The Zoo and Top Teeth Don't Mix

My wonderful in-laws have been lucky enough to spend an entire week with a little man who has been cutting his top teeth. You can imagine the fun. :-) He has been sleeping fitfully all week and last night was the worst...he woke up screaming on two different occasions like someone was doing him bodily harm. It was just horrible. Sure enough, this morning we spotted the barely visible tip of white that meant the arrival of his first top tooth. This one must be really painful...he was upset for most of the day today. We attempted to take him to the zoo with his Nana and Papa this afternoon. That lasted all of 30 minutes. He started screaming as soon as we got there and this was after he poured my entire drink into his diaper bag at lunch. Today was a comedy of errors to say the least! :-) The poor little thing drank almost 8 ounces of water at the zoo...it was the only thing that would soothe his mouth. We made it home and he spent the rest of the day eating teething biscuits (and feeding them to Enzo) and playing in the backyard. He was so upset that I was willing to try anything to make him smile and a trip to the backyard seemed to be just the change of scenery he needed. The first picture above is of Jer, Colin, and his Papa at the zoo. The last few are shots I took in the yard. You can probably see in his face that he is sad today. I hope he feels better soon!!!!!!!!!

In other news, we have had so much fun this week with Jer's parents. Colin has loved having them here so much...I think he is going to be really sad when they leave tomorrow!! He has had a whole week with two extra people who adore him to play with all day long...it is going to be mighty boring with just mommy next week! ;-)

Colin loves some Backyardigans

Colin very recently discovered his all time favorite song...the theme music to The Backyardigans. Every single time the show starts, he stops everything to watch the opening. Jeremy caught it on video...enjoy!! :-)

Fun with Nana and Papa

We are having a great time with Jer's parents visiting from PA. Today, we took them to Babe's Chicken Dinner House (a family all-time favorite) and Colin had his first taste of the best food under the sun! He practically ate an entire bowl of the mashed potatoes and flirted basically non-stop with the cute blonde waitress. It was a good time had by all! :-) We just got home and Colin is potato drunk and sound asleep. Here are the pictures...the last one just cracks me up with his arm in the air and the look on his face. So cute!

Good food and good curls!

I tried to take some pictures of Colin tonight while we were changing into our pj's...his hair is so curly at the moment and I wanted to attempt to capture it on film. It did not work out too well with the dark chair in the background, but he is super cute, so I posted them anyway. :-)

Tonight will go down in history. We went to dinner at our favorite little Mexican place and ordered the guacamole as usual. Jer asked me if I thought it would be alright to let Colin have some and I figured it would be fine to let him try it. Colin has not really liked any table food that I have given him so far. He always just spits whatever it is out and then plays with it. I knew the same thing was about to happen...their guac is not hot spicy, but has lots of flavors including garlic, onions, salt, and lemon juice. There was no way Colin was going for it. I was COMPLETELY wrong! I should have known...Colin adores guacamole! He seriously would have eaten the entire plate if I had let him! He did not even get any on him! There were no misses! He ate every single bite I gave him and begged for more! That is my baby!! ;-) Not only that, but he also tried to eat all of my beans as well!! I just can't get over it! Two brand new foods and he was eating them with a passion! Jer and I would eat Mexican food for every meal, so it was just too funny that Colin was all over it. We were all laughing for the entire meal. He also was picking up pieces of my rice and putting them in his mouth!! What a fun night...it made me so happy to see my little man love something that we gave him. Now...if he sleeps well tonight...I am going to buy avocados and refried beans in the morning! haha!! :-)

Saturday Update

Happy Saturday! The end of the week was very quiet here...not much going on besides the constant teething. Poor Colin is holding up well, but the pedi says he saw lots of teeth getting ready to come in, so we need prayers!! :-) The weekend is always good for me because Jer is around on Saturday and Sunday mornings to take care of Colin while I catch a couple of extra hours of sleep. It makes a huge difference for me! Jer's parents who live up north are coming to visit tomorrow and we are excited to see them. This set has not seen Colin since they came right after he was born, so they are in for a BIG surprise! It will be so much fun! We are cleaning today in preparation for their arrival...and this place is a mess! The house has been the last thing on my list for a long time, so once we started deep cleaning this morning, we realized what a mess we had. Spring cleaning is on. Have I mentioned that I hate spring cleaning? ;-)

New tidbits about Colin:

His hair is suddenly growing very quickly. In the past two weeks it has started to get really long and curly. I find myself brushing the hair off his forehead several times a day, not to mention absentmindedly running my hands through the curls in the back. It is so soft...I love his hair! I am going to be a MESS when we cut it!

He can crawl in his sleep. Colin gets up on all fours when he is in bed, but has yet to do it during the day. He is getting significantly more frustrated with sitting in one place, so I think we are probably close to a break through with the crawling. Right now, he leans forward on his hands and grunts angrily when he is sick of where he is. He is either going to take off and crawl or just get up and walk out the front door. I have not decided which one it will be just yet. ;-)

I created a monster with the walker. He loves it so much! He would stay in it all the time if I let him...he runs around the house (yes, runs!) chasing Enzo and Ferris. He screams with joy and claps his hands the whole time.

He is in love with the theme song from The Backyardigans. I cannot emphasize enough how much he loves that song. We record it every night for him and no matter what he is doing, when he hears the first note of that song he turns to the tv, laughs, claps his hands, and then glues his eyes to the screen. That show is his favorite thing in the world right now. In fact, he loves music a lot. We discovered Barney and Friends on PBS this week and they sing a lot during that show. He loves that, too. But nothing beats The Backyardigans.

Colin is officially art!

This is a horrible picture...I am holding the camera at an angle to keep the glare down from the window...but this is the final framed watercolor of Colin!! I had it professionally framed so that it would last forever and I love how it turned out! YEA! :-) It looks just amazing in real life!!

Colin's 9 Month Appointment

We attended Colin's 9 month well baby checkup today (yes, on the correct day!) and things went pretty well, considering! The stats:

22 lbs, 11 oz (75 - 90th percentile)

30 inches long (95th percentile)

My little man is such a big boy!! He went up in both percentiles and he also went up on his head circumference percentile, too. Now he is in the 97% for that! The pedi is not worried at this point, however. Big noggins run in my family (obviously!) and Jer's and he said that the soft spot on his head is almost completely closed and he looks great overall. He is just a big guy! He also told me not to stress out that Colin does not seem to want to crawl yet. He said he has seen babies that skip crawling all together..it is up to Colin. He has met all the other milestones that he needs to, including pulling himself up and standing (which you can see in today's adorable picture!), so he told me to not worry about it. As usual, this is easier said than done! :-) Colin gets up on all fours in his sleep, but he does not do it outside the crib yet. We shall see what happens!!

The time has come to start feeding Colin his solid meals prior to his bottles so that he is having a little less formula and more solids. He is taking about 32 oz of formula a day, as well as breakfast and dinner consisting of two tubs of stage two foods (or one jar of stage 3). We are going to start 3 meals a day with bottle afterwards to take him down to around 20 oz a day, give or take. I also have to start working on the sippy cup more. Colin just plays with it at this point and the time has come to really let him start practicing. We went to Wal-Mart this afternoon and picked up some new cups that Melanie told me worked great. The ones we have require Colin to really suck hard to get anything out and he just cannot figure them out. Mel pointed out some that have a light flow that will come out without Colin doing all the work, but light enough not to be a huge mess. Hopefully these help! I can't believe that I am already having to think about weaning Colin from the bottle! This is all going too fast!!! Colin's next appointment is his 12 MONTH! I just don't know how we got so far so fast.

The bad news is that Colin had to have wax removed from one of his ears, which he HATES. He did not even need to have it irrigated...just a little wand was used to scoop it out. He screamed like someone was stabbing him and then cried for the remainder of the visit. YIKES! Then, to add insult to injury, he had to get a CBC today! Let me tell you, having to hold your child with all your might while he screams bloody murder while a nurse spends minutes draining blood from his tiny finger is just as bad as it sounds!! I almost cried seeing Colin so upset! All that on top of his shots was a bit much. He fell asleep in the car on the way home and then proceeded to sleep for two more hours when we got to the house. He has been in good spirits since he got up, so hopefully the worst is over and he won't have the bad night that he had after his 6 months shots. :-) So that is our visit in a nutshell. Colin is growing up!!