My neighbor is a piano teacher and knows most of the young families in the area.  She kept telling us how she wanted to introduce us to another asian mom in the neighborhood.  One day they happened to be at a piano lesson while we were out in the yard and we got introduced.  The mom invited me to her weekly mommy’s group which met every Friday at various moms’ houses.

The group was bigger than I expected..maybe 10 mom’s and most of them had 2+ kids. The noise was deafening!!!  I could barely hear the adult conversations that were going on.  I was a littly shy today since they’ve all been meeting for the past year or so, making me the new girl in class!  Tyler was the second youngest in the group, the youngest being a 3 weeker!  Most of the other kids were between 1-2 years with a few toddlers here and there.  So BB was kind of in an awkard, in between stage since he couldn’t crawl/walk like the bigger kids and there was no way he could “play” with the newborn.  So he mostly sat around and watched the madness around him while sticking everyone else’s toy in his mouth.

All the other moms kept saying how humongous Tyler was!  Most of them thought he was at least a year old!  Is he really that big?  Our baby sitter’s one year old is HUGE…much bigger than Tyler, so I always think he’s average sized…she must be really really big then! 

BB was very well behaved.  No crying or fussing at all!!!  I guess everything was so exciting and new…plus it was like having a hundred new toys! (this mom had SOOOOOOOOOOO many toys).  He did spit up all over their floor and tip over once while he was sitting, hitting his head …but other than that, it went well.  We stayed about 2 hours and left when the other moms left.  They all seemed nice and many of them live just a few blocks from me.

Ugh…and BB and been a pooping machine lately…not sure if it’s due to his teething –> diarrhea.  But the past few days it’s been 3-4 poops a day…this morning, it’s already been 3.  He has a diaper rash on his poor little bottom from all the pooping and wiping…and he  rarely gets him, so it must be bad.

When we show BB how to clap his hands, we take his hands in ours and clap them together while saying, “clap, clap, clap”.  Most of the time he’s resistant and stiffens his arms.  But we still do it.  He won’t clap his own hands together, but if we say, “clap, clap, clap” and hold our hands out in front of him, he’ll take our hands in his and clap them together!!!!  Does that count!?

He also has become a pinching machine.  I guess it means he’s got his pincer grip down, but IT HURTS!  He often just has his fingers in the pincer grip position with the last three fingers curled down and his thumb and index finger touching.  When we hold him it’s constantly…pinch, pinch, pinch wherever he sees skin.  How do we get him to stop?  If we say OW (as a reflex), he thinks it’s funny!  And when I give him my mean mommy face, he thinks it’s hilarious.

Now that we have the camcorder, we’re trying to catch up on stuff that he’s been doing.  We like the automatic youtube upload feature, but the video quality is bad after it’s compressed.  We’re going to try recording in XP mode to see if that will help.

This is how BB sits in the stroller every time…with his feet up on the tray.  He hasn’t gotten the hang of the sippy cup yet…so we leave the valve in for when he just wants to chew on the spout/drop the sippy and I take it out and help him drink without the valve.

This is him going nutso in the jumperoo

Pulling up and standing in the crib!!!

He loves feeling and licking the mesh lining of our pack-n-play!  He thinks it’s so funny that he can see us but something feels different when he tries to touch us!

PB gave BB a broken laptop to play with since he LOVES our real one.  BB loves to close the laptop, but then he gets SO mad and throws a fit when he can’t open it.

And lastly, he has learned that you don’t need to use those stars to make the noise.  All you have to do is find that little button and press it over and over again!  He basically now rips all the rings off and throws them aside (after chomping on them a few times) so that he can have access to that button!

I wasn’t there, but I checked out the website and it just made me remember how the first year it was held, the “performers” were US doing the aboriginal dance!  Remember how we had to chance into our costumes IN PUBLIC with nothing hiding us.  Good times…good times.

First off, no pics or video…I could kick myself for that!  Anyway, our neighbors have a huge double lot with a swimming pool.  They are about my parents age and all their kids have moved out.  So they invite all the neighborhood kids to just drop by whenever to use their pool since they’re always out by the pool.  We kind of felt weird about just dropping by because I’ve never done anything like that with my neighbors growing up and we were friends!  But they dropped off a bunch of plants for my garden and kept telling us to go over there, so we felt bad not showing up, especially since we knew the other neighborhood kids had gone.   (This really is suburbia!)

We haven’t gotten around to buying swim diapers yet for BB, so we put him in shorts and planned on just dipping his feet in the water.  I planned on him flipping out because the neighbors were strangers to him…and the water was cold.  We didn’t go dressed for swimming either because we thought BB was going to freak as soon as his feet touched the water. 

We cautiously first put his feet in and he had this WTH look on his face.  But he didn’t cry or pull back his legs.  So then we let him stand on the first step with the water up to his knees.  He stood there for a while and then started kicking the water!  Then we let him sit on the first step with the water halfway up his chest and he started running his hands back and forth over the surface of the water.  He even let the neighbor take him and swirl him around in the water (he didn’t quite like the neighbor holding him).  But since he was okay just sitting there and splashing, PB put him on his belly and BB just started kicking his feet and paddling his arms and even put his face in the water a few times (mainly to drink the water …we said, “NO, TYLER” quite a few times!)!!!!  He LOVED it in there.

He had the best time and didn’t fuss at all.  The neighbors were really nice about letting BB get his diaper all soaked (it exploded…we felt bad since that meant they’d have to change their filters) and gave us a towel to wrap him up in afterwards (we didn’t bring one since we didn’t think he was actually go in).  We were planning to sign him up for swim class at the YMCA but never got around to it.  I think we’ll definitely do it now seeing as he loves to be in the water.  I thought maybe afterwards, he’d take a super long nap since swimming always made me drowsy.  No such luck…half hour on the dot. Gah.

PB would like to lose some of his baby weight by running with BB.  I guess I should also do some sort of physical activity so I have more energy during the day. 

I know the Bob and the City strollers are big hits, but they are quite $$$.  Are there other lower priced ones that are just as good or comes close? 

Our requirements:
-That you can lock and unlock the front wheel.  PB wants it locked for running and I would prefer it unlocked for strolls around the neighborhood. 
-PB wants the 16″ wheels.
-Decent shade for BB because hats don’t stand a chance against him.  He rips them off in a millisecond…even if I strap them onto his head.
-I would prefer it to be on the smaller/lighter side, but not an absolute requirement because it’s not like I’m going to be carrying it around

I’m still a babywearing girl…I rarely use the stroller .  And through purchasing and returning many carriers, I’ve figured out that I’m a mei tai girl.  I need those long straps because I like to twist them behind BB’s butt to give him and me extra support.  Plus, with my narrow shoulders, the super padded full buckle carriers don’t always fit right  and there will be pressure points.  Interesting point…mei tai’s are actually asian baby carriers…I think the actual pronunciation is “bei” (as in back) and “dai” (as in straps).  It’s like what you see the asian mama’s wearing in the rice fields with the baby’s on their backs!  So my Pikkolo is sold and I have a couple of mei tai’s instead.

I have no idea why he won’t go down for bed tonight.  Tonight was no different from any other night.  He did get bombarded by the neighbor’s kids for an hour around 6…maybe he was overstimulated by them.  Ugh.  How do I approach this.  Do I start from the 1 min thing if he slept through the last 3 night (and normally for bedtime, he goes down without a problem…it’s the night waking.  I haven’t had this happen since we started weeks ago).  I tried the reset…doesn’t work…he’s screaming the entire time.  UGH.  sleep sleep sleep sleep.

We’ve been sleep training for a few weeks now…it feels like months.  Let’s just say he’s one stubborn kid.  Normally you do the nights first before the naps, but we did it all at the same time.  And he was able to self soothe for his naps in a few minutes by day 2.  The nights were what were killing us.  He’d wake up at 11PM and around 1-2 AM.  Most of the time the 11 PM would be okay…but he would not remember how to self soothe for the early morning wakings.  It would be an hour and he’d still be screaming with no signs of him calming down . Even our reset method wouldn’t work (if it’s been close to an hour and he’s just flat out hysterical, we would pick him up calm him down and start over.  Most of the time, he would fall asleep within minutes after the reset). 

There were a few nights where we’d just give up and bring him into bed with us.  We would always think that we screwed things up and we’d have to start over.  But surprisingly, he never regressed after those few times.  I think this week he’s finally starting to really get it.  He’s slept through for the past 3 nights…at least 9 hours each night.  AND most mornings after he first wakes up (around 6-7 AM), we would give him a bottle then we’d snuggle in bed with him and he would sleep until 8 or 9 AM!  It only takes a few minutes each time of him fussing…not even really crying.  And he doesn’t wake up fully at night at all.  I know he does stir because we find him in a different position that we left him…but he just puts himself to sleep.  I hope this is here to stay.  I’m expecting a few nights of set backs here and there and I’m fine with that…as long as he’s sleeping through on most nights.

He’s starting to scoot more and more.  He now uses his legs to turn himself in a circle while he’s sitting up.  And he tries to climb everything!  If we put him on all 4′s, he can hold himself up for a few second before trying to lurch forward (and landing on his face).

I finally got the camcorder. yay!  It’s really small and lightweight.  The feature I like best is that you can upload straight to youtube with one click on the menu page.  I’m trying to get video’s of everything he’s accomplished over the past month – rolling, figuring out how to make the stacking star toy to chime by pressing that button and “dancing” when we beatbox.  But he gets so distracted by the camcorder that he won’t do it when I’m taping him

I did manage to capture him eating his cheerios.  He’s gotten so good at it.  You can see in the video that he opens and closes his hands to try to get it to the top.  Most of the time that works, but if his hands are all wet from his saliva, the cheerios sticks to his hand…so then he uses his other hand to push the cheerios up to the top!

BB trying to crawl (it was close to his nap time, so he’s being fussy)

So now I know what scooting is.  BB started doing it today before he went to bed.  We were doing tummy time on his mat and I turned to the computer to check something for a few minutes and when I turned back around, I swore he was about a foot or two away from where he was.  I wasn’t sure at first because my depth perception sucks…so I kept watching him and sure enough, he kept inching himself backwards by pushing with his arms. 

This only lasted a few minutes before he started fussing and crying to be let off his tummy.  For some reason, he hates rolling over even though he can do it now.  He used to cry at night when he woke up and then rolled on his stomach (WHY do you do it if you know you hate the end result!!!?) and we’d have to wake up and flip him over.  But the past few days, we found that he would sometimes fall back asleep on him tummy or his side (I guess he got stuck there in an attempt to roll back over)!  Now that we know he can roll over and push up with his arms, we’re more comfortable with just leaving him on his tummy to sleep.

We happened to catch BB trying to pull up in the crib.  He still can only make it to his knees.  He isn’t very stable on his legs yet at all…he looks like he’s doing the hula hoop when we let him try to support most of his weight himself.

This morning, I put BB in his crib sitting upwhile I brushed my teeth.  He LOVES to watch us brush our teeth and will try to grab for the toothbrush all the time (I’ll usually let him help me brush!).  Today, I walked in and he got all excited because he saw the toothbrush.  Then I see two little hands on the crib sides….and then a head pop up above the railing.  I was like OMG.  Luckily, he  can only manage to pull himself to his knees and he can only do it from a sitting up position.  He can’t get himself to sitting from a totally flat position yet.  We have to lower the crib now.  Ugh.

Question about letting the baby play by himself.  Sometimes I feel bad letting him play alone…like I’m not interacting with him enough.  I know it’s good for him to learn to do it, but should I step in at some point if he’s content just sitting there chewing on stuff?

First of all, I got to enjoy a rare 4 day weekend with my two favorite boys because our schedules just happened to work out that way!  We ended up doing a lot of house stuff (finally) and just enjoying family time.  BB got me some wonderful gifts, including:

A carvel ice cream cake (we do this for every special event)

A camcorder!  Actually, I didn’t get it yet.  PB wanted me to look at a few and choose the one I wanted and we haven’t had a chance to go until this weekend. 

And a new chandelier for our dining room.  I love the more contemporary light fixtures, but because our house is a period house, it wouldn’t really match.  So we went with something that still looked old, but with cleaner lines.

Old yucky chandelier (it’s a bright gold color too)

New chandelier

And the best gift of all….two nights in a row without waking up (well, he did wake up once on both nights, but went back to sleep by himself).  WOOHOO!!!

I finally got a chance to take some pics of BB.  With the whole moving thing, I haven’t really done it for a while.

BB LOVES watching our stereo system.  He will just stare at it when it’s on.  The front panel has those lines that go up and down to reflect the volume of the music…I think he likes watching that.

He also loves keyboards and will lunge as soon as he sees it….even if it means doing  a little tummy time!

He also loves his shapes sorter…even though right now, all he does is dump everything out then stick the shapes in his mouth…and use them to scratch behind his ears.  Weirdo!!!
 

No day is complete without a little spit up….anyone want some cheese?! (Doesn’t BB look exactly like PB in this pic?) 

BB being plain old silly.  I love it when he smiles!  It’s so hard to catch on camera because he tends to lower his head when he smiles (like he’s pretending to be shy) or bury his face in something.

And just to reference how big he is at 7 months: