recent developments

over the past week the little dude has definitely made some major developments:

crib circles (no, not crop circles!)

we have been leaving the little dude either swaddled from the armpits down, or in a sleep sack and he loves the freedom to move his arms. when it's bedtime, we'll place him in the crib so that his head is under his mobile. normally when i would go into his room when he woke up, he would be in pretty much the same position that i left him in. not anymore!!! more often than not he has made a full 180 degree circle and his feet are where his head was when i left him! it cracks me up. i'll also wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and look over at the monitor and he's done a 90 degree move. little dude is a mover!!

steady neck

(disclaimer...we're still very safe about this) before we had to always be careful to have a hand under the dudes neck when lifting him up or laying him down somewhere, but now he has it all on his own! now, even if he's laying propped on our legs, he'll start to lean his head forward and act like he's trying to sit himself up using his neck muscles.

elbow resting

the dude has finally figured out that when he's on his tummy that resting propped up on his elbows is pretty nice! you can see a lot more that way, compared to when he would be lazy and just rest his head on the mat. hmmm, he does have a pretty big head though...so maybe it was just too heavy up until now! :) those neck muscles are stronger and able to hold his head up i guess.

half roll

grady said he witnessed a full roll, but i haven't yet. we have a little overachiever on our hands though, because he's been almost rolling over from his back to his stomach more than from his stomach to his back. usually that one pesky arm gets in the way and he can't quite figure out how to move it to roll over all the way. i wouldn't doubt in the next week or so he figures it out! to go along with the 'being unswaddled' development, the dude also likes to sleep on his left side. he contorts the rest of his body to make a backwards 'c' too. it's very funny to see. doesn't look too comfortable to me, but hey, if he sleeps 9 hours that way i'm completely fine with it!

SLEEP!

i'm probably jinxing myself right now, but for the past week the little dude has been sleeping between 8 and 9.5 hours a night!! he's usually in bed by 830pm and gets up between 5 and 6am. not too shabby! and i'm hoping when he starts back up at daycare again, he'll be tuckered out even more from playing with all of his teachers and friends. we'll see though!

cereal!

maybe the dude likes oatmeal cereal better than rice cereal (we had done rice for 2 weeks and have been doing oatmeal for a week now), or maybe he's just got the hang of eating by a spoon down...but man 'o man...3 tablespoons of cereal goes down with a quickness now! i get the whiney cry if i don't give it to him fast enough. well and maybe because the cereal is thicker now (unlike when we first started with the rice cereal which was basically milk with a little but of cereal!) it's easier to take off the spoon and actually swallow. he likes to put his fingers in his mouth after he has a bite in his mouth, which i'm trying to discourage since it makes things VERY messy. i'll get the spoon ready and almost to his mouth and his hands come up. i pause and repeat "hands down please" and 9 times out of 10, he actually puts his hands down. he probably doesn't know he's 'listening' to me...but i like to think so! grady and i also think he's hit the 15 pound mark! growing boy!!

it's amazing what can happen in just one week. i'm sure next week i'll have a whole new list of things the dude can do!