Wedding

Kris, Stian and I went to a wedding in Bloomington yesterday. The groom was Kris's friend Dick. Kris and Dick worked together at the law school. It was a pretty ceremony in Beck Chapel, which is right on campus. Stian was not particularly cooperative, so he and I were outside during the ceremony. He loved listening and watching the viola player before the ceremony started. But as soon as she stopped playing he wanted to talk. If, perhaps, we were family of the bride or groom, or if it had been a bigger wedding, we might have stayed. But I decided it was best if he and I ducked out. So we wandered around outside for awhile. It was a fairly short ceremony.



The happy couple: Dick and Margie.



Kris and Stian blowing raspberries together outside the chapel.



Unfortunately, Stian wasn't very cooperative for the reception either. But that's not surprising, it started at his bedtime and he was tired. So we stayed for a little while, but left before dinner and headed home.

It was fun to be back in Bloomington, even if only briefly. We got to stop in at Bloomingfoods - a local food co-op I really like. We drove by our old house. And just drove around town a little.

Nine Months

Stian is nine months old today!

Blueberries are DISGUSTING!!!!

I'm such a mean mom. I just kept feeding them to him, laughing and taking pictures of his horrible faces.

I think it was actually a texture issue rather than a flavor issue though. They didn't puree all that well, so they were pretty lumpy. He liked them much better when I mixed them in with his cereal.

Our little Hagrid

Stian had his 9 month appointment today and he continues to be rather Hagrid-esque. (For those of you not familiar with the Harry Potter books, Hagrid is half giant)

He's 29 inches long (85% percentile), 25 lbs 10 oz (96% percentile), and his head circumference is 48.5 cm (90th percentile). So he continues to be a rather large kid. But hey - his weight is at least back on the charts, at 6 months he was off of them.

Otherwise Stian is healthy and on track developmentally.

Sky diver

Stian has this funny maneuver he does lately where he lifts his head, arms and legs all off the floor and sort of wiggles. It looks like he's free falling during sky diving before he pulls his parachute.





He's also starting to get up on his hands and knees. So far he's only done it in his crib, but he's getting closer to doing it on the floor. It won't be too long now until this kid is mobile, and then we're really in trouble!



And a bonus laughing picture.

Fun at the Park

Water Baby

But this doesn't taste like milk!

Stian continues to do well in daycare. Apparently he is still very empathetic and cries whenever anyone else is crying. He won't nap at daycare though. They try every day, but he just won't do it. So by the time I go get him around 1:00 he's exhausted. He usually passes out within minutes of me putting him in his car seat.

Here are a couple of pictures from after dinner tonight, since it has been awhile since I have posted any.



This second one was after I tried to give him water in his sippy cup. He doesn't know how to use a sippy cup and wastes a lot of my freezer milk stash just playing with the sippy. So I tried to give him water tonight. Apparently water is icky!

Tomatoes!

The tomatoes are finally in! They are very late this year. We usually start getting them in mid July. They finally started getting ripe last week. Yay for tomatoes!

Daycare

Stian started daycare on Monday.

On Monday he went from 9:00 am to 11:00 am and I stayed with him the whole time. He was just fine on Monday. He's definitely a sympathetic crier, so he cried some when other kids were crying, but in general he seemed pretty happy.

On Tuesday he went from 9:00 to 12:00 pm. I stayed for about 15 minutes to start with, then I left and walked to the library. I was gone about an hour and 15 minutes. When I got back I ran into both the assistant director and the director and both said they had been in the infant room and he had cried for about 15 minutes after I left, but then he was fine. I went down the hallway to his room and had intended to go in. But when I looked in the window I could see him sitting on the floor laughing and smiling. So I decided not to rock the boat and left for another hour and 15 minutes and went to run an errand. When I got back I found him in the infant room in the glider with the receptionist. He was asleep in her arms as she rocked and sang to him and he was doing those little hiccups kids do after they've been crying. I guess he cried pretty hysterically for about an hour. :( Poor little guy. He woke up shortly after I got there, but he didn't see me, so I sat out of his line of vision and played with one of the other babies. When he woke up he was happy and laughing with the receptionist. Finally he saw me and was happy, we stayed for another little bit and I fed him lunch and then we went home.

I have to say I think it's pretty cute that the director, assistant director and receptionist all come down to the infant room regularly to help out and to cuddle with the babies.

Today he went from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm. I was really nervous about leaving him after the way it had gone yesterday. He also had had a weird morning. He usually doesn't wake up until 7:00 when Kris gets him up and doesn't need to eat until 8:00. But Kris had to go into work early this morning, so he wasn't here to get him up. Stian woke up on his own at 6:00 and was not happy. I think he was hungry because he only nursed once in the night last night. So I nursed him, but then he wouldn't nurse again at 8:00 like normal before we left. So I was worried he'd be tired and hungry and generally grumpy. But when we got there Jessica, one of his caregivers, came and took him from my arms while I was getting organized and dropping off diapers and his lunch. Once I was organized he was absorbed in playing with Jessica and not paying any attention to me. So I asked Tara, his other caregiver, what she thought I should do, stay or leave. She told me to go, she thought he'd be okay. I knew I had to be back around 10:30 to nurse him since he hadn't nursed before we left home, so decided to go and come back in a little bit. So I headed off to work.

When I got back at 10:30 and I walked into the front door of the building I could hear lots of crying. Uh-oh. And the infant room is all the way at the end of the hallway, away from the front desk. This was some really upset crying. So I rushed down the hallway sure I would find Stian in the middle of a meltdown. When I got there I found 4 crying babies and Stian sitting on the floor in the middle of it all laughing and playing with toys. :) Yay! They said he cried for about 5 minutes shortly after I left this morning, but otherwise he was happy as a clam. I had brought his lovey along - a blanket with a monkey head attached to it that we call luulah, and he had her in his lap while he was playing with other toys. They said he calmed right down when they gave her to him. So I played with him a little bit and nursed him in the nursing room, played a little bit more and then left again and went back to work.

I came back shortly before 1:00 and found Stian in the glider with Jessica holding on to luulah and being read a book. He looked like he was about to pass out, but he was fighting it hard. They said he had been just fine again while I was gone. They had tried to put him down for a nap, but he wouldn't go to sleep. But he ate up all his lunch and was in a good mood. Yay! So he did great today. I'm so happy and so relieved.

He passed out as soon as I put him in his car seat for the drive home. He woke up when we got here and we played for a little while, but he's now been down for a nap for two hours. He's a sleepy little guy! I hope he learns how to nap there, but he's not a very good sleeper. He's a very light sleeper, and is used to sleeping in a dark quiet room at home. Hopefully he will learn. It would be good for him to get in a morning nap, but it would also be good for him to learn to be able to sleep in different places that aren't so dark and quiet.

So far I like his daycare center. It's a brand new facility and the opening was on Monday. This made for an interesting day as none of the children were comfortable with the people or the facility. So there was lots of crying. I helped out quite a bit that first day. Since Stian was generally happy I spent a fair amount of time jollying other babies who were less happy. The facility itself is great. The rooms for all the age groups seem really great and they have awesome outdoor facilities as well. Even the infants have a play area all to themselves.

I also really like his care providers. Stian seems to like both of them already. So let's just hope it continues to go well!

New trick

Stian has learned how to clap in the last few days. It's much fun.

New shorties

I made Stian a new pair of shorties and thought I'd show them off. I thought they turned out quite well.

Funny faces

Stian has two new funny faces he likes to make at me. This is one of them:



The other one I don't have a picture of yet - but it's sort of like he's hissing at me. I call it his toothless vampire (so sad!) look. Goofy kid.

Wildlife

We had another wildlife spotting this week. They came and baled up the field across the street from us this weekend - it was horse mix. And I guess this provided good hunting grounds for the foxes. We haven't seen foxes here in a couple of years, so it was fun to see them again. The picture isn't great because Kris had to zoom way in on them. But you can still tell they are foxes.