Big Getaway

At the request and coordination of Grammy and Grandpa Gedy, we had a family get together at a vacation house near Palo Pinto, TX. Kelley, Riley and Reagan were there, as well as Gedy's daughter Shanna, son Ben and his girlfriend Sydney, then our trio. Stayed Friday and Saturday nights and included a day excursion to Possum Kingdom Lake. If Kole could document his thoughts here, I'm sure he'd say that it was very memorable - lots of breezes in his face and hair, and a gentle rocking that had him either asleep or near-sleep most of the trip. Could have attached 20 pictures, but will settle on some favorites.

First Haircut

Kole's got a big first birthday coming up, so it's time to get properly groomed. Kathy's stylist, Beverly, (not to be confused with my stylist ... myself) did the honors at her shop in south Grand Prairie. Photos are Before ... During ... and After.

The Overall Staus into May

Kole will go into the month of May as a walker. He doesn't do it often right now, and doesn't go very far just yet. But, he does seem to enjoy standing by himself quite a bit. Some other status points:
*Wears 18-24 month clothes
*Size 4 diapers (nappies, for the Brits)
*He eats "2nd-foods" meats and vegetables, normally has two bowls of oatmeal cereal with a fruit mixed in, and still chasing it down with about 20 oz. of formula a day
*He snacks on little cruncy Cheeto-looking things, little fast-disolving crunchy snacks that he normally has when he sits down a the table with us at dinner - which is normally just off his meal schedule.
*He has four visable teeth (central Incisors), with two more coming in on top (Lateral Incisors)
*His bed time is 8pm, and he's normally awake by 7am. His naps usually fall around 10am and 3pm. Lately, his first naps rarely go beyond an hour, and his 2nd naps have frequently gone beyond 2 hours.
*The mattress of his crib has four notches, so to speak, for four different heights to be set at. There's about a foot difference between the highest and lowest setting. Obviously, we started on the highest. But as his reach to the top of the crib rails became easier, the mattress got lower. We are now on the lowest setting, and the next step after this is to get rid of the crib all together and move on to the big-boy bed.
*He never once took to a pacifier. The times when we tried it when he was just a few weeks and months old, he spit it out like it was a bad joke that there was nothing in the nipple.
*He crawls with lightning speed and frequently opens drawers and cabinets. We have safety latches on most of them, but there's still plenty of room for itty-bitty fingers to get smashed. We usually see some tears once a day from this. Or, he'll pull himself up underneath the table, and he's beginning to learn that wood doesn't have a lot of give. More tears. It's a slow learning process.
*He loves playing more physical now. If I lay on the floor, he'll try to crawl over me. When I grab his legs and hold him upside-down and flip him over on the floor, it gets a big giggle, and this hasn't got old yet.
*He likes throwing objects, admiring how far away it's been thrown, crawl after it, inspect and nibble on it, then throw it again. Repeat. He especially likes throwing things on the kitchen tile, where balls and objects have a little more slide on the floor.
*He's a genuinely happy, happy boy. He gets irritable when he's sleepy and hungry, and who doesn't, but otherwise he's a little ball of laughs who is growing very, very quickly.

One small step for the little man ...

Two parts to this video. First is Kole trying to chew the lens off the camera. Pretty funny. Then comes the main event - achieved about 7:30pm tonight, April 30th.

Cognitive Learning

If you're rusty on your English, cognitive learning is the rawest form of taking information - seeing something, reading it, smelling it, whatever, processing the information and responding with an action for a desired result. Observation A = Action B = Desired Result C. It's what makes dogs and chimps seem human. Responding to voice commands and such. Basic human learning - see something, repeat it. For babies it's different because at some point you just see the twinkle in their eye that ... they get it. They're not a helpless infant that only knows how to breathe, eat, do bathroom stuff, stare aimlessly and mindlessly manipulate simple toys. Then, you see the mind evolve and know it's ready to take the next step. You do something to a toy, it makes a noise when you do something to it, and then you get the contemplative stare of: How did that happen? Did I do that?
Kole up to now has been doing some basic mockery - waving and clapping hands. He has toys, like donut-looking things on a stand, and he has figured out that he can pull off the donuts. The basic monkey stuff. But in the last week or two we've seen the product of what I think is cognitive reasoning. He has a baseball toy where if you move the tee the ball sits on it plays music. Before he would swat the tee because he knew it would move. Now we believe he puposely moves the tee to make it play the music. Then came last night. Riley & Reagan (or Kelley, actually) gave Kole a little play set that includes a little car with a ramp. It's barely a foot tall and the car goes down this slide in about 1 second. Nothing elaborate. But Kole loves watching it. Put the car on this top little landing, push it, the car goes down the slide - and sometimes you can make something else fall down when the car goes through it. Kole can watch this over and over until he gets the urge to grab the car then taste it, throw it away then go find Maggie. But last night something clicked in his brain. There had been Observation A for a while, and now he was ready to make an Action B for a Desired Result C. As Kathy was cleaning up after dinner and I was playing on the floor with him (I do more than my share around the house, I promise, but if I don't get home until after 5:00 I have very little time with him until his 8:00 bed time. So - I was getting my daddy time in!) I was playing with the little car thing. After letting the car down the ramp, Kole did something that is essentially simple, but was neat to watch. He grabbed the car and attempted to place it back at the top of the slide. I barked at Kathy and made her watch, and she had the same wide-eyed look of amazement that I did. I took a picutre! It was like .... He gets it! He wants to do it again! So over and over we went. Letting the car down the slide, then letting Kole ungracefully slap the car back up top. After a few minutes, it became throwing the car. Then we would put the car up top and see if he could gently push it, which he responded by either grabbing it back or tackling the whole race track. Then it was time to go casually crawl away, grab some donuts and slap them together and give a gleeful screetch. A brief moment, but we think a real milestone of cognitive learning. Maybe it's one of those things that only another parent can relate to, and I hate thinking about stooping to parental snobbery in relation to the non-parents out there, but this was very exciting for us to see.

First Easter

Kole's first Easter began with a quaint sleep-in. Good thunderstorms in the early morning hours meant snoozing well past 7am. Eventually, as is his routine, he quickly sprouts up to the side of his crib, bouncing like he's on a trampoline and starts happy-squealing. Which, today, prompted mom and dad to observe today's awakening of junior with ... he has risen!
He's just getting over little cold, and we thought we may not take him to church so he won't get other kids sick. As it turned out, he was ready for a nap as it was time to leave for church. So, Kathy went and I stayed behind to keep an eye on him. I was pretty ready for him to get back to church and repent some pretty heinous sins - including desecrating the Bible. Since he's been able to pull himself up, nothing has been safe on top of the coffee table. Remote controls, drinks, magazines ... and yes, even Kathy's Bible. He'll gleefully grab it and sling it to the floor, then crawl carelessly over it back and forth. So, we've been telling him he's committing a major sin. He usually responds with a giggle and a squeal.
Anyway, he takes all of a 30-minute nap while Kathy's away, she comes back and we headed to Shanna's (Gedy's daughter) new place. It's literally 1.5 miles from our house, on the other side of Polo Rd. Grammy and Grandpa Gedy, Kelley with Riley & Reagan (Kelly Don on the road to Georgia), Ben and Sydney, Ava, Gedy's dad Andy, Bruce & Kathy and their 6-month-old Bruce Jr. were all there, along with Shanna's roommate Etta. Big dinner in a big dining room, and a great time had by all.
Then came the big Easter egg hunt. Riley and Reagan pretty much did most of the egg hunting, but we did manage to throw an egg two feet from Kole. After lots of prompting and pointing, as he gazed around everywhere in la-la land, he finally reached out and got his first Easter egg.
Between being passed around and hugged and kissed and loved on by everyone in the house, to Riley playing with him unmercifully, crawling everywhere, pulling himself up to explore new territory, we came home and he was as exhausted as he's ever been in his life - and that's not an exaggeration. Just short of 10 months, he was POOPED from the day, as it would soon be obvious. He napped for more than two hours and would not wake up from casual noise outside his door. If it were a cartoon, you could have lifted his eyelids to find X's on his eyeballs. By 7:30, we woke him just so we could give him his last feeding before bed. Normally, we'll fill a bottle with 7 oz. of formula. Most nights he takes 5 oz, sometimes 6 oz, and a couple of times a week maybe he'll knock out all 7. Tonight - after taking all 7 oz, he was whiny and pitching a fit, so we made him 3 more ounces and he sucked those down. His bed time is normally 9:00, but we figured he was ready to crash again. So, we put him to bed at 8:00, and by 8:15 he was back with X's underneath his eyelids.
Great Easter Sunday - lots of great memories and some good pics.
PHOTOS: Aunt Shanna opens the doors to her home for Easter and Kole responds by immediately seizing control of the TV remote (I keep telling people it's genetic); Kole and Mom after a successful Easter egg hunt; Kole tracking down an egg, approximately 60 seconds after it was placed 2 feet from him. It was filled with chocolate treats which Mom and Dad confiscated.

Spring in Full Swing

Until Kole can walk, he's pretty limited to his physical activity. Especially at a park, where most of the play equipment is on rough rocks. However, we took him to the park to day to swing in a swing and slide down a slide (in Mom's lap). The swing set has one bucket-seat swing for real little guys like him - but even with that we needed to stuff a towel between his back and the swing (a good tip from our neighbor Macko, who also has a 9-month old), or in front of him, to keep Kole from rattling around the bucket seat like a rock. The result was priceless. Kole assumed his open-mouth, tongue-out pose - like a dog hanging his head out the car window on a ride - which is his international sign of sheer joy.
This was at Park Hill Park across the street from us on Robinson Rd.

Balancing Act

Between crawling and walking is aligning all the proper rods and cones of the vestibular. Kole is a quick and willing student. What he's doing in the video he frequently does on his own, without mom or dad's intervention.

Some Slimming/Making a Stand at 9 Months

At Kole's 9-month doctor's appointment, he weighed 21 pounds even - a slight decrease from the 8-month mark. The doctor says this is normal, as he's now crawling and pulling himself up, active and mobile, losing his baby fat. He's almost squarely at the 50-percentile split of the bell-curve for weight of 9-month-olds in the US. He's slightly above average.
On the other hand, at 31-and-1/4 inches long, he's still above the 95th-percentile of US babies at 9 months - meaning less than 5% of babies are longer than he is. He's a string bean - but healthy as a horse. We've been told to start decreasing his bottled formula and increase his cereal, jarred fruits and vegetables, and other jarred meats for added protein.
The top two teeth are coming. One is very noticeable, while the other is still hidden a bit.

The other major development at 9 months has been in concert with his ability to pull himself upright. Lately, he has become adventurous enough to be standing at the coffee table, know that mom and dad are watching ... then slowly, purposely, let go of the table. We've counted up to 3-Mississippi as the longest stand, but he obviously has great curiosity for standing on his own, and trusts his ability to fall backwards on his butt. Sunday night when I came home from Iowa, he was standing between the coffee table and couch, and began the routine of letting go of the table, and giving a 1-Mississippi count or less before grabbing the couch. He's learning balance and obviously has a great adventurous nature to want to keep getting up and trying it again. It's incredible to watch him and just see the wheels turning inside his head, figuring out this whole business of standing upright.
Photo: Not too many mirrors in the house at ground-level for Kole to check himself out in. But there is a handy reflection in the stainless steel of the kitchen trash can, where he frequently finds a familiar friend.

A Major Sprout at 9 months

Nine months old today. Unbelievable. That's ... almost a year.
The developments from 8 months have been remarkable. He is gaining more coordination from a sit-to-crawl position and vice-versa. The newest trick, as the video shows, is his ability to pull himself up. He's mostly doing it in his crib - where he has presented a new challenge when he's grumpy and not wanting to sleep. He'll now stand in his crib and pout. Sometimes, it's funny to watch him try to stand upright right in the middle of the floor. He'll have nothing to grab or support his weight, but he'll lift his butt in the air, straighten out his legs, do a push-up with his arms ... then try to figure out the next step, then quickly give up.

Jumperoo till you can't stand no more

I posted a photo on this a while ago, but it can't hold a candle to the whole effect of seeing the video. The Jumperoo has been one of Kole's favorite little play things - not so much for the junk on it that he diddles and grabs and plays with, but the kid just loves jumping. He can go an hour solid jumping, then rocking and swaying, back to jumping ... repeat. Well, soon enough, nap time will come around. Luckily for us, God bless him, instead of crying or throwing some other whiney fit, he'll simply just doze of in mid-jump or mid-sway.

Redecorating for the rug-rat

If you don't have a mental image of the house before, you'll have to do your best on my descriptions. I can't find a good wide "before" shot of our living room ... "before" Kole started crawling. I can tell you that our sofa/love-seat combo also had a matching single reclining chair, which sat along side an end table between the love seat and our big counter-top of the kitchen, essentially in the bullseye of the living room. Right up under the counter-top on the living room side were two barstools. Also back in our adjoining dining room against the burgandy wall was a dining table and four chairs.
Well ... Junior needs some romping room, and the bottom rung of the barstools were too easy for him to grab onto. It doesn't take much jostling for them to become top-heavy and wobbly. So, out went those. Out went the recliner (into our bedroom, as a nice addition), and the end table was repositioned in the back of the dining nook - where the dining table was swapped out with the pub table and chairs, which had been in our little breakfast nook off our kitchen.
The end result was a ton of space created for crawling, and soon enough for wrestling and rough-housing. Another staple of Kole's infancy was cleared away ... his, um ... (sniff) ... swing. Little romper is too big for the swing, and once that was moved out, the spot seemed an ideal place for his Jumperoo - which he's also not far from outgrowing.
It's very quick to be sentimental about the swing, and the Papasan, which were calming, soothing friends to Kole when he was at his grumpiest. As we're taking it away, Kathy and I event played the little music box - with repetitive notes that have become imprinted into our brains. Kind of a solemn moment of ... 'Remember how this song would cut through the crying and create instant calm?'. They were once simply objects in a box, inherited at one baby shower or another. They soon became trusy friends.
But, the changes are coming. As you see the pictures, I'm sure you'll notice the little glass bar thing and wine rack with little wine and margarita glasses dangling from them. Something needs to be done there, we know. The house is a work in progress. Next up - safety stops on kitchen drawers and cabinets.

Crawling Just Under the Wire at 8 Month Mark

As you'll see, it didn't take long for the munchkin to start scooting around the floor. Excuse the bib, but he's very slobbery from teething again and he can soak an outfit in less than a half-hour without one.
Different measurement today. Instead of weighing myself without him, then with him, then doing the subtraction to get his weight, today I just sat him on our scale. Our scale measures up to every two-tenths (.0, .2, .4, .6, .8) He weighed 21.4 on our scale, which seems like only a small gain from last month, but this is all rough estimate anyway. We converted the two-tenths weight to ounces, then added a few for loose feet hanging off the scale and came up with 21 lbs, 10 ounces. With the measuring tape on the floor with him laying down he measured 31 inches.

Official Crawling: Drop and Drag

With video soon to come, Kole has officially done an act often enough, over a long enough distance, to where we are ready to proclaim it "crawling". For the past 4-6 weeks he has been involved in activity that has been close to crawling, very crawl-like, resembling a crawl or "worming" around ... but not enough of it done with purpose, repeatedly, until yesterday.
The method of choice that seems to be most effective can best be described as a paraplegic who has to drag himself to the things of his desire. Kole will get on both hands and knees, rock back and forth, dry-hump (see previous post) and make all sorts of appearances of forward motion, before finally belly-flopping on the floor, then using both hands to stretch outward then pull and worm the rest of his body forward. With surprisingly quick repetition, he can reload the hands outward, pull forward, over and over, until he's travelled a distance of less than 10 feet in a very short amount of time, his legs snaking uselessly behind him the whole way.
Video to come soon. Just curious if this is a quick transitional phase, or the crawl method of choice for the near future.

Not quite crawling

We have the camera at the ready at all times in hopes of catching the moment Kole decides to start crawling. We've already filled up a tape of false-alarms. Each episode becomes entertaining in its own way. But, what we got tonight we were not quite expecting. Watch for yourself.

Another play day

I've made mention, and previous posts, about Kathy's friends Beverly and Ellie, who she met in childbirth, infant care and breastfeeding classes offered by Arlington Memorial Hospital. Ellie and Beverly ended up having both their babies just before Kathy on June 15th and 16th. They've all kept in touch, calling or emailing, sharing each other's joys and frustrations with their little ones ever since. Today they got together at our house, where again it wasn't just a chance for the moms to get together, but a chance for the babies to interact with one another - and, out of our own curiosity, see how each kid has developed in relation to the others. Kole is obviously the string bean of the group. Beverly's girl Sarah was put in Kole's 'Jumperoo' thing, and her feet were 2 inches short of the ground. They had to put a phone book beneath her for her feet to push against something. Kole only has about an inch on Noah, the little one of Ellie. Kathy says both her friends were surprised at how Kole laughs. Both thier kids will smile and make loud coo sounds and shreiks. But, Kole will occassionally guffaw like an old man - a big, husky, prolonged chortle with big gasps for air. He's done that for quite a while, in fact.
It's not a matter of comparing Kole with other babies in the sense of - is he more advanced, bigger, better, more refined ... it's not like that. It's not vanity for our kid. I guess deep down it's a sense of ... are we helping him develop at a normal rate to his peers? Are we good parents? If he's behind on basic motor skills, is that a reflection on us and what we've done? I guess it seems more paranoid than anything, but we keep being told that it's normal. But, it is kind of cool to know that he's been laughing heartily way before most kids - a good early trait to brag about.
At any rate - here's some pics of today.
I'll also post a pic of Kole in his new big-boy seat. He now eats in a booster seat we have at our dining room table.
PHOTOS: On the left is Beverly with Sarah, then Kathy with Kole, and on the right is Ellie, the cheeky Brit, with Noah. Then the three little ones together. Then Kathy and Kole at the same dining room table I grew up with.

The Swing growth chart

It's hard to show Kole's growth without some level of consistent scale. One of the few things we have around is his swing ... which he is about to outgrow. The maker, Graco, says on its manual that it's for babies "up to 25 pounds". Well, the little sprout is nearly there. The swing was out absolute life saver suring his early infancy. It seems so cruel now, but we've learned that every young parent goes through those phases and moments of ... 'how in the world do we just get him to be quiet?' Sometimes babies just cry inconsolably and every book and magazine article addresses creative ways of carrying, "shushing", rocking, singing/humming, swaying ... every concievable way of quieting a crying baby. Our go-to silencer was the swing. When we realized that it worked more than three or four times in a row, I went to Costco and bought an enormous brick of D-cell batteries, which the swing took. Slowly over time, head-support cushions were removed, and the back was able to be uprighted. Now, he's about to outgrow it and begin to crawl. I'm sure we'll have our moment of semi-sadness, kind of like when we finally packed up his cradle and retired it to the attic. For now, he's still swinging when he gets grumpy, or right after a feeding when he needs to chill for a bit. We don't have to play the accompanying music - which we both can hum each note of each song on pitch. It's become very familiar domain for him, but it's just about time to pack it up.
PHOTOS: Taken at 3-days old ... 7-weeks old ... 7-months old.

7 Months

Kole cracks the 20 pound and 30-inch barrier at his 7-month measure. He has cut his first tooth, and still working on the other other lower bicuspid. He is still not 'officially' crawling, though he has been seen from time to time on all fours, rocking back-and-forth, with some occasional forward movement, and even arms and legs working in unison in a forward manner. He is definitely sitting up, with his tip-overs fewer and longer in between. He's growing before our eyes and it's very, very neat to experience. Four times a day he'll have 6-ounces of formula, and three of those feedings (all but the last) is followed by cereal and/or some "first-foods" vegetables and fruit.
I'm adding recent photos of he and I playing football on the porch while Mom was out shopping; another big smile he gave that shows off his little tooth (if you click the photo and get the bigger image, you can maybe see the little white smudge on his lower gum); and how he likes to stand up next to one of his toys.

Work Hard, Play Harder

A funny recent episode in Kole's Jumperoo is reason enough for a quick update. His little exercise contraption is one of his favorites - he jumps and sways from side to side in it; he loves standing upright, even with assistance. It's great for us because he can be occupied and contained for a few minutes if we need to leave the room, go to the bathroom, whatever. The Jumperoo is a mini carnival of noise and chaos, music and sound effects. So much so that when there is 20 or more seconds of silence, it practically pierces through the house. Kathy and I have both had situations recently where the silence came. It's almost concerning at first ... only to see Kole passed out cold in the Jumperoo. When I took this picture, he was actually fading in and out of sleep - waking up and jumping up and down for about 10 seconds, then the eyes start to fade, the legs stop, the head bows down and he's out again. I was trying not to laugh out loud and wake him.

The snot and slobber factory from teething is in high gear. He can drench a bib within a few hours, and now he's starting to maintain a thick crust of snot around his nostrils to where it looks impossible to breath. Wiping his nose is a trick. It's weird to see how much he's grown up, because now he just sees the Kleenex coming towards him and he starts slashing his head from side to side, and opens the door wide open for him to lose his cutest-kid-in-the-world demeanor and start pitching a whiney fit. It doesn't help that he just has hard, crusty boogers that don't give easily.
Another photo op - he's sitting up in longer and longer intervals. Sometimes more than a minute, before doing something to throw his balance and go heels-over-diaper backwards. Recently, he rolled right into one of the legs of his Papasan (the little reclined-seat we feed him in) and he hit his head hard enough to cry tears. We think it's the first time we've ever seen legitimate tears from crying. But, it didn't last long, he took it like a boy and was back playing within minutes.
While putting Christmas stuff up in the attic, we also put most of his Newborn to 6-month clothes up there. Kathy bought some of those space saver bags that suck the air out (they actually work quite well!) and we retired a large load of clothes until a new little brother or sister claims them ... perhaps.

90th Birthday wish

There has been a previous post here (on July 16) of Kole with his only living great-grandmother, Ora Wood, the mother of Kathy's mother. She turned 90 on December 30th, and the Wood family got together at her house. If you missed the previous story, Ora still lives on Bennie Lane in the Indian Hills neighborhood of Grand Prairie, about 4 houses from the intersection of Bennie and SW 5th - which is where my grandparents (mother's mom and dad) lived all of my life. Kole did his best to steal the show, as all had a good time.
Kole is Ora Wood's 11th great grandchild, and she also has one great-great grandchild.