And it begins...

Ollie and I took a trip to the store today to stock up on feeding supplies and baby food. It always takes me a while to make a selection, must be something to do with all the choices! Just for a sippy cup alone there must have been 20+ different kinds all advertising different special things about their sippy cup. After finally picking one I handed it to Ollie, he grabbed it and started chewing on the corner of the cardboard it was in and was content doing that for most of our excursion.

The chewed up corner is the evidence that this was Ollie's choice.

After supplies I moved onto the food. Even that is a little hard to choose from. It's funny that I can remember all the way back to when I was the big sister of my six younger siblings and for some reason when it came to baby food I must have tried the veggies and stuff to know they were blan and all together not that tasty but I remembered that I always thought the oatmeal cereal tasted good, so I went with that. As I stared down all the veggies I thought it seemed somewhat cruel to feed him peas, but went with it anyway so he can get his veggies. Growing up my mother didn't allow us to be picky eaters, we had to eat whatever was placed in front of us with one exception- we all got to choose one food we didn't have to eat. Jodee may have been the smart one because she chose onions and since they are in so many dishes she got away with getting excluded from just one food. I on the other hand picked sweet potatoes/yams. I don't know why but still to this day I don't like the taste. Every year when Thanksgiving comes around I look at those sweet potatoes covered in marshmellows and brown sugar and I give it one more try but it is fruitless because they still taste the same as the year before- YUK! Growing up my Dad thought it was funny to pull the canned yams out of the pantry and show them to me because every time he did I would make faces and gagging sounds for his amusement. As I looked at the sweet potatoes on the shelf I wanted to pass them up so Ollie wouldn't be tortured as I had but in the end I decided that Ollie will get to make his own choices about what he does and does not like so into the cart they went. Every veggie and fruit on the store shelf has equal representation in our pantry.

Ollie also picked out another little toy, when I showed it to him he grabbed it and started playing with it right away- I'm such a sucker. It's a little carseat toy that he can pull on, Matt thinks Ollie is so smart because he really does reach up and pull it down, then he lets go and watches it zip back up.

More feeding supplies and another toy.

Once home I put Ollie in his saucer play thing while I unpacked and arranged everything. He loves playing in that thing, but only for a certain amount of time. He was starting to get hungry which resulted in a mild fit. For whatever reason this time his little fit seemed so funny. I guess it was because he started taking it out on the little book, slamming the pages around and getting frustrated at them. I laughed because that is exactly what I do- when I am hungry I get irritable and getting mad at objects is something I've done on several occasions. I sure hope that isn't something he has ever seen me do though- maybe I shouldn't be laughing!

My plan for feeding was to introduce something new every three days. And we started with oatmeal cereal. Thank goodness for the feeding spoons I received as gifts, I haven't tried the regular spoons but given that he didn't even like me to take the spoon away from his mouth because it meant the food stopped coming I would imagine that this whole thing would have been a lot harder with a regular spoon.

I would say we were both learning, he was trying to figure out how his tounge works in this whole thing, and I was trying to figure out how much, how fast, and how to keep it in his mouth.

In the end there was a good amount of cereal in his bib (love the rubber bibs too btw!)

And the cereal had seaped under his chin and down his clothes, but he was fed and happy!

This is one thing I have to let go of- he loves, loves, loves to chew on the straps that keep him in and they are as tight as I can make them right now so he can easily get them into his mouth. I say I have to let go because every time he does it I think how dirty the straps are getting and that part of me that still wants everything perfectly clean starts to feel a little anxiety over it and that is when I have to decide that it is ok.

Day two I was smarter and simply fed him in his diaper, his happy, every so messy face makes me smile!

24 Weeks Old

Little Beach bum, still growing so big and strong! He really is stong, when he gets all excited and starts flapping his arms around and kicking sometimes I can barely hold onto him!

First Solid Food

The advice on when to start feeding a baby solid food is all over the place but it typically goes from 4-6 months and I chose the latter. In all honesty part of my delay has been selfish, it's very convenient to only have to feed him a bottle. In my own imagination I have thought that solid food means, more time to feed him, a mess to clean up at every meal, and more interesting poop coming out of him! All of which I am happy to take care of, but I'll admit that I was also happy to hold off just a little longer. And besides Hydee convinced me that it is better for the baby because their digestive system is still forming and if you introduce them too soon it may cause allergies to those foods. So why not be on the safe side and have the convenience of a bottle just a little longer right? :)

Now that he is only a few weeks away from being six months I have decided that it is time. Matt has been eager to feed him for a while now so we are delaying no longer. I did research for a few weeks deciding which high chair to get (and then it took a few days to decide which color), and yesterday the one I so carefully selected and ordered online (Peg Perego Siesta in orange) finally arrived. I was a bit surprised when Matt and I got home late last night to see it sitting in the drive-way outside of our gate! We had been out all day long and I wondered how long it had been sitting there for anyone to walk by and steal, so I was extra grateful to see it still there. At 1:30 in the morning we took it out of it's box and tried to figure it out. Not too hard, the most difficult part was trying to figure out why the tray seemed to be angled so that all of the food would slide down towards him. When we realized that one of the things I was holding in my hands was a set of wheels for the back it became obvious that the wheels were the answer. Installing the back wheels was the only assembly we had to do before we went to bed with his new high chair ready and waiting. I do have to say the orange was a little more pastel looking than I thought it would be so I had to question whether or not I chose the right color, but in the end I still went to bed happy.

This morning we got up and again played with the high chair testing it out to make sure all the things I bought it for, like being able to move it up and down to different positions so he can sit with us at the counter or at the table, etc. really worked. And then we put Ollie in it for the very first time. He wasn't too sure about it at first:

But after checking it out he seemed perfectly fine with everything.

That was until we put the tray on.

Matt checked his legs and I think he had one knee still up, a quick adjustment and he was happy again.

One of the reasons I got this particular high chair was because it reclines, so we tested it out, I think Ollie approved!

It was getting time for Ollie to eat and Matt was ready to let him start eating solid food, so the debate began. I wasn't really ready to start feeding him because we never made it to the grocery store yesterday, however a friend of ours had given us a sampling of baby foods some time ago that was sitting on our shelf in the pantry. We had one veggie, a few fruits, and a veggie and meat mix, as well as a few rice crackers. Like the complete rookies that we are I insisted that Matt google how to introduce foods while I went and pulled out "The Bible" a book from the American Pediatric Association called "The first few years" that my sister-in-law gave me so I could get a little refresher on what I had read months ago. Matt wanted to go ahead and give him his first carrots, but feeling completely unprepared and wanting to actually have a supply of food and a plan in place of which ones we were going to introduce first (knowing you should only do one at a time and give them the same one for several days to see if they have any reaction to it) I eventually convinced him that it was better to just wait until tomorrow to start really feeding him. Plus I want to start with cereal. I hope all first time parents go through this and that we are not the only crazies!

After all of that Ollie really was hungry and sitting there all cute in his chair looking all grown up I decided it wouldn't hurt anything to give him a rice cracker since I'm going to start him on cereal. So this became his first meal. Matt told him it was a surf board since it was shaped like a surf board- how appropriate!

A few chomps in I remembered that this was going to be messy and got his bib on just in time!

It was all new to him, but putting something in his mouth and chomping on it was perfectly natural, he just had to figure out how to swallow it, which was strange for him at first but didn't take him long to decide it was ok to swallow.

So there it is, his first solid food. Just as we suspected he still loves to eat! The rice cracker wasn't enough so we laid him back in his chair and he was happy to suck down a bottle. We were happy to be able to eat our breakfast with him in his own chair right by our side. And then Ollie made his poop face so Matt grabbed him before he made a mess, and I was left in charge of clean up. Already there were a few crumbs in the cracks and I thought to myself how this will probably be the last time it is perfectly clean, but we are looking forward to all the fun experiences ahead of us that we will have while he is in this chair!

Sitting up all by himself

Today I was in Ollie's room with him hanging out trying to decide what to do to entertain him so I pulled out his little jungle thing for the first time to see what he would do with it. He was happy to lay on his back and reach for the toys.

Then I decided to let him look in the mirror, and that is when all the magic happened. As I sat him up and held him he seemed to be sitting just fine so I let go and watched in amazement as he steadied himself and resisted falling over. He leaned a lot so I wasn't sure if it could really count for sitting up on his own, so I texted Jess and Matt to see what they thought. They gave me the thumbs up that it counted so today will go down as the day Ollie sat up by himself for the very first time!

 

23 Weeks Old

I must have set a record for myself because I only took a total of 17 pictures for his 23 week old photo shoot! He just sat down and showed off his smiles and we were done.

After the fact I thought it would be fun to record him squirming around so everyone else could take a moment to imagine what it is like to try and capture a still shot that is not blurred. Matt had walked away at that point so I had no one to stand by me and make him laugh, but it was fun none the less to capture the moment. He also showed off a new trick- usually he is good at making him self fall back, but this is the first time I can remember him pulling himself back up. Once he figured it out he seemed to want to do it over and over again, pushing himself back and doing a crunch to pull himself back up. I think the exercise is good for the little guy- only a few million more crunches and he can work off that belly :)

First Day at the Lake

One of my favorite things to do is go to the lake, so I was super excited when we got the invite to go. Sadly enough Matt had to work but that didn't keep Ollie and I from joining Lance, Marcee and gang (if that sounds cruel I can't even tell you how many times Matt has gone during the week while I had to work so I really didn't feel all that guilty even though I was sad that he wasn't with us). Even sadder is the fact that most all of the pictures of the day were taken on Marcee's phone that was recently stolen when they were in Paris :( But I still have a few.

We had to get up at 4am so we all spent the night at Marcee & Lance's. As I was going to bed I realized I hadn't thought out very well how we were going to get to the lake because now we don't all fit in the Denali, so all night long I had these strange dreams about how we were going to get to the lake. I remember in one of them Ollie was walking- that made me excited! We all made due by just cramming in, but I'll never put the kids through that again. Poor Allee wasn't very comfortable all tied up in a seat belt with Lillee, I felt bad about it. (Remember when you look at this picture that I have been up since 4am!)

We got the lake nice and early, it has been way too long since I've been. We started out wake surfing. Lillee was the first to jump in- she might be the second youngest but she is always the little dare devil happy to show her other siblings up! Each of them got their turn. And then the question came to me if I wanted to get in. I have to admit that I was perfectly comfortable and it wasn't really hot enough yet to inspire me to get all wet, and while I like wake surfing I still prefer wake boarding so I simply asked if we were going to wake board later, and when they said yes I decided to stay in my comfortable dry state and declined. Lance didn't like that answer but to his credit he didn't give me that hard of a time, just a stare that I knew meant he was in shock and disbelief. But it didn't take long before he asked again and then proceeded to tell me that I needed to get over it because this family surfs! I got a break for a little longer while Nathanael took his turn and then Lance tricked me by asking if I wanted to go wake boarding, when I said yes he knew he had me cornered and told me that I could go but I had to wake surf first, that was motivation enough to get me in. Once in I of course did enjoy it. However the water was no longer the serene lake that we had started on and I hit the biggest wave ever, not the wave behind that boat that you want to ride, but another wave on the water that the boat hit and that launched me into the air- it was like riding up the side of a skateboard ramp, I flew off of it and of course I didn't land it and went down, but it didn't hurt so in the end we all laughed over it. Lance kept me out there giving me instruction along the way and I dinked around on the wave riding it up and down, catching a few nose dives but getting back up each time and listening to what I could do better- it was a fun ride and earned my time on the wake board. I thought I was glad to put it on, but by then we were in the worst water we had seen all day. It was brutal I barely had a desire to go outside of the wake because I was fighting the water every time instead of sailing back and forth across the wake. But when it became apparent that it wasn't going to get any better I just sucked it up and went for a few jumps, got a little air, and then when I was satisfied that it was the best I was going to get I let my tired legs dictate that it was time to turn it in so I let go and sank into the water.

The rest of the day I hung out in the boat. The kids always love having Ollie around and with his little sunglasses on he makes all of us laugh. I felt so bad for him all squished up, unable to move in his life jacket, but he took it surprisingly well and was pretty mellow all day, except of course to let me know when he was ready to eat. Maybe he was calm because he couldn't move? He even took his naps just fine.

I did take him for dips in the water to cool him off, and even though he didn't go surfing I laid him on the surfboard to get some shots that we will never see :( I love watching the kids ride with Lance, I can't help but be excited for the day that Ollie gets to ride with Matt. I'll let him take him surfing and I will get to take him wake boarding. I did get a few shots on my camera of Lance and Joshua:

Joshua really was fun to watch, he was loving life! Here is a super short clip but you can see how much fun he was having, he kept wanting to go again and again. Lance did drop the rope and just ride it with him too. I have to say the most amazing accomplishment of the day was when Lance got his actual long board out (the one he surfs with in the ocean) and while riding on the wave Nathanael stepped from the boat to the long board and joined him on it! Those were some other pictures we will all miss, but we won't forget the moment!

 

After a fun filled day we packed up, cleaned the boat in the scorching heat, and headed to the dealership so Lance could get some things worked on before his lake powell trip. It always takes a long time at the dealership, we had to get the surfboards out of the boat and into the car. Luckily most of the kids were asleep so they didn't notice that we had to put a 10 ft. board above their heads. Ollie was wide awake and happy to be free of his life jacket but tired of being confined by the car seat, so while we waited I let him get out and since there was no where to put him I let him hang out up top of the surfboard. It was super cute, he loved it and we got some good pictures to send Matt, we really did miss him.

After stopping for a delicious lunch, we headed home. On the way we witnessed the most bizarre and frankly scary traffic- all of the sudden this car ahead of us when speeding across the lanes towards the curb and the passenger door flung open while they were driving and then it swerved back and forth while the door was open. When the door finally shut it was only moments later that the car swerved and the door flung open again. We were all freaking out and about to call the police, when the car pulled to a complete stop, we passed it on the left side and looked inside to see a girl in the passenger side yelling at the top of her lungs at the guy driving. It looked like they were in some big fight- we only got a quick glance and we were gone. I'm assuming she was telling him to let her out of the car, by the look on her face she wasn't letting him get away with crap! So glad not to live in that part of town or to be with a guy that I would ever have to yell at like that. On our way home Marcee, Lance and I had a conversation about what Matt would do if Lance had taken Ollie surfing, so later on when I was getting ready for bed and just before I put the toothbrush in my mouth I asked Matt if he would be mad if Lance took Ollie surfing. The funny thing was he didn't take it like it was a question, there are only a few things that can get Matt worked up and this was definitely one of them, he immediately responded by saying "You did not let him take him surfing!" and with a toothbrush in my mouth I started laughing, which only made Matt get even more worked up and he got louder as he was in complete disbelief and started saying things like "I can't believe you would do that!" I guess he was still a little sad that he had worked all day while we were at the lake so he wasn't in a mood for joking around. The more he went on the funnier it all seemed because his reaction was just as we had all thought it would be, when I could finally talk I set his mind at ease and reminded him that we all love him enough that we would NEVER take that moment away from him or Ollie. His dreams are all safe and sound and we all look forward to the day he gets to take him surfing because we all know what that moment will mean to him after waiting so long for his perfect little son:)

Baby Einstein

One of the things that cracks me up about Ollie is how he loves watching movies. He has been to quite a few in his short life already, and we have been amazed at how he loves to actually watch what is happening on screen. In fact there are times that I have tried to put him on my shoulder during a movie and he will actually turn and strain his neck to look back in the direction of the movie screen.

So today as I was running out of things to entertain Ollie with and holding, knowing that holding him all day long was not an option, I decided to try putting on a show just for him. He has a collection of Baby Einstein movies that I haven't shown him yet so I busted the animal safari one out, popped it in, and laid him back on my bed to see what he would do. He sat there still as could be, somewhat like a little couch potatoe and watched the movie. I couldn't even break his concentration when I was taking picutures. Don't worry Ollie- you won't end up a couch potatoe, there are too many things in life for you to enjoy, but for 30 minutes today I did get a laugh over your cute little chubby self watching the first show I've ever put on just for you!