Tag Archives: Theo

8 Months

Time is really going by too quickly. I look at Theo and can’t believe how big he is. This month has been full of amazing developments (and some scares). I’ll start on a positive note – Theo is starting to become much more mobile. He’s not crawling – but he does this cute/odd thing where he rolls from his tummy to his back – and then back to his tummy to help maneuver himself. I can tell he wants to get from point A to point B – he certainly gets frustrated when he isn’t able to get where he wants fast enough! He is also starting to move backwards (using his legs) while he is on his back. It doesn’t seem like he’s kicking to move himself – rather, the movement is just a byproduct of kicking his legs. In any case, I have a feeling that true crawling isn’t far too far in the distance.

Theo had one of his biggest “firsts” this month – his first dip in the pool! Theo had a blast swimming with Daddy and using his new floatation device. He loves bath time, so this really wasn’t a huge surprise to us. We are going to have a great time in Palm Springs! In other news, Theo’s new favorite party trick (besides being ridiculously cute) is clapping his hands. He has just started to clap on demand (though he definitely has to be in the right kind of mood!) He will also give you a high five – if he’s feeling particularly cheerful. He has also started to wave good-bye – though he is a little delayed. The wave usually comes about 30 seconds after the person has left his sight! Dr. Araya mentioned that this might happen – I guess it’s not as weird as we thought it was :-)

Speaking of Dr. Araya, we had Theo’s 8 month appointment the other day. She is really happy with his overall development – but is a little concerned about his weight gain. He hasn’t gained much in the past few months – and she not sure why he isn’t keeping up with the “curve”. His height and head circumference have been growing perfectly – all well above the 90%. His weight is another story, he has been dropping percentage points and is now in the 70% for weight. It’s a problem I would love to have! In any case, we have started to explore options to increase his weight gain. In Dr. Araya’s words – feed Theo the way you wish you could eat. This means full-fat dairy (yogurt, cheese, butter) and protein including egg yolks and ground beef. She would like us to keep him away from egg whites until he is a year – so for now, Theo is my perfect hard boiled egg partner. We have stopped pureeing his food (so happy I didn’t cave and buy one of those baby bullets – since it would have been in use for all of 2 1/2 months!) and we are basically feeding him smaller versions of what we are eating. Since he only has two teeth – I am being cautious (probably overly cautious) about the size of the morsels we give him…but choking terrifies me. Speaking of teeth – Theo did what I had been fearing he would do since day 1…he BIT me. There. The first time he clamped down with those razor sharp teeth – I flinched and laughed out of surprise and pain. Then, as if to test me – he bit down again. When he bit me a THIRD time, I got serious. I firmly told him no and pulled him off. I don’t know if it was the shock of being pulled off – or my stern voice – but he certainly got the message. He started to cry and it was a different kind of cry than I had ever heard. He was clearly upset that I had reprimanded him and it took a few minutes for him to calm down. When he started to feed again, he didn’t bite down at all – and hasn’t bitten me since. Is he totally reformed? Who knows? But I’m certainly grateful that he seems to have learned his lesson for now.

Other lessons learned this month include the dangers of overfeeding. It was the last day of Pesach and I fed Theo some sweet potato soup. He was enjoying it so much that he just kept going – and going. I think he probably ate two adult servings. He just loved that soup. Well, he certainly paid a price. After he fell asleep, my mom and I went out for a night walk. When we returned, we found my dad at the front door saying “everything is okay, but the paramedics are on their way for Theo.” Naturally, I flipped out and ran upstairs to find a vomit covered Theo, about to put in the bath. Apparently, about an hour after he fells asleep, he awoke crying. Jeff went to go check on him and felt some wetness in the crip. He picked Theo up to console him, and Theo vomited all over him. Having never experienced vomit like that, Jeff called 911. Had I been there – I would have done the same. The fire department showed up (6 burly-ish men) in our living room and checked Theo out. We definitely felt a little silly at that point – by then Theo seemed totally fine. Still, they recommended that we take him to the emergency room (just to be safe). We decided against going in the ambulance, Theo is too young to appreciate the ride anyway. On our way to the ER, Theo started violently throwing up in his carseat (this was not fun to clean up!) Once at the ER, Theo was in much better spirits. Besides for the vomit stuck to his hair, you would never know anything was wrong with him! The staff at the ER was super friendly and we were in and out within an hour – which was UNBELIEVABLY fast. They examined him thoroughly, and gave us a prescription for some anti-nausea medication. In retrospect, we probably didn’t need to take him to the ER, but I’m happy we did. It’s a right of passage, and I’m just happy that it turned out to be a case of overeating and not something more serious. When we told Dr. Araya about the ordeal, she gave us that look of “oh you guys are SUCH first time parents” but we figure we only get to be this neurotic once, so we might as well take advantage of it.

7 Months

Theo is 7 months old! I can’t believe how quickly this month has gone by – we have been having so much fun with him. Some exciting news…this past Friday (3/8/13) we noticed Theo’s very first teeth coming in! The bottom center teeth are peeking through – which is pretty amazing to watch. We have noticed that he is a little more irritable at times, but thankfully the teething doesn’t seem to have impacted his sleeping (at least not yet!) What HAS impacted his sleep is the fact that he has completely mastered rolling from his back to tummy. The past few nights he has been waking up at around 9ish – and sure enough, when we check on him via camera, he is on his stomach. I know eventually he’ll either learn to enjoy sleeping on his tummy, or he’ll just have to figure out how to roll back over.

Tower of Babble

Theo is doing this new thing lately – we call it the “silent babble”. He moves his lips like he is trying to talk – but nothing comes out! I’m not sure if he is just mimicking us – or trying to communicate…or a little of both! Needless to say, we think it’s very cute :-)

Stop, Drop, and……. Finally!

He finally did it!!!!
(Well, he actually did it on February 20, but I’m just now posting about it.)
Well, ACTUALLY, he did it a few days earlier than February 20, but this was the first time we caught him on camera.
Theo rolled over!
And from his back to his tummy (which I was told usually came AFTER the other way around).
Still no expert at rolling from his tummy to his back, but we hope that will come soon.

He’s SO much more active and happier and more talkative since his bout with RSV.
And his appetite has come back with a vengeance.
The ladies at the daycare are in constant awe of how much this kid packs away.
He’s our hungry little monkey.

Ash should be posting some new pics and video soon with some exctining info, so be on the lookout.

6 Months Old!

Our little man is 6 months old! But before we get to the latest…I have to give a HUGE shout out to Jeff – I came to work on Valentines Day to find the most adorable gift waiting for me (see the Teddy Bear below). The roses that he sent were beautiful as well – but that Teddy Bear made me melt!!!!

While I was getting all emotional at the office, Jeff was at home taking care of Theo. It all started a few weeks ago. Theo came down with a rash that started on his stomach and moved up to his cheeks. The rash must have itched, because the next few days the spots on his face got infected (we think Theo must have scratched them). Within a day or so, we noticed that Theo had developed a slight cough. It started out light, but as the weekend went on, the coughing and wheezing got worse. We took him to the pediatrician to get it checked out and it turned out he had a case of RSV. Theo stayed home from daycare all week (Jeff got to play the role of stay-at-home daddy) and is doing MUCH better. There is still a hint of a cough, but he’s definitely on the mend. The inhaler that was prescribed also seemed to help – though he SCREAMED every time we tried to give him a puff. Theo was a real trooper throughout the whole ordeal…his appetite decreased and he was more lethargic…but he still managed to keep sleeping through the night.

In other Theo news, he is REALLY starting to enjoy rice cereal! He gets so excited to eat it and always finishes whatever we prepare for him. We tried to introduce him to carrots…not as successful. We have attempted to hide the carrots in the rice cereal – but Theo is just too smart for that game. We are going to try another food this week – perhaps we’ll have better luck with Sweet Potato.

We also had a HUGE breakthrough – on Feb 16th Theo rolled over for the first time! We have been waiting for this moment…but didn’t expect it to happen the way it did! We put Theo down for a nap in the afternoon, and about an hour in – heard him crying. His cry sounded a little more “desperate” than usual, so I peeked into his room to make sure he was okay. Sure enough, he had managed to roll from him back to his tummy – and didn’t seem to know how to get back onto his back! Maybe he was just as shocked to be in that new position as we were to see him! Even though we weren’t there to witness the actual roll, we were very excited :-)

Theo’s First Bite!

Last night (1/26/13) Theo achieved a major milestone – he had his first bites of solid food! Check out the video below – I wouldn’t say he *hated* the rice cereal…but I don’t think it’s his favorite thing either. In any case, we are going to start introducing vegetables next week – hopefully he’ll enjoy those a bit more!

5 Months!

Hard to believe…but our little man is 5 months old! Now that he spends most of his day in daycare, it’s really starting to hit me that we may miss some major milestones. We are still waiting for him to officially roll over – he’s getting really good at rolling from side to side, but hasn’t quite figured out how to push himself over the edge without assistance. We keep thinking that “today will be the day” – since it looks like he’s really close – but it just hasn’t happened yet.

One thing he IS doing really well is babbling – he has completely mastered “dada” and says it for just about everything. Its really exciting to hear something recognizable come out of his mouth – but it will be even more exciting when he says it and actually means that he wants his dad’s attention. Another thing he’s doing well is sitting up unassisted – though we definitely are keeping a close watch since he does have the tendency to get to just fall over unannounced when he’s tired. We have started to have him sit up during bath-time, which has increased his love of the bath to a whole new level. This kid lives for bath time – the bath “sign” generates as much as excitement as the sign for milk – another favorite activity!

This month was full of firsts for us (and Theo) – we had our first after-hours phone call to the doctor after seeing a rash break out all over Theo’s body. Turns out, kids just get rashes sometimes – though his doctor suspects this one was caused by a virus he picked up (probably at daycare). He didn’t really have any other symptoms, except for some lethargic behavior so she wasn’t too concerned. It was also our first family trip to the snow! We drove up to Mountain High (about 1 1/2 hours away) with our friends Josh and Amy. Theo was bundled up – and looked great in his new snowpants. While he didn’t actually touch the snow, we think he still had a great time.

In other news, Theo had a great Dr. appointment this month. Dr. Araya is really happy with his development overall. She was a little concerned that he didn’t gain as much weight this month as he had in previous months, but she suspects that the virus had something to do with it. Below are his latest stats:

Weight: 19lb, 11oz (95%)

Height:27 1/2 inches (95%)

Head: 45 cm (97%)

Two Months!