There are very few times when you are in the right place, at the right time, and have the camera ready...this was one of those moments. Fortunately google is smart and also knew these pictures would fit together nicely :-) We were playing around with Josh in his room, and he is just learning to pull himself to kneeling and standing. There are many more toys he can get into now, but sometimes his curiosity does not end well for him. Never fear, no babies were harmed in the making of this video :-)
After a week at the beach we are all glad to be home. When we got home and took Josh out of his car seat, he looked around the room and then gave me a BIG smile. He clearly knew he was home and was very happy. It is really neat to see how much more aware of his surroundings he is now. Over the past week Josh got to try lots of new things and we think he grew up a lot during that short time. Since there were several "big" kids on the trip, he was watching and learning from them. He now is fully crawling and is able to go up steps (!!). He can now push to sit up on his own, push himself up to a standing position (leaning over slightly) and climb up things. As soon as we got home we lowered his crib (after taking the video below) and removed the basinet from the pack and play.
Here are a few pictures and videos of his developments! Of course, he does something perfectly and then we bring out the camera...but we find these videos to be fun :-)
On Thursday we brought Josh back to the beach to see if he would enjoy a second trip. All week we've been trying to time his naps right and to avoid the hottest part of the day and all week it has failed. Either Josh wouldn't nap at the right time or he would nap all afternoon. Yesterday we decided to just bring him out even though it was around noon and see what happened. We assumed he would last ten minutes and then we would go inside.
We slathered him and ourselves with sunscreen and went to the beach. He got cranky pretty quickly and we thought it would be a quick trip. Margaret decided to feed him to see if that would put him in a better mood. After feeding him he fell asleep and we successfully transferred him to a blanket under an umbrella to see what would happen. To our amazement, Josh napped for over two hours on the beach. This allowed us to get some quality time on the beach (and some quality sun burn). It was the best combination for us, Josh got a nap and we got to relax on the beach.
When Josh woke up he was in a much better mood and played in the sand a bit. We tried him in the ocean and he still was not a fan of that. Maybe next beach trip he will warm up to the ocean but we were very pleased to get a day at the beach with Josh there.
This week we are at the beach with my family. Margaret and I drove with Josh to Bethany Beach on Saturday and have been here all week. This has been a trip of many firsts for both Josh and us. The drive to the beach was the longest trip for Josh. He started well by taking a nap for about an hour and then was quietly awake for a while. We stopped for food and then things went downhill. Josh screamed for the rest of trip. We think he was just tired of being stuck in the car seat but unfortunately there was nothing we could do to calm him down. We powered through and made it to the beach.
We brought Josh to the beach to see how he would react. At his six month doctors appointment I asked the doctor how much sand Josh could eat before we should be concerned. The doctor said we should avoid him eating sand if we can but it isn't a major issue. I expected Josh to eat sand by the handful but he didn't seem that interested. He played with the sand a bit and then we took him to the water. I got him a bit wet but he didn't seem to enjoy it very much. Then he relaxed with my mom. The beach was very hot and I think he was uncomfortable.
There have been around 20 people staying in the beach house including 3 other kids (ages 15 months to 3 years) and for the first day or two Josh was doing well. Unfortunately Josh seems to have developed a bit of separation anxiety I think related to being away from home and around so many other new people. Anytime Margaret and I are away from him for more than a few minutes he starts to scream and won't stop until we come back. I hope this problem will get better when we are home and in familiar settings but separation anxiety is common after 6 months so this might just be something we have to deal with.
For the most part we have been hanging out at the house and just trying to relax. It has been an interesting experience for us to be so out of our element and to also be around other small children and their parents. Josh has been watching the other children (who are all older) and I think it has been encouraging him to try new things. He has been doing more real crawling (not on his stomach). The main area of the house has two steps that separate the dining area from the living area. On Saturday when we arrived he tried to make it up the stairs and couldn't do it. By Monday he made it up and now he is able to speed up the stairs without any trouble. Watching Josh try new things continues to be very fun for us.
Vacations with a baby are certainly an adjustment and going to take some getting used to. Before we left we considered bringing some things to try to baby proof the house. We decided there wasn't really anything we could do and we have had to keep a constant eye on Josh at all times. As at our house he can always find a way to get into trouble.
Below are some pictures and a video of Josh's first time on the beach.
Last Friday was Josh's 6 month checkup. He weighed in at 18 pounds 14.5oz! Apparently our scale weighs lower than the doctor, because he hasn't ever been that high at home. He is in the 75th percentile for weight and 65th for height. Overall he is growing well :-) The doctor said we can feed him pretty much anything now and he is allowed to go jogging in our new jogging stroller. The doctor was very impressed with how mobile Josh is at only 6 months. The doctor thinks that Josh has been focusing his "mental power" on physical development and the complex noises and language development might take him a little longer. He mostly just yells and makes "ahhh" noises and not consonant sounds.
Josh was all over the table at the doctors, trying to eat the paper and get to the doctors laptop. Included are some pictures and a video from the appointment :-)
I came home from a very long day at work to find that Josh had his 2 front bottom teeth break through!!! I had noticed that there were two "lumps" in his mouth over the weekend, but I had no idea they would break through this soon. He has been a little bit more fussy lately, but since he is a fussy kid we didn't really notice a huge change.
I'm having a hard time with him getting his first teeth. I think to me it is a big step that I wasn't ready for :-( Whenever people have asked how long I plan to breastfeed, I usually say until he has teeth. I generally mean it as a bit of a joke, because I don't have a better answer to the question. I haven't set a specific goal because I don't think that how long he nurses is necessarily up to me. I will say that while I'm extremely proud and glad that we have made it this far, I'm not sure I'm ready for our nursing relationship to end. Hopefully we will be able to adjust to this new challenge.
I'm glad that we are going on vacation next week and I will get to spend the whole week with my little guy before he grows up!! :-)
This pretty much sums up how I feel...
We were very glad that his shirt was not accurate, particularly since he is officially teething! :-)
