Wow, I'm getting bad at blogging.  With BB so mobile, I feel like I have no time at all anymore.  His bedtime is later now at 9 PM, so by the time we put him down, cook, eat, clean up, it's almost 11 and since we usually have to get up at 5:30 AM for work, it's basically bedtime.

BB is really starting to get things.  He's learning how to share!  If he's holding something and I hold my hand out and ask, "can Mama have it?", he'll (usually) place it in my hand.  He even does it with his beloved puffs...but only sometimes since it usually makes it into his mouth before I can ask him for it.  Sometimes he will hand it over, whining the entire time.

I think he's starting to stack stuff.  I'm not sure if this counts because he doesn't actually stack his blocks on top of each other, but he'll put them on top of other things.  He'll put it on top of his tool box, or his discovery cube or the sofa.  And it's deliberate because if it falls off the first time, he'll try again.  Sometimes he'll try stacking his food on my chest if I'm nearby.  Messy messy.

He's finally starting to really babble.  He was a late talker.  Now it sounds like he's saying full sentences with intonations and everything.  He always says, "KEH?" when he wants to know what something is...with his voice going up at the end and everything.  It sounds like he's saying, "que?  que?" which would actually be appropriate if he really were speaking spanish.

He can put stuff in holes now.  He knows if he puts blocks in a chute, it'll come out of the bottom and he'll grab it from the bottom and put it in the chute again.  He's starting to get the shapes sorter.  He knows the shapes have to go in the holes.  So he'll put the shapes on top of the lid and sit them on top of the hole and sort of pat them to try to ge them in.  Obviously he can't get them in (he got 1 in by himself by chance), but he gets what he's supposed to do and gets really mad when they don't go through.

He just got over 2 bad viruses...first the Hand Foot Mouth and then he was okay for a week and then he got Roseola.  that was scary because his fevers got really high...he literally felt like he was burning up when I touched him.  Now his fever is gone and he just has that rash.  Hopefully that's it for now.  PB and I are always so nervous when he gets sick because we know we can potentially bring home anything because of where we work.

For those of you who know me, this is a big deal!  I've had my driver's license since I was 18, but never drove, partly because I went off to college, then lived in the city, then moved to Boston where everything was walking distance.  Even when I got my license, I had only 10 hours of driving experience under my belt (basically my 10 required 1 hour driving lessons).  I have no idea how I passed...but I had a really nice guy who helped me with the parallel parking part.

Anyhow, now that we live in the suburbs, driving is more of a necessity.  Luckily, the town's downtown is a 5 minute walk away, and the strip mall (with a nice, big grocery store, BBB, Old Navy and Borders) is a 20 minute walk away.  But on a hot day, it sucks to walk that far and the good library is about a mile away.  So I started to venture out on short  drives with PB in the driver's seat trying his best to be patient with me.  It's been so long and now that BB's in the car, I get so nervous and anxious.  I have TERRIBLE peripheral vision and depth perception (as a result from my softball to the eye accident in HS or maybe it's just me) so I have a little bit of trouble judging whether or not I have time to turn.  I'm getting a little better with practice, but that's my weakest point.....and changing lanes, for the same reasons.

I have ventured on the highway a few times with PB, but it still makes me very nervous...and I can't drive non stop without losing my focus for more than 30 minutes.  I need those red lights to relax a little bit.....plus merging in scares the heck out of me (again for the same reasons).

 Last week, PB told me he trusted me to drive myself and BB to the local supermarket (literally a 3 minute drive)....I took a deep breath and I did it!  The other nervewracking thing about driving in my neighborhood is that the roads are really narrow...only 1 car fits at one time (and they're 2 way streets)...so someone always has to pull over.  Or two small cars can squeak by side by side....but again, the depth perception thing...I can't tell if I'm going to hit that other car or not.  I did that 3 minute drive a few times and felt okay. 

Today, PB challenged me to drive BB to the library in the next town to return some DVD's.  Their library is better than ours...the entire 2nd floor is for kids, including a small theater for storytime.  This was a little harder because I had only driven there a few times with PB and each time we went a different way.  I have no sense of direction (I really was not made for driving) so if I don't absolutely know my way, I get flustered.  I couldn't remember exactly how to get there.  So I did the googlemaps thing and went with the roads which were familiar to me...and off I went.  I even had the guts to drive to the nearest shopping mall 2 towns over (we're talking 8 minute drive....the towns here are really small and they're all connected hahaha) and get a dress for a wedding this weekend.

Baby steps....I really don't want to not be able to do stuff with BB because of my driving anxiety.  I think I need a minivan/SUV so I can see the road better!

I finally have time to get around to reflect on the past month.  BB is all better now...he started returning to his normal self on Friday and today he's drinking all his bottles and eating all his food.  It was a rough week, but thank you everyone for the well wishes.

The new things BB learned this month:

-He can wave and clap his hands (FINALLY).  His wave unfortunately looks very similar to the Nazi salute with a twist of the wrist at the end.  Oh well...I guess that's partly our fault...we did the arm straight out with palms facing foward wiggling right and left wave instead of the up and down arm flap wave.  He loves to clap his hands now and hear that clapping noise.  It's cute....except when all he wants to do during meals is clap his hands

-He is a pro at the straw sippy now...taking multiple sips while swallowing in between just like we would.  He like to reach for the sippy himself and stick the straw in his mouth and sip away.  Then he likes to turn it upside down and suck on the bottom of the sippy (while everything inside is leaking out)

-He absolutely refuses to let us feed him...which makes things like oatmeal and yogurt an impossibility.  He is all finger foods now with cheese, peas, blueberries and good old cheerios being his favorites.  I sometimes play the bait and switch game with him to give him oatmeal.  I'll put a blueberry on the table and as he opens his mouth to eat it, I'll shove the spoon in.  He doesn't mind the oatmeal at all, he just minds me feeding him.  Argh.  He loves restaurant food and loves eating what we eat (I must admit it probably tastes a million times better than the bland, no salt stuff I make for him).  He loves a BK Whopper as much as mama does.

-There is a little ball chute on his tool bench where you load the balls on top and then pull a lever on the side to make the balls come out of the bottom.  He can pull the lever and then put the balls back in on top (although he usually needs to be reminded to reload the chute...otherwise he is frantically pulling on the lever waiting for balls to come out)

-He is turning out to be his father's son...looking me straight in the eye as he farts on my hand and then grinning and giving me rasberries on my cheek when I ask for a kiss.

-He cruises on everything and anything.  He can stand for a few seconds by himself and manage one or two steps before he loses his balance.  He's scared when he loses his balance though and needs some time afterwards before he'll stand up again (even if he's supported).  He can walk holding onto us with one hand, but that scares him too.

-He can climb the stairs.  All of them.  I went to the bathroom upstairs for one minute and came back down to find him on the 7th step all by himself.  He had moved the heavy boxes away from the bottom of the steps and crawled all the way up.  He was mighty proud of himself.  He loves to hold onto our hands and climb the stairs upright. 

-He still cries a lot when we put him down to bed.  He still needs the 20 minute cries (sometimes more).  Sigh.  We introduced a lovey (a small stuffed froggie) to see if it would help him go to sleep.  It works a little bit...he hugs the frog as he goes down and buries his head against the frog's head.  He also loves to sleep against a balled up blanket.  I bought some A&A blankets for him to do just that since I found myself checking in on him multiple times a night when he slept with regular blankets.

-We finally managed to get him to drop a bottle, so he's down to 4.  One more to go.  He just doesn't drink that much at one sitting, so it's hard.

-He's starting to babble more.  It's mostly "bwah bwah bwah", "A keh-keh", "deh-deh" and "um-ma-ma" when he's crying.

I think that's it.  He's really becoming his own person now.  I can't believe he's almost 1 and we have to start thinking about things like getting rid of the bottle and whole milk and walking.

When we went to the pedi's office two days ago, all BB had were the sores and a few spots on his hands and feet.  They told us to expect more of the same.  When he woke up yesterday,  he had that rash everywhere...by the end of the day, his extremities were basically one giant rash and he had a less severe rash all over his chest, back and face..  You couldn't see his actual skin...he looked like he had a bad sunburn.  I called the pedi's office and  they said it was just part of the hand foot mouth disease.  But one nurse questioned the rash on his chest because that's not typical rash placement in hand foot mouth disease.

Of course the hypochondriac in me started thinking of all the other possible diseases that presented that way....measles and scarlet fever.  By the end of the day, I wanted to bring him into the ER. But I waited for PB to get home just in case I was overreacting.  He took one look and said we were going to the ER.  Plus BB had only take in about 10 oz of fluid all day, 2 of which I had to force feed with an oral syringe (I cried while I did it because he kept choking on it and it was so hard to watch, but I had to get fluids in him since he only had 2 wet diapers all day).

The end result was good....no measles or scarlet fever.  The doctor was also kind of puzzled about the torso rash and went to go look it up in the derm textbook and to ask another doctor.  They concluded that some kids do end up getting the viral rash everywhere, instead of the typical few blisters on the hands and feet.  They said that he could also have had roseola since he had the 3 days of fevers before the rash started (and some cases of roseola include the sores in the mouth).  Either way, the specific diagnoses wasn't that important since they were both viral and the treatment is just supportive care.  So they sent us home.  We felt kind of silly, but at least we knew for sure. 

They asked me if my pedi gave us a prescription for magic mouthwash to coat the sores.  They did not.  I don't particularly like our pedi office.  You can request to see one specific doctor at the practice, but with our schedule, it's hard to always see the one we like.  All the others are eh...and they always rush through everything and often don't examine things unless I bring it up.  Anyway, I already made the mouthwash myself at home (thank you, work).  It's easy, if anyone ever has a cankersore that needs relief...1 part maalox (the one that contains aluminum...not the one that has bismuth salicylate) to 1 part benadryl.  Shake and that's it!  Good for 14 days in the fridge.  I still haven't really figured out how to give it to BB.  With the older kids, they do it like a mouth wash....swish and spit.  But BB can't do that...I tried going in with a Q-tip but it ended up hurting him a lot.

Today, he seems better.  He woke up and drank 3 oz right off the bat and another 2 an hour later.  He doesn't seem to want to drink from the bottle...I don't know if it's more painful that way.  So we're doing all sippy cups and regular cups.  If he can drink that much easily from the sippy, I'm considering getting rid of the bottles all together.  We should do it anyway by 1 year...so might as well do it now instead of re-introducing it when he feels better and then have to transition him off a month or two later.

I hope he doesn't get this again.  This really sucks.  I can't even really take him out of the house to go play because he's contagious.  And this boy gets cabin fever so easily.  I took him to the supermarket yesterday, but had to dress him in long sleeves and pants so people wouldn't get freaked out...and i went down the empty aisles.

We're back from the pedi with hand-foot-mouth disease.  It presents similarly to the chicken pox except it doesn't itch.  It's basically a viral illness (coxsackie virus) that's prevalent in day care centers (or in my case the playground or my playgroups) where kids are touching dirty things, then touching each other, then sticking their hands in their mouths. 

Anyhow, it's a pretty bad thing to get.  They get fevers and sores in their mouths and tongues which make it painful for them to eat or drink.  They also get a rash on their bodies, especially on their hands and feet (not the hives type of rash, it's small red dots).  We're lucky if we can get 10 oz in him per day and forget about solids.  He won't even eat yogurt.  Because it's viral, there's nothing we can do...we just have to wait it out.  Our main goal is to keep him hydrated, which is tough since he won't drink.  We're going to try pedialyte popscicles and I'm going to make watermelon ice cubes tonight.

Because it's highly contagious, we had to tell our babysitter not to come this week and I called out for the week.  He is really irritable and cranky all the time.  He's okay if I wear him or if he's distracted...but once he remembers, he'll cry.  We went to the library today and took our like 10 baby DVD's.  He really loves the Baby Einstein, so we got a bunch of those and some signing DVD's (since he FINALLY waved).

My poor baby

BB turned 10 months on Saturday, but sadly spent the weekend sick.  He started having fevers on Saturday, but it was low grade and we thought it was teething related.  On Sunday, it was close to 102...but today, it went back down.  Normally, that would  be okay, but he also has developed these small pimple-y looking bumps.   few on his face and on his back and bottom.  We thought maybe it was a food allergy, but we didn't introduce anything new the past few days and I actually also developed the same type of small bumps myself at the same time.

I'm guessing it was something environmental.  I thought mine were gnat bites until he got them too.  We were at the playground on Friday for a while before this happened. Now I'm paranoid that it's chicken pox, even though I've already had it and have proven immunity.  He didn't sleep at all yesterday and was up every hour, even when he was in bed with us.  We finally fed him at 3 AM (we usually never feed him at night) and he took a few sips and fell asleep until 6.  That was his longest stretch of the night.  He is REALLY REALLY cranky and irritable.  I spent most of last night wearing him in front and papa did it this morning.  It seems to be the only thing that pacifies him.  We also finally gave into the no TV rule and put on a Baby Einstein DVD, which he loved.

We're waiting for the pedi office to call back to see if we can bring him in.  Hopefully it's nothing.

Ever since BB started eating more table foods, he has decreased him milk intake pretty significantly.  The pedi told us to expect it, but I didn't think it would happen this quickly.  He used to drink around 30 oz, but now he'll drink around 20 oz (on a good day)...plus we give him a few oz of water in his sippy cup throughout the day, mostly with meals.

This is an example of what he'll eat in a day:
Breakfast:
-Steel cut oatmeal (maybe 2-3 tbsp's dry...not sure, I kind of just put some in a bowl) with a handful of blueberries
-Sometimes i'll give him some egg yolk a few times a week in addition.

Lunch:
-Mozarella cheese (about the equivalent of a centimeter wide slab cut from those vacuum sealed packages in the grocery store)
-Blueberries (he loves them, so we keep giving it to him....we get blue poop every day!)
-Cheerios/bread

Dinner:
-14 chicken thigh
-peas/mixed veggies
-potato
-and uh....blueberries

We just got some cherries and watermelon, so now we mix it up in the fruit department.  He doesn't quite have enough teeth to eat the harder fruits like apples...and he doesn't like fruits (or any foods) that are really mushy, so he won't eat bananas.  I know the berries are mushy too, but I guess having that skin makes him feel like it's not truly mushy.  Who knows what is going on in that mind of his.

I don't really know what's an appropriate size meal for him...I just give him more until he refuses it.  But it seems like how much he eats changes from day to day.  Does this sound about right?  or is it not enough?  Some people suggested starting whole milk when they start refusing the formula.  Is that okay at almost 10 months...or should I still wait until 1 year?

BB now has 4ish teeth.  After his bottom 2, we thought the front 2 were next Instead, he got the lateral incisors on top (the ones on either side of the front 2).  I didn't even realize until today when I happened to get a good look in his mouth.  I do see the buds for the incisors on top, so I guess those are coming soon.  Great.  I can't wait for more teething.