Achievements

 So for starters Steve was made the academic chief in his residency starting in July. Yay. He's in charge of a few extra things and a slight pay raise which is always happy! Residency is going well. He's busy of course, but some months he's not as busy as we always assumed he'd be. 

We recently held a Pi party at our house. It was so great! I've held a few here in Saginaw and had a hard time getting anyone to come, so I was a little hesitant to even bother since last year I didn't but I'm glad we did. It also gave us another reason to get our basement cleaned up. The spiders were taking over and we hadn't bothered to fight back since we moved in. So that was good. I'm glad we have an awesome group of friends here. Its amazing how much that affects where you live. 

Ok so now I've been meaning to kind of put down in writing Felix's milestones. for the past 8 months. I've tried to remember but if I don't put it in here now I doubt I'll remember anything so here goes and hopefully I can get most of them.

July: Felix is born 20.5 Inches long and 7 lbs 8 oz and lost almost a full pound in the first 2 days (6 lbs 9 oz) because apparently breast-feeding wasn't working out and he was starving. We spent those 2 days trying in vain to calm a screaming baby, only to end up in the hospital on night 3 with him getting an IV and using a billi blanket for his Jaundice. After the one night He was much better and we went home. I had to start supplementing formula and we ended up just using bottles which turned out to be some much easier because Steve could help feed now. Yay!

 August: At 1 week He had gained back his birth weight and some at 7 lbs 11 oz. and then at 4 weeks he was 21.2 inches long and 9 lbs 11 oz. So apparently food makes you grow, who knew. At around one month old Felix started to Smile a bit. Which was adorable and though It was often probably gas it still makes you so happy when your baby smiles. He also started to coo around then so he started to be much more entertaining. During This month we were very busy. Both Steve and I had some family visit and it was a little hard for me to sleep like I needed but you can't waste opportunities to see people you never get to see on sleep. Also you should know that after we got Felix eating like he should he slept awesome. He wasn't much for day sleeping most of the time which probably accounted for his sleeping 6-8 hours straight at night. I must admit I probably encouraged that because I didn't sleep well during the day when he slept so night sleep was important and He spoiled us for probably the first 4 months like that.

Disclaimer: I'm not what you'd call a baby person. Its not that I hate babies, but I haven't had a lot of exposure and when people talk about them my mind shuts out the conversation and having someone hand me a baby was like pure stress cause I just knew it was going to cry at any second and how do you turn these things off? Anyway I've since gotten to be an expert with my baby but I doubt its a true enough conversion that I'll be asking people to hand over their babies like a lot of women seem to. Anyway I'm not sure why I felt I needed to share this but now there is at least a small bit of understanding on my situation. And also I do like my baby so don't worry. I take good care of Felix.

 September: He started to laugh. Usually when in the bouncer seat. He would bat at the toys and laugh. It was awesome. This month he also at random would yell out something that sounded like Hey. Weird since it was usually right before he sneezed. but it cracked us up. Also He had grown to 23 inches and 11 lbs 10 oz.

 October: This month he started to roll and it was from his back to front which was not the usual first but He spent a lot of time on his tummy so I think when we put him on his back he wanted to get back the other way. He sleeps on his stomach because after 4 weeks of not getting him to sleep very well we tried it and it was like magic. We know its not advised but he slept in our room right next us so I wasn't super worried. Then again I was really worried because I seem to remember waking up multiple times through the night to check if he was still breathing. A bit silly but I was very paranoid. This month I also found out just how out of shape I am while we were in Colorado for a week. and we found out the joys of flying with a baby. luckily he slept through the flights. but we had a 3 hour layover in Detroit which is 2 hours from our house (Irony) and he cried through most of that. oh well! His growth for this month was to 13 lbs 11 oz. Oh and this is the month where he started laughing when tickled. Fun.

 November:At four months Felix was now 25.1 inches and 14 lbs 5 oz. And we have noticed how proud we are every time we realize how he is bigger than before. and I guess as parents we can take credit because we're the ones feeding him. What else is a baby to do with parents who refuse to starve and stunt his growth. We got our first baby cold this month and it was miserable for all of us. I ended up on the couch holding Felix most of the night since he couldn't breath well layed down in the crib. it wasn't the funnest of weeks but now luckily his colds aren't so draining on us too. Since then we've been through 5-6 colds. (I made up that number because its been a lot but I have no idea exactly. It could for all I know have been one long awful cold all winter, but I doubt it.) This is the time when he discovered his hand were sucking toys and couldn't keep them out of his mouth. He had freezing hand a lot for a while because they were always wet. 

 December: This is the month where He started to push himself up on his hands and knees. He was so excited to get moving that we knew he'd get that milestone down super early and a day or two before Christmas he was rocking back and forth and finally started to drag his legs forward too. Of course it was a week or two before he was really crawling around he was more just dragging his hind quarters around. It was amusing to see him get out on the wood floors. He was always stranded once he got off the rug cause it was just too slippery. I was hoping that would last longer but. He goes all over the place now. Also this is the month where Felix got his first head injury. And that was all me going out on the ice. Luckily it wasn't too bad. Nothing a few tears couldn't fix.

 January: Felix got to cruising around a lot more and this is the month where he decided to stop sleeping through the night. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was wrong and he'd sleep with me for half the night or not at all. Steve started sleeping on the guest bed so he could be awake at work. and I started practicing for my apocalypse zombie mode. It was just so exhausting and confusing. But we figured it out eventually. He was now 26.5 inches and 16 lbs 11 oz.

 February: So Felix started to pull himself up at this point so he could stand and the coffee table became less of a dumping grounds for stuff he can't have. I stumbled onto a website that had advice on how to get your kid to sleep. And sure enough everything Felix was doing at this point was on her list of when its time to let the baby cry it out to sleep. So cry it out we did and it was great. The first night he only cried for 20 minutes. We had moved him into his own room and started using a noise maker and now I get to sleep. Yay! He still cries sometimes but not for long and he's such a good little boy. HE sure brings us joy. This is also the time we started him on solids. I was not too enthusiastic about this since the formula was so easy and I had a routine. 

(I really get set in my routines when I have one and anyone that messes with is asking for trouble. Or at least better give me some time to recalculate so that I can plan a new routine. I think that even when my day doesn't have anything going on I still have a plan of exactly what I'm going to do and throwing a wrench in it is hard on me.) 

So I had to make a whole new routine for him and after a week we got used to that and its great. I gave him some avocado for his first food and since I've gotten a bit lazy and gave him a lot of rice cereal since he liked it so much and store bought baby food. I know its cheaper to make your own, but he never seems to like mine so I gave up and eventually he'll move on to real food so we all work with what we've got.

March: Man this month was a bit long you can just smell spring coming and then you get blasted with another snow storm. We really wanted to be outside walking instead of cooped watching tv and eating junk. Felix is getting more confident with the walking though he still needs something to hold onto. He has tried a step a few times without holding on, but he's not quite ready. He also keeps growing upward. I decided to use giant boxes as baby gates just to gate off the kitchen where Sophie's (the dog) food is and also the door to the stairs. He started climbing over the small suitcase a few times so thats when I moved on to boxes and finally one of those isn't tall enough now to stop him. Today he went for it and banged his forehead and behind an eye. Crazy kid has no sense of danger. but at 8 months I guess you can't expect to much. He is the cutest kid and fast to smile if you make a funny sound or face. sometimes from across the room I just move my eyebrows up and down at him and it cracks him up. He loves to be tickled. 

He also love Cheerios. He can't grab them fast enough when I set them out for him. He usually eats too many and spits them up. Let me tell you that cheerio spit up isn't one of the best smells. I would probably rank it down there with wet dog. Oh also I forgot to mention that we used to feed him in one of those bouncers you hang from a doorway. He isn't much of a bouncer so it wasn't a big deal at first and worked well. but after a few weeks that changed and trying to get food in his mouth was becoming an olympic sport. We are very lucky to have giving friends who lent us their high chair and so now you just have to convince him to open his mouth. 

He also is now big enough that sometimes we take him out of the car seat to go into stores, but if he's in a needy mood which is happening a lot more often then its easier to just leave him in the car seat. At least that thing he's strapped in securely.

April: Ok so finally we're up to date. Lets see how long that last :) Felix finally decided to start babbling. We were a bit worried, because he used to make a lot of noise before and said A-goo a lot but then he got all quiet. But this last week he decided to change that and now is very vocal. He seems to like sounds that start with b's or m's which makes him sound like he's saying mom a lot yay! also every once in a while I here him and think "Mad Mordican" (I have no idea how to spell that) but it cracks me up even though its not what he's saying. What started the babbling (I like to take credit for things but I might be wrong) is that last week I started doing that indian chant thing where you wake a wa wa sound and pat your mouth. I patted his mouth too and he got a kick out of making the sound too. so know he's doing that one by himself too. Our little boy is just growing so fast. So yep thats about it. I hope you have enough info cause that all I'm giving! Take Luck!

And More of Felix

These are some pictures from a while ago I found.

So up above is how he played for a few days in the bouncer. Below is the last day I could trust him to stay in it. And when I say trust I mean I'm pretty sure its lucky he didn't knock himself senseless doing this. Of course once I saw that he was holding himself up just fine I left him like this and ran for the camera. Thats how awesome of a parent I am!