That poor little tooth in Nathan’s mouth was getting lonely, but luckily it was joined by three more teeth this weekend! We noticed a second bottom tooth had come through on Friday, and on Saturday Gary noticed both top teeth poking through.

Here’s a pretty good picture of that first tooth, the others aren’t in enough to see yet.

Monthly pictures continue to be more and more challenging. We got a few good ones, but the days of propping Nathan in the glider next to the bear and just taking lots of smiley shots are loooooong over! Im sure Ive said it before, but its very hard to believe that we are so close to having a one year old. Where did the last year go? It seems like just last week we were bringing him home. But enough of that, I’ll save the reminiscing for next month

He’s got quite the head of hair, eh?

I’m going to take that sign now.

Got it!

Would you like to play with my duck? He makes lots of fun noises!

We started swim lessons this week. It was fun for both of us. Nathan didn’t get scared at all and enjoyed floating around the water. We practiced kicking, sang songs, splashed a little and he even did okay going under! Gary took pictures from the sidelines, but hopefully he’ll get a chance to play in the water with Nathan at another lesson.

Floating on his belly

And on this back

Getting ready to jump off the side

Weeeeeeee!

Nathan enjoyed some fun treats this weekend.

He LOVED chewing on the bagel, even tried crawling around the house with it in his hand.

And of course the ice cream was a hit. Gary gave him a couple tastes while we were in the kitchen, then took him to the playroom, but Nathan kept crawling back to the kitchen looking for more!

Big changes here! Nathan got his first introduction to cow’s milk this weekend. He wasn’t a huge fan at first. We tried bottle and sippy cup, plain and mixed with breastmilk. He did finally take about an ounce of the mixture on Sunday, which I took as a good sign, and then he took a 4 oz bottle at daycare today with no problem! Very good news.

I think cow’s milk is typically introduced at 12 months, but up until now Ive been exclusively breastfeeding and my supply has dropped to the point that I’m not able to pump enough for daycare anymore. Our frozen milk supply finally ran out last week, so with the doctors okay, we decided to introduce cow’s milk early rather than make Nathan adjust to formula, only to change things up again in a month. I’m extremely thankful that I was able to breastfeed for so long because its not always been the easy and natural thing that I thought it would be. Im going to continue to breastfeed for the next month or so, and slowly wean Nathan during that time. I feel some sadness about this change, but I also feel ready to be done breastfeeding. Hopefully it will be a positive transition for both of us.

Here is the last bag of frozen breastmilk. I was very excited to take pictures of it and memorialize the last of its kind. And then, wouldn’t you know? The damn thing had a leak in it and we couldn’t even use the milk!

Here he is after drinking up the 1.5 oz mixture of cow’s milk and breastmilk. The first time he took it without swatting the bottle away. If you look closely, he’s got a little milk moustache

Can you see it? It’s tiny, but if you look closely, there’s a little tooth sticking out. Still just the one, but I can see little white dots where the other front one wants to poke out.

Baths have become part of our nightly bedtime routine. They’re fun for Nathan and seem to help him wind down. There have been a few nights where Nathan has even crawled into the bathroom and gone to the tub. I guess he’s trying to tell us he’s ready for bed.

Ok, Im ready for my bath!

Im hoping his love for baths carries over to a love for being in the water in general, especially since we start swimming lessons this week.

Grandma and Grandpa Bob came to visit a couple weekends ago. We all had lots of fun playing together, and Gary and I had lots of fun going on our first “date” in months! Nathan is having a little stranger anxiety so there were times when he didn’t want Gary or I to leave him, but Grandma and Grandpa were good at distracting him and he was great for them while we were out.

Blowing raspberries

Learning a new noise game with Grandpa Bob

Loves his Yertle the Turtle present (and so does Fen!)

Peek-a-boo with Grandma. “Where’d she go?”

Nathan finally started saying mamamama a couple weeks ago, but he’d only do it when he was upset. This weekend I finally got to hear him say it mid-happy-babble. I know he isn’t saying it to me or about me yet, but it’s still nice to hear.

I happened to have the camera handy when he did it, so here he is saying mamamama.

Nathan has started sharing with us. He likes to give us toys and even took my hand and put a toy in it the other day. He also likes to feed us, although this weekend he got really good at the psych-out and would reach to feed me and then when I got close enough, he’d pop the Cheerio in his mouth instead! Little stinker! But its very cute when he reaches out his little hand and tries to put food in our mouths, and he seems very amused by it.

Nathan also likes to throw the little balls we have and he’s getting good at dropping things off the side of the highchair and changing table. Right now I still play this “game” with him, but at some point I guess I should stop encouraging it!

“Are you watching? I’m gonna drop it!”

Also, if you say “shake it, shake it, shake it!” sometimes he’ll hold his arms up and shake whatever’s in his hands.

Here he is shaking, shaking, shaking a (very tightly sealed) box of Advil. What a perfect toy with the sound it makes!

We had our first experience with serious baby vomit last week. Poor Nathan caught some kind of stomach bug and let us know all about it around 2am last Thursday night. He never had a fever, just major stomach issues. I stayed home with him on Friday and he was going back and forth from seeming fine and playing, to just flopping over on the floor and needing to cling and cuddle. He threw up a couple more times on Friday, and left some fun presents in his diapers, but with lots of napping, extra TLC and a milk, water and cheerio diet, he was feeling better by Sunday. It was just in time for his cousin Ben’s birthday dinner and he was back to his old self, hamming it up for the family with his new “cheese” grin. His appetite is still not back to normal, but its improving every day and he’s finally at least nursing like normal. Today was the first day back at daycare and he seemed to do fine.

During the intervals where he was feeling okay and happy, I took some pictures of him in his first two-piece PJs. I couldn’t resist, he just looked so darn cute!

Playing in the toy chest

Shortly after I took this, Fen decided he didn’t want to play with Nathan so he left his crate and went to the couch. Nathan crawled after him to the couch and as he started to pull up, Fen jumped down. It was their first game of chase and Fen is such a good sport!

Playing

Sweet Face

Cheese Face!