Operation Hellspawn

i’ve been placing vincent in the crib so he can roll around in there and get used to things. we are still working on naps in the crib, and a little night time in the crib, but the last two days his naps have been messed up cause we’ve been going out. today naptime started with fighting and then this happened:

ugh the standing… we’ll be dropping the crib down so don’t freak out.. we didn’t expect him to do this so soon…

after a few rounds of him standing up and me placing him back into the crib on his back he finally gave up and went to sleep. its getting easier thankfully.

because my son is some kind of suicidal baby hell bent on trying to fling himself off of any high ledge he finds, plus the added crawling bonus, ben and i have no choice but to attempt to condition vincent to sleep in a crib. obviously i’ve been waffling back and forth about this since he was a small baby, because even though i hated bed sharing in the beginning, it really has grown on me. i love baby cuddles, they relax me now instead of stress me out as they did when he was small. i’m comfortable with him now and i’m not as scared of killing him or breaking him as i was when i first had him. but since our bed is not right on the ground (we sleep on box springs and mattress on the ground, no frame, but its still high enough to hurt) we must take steps to contain him when we cannot be in the bed with him. since the idea of going to bed at 7pm is not an option, we decided to put the side on his crib, which sits right next to our bed, and start the process of putting him in the crib so we can have some time alone.

the first night was awful, i honestly did not know where to begin. i nursed him as i usually do before bed, then instead of snuggling up to him till he fell asleep, i snuggled a bit and waited for the drowsy signal then gently placed him in the crib. instantly he was awake, which was ok, he needed to get used to this new bed of his. i let him roll around and fuss and he bonked his head a few times. not wanting him to hurt himself, i dug out the crib bumpers from the crib sheet set i got as a gift from my uncle. tied them around the edge of the crib, and then listened to vincent make horrified cries as he realized he could not see me.

ok so that was a bad idea. i kept popping my head up over the crib to remind him that i was sitting right next to him, but he was inconsolable. after a few hours, and a headache, i gave up, pulled him out of the crib and into the bed, and he fell asleep. he didn’t wake up that night so thankfully there were no sailing off the bed episodes.

a friend of mine on facebook recommended i start out with naps first then move to the overnight part.. that way he could get used to the crib and it wouldn’t be an all night battle. so yesterday i employed that theory. when first nap rolled around, i snuggled and nursed him then laid him in the crib. he rolled around and whined while i removed the crib bumper from the side of the crib that faces the bed. now he could see me sitting on the bed. he was still upset that he was confined but it was not the terrified screams i heard last night. just fussy grumpy baby noises. he curled up in a corner and kicked at the crib slats, i rubbed his leg and he fell asleep. he slept for a whole hour! unfortunately i only got to test one nap that day because we went with ben to his doctor’s appointment and second nap was had in the truck on the way home.

before bed we placed him in the crib again. i let him roll around and fuss for a couple of hours and then let him back into the bed. i’m going to slowly do more and more crib time at night and try to do all naps in the crib. he is currently having first nap in the crib as we speak. this one was better than yesterday. he curled up next to the pillow his grandma made him and fell asleep after i gave him his pacifier and rubbed on his leg.

we’ll get though this i’m sure…

vincent has been attempting to crawl for about a month and a half now.. and FINALLY today was the day. my son is mobile.

i’m not sure if i’m happy or scared at this >_>

my son is teething and working on a milestone at the same time and its not been the most pleasant of experiences. teeth are hard enough but add trying to crawl into the mix and you have a recipe for disaster. we’ve had problems with sleep, and not only is he awake, he wants to crawl so he rolls onto his tummy, props up on his hands and feel, and tries to roll out of the bed. he’s already fallen out of the bed once which made me feel like crap because i was in the bed with him at the time… this kid can climb.. he just can’t successfully crawl.. so he launched himself OVER me. that sucked.

i don’t want to stop bed sharing because i actually have grown kinda fond of snuggling him. i know we will have to eventually but i wasn’t ready to do it so soon. he’ll still be in our room just in the crib with no access to the bed. it’ll be safer for him and we will be able to leave the room instead of hover over him all night long.

he can’t seem to decide if he’s going to crawl or if he wants to just get up and walk. cause he will get in the position for crawling but then tuck his feet under and try to go into the downward dog yoga pose. of course that doesn’t work out too well and he flops over. sometimes he laughs, most times he just gets angry.

today was gorgeous so i dragged the kid out for some sun. sunblock for babies is so ridiculously thick that it makes him look even more pale than he was before i applied it. the sun gleaming off his little head was almost too much for me to bare. we played in the dirt for a while and i let him try to crawl but he just did more of the same stuff that he does inside. then he got too angry, and i got too sweaty and we went back inside for cucumber spears and chicken nuggets (the nuggets for me, the cucumbers for him)

i hope either this tooth or the crawling happens soon because i really don’t enjoy crabby baby.

here we are at 8 months already. i barely wrote anything in april. it was a busy and stressful month for all of us. teeth are coming in again… i think this kid is a non stop teether. i’m sure he would like a break, i know i would

7 months was full of food tasting, and new toys and lots of head bonking. sitting up is a pain in the ass when your house is nothing but hardwood flooring. thankfully he’s gotten to the point where he will sit up and not topple over unless he gets distracted by something behind him. he has learned to get up on his hands and knees but as of yet, he cannot crawl. he will shove himself backwards, but forward still eludes him, much to his dismay.

we’ve had a lot of outdoors time this month as well thanks to nice days and warm temperatures. vincent likes to sit and watch the trees move in the wind and likes to yell and hear himself echoed all around the ridge we live on.

i’m hoping 8 months will prove to be even more exciting and hopefully some crawling! to celebrate his 8th month alive we went on a drive and took him to golden corral. he had a bit of veggies and even a little taste of banana pudding. we also let him try a little ice cream but he didn’t seem to like it much.

as i was giving him his bath this evening i realized that while i usually celebrate another month of us surviving as parents, i realized he is surviving another month of being our son. hopefully, we’re doing it right.

wow this month went fast. 6 months was miserable with all the teething but the first day of 7 months seems to be much less sucky for vincent (though i’m a different story, i think the mother in law may have given me a cold).

while we don’t celebrate easter as a religious holiday, i am totally hoping to do egg finding and easter bunny things with him as he grows up. his grand mama gave him this cute my first easter plushie so i figured i’d show it off

at 7 months vincent is now wearing 12 month and 18 month clothes! holy crap this is a big kid… but as the doctor mentioned at his 6 month appointment, he’s still proportionate, which means he’s not overweight, or abnormal in any way, just gonna be a big dude when he grows up.

as he ages, i find it harder and harder to get a nice photo of him for these monthly shots. i still remember laying him in this chair when he was 2 months old, and now here he sits all by himself, not even propped up.

i am in awe at just how fast all of this has gone…

vincent is sprouting all kinds of teeth lately and its left us both a bit miserable. currently we’re working on the very front top teeth. the left one has just broken though, and the right one is still under the gum but it will probably be here soon enough. the very day he turned 6 months his teeth started making an appearance. his 6 month day was filled with awful diapers and diaper rash and crying, only to realize at his 6 month appointment a couple days later that he had two bottom teeth! i hadn’t even noticed!

after those, a week went by and suddenly he had his upper canine teeth. the next week these front top teeth started making their way in. so march has been a miserable month full of sad. i’ve been trying to help him out any way i can, with frozen washcloths, teething rings, cuddles, teething tablets, and nursing when i can but he’s been biting a lot so i’ve just resorted to giving him a paci to chomp down on. he seems to like that the best.

this week i decided to give sensory play a try and found a cool thing on pinterest. i poured a little water in his high chair tray and let him go crazy with it!

vincent loves water, he’s always splashing around in the bath so i had a feeling he would enjoy this as well.

it took his mind off of being in pain from teething, so that was nice at least.

i have been uploading more and more to youtube, so if you like little short videos of babies, you should check my channel out! ben and i often joke about being a youtube family but we’re both too lazy to really vlog like those families, still i do take some cute videos of vincent here and there and who knows what we’ll end up doing in the future.

yesterday was vincent’s first taste of banana.

i’m not sure if he liked it or not. we had trouble holding it, so he mostly just chased it around the tray which was kinda funny. he tasted a bit of the stuff that got on his hands but over all he didn’t get much in his mouth. i’m going to try cutting it in a different way today to try again.

a couple of days ago the weather was really nice so i tossed a blanket onto the grass in the backyard and plopped down with vincent for some sun.

first, on monday, we had our 6 month dr’s appointment. vincent is doing really well in the growing department, the doctor is really thrilled with his progress. he said he’s big but proportionate in head, height, and weight, and that he will most likely be pretty tall if he continues to grow like this. we have big dudes on both sides of the family, and really tall guys on my side of the family, so vincent is probably going to be taller than us both lol.

then we had our shots, and those always suck, but while he was having his shots, he cried and as i was comforting him i glanced at his open mouth and realized HOLY CRAP MY KID HAS TEETH! the bottom middle teeth are making their way in and they are sharp! i touched them with my finger and now i understand why babies get so cranky when teeth come in so on our way home we stocked up on some teething supplies. a mesh feeder for ice cubes, and a box of hylands teething tablets.

we came home with groceries hoping to give vincent a taste of sweet potatoes but he was just not a happy camper so he had a snuggle and a boob and went to bed.

the next morning as i was changing his diaper i realized OMG MORE TEETH! a top tooth is making an appearance as well! this kid is gonna be a snaggle tooth vampire! he was in better spirits so we decided that was the day and i baked some pieces of sweet potato and put them in the fridge to cool down. we are doing baby led solids which means we just cut things into french fry shape and hand it to him to feed himself. obviously at the beginning its not going to be perfect baby eating… most of it was a mess, but it was cute seeing his face as he tasted something besides milk for once.

his high chair is a big huge even though he is a huge baby so we did have a bit of a problem with him sliding down in it. today i tried a bit more sweet potatoes while he sat in his swing which has a small snack tray attached to it that worked much better and he seemed a bit more confident.

so yeah.. lots of exciting newness going on and i’m enjoying learning