Sleep (again)

I made a big uh-oh in terms of Jimi's sleep habits. Around 5 or 6 months old we got Jimi trained to put himself to sleep (previously he would fall asleep drinking a bottle or by being rocked). It took about a week of him crying for 5-15minutes but he finally got to a point where we could just lay him down and he would talk himself to sleep. At the same time this was going on Jimi would only take naps on either James or I. At about 8 months old I finally got tired of getting nothing done around the house during the day and being stuck to the couch during nap time, so I started laying him down in his crib. He seemed generally OK with it but refused to fall asleep unless I stood over his crib until he was fully asleep. That is, unless I wanted to listen to non-stop crying. So I caved, and have been standing over his crib during nap time until he falls asleep (anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes).

This is where the problem began. Now when it is time to go to sleep for the night Jimi refuses to fall asleep unless (you guessed it) we're standing over his crib. We don't even have to rub his back, or sshh him. We can just stand there. It doesn't seem like that big of a deal except at night (for some reason) it takes anywhere from 5-40 minutes to get him to fall asleep. And then once he wakes up in the middle of the night instead of putting himself back to sleep, like he had been doing, he now expects us to stand over him once again until he can fall asleep.

So here we are again at the painful process of retraining him to fall asleep on his own once again. I'm really hoping it only takes a couple of days this time around. Otherwise Jimi's sleep is still on a pretty usual pattern. He'll sleep from 8pm-6am, eat, fall back asleep in bed with us until 7 or 8 and then be up for the day. About every two weeks, however, he'll have very interrupted sleep and be up several times during the night.

'What are these things?'

In other news: Mark you calendars! Jimi's baptism will be October 2nd, most likely the 9am service at Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Everett and his 1st birthday party will be later that afternoon (not sure on the location yet though).

9 month check up

Jimi had his 9 month check up with his pediatrician today. He is now weighing in a 20lb 4oz (40.7 percentile) and is 29 inches long (70th percentile). Jimi only had to get one shot today and he took it like a champ. He only made a whimpering face for about 30 seconds, ate some snacks and was ready to go.

When we got to the doctors office they had me fill out a survey on Jimi's language development, problem solving skills, social development and fine and gross motor skills. Each area had a few different situations listed and I had to rank whether Jimi did the scenario frequently, sometimes or never. The doctor said he 'passed with flying colors'. She also said that he was where he should be developmentally and that he looked great.

Cruisin' along some benches at one of James' shows

In other Jimi news, he is now waving 'hi' (he hasn't really figured out 'bye' yet) to select people, took one try to figure out climbing stairs, plays 'fetch' with Penny, and most recently started clapping his hands. He also turns the page while reading a book. As my Dad pointed out, apparently we don't read as fast as him, as he flips through them pretty fast. It's already a struggle to get him to eat normal solid foods but the doctor said there is no rush. I think he's not a fan of most textures, except crunchy ones. He would eat puffs all day if I let him.

For some crazy reason I let my dad sign me up for the 'Yankee Doodle Dash' 5k in Everett on the Fourth of July. I've only been working out fairly consistently for about two months and most of that has been in the house using workout dvds, so I was a little weary of what to expect. My time was definitely not where it used to be but I did better than I excepted. I fully anticipated on utilizing the 'walk' option of this run/walk but I toughed it out and didn't embarrass myself too much. Now that I've run my first race since high school, I definitely want to start doing more of them. I've even got James convinced to sign up for one in the fall with me.

Jimi giving me a pep talk before the race

9 Months!

It's hard to believe but Jimi turned 9 months old today! I can tell that doing his monthly photo shoot is going to continue to be more and more difficult to accomplish. Jimi is on the move and he doesn't want to slow down, especially for me to take pictures of him. Here some of the best that I was able to get:

Are you really going to make me do this again, Mom?

I went and sat on the deck to try to keep his attention... it didn't work very well.

Between weddings, James' gigs, Mariner's games, birthday celebrations, and Father's Day festivities this last month was a pretty busy one. Jimi (and James) went to three Mariner's games this month! If he keeps up at this rate he might actually notice what's going on at the game by the end of the summer.

Sleepy boy at the game on Father's Day

Jimi is still crawling and climbing everywhere! He's also pretty good a figuring out how to manipulate things, such as, opening and closing drawers, flushing the toilet, opening his diaper champ and putting clean diapers in to it (we'll give him the bill for those ones when he's older). We now have locks on nearly all of our cabinets and drawers. We left the one full of pot holders open for him so he can feel like he's getting away with something. He's not walking yet but he is able to stand unassisted for several seconds at a time now.

Trying to fit himself into one of the storage baskets from his changing table

This month he got to chow down on his first real strawberry, orange slice and pickles. If we cut it up into pieces for him to eat he's not interested but he'll put the whole thing in his mouth. He absolutely loves pickles! I think the rubbery feeling feels good on his gums. He just gnaws on them whole and sucks the juice out. He is not a fan of sourdough bread. I'm going to work on giving him more "real" finger foods this month as Jimi is becoming less and less interested in us feeding him and more and more interested in trying to eat our food.

Mmmm Pickles

Eating a strawberry

In the great tooth watch of 2011, Jimi still has nothing! He has been chomping down hard and gummy on everything for the last 6 months but yet he still has nothing to show for his hard work and pain. I did just learn that James did not get any teeth until he was a few years old and they say it's hereditary. I really hope not for Jimi's sake! Jimi is now sleeping through the night pretty regularly. He goes to bed around 8 and sleeps until 5 or 6, drinks a bottle and then goes back to sleep for another hour or so. He is also FINALLY napping in his crib. It's great to be able to get stuff done while he's napping now.

Jimi had a cold that lasted almost two weeks this month. Poor little guy was wheezy, coughing, and full of snot. We took him into the clinic twice to have him looked at. His pediatrician is amazing and very understanding of worried first time parents. He has a 9month check up with more shots but not until July 11th, so I'll post and update after that.

Jimi and his friend Miles

Jimi and his friend Carmen

High chair sleepin'

365 Days

I've decided to do a 365 day photo challenge to better document our family. You can view that page by clicking the link on the right side of this blog or by visiting Orr Family Photo Blog. Enjoy!

8 Months!

On Monday Jimi turned 8 months old...

His monthly photo shoot did not go so well. He was quite aware that there was a sticker on his onesie and spent the entire time trying to and eating the sticker. Oh well, you can get the gist of how big he is.

Jimi is still quite the explorer. We have to keep a close eye on him or before we know it he's into some kind of trouble... putting something in his mouth he shouldn't be, getting himself stuck somewhere, pulling something on top of himself, etc. He is not a fan of laying still for diaper changes. He loves to feed himself. He is constantly "talking" up a storm. James is convinced he is going to say a real word any day, I know it'll be a while. Jimi has a little bit of separation anxiety when meeting new people. He'll give 'high fives' but usually only to me. He is still not sleeping through the night consistently but the last week he's done pretty good. Sleeping from 8:30pm-6:30am.

Hanging out with his Grampy for a Memorial Day bbq





Trouble maker

Jimi was helping unroll the toilet paper for us

He figured out how to flush the toilet





7 Months Old

Jimi is now a lean, mean (well actually pretty sweet), crawling 7 month machine!



Our little crawler man





He just wanted to roll over and I kept calling his name... he was not amused.



Jimi went from just barely being able to crawl to getting anywhere he wanted very fast. It was amazing to watch the transition in just a matter of hours. He still does a combo of army crawling on his belly and crawling up on all four. So far he is most interested in crawling towards Penny or any of her toys. We're very fortunate (and surprised) that she is being very patient with him.

We've also started giving Jimi a few finger foods (Gerber yogurt melts and puffs are delicious) to let him get practice feeding himself. He loves it! He also loves drinking out of cup. He hasn't quite gotten the hang of using a sippy cup though, he just chews on the mouth piece. 

Feeding himself a rice rusk



His little personality has been coming out more and more. He is quite the little ham and loves to laugh. Jimi has been "talking" since he was just a few weeks old, but now he's really making different sounds and "words". He most commonly makes different 'b' sounds when he's happy and 'ma' sounds when he's upset. I think his first word may be 'Hi' because he frequently tries to imitate that. Speaking of which, we're working on teaching him to wave hi and bye. He's done it a few times but doesn't really seem to understand why he's doing it.





Wordless Wednesday!

(With the exception of a few captions)

Seaside, OR

Mmmm VooDoo Donuts

Jimi's turn to drive

Brushing his gums

He was very excited to tear into his Easter basket