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! :)