Six Months - 1/2 Birthday

Weight: 18 lbs. 5 oz. (65%)
Height: 27.75 inches (89%)

Head: 42 cm (9%)

SITTING

Collin started sitting by himself last week! I was at a visiting teaching appointment, and we were playing together on the floor, and I let go of him and... he didn't fold in half! It only lasted 5-10 seconds, but he has done it several times since too. I figure it'll get longer and longer until I have a real, full-blown sitting baby. I can't believe how strong he is.

BINKY
I have a binky baby. Collin prefers sucking to any other activity. He doesn’t care if it is his thumb, his big toe, three of his fingers or his binky. I should have known he’d be a sucker when we saw him on his ultrasound sucking his thumb at 22 weeks, but I never would have guessed he would always need to have something in there. I apologize for the many, many photos of him with his binky in. He just likes it. I’m sure in the years to come I’ll seek your advice about weaning him from it, but until then, I’ll just let him enjoy what he enjoys most.

GIGGLES

Collin saves his giggles for special occasions. They are few and far between, and we really have to work for them. He likes his neck and belly kissed. He also will sometimes give us a giggle when he swings from Daddy's arms. But when they come... They are so worth the effort. We love Collin's giggles.

HAIR

When Collin was born, he had a little dark hair. Over the first few months, he lost all of it except for a little along his collar line in the back. We called it his mullet. Many people have even asked us if we shave his head. Now he is starting to get his hair back, but it is coming in so blonde you can’t even see it. Sad. I guess it’s good he isn’t a girl.

WIGGLE WORM

Collin never sits still. He is the wiggliest wiggle worm there ever was. It is especially difficult to hold him while walking. He too wants to walk and tries to climb up your waist. He loves to stand on my bladder, hug his toes close, and roll over and over again. This week he started to realize he can make progress across the floor if we goes in the same direction again and again. He never ceases to amaze me with his new crazy body positions. What a wiggler.


BUSY

Collin prefers to be busy. He likes to have lots of activities and to be going, going, going. This is unfortunate since I prefer to remain home and pretty mellow as much as possible. He is also very noisy. He loves to hear himself. He has a lot of inflection in his voice and loves to explore screaming.

TEETHING

Four signs your baby may be teething (from Baby Center):

• He looks like the winner of his own personal wet T-shirt contest.

• When he chews on his fist, the expression "self-cannibalizing" leaps to mind.

• You've exhausted all other explanations for his crabbiness.

• You've exhausted all other explanations for your crabbiness.

I just liked this list and wanted to include it. Collin is very drool-ey and wishes both hands and both feet all fit in his mouth at once, but not a bit crabby (unless he's tired).

The doctor predicts it'll be another month before any teeth break through the surface.

I feel it worth noting that since last Friday, Collin has been the happiest, pleasant-est, funnest baby ever. We are really enjoying the new joys of having a 6-month old around the house. What a fun little guy!

Happy Father's Day!

We love you, Daddy!
Thank you for taking such good care of our family.
Hope you had a great first Daddy's Day.

Wisconsin Trip

We just returned from a fabulous trip to Wisconsin, and I wanted to share some of the fun things we did.

MONDAY

We drove the 4-hour trip on Monday evening after Ryan got off work. Since most of the trip was past Collin’s bedtime, he slept a lot in the car.

Unfortunately, when we got in at 11pm, he thought the hotel room was the neatest, coolest new place he’d ever seen. We tried to force him back to sleep, and the neighboring rooms heard it all!
TUESDAY

Tuesday morning Ryan headed to campus for the Diesel Emissions Reduction Consortium meeting. Collin and I headed to my old stomping grounds – Deerfield Elementary. It was their last day of school, and I got to see all my old teaching buddies and many of my former students. It was strange to be back, but it was fun to introduce Collin to all my old friends. Collin was a real champ. He even took two naps between feedings!

After leaving the school, Collin and I headed back to the hotel for a short nap before some of our friends came to swim in the pool. While Ryan played racquetball with the husbands at the university gym, the wives swam with the babies (ranging from 14 months to 6 months). We joined as families later and enjoyed lots of pizza and chatting together before bed.

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday Ryan attended a symposium on campus about reducing fuel consumption. While he worked, Collin and I went to the Madison Zoo. It was Collin’s first time at a zoo, but he was definitely more interested in looking at the other babies than at any of the animals.
Wednesday afternoon we visited with friends and had dinner with our old neighbors.

THURSDAY

Ryan returned to his meetings, and Collin and I went to Trader Joe’s in search of their mandarin orange chef sauce. With great sorrow, I discovered it had been discontinued. Then we headed to the institute to visit our old religion teacher. I inherited some scripture mastery posters for this coming fall (Yes, I’ve been asked to teach again next year.) At about noon, I strapped Collin into the new stroller, and we walked to Memorial Union to get original Wisconsin ice cream. I stopped for a photo along the beautiful Lake Mendota shoreline and discovered that somewhere between Trader Joe’s and Lake Mendota I’d lost my debit card.
With much indecision, I finished the hike to the Union for Babcock ice cream (chocolate peanut butter), and then turned around and hustled back to search the car. Despite my frantic walk, the card was nowhere to be found, and I called Ryan for the phone number on the back of his. Sensing the uneasiness in my voice, Ryan called to cancel it, and they confirmed that no fraudulent charges had been made – thank goodness!
Collin and I spent the rest of the day at various parks.
Somewhere in the midst of all the fun, Collin destroyed the last of his clothing I had packed, and we had to hit Target for some new ones.

Thursday evening when Ryan was finished with his last meeting, we drove up to Baraboo and stayed in another hotel. Collin did much better adjusting to this second hotel than the first, and I’m sure hotel management was appreciative.

FRIDAY

Ryan arose early, waited in line for an hour, and got us a camp site for that evening. When he returned to our room after requesting a late checkout, he sat with Collin during his first nap and gave me some free time to use the hotel’s AWESOME elliptical, hot tub and pool. It was heaven to be alone and free.

Friday afternoon we toured “downtown Baraboo.”
We also ate more Wisconsin ice cream (caramel this time).
Then we headed to the campground and set up our stuff. We decided to try “swimming” in Devil’s Lake, but the water was so cold we only got wet up to our ankles.
Ryan tried dipping Collin’s feet in the water. As soon as his toes touched, he went totally stiff and started whimpering. No cold baths for him!

Friday night our friends joined us for camping.
We had delicious foil dinners, s’mores and banana boats. We talked around the fire and tried to keep Carston from burning himself.
Collin slept really well, especially when he was on MY mat (he is quite the roller). He had a hard time falling asleep at first, since his bed time was when everyone else was up and talking. He finally went to bed with us late, but he was a real trooper.

SATURDAY

It rained all night, but Saturday we were still able to hike.
We followed the railroad tracks for a while, but then we ventured up the steps to have a better view of the lake.
It was beautiful! I love the green. Wisconsin is definitely greener than Illinois. Collin found it was real work and zonked out on Daddy’s back.
Saturday night we stayed with our friends. While Ryan and Johnny hung out at their place and “watched” Collin sleep, I went to some small-town fireworks with the girls. It was so fun to have a girls’ night with no babies. We laughed until our stomachs ached.

SUNDAY

Sunday morning we attended sacrament meeting. I missed the whole meeting while Collin had a total and complete meltdown. I finally nursed him to sleep as Sunday School began, and we decided we ought to drive our exhausted Collin home to his own bed and his own room.

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It was a wonderful trip. Collin did much better this trip than the last one, probably because Daddy came along. We love and miss our wonderful friends in Madison. Thanks for taking such good care of us.

New!

And then there's just something nice about things being new.

New to us... and really new.

It came with a packaging, directions and a box. It came with wrapping, and it had to be assembled.

Yes, there's just something special about things when they really are new.

Feeding the Babe

As a disclaimer, I am not a person who usually does “green” trendy things. I do not use cloth diapers; I do not make my own baby wipes; I love meat; I like bleached white flour and refined white sugar; I have never bought earth-friendly cleaning products.

Bottom line: I decided to make my own baby food purely for financial reasons. As you can see from my posts about Craig’s List and Dumpster Diving, Ryan and I are frugal… almost to a fault.

To show how easy it is to make your own baby food, I decided to create a Photo Essay.

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And that’s it. I guess the hardest part is cleaning everything up afterwards, but it takes me about a half an hour to make everything, and Collin usually naps for 40 minutes. So, I am usually finishing up as he wakes up. Each recipe makes 24 cubes. I thaw one fruit cube and one veggie cube each morning. Collin eats rice cereal and fruit for lunch, and rice cereal and veggie for dinner (at least that’s my goal – I’m not quite there.) Of course, I am still nursing him every 3 hours too.

I guess the bottom line is that I am really, really enjoying making Collin’s food. I wouldn’t do this if I thought of it as a chore; I’d go buy the jars at the store! But I really do look forward to it each week.

I would definitely recommend buying this book (So Easy Baby Food) if you are interested. It was fairly cheap, and I personally wouldn’t try doing it without instructions. Good luck (and enjoy)!

And what would be a post be without a pic of Collin!

Memorial Day Week

So this post is quite belated, but I wanted to tell about my big adventure last week.

We left on Friday evening when Ryan got off work and drove to St. Louis. We attended the temple Saturday morning while my parents babysat Collin. I love getting to go on a real date every other month with my eternal companion. What a nice break!

Saturday afternoon we enjoyed running around shopping. It is so nice to get to shop with another girl (my mom) sometimes. Not to mention, Ryan and my dad took Collin to Harbor Freight, so I was without responsibilities for a moment. I found the best skirt too!

Sunday was church with my parents, and Monday morning we participated in a 5K Walk/Run. Ryan ran it in 25 mins (NICE JOB BABE!), and I walked pushing the stroller with my mom. It was sorta spitting drizzly rain, which was great for keeping us cool. Then we went to their ward picnic. Ryan played football with the guys, and we decided we wouldn't mind moving to the O'Fallon Ward.

Monday night Ryan went home, and Collin and I stayed behind. What was I thinking?! Tuesday morning my mom and I drove to southern Missouri to my grandparents' farm. My grandma and grandpa live on a couple hundred acres near the Arkansas border. It is truly beautiful there, and I have many fond memories for vacationing there as a little girl. One summer I even spent a whole month: mowing the lawns, taking care of the dogs, jumping haybails in the barn, feeding the fish, burning all our trash, working in the quonset hut, weeding and watering the gardens, canning the vegetables harvested... It was a ton of work, but I remember really enjoying it.

I spent most of this last week reflecting and sharing stories with Collin. We hiked to the ponds and fed the fish one morning. We listened to the bullfrogs croak and the birds chirp. We hiked to the waterfall and listened to its trickle. I know he won't remember any of it, but I felt like I was passing on my love of my grandparents and their farm to him.

We stayed at the farm until Thursday afternoon, and on Friday my mom drove me back to Peoria. I couldn't have been happier to have Ryan's help again with bedtime routines and night-time wakings. My mom did her best, but a baby needs his daddy.

It was a great trip, despite Collin's difficulty eating and sleeping in strange places. He also got really sick of his carseat.

I'm glad we went, but it will be quite sometime before I venture out on a trip without Dad again. I certainly wasn't made for single motherhood.