Tex-mex deluxe...

He has added carrots and oatmeal to his taste bud repetoire. And thanks to his Grandma, he has now sampled his first bit of Tex-mex. While I thought she was just going to let him suck on a piece of tortilla, she proceeded to dip the tortilla in queso and he went wild with excitement. When she stopped giving him queso, he clearly wanted more thanks to the spices involved. Thankfully after a couple of sips of mamma's water, he went back to the tortilla without fuss. Then part of the tortilla fell off in his mouth and went down the hatch. So now we'll wait and see how well his first Tex-mex experience digests. :) Always fun! These pictures don't do any justice to the frantic, insatiable, excitement he exuded when chowin' down on that tortilla and queso!! Where's the HD Video cam when you need it? ;) The last picture is Fender playing at home this morning.

Lord of the rings...

Our boy can sit better now. Here he is playing with his plastic rings. When he sits too long or gets very involved with what he is playing with, he forgets he has to remember to sit and he falls right over to his side. He is so funny to watch and lots of fun to play with! He rolls over from his tummy to his back well now. He can go from his back to tummy too, but doesn't do that as often.

Melodies...

Rock and roll...

Oh so much fun...I forgot to mention...about an hour ago, Fender rolled over for the first time. All the way on his own from his back to his tummy...on purpose trying to get a toy. He didn't get back over or do it again because it is late In the evening for him considering he napped only 30 minutes total today, but I suspect he'll be doing it lots more in the days ahead. And the space in the first line and the capital I in In on the third sentence were Fender's contribution to the blog. Here's Fender in his too cool "Fender" onesy from Uncle Chuck and family...

I am fender...

Fender is sitting here with me, helping me type this blog. He is going to be a super computer pro! He is going to town on the keyboard. I am back in control at the moment. He stops to watch me type and when I stop, he tries it himself. Now his hands are on top of mine feeling all the typing strokes. Pretty fun. Now I will try to post some pictures...

Sleepless nights...

Have pictures from the past few days and will add them first chance I get.

Hopefully our sleepless nights will come to an end soon...of course I've been hoping and expecting that for about the last three months. For the past week, he's been waking to feed about 1AM, 5AM, then up for the day at 7AM. We are now officially trying to put an end to the first feeding. The plan is for Daddy to pick him up and rock him/walk him/sing him back to sleep if he wakes at 3AM or earlier. Then, even if he just sleeps for another hour, I can feed him then and we've made progress.

Well, three nights ago was the first time we gave it a try. He woke up at 1:30AM and put up very little fuss and went back to sleep with Daddy before 2AM rolled around. He woke again at 4AM, but fussed until he got picked up and then fell back to sleep the moment I picked him up. I still got a bottle ready (because we were also going to try and move toward giving him all bottles and no more time at the breast), but he was asleep before he could get it. I left it out just in case he woke back up shortly, which he didn't. Instead, he laid back down and slept until 6AM. I gave him 5oz and then he went back to sleep until 8AM (which with the time change, would have been 7AM for him).

In short...He went to sleep just before 9PM, didn't feed again until 6AM, then up at 8AM. The second night, he slept from just before 10PM, woke only at 4:45AM for a feeding, and slept again until 8:00AM. We thought maybe we had caught him off-guard and easy to manipulate with the time change this past weekend. But last night wasn't so good. He went to sleep about 9:30PM, woke and wanted to feed at 1:30AM, then again this morning at 5:30AM, and was up at 7:30 for the day. We'll keep trying, but I'm not holding my breath or anything drastic, just saying a few prayers. :)

Mommy and Daddy...

Daddy picked out his pants, which are way too cute for words. Such a 70's fashion statement. By the way...we're cutting three teeth now. Bottom three front teeth. From Fen's left to right, the first one is coming up strong, the next one just broke through, and the third one is trying to push through now. He'll have a big smile full of teeth before long now. :)

Daycare chillin'...

Here's Fen in his new purple chair reading a book at daycare. In person, it looked like he was a miniature grown man sitting back in his recliner reading the newspaper. Too cute.

When I dropped him off...


When I picked him up...


By the way...for anyone keeping up...Fen is now 5 mo old, 18 lbs, 27 inches long, with two bottom front teeth coming in. He is sitting by himself some, but still falls backward if he gets back too far. He eats some solids, mostly for fun, but still gets most nourishment from breastmilk. In fact, I think we may cut back some solids because it only seems to serve for added fat rolls and adds little nourishment and it certainly hasn't changed anything with his sleeping habits. I think maybe he'll get solids more as a dessert instead of up front before a feeding. That should work out better. Besides, the doc said the idea isn't for nourishment right now, but to give him time to be introduced to a variety of foods and learn to eat well from a spoon. He's certainly accomplished that. We just need more variety.

With or without solids, he goes to bed about 8PM (so early because he never sleeps during the day) and sleeps until 2AM, feeds, then sleeps until 7AM if I'm lucky, but occasionally feeds again at 5AM. I like the 2AM and 7AM schedule...and I'd like it more if it were more of a 10PM, 4AM, 9AM schedule.

I'm down to pre-pregnancy weight now and wearing all my old clothes again. I have been for about a month, but neglected to mention it here. So there it is. I think I've decided to keep nursing him for a year, if possible. So far, every indication is that we should be able to accomplish that, especially since he will eat more and more solids as the year progresses, and need less and less milk. Wish us luck with that one. He has also taken sips of water from my cup so maybe we'll get him started on drinking from big cups soon too. Not sure when that should technically occur, but my guess is that if he can do it, he should probably learn to perfect it. So maybe when he gets a wee bit more control of his hands in a few weeks, we'll give that a try too.

Amarillo by morning...

Fender is 5 months old now. We spent the weekend in Amarillo and had a super fun time as you can see by the pictures. We played lots, ate some, and passed right out...

Sitting on his own in a shopping stroller for the first time. :)


Playtime with Mamma:


He loves his new chair...


...and so does Mamma. So much easier to feed him now. He's having sweet potatoes and rice cereal. Yum!


Sweet dreams...

Photo shoot...

Ok...so it wasn't a "professional" photo shoot, but I snapped a few pictures of Fender last Wednesday (Feb 28) that turned out pretty cute.