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Asher Archvies Jan-April 2007

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4-18-07

Almost 11 months old!  Well, he is not walking yet, which is shocking to us all.  I haven't even seen him just stand up in the middle of the room without holding onto anything so I don't know that I'm expecting him to walk, say, tonight.  You can see him thinking about it though when he is holding something and wanting to get somewhere else.  He is saying 'mom' though with enough frequency that I think he may actually be saying it on purpose.  He has also said the beginnings of "hi' and 'bye' and a few other things, although I'm not so certain of those.  He gets this really high pitched sing-songy voice when he is 'talking' which is funny.  Ash is turning into a blanket baby.  He has this dark blue blanket that I actually started making for Jessie and never really finished until after Ash was born.  It has dark dark blue fleece on one side and a kinda dark blue / periwinkle blue silky material on the other side and it is edged in the silky material.  He LOVES the silky material and really, any blanket with that texture will satisfy him - although he does have a special preference for the blue one.  He gets so excited when you give it to him and he immediately shoves it in his mouth to chew on it.  Gross.  At least that's better then Gavin's "sniff" obsession with his blanky.  Yes, it is cute, but I'm NOT going to encourage it like I did with Gavin by bringing it everywhere with us.  That was a really stupid thing to do.  Having a blanky baby grow into a blanky kid is not really as fun/cute as I had originally thought.  He can chew on his blanket and sleep with it in his crib all he wants - but I'm not going to push the idea.  I do feel good that he likes this blanket that I made because I felt bad that I hadn't made him a blanket like what Gavin and Jessie have but he has made his preference for the silky material known.

Yesterday Asher reinforced my belief in my feeding rules with parenting.  This picky picky kid that turned his nose up to all things green spent dinner time eating asperagus, broccoli, peas, and steamed potatoes all on his own.  I just keep putting the stuff out for him at each meal and he can eat it or not.  Plus I make sure to eat it myself in front of him.  He seemed to really like the aperagus because he would pick that out specifically and eat it first.  Peas he usually just squashed instead of eating but these were in the pods so there may have been some novelty in pulling them out of the pods to eat.  BTW - my other picky boy Gavin also not only ate all of those green things (which he'd eat normally - that's not where he is picky) - but he ate the potatoes!  I found these neat little "finger" potatoes that are whole potatoes that are just long and skinny and seriously look like old fisher price "little people" before they changed them so kids couldn't chew the heads off and choke.  I just steamed them with the broccoli and Ash and Gavin loved them.  My more adventurous Jessie turned her nose up at them - but I think she is just getting into a phase with being more in control with what she is willing to eat.  Ash also loved the little water chestnuts that we in our household call "crunchies".

Growth-wise, Ash is kinda suprising me this month.  last month he did so well with his 18 pounds 4 ounces.  This month though I don't anticipate a big jump.  Especially since just last week he was weighing in at 17 pounds 15 ounces.  I don't know why - he is actually drinking from a cup great these days and he can eat a lot when he decides he wants to.  He is certainly being offered plenty.  His signal that he is DONE is to whip his hands across his tray and shove everything onto the floor, table, chairs, walls, ceiling - pretty much anything is a good target.  Speaking of targets - Ash saw me tossing a ball up and catching it and would laugh and laugh and sit facinated watching me do this.  When I gave him the ball he would put his arm up and drop the ball behind his back, squeal, pick up the ball and do it again.  And again.  And again. (wash rinse repeat.)  It is funny to watch him get the concept, but I fear this will open up whole new catagories for signaling that he is done eating now.

Speaking of eating - he has been my WORSE nurser of the bunch.  Nursing this kid is like trying to nurse a freaking slinky.  He twists and turns and stands up and rolls his legs down to the floor and bounces on his knees and tries to stick his fingers in my mouth or grab my hair - ALL while refusing to stop nursing.  If I make him let go and tell him he is DONE, he screams at me.  (I still do it, since his screaming isn't going to be encouraged, just so you know.)  He has to lay in my lap to nurse but he is just so SQUIRMY.  I suspect that this is why my milk supply is not terribly grand at the moment.  I can pump very very close to 4 ounces during the day at work which is sad compared to my 12+ when he was younger and I think I recall pumping 8 ounces at this point with Jessie - although I could be wrong too.  With Gavin I was pumping even less - although it is really hard for me to remember much about this timeframe with Gavin.  I know I just have about a month left so it isn't bad and there is enough milk stored up to absolutely get us to that first birthday.  I just wish my milk supply was easier to keep in the super abundent range.  Oh well - almost done.  Then I can do away with all the pumping supplies and everything!  I will miss nursing.  I will miss that feeling when you are so full of milk it is crazy and your baby is nursing away and getting a ton of milk.  I will NOT NOT NOT NOT miss pumping.  Oh, and I cannot tell you how happy I am that Ash FINALLY has gotten the concept of a cup.  It took you long enough kid!

I am going to be updating the other kid's pages, including Anily, so check em out when you can.

4-3-07

HELLO!  Ashy is 10 months old now and over 18 pounds.  Turns out measuring him while standing was a bad idea so I'm not really sure how tall he is since everything gives me different results.  Oh well, I've got the fun marks on the wall to just keep comparing him to.    Let's see, he is waving and shaking his head 'no-no' and clapping.  He can stand and loves to 'walk' holding people's hands.  He is just starting to figure out drinking from a cup (I KNOW, COME ON KID!  SHEESH) and he hates anything green.  He loves this babyfood that is pumpkin pie flavored with pumpkin, pear, cinnamin, cardamon, ginger, etc.  I can also get him to eat his squash baby food if I put all those spices in it.  Generally though - he is PICKIER then Gavin, if that is even possible.  He is so funny and squirmy too.  He wants to nurse, but he doesn't want to lay still, so he twists his whole body around while trying to nurse like he thinks he is going to get up and walk away while still attached.  No real talking yet - not like Jessie anyway.  He has slept through the night a total of 2-3 nights his whole life.  last night he went from 8 to 5, which was AWESOME!

2-14-07

OK, I know, it's been forever!  I've been so busy at work lately, that I haven't had time to update this.  Sorry.  I need to get all the January stuff archived too, but that will have to wait.  Asher has been doing so much new stuff lately!  About a week ago, he started playing this game where he'd clap and look at me and I'd say "yaaaaaay!" and he'd giggle and clap some more.  It got so that I could say "Yaaaay!" and "clap Asher!" and he'd start clapping.  Ahhhh communication!  Then just today, we were over at Farma's house and Auntie Putch (don't ask - it's just her name) was waving her arms over her head like he was and he was cracking up so we started saying he was "sooo big" like I've been trying to get him to do.  Well, it caught on!  Now you can ask how big is Asher and he'll toss his arms up in the air for the Sooo Big part, and then he claps and claps to the YAYAY part.  Also, he says Momma.  He says it when I tell him to say it.  We clap and I say "Momma loves you." and I repeat Momma to him and he says "momma momma momma" back to me.  My heart is so in love.  Speaking of momma, my friend had her little guy not too long ago.  Congrats Kristina and James and family!  He looks just like little Annika too.  OK, back to Asher now. :)  Oh, I know a good segway - Kristina was posting about James's sleeping habits.  OH do I KNOW!!  For a few days there, Ash was giving me decent 5-6 hour chunks at a time and I was too scared to say that it was a trend or a breakthrough so I didn't even tell anyone.  Sure enough though, he broke that!  He had a bit of a fever last week so he stopped sleeping well with that.  He hasn't picked it up again.  He is still just a little tiny bit stuffy and he coughs from time to time so I think that wakes him up.  He is also drooly again and he does still have those last 2 teeth to bring in so who knows.  He hardly wanted to eat anything tonight which of course, my in laws declaired was because his gums were hurting.  I don't know.  He's been nursing a LOT less.  He won't sit still long enough to nurse unless the room is totally dark and I have his sleeping blanket on him.  Otherwise he wants to nurse and get up and crawl around too.  Today at Farma's house he kept trying to get up and play while nursing so I'd take him off and set him down to play and he'd cry at me so I'd reset him to nursing and he'd squirm and twist and cry to get away so I'd let him get away and then he'd turn and look at me and cry because he wanted to nurse.  AHHHHHHHH!  I've stopped nursing him over lunch because it isn't worth the time and gas to drive over there just for him to refuse to nurse anyway.  He does love his big guy food though!  I have a baby food maker that my mom gave me so I can turn our regular family meals into baby food for him.  He loved our spaghetti and meatballs last night.  He hated the green beans so much that he actually started gagging and throwing up from them.  It took some coaxing for him to even let me give him anything with the spoon again after that.  He loved my Malt-o-meal cereal this past weekend.  Tonight he pretty much refused the peaches, chicken, or mashed potatoes.  He was a big fan of the cheese cake though!!  A few weeks back we went to this place called the Alien Bar and Grill.  We ordered these appetizers that were pretty much boneless rib meat pieces.  He was loving that and wouldn't let me stop giving them to him.  I made the mistake though of giving him a taste of this pinapple frozen fruit smoothy thing we ordered for the kids and he screamed at me whenever I tried to give him anything else after his first taste.  He sure knows what he likes!  I just wish he'd pick up on the whole "cup" concept.  Since he has never done bottles ever since, oh, 9 or 10 weeks old, he can't really drink anything from anything other then nursing.  That cup needs to come around here now so that he can get fluids from something other then me.  I almost got him to drink from a straw, but he didn't quite get anything up high enough to get it in his mouth.  Hmmm, well, that's about all I think.  Off to chat on Jessie's page...OH, WAIT!  One more thing.  He meows at Mowgli.  Hehe.  He LOVES Mowgli and whenever he comes by, he does a totally awesome good "meow" at him.

2-3-07

We have a little boogy baby! Play music to Asher and he starts to groove, it is so funny.  He LOVES to play with Jessie's little drum too.  Yesterday I had to work a little late rolling a patch out on a couple servers and testing everything so Farma picked up the kids from daycare.  I got home and they were eating cereal. Ashy loves his finger food.  I also got him some little freeze dried apple and strawberry treats which he really likes.  He slept then from about 9 to 2 and then from about 3:30 (he had a hard time getting back to sleep) until 8 something!  That's 3 nights out of the last 4 that he has been really good about sleeping... could it be a trend?  I actually went to sleep at 9 too so I got some decent sleep.  For nap today he got woken up by his sister before I could lay him down so I had to lay him down awake and help him settle in a little.  It was so funny to watch his eyes fall shut and pop open as he drifted off. 

1-31-07

I'm thinking Asher might be getting some more teeth.  I know, he HAS 6 already, but he still should be getting more eventually and his drool rate has increased.  Another thing on the rise is his bumps and bruises rate.  This mobile thing always seems to come with getting a bit banged up.  If he were my brother instead of my son, my mom would be following him around all over that place with foam cushions and not letting him stand or crawl anywhere dangerous, thus he'd be bump free.  He is my son, and not my brother, however, so that means that he has the freedom to get himself hurt.  I figure, he'll not do it again, right?   Anyway, as the lego indentation on his nose is healing, he just put a side-table corner impression on his head.  I'm debating giving up the lunch-time feeding sessions with him since he rarely ever actually eats anything these days.  Then I could leave work earlier and get home earlier too.  We'll see.  I'd do it either way by 2/22 - so if I take long enough to decide it'll be a moot point.  A couple nights ago, he actually nearly slept through the night.  I'm not sure that if everything was totally perfect and the stars aligned correctly and he wasn't stuffy or teething or uncomfortable from anything that he wouldn't just naturally sleep through the night at this point.  He does know how to get himself to sleep as he's done that many times, so he should be able to wake up at night and get himself back to sleep.  I just think that we've been unlucky with 'things' keeping him up at night... every night... for the last 8 months.  What are the odds?  Oh, he is still not really what I would consider a 'cup' kid.  I've seen him suck on a sippy cup twice now but he didn't really know what to do with the juice he got in his mouth from that.  You'd think he'd be happy to have another way to drink things besides being stuck in mom's lap.  The kid already tries to twist and squirm his whole body all over the place while nursing.  He can't stand to think that something is happening that he can't see.

1-9-07

We have another cold here.  He finally got over the stuffiness right about the time all those top teeth popped all the way out so it may have never been a cold in the first place.  No one else really got sick either so I kinda doubt it.  Anyway, NOW he is sick.  He has been running a fever, especially at night, and pretty crabby.  Poor little guy!  At least he isn't stuffy!
Asher got to go tubing on our little family adventure this weekend.  I'm not sure he really enjoyed it, but he didn't seem to mind being put in a tube and towed all over and then going down the hill.  He was less enthusiastic about the cold pool and the swimming.  He also didn't sleep all that great in the hotel room with all of us.  I'm not sure if it was the cold metal bars on the crib the hotel gave us waking him up if he touched one or if it was the sounds of the family sleeping all around him.  Either way, he woke up a lot.  He's at the point where he really won't sleep in the bed with me so we just had to tough it out.  I wish I had brought the nature sound maker though.
OH!  On Sat night he mastered going from sitting to crawling and all the way back up to sitting all by himself finally!  Before he would get very close to sitting up, but he never really pushed off that arm he would prop up against.  Now he has made it all the way up.  He is also pulling up to a standing position on pretty much anything he can get his hands on... even if it is shorter then he is.  Little boxes give him the start he needs to push up and then he'll just stand up leaning his arm against the box.  At least until I go over and push him down.  (Just kidding.)

1-3-07

OK, someone took my baby!  All those top teeth are finally through enough that they are easily visible so he went from his two little bottom teeth to a full mouth.  Last night he was fussing and when I went to get him, I open to door to my baby standing up in his crib yelling for me.  Um, what?  Yes, I've got a picture, not of that exact moment but still, he is standing up being very non-baby-like.  Hmmm... those vasectomies are reversable, right?  Ah well, at least maybe he will learn to sleep at night too if he is going to be all non-baby-like.  He did manage to sleep from about 11 to 6:30 last night so that is a good start. Reports from his return to daycare after my 3 week vacation are that he is still not eating much while there.  At least, not voluntarily.  I really hope he figures out the whole cup thing soon so I can cross the bottle issue off my worry list.  He gave me "the look" and pouted and whined as I was dropping him off today.  He didn't seem to mind when I left after lunch though as he sat in his highchair munching on baby toast.  I wish he'd learn to wave back to me... some kind of sign that he will talk before he is three!

1-1-07

I've moved all of the 2006 items over to archives for all three kids.  I kept the growth charts here for Ash since they are still needing updates for awhile.  I also moved the link to the first year over to the archive.  I actually have a digiscrap page for that instead now so hopefully I'll get that linked on instead soon. I'm also running low on memory space on this site so I'm going to cut down on the number of photos I place here and just have the link to the family digiscrapbook that will have updated pictures.  I'd say to check that fairly often because there are new pages regularly.

Ash had a full New Year Eve night because he refused to go to sleep over at Farma's house.  I thought for sure that he'd just pass out eventually but he did not.  We even brought the single most awesome item that every person needs when they have more then one child along which was the nature sound maker white noise machine that Grandma got for Asher.  It is absolutely wonderful!  It is this little thing about the size of an answering machine that plays all sorts of nature sounds to create soothing white noise in baby's room.  I can set that up in Ash's room and the kids can run around the house like the elephants they are and he can still sleep!  We can use it at other people's houses to make him feel more at home and to mask the sounds of all the company and he can normally still sleep!  I LOVE it. Anyway, he got this fun little toy from his cousins that he was chasing around the floor a lot.  He was really on the move and he'd reach my legs or the foot stool or something and he'd use it to pull up to his knees - and then stand up but usually someone was helping him with that.  His poor little stuffy nose was bugging him some still - I sure hope that goes away soon!  He sure does have a great grin for the camera!

Link to Ash's 2006 page