast breathing thing because you get so excited.  You really love bath time now; you didn’t initially like it too much.  Some of that may have been because A) it was a new thing, and 2) we may not have had the water temp very good.  You’re still too small to really be in the big tub without constant supervision, but you’re almost too big to be in the baby tub.  You love to splash your legs alot, maybe you’ll be a runner or something.  Since you can’t sit up on your own yet, we can’t really put you in anything that’s too big or deep.  I can’t wait until you can really start “playing”.

Your Grandmother Judy has been doing a wonderful job taking care of you while we work.  I can’t predict what kind of relationship you’ll have with her when youlre older, I hope it’s an excellent one; but regardless you should always be thankful for the love she so freely pours out.  I’ve seen you reach for an object which is a pretty decent milestone.  There’s more form when you try to roll over, but you seem to be forgetting about your arms, or maybe they’re not that strong.  Maybe all your strength went to your legs.

When you try to roll over, you seem to try rolling over your right arm.  You’ve got it straight and pretty much under your head, and you’re twisting your legs to try and get your center of gravity moved, but you’re not pushing with you left arm.

We can’t quite figure out if you’re left or right handed yet.  A few weeks ago, we both agreed you’re probably right handed, but I’ve seen you do things recently that’s given me pause.  I can’t give any specific examples.  Maybe you’re ambidextrous, or maybe your mixed handed like Promise.

I think I’ve found two “magic” spots that help you calm down and/or go to sleep.  One is when your car seat, you love to be swung; oddly the swing chair doesn’t have nearly the magical effect.  I don’t think I’ve ever had you cry if you’re being swung; maybe you’re just too busy dealing with that funny feeling in your stomach to cry, or maybe you just really like it.  When it’s too difficult to get you in your car seat, you like to be held as if your breast feeding, even if it’s me holding you (and no, as of the time of this writing, you haven’t tried latching on to me).  I can’t tell if it’s because maybe I hold you slightly differently when your head is in my right arm or if it’s because you prefer to be on your right side, but you seem to prefer to being held in my left arm.  Both your mother and I prefer holding you this way, so maybe it’s a consistency thing.

This past month, you’ve been doing this thing where you constantly look back and forth.  The first time you did this, your mom and I had you on the bed and we were on each side of you, so we thought you were just looking back and forth between the two people who love you the most.  But you do it every so often even if I’m on the only person anywhere in your vicinity.  I’ve said that, for all we know, babies can see different wave lengths, or on a different plane than we do; so maybe you’re seeing the angels fly around.  Your mom thinks maybe they’re playing tennis, I say it’s ping pong ‘cause you can’t fit a tennis court in our house.

Back to school

School Time Blues
Sadly,  the summer has come to an end and I have to start back to school.  Lucky for you though, Grandma Judy is taking care of you at our house.  She stays in the very upstairs of our house all week and then drives to her house in Elizabeth on the weekends.  It's a long drive, but you're worth it!  She also sends me photos and an email from you every day.  It's so nice to get email from you when you can't even talk or type yet!  We knew you were an amazing kid.  One day, I'll put all your emails and the photos she sends with them together in a book for you.  

In the mornings, I feed you before I leave for school, and after school, I get home as soon as I can to feed you again.  You're taking a lot of bottles, so nursing will probably have to stop soon.  But, for now, anything I can do to help you out more is good.  You're a really healthy baby though!  You're growing and changing every day.  When Grandma sends pictures, your hair looks red to me.  I can't tell if it's going to be red or not.  I kind of hope so and I hope you keep your bright blue eyes!

Your brother, Caleb, and your sisters, Charity and Promise, love to hold you too.  Sometimes I feel like I need to set a timer just so everyone can get a turn holding you.  Right now, you're very content to be held and to gaze up and whoever happens to have you at the moment.  I know soon though, you'll want to be moving all around.  I try to take every chance I get to just sit and hold you and rock you.  I know these days will end too soon for me.  ~ Mom

From dad: 08/12/11

08/12/11
You’re eight weeks old yesterday, but not quite two months ;-) (Don’t you just love the Gregorian calendar).  You’re definitely smiling more, and at appropriate times, but not as often as I’d like to see, though I’m sure you’re still deciding whether you like it here.  You seem to like to stand a lot, but that could be a discomfort thing and you’re just flexing your legs.

One of the new things you did around this time was you started to “squeak”.  I don’t think that’s the most accurately descriptive word, but it’s how your mom and I refer to what it is you’re doing.  You just sort of do this... thing where you’re not quite whining or crying, it doesn’t even seem like you’re trying to get any one's attention (though you do because we do our best to be attentive to you, especially your mom).  You’re just sort of saying “Eh, eh eh, eheheh... eh.”  Maybe you’re practicing your vocal chords; maybe you are in some kind discomfort but you don’t want to bother anyone (that would truly prove you’re my son despite your dashing good looks).  My vote is that you’re in discomfort for being in a body smaller than you want so you’re trying to make it grow, and maybe you’re a little frustrated because you don’t have control over this too small body.

It feels to me like you’re trying to go somewhere or do something, but you’re limbs aren’t cooperating and your muscles tire out way before you want them to.  That’s just the impression I get.

You’ve rolled over from your stomach twice since last time, one time was pretty official (every time before this, you were on a cushion-y object that someone else was on too, so you could’ve just been rolling “down hill”).  I think you rolled over out pure frustration and possible spite.  Whatever the reason, it wasn’t pleasant, and you haven’t regularly and calmly done it since.

You’re still waking up 3~4 times a night, but your mom was doing such an amazing job of not only giving you what you need, but also being considerate of what she thought I needed too (i.e. sleep), so you might be waking up more than that.  For about a week before this writing we had started a night time routine of giving you a bath and putting you in PJ’s.  This has helped me get more of a routine as well, which I desperately needed.  Once school starts for your mom, I hope to get into even more of a routine in the morning.

Summertime

As close to a smile as we're gonna get.

Great-Grandma Shue

You've had a busy first month and a half little boy!  When you were just 10 days old, we took you to the Colorado Renaissance Festival.  I carried you around in a snuggly pack, and we managed to make it through the day.  You are such a patient baby.  We also took you to your first drive in movie.  We saw The Green Lantern. You and I actually slept through most of it.  We visited friends in Broomfield on the 3rd of July, and then your Grandpa Bill and Grandma Dona stopped by to see you.  We drove down to Pueblo to meet your Great-Grandma Shue and then a few days later Grandpa and Grandma Powell and Uncle Kevin came to visit you for a week. We went to Greeley to pick Caleb up from his summer camp (that was your first night in a hotel). Our traveling isn't done yet this summer, so I'm glad you're an easy guy

Out for a Stroll with Grandpa Powell

Uncle Kevin thinks you're pretty cool, for a baby.

Grandpa and Grandma Powell can't get enough of your sweet face!

At Caleb's summer camp

exhausted after all that visiting.

.