Sick baby :-(

Josh has been super congested all weekend :-(  The snot sucker (http://www.fridababy.com/shop/nosefrida/) has been pretty much the only thing that is saving poor Josh (although he does not appreciate it). He only had a fever one day, he has mostly just been very congested and not sleeping well. Poor baby! Hopefully he will be less congested soon!

Daycare

Josh started daycare this week. It has been a rough transition for all of us, but overall it is going about how we expected. We dropped him off on Monday and at first he just thought we were out to play, and was excited to explore. When the teacher picked him up a few minutes later he looked at her and then at us, and burst into tears. It was really sad to see him figure out that he was about to be left there. We had to leave while he was still crying, which was really hard :-( He has done better the rest of the week, although there is generally a bit of crying or sad looks. He is always REALLY happy to be picked up which is very cute.

We have found that he has been much more needy while he is at home and has not been sleeping as well. I was expecting this to a certain extent because he doesn't get as much attention and comfort at daycare as he does with us or with our nanny. He is also very congested and has a bad runny nose, no fever yet...but we are a bit worried that will be next. The congestion made it hard for him to sleep last night. We were expecting him to start getting sick, but it is still very sad to watch your baby be sick and not be able to do much to help them.

Hopefully the worst is over! He is starting to adjust to the teachers and we think that he likes the toys at daycare better than the ones at home. I've been trying to do some extra snuggling and cuddling with him this week so that he knows that we care about him :-)

Snuggling with mommy

Tired after a long day at Daycare!

Becoming friends

The relationship between Josh and our cat Jeter has been interesting.  At first Jeter seemed to ignore Josh and Josh didn't really know what Jeter was.  I have been concerned that Jeter would feel neglected since so much of our attention has been on Josh since he was born.  Now that Josh is mobile he is showing much more interest in Jeter.  Unfortunately in most cases this means Josh grabs Jeter and pulls on her fur.  Jeter obviously doesn't like this but she doesn't seem to get away from Josh.  Despite her age and Josh's improved crawling, Jeter is still faster than Josh and can fit into smaller places but she rarely runs away from him.  We have been trying to teach Josh how to pet her nicely but that has not worked so far (no big surprise).

Then last week we were having dinner on the porch and Josh was sitting in a seat on a bench and Jeter sat next to him.  The two seemed more interested in the food on the table than eachother but I was impressed Jeter put herself so close to Josh and Josh did not immediately grab her.  Perhaps they are starting to form a relationship... or maybe they just like seeing what's for dinner.

Teaching Josh how to pet Jeter

Looking out the window

Daycare

Adjusting to being a parent is difficult but one of the biggest challenges has been child care.  For the first few months Margaret took maternity leave and stayed home with Josh.  Care was supplemented by help from grandparents and other relatives but Margaret did the majority of the work.  When her maternity leave ended we got a nanny who is a college student home for the summer.  She just finished her last full week before she goes back to school so we have been in full childcare search mode.

We decided we would try to find a daycare for Josh but that has been quite a challenge.  We didn't quite have our s**t together to start soon enough so it has been a bit of a mess.  After doing lots of searching (mostly by Margaret) we found 3 possible choices that Margaret would look at.  The day  before she was to visit a few of the places, two of them called saying the spot was no longer available.  One had the spot filled and the other had trouble with an assistant and could no longer take another child.  That meant we only had one option left and it was only for MWF.

Margaret looked at the one option we had left and thought it was ok.  She didn't think it was bad but had concerns about how Josh would adapt to that environment (It was very loud and crowded).  That morning Margaret and I found another option which Margaret then looked at.  She said this second option was much better and it looks like it will be a winner.  I visited on Friday with Margaret and Josh and we signed him up.  It looks like a nice place and hopefully Josh will adapt well to it.  He will start five days a week in a week.

Becoming a parent has completely changed our lives for the best.  We knew this would happen but probably didn't fully appreciate what that meant.  Getting used to having Josh as part of our lives has been a joy but I certainly didn't appreciate how difficult it would be make sure he was being taken care of.  Hopefully we will like the daycare we choose and Josh's care will be settled for a while.

Here are some Josh pictures unrelated to daycare:

Never too early to learn how to drive!

Josh made his own fort!

Josh was difficult to contain in our room

7 Months! (A few days late)

Happy 7 months to our baby!!!! There is no checkup until he is 9 months, so we won't have any official stats for a while. However, we think he just finished a growth spurt and has been weighing in at a little more than 19 pounds. He is crawling up a storm and pulling himself up on anything and everything. He is very curious and full of energy (which can be very tiring!).

This has been a tough parenting month for us for a lot of reasons. Josh started off the month getting his first two teeth, and he might be starting to work on getting the next ones. Josh has been taking some spectacular falls, which while funny, are terrifying...and I know it will only gets worse as he gets bigger and stronger. He has gotten much more attached to us, which is very cute, but also makes it much harder to leave him. He will be starting daycare soon (yikes!!!!) which will be a hard transition for all of us.

On the good side, he is really starting to have such a fun little personality and it is awesome to watch him do new things that he couldn't do before. Despite all the challenges we love our little guy and are excited about everything yet to come!

Here are some cute pictures and a video from the last month :-)

Solid food fun

So Josh is still not particularly interested in pureed solid food. We started a few "finger" foods after his 6 month checkup, but he can't quite pick up a tiny piece of food and have it make it to his mouth. Last week I was eating a tortilla chip and Josh stole it!! Because everything he touches goes in his mouth, he proceeded to eat my chip. He really enjoyed licking the salt off the chip :-P He tried to chew on it, but I took it away because I didn't want him to choke on it. I decided this meant we should try him on some soft food that he could grab. A few months ago I went to a breastfeeding support group for older babies and one of the other moms was just feeding her daughter a pear, straight from the pear. So I decided to give it a try. He LOVED it!!!!! It was a very ripe pear, so he was slurping and chewing on the whole thing happily. He can bite off pretty big pieces with his teeth, so I was very worried about him but kept a close eye on what he was doing. Today we tried a banana, which he was a bit startled by. He was really excited to put the banana in his mouth, and then when he tasted it he did not look as pleased. I think he was hoping it would taste like my iPhone and not a banana. He then happily chewed and ate a bit of banana. He still does not seem to be swallowing much of the solid food, but I guess that will come with time!

Bad mom...letting your baby have salt...

Mmmmmm pear! Much better whole!

::smack:: ::smack::

This about sums up how he felt