Real Food and Sip Cup

For a woman who is still learning to cook for her husband the thought of feeding Isaiah anything but baby food is daunting. To date, he has only taken to shredded cheese, lunch meat, and bread. Until he gets more teeth and really learns how to chew we have a way to go.

Exploring the Great Outdoors

Isaiah is able to enjoy our backyard in a whole new way now that he is walking.

Isaiah at Eleven Months

-HE'S WALKING!!!!! (The official day that he did more walking than crawling was January 13, 2011). So for all intents and purposes my boy was walking at 10 mths:)

-His personality becomes more and more definable everyday by how he acts in all sorts of different situations. Jaime and I have been taking him to the play place at the mall. Isaiah is by FAR the youngest kid (baby) in there. He gets pushed around and bumped into by all the older kids but he loves every minute of it. And when he gets pushed down he doesn't make a sound he just gets right back up. It is so much fun watching him develop and be such a tough little man.

-He is able to stand and pick things up.

-I took him to the park and for the first time he was able to get out of his stroller and walk the loop with me. He had a blast putting his hands in the dirt, picking up the rocks, and banging his hands on the bars. It has been so much fun having him walk!!!!

-He pushes his toy fire engine around on the ground (being around so many baby girls these last few years this is a trait NEW to me).

-He gets so amped up when he discovers something new in the cupboards. For example last night he found a coupon and he was so thrilled to be in possession of this piece of paper. He babbled, smiled, and literally "WALTZED" around the living room for half an hour looking at me with those BIG BROWN EYES going "look Mom, look what I found, isn't it great? Paper????Paper is so cool MOM!!!"

-As for finger foods he is dappling in eating shredded cheese, bread, and lunch meat.

-He loves looking out the French doors and putting his mouth and tongue all over the ice cold glass. We like to call it his "make out sess with the window."

-He is sitting straight up in his big boy car seat. Car rides are not as difficult as they use to be. And even though I swore I would not be one of those moms who allows television watching in the car...it didn't take long for me to surrender. Toy Story Three gets his attention and makes for quite a lovely car ride home from a late dinner.

-It is such a trip to have him walking. To be in one room and have him walk in to say hi and be among us has taken this journey to a whole other level (no pun intended:)

Operation SLEEP

The task has finally been accomplished my friends! Over the last month Isaiah has slowly stopped drinking his 6 oz's at night. He would wake up drink two ounces (obviously not up for hunger purposes) and slowly fuss himself back to sleep. He's not sick, he's not teething, and now knowing full and well he is not hungry we are comfortably able to close our bedroom door and allow the deep sleep of REM its rightful return. It's been two nights so far. The first night it was a solid half hour of crying (midnight-1230) and then two short bouts of fussing at 5:15 am and 6:00am. Last night I only heard him at 4 am fuzzing for a good 10 minutes and then out until seven. We are trying to stick to an eight o' clock bed time as well.

Now to retrain my body not to wake up every few hours. I already feel so much more rested not having to get up out of bed two-three times per night. Taking into consideration that at around six months of pregnancy I would at least have to get up once during the night to use the restroom and now coming up on eleven months of Isaiah finally being able to sleep through the night WE ARE TALKING WELL OVER A YEAR OF NOT GETTING A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP. This is why people age. . .children. BUT HALLELUJAH MAMA and PAPA are FINALLY sleeping at night!!!

Isaiah at Ten Months

-Has mastered standing on his own

-Started saying Mama in mid December:)

-He took his first two steps on his own while up at my parents house for Christmas.

-Everyday he is taking more and more steps on his own. Yesterday he took ten whole steps!!

-His two side teeth of his front teeth are almost all the way down.

-His hair is getting longer everyday. I love how it flips out on the sides.

-Has mastered putting cheerio's one by one in his mouth.

-Loves to chomp on MUM crackers.

-The erratic crying when I get in the shower has stopped.

-It's a riot watching him play with all his "push and pull" toys. He takes his push and pull Zebra all around the house.

-He has an automatic radar to the down stairs gate. If it is left open, he is ALWAYS fully aware and will help himself up the stairs. One day I was vacuuming and thought the gate was closed. To my surprise it was not and he was already half way up the stairs by the time I went to see what he was up too!!

-He also had his first fall off the bed at my parents house during Christmas. That was another "bad mama"moment and fortunately he was alright. I had finally got him to take a nap (on the bed) and needed to run downstairs to let the dogs out. And wouldn't you know the moment I opened the sliding glass door for the dogs I heard this loud thug from upstairs:(. I found him flat on his back and in tears.

-He was an angel while Christmas shopping this year. Jaime or my sister and I were out shopping for 5-6 hour long stretches and he loved every minute of it. He quietly sat in the shopping cart enjoying all the people and commotion-we'll see how he acts next year:).

-Can't stop saying it, "I LOVE THIS LITTLE MAN."

Isaiah at Nine Months

-9 mth STATs: Weight-19lbs 5 oz, Height-28.5 inches

-Loves to crawl under things. Crawls under the coffee table to get to the other side. Crawls under our bed and under the dining room table.

-Has become picky with eating. When I sit him in his high chair to eat he starts to pout and turn his heads away. He never denies his bottle of formula. He drinks 8 oz's if it is a meal or has one 2nd generation pack and then drinks 4-6 oz to wash it down.

-Takes two naps a day. Wakes up at 6 0r 7 am then plays till 930 and takes his first morning nap (2hrs long). Then up for the afternoon then another nap around 3pm. Bed time was becoming later (9pm) but if that 2nd nap gets skipped he is down by 8pm.

-Started to not like his bath. He stands at the edge just waiting for me to pull him out. He will not sit in the bath. He will go on his knees but he refuses to sit on his butt. Come to think about it, he doesn't do much sitting out of the bath either (I need to get some toys in there).

-Started climbing the stairs and loves to climb up on the banister ledge and look over the banister.

-Loves opening all the kitchen cabinets and pull anything I let him get his hands onto out.

-He has quite the imagination. He will discover something new (a lid to a pan, the tousle to our blinds) and spend the next fifteen minutes crawling around with it and chattering away.

-When I start to sing to him especially "AHHHHH SHAWBANYA" from Lion King he will open his mouth wide and with a very serious look on his face start to join in with me with this long drawn our AHHHHHHHH.

-He hates when I get in the shower. He cries and bangs on the shower doors until I am done. Can't wait till he is over this phase!

-His top two teeth are in, along with his bottom two teeth.

-On Thanksgiving night after spending the day/evening with Jaime's family we came home and he finally broke out with the "dada, da da, dada." No mama yet:(

-He gives these delicious kisses when you least expect them. He opens his mouth and softly plants his lips on your cheek. Sometimes they come when I am taking him out of his crib following a nap (LOVE THAT!)

-He loves when I put on the Christmas music. The song he gets most excited to hear is, " You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch."

-We took him to visit Santa and he couldn't stop staring at Santa or all the lovely, festive Christmas decorations. We were able to work a half smile out of him for the photo.

-Likes to pull the ornaments off our tree and unplug the lights, but for the most part if you keep him occupied with other things he will leave the tree alone.

-He has started to stand a couple seconds on his own. He will be holding onto something then let go for a few seconds, smile, then return to holding onto the stable object.

-Still not sleeping through the night. Wakes up once to drink 6 oz around 1230-2am.

-Just getting ready to switch him over to the forward facing car seat.

Outfits

I cannot say enough charming things about my mother-in-law. She sends over delicious home cooked meals seemingly on all those days when there is no food in the house, she helps take care of Isaiah when I go to work, she takes Isaiah on weekends so Jaime and I can go out of town, she even buys Isaiah adorable outfits. It is these outfits that sometimes make me chuckle inside. He looks absolutely adorable, but sometimes they take me by surprise. It was a few weeks ago that I stopped by Grandma Betty's house to pick him up after work. He had these baby blue cotton overalls on with a stripped long sleeve shirt. To top it all off, he was playing by the fireplace that is surrounded by brick. I felt like if Isaiah could talk he would turn to me in an English Accent and say "Hello mummy." I didn't have a camera that day, but the next time I dressed him in this outfit I couldn't resist snapping several shots of him.