A boy and his dog

I think I've mentioned (a million times!) that Preston and Spencer love each other. Like a lot. As soon as P was crawling at 5.5 months, Spencer all the sudden became very interested in him and wanted to play. And Preston loves chasing her and cracks up when Spencer does pretty much anything.

I took this video like over a month ago and meant to share it earlier - I can't watch it without smiling. Nothing like a boy and his dog!

Preston and Spencer from Kim Ermer on Vimeo.

7 months!

Preston celebrated New Years by turning 7 months on January 1st (and again, slacker mom is late with the post!) I look back at my 6 month post where I talk about how active P was and want to laugh - we are on a whole new level of activity at 7 months! The theme of this month - cruisin' baby!

Likes: speed crawling, pulling up to stand, cruising on any piece of furniture he can find, chasing Spencer, climbing everything in sight, trying to stick his hands in the dogs food bowl, playing peek a boo, reading books, speed crawling over to anything that's "off limits"

Dislikes: being confined in his exersaucer (we'll be putting that away this month), diaper changes, wearing hats, sitting still for more than 5 seconds

Milestones: He learned how to climb up our basement steps (with Jake as a spotter and me looking on trying not to have a heart attack). We're still working on getting back down the steps. He basically is only happy when he's standing up and cruising/trying to walk (or speed crawling - he does this hilarious laugh while he's crawling towards something). His issue is balance and once he has that down, I think he will be walking (or more likely running) in no time.

Eating: Preston has hit a major food loving stage! His favorite food hands down in bananas. He will eat an entire banana for breakfast most days. He's also loving pears, sweet potatoes, peaches, avocado, apple, carrots and zucchini. He's coming around to broccoli and cauliflower. We also introduced meat and he's had chicken and pork BBQ and loved them both.

He also has gotten his pincher grasp down and can get puffs into his mouth with no problems (his favorite puffs are sweet potato flavor). He eats a slice of toast for breakfast that we cut into strips - he sucks on them until they are soft enough to swallow...it's quite hilarious to watch. Honestly, there's really no food we put in front of him that he won't eat at this point and it's really cool to see him try all these new things. Still taking 4 or 5 bottles a day of formula (8 oz at a time).

Sleep: Sleeping at night like a champ...we do bedtime around 6:30/7:00pm and he sleeps through until typically around 6:00am. Sometimes a bit earlier, sometimes later. He naps well on the weekends (we loosely do the EASY method so he's usually taking 3 naps a day). Naps at daycare are still all over the place, but he has so much fun there, so I think he just doesn't want to miss out on anything (FOMO!)

Personality: He continues to be a pretty intense, serious guy but is definitely becoming more smiley and giggly, which I love. He's started with a bit of stranger apprehension (he got a new teacher at daycare and apparently wouldn't let her hold him for over a week!) and takes a while to warm up in new situations. When we go somewhere new, he sits and takes everything in for a while before becoming his crazy, explorer self. But he has started this new thing where he gives us "kisses" and it seriously melts my heart. He also loves crawling over to me or Jake, pulling up so he's standing in our lap and then cuddling his face into our neck - it's pretty much the cutest thing in the world.

Other Development: He finally has 1 bottom tooth that has popped up and the other one is starting to come through as well.  His babbling has increased, but not really saying any words at all. We are starting to hear more consonant sounds ("duh, guh") vs. vowel sounds ("ah, oh, eh") so I guess we will be hearing dada pretty soon. His teachers at daycare have started teaching him sign language and we are hoping to continue that at home for basic signs (more, all done, etc.).

Basically, when I think I cannot love this little boy anymore, he just becomes so much more fun, cuddly, interactive and all around awesome that my heart pretty much explodes on a daily basis. 7 months is my favorite age so far, but I know I'll be saying that in about 2 weeks when he turns 8 months. LOVE him!

2012 in Review

So 2012 was the most amazing, rewarding, crazy, challenging, fun and wonderful year of my life. It flew by in a blur and I cannot wait to see what 2013 has in store for my little family. Here's a quick recap of what we were up to the last 12 months...

January:
We celebrated knowing that the baby was a BOY! I started brainstorming boy nursery ideas. We started taking our hypnobirthing class. My bump had a massive growth spurt:

February:
We 100% decided on a name for baby boy. I got a very clear idea of what I wanted for the nursery, we started by clearing the room and I convinced Jake to paint navy and white stripes. We decided to do more day trips while we still could and took a trip out to Mt. Vernon (George Washington's home): 

March:
We turned a closet in our basement into my office, which is still one of my favorite spaces in our house. The wall stripe painting in the nursery happened! My wonderful friends threw me an amazing baby shower

April:
I celebrated being 8 months pregnant. I sewed the crib skirt and almost lost my mind in frustration. The nursery was 90% done. We went to an amazing engagement ceremony for good friends from college and I got to catch up with girls I hadn't seen in forever, including my friend A who was due 2 weeks after me (and ended up having her son 4 days after I had P!):

May:
We got some interesting news that baby boy was breech and I started doing anything I could think of to get him to flip. I finally gave up and accepted the c-section. Surprise - he flipped all on his own the day before my scheduled c-section! My due date came and went without a baby.  We took a walk on my due date and documented my huge bump:

June:
The month kicked off with our precious baby boy arriving! We settled into being parents and didn't get much sleep. We had newborn pictures taken of Preston. Jake had his first fathers day:

:
July:
Preston turned 1 month old! He celebrated his first 4th of July by attending his first party (and looked very festive in his patriotic tie!). He became a smiley and fun little guy. We took our first overnight trip to Jake's parents river house in Virginia:

August:
We got comfortable with cloth diapers. P turned 2 months old! I enjoyed snuggles with my baby boy. I started back at work and Preston started daycare on the 27th (and we all survived - but it still sucked!). Preston had his first visit to the pool and seemed to like it:

September:
Preston turned 3 months old. I talked about a "normal" day in our life. Preston got baptized (and I was very late with blogging about it!). We took another trip to the river house and enjoyed the sunshine and fresh air:

October:
Preston turned 4 months old. He dressed up as a fish for Halloween (and fell asleep during the Halloween parade at daycare). We visited a pumpkin patch and Preston wasn't quite sure what to make of pumpkins:

November:
Preston turned 5 months old. He started eating solids and we had a fun and messy adventure. We celebrated our first Thanksgiving as a family:

 December:
Preston turned 6 months old (and became super mobile baby who is into everything!). I talked about our sleep training success. Preston met Santa and wasn't a fan. We had a wonderful first Christmas with our very curious little boy!

Bring on 2013!!