Toothbrushing Baby!

Colin crawled up in the bathroom and started brushing his teeth with Gavin's toothbrush!  Silly boy!

Preschool in February

February included, of course a lot of Valentine themed artwork, but also teeth and alphabet work!  I also included the football and Valentine he made me in speech.  The red heart in the middle is a sample of the Valentines he made for everyone in his class.

Here is the Valentine he gave me from speech.

I kept finding other things that he made in school in random places.  I need to be better about putting them all together.  This particular one has a story, though.  One of his teachers told me that he was very particular on what he put on his necklace.  He picked out pink hearts and separators out of four different colors! My boy knows what he wants!

This project cracks me up.  Not only is it a cute idea, but check out what he put in his fridge!

Hahaha--does Gain detergent belong in the fridge?

It's chore time!

I have been eyeing chore charts for a while that I have seen at the store and I finally decided to do it!  This is a dry erase one with magnets that they put when the chore is done.  Right now we will obviously only be using it with Gavin, but there is also the option to choose a color of star for each child and writing the name of the child in the square for the chore that is theirs.  For now Gavin puts a star for each chore he has done and I drew pictures since he doesn't read yet.  I like the chart so far for one kid, but I'm not sure how I will like it for more than one, although I will probably have different chores for each child at that point, instead of writing out the very basic things like I did.  Although I could split the chores in half and have Gavin's on top and Colin's on bottom, but I guess we will see what happens.  So far on the chart there is (in case you don't understand my crude drawings) putting clothes in laundry, putting dirty dishes in sink, brushing teeth, and putting toys away (represented by his favorite toy: the train).  So far so good on the chores.  I can now tell him he won't get a star if he doesn't do what I ask and it seems to help a little.

Toothy Grin!

I finally got a picture of it! His teeth are so tiny!

Broken tooth, oh my!

The best I can figure is that when I was nine and broke my front tooth on the corner of the counter top, it weakened the one below it on the bottom. Then when I was running one Saturday I fell (and did a somersault of sorts to land on my back) I slammed my teeth together just right... by Monday I noticed what felt like a hair around my tooth. I looked in the mirror and my bottom tooth had cracked! I made an appointment right away for the dentist and was seen the next day on Tuesday. They took an x-ray and were amazed it was still attached since the crack went all the way around my tooth. They told me to just wait and see what happened. Two days later, on Thursday, I was brushing my teeth and the broken part of my tooth fell off! (I was so relieved that the crack didn't go across the root!) I called the dentist right away, but they are closed on Fridays, so I had to wait until the following Monday to get it fixed. These pictures are both self portraits. I went all weekend with my tooth like this:



Here I am today:



Not bad, eh? The dentist used bonding material to build it back up. He said it turned out looking better than he thought it would. I guess that's good? Anyway. Glad to have gotten it fixed!

Nine Months Old!

Colin is nine months old already! His personality is really starting to come through. He is mostly contented to do the same old same old in that unlike some of his peers, meaning he still just wants to hang out on his back. He hates being on his stomach and will flip right away to his back. No crawling or trying to crawl yet! He is starting to sit up more reliably now. Just in the past couple of days we have been able to get him to sit for longer periods on his own. When he is done, however, he makes it known and lays down however he can! He loves to grab whatever he can while you are holding him and it usually goes straight to the mouth. He also loves to play with teething toys mostly, since he is such an oral kid that they always go in his mouth, although, I have seen him playing with the tags on toys as well. He also has his first two teeth that are still making their entrance. We have yet to get any good pictures of them, though. They will make for a great smiling shot when we can get it! He also LOVES to eat as I have posted before. I didn't have any food for him this last week when I ate at a friend's house and she made him some instant oatmeal. It was apples and cinnamon and she made two packets. He ate it all down, plus a couple of bites of yogurt! This child is going to be all about the food, hopefully he will stay a great eater! We have yet to have his well check, it's one week from today, so I will report back then.

He was having fun with his tongue the other day!



Hanging out with some cousins.







He decided he was done (or perhaps just lost his balance) and plopped his head right into Brooke's dessert! So funny!

More Cutie Colin

Love Colin's funky pacifier pose!



Getting my first two teeth on the bottom!!!







Goofy boy!







I was trying to be artsy with our feet, I don't think any turned out really great, but this was the best one, I thought.

Six months!

Colin turned six months on April 29. He had his six month appointment on April 30. He was 17 lbs, 3 oz and 26 1/4 inches long. He is exactly two inches shorter than Gavin at the same age!

Right now Colin can roll over and his personality is coming through much more. He LOVES his baby cereal and I am starting to try him on vegetables (I am venturing to make them all at home to save money). He also likes to play with toys that he can rattle and shake and he sometimes passes them between his hands. He is starting to chew on his pacifier with his gums, but the doctor seemed to think that there were no teeth in sight. He's such an oral kid compared to Gavin. If his pacifier is nowhere in sight he'll suck on his hands, shirt, or blanket, so I'd rather him use the pacifier. He also is starting to sit up on his own. I can help him balance for short periods of time on his own now! It's amazing how fast babies change. He went from a helpless newborn to eating solid foods in what seemed like no time flat!

I LOVE the doggie outfit.

Shoe Boy

Today after we got back from shopping, Gavin decided he wanted to wear Philip's old shoes. He even managed to walk around in them!



I got him to say, "Cheese!" which is what we do when we want him to have his teeth together during tooth brushing so we can get the outside of the teeth.



I am so cool.



He insisted on wearing the shoes to the table and then he wanted to put them back on when he was seated. The sunglasses came off and on during lunch. He actually called them glasses! That was the first time I'd heard him call them that!

Getting the Giggles

On Tuesday, I went to the dentist for my semiannual cleaning and check up. Gavin laid on my lap for the whole appointment. He even flipped onto his tummy while the hygienist was polishing my teeth, that was funny. The dentist said he was such a good boy that he would give him a nickel for the machine to get a toy. (This is the same dentist I went to as a child; the price of toys hasn't gone up in his office...it's the reward for all the kids, I loved getting the bouncy balls from the machine.) Gavin received a bouncy ball as well. He thought it bouncing was really funny, so I tried to catch his giggles on video. I love hearing him laugh. As you can imagine, I'm not quite sure where the ball is now...

Is My Good Eater Back?

Tonight I made spam fried rice with peas, tofu, and bok choy and ground it up for Gavin to eat. He gobbled it down! Ate all but one spoonful of what I ground up for him! Maybe (knock on wood) my good eater is back now that he cut those teeth he'd been working on! (Although I think it looks like he's in the early stages of teething on a couple of more!)

Here is what the fried rice looked like before I ground it:



All that was left in Gavin's bowl:



Gavin with a bit of fried rice stuck on his face:



Oh, and is it just me, or does his face look chubbier now? Maybe it's time for a growth spurt. He went down soooo easily tonight (knock on wood yet again). I think he was tired; it could have to do with the fact that we went to the park today. Whatever the reason, it was nice! Please do it again, Gavin!

Say Hello to Tooth #3 and #4!

After the unsuccessful Japanese lunch, I thought I'd give getting a picture of Gavin's new teeth a try. Tooth #4 finally cut yesterday, and tooth #3 is quite visible. If you think that the white speck to the left of the top tooth is just rice, it's not. It's actually tooth #4.

Kooshie Kooshie Koo

Philip and I have been cleaning out our stuff and Philip found an old Koosh ball that wasn't all gross (mine was all dry and cracked looking). We thought it would be fun for Gavin play with while we keep an eye on him to and he seems to like the texture.

Oh, and Gavin cut his third tooth yesterday. He's had swelling for a couple of weeks now, but it finally came through! He's still working on tooth number four, it's been swollen as well!

Shove! Get it all the way in!



Let's eat it all up!



Look what I did to the Koosh ball! It's a sopping mess!

Any Suggestions?

As I mentioned briefly in the last post, Gavin's been refusing to eat. I know that he's not starving by any means, but it is frustrating for me as a parent to try to feed him food and have him refuse it. I thought maybe he wanted to eat when we eat, so I made sure I was eating, too. I thought also he wanted to eat what we're eating, so I've been trying that as well. It seems to work some of the time, but even when he is eating, it's been a four or five bites (maybe less), or half to 3/4 of what he was eating before. Being a first time parent, I'm not sure what to expect, of course, and every child is different, but any suggestions on what I can do? Or am I doing all I can? I just keep offering it to him, and I usually nurse him afterwards. I just called Philip and he suggested that I wait half an hour without nursing and try again. I guess I'll see if that works.

He eats baby cereal like crazy and cheerios or other cracker/cereal like stuff just fine, but I don't want that to be his only sustenance. Oh, another factor: we believe he's teething and can see white on his gums. Could that also be the problem?

This is a picture I took last week and thought it fit perfect with the subject of this post.

Tooth Brushing Baby

These pictures are from last Saturday as well. We're trying to expose Gavin to brushing his teeth, so we decided to give him his toothbrush and see what he'd do with it. The wrong end went in the first time (I think a day or two before), but this we got some good shots of him "brushing" his teeth (really just chewing the bristles, but hey, it's a start!) We're going to try to make it a nightly thing so he gets used to the idea!

Posted by GLove at 12:17 PM