11 Months Old, Back to Eating Better, New Schedule & Fall Social

So, I don't know what Caleb's problem was for a few days, but he is back to eating good again like nothing was ever wrong. Thank goodness! We are still not being very adventurous with the food varieties, but he did try mashed potatoes for the first time this week and Grammy gave him prunes, which he liked and had an open mind about.

 



The other great thing about this week is that Caleb's schedule has pretty much officially changed and it is working out really well. There is still a day every once in awhile when Caleb wakes up early and then I will put him back to bed, but for the most part, he is sleeping 10 1/2 - 11 hours at night and then I am not putting him back to bed. Then he is taking a morning nap that is lasting 1 - 1 1/2 hours (Tuesday was 1 hour and 40 minutes) and an afternoon nap that is lasting 30-90 minutes (very random). And it is working out so well and I am so happy about it. We are getting out of the vicious cycle where he is so tired at night when I feed him that he sleeps through most of his feeding and then doesn't sleep as long at night because he already slept while eating. Now that he is taking a late afternoon nap he is not as tired when he eats and he usually just falls asleep at the end of feeding him, which is perfect. So, I hope that this schedule continues. However, it did not go well today with Grammy. He slept from 7:30 last night until I had to wake him up at 6:00 to feed him before work. So, we took him to Grammy's instead of Grammy coming here and she was going to try the new schedule. Well, he ended up taking a 30 minute morning nap and then would not take an afternoon nap at all, so he was so tired by the time we picked him up (but still very happy and not fussy at all). So, we will have to work on Grammy's schedule because that is not a good situation.

Now for the rest of the week's summary. Last Thursday I had to go to the dentist, so Caleb went to the office for an hour or so. Here are some pictures of Caleb "helping" Grammy work.

 

On Friday, Caleb was with my mom in the morning and then with Dede and her girls in the afternoon so Jen could have a break. Dede told me that they had such a good time with Caleb and that she had to set a timer for the girls to take turns with Caleb because they were fighting over him. So, that is nice to know that he is so well loved and taken care of.

We didn't do anything special for supper on Friday night, so we had a quiet evening at home. I should also mention that as of Friday, Caleb is now officially 11 months old. I cannot believe that he is so close to being a year old!! Time has gone by so quickly.

On Sabbath we made it to Sabbath School again because Caleb was still on his "old" schedule. If he sticks with the "new" schedule, he will be napping right during Sabbath School, so that is too bad. We'll see how it goes. There was only one other kid in Sabbath School this week, which is too bad. This is part of the problem with our Sabbath School, but oh well.

 

Caleb was very tired, but would not fall asleep during church while I was nursing him. So, we took him home to my parents' house right after church to give him a nap. It took him a little while to go to sleep, but he did eventually, however, he only slept about 40 minutes. Sabbath was my dad's birthday, so we had lunch at my parents' house with the Latimers and Noseks, which was very nice. Dania made enchiladas, which we all love, and Holly made some phenomenal maple cookies for dessert, which were sooo good. We had a nice lunch and visit in the afternoon and then we went home for a little while before our church social because I wanted Caleb to sleep a little more since we would be keeping him up a little later because of the social.

 

 

Our church social was fall themed, of course, and we had a nice soup supper and then played a couple of games before we ended up leaving to get Caleb home to bed. I had a nice break during the social and Steve took Caleb and sat with all the younger girls who loved passing him around.

 





Sunday was a busy day for me. I worked in the morning and then I went to a kids consignment sale that I had been looking forward to for several months. The sale is at a church in our town (actually where Steve and I had our wedding reception) and it is absolutely huge. It is on Saturday and Sunday, but on Sunday it is 50% off, so I was so excited to go to it. They do it twice a year and I had gone back in March, but I took Caleb with me and it was not a good situation, so this time I told Steve I definitely wanted to go by myself. So, I was there over 2 hours (the last hour was spent in line, however) and got a lot of good deals. I knew Rad was waiting for me to get home to watch the Patriots game and I had a meeting at the church at 5:30, so it was a tight schedule, but we managed to finish the game in time and luckily the second half of the game was better than the first and they pulled out a win!

Cheering on the Patriots with Grammy

 

Sunday night Caleb slept from 7:45 to 7:05, which was awesome! I was super happy about that. He also took 2 good naps, so it was a great day! We did some shopping on Monday. I had some Super Cash to spend at Old Navy, so we went and got a jumpstart on some Christmas shopping. We also went to A.C. Moore for a couple of things. I also had quite a bit of laundry to do between the normal laundry and the items I got at the sale on Sunday, so that was a big part of the day.

 

Trying on a hat in Old Navy

The mountain climber in action

 







I know I have mentioned before that I often buy things from moms on Facebook. Well, this week I bought a huge lot of clothes from one mom and it ended up being 3 huge trash bags full of 12-18 / 18-24 month clothes and I only paid $90. I know that sounds like a lot of money, but for 3 trash bags of clothes, it was an amazing deal. There were probably over 200 items of clothing and I only had to get rid of a couple of things that had stains on them. I loved going through everything on Monday night. It was like Christmas! It made for another huge laundry day on Tuesday, however. I did 5 loads of laundry just from all the new clothes I got!

Caleb slept really well again on Monday night and then he took an awesome nap on Tuesday morning. I almost though I was going to have to wake him up so we could go to our play group, but he woke up just in time, so it was perfect. We had a nice time at our play group. I am really happy that we joined the group and that we are making friends. I look forward to it every week! For some reason, all of the babies in the group were very vocal this week and it was a much noisier group than usual. Tuesday was a pretty cool day, so I dressed Caleb in a nice sweater and he actually wore shoes and all the other moms thought he looked like such a little man and loved his outfit.

This is at home - the shoes had already come off!

 

We stopped at my parents' house on the way home from play group and my mom gave me a hat she had bought for Caleb. We tried it on to make sure it fit and it did.

 

There are the shoes!

 

The rest of Tuesday was spent doing laundry! After Steve got home, we did take a walk, however, and Caleb wore a winter hat for the first time this year. He tried to pull it off but luckily it had a strap under the chin, so it stayed on.

 





This morning I had to wake Caleb up at 6:00, as I already mentioned, so I took a couple of pictures of him while he was sleeping before I woke him up.

 

I already mentioned how poorly Caleb slept for Grammy today, but here are several cute pictures Grammy took today and texted to me. They did have a good day even though Caleb was awake almost the entire time!

 

Shopping at the mall

Sticking his tongue out like Grampy

Checking out his shoes

 

Sitting in a big boy chair at office lunch

 

One thing my mom did today was she texted me to ask me if it was ok to give Caleb some prunes (he hasn't ever had them before). I texted her back and said ok and about 10 seconds later, she texted me again and said he liked them. So, I knew she had actually given them to him before asking me if it was ok, but luckily it wasn't a big deal. Ironically, he did not poop today at all, so the prunes didn't have the usual effect. At least not yet!

 

Since Caleb slept so poorly today, I fed him early and he was in bed at 7:00. We will see what that means for waking up tomorrow morning, but he was so tired he needed to go to bed early. We'll just take it one day at a time and go with the flow. Anyway, here are a few last pictures from the week.

 

Trying on a hat in Christmas Tree Shop with Grammy

He loves the bath!!





Gerber Contest, Grandma & Grandpa Visit, More Pictures from Ina, Not Eating Again, Passport, and Changing His Schedule

Last Thursday we went to Trader Joe's and got a couple of small pumpkins. I wanted to take some pictures of Caleb with the pumpkins and Trader Joe's had very nice pumpkins that were cheap, so we got a couple. I ended up getting some great pictures of Caleb and one of them I even entered into a Gerber baby photo contest. It's worth a shot, right?

This is the one I entered into the contest

Deep in thought among the pumpkins

Also a look at our new door and shutters

 

Last Friday was a work day and Caleb was with my mom in the morning and with Rad and Jen in the afternoon. It was a beautiful day, so Rad and Jen took Caleb for a nice walk in the stroller and had a good time playing with him.

 

 

We had my parents and Rad & Jen over to our house for supper on Friday, kinda for Steve's birthday because Rad and Jen had been in NY for Steve's actual birthday. It was a quick meal because there was a meeting at the church and Steve had to go get the sound room set up for the meeting. But, it was still a good time.

 

Steve's parents came down and got to our house Friday evening after Caleb was already in bed. They hadn't seen us in about 6 weeks, so they were looking forward to seeing Caleb.

 

 

A not fun part of Sabbath morning was Caleb not wanting to eat his applesauce and oatmeal. He had been doing so well with eating the last 2 or 3 weeks and now, this week he doesn't want to eat pretty much at all. It started last Thursday and then Caleb ate good on Friday and then ever since Sabbath morning, he hasn't done good at all. He will eat a couple of bites and then will lose interest, turn his head, and refuse to open his mouth. It is soooo frustrating!! I thought we were finally past this issue and here it is rearing its ugly head again! Why won't my kid eat???

 

Anyway, we made it to Sabbath School (although a little late) and Caleb had a fun time with the kids.

 

 

 









I nursed Caleb during church and he was tired, so he took a nap while eating. After church we had potluck and then we had our friend Ina take some pictures of Caleb again (and a few family pictures). I had initially been wanting to have her take pictures so I could enter one in the Gerber contest, but I loved that pumpkin picture so much I used that one instead.

 

Here are some of Ina's pictures (and I took a couple of her taking the pictures). They really turned out well.

My favorite

This is actually an upside down picture of him

Looks like he's singing

Love these two!

 

Sabbath afternoon we went home and I tried to get Caleb to take a nap in his crib, but it is so hard on Sabbath because our schedule is off. He wouldn't sleep in his crib, so I ended up having to nurse him to sleep again for the second Sabbath in a row. I am not too happy about that, but at least he slept some. After that, we took a nice walk and then came back and visited a little while before Caleb's story and bath time.

 

Saturday night Caleb slept really well - from 7:30 to 6:15 with hardly a peep. I was happy about that, however, then he wouldn't go back to sleep because he had slept so long. I ended up getting him up after about 45 minutes of not going to sleep. We went out to breakfast Sunday morning with my parents and Steve's parents. We had a nice time and Caleb was well behaved, although by that time he was getting tired.

 

Entertaining himself at the restaurant

Daddy hung him on a coat hook at our booth!

 

After breakfast I brought Caleb home for a nap around 11:00 and Steve and his parents went shopping (Steve and his dad to Harbor Freight and Steve's mom to the Christmas Tree Shop). Caleb initially woke up after half an hour and I was so upset, but I went in there and put his pacifier in and he miraculously went back to sleep for another hour and 15 minutes, for a total of 1 hour and 45 minutes, which is about the longest nap he ever does lately. Usually I am lucky to even get an hour out of him.

 

Steve's parents ended up leaving before Caleb woke up and then later that afternoon, Rad came over to watch the Patriots with me and my parents came for the end of the game (which was awful, but I won't dwell on that).

 

Gotta love a little boy in overalls

Playing with Mommy's breast pump during the Patriots game

 

 

Watching the game with Grammy

 

Monday morning Caleb was up at 5:00 and I don't know why because he has been doing so well lately sleeping a little later. I am a morning person, though, so it doesn't really bother me when he wakes up that early. Monday ended up not being the greatest day for us. Caleb went back to sleep until about 8:15, so that was fine, but then he was a little cranky the rest of the day. He wouldn't eat his solids which made me upset. He wanted to play while nursing so I had to slap his hand a couple of times which he didn't like. He did not take a very long nap, which was really too bad, because he needed it. Then we went to meet Steve on his way home from work so we could apply for a passport for Caleb and we went to the post office and I thought the hours were until 4:30 but they only took passport applications until 4:00, so we were too late, so it was a wasted trip. I was not happy about that, because it was a wasted trip, but that's just how my dad had been going! I was happy when the day was over and Caleb was in bed. For the most part, Caleb is such an easy baby, but it is a struggle sometimes when he gets a little cranky, because he sleeps so poorly during the day. If he is happy, it is not as big of a deal when he doesn't get a long nap, but when he is grouchy, it just makes things worse. I am just glad that the bad days are few and far between!

 

Tuesday was a much better day. Caleb slept very well again Monday night and slept from 7:30 to 6:30. Because he wouldn't go back to sleep on Sunday after sleeping that long, I didn't even try to get him to go back to sleep on Tuesday morning after I nursed him. Instead, he stayed up and then I put him down for a nap around 9:00. He slept for 50 minutes, which is not bad. Then we went to our play group. We were sad because this was supposed to be the last week of an 8-week class, but when we got there, we got the good news that they were going to let us continue until right before Christmas and then start up again in January. So, we were all very excited because we have been having a good time getting together. Here is a picture of Caleb and his friend Julia. It is hilarious because he is kind of laying in her lap.

 

 

After play group we came home and I fed Caleb his solids (not too successfully, of course). Then I put him down for another nap and he ended up sleeping for an hour and 20 minutes. I was very happy with how the day went because Caleb slept more than 2 hours total, which is way more than usual. I could get used to this schedule, so we'll see if we have more days like that or if we go back to the regular schedule.

 

Tuesday afternoon we tried again with Caleb's passport and this time we were successful, so that was good. We are getting him a passport because we are going on a cruise the first week in February. He doesn't actually need a passport for the cruise, but if something were to happen and we had to fly home from one of the islands, he would need a passport for that, so we would rather be prepared.

 

Yesterday I worked, but my mom wasn't able to take care of Caleb because she was going to a funeral for Pastor Mark's mother off-Cape. I got Dede from our church to watch Caleb in the morning and then I took a 1/2 day and came home in the afternoon.

 

Caleb did well for Dede in the morning, although he didn't eat much of his solids or drink much of his bottle. It is nice that I have someone who can watch Caleb that I trust when my mom can't do it. I got home around 12:45 and Caleb was ready for a nap, so I put him down. I am still trying to get him to go to sleep without the swaddle and about half the time it works and half the time I end up swaddling him anyway. Yesterday he did fall asleep without the swaddle and slept about 35 minutes and then I left him in his crib for awhile and he fell back to sleep for a few more minutes but woke up again shortly after that. Oh well. Here are a few pictures from when I went to get him out of bed.

 

 







This morning Caleb woke up just before 6:00 and he did go back to sleep until about 8:20, so that was his normal schedule. He absolutely refused to eat more than 2 bites of his applesauce and oatmeal, though and I was so upset. I feel like we have taken several steps backwards again, which doesn't make me happy. He also seemed a little grumpy again today. I had to go to the dentist, so I dropped Caleb off at the office with my mom and she took this adorable picture of Caleb helping her work.

 

 

Well, that's about it for this week. Here are just a couple more pictures that I missed from the week.

 

A nice early morning shot of our house with the new door and shutters