Sick, Teething, Flooding, Crawling

April and May were pretty crummy months for all of us. I was still very busy at work, yet Andrew was ensuring that we all stayed pretty sick. We seemed to be passing the same cold back and forth, which resulted in a grumpy, sleep-deprived household.

At the end of April, Grand Rapids had record setting flooding. Fortunately, the flooding did not impact our new house, but the condo was not so lucky. The building was evacuated for 3 weeks, and our poor tenant couch-hopped during this time. She came to stay with us for a few days near the end of the 3 week period and we had a lot of fun sitting on the deck in the evening, drinking wine, and chatting! =)

Flooding in Rockford - Rogue River at 12 mile and downtown Rockford.

Flooding in Plainfield Township - Grand River at West River Dr & Northland Drive. Beneath the building is a parking garage...

 Flooding in Grand Rapids - Turner & Ann Street.

Flooding downtown - Grand River. You can see our old building on the left. This picture was taken the day before it was evacuated. 

It was finally warm enough to get outside and get some fresh air, which was especially helpful since we were all sick! Andrew enjoyed his first time swinging...and yes, he was still in his pjs...it was just one of those days!

7 month picture - always trying to eat his feet!

Sweet ride in the laundry basket =)

Another day outside. One cool cat in his sunglasses. He ripped them off his face approx 2 seconds after this picture was taken!

 

This is when Andrew started becoming mobile. He was not crawling yet but he had started scooting. When I walked into the kitchen, he was laying on top of the playmat which was on top of the blue blanket. When I walked back into the living room with his bottle, he gave me a very guilty look...

Trying to crawl. It wasn't long after this video that he figured it out.

Happy Baby!

6 Month Pictures

We took Andrew to see Erin Bokhout (Erin Alies Photography) for his 6 month pictures. She also took his newborn pictures. He was very serious during his 6 month photo shoot so we weren't sure how the pictures would turn out, that is until we put him into the golf bag =). Chris was pretty excited that those pictures turned out so well.

Time to Catch Up

It's been a while since I've posted, so I have a lot to say but I will try to keep each section short and sweet :)  I'll start from mid-February...since my last post.

This winter has been LONG and snowy, or at least it seems that way to me (I have no idea what the actual averages are...this could have been a mild year for all I know, but it seemed brutal). Anyhow we had one sunny day in February so we decided to bundle Andrew up and take him out for his first snow adventure. He did not seem impressed with the white stuff, but I imagine that he will be singing a different tune next year when he is mobile and can sit in a sled! The Johnson family is ready for springtime - golf, sun and pool! Bring it on.

In one of my previous posts I discussed the fact that baby cereal tasted like cardboard, and I thought Andrew was starting to embrace it...I was wrong. He never embraced it. A few weeks after we started the oatmeal cereal we tried out some veggies, sweet potatoes to be specific. He was a little skeptical at first and I think the vast majority of the sweet potatoes landed on his bib, hands and clothes, but I believe some made the journey to his little tummy. After sweet potatoes, we tried carrots and then green beans. He did not love any of them; however, he tolerated them and got better at eating off of the spoon.  We hit the jackpot when we tried the veggie and fruit blends (thank you to Aunt Lizzie for that suggestion). Now he eats like a champ, and I have tasted each one, and I have to say that they taste pretty good. I never would have thought to mix butternut squash, carrots, apples and prunes or sweet potatoes, pumpkin, apples, and blueberries, but he loves it all! Sometime during this period, he moved from the bumbo seat to the highchair for meals, and that helped as he was able to sit up straighter and wasn't so distracted.

He hit the five (and six month) mark during this sabbatical from blogging. I would say that over last month (probably two) there is always at least one person in our house who is sick. Mostly this is Andrew, but Chris and I have had our fair share of the bug too. We have all visited Dr. McCarthy more than we would like to in a two month time span, so again we say, bring on the warm weather!!

With the sickness, sleeping through the night went out the window. The typical night now goe a little something like this: Andrew sleeps soundly until between 2-3, then he starts coughing, then he gets mad that he is coughing so he starts babbling and fussing. Chris and I lay there for 20 minutes, listening to him babble and hoping that he will go back to sleep when ultimately one of us ends up having to get up and rock him for 15 minutes to calm him down so that he will go back to sleep. Then we wish we had just gotten up when he first started babbling and maybe we could have gotten back to bed 20 minutes earlier (even though we know you are supposed to let them try to get themselves back to sleep!!). He usually wakes up one more time coughing and we repeat the process all over again except this time the other parent gets up with him :)

Just after he hit five months, his first tooth popped through (Feb 23) and his second shortly thereafter. He now has two bottom teeth and usually drools like a faucet. Teething was not pleasant for any of us, but it could have been worse, and he looks pretty cute with those two little teeth popping through! I don't have any pictures of that...have you ever tried to take a picture of tiny baby teeth? It isn't easy!

We bought him a jumperoo recently because he loves the one at daycare, and his exersaucer just wasn't doing the trick for him anymore! He loves the jumperoo, and sometimes I think he is going to bounce right out of it. He will jump for 30 minutes and wear himself out. Mom and Dad love it too!!

 

On March 14, he hit the six month mark. It is hard to believe he has been in our lives for six months (well outside of my belly...he was in our lives long before that!). We are having more fun with him every day, and I am so excited to watch him grow up into a young man. 

And last, but certainly not least, we have been watching a lot of basketball lately with March Madness in full swing. Andrew has been sporting his Sparty gear and we are hoping to watch them win it all this year (that might be a little optimistic), but they are playing well so far so hopefully they can hang on for a little while longer!!

Can't Get Revenge and Keep a Spotless Reputation

The Friday before last when I picked Andrew up from daycare, Miss Amanda said she had to tell me a funny story about Andrew's day. She proceeded to tell me about how one of the other little boys had recently discovered his voice. I guess this other little boy and Andrew are buddies and they often put him near Andrew while Andrew does his tummy time. I'm not sure how good of buddies they are anymore because on this specific afternoon, the little boy in question let out a huge squeal while Andrew was relaxing on his tummy. Miss Amanda said Andrew's eyes almost popped out of his head and he immediately began screaming from the commotion. We both cracked up over this...yes, I am laughing at my son's expense, and I took Andrew home not thinking another thing about it.

Later on that weekend and into last week, Andrew suddently started squealing at home. He would squeal when he laughed, when he saw his bottle, when he saw Lola...really any chance he could think of to squeal, he would let one rip. So Chris and I joked that Andrew must be practicing in order to seek revenge on his buddy.

Andrew gets "Applegrams" each day from daycare which provide the parents with the necessary information - how much they ate, how many times they pooped, peed, etc. However, the Applegrams also give a report on their mood - Happy, Sad, Quiet, Talkative, Tired/Fussy, or Cuddly. Generally, Andrew gets Happy and Quiet or Happy and Cuddly. However, both Thursday and Friday last week, he got Happy and Talkative. BUSTED!! Our little guy apparently seeks revenge on his enemies!

Eat, Sleep, Poop, Play

In the past week or so, it seems all of the above activities have increased for Andrew. He is suddenly eating a lot more. He went from 5-6 oz 4 times a day to almost 8 oz 4 times a day. He is also starting to embrace the oatmeal (even though it still tastes like cardboard)! I think there is a direct correlation to the increase in eating and the increase in pooping =) In the previous weeks, Andrew was fairly regular, pooped once a day and very rarely had a blow-out. For the past week, he goes at least twice a day and often requires a change of clothes afterwards. I will not provide details on the consistency or smell as it will make your stomach turn!! Let's just say I may never eat guacamole again!

Our entire family has been plagued by the stomach flu over the past few weeks. The only sole survivors of the Johnsons (us), the Meguiars, and the other Johnsons (grandparents) are Andrew and Pappy. I must have brought it into the family three weeks ago, and I was convinced I just had food poisoning until everyone else starting getting sick. Unfortunately Chris was in Florida for the golf show when he got sick. He was pretty miserable, and it made for an awful trip to Florida. He was able to finally play golf on the last day. I did feel pretty bad that I was giving him such a hard time about his Florida vacation (when it was a whopping 6* in Michigan) and then he got sick and couldn't even enjoy his vacation! So far Andrew and Pappy have not gotten sick, and hopefully it stays that way.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Andrew started rolling back to tummy. It is now nearly impossible to keep him on his back! If we put him in the floor and run into the other room for a minute, he is often not in the same spot or position as when we left him (I fear that I am going to miss those days!). As soon as he started rolling over in the middle of the night, it was apparent that we needed to stop swaddling his arms during the night. I was afraid that this was going to be a big ordeal and result in numerous nights without sleep, and fortunately I was wrong (yes, it happens every once in a great while). The first couple of nights were a little rough; however, now that he turns onto his belly, he can not flail his arms so the swaddle is a bit of a moot point. He sleeps a lot better now that he is on his tummy (just like his mom and dad!), so after I got through the first few nights with the fear that he was going to somehow suffocate himself in the mattress, Chris and I have embraced this new sleep style and appreciate being able to sleep even better than we did before (and we were pretty stinking lucky before).

Andrew has also started playing and talking much more than he used to. His coordination has improved immensely and now he loves holding onto his toys and balls. His favorite toy right now is a little football that has a lot of holes in it. He can get his fingers in the holes so that he can hold onto the football and wave it around. He still drops it quite a bit and then Chris and I will say "fumble" which he thinks is quite funny even though he has no idea what we are talking about! He is also starting to grab for objects like glasses, hair, necklaces, earrings, etc (while they are on your body). This has resulted in my glasses crashing to the floor a few times and nearly having a chunk of my hair ripped out. The little guy has quite the grip.

I have been traveling a bit over the past few weeks, and next week should be my last week of travel for a while. I miss my boys like crazy when I am gone, but I have been fortunate to only be out of town one or two nights a week, so we are handling it pretty well. Chris has been doing an amazing job being a "single dad" on the nights that I am out of town, and Andrew always seems happy, clean, well-fed, and not still wearing his pajamas when I return so all-in-all the travel has not been so bad for us. Though I think Chris is ready for me to be home again (I think Andrew is still too young to care, he is only concerned that someone is feeding him, bathing him, etc...he isn't too particular about who that someone is)

All-in-all, we are doing great and can't believe this little guy will be 20 weeks old tomorrow. Woah!

1/3 Of A Year

Last week, Andrew hit the 4 month mark!! Where is the time going? We are so fortunate to have a healthy, happy, and generally easy-going baby. We are enjoying him more and more everyday.

The 4th month was a very exciting month for us with Andrew starting daycare and me going back to work. I am enjoying being back on the job and interacting with walking, talking adults during the day, but I miss my little man and I can't wait to get home and see him at the end of the day (and see Chris too, of course). I have started traveling again since this is my busy season, but I think I will be able to keep it at just one or two nights a week, and I should be done by the second week of February. Chris has been great since I have started traveling, and we are lucky to have the grandma's close by to help!!

At Andrew's 4 month appointment last week, his pediatrician gave us the ok to start giving him cereal once a day. The first time we tried it, he didn't quite know what to think. Ultimately, he decided he was not a fan of the oatmeal cereal. Although, I can't say that I blame him because I tried it and it tasted like cardboard. His pediatrician recommended that we do the cereal for a couple of weeks then we can try some vegetables. Hopefully those taste a little better than the oatmeal cereal!!

The past four months have flown by, and most days I still can't believe that Chris and I are parents. However, we are absolutely loving every minute of it, and each day he surprises us with a new activity. His favorite toy right now is a fabric book. I think he enjoys chewing on it more than looking at the pages, but either way, his favorite toy is a book so we are hopeful that he will be intellectual =) He also loves his new exersaucer. His dad did not love the exersaucer when he had to put the thing together, but I kept reminding him how much Andrew would enjoy it, so he persevered and put the damn thing together. Fortunately, Andrew loves it, so my promise paid off!!

My report today (from Chris) was that Andrew started rolling from his back to his tummy and then he would roll back over onto his back. I have yet to see him roll from back to tummy so I am excited to see this actually occur. He has been rolling tummy to back for a few weeks, but he still isn't doing it consistently! Unfortunately, this means that we need to stop swaddling his arms when he sleeps (so that he doesn't smother himself if he rolls onto his tummy). I have been dreading doing this because when his arms are not swaddled he flails around and whacks himself in the head. Chris is really hoping that I will do this over the next week as he is heading out of town tomorrow and will be spending the next 5 days in Orlando at the PGA show for "work" =) I think they play a lot of golf and go to the golf show for 1/2 day in order to call it a "work" trip!! Anyhow he and his buddy, Justin, have been going on this trip for a number of years, and he really looks forward to it every year so I am glad that he gets a chance to have a nice vacation before his busy season starts in a few months. BUT I think he is hoping that I will get Andrew transitioned into sleeping without being swaddled while he is out of town so that he can miss the sleepless nights while Andrew continuously whacks himself in the head!!

Hopefully my next post is that Andrew transitioned from the swaddle beautifully and we didn't have any sleepless night. Ha, fat chance, right?

Who Are Those Other Little People?

So today was Andrew's first day of daycare. This adventure proved to be much harder on Mom and Dad than it did on Andrew. Walking into the daycare room was a bit overwhelming. Chris and I went for our tour during the week of 4th of July, which in hind-sight was a stupid idea because there were only 3 babies in the infant room versus the 8 they had in there this morning when we arrived. Upon our arrival (45 minutes later than planned - it is much harder to get out of the house with child than I thought it would be) one child was having his diaper changed and was screaming like someone was cutting off his leg. I think this whole fiasco started us off on the wrong foot as Andrew heard all of the commotion which is much different than the quiet from his own house, and he started to fuss and cry. Once I saw tears in my little guy's eyes, I was a mess. I held it together until I got to the car, but I was an emotional wreck. We did not leave until he had stopped crying and was content, but that didn't seem to make it any better. Below is a picture pre-daycare. Chris was much happier in this picture than he was when we were walking out to the car after drop-off.

I got to work around 9:45 and made it until 2:20 before I left to go get my guy. I only called once, but I think I checked the webcam every 15 minutes. Andrew's Applegram report card for the day said he was "Happy" and "Quiet", ate 2 oz (normally eats 6-8) and only slept for 15 minutes. Needless to say when we got home, he was starving and very tired! I figured eating at daycare would be a problem because at home we call him "The Sprinkler" because he moves his head around like a sprinkler when you are trying to feed him, he is always trying to see who else is in the room, where the cat is, or what is on TV! Therefore, daycare was an abundance of distractions and he just could not focus on his bottle. This was also the issue with sleeping! He did not want to miss any activities while he was asleep. Anyhow, I got him home and he guzzled 7 oz. and promptly fell asleep. I think this will be a very long nap and we will see what tonight brings. On another note (after my last post/rant), he is back to sleeping through the night. Thank goodness!!
The below picture is when we got home from daycare. He was asleep in his carseat before we ever got out of the parking lot. Overall it was a very emotional day, but we know that in the long run, daycare will be very good for him!