Hellobee

Charlie turns 8 months old today!

He’s been pulling himself up to stand for the past 2 weeks, and in the past couple of days he’s been getting really good at it. Yesterday he stood up in his crib for the first time while in his sleep sack. He looked like he was in a little baby jail when he was holding onto the bars of his crib.

Eating

…Mr. Bee said to me this afternoon, as I made food for Charlie, because he would never do it himself. I love making food for Charlie because I know that everything is fresh and organic. Now if only he’d eat more than 2oz a day. He’s still not a fan of eating, and shows absolutely no interest when we eat in front of him. We gave him some Happy Bellie’s Puffs yesterday for the first time though, and he kept opening his mouth for more.  Today I gave him cauliflower, which has a thicker consistency than the purees we’d been giving him, and he seemed to love it. Maybe Charlie is craving food with more texture than boring purees, so we’re gonna try some chunkier foods from now on. So far he’s had rice & oatmeal cereal, butternut & acorn squash, zucchini, peas, carrots, green beans, avocado, yam, cauliflower, pear, apple, mango and apricot. The only thing he hated was apricot — it was too tart for him!

Schedule

Before Charlie was born, Mr. Bee and I would eat out often, watch lots of movies, and take long walks during the summers. Now my weekend looks like this:

5:30am – 7:30am – Charlie wakes up. Feed 6 oz milk, pump, play, put him down for his nap.
7:30am – 9:00am – Nap #1. I always nap during Charlie’s first nap.
9:00am – 11:30am – Feed 5 1/2 oz milk. Mr. Bee plays with him while I pump, eat breakfast, do the dishes, laundry, etc.
11:30am – 1:00pm – Nap #2. Cook food for Charlie. Boil tap water for Charlie to drink (I do this every 3 days). Wash his toys.
1:00pm – 3:30pm – Eat Solids. 5 1/2 oz bottle. Mr. Bee and I play with Charlie together.
3:30pm – 4:30pm – Nap #3. Pump.
4:30pm – 6:00pm – Feed 5 1/2 oz bottle. Mr. Bee and I take Charlie to the playground, out for a walk, go out to dinner.
6:30pm – Bath, 6 oz bottle.
7:00pm – Charlie’s bedtime
7:00pm – 8:00pm – Take a shower. Pump.
8:00pm – 11:00pm – Clean, edit pictures, blog, surf the net.
11:00pm – 12:30pm – Pump one last time. Watch shows on dvr.
12:30pm – Sleep.

We usually wake Charlie up from Nap #2 and #3 every day. It’s made it a lot easier to maintain a consistent schedule because I know exactly when he’s going down for his naps, and can plan our day accordingly. We wake him up from naps because I don’t want him to sleep too much in the daytime… otherwise he’ll sleep less at night. No matter what, he always gets about 14 1/2 hours of total sleep in a 24 hour period.

It’s amazing how you just get used to sleeping less when you have a baby. It’s not that painful to wake up at 5:30am anymore. Even if Charlie didn’t wake me up, I’d still wake up at that time because my body is used to it. I think I’ve been tired because Charlie makes a lot of noises in his sleep, and they wake me up. Sometimes it takes me a couple of minutes to go back to sleep. Sometimes I’ll get up and go to the bathroom. And from 4:30am on, he makes a lot of noise even though he’s still sleeping. Often that keeps me up the entire time because I’m so sensitive to Charlie sounds. I probably wake up at least 5 times a night, every night, so my sleep is very fragmented. I get about 5 hours in the first stretch, and then another hour during Charlie’s first nap. I can’t just turn off the baby monitor though. I guess I’ll catch up on sleep once Charlie starts school.

Charlie is OBSESSED with the swing. Our nanny takes him to the playground every morning to ride the swings, and sometimes I take him again before bedtime. He cries every time we take him out of the swing even if he’s been in it for 30 minutes. We push him pretty hard too… we have a future adrenaline junkie like his mom on our hands!

Charlie is always the youngest baby on the swings, but he can hold on and kick his legs like a big boy.

Charlie still can’t sit up by himself, but he can now stay sitting indefinitely if we put him in a sitting position. Before he’d topple over after a couple of minutes, but his balance has improved dramatically in just the past couple of days. Most babies learn to sit up first and then crawl, but Charlie has been crawling for over a month and still can’t sit up.

Charlie is really a lot of fun these days. His favorite thing lately is to be carried on our shoulders. Babies have no fear! We take him out to dinner almost every evening, and he sits in a high chair like a big boy. He’s becoming so much more social — he often smiles at strangers, and he isn’t the shy sensitive baby he used to be.  They really do grow up so fast.

Happy Saturday!