Project Baby: 32 Weeks Old

It's the end of August and I am just now looking back and realizing I never posted pictures for 32 weeks. Whoops! Here are some pictures!

Look at those chunky legs!

Project Baby: 31 Weeks & a 7 Month Birthday

It's hard to believe our little guy is already 7 months old! How did that happen?! People say that kids grow up so fast and they are right. They really do grow up so quickly. I wonder where my tiny (if you can call 9 lbs. 3 oz. tiny) little newborn went. Love this boy so much and feel like I have grown and learned so much in the last 7 months. I also feel like I've never slept so little in my life nor got so many gray hairs in such a short amount of time. We love our little boy! He is such a good baby and we are very grateful to have his smiling face in our lives. :)

Thoughts on 31 Weeks:

• Harrison ate peas for the first time this week. He liked them the same as any other food.
• The day s of leaving Harrison on the bed are long gone! He rolls and scoots everywhere.
• If we put him on the floor, he will scoot himself backwards and sideways across the room. He easily get stuck doing this! For example, if there is a chair leg behind him, he may get stuck and that’s as far as he goes. And, boy, does he let us know about it!
• He is reaching/grabbing for everything. He is so quick to grab at things that sometimes we are amazed by the fact that he grazed an item for about .05 seconds and already had it in his hand and was eating it!
• His new favorite food is paper. He LOVES chewing on paper!
• He notices now what room is he is in. His favorite room is the bathroom and he bends in half trying to reach towards the bathroom every time we pass it. He loves looking at himself in the mirror, hanging on the towel rack, and BATHS!
• He is doing so well sitting up. We can now finally say that he is a confident sitter.
• Harrison is definitely a people person. He LOVES people! If he is ornery at home and we take him somewhere else, he suddenly perks up and just wants to look at and “talk” with all the people we meet! He smiles so much at other people and is so interested in making eye contact and watching people.
• He has started sticking his tongue out all the time this week! It is cracking us up. That and panting. We’re not sure if he’s wanting to turn into a puppy or if this is just a phase. We like puppies, but we hope it’s just a phase.
• This guy is STILL sick. It’s been over 2 weeks! I am over it and the lack of sleep it’s causing everyone in this house!

I hate putting Harrison on our bare hardwood floors, but Evan does it all the time.

Evan also does silly things like put Harrison between his feet and walk with him. Sometimes Harrison is entertained by it, but I think not as much as his dad is! :)

Cousin bath time- Harrison had his first bath with anyone other than his mom this week. His cousin came to visit for a little bit with my sister. While we were waiting for my brother-in-law to pick up dinner and then come back and get them, we put these two in the bath together. Harrison LOVED it and just wanted to keep grabbing Michael. It was hilarious! Michael would scoot close to Harrison and then scoot away because Harrison would try to grab him. Isn't it funny how different these two look?

I set Harrison on this chair in his room and asked Evan to take some pictures on Harrison's 7 month birthday. I had to throw this one in there  because he was taking pictures with Harrison's closet in the background! As you can see, I was asking him to NOT show that in the picture!

                            

There's that tongue again!

We got a new rug this week and Harrison LOVES it!

                          

Our confident sitter

I know this one is blurry, but I love his smile! He is our happy boy!

                         

We've been meaning to give Harrison peas for a while and finally gave them to him for the first time on Friday. Out of the pictures I took, I liked this one the best because of how he's trying to grab the spoon with both hands.

 I hadn't had my hair cut in over 15 months and decided it was time! This was a before picture. You can see the after in the pictures below from Evan's LPN graduation/pinning. 

My pinning Evan 

Family picture at his LPN pinning on Saturday 

31 Week photo shoot... couldn't resist posting these pictures! 

Project Baby: 30 Weeks & a Family Hike

I know I always say this, but I feel like every week Harrison is doing SO MANY new things. In fact, daily there are so many new things he is able to do that he couldn't do or wasn't proficient at from the day before. Truly, having a child is like seeing the world with new eyes. For, indeed, to that child, the world is NEW. It's funny who objects that are incredibly simplistic and mundane to adults are fascinating to children. It makes me want to find more joy in the simple pleasures in life again.

Thoughts this week:

• Harrison started/ended the week SICK! Poor guy. He has a cough and cold that isn't getting better. I took the day off on Tuesday to take him in to the doctor for an eye infection. His eye infection got better (mostly) after using the drops prescribed by the doctor. We found out at his appointment that he had gained nearly 1 pound in the past 2.5 weeks! As of Tuesday, he weighed 19 lbs. 2 oz.
• This week, we broke down and borrowed (then bought our own) a humidifier for Harrison. It has helped him to sleep longer in the night back to 6 hours. HALLELUJAH! Doesn't sound like much, but it is so nice when this cough/cold has been keeping him from sleeping in the night and the day. I can't wait for him to get better! It feels like it has been forever since he could breath normally!
• Harrison started open-handed patting things this week. It's SO cute! I love when babies do that. He just wants to pat everything and grab EVERYTHING. 
• The past while, Harrison will try to dive out of our arms to get something he wants or to go see someone (like me or Evan). It's been really cute to have Harrison purposefully lean to come see me when someone else is holding him.
• Towards the end of this week, Harrison started sticking his tongue out more. I don't know if it has to do with teething, but it's so funny to see his little tongue just sticking out sometimes.
• Along those same lines, he has been blowing bubbles for a month or so now and loves doing it. He also loves when we do it back!
• Harrison figured out this week how to bang the keys on the piano. Before, he had lightly tapped the keys and wasn't interested, but I sat down with him on my lap and he LOVED banging the keys.
• His happiest time of the day is still in the morning. He and I always play a little in the mornings before I have to get ready to go to school. I love how happy he is when he first wakes up! He loves when I pat his mouth, but HATES when I touch his nose, even when playing.
• Harrison's favorite book is this favorite a fabric lift-the-flap animal book about love. We lay down and read it together over and over. He loves playing with the flaps and is usually patient when we read through the book. Usually when we read board books, he isn't so patient to keep reading and reading, but he will be with this fabric book.
• This Saturday, we went on a hike together as a family. We hadn't done that since he was 2 months old and now he's 7 months old! YIKES. I need to get back in shape. Harrison and I also went on 3 long walks this week, two of which we were with Evan too.
• Harrison is getting food EVERYWHERE when he eats. He is a really good eater, but he is such a fast mover and loves grabbing so much that it results in food getting everywhere. With one child, it's totally manageable and cute, but it may not be so cute when we have a second child!
• One last thing for this week is that he has been panting when he gets super excited about something. It cracks us up! This combined with sticking out his tongue makes us think he wants to be a little puppy dog! :)

 

Love how fast his hands are moving in this one!

Had to laugh at this picture from our hike... I guess that's why you always ask the person to take two pictures, right?!

Project Baby: 29 Weeks Old & A Nasty Cold

This litle guy is so funny! Where did my tiny baby go? He is getting so grown up and so big. Just last night after I put him into some new jammies, I was looking at him and just felt like he looks like a toddler already! I know that is silly, but he is just getting so big. When people say they grow up fast, they are not lying! In the blink of an eye, he is this HUGE baby doing so many things. Before I know it, he'll be talking and walking.

I really struggled this week with being a working mom. Wait, I've struggled every week. But, this week I just felt like I hardly saw my own child. I felt like he knows his grandma better than he knows me and he wants to see her more than he wants to see me. Maybe this is/isn't true, but it's how I feel. I want so badly to be home with my baby raising him myself. I'm not sure if I can work full-time after this school year. I feel like I'm trying to do EVERYTHING, including running/bookkeeping 3 fundraisers and planning an exchange to/from Germany, but can't do either motherhood or being a teacher justice. Something has to give. Evan has been SO supportive to me and helps me out so much, but it's just hard. I'm doing my best to be a good mom, but I still feel like I hardly see Harrison during the work week... just a few hours everyday. It breaks me heart to think about it. He is happy in spite of it, but I'm not.

SO many new things this week:

• On Monday for family night, I started playing the piano for our opening song and Harrison started "singing" along. It was so adorable! However, when Evan brought him closer to the piano, he stopped and started reaching out for the piano to play.
• He has been doing SO WELL sitting up by himself. Of course, I thought that and then on Saturday, he fell back and grazed his head on a chair leg. I felt so bad! Usually if I'm not sitting RIGHT next to him, I have the Boppy pillow behind him in case he falls over.
• He got a new bath seat this weekend and he LOVES it! I started giving him baths again a few weeks ago, but felt like I needed to get into the bath with him because it's so hard to hold him with one hand and wash him with the other one. I love this new seat and he does too! He loves just splashing and playing with toys in the water.
• This weekend, Harrison started being a grab-anything-in-sight baby. We are on the verge of having to baby-proof our house. Last week, he pulled a clock down on himself by pulling on the cord. We were feeding him dinner on Friday night and Evan opened the frige door for about 5 seconds during which time, Harrison grabbed a paper off the fridge. The kid is lightning fast!
• Harrison also started on Saturday rolling over in his bed in the night. NO! I'm not ready for this. It totally woke him up. I guess this is why people suggest sleep training a baby BEFORE 6 months because at 6 months they are rolling and need to get themselves back to sleep. I ended up putting him to sleep on his tummy a few times during the night over the weekend because it was the only way he would go back to sleep. Silly guy!
• Poor little sweetie has a cold he got from his cousin. I feel SO BAD. He is coughing, has a drippy nose, and has green goopiness in his eyes. I feel so bad for him! Evan gave him a blessing on Sunday and it definitely helped because Harrison is already looking better. I wanted so badly to stay home today with him, but I need to save my sick days for April/May when Evan's mom is in Japan just in case my sister and others can't help and I need to take the day off of school.
• This weekend, Harrison also started talking up a storm! He wants to tell us about everything in his baby talk. It's funny, because he actually started whispering too. This guy cracks us up! I love his smiles, his laughs, and his adorable face. He makes me so happy. It's amazing how happy he is in spite of feeling so crappy. There is something to be learned from that! Even though I didn't sleep a full hour solid last night (because Harrison was waking up coughing), I am going to learn from his example and stay positive! :)

Notice the million toys on this seat that we use to distract him while feeding? He slowly throws each one... one by one onto the floor.

Can't remember why he did this sad face, but I had to capture it. 

Do you see the little tear in his left eye? Sometimes bathy time comes after fussy/eating time. You can clearly see how much he LOVES it!

He loves getting that drain plug!

He had his first time being water-logged after his bath. 

He had these jammies when he was a newborn and now he has 9 month ones. We need to have him wear it and compare the two!

He decided he wanted to honk my nose while he nurses. He pinches me so tight sometimes! P.S. Try not to judge my not done hair, no makeup and tired eyes please. :)