Out to Eat

Now that Thomas has dropped that last nap, we can go out to eat. Of course, we have to go for the Early Bird special to get him home in time for his dinner, but at least Mommy and Daddy can go out around other adults :-) Thomas did a great job sitting in his high chair and charming our waitress. She asked if he was always this well-behaved!!! We told her we were already planning to leave her a tip...............

Another Trip to the Zoo

No....I didn't drop the little monkey off! We had a good time and I snapped a picture right as we left home. Check out the new kicks - we're stylin' now!

Dropping the Third Nap?

Bedtimes battles have been getting us down!  Nap dramas continues and is apparently our lot in life, but bed time hadn't been a big deal.  Well, the little boy decided that he would show us what he's made of and started screaming and yelling for a lllllllloooooonnnnnnnggggggg time every night.  My parents were visiting this weekend and together the four of us tried something new yesterday.  He didn't nap very well, but we decided - no third catnap for Thomas. Well, he went to sleep like a dream. Today we kept him up a little longer between his AM and PM nap and then no third nap.  Again, went to sleep easily.  I hope this keeps up.  He's a little crispy by dinner time, but can be distracted and amused and will probably get used to it in a few weeks. In other news, we took Thomas to the zoo for the first time today.  He'd rather watch the people walking by than the animals, but we got a family membership and will be returning soon.

Seven Months Old!

Time flies when you're sleep deprived...uuuummmmm....having fun!

Laughing and Playing

We caught him on tape again!

Growing Up Fast!

Thomas is growing up so fast! Still no teeth, but working hard on getting them out. He's sitting up on his own... he can't get up by himself, but can stay there for quite a while. He's very happy about his newest skill and I have no doubt he will be practicing it in his crib pretty soon.

On the Mend?

Little by little we are recovering here.  Thomas feels better and his mood this morning was the best it's been in a while.  Tom put him down for his 1st nap and he woke up after 20 minutes. We've been struggling with the early nap waking for a few weeks now.  It's a mystery.  The morning nap was good, but the afternoon nap all of a sudden was only 45 minutes. He wakes up and can't go back to sleep. It's not enough sleep for him, and we are at a loss.  Teething could be the culprit, then he got a cold, and who knows if we are being consistent enough with how we respond. This morning, though, he woke up after only 20 minutes.  We decided to let him work it out on his own. Fortunately, after 13 minutes of crying and yelling he went back to sleep. We've decided that we are going to handle the 2nd nap the same way.  Before his nap starts, we'll give him some Tylenol to deal with the teething if he needs it, suction out his nose if he's congested, and then let him work it out.  Our pediatrician has told us to handle this like a sleep training issue and to do what we do at night... so, he'll have to cry some.  Since it's a nap, however, we've picked an ending time for the crying and if he hasn't gone back to sleep, we'll call the nap done and try again later.  I tried this the other day and it didn't work, but he is not the kind of kid who calms down and goes to sleep with us in the room.  Oh boy- he's awake again and not very happy about it.

Nothing Says Love Like Sharing a Cold

So just when we thought the teething, cold, and general crankiness couldn't wear us down anymore, ha!  Tom and I have apparently caught Thomas's cold.  If his throat feels like ours, no wonder he's been crying so much over the past few days.  His congestion is still yucky and his little lips are chapped from breathing through his mouth.  We let him have his pacifier for naps, but we had to get rid of it because it was causing him to breathe even worse than he was.  So all in all we have a pretty unhappy baby on our hands.  He was thrilled, however, to see us at 6:00 this morning when he decided it was time to get up. Harumph!

Cold, Day 2

Thomas is snotty, crusty and snorty....and I don't mean the wicked stepbrothers of the Seven Drawfs.  He is having a hard time breathing well and is sneezing, snorting and then coughing. We've got the humidifier going, I'm causing him great consternation with the bulb syringe, and he's taking small power naps every little while. He slept better than we thought he was going to last night, and he didn't get really upset about being congested until about 6 this morning.  We got him calmed down, suctioned out his nose and held/rocked him upright so he could go back to sleep.  We ended up propping him more upright in bed with us and he slept for a while longer. He's handling it all okay and is just needing some extra TLC to feel better. We got some Vick's baby rub for his congestion tonight, we'll let you know.

His First Cold

And who knows where this came from?  Neither of us has a cold, but today he woke up from another terrible napping experience with a runny nose.  It's gotten progressively worse over the day and he's learned to hate the sight of me coming at him with the bulb syringe.  He, of course, couldn't fall asleep at bedtime because he can't breathe... finally, mercifully, he did.  He sounds terrible every time we check on him. We've got the humidifier going with the menthol mist and we're prepared for a terrible night of stopped up nose and unhappy sleeper!  They forgot to tell us that we'd feel pretty helpless when he got sick for the first time.  Did I mention that it's totally unfair to add this while he's teething?

More New Tricks

The little boy is constantly learning new things! He's sleeping on his tummy (we find him in all kinds of positions in the crib), he's trying so hard to crawl, he can't be left alone because you never know where he'll roll to, and he's sometimes refusing to take his 3rd nap. He did that yesterday so we put him to bed earlier. Not only is he continuing his streak of screaming as he goes to bed, but he woke up at 4:15 am and then again at 6:30 am. That was after 2 lovely long naps yesterday....sigh..........maybe today will be better for him. Having said that, we caught him on tape again. He's learned how to use his bouncer and he loves it! It's hard to video when you are cracking up, but here's what we got.