linden | eight months

Holy smokes we're eight months old already.  I cannot even begin to tell you how much fun we've had this last month.  Linden's personality is really coming to life these days, and I love it!  There have been so many changes in his abilities and skills this past month that my head is spinning.  But if we got to redo this past month all over again, I'd do it in a heartbeat and wouldn't change a thing!!

 

LAST MONTH: 

 

THIS MONTH:

 

EAT

World's best eater right here folks.  Linden's at a stage in his baby life where he isn't very picky about what foods go into his mouth as long as there's plenty there.  Since that's the case, I've been pushing a lot of veggies, fruits and whole grains (quinoa, farro, oats..) far more than meats and dairy.  Since eating before one year of age is mainly for fun and practice, I've been trying hard to gear his little taste buds more towards the produce with his protein from grain sources.  He'll eventually eat meat and dairy products, but I want to establish his first choice preferences to be veggies, fruit and whole grains.

 

There have been a couple of occasions where we have given him some mac n cheese, but other than that we have avoided processed foods and added sugars.  Speaking of sugar, Conner has never been allowed to have juice or soda and we will do the same for Linden. Then negative side effects of juice and soda far outweigh any of the positives so we just stay away.

 







 

SLEEP

I type this as we've come off some pretty rough nights with this little boy.  We sleep trained him at 6 1/2 months old, but some nights are just plain terrible.  We're finding that the worst of the nights are driven by teething, so I'm hoping that is the cause for the lack of sleep the last three days.

He still gets two naps a day.  His first nap is around 9am and his second is at 1:30pm (both are about 1 to 1 1/2 hours long).  We do our best to get him to bed at night between 7 and 7:30, but it's summertime, so sometimes we don't get him to bed until 8:30pm. 





PLAY

Linden is on the go!! He will not sit still especially for diaper changes.  What used to take 30 seconds now can take 5 minutes because he twists his little body and takes off.  He is starting to prefer certain toys with his favorite being his Tonka truck.  Those good ole Tonka trucks are going to take over our house!

This little boy absolutely loves his big brother and those two will laugh at each other while playing or even riding in the car.  Conner sometimes forgets that Linden is only a baby so sometimes I catch him trying to wrestle Linden, and that little brother takes it in stride (with an occasional loud protest).

 





 

Baby Misc:

Linden is crawling all over creation and will pull himself up on everything he can.

We have belly laughs people!

He learned how to play "So big!" and clap his hands.  We do this about 100 times every night at supper.

He has both of his bottom teeth now and 9 times out of 10 I forget to brush his teeth.

Swimming is no longer a scary thing.  He has a blast splashing water all over Conner when we go to the lake.

   

 PHOTO DUMP:

 

weekend happenings

We are coming off of another perfect summer weekend over here. Sunshine, heat, playgrounds, beaches - you name it, we covered it.

 

Saturday

We decided early Saturday morning that it would be worth our while to head to a nearby town to run a few errands and spend most of the morning at the playground.  The boys were so perfect the whole time.  Normally our days consists of some tantrums, but we cruised through the morning and even lunch without any tears.  Big win. BIG.

 

 

 

We made it home for naps and for our pest control guy to come through and spray our house from carpenter ants.  (FYI, we now add carpenter ants to the list of things gone awry on this house siding project of ours.)

 

Post naps, we chowed down our supper and loaded the boys back up for another perfect outing to the beach and ice cream.

 

I love these two boys!!

 

 

Sunday

Sunday morning was so dang hard on us.  Linden has developed some separation anxiety over the last couple days and it's spilled over into nighttime sleep.  He spend the majority of the night crying so hard until I came in and held him.  He'd cry non-stop.  I'd hold him until he'd calm down and lay him back down.  Then we would do that same dance over and over and over.

 

So after Linden and I recovered from our no-sleep hangover, we marched ourselves out the door to get some fresh air to help wake us up.  We didn't have any set plans, we just drove into town and went from there. 

 

Lucky for us, it landed us at the playground for the first half and, no surprise, at the beach for the second half.  And believe it or not, the boys were little gems once again.

 

 

photo dump:

 



toddler life | thirty three

THIRTY THREE MONTHS

 

Here we are folks.  One more month down to total thirty three months.  We watched Conner accomplish one very big milestone in his little life - potty training!!

I was really leary about starting this little adventure because Conner had ZERO interest in the potty.  But we are so glad that we made that leap to big boy underwear.  It took a better part of the week to be confident in our potty abilities, but as I write this, we are 6 days without any accidents.  (Knock on wood!!)

I'm so proud of this little boy.  Taking one step away from toddlerhood and one step closer to boyhood.
 

Toddler Talks

I love having conversations with this little bird.  Although I definitely figured out that we have to be extra careful about what we say around him because he's really good at repeating things now! ;)

Gone are the days where if he got hurt or had a tummy ache and we were left to do our detective work to figure out what just happened.  Here are the days that I can simply ask him what happened and he can tell me what's wrong.  Makes parenting about 172% easier.

 

 

Toddler Play

Planes, trains and automobiles.  And anything to do with running.  Joe's actually been teaching him how to build forts and hide inside of them, so naturally that's what he wants to do as soon as he gets home from daycare.

With summer in full swing, we've been hitting up the beach whenever possible and occasionally a stop for ice cream afterwards.  It's amazing watching this little kid in the water.  He's never been kosher with wearing arm floaties or a life jacket so we've been extra diligent about making sure he stays safe in the water.  I mean, he's practically a pro at this swimming thing.

 

Toddler Eats

Thank goodness for summer produce! We pull out the veggies and fruits as much as possible.  I've learned that whatever he sees sitting on the counter is what he wants, so I just place fresh fruits or veggies out, and that's what he wants.  That, and chocolate milk.

The kid could live off chocolate milk!  I use a couple teaspoons of Ovaltine mixed in with almond milk to cut down on the unnecessary sugars.  (The kid's got plenty of energy as is.)

 

Toddler Sleep
I've been extra proud of my little bear this past week with bedtime and naps.  Like I said earlier, he's gone 6 nights without any accidents!  He's still going to bed around 9pm each night and we're usually waking him up around 6:15am to get ready for daycare.  His naps are still pretty long on the weekends from 1:30-4:30ish.  (I'm gonna miss it when he weans from naps.  It's such a nice break in the day.)

PHOTO DUMP:

 

10 on 10 | july 2016

10 Photos | 10th of July