#2

As in tooth #2, not poop. :)

It's true, at 11 months old Wyatt is finally getting his second tooth. In this department he is a little behind. Everyone was saying that since #1 came so late the others would be right behind and would come in quick. Not so much.

It has taken a full week for that sucker to finally pop through. Last week I started to notice a little bump and then a little bit of white poking through, but couldn't feel anything when I ran my finger along his gums.

Then today, I saw a corner! Overnight it seems this little tooth has decided to show up full force.

Now the fact that it took so long for this second tooth to show up is not the entire reason for this post...the bigger reason is the location of this particular tooth.

Again, everybody says teeth come in twos. Obviously not with my kid. Everybody says the bottom TWO will be the first to show up. Not with my kid. Instead his bottom left tooth came in first and now his TOP LEFT tooth is coming in.

My child is going to look like a hillbilly.

And just in time for his one year pictures.

Can you see me shaking my head?

And teeth are totally changing how his smile looks! I like his toothless old man smile, it's cute! With teeth, he's really starting to look like a little boy. The big boy clothes, almost walking, and full head of hair doesn't help either. I do miss the teeny baby days, but man is he fun as a toddler!

Have I mentioned he gives the best hugs? No, well I'm just going to have a write another post on another day all about that.

New Stuff

Ok, I know I haven't been posting enough, but really after work and time with Wy I feel like I don't have 2 seconds for myself lately!

But there have been some big and exciting developments lately!!

One, I ordered the invites for Wy's 1st birthday party. It's so crazy to me that my baby is turning one! this year went by so fast. I can't wait though to have a party, watch him eat cake, and help me open gifts. We are having a little party with friends and close family at my dad's house. Simple BBQ food and a few little games and projects for the other older kiddos.

Two, Wyatt is close to walking!! AH! He has been pulling himself up on furniture and scooting around holding on to things for a couple months now. But this week he has been making big strides towards walking on his own. The other night I was sitting on the floor while he was playing like I usually do. While sitting responding to a text I had received I realized he was standing next to me. Not unusual since he is always using me to pull himself up when I am sitting on the floor. Then I realized I hadn't felt his hand on my shoulder for support in getting from the floor to his feet. And then I realized he wasn't holding on to me at all! He was standing next to me with no help happily watching me type a text message. Until I freaked out and accidentally bumped him enough to knock him over. He did it though! All on his own he stood up and was standing next to me with no help.

Wy also has discovered that he can push his truck/walker across the room. It's so much fun to watch him almost run across the living room to bang his truck against the wall...seems like all the noise is the best motivation to bother walking at all. :) So it seems like any day now he's just going to walk off without thinking about what he's doing. Ugh, he's such a big boy!

He does all kinds of goofy stuff now, he dances (bobs more like), he pretends to talk on the phone, he sings himself to sleep...

By the way, something very cute: listening to Wy sings himself back to sleep in the middle of the night; something not cute at all: listening to Wy scream bloody murder in the middle of the night because he doesn't want to drink milk he wants to drink formula. Very annoying.

He is such a joy to me though, even when he's making me crazy. I got a ton of pictures printed from shutterfly recently and brought a handful of them to work so I can have him all over my cube. It makes me happy to see his smiling little face!

Lots to look forward to in the coming months; first steps, first words, first birthday party, first visit with his grandparents from Florida (more on that later)...so much is going on all the time.

Honestly the only thing I am sad about or regret is that I am not able to be home with him full time while he is going through all this. I always thought I would be able to be a stay at home mom for the first couple years with each of my kids. The best I can do at this point is enjoy every second I have with him and hope that someday I get to watch more of the process with my future kids!

TaDa!

Today I hung a shelf in the bathroom and put some vinyl wall art up in my room...

Yes, it's absolutely taking forever for me to get things up and in order here. We have lived in this apartment since March and I'm still working on getting the place set up. It's been really hard to get motivated to tackle these projects after working all week and having Wyatt to chase after any time I'm actually home.

But I'm hoping to be here in this apartment at least another year so I'm not worried that it's taking so long to get things looking the way I want them to. I finally got new bookshelves last month and the difference is amazing. They look so much better!! I've also been making sure to print pictures and actually frame and hang them more often so there's lots to look at on the walls now.

The biggest challenge at this point is going to be keeping Wy's toys in check and weeding through and throwing out things I don't need or want. I have a good handle on Wy's toys at the moment, while I was shopping for bookshelves at IKEA I got him a toybox to keep in the living room, makes cleaning up so easy cause i can just throw everything in the box and put the lid on...InstaClean!! Motivating myself to look through a bunch of stuff I really don't care much about is a whole other thing. I have all these boxes of stuff I haven't looked at in forever. It's such a hassle to sort through things and find places for the things I keep and haul out the junk I don't want.

I'm going to push through though, I want this to be a nice place for me and Wy. And I want to simplify my life. I don't need to be carrying all this junk around any more. It's time for a new start.

Games

Today was a great day!

Since it was a day off, Wy and I were able to get some shopping done and spend a lot of time playing today.

His little tooth (and probably a bunch that haven't made appearances yet) is still giving him some pain, but honestly it's been a pretty easy thing so far. I have noticed he's been more tired than before and in general a bit crabby, but that could also be him just starting to voice his opinions more. :)

I am so impressed with him every single day lately. He is starting to do a lot more mimicking so playing is getting more fun. He thinks it's funny when you click your tongue back at him when he does it. He started to play with shape sorting toys while he was visiting the grands (as Gramma Lori has dubbed she and my dad). He loves trying to chase after the dogs and cat over there too.

I also discovered how much he likes to be chased now! Just last week he was tearing around the apartment and I started to follow him so he wouldn't get into anything icky (like the litter box). Once he realized I was behind him he would laugh, crawl away real fast then stop and look back to make sure I was still following him. It's so funny.

Today we spent a lot of time wrestling, which pretty much just means rolling around on the floor. It's so great to hear him laughing out of control when he tackles me. He was also laughing at my impressions of animals while we read Moo, Ba, La La La. I swear he was trying to make some of the noises too.

Which reminds me that I think he's been starting to sing along to things! Sometimes you'll just hear him making noise that isn't his normal grunty noises or him laughing or trying out words and it only happens when music is on. He has this little nursery rhyme music player from the grands that he plays with all the time now; he turns it on and then holds it up to his ear and sings along (kind of). He also has a nursery rhyme singing book thing from his Grandma Rebecca that he is starting to sing along with. He had to master turning the pages first though. :)

Seriously my kid seems really smart. And yes, I know every parent says that. Which is why I added "seems" to the sentence.

More than anything I am just really in love and proud of my son. He is growing so fast! And he's more amazing every day.

Seriously being a mom is the best job ever.

Teeth!

Wyatt's first tooth is finally coming in!

Gosh did that take forever.

My sitter was telling me the other day about a 6month old she watches who already has like 4 teeth. And my 9 month old little boy is just now barely getting his first.

He's a late bloomer evidently.

It is good to finally have an idea of how he is going to be for teething though. He's been a little more wound up and easily irritated the last couple weeks, but nothing terrible. For sure it's not going to cause me to have crying fits out of frustration while he's sleeping. I might get weepy due to lack of sleep though. He has been sleeping terribly. But normal sleep training seems to be working so I'm not worried about it.

I can't wait till it gets all the way through and I can take pictures of him with just one little bottom tooth showing in his smile. Too cute!

The one big teething symptom he has been getting is a seriously runny nose. Like the kind of runny nose where he always has snot running between his nostrils and his upper lip. With all the nose wiping to try and prevent him from getting boogers everywhere his little face is getting a little chapped and raw. Wy didn't like getting his nose wiped to begin with but now he really hates it.

Poor kid. His gums hurt, he's got a little fever some days, and now his face is all raw from nose wiping.

But he'll survive, we all did.

I can't wait to take pictures!

What the F*$& do I Call This Phase??

Wyatt is still sleeping terribly. He spent half the night in my bed, I banished him back to his own at 4am after having to get up and make him a bottle.

He has also been very whiny and clingy. Yesterday we grabbed some groceries after I picked him up from the sitter and once we got home he was crying and following me around, but didn't want to be held. So finally I just sat at the computer to try and catch up on some emails (I haven't looked at my email almost at all so far this week). Wy crawled over, pulled himself up on my chair and just stood there holding onto my leg for a good 10 minutes or so. But hey if that's what keeps him happy I'm good with that. He seems to want to be close to me all the time, but rarely wants to sit with me or be held.

I have no idea what the heck is up with him, this is a weird phase and I feel terrible that I don't know how to make him happier. I try to be patient, but I can't sit on the floor with him every second of the day. Though I really wish I could.

So we will see how he does tonight.

I'm crossing my fingers that he sleeps.

But I'm not holding my breath.

Exhaustion

Why oh why will my child not sleep!! The last few nights he has been acting totally crazy. He's up 3-4 times a night and it's not just fussy wake up, cry a little, roll over, go back to sleep. It's full on standing in the crib screaming and crying till I walk in just cause I know his face is covered in snot. For the first time in a long time, he has spent 2 nights in a row in my bed. He's been so good about sleeping on his own lately. Sometimes he will lay in bed with me for his last bottle but until this week he had been sleeping better on his own in his room.

I hate to say it, but I am really looking forward to next Friday when he will be staying over night with the grandparents since the sitter will be out of town with her own kids. If this keeps up till then I will really need the sleep.