Monday, November 12, 2012

10 out of 12

what is this cold white stuff?
I truly cannot believe that it has been 10 months since we welcomed the most amazing gift from God into our home and our hearts. Our lives changed forever that day, and I am so thankful for our new life as a family of three.  Riggs brings so much laughter and joy into our lives and every morning that I see his big eyes and even bigger smile beaming out of his crib, I am just completely overwhelmed with love  for him.  He is such a huge blessing to both Steve and I and we love him more and more everyday!

This last month has been a crazy one for Riggs, full of growth and changes that I can barely keep up with!  I honestly don't even know where to start, so I think I'll just make a list of everything I can think of...


mobility:  A day or two after I wrote his nine month post he started being able to go from sitting to crawling and from crawling to sitting with ease.  He rolls all around now too, it's a trial to try and change his diaper or put clothes on him if he's in the mood to be doing something else.  He will flip over in an instant and try to crawl right off his changing table (scary!).  Just this weekend when we were in Seattle he started actually crawling on his hands and knees to get around, but he's still not sure about it and now that we are home prefers sliding around like before.  He started pulling himself up to stand in the middle of October, but was very shaky and fell over nearly every time.  Now he pulls himself up to stand and is starting to "cruise" (walking along the couch while standing up for example).  It is so crazy!  I am so not ready for him to be standing and walking on his own (I'll admit it, I'm lazy lol).

showing off his standing skills
(and doing his best Dopey impression lol)
food:  Riggs is a solid eating machine now!  His favorite food of all is any kind of soup with vegetables or beans or noodles.  He eats about three meals a day now with one or two snacks thrown in there somewhere.  I've found that if he doesn't eat a good dinner, he wakes up more often in the night to breastfeed.  He's only breastfeeds three or four times a day now and sucks it down in about 5 minutes per side.  I'm okay with the decrease in nursing, but I sure do miss all the snuggling I used to get during longer nursing sessions!  He loves to feed himself, but if he's really hungry he usually would rather I feed him.  He drinks mostly water, but occasionally will have some coconut milk too.

talking:  Dada is still his favorite word, but he is saying mama more now as well although I still think he says dog (doh) and more (nanananaaa) on a more regular basis than mama.  He also says aht all.the.time too and I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean. He says it really fast and short and he loves it if you say it back to him.  He also babbles to himself a lot when he's playing and I love to hear his little conversations.  He loves to blow raspberries too, and isn't growling nearly as much as he used to (sad).  Laughing is really funny to Riggs and anytime Steve and I laugh about something he starts laughing too (so cute!).

blowing some mad raspberries

teeth:  This has not been the easiest month as far as teething goes. He had two teeth come in the last two weeks, and they gave him more trouble than all of his other teeth combined!  He actually had a stuffy/runny nose, red, rashy cheeks and was pretty fussy (for him).  Luckily they are both through the skin now and as of yesterday he is feeling a lot better. That brings is total number of teeth up to eight, and I love his toothy grin so much!

he makes this face ALOT 
sleep:  Riggs has been sleeping in his own room for just about a month now and despite a few bumps in the road, it has gone so much better than I ever could have expected.  I needed it more than I realized, and am enjoying the "me" time I get as a result so much!

growth:  Despite all the food he's been eating, he's actually lost 4 oz since his weigh in last month.  He's 20 lbs 10 oz (36th %) and 30.5 inches long (93rd %) and I guess all his food is going to his head because it's grown a whole centimeter and is now 48 cms (91 %).  The funny thing is that now his weight for length ratio is in the 10th percentile, which means that he weighs less than 90% of other babies that are the same length as him.  I guess he really takes after Steve lol.  He is still wearing some of his 6-12 month clothes, but they are getting pretty small.  For the most part he is now wearing 12 months size clothes - the 12-18 months sizes are all the right length but are super baggy on him.  He wears size 3 Target diapers, but I noticed that in the Seventh Generations diapers he needed size 4.  His feet have grown a lot in the last month or two and now he wears size 4 shoes and 12-24 month socks.

play:  Although he has quite a few little toys that are age appropriate for him, he doesn't really care for any of them.  He's just not that into toys!  Anything that he's not supposed to be getting into is much more interesting for him.  He loves to roll Steve's office chair back and forth, or climb up on Tutka's kennel to open the latch and close it again.  He also loves to open and close the cabinets and pull things out of them.  It's so funny to see how his little mind works, it's like he has a special radar for things that are dangerous and gravitates right to them!  He still loves to play "catch" but his new favorite thing to do is to "give me five".  Steve taught him two weeks ago and he loves it!  He will do it over and over and sometimes with both hands...so funny!  He still loves to read although I'm pretty sure his favorite part is turning the page.  Oh and Tutka's tail and feet are some of his favorite things to play with (and chew on - eww).  Tutka is so patient with him and just lays there calmly while Riggs crawls all over him and pulls on his tail and his legs.  Beau is not a big fan of "playtime" with Riggs and for the most part avoids him like the plague.

a day in the life:  I've never really done a timeline of what Riggs' days are like mostly because he just wasn't really on a schedule until we started putting him to bed in his own room and then all of the sudden he just sort of put himself on a schedule.  Most of the time I love that he is on a schedule now - it's really nice to have the predictability and to be able to plan our days around it.  But sometimes I feel like I'm sort of a slave to his schedule and worry when we deviate from it.  Here's how things usually go:

7 or 7:30 - I usually start to hear noises from his room, where he plays in his crib happily for up to 15 minutes waiting for me to come in and get him.  I change his diaper and slather him with coconut oil before getting him dressed for the day.  If he only got up to eat at the beginning of the night (before midnight) I will breastfeed him too.  If he woke up to eat after midnight, I don't usually feed him until nap time.
8 to 9 - He plays on the floor in his room or the living room, crawling all around and climbing on everything.
9 - I put him in his high chair and feed him breakfast, either a banana and oatmeal or some coconut milk yogurt mixed with fruit.  He also feeds himself little fruity cheerios if he's in the mood.
9:45 - I change his diaper and breastfeed him in the rocking chair in his room and then he goes down for a nap.
11:15 or 11:30 - He wakes up and I change his diaper if it needs it and then he gets down to play for a while.
12:30 - We eat lunch together.  Usually I will share something with him, like soup and some bread (which he can eat by himself).  Sometimes I feed him baby food if I don't eat something that is easy to share with him.  He also usually eats some little cheese puffs and drinks a whole sippy cup of water.
1 or 1:15 - He gets down to play some more, or we read some books together in his room.  As you can tell he is really good at playing by himself and prefers too.  Sometimes I try to play with him when he's playing with his cube but he usually just pushes my hands away and crawls off to do something else so I am just basically watching his every move during his playtimes to make sure that he's not playing with something that is dangerous or off limits.
2:00 or 2:30 - I change his diaper and breastfeed him and then he goes down for his afternoon nap.
3:30 or 4 - he wakes up and we usually take the dogs for a walk, or at least go out in the yard for a while to throw the ball for Tutka.  He loves going in the stroller and being outside to watch the dogs run and play.
5:30 - I usually put him in the high chair to eat a snack on his own while I clean up and get dinner ready and just get ready for Steve to get home in general.
6:15 or 6:30 - We all eat dinner around this time, which changes a little depending on when Steve gets home from work.
6:45 - Riggs takes a bath while I clean up from dinner and get Riggs room ready for bedtime (fill up the humidifier and get his pjs and diaper out.  I also melt some coconut oil for after his bath).  Because of his skin problems giving him a bath every night is necessary but sort of tricky.  We put oil in the bath and let him play and soak for up to 15 minutes then we have to use the blow dryer to make sure he is dry in all his nooks and crannies.  After he's dry Steve usually entertains him/holds him still while I slather him in coconut oil, and then put his diaper and pjs on.  It sounds like a lot but if we don't do all of those steps he has rough scaly dry patches all over and cracked Eczema patches on the backs of his knees.  Even when we are religious about keeping his skin hydrated, he will still have rough, dry patches on his elbows and arms and sometimes his cheeks.  It's pretty frustrating, but most of the time I think it bothers me more than him.
7:15 or 7:30 - I read him his favorite bedtime book (this and/or this sometimes), then breastfeed him.  While he's eating I sing him songs and pray with him and then he goes into his crib and goes to sleep.  Some times he wakes up only once a night and sometimes he wakes up more (the most is 4 times), but every time he just wants to eat and then goes right back to sleep (other than that one horrible night, poor little guy!).


Now you know every little thing you could possibly know about Riggs lol and this is the longest post ever!  But I love recording as much as I can in these posts so I never forget all the funny little things he does.  We love our little chickabee so much and are so proud of him.  I just love seeing him learn and grow but I definitely miss the sweet little baby he used to be.  Motherhood is so bittersweet!

4 comments:

  1. SO handsome!!! My son is 10 months old and I can't wait until it snows!

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    1. Aww thank you! Isn't 10 months such a fun age? We are loving it. I can't wait for it to snow more here too, :)

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  2. I love how you slather coconut oil on him! Lol- wish someone would do that for me. Reading about your day just gets me more excited to see you guys! PS- I ADORE the growling grrr face :) He is going to get all the ladies with that one lol <3 love love love

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    1. Ha I'd slather coconut oil on you lol ;) Isn't his growl with his crinkled nose just the cutest?! xoxo

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