One Year Update!

Wow I can't believe it's been a year. Yes yes I know that's very cliche but there's a reason so many people react this way to their baby's first birthday. This past year has gone SO fast and Maddox is getting SO big! This boy is 19 lbs already. Still on the little side but big for him.

Birthday Party Shot. 

Maddox has been eating solids really well. He literally eats anything that we put in front of him so far. He loves pasta with any kind of sauce. He's not a huge fan of chicken or veggies. He does not eat much for raw vegetables yet. He loves eggs, toast, and pancakes but is not a huge fan of bacon (more for me!). He so far does not really like beef (roast specifically) and hasn't had much pork yet as I don't cook pork (except bacon yum!). In the past week Maddox has learned how to eat off of a plate, drink from a cup while holding it himself and drink from a straw. Go go little man!

For his birthday we did the obligatory cake smash. I made a banana cake (and cupcakes) with this amazing whipped cream cheese frosting. They were soo tasty! Thank you to my mom for taking pictures for us!

Maddox's mini cake.

First Taste

Cake smashing is hard work

Breast Feeding

This boy is weaning himself (cry). My primary goal was to go to 1 year and we made it that far. My secondary goal was 2 years. Health Canada recommends giving babies breast milk until  they are 2 years old so I was to follow his lead but set a cut off age of 2 years. Well about 2 months ago he started to wean on his own. We used to nurse after every nap and first thing in the morning as well as before bed. Over about 2 weeks Maddox stopped nursing during the day. He was just not interested so I eventually stopped offering. He held onto the morning nursing session until recently. I think about 3 weeks ago we stopped that one he just wasn't interested anymore. And just last week he started to not want to nurse before bed. In the past 5 days he's nursed before bed once. He does still nurse once overnight which I am totally ok with because we don't get much for cuddles these days. Boy is busy!

EDIT: As I'm proof reading this and procrastinating on finishing and posting it Maddox is pretty much completely weaned. Last night he woke and I offered the boob but he only sucked like 3 times on each side. He got practically nothing. I think we may be done. :( Boo yay!


Sleeping

Sleeping is going really really well! He still has 2 naps a day. The first nap is usually from 11-1ish and his second nap is from 3:30 or 4 until about 5. He's been going down really easy for this week. Just put him down and walk away. Bedtime is still at 7 and he's usually up for the day between 8 and 9.

Bedtime is usually a bit different. If he had a really messy supper we give him a bath. Usually at about 6;30. After his bath we brush his teeth, put on his jammies and sleep sack, read him a story and then snuggle for as long as he'll let us. It's usually less than a minute but I'll take what I can get. Then we put him down with his soother and walk away. He puts himself to sleep really well. He will generally wake up between midnight and 3 to nurse and then sleeps right through.



Favorite things

Right now Maddox's favorite things include his bunny and his penguin (and still his blanky of course). He also loves to talk while he's eating including having yelling matches with Mommy or Daddy.

He likes to do things randomly if he hears a word he knows in the conversation. For example if we are talking about someone jumping when he hears the word "jumping" he will like half squat and kind of jump back up. He can't jump off the ground yet but he sure tries. Other words he responds to are bye bye, he will wave bye; kisses, he will give you a very messy, all tongue kiss; bonk, he will bonk his forehead into yours.

He has also started to "shake his booty" courtesy of one of the girls I take care of. lol If you tell him to shake it he will stick his bum out and kind of pop back up. So funny.


Scary things

The only thing that scares him consistently is the sound of ripping a piece of duct tape off of the roll. Otherwise he's a pretty happy boy.

Well that's about all we have had going on since the last update. Thanks for reading my random ramblings.

Later all.

Update time!

Oh wow it has been a while since I updated on here! So much to share! Maddox update first.

Maddox is almost a year old! Crazy! He started walking this week and in a matter of days he has gone from just taking a couple steps to walking EVERYWHERE. He walks more than he crawls now. It's crazy!

He's still not talking a while lot. The only word he says that I think he actually knows what it means is Mama. That being said if I say Daddy is home he gets super excited and starts hollering for him so he has started to understand words.

Right now his favorite thing is to dig through the cardboard recycling bin pulling out all kinds of treasures and then walking around with one in each hand. When Mommy forgets to block it he gets into the bottle bin...so far I've only caught him sucking on 1 bottle of wine.

The cutest things Maddox does right now are:

Yelling when Daddy is home and getting very excited.
If you tell while Maddox is eating he will yell back at you.
When he's on his changing pad getting his bum changed he plays with his feet just like when he was tiny and first discovered them.
When you pick him up he makes the most amazing happy squeal and grabs you.
He 'shakes' everything. He grabs something with both hands and shakes. If the item is stationary HE shakes, if not the item shakes.
If you tell him to 'Bonk' he will bonk his forehead into yours.
He gives kisses. Messy, open mouthed, all tongue, baby kisses.
He also gives high fives and waves bye bye.
He has discovered his boy bits...

Nursing is going really well still. He is starting to drop one of his daytime nursing sessions. Usually the one after his first nap is the one he's suddenly to busy for. So he nurses when he wakes up, once or twice during the day, bedtime and once usually at night.

He has 8 teeth now and eats EVERYTHING we put in front of him. I think since he started eating solids he's only spit something out once and it was just the other day. (Macaroni salad)

Sleeping wise he seems to have suddenly figured it out. He goes down at 7 and sleeps until 8 or 8:30 with 1 or 2 wake ups to nurse. He wakes between 3 and 5 and sometimes before midnight. Last night he only woke up once and just wanted his soother back. I must say I am a very happy Momma these days only being woken up once at night. It's wonderful!

Ok me update. In the last blog I mentioned that I was going to start running again. Well it went really good! I completed the couch to 5k program at the end of August and have taken a couple week break. I will start the couch to 10k program tomorrow with the goal of finishing that by new years. I guess I will update on that one when the time comes.

This post is getting out of control long so I'm going to go ahead and end it here. Further updates to come in a later blog post.

Crawling, Standing, Climbing Oh My!

Wow Maddox has been a busy boy lately. He's crawling like crazy and getting into EVERYTHING! He is so much fun right now. He's even started to beeline for something if he thinks you are going to go get him. He tries to get there before he's caught. It's so cute!

He is also standing like crazy. He pulls up on everything and stands there babbling and bobbing around. He's starting to cruise around a bit and has even practised standing unsupported. He's gone as long as 10 seconds standing unassisted!

Sleep wise he's been MUCH better these days. He goes to bed around 8 and will often sleep until 1 or 2 before he wants a feed. If he does wake it's usually just to give him his soother back. He has had a bit of a cold the past week which I think is the main reason he's waking at night aside from a feed. The poor boy. It's been over a week since his cough started so it's time to take him in to get looked at. Our doctors office does walk-ins in the afternoon so we will try to get down for that today.

His naps have been going very well too. Now that the novelty of crawling and standing has worn off a bit and he has learned to lay down from standing he has gotten back into putting himself to sleep for naps for the most part. I can put him down wide awake and walk away and about half the time he will be asleep before I even think to check on him. The other half of the time he will holler for me, I'll go cuddle him for a bit, put him down sleepy and he will do the rest.

In non-Maddox related news I have finally gotten the itch to begin running again and started last week. This time around I am really enjoying it and I think my body was finally ready. The last time I started running after I had Maddox (6 months pp I think? Can't really remember lol) I could feel that I wasn't ready yet. I can't really describe it but my body just really felt off during and after a run. Like my pelvis was loose or something. It was really strange and uncomfortable so I took a few more months and did quite a bit of walking in the mean time. This time around the running is going VERY well. I feel back to my old self albeit very out of shape. My cardio is terrible but my muscles seem to have held up fairly well.

I have also figured out that if I tell too many people I'm back running or try to blog about it I end up feeling like it is a chore and tend to not go. This time around this is about all I'll be speaking of it unless something exciting happens during a run. I'm going to just kind of do it in the background for a little bit. Do it just for me and not be accountable to anyone but myself. I'm going to be casual about it and not stress when I miss a run.

Ah Blessed Sleep How I Have Missed Thee.

As you can probably tell from the title this mom has gotten some sleep the past couple nights! Not a lot mind you but probably twice what I was getting during Maddox's week of let's grow ALL OF THE THINGS AT ONCE.

Right now when Maddox goes to bed at 7 he is usually asleep by 7:30 and sleeps right until 11 (once he slept until 1) before wanting food. He's usually up between 3 and 4 for food again and then up for the day around 7. Those wake times are not all that much different from the rough week. The main difference is that after I feed him this week he has been going right back to sleep instead of being awake for 1-2 hours before falling back asleep. Woot woot!

Also this week he is so conflicted between sitting up and sleeping that often he spends the beginning of his naps sitting up and trying to fall asleep with his head down in front of him. He has yet to succeed but I think one day he may just.

There must be SOME way for me to sit and sleep at the same time.

Close enough. ZZZZZzzzzzz

Wow another update so quick!

So in the past 24 hours Maddox has gotten another tooth and learned how to crawl!! Go boy! 6 teeth and crawling before 8 months old!!!

Update: Within 2 days of this post's first draft I think Maddox got another tooth! He won't really let me feel around much but I think I felt a new on in there! Crazy boy!

He has also gained a whole pound in the past 2 weeks. Crazy! No wonder he's not sleeping as good at night these days. Growing teeth, learning how to crawl and pull up on things and just plain growing!

Long Over Due Update

Wow. What has happened in the past month. Or rather what HASN'T happened. Maddox has decided that he would like to crawl and he is doing his absolute best to learn how to. As of today he can get onto all fours from sitting and rocks back and forth. He can get into a sitting position from laying down now too! Growing so fast. He is also able to pull himself up to standing from a sitting position. This little man is going to be unstoppable soon.

Thankfully we have started to baby proof the living room. We bought a wall unit for extra storage because the pointy daggery tables are now in the basement (along with the potentially baby killing 100+lb tv). While we were buying the wall unit we got a really nice tv stand for the downstairs tv for really cheap as well as a bench for by the front door, also really cheap. For all 3 pieces of furnature we probably spend around $1200. Not bad considering the original wall unit I wanted was $1200 from IKEA. The one we got was half the price and twice the quality from The Brick. Here's a picture of it all built:

It's still pretty bare as we don't have much for decoration as of yet. We are planning to wall mount the tv eventually so it will look more like it fits the space instead of looking to tiny. Yeah we probably just need a larger tv but hey this one was free, and if it falls on the boy it won't kill him like the big one we had.

Back to the Maddox updates. This boy now has 5 teeth!! And 3 that are on their way. He's a teething fiend these days. I'm going to go ahead and say that the teething is the reason his sleeping has been absolute crap these days. 2 days this week he has gone to bed just to wake up an hour later and need cuddles. I tried for over 2 hours the first night to put him back to sleep and over an hour the second night before I managed. The second night I eventually just let him whine it out. He would be fine in his crib as long as I was in the room with him but as soon as I would leave he would start to whine and cry. I'd go check on him and he'd be fine again which said to me that he didn't really need anything and had just figured out I would come back when he would whine. So I sat at my desk and let him whine until he actually got upset and then went to check on him. Gave him his soother and he started to actually try to go to sleep instead of whining at me. Took him a little while to actually fall asleep but once he did he was out for about 3 hours which is one of the longest stretches we've gotten out of him in the past week. He was up twice for food and then up for the day around 8.

Sitting Up and Belly Sleep!

My oh my this boy just keeps on growing! He can stop any time. Seriously. He's growing way to fast for my liking.

A couple weeks ago he figured out how to sit up all by himself and now he can do it so well he only gets a crash pillow behind him if I need to step out of arms reach for something. Just today he turned all the way around while sitting to play with said pillow. One moment he was sitting where I put him all happy as can be. I folded a sheet and the next time I looked over he was 180 turned and nom-ing on the pillow. That boy! I tell ya.

For a while now Maddox has been rolling onto his belly in his crib. It usually went something like this. I would put him down for a nap. He would immediately try to roll onto his tummy like it was his only goal in life. He would make it and then holler for me like it was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. Well last night it was no different except for the hollering part. He rolled over and went right to sleep on his tummy. Slept a solid 2 hours before he even rustled and then he woke up to feed. I must say, babies asleep on their tummies are so adorable!!

The night time wakings are getting to be fewer these days. He was still waking up around 1 and 4:30 for feedings until recently. About a week ago I stopped feeding him at the 4:30  wake up because he was falling asleep half way through the first side. That went really well. There was only one night where he was resistant to going back to sleep but he got some good Mommy cuddles and didnt' stand a chance. The past few nights he's just taken his soother back and gone right back to sleep at that time though he was still waking and insisting on food around 1. Last night he fed at 11:30 and then slept right through the 1 am feed. He woke 4:30, took his soother and went right back to sleep! It was the most sleep I've gotten in months! What a wonderful night that was.

Here's a monitor picture of him sleeping on his tummy last night. Too cute!