19 Weeks

So, big boy. You’re 19 weeks old and the sleep strike continues. You napped for all of about 30 minutes yesterday, then refused to go to bed. You finally fell asleep on my shoulder at 9:15 PM after nearly two hours of us putting you down, letting you cry a bit, comforting you, putting you down again…the process felt endless and was mentally exhausting. I think mommy was ready to cry with you at one point. We have GOT to get this sleeping thing down in your fifth month! This is on mommy, by the way, not you—I probably need to get tougher about letting you cry for a bit before I go back in to comfort you. I know I’m supposed to wait at least 5 minutes if you're fussing before I check on you. I usually make it about 3 minutes, then I’m ready to break. I just hate the sound of you crying so much! I know that it’s best if you learn to soothe yourself to sleep, but you just sound so desperate, it breaks my heart.

I know that you're capable of soothing yourself.  You have the tools to do it.  See—you’ve figured out how to get that thumb of yours into your mouth and keep it there!

In fact, everything goes in your mouth these days.  You've gotten so much better at controlling the things you pick up to play with, and now you bring them all up to your mouth to check them out.  New textures are so interesting to explore with one's tongue!

Yesterday we finally got some of that spring/summer warmth here in Ohio, so grilling season has officially begun! We had your cousins, aunt and uncle, and CeCe and Gramps over yesterday for kabobs and it was such fun.

Your cousins tried out the hammock…

And you showed everyone your standing-up skills. Nothing makes you happier than gripping someone’s thumbs and pulling yourself up! You can support your weight on your legs so well, and you love being a big boy and looking all around from a standing position.

You continue to do your half-roll-over moves, but have yet to repeat the one time you did a full roll-over weeks ago. I’m starting to think that was a fluke! You arch your back really well and get one foot behind you, you’re poised to really start rolling any day now…but as of now, you seem content to hang out on your side without flipping all the way over.

19-Week monkey pics:

Tatum *Almost* Crawling

Here's a fuzzy clip (taken with my phone) of Tatum coming very close to crawling! He has the mechanics totally down. He's making some of his cute Tater noises in this video as well.

Weddings and Rice Cereal

Your 18th week was a big one, little man. You attended your first wedding on Saturday and on Sunday, you tasted your first (semi) solid food—rice cereal!

Here you are at the wedding, goofing off (and eating—your favorite thing to do!) with Daddy.

We even lucked out and got two family photos taken by Aunt Lauren. I don’t think we’ve had any photos of Daddy, Mommy and Tatum together taken since you were born, so I’m happy to have them.

As much as you’ve been sucking on everything in sight, including your upper lip, we were just sure that you were going to eat up some rice cereal! More of it ended up on your bib than in your mouth to be sure, but you thought it was somewhat interesting. I may try again sometime later this week. Your nutrition is still coming from mommy’s milk at this point, so I’m not too worried about getting you to slurp down mass quantities of cereal any time soon—it was an experiment more than anything, just to see if you were ready for solids. I’d say maybe in a few more weeks!

You continue to love movement and automatically pop up into a standing position when anyone lets you hold their thumbs. You pull yourself up into a sitting position, then get your feet under you and up you go! You’re still wobbly at this point—as would be expected, given that you’re not even five months old yet—but I think you’ll be standing up early. You also try to crawl, and this weekend you succeeded in getting one arm out from under and enough in front of your body that you were able to pull yourself forward a bit. Not a true crawl exactly, but very very close!

You’ve taken an interest in the taggy book our friend Marissa gave you, and enjoy looking at the pictures and holding onto the tags. Mommy and Daddy can’t wait until you become a reader like them! We read to you every day, and though you aren’t totally enthralled with books just yet, I know it’s just a matter of time. Right now your favorites are “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See?” and “Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you Hear?” I think I have each of those memorized by now, sometimes I recite them to myself as I’m falling asleep.

Speaking of falling asleep, you’re doing better and better at falling asleep on your own. You’re still in our bedroom, but I’ve started putting you down in the Pack n’ Play bassinet right next to my side of the bed. This way I can still hear you at night and feel that you’re near me, but you’re not necessarily right in our bed with us (though sometimes you end up there during the night to feed). This is working really well for now, and it lets me start our bedtime routine earlier and get you into bed a decent hour (while I’d love for bedtime to be closer to 7 PM, it’s usually between 7:30 and 8 PM and closer to 8 by the time you settle in). You fight sleep like crazy, but once this week you actually went down without even crying! Someday I’ll get around to moving you into your lovely crib in your very own nursery… :)

Here are your 18-week pics with your monkey:

Things start off well:

I should have known that the boy who chews on everything right now would begin to eat his bibbed overalls!

What's wrong with eating my overalls?

Mom, I'm starting to get a little upset here!

Picture taking is officially over!

 

More Birthdays, More Grabbin' (and our first Mother's Day!)

We had fun this weekend at your cousin Campbell’s second birthday celebration. I even managed to capture a few (albeit goofy) photos of you with all three of your local cousins! Paigey was hanging out bouncing around in her jumper as you tried out her exersaucer (you LOVED it!) and you two really seemed to be interacting. Paige was chattering away and you were looking at her with big eyes, amazed that another baby would have so much to say to you. So cute! You can definitely see the resemblance in this photo—not an exact match by any means, but I can tell that you two are related.

The closest I came to capturing all four of you in the same picture (don't you love the birthday girl's bike helmet? She received it as a present and has worn it for about 3 days straight! I think it goes particularly well with her party dress.):

You were awake for much of the party, taking in the excitement, but eventually you fell asleep in CeCe's arms.

You’re not crawling yet, but you still enjoy tummy time. Your neck is so strong and you lie there and kick your feet and laugh and look all around. As always, Liam is beside you ready to give you the occasional helpful smooch. You’ve been noticing your puppies a lot more lately, and even reach out to them now and then.

 

You’ve been reaching out and grabbing with more and more intent lately. Your coordination is improving dramatically. You sometimes hold onto the little fish wheel on your jumperoo with both hands as though you were steering a ship. You get frustrated when you can’t put something immediately in your mouth (see the drool dampening the front of your shirt in this photo? I have to wonder when I’m going to see that first tooth!).

Daddy was in town for a whole 5 days between DC trips, which was nice. You two are really starting to bond, and I’m seeing more and more resemblance. Like Daddy, like Tatum!

(See where you get your serious look from?!)

Your 17-week monkey pics:

And a weak attempt at a self-portrait of you and I on Mother’s Day, taken in the hallway mirror:

I can’t say how happy I am that you’re here. Mother’s Day was finally bearable, even special! Daddy gave me a beautiful set of stacking rings with your birthstone, a garnet, in one of the rings. I’ll always cherish them and remember my first Mother’s Day with TJT. I love you, little man!