Adventures in Baby Food,Teething and Crawling!

We have been busy, busy, busy over the past couple of weeks. After our little trip to the ER we thought we were done with feeling yucky. We had our happy baby back and we had a break through in eating! We have been feeding Micah solid food since he turned 5 months old but he just never was really interested in it. Then last week he decided he was ready! We went from feeding him less than 1 tablespoon of oatmeal to 3 in one weeks time! He is gobbling up his peas too. With all that new solid food his system, ummmm.... got a little backed up, shall we say. Upon the advice of a friend we went out to buy some prunes. He wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. I can't blame him since I smelled them and I don't think I would have eaten them either. Another friend told me to try prune juice, so another trip to the store and we tried the juice. Micah is a smart little guy though and he looked at me like, "Mom this tastes just like the other prunes. I'm not going to drink this!!" So when that didn't work we had to get creative and invented prune-oatmeal, Yum! That did the job and let's just say the little guy was feeling a lot better later that day. After we got through that hurdle last weekend we had a fussy baby again yesterday! He was having trouble napping and was just not himself. While his mouth was wide open mid-cry I got a nice peek and saw two little dots on his bottom gum. Yup we are now full on teething. Poor little guy had to deal with his first virus, constipation, and teething all in a weeks time. We have still managed to have fun along the way though. Here are some pics hanging out with Daddy.

Also, BIG NEWS! Today I can officially say that Micah is crawling. He started coordinating his arms and legs and actually crawling for the first time this morning at 6 months and 4 days. He still scoots some but is crawling more and more! I have some video I can post later. Also, he has been pushing up off his knees onto his hands and feet like he wants to stand up. Of course he is no where near that but he just thinks he will show me what new trick he has mastered every day!

In other baby food news, I have been wanting to make home made baby food once he started his solids but never really got around to it. This weekend I decided to know that out. We decided to give him some new flavors and I made him Winter Squash mix (pictured below) and sweet potatoes. We started with the winter squash mix and he loved it! I was happy that he didn't reject my cooking but was even happier that we found another veggie he likes. So far likes are: Peas, winter squash, and oatmeal. Dislikes: Green beans, rice cereal, prunes.

6 Months Old and Such a Big Boy!

Micah turned 6 months old this week. It is very hard to fathom that half of a year has already passed! We really do have more fun everyday(well except when he is sick!) He is just growing and learning so much. In the picture below he looks so big to me! We have been using our stroller with the carrier attachment but this was the first time that we took off the attachment and he rode in it like a big boy! Brad went running with him and he seemed to love it! I also love that he looks like he has a little strawberry blonde mohawk here!

I have been reading that at 6 months you can start transitioning to a sippy cup. I still breast feed him exclusively so he rarely gets a bottle but when he does he is the independent first child and always is trying to hold it himself. I got a beginner sippy cup at the store because I thought he might think it was fun. I have just been putting a little water in it and he seems to enjoy it! I usually give it to him after he eats his solid food to help wash his mouth out so he isn't drooling peas for the next hour. It has been working well! He is definitely still learning on this one but seems to like his new big boy cup!

My Poor Little Baby!

So I guess 6 months was all we were able to manage to shield him from the world. Micah came down with his first bug this past weekend. Last Saturday I noticed that he was much fussier than normal but when I took his temperature and it was normal I just attributed the fussiness to staying up too late the night before. On Sunday I went ahead and took his temperature again before taking him into the church nursery just to be safe and again totally normal. After we got home from Church he took a nice long nap (an extra bonus we get on church days!) and then when he woke up I fed him and noticed that he felt very warm to me. I went ahead and took his temp again (he was getting rather tired of this process) and it was at 102!! I thought he seemed off but since he had no other symptoms except for the excessive, at least in my opinion, fussiness I decided to call the doctor just to make sure. I got the after hours line and to make a long story short, after 3 hours and three phone calls a nurse finally called me back. By this time Micah had become less fussy since we were holding our poor sick baby constantly but you could definitely tell he didn't feel well and was a bit lethargic. The nurse said since he didn't show other symptoms we should go ahead and take him to the emergency room just to be safe. So at 8 pm we finally headed out to the ER. We were "fast tracked" since he was so little and two hours later we left with some Tylenol and the diagnosis that he checked out perfect so he probably had a little virus and it should work itself out over the next couple of days. Well a couple of days later he is now back to his happy playful self! Needless to say Mommy is very glad to have her happy baby back! One funny story from the hospital was that when we were checking in they asked me if he had everbeen there before. I said no. THen she asked if he was born there, to which I answered yes! Oops! I guess he has been to the hosipital before. He was just in my tummy the last time I went through those ER doors!

With Daddy in Triage

The littlest hospital bracelet ever!

Bath Time is Splash Time

Micah has really been enjoying his baths lately. As I have been giving him baths I always splash the water an show him how it works. Well he just figured out how to splash himself and if I can say so, we think it is pretty stinkin' cute!

My Dad is Rad

My friend Jennifer once told me her husband jokes that she "thinks in blog posts." Well, as soon as I dressed Micah in this new shirt yesterday morning I knew it was a blog post in the making. I will let the shirt speak for itself!

Just playing and crawing (almost!)

Fun times in the Matherne Household! Micah is getting closer to crawling every minute. He still mostly rocks back and forth but has had some moving of the knees today. We will see how long it takes him to get the hang of it.

The Many Faces of Peas!

We had peas today for dinner! Micah seems to really like them. Our progress with solids has been slower than I anticipated although he definitely eats some things better than others. In the past few days he has seemed to really be getting the hold of it though. Micah has now dined on rice cereal, oatmeal, and peas. We may branch out to green beans tomorrow since we finished off the peas tonight. I still crack up at all the funny expressions we go through while eating. Here is a preview:

It doen't get much better than this!!

My very dear friend came to visit me this week all the way from Italy! She has a nice fancy camera and snapped this priceless picture of Micah. This picture just totally captures the way I think of him and his personality. I absolutely adore it! Thanks Abbey!

So close to crawling!!

Micah is getting ridiculously close to crawling! Today he not only got his legs up under himself but also successfully held his weight up and then rocked back and forth and tried really hard to move those legs and arms. Luckily we had the video camera close by and captured the moment!

Standing up!

Micah has discovered that he can "stand up by himself" and loves to show off his new skill! He can't pull up yet but I will place him in front of an object and he just grabs on. He is really very surprisingly sturdy for being 5 months old! He also thinks he can take off walking but that never goes too well!

Bloopers!

Now that you have seen some of the good photos we took yesterday... here are some of the "out takes". Lots more sticking out of the tongue, making funny faces, and general silliness!

Mommy Photo Shoot

Today Micah indulged me again and let me take all sorts of pictures of him. I had a couple of cute little outfits/props I wanted to try to get some pictures of him with. He is of course as adorable as always and we managed to get some decent pics despite my lack of talent behind the lens. I also got Photoshop from my parents for Christmas last year but have just now gotten to start exploring it. Here is my attempt at photographing and editing my images!