The little man

Another large gap since my last post... big suprise there!

Nathan is quite the little man these days. He blows me away with how much he has grown. I do not know how much longer I can get away with calling him my "baby" - he is such a little boy now. He turned 19 months old last week, I cannot even believe that we have passed over the 1 and 1/2 year mark and are already on the way to him being 2 years old! Where has the time gone!!

He goes to daycare now, as I started a new job this month. He goes to a great little in-home preschool with a great group of about 12 kids. He LOVES it there! They do all kinds of educational and creative stuff. They have a great backyard play area, a ton of great toys, and they do all kinds of fun arts and crafts. He really enjoys his time there and I really love the lady who runs it so good things all around! :)

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. This Christmas is pretty exciting for a couple of reasons... #1 Jeff is actually off work this Christmas... which is a Christmas MIRACLE! I can honestly not even remember the last Christmas that Jeff was not working - it has been years. And #2, Nathan is actually old enough this year to understand opening presents and to be excited about the boxes under the tree. Christmas morning is going to be so fun with him!!! He has SO many gifts under that tree it is CRAZY and it is going to be a blast watching him open them all! I am so glad Jeff will be there!!

Here are a couple of my favorite recent pictures of him:





He is such a sweet little man. He chatters LIKE CRAZY these days, but most of it is still stuff that none of us can understand. He does have a handful of words, but for the most part he just jabbers away in jibberish. But he certainly tries to tell you stuff! He gets very serious about it and wonders why you don't understand! It's very cute!

He has insane amounts of energy and gets into EVERYTHING! Everyone who interacts with him comments on how busy he is!! He is quite the little handful... but he is a damn adorable handful so it's ok! :)

HI!!

Wow! I have not been posting nearly as often as I had intended to when I first started this blog. I am a bad mother! :P

Nathan has grown and changed so much lately. He has TEN teeth now, two of which are molars and really gave him hell when they were coming in. He had a fever of about 100 degrees for about 3 days for each one of his molars. It was rough. Poor little guy!! But now he has a whole mouth full of teeth! :)

He runs all over the place and just never stops moving! He is so insanely active! When I put him to bed at night I am just ready to collapse! He tires me out!

He chatters up a storm these days, but the only word he knows is "Hi". He says it ALL THE TIME! From the moment he wakes up in the morning, until the moment he goes to bed at night, it is "Hi" "Hi" "Hi" all day long!! Everywhere we go, he says "Hi" to EVERYONE! He is the official greeter EVERYWHERE we go! :) He loves to say "Hi" and wave to people. When they say "Hi" back, he gets all giddy. It really makes his day. He is such a social little man! He loves people!! :)

He loves books lately. He likes to sit in his room and pull all of his books off of his bookshelf and "read" them. He turns the pages and looks at the pictures. It is so cute. And he will also bring them to you so you can read them to him. He hands you the book and then sits himself in your lap and waits. When you read to him he looks up at you and smiles a few times during the story. It is SO adorable!! :)

He is back in swim class again. It took us some time to get settled in our new place and to find a new swim school, but we found one and he has been going twice a week for a month now. He really loves it - just like he always did at his old swim school! He is such a little water baby! :)

Here are some recent pics of him.

This one is he & I in the pool at swim class (he had just come up out of the water):


& Here's one of my favs that I took of him recently - just playing in the living room with his toys:

1st Birthday!!!

Nathan is now officially ONE!
I can hardly believe it!!

We had a birthday party for him.
It was a small gathering of family & friends.
My Dad came all the way from Texas! He was definitely the farthest traveler for the event! I was so glad he could come!! :)

We had burgers & hotdogs. Nathan had his very own tiny little burger (Grandpa took a full size burger - bun and all - and cut it into a small circle with the top of a juice glass).



He got tons of great presents and had a blast opening them all



I made him his very own little cake. We stripped him down to his diaper and let him go at the whole cake. At first he did not quite know what to think of it, he just kind of pushed the frosting around and licked it off of his fingers a little...



But it only took a few bites for him to decide that this cake thing was AWESOME!!



After devouring about 1/4 of the whole cake, his sugar high promptly crashed and he went down for a LONG nap!

All in all, it was a great birthday...
But I still cannot believe that my little man is already ONE!!!

Walking!!!

The little man is walking now!
He took his first steps a few weeks back and over the course of the last few weeks, the distance that he can walk before he falls has gotten longer and longer. Of course, every time I bring out the camera he would always STOP (little booger)! But I finally got him on camera a couple of times in the last few days. This video is one of the longest distances he has walked so far!! :)

10 months old!!!

The little guy is ten months old today!! I can hardly believe how quickly he got to the double digit mark!! What an amazing ten months it has been! He has 6 teeth now; 4 on the top and 2 on the bottom. He isn't walking YET, but he is close. He cruises around holding onto furniture and has gotten very fast at it! He has stood without holding onto anything, but only a couple of times and only for a few seconds. He has not yet said any words, but "Mama" is very close!! When he is really upset and he wants me, he will say "Mmmmmmaaaaaaaaaaaa - mmmmaaaaaaaaaaaaa...." - so he's almost there!! He is the happiest little guy! He is always smiling and he loves people. He is always so curious about everyone wherever we go - it is fun to watch him "people watch".

He is absolutely the most wonderful little guy and I love him to pieces!!!

In addition to today being his 10 month birthday... it was his first St. Patrick's Day too! Grandma Patti got him this cute bib and some "Kiss Me" St. Patty's Day socks too! :)

Ready for Spring already!!!

Prior to being a Mom, winter was my favorite season. I love cold weather, sweaters, scarves, rain, ugg boots, hot cocoa, the holidays... everything about winter! LOVE IT! But now, winter means cold season, and with a baby, that SUCKS!! I never used to get sick much. Before Nathan came along I pretty much NEVER got sick! I have now learned however, that kids are little germ factories!! Their little baby immune systems make them susceptible to EVERYTHING and they get sick SO easily!! And while I can pretty well avoid catching a cold from my husband, or other adults in my life... it is pretty much impossible to avoid catching things from the little man. Hugging him, holding him, kissing him, and being otherwise very close to him is 100% unavoidable... so this winter I have been sick more times than I think I have been in the last 10 years!!! And poor little Nathan... he has been sick for most of the past two months!! Seeing your baby sick is just awful!!! He hurts and I can't make it better! I know how awful it feels to be sick and it sucks to see him go through it! And he has no idea why he feels so awful! It is just terrible! Nathan is sick again right now... fever, runny nose, cough... my poor little man! Last night when I put him to bed he just laid there moaning until he fell asleep! My heart broke for him!! I am so very ready for this cold season to be over. I never used to favor spring/summer over winter/fall... but I sure do now! Let's move on to the nicer seasons now please!!!

Growing too fast...

We retired the little man's swing yesterday.
I cannot believe he has outgrown it already!!! Up until about a week ago, he took every single one of his naps in that swing. It was used so often we actually burned through a motor and had to call and get a new one! It was a huge part of Nathan's life for a long time... it made me sad to retire it to the garage. My little man is growing WAY TOO FAST!!!!

More fun with food

Yesterday was a busy day for our little family. We got up and went out to breakfast, then we went to a baby store and bought a gift for the baby growin' in the belly of a friend of ours. She is due in April and yesterday we attended the surprise baby shower that her husband's family threw for her. After the baby shower we went to Costco and to the grocery store... we were running around out and about all day!! While we were out, whenever we ate, I gave Nathan a little something from my plate. At breakfast he got my toast crusts. He loved these and we actually had to only give him a small piece at a time, or he would fill his entire little mouth and gag on the too large amount of soggy bread in his mouth. At the baby shower, we gave Nathan pinto beans. He really liked them. We gave him one at a time, held out in our hand, and he would grab it up and pop it in his mouth just like he does with his cheerios everyday. I also gave him a couple of small pieces of pasta from the pasta salad. This was really the first time that we had fed Nathan from our own plates. Usually we just stick to him eating his baby food and stuff. It was so fun to feed him little bits of our food and to see how he liked it. He so loves that he is able to feed himself and it is fun to watch him. It is crazy that he is old enough to do that already... crazy that he is eating "adult" food. He is growing way too fast!!

My little smarty pants... the next Michael Jordan!!

Check out this video of the little man playing B-Ball



When I first saw him do this last night, I thought for sure it was an accident. There is no way that he put that ball in the hoop on purpose. Then, later in the evening, I saw him doing it with his blocks... he would grab a block, drop it in the hoop, and then pick it up and do it again. I was in awe!! Could my little 8 month old guy actually know what to do with his basketball toy already?? Sure enough... as he always does when he figures out a new skill... he repeated this new game of his over and over again all night long! It was one of those beaming with pride parenting moments when I felt like I had the smartest kid on the planet!! :)

Swim Class

Since Nathan was 5 months old, he has been going to swim class once a week. He absolutely LOVES the water and enjoys swim class very much. He has learned to kick his legs in the water, he has no problem having water poured over his head, and he even knows how to hold his breath when you put him under water! It has been an amazing process to watch him learn these skills. Young babies automatically have an instinct to hold their breath if they go under water... but it has been amazing to see how Nathan has learned the cues that I give him right before I put him under. I say "ready, set, go" and then I lift him up and then bring him down and put him under water. Right before he reaches the water, he closes his eyes and scrunches up his face in preparation... he totally knows that he is about to go under water! It has just been such an absolutely awesome process to watch... I am watching him learn to swim & it is amazing!!

Here is a video from his swim class last week

Obama baby!!!

Nathan witnessed history today!!
Jeff and I took the day off so that we could stay home and watch all of the inauguration coverage. We could not attend the inauguration, so we sat on our couch and watched history being made and tried to live vicariously through those who did get to be present for this amazing event! While we wished we could have been there... I think we were probably much more comfortable - it looked REALLY COLD in D.C.!!

Nathan sat in my lap as we watched Obama's inaugural speech!
What an amazing speech that was!!!
I know he is way too young to comprehend what he witnessed... BUT he witnessed history nonetheless!!

I will forever remember where I was at this moment in history... and I will forever remember that my little man was in my lap experiencing it right along with me!

Standing!!

Nathan has figured out how to pull himself to standing against the couch... an accomplishment that he is quite proud of!! He LOVES to do it and does it ALL the time now!! When he is standing up against the couch he is so happy and proud of himself. It is adorable!!

Here are a couple of videos of him standing... and singing...
His two favorite things to do! :)

Doin' the worm!!

OK so this is not a great video.
It is dark and there is a VERY LOUD Boniva commercial on TV in the background.
So just ignore the sound in this video... unless of course you WANT to hear all about the bone strengthening benefits of once monthly Boniva! LOL!

This is a video of Nathan "crawling".
He does not crawl in the traditional way, but rather does "the worm".
His little wormy way of crawling is funny to watch, but it gets him where he needs to go! :)
He can really get going pretty fast this way and can get from one side of the room to the other before you know it! :)

Music class and finger foods! What a big day!!

Nathan went to his first music class today! It is a Kindermusik school called Yellow Bird Music. A lot of his friends from our Mommy & Me group were there and everyone really seemed to have a good time. He got to sing, dance, beat rhythm sticks together, bang on drums, ring bells... it was a lot of fun!!! We signed him up for Saturday classes for 12 weeks. It will be nice to have a fun activity that Jeff & I can take him to together! Monday nights we have swim class, but Jeff works so he misses out on that.

Today Nathan ate finger foods for the first time!! Gerber banana puffs. Since banana seems to be his favorite food at this point I thought that would be a good flavor to get. He really liked them... once he figured it out. The first one he ate, he made a funny face... the same funny face that he makes at the first bite of ANYTHING we feed him. Then after he figured out that he liked how they tasted... then it was a matter of figuring out how to get them in his mouth. Instead of grasping them between his thumb and finger, he kept grabbing them with his whole hand and then they would be stuck in his palm inside his little fist and he had trouble figuring out how to get it in his mouth from there. A few of them melted to mush inside his little hand! But once he figured out the mechanics of it... and stopped throwing them everywhere... he really seemed to like them!!

Too bad I don't have pictures from either of these exciting firsts!!
I did not have my camera on me today. Bad Mommy!!

The boy who won't sleep!

Ugh!!!
When Nathan was about two months old, he started sleeping through the night. He'd sleep from about 8:00pm to about 7:00am, all the way through without waking up. He did that from 2 months old to about 4 months old. We were certain that we had the greatest baby EVER because he started sleeping through the night at such a young age... we spoke too soon...
He started teething and he started to wake up at 3:00am every single morning. 3:00am ON THE NOSE, every morning. But it actually wasn't SO bad because I would just sleep walk into his room, pick him up out of his crib and bring him back into bed with me. I would nurse him and we'd both fall back to sleep and then he would sleep until 7:00-7:30am. At the time that these 3:00am wake up calls were occurring, I complained about them... but now I would do anything to have THAT sleep schedule back!!

Lately Nathan is waking up a LOT more in the night... 2 or 3 times usually - and he is proving more difficult to get back to sleep!! Many times Jeff will take him downstairs and put him in his swing to get him back to sleep - and even that takes some struggle as well. It is so frustrating!!

Last night he woke up at 11:30 & 12:30 & 2:00 & 4:15... UGH!!!
And then I went off to work this morning and left my nice, big, hot, yummy, eye-opening cup of coffee sitting on the table next to the arm chair in the living room...

it is going to be a LONG morning!

Nathan eating food!!

OK so this is actually an old video. But a blog about Nathan would not be complete without this video!! This is the video of the first time that we fed Nathan solid food. This was November 1st, 2008. Nathan is 5 and a half months old.

7 and a half months old

Well being the internet addicted, blog loving Momma that I am, I have no idea why it took me so long to start a blog for Nathan. He is just a little over a week away from being 8 months old... I could have posted SO many things about his life by now had I started sooner. But... oh well...

So here we go. Thus begins my blog about my sweet little man, Nathan David. He is absolutely the most amazing little man and I ADORE him!! He is a very happy, mellow, easy going, and sweet baby. He loves to smile and laugh and sing. The newest developments in his life are that he got his first two teeth, and he crawls... well sort of... his style of crawling is really more like "the worm" but it gets him where he needs to go and he has rug burn on both his knees to show for it!!



He just recently celebrated his first Thanksgiving, his first Christmas, and his first New Years. He enjoyed all three! He got to eat sweet potatoes for the first time at Thanksgiving - he LOVES sweet potatoes! He got his picture taken with Santa and LAUGHED through the whole thing. He got an insane amount of gifts from all of his relatives at Christmas... being the very first grandchild makes for much spoiling!! He got to eat fruit for the first time at Christmas... he LOVES applesauce and bananas... and a mixture of the two that I like to call "Banapple".



Sadly... at 4 and a half months old, Nathan lost his Grandma, my Mom. She passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly and we have all been living in deep sadness since having lost her. Nathan may not remember his Grandma... but I will always remember how much he loved her for the few short months that he had her in his life. She adored him - and the feeling was mutual. I will tell Nathan about his wonderful Grandma all his life.

Well... that may not get things completely caught up - but I think it is a good starting point. And so begins the blog of Nathan... the journal of his life! :)