7 Months, 3 Weeks: My son physically abuses me

I just uploaded a few new photos to the Shuterfly, so check them out.

So last week, Liam started crawling. This week he's mastered the pulling-up-to-standing! I took a few pics where he climbed up onto his little table by himself. He also figured out how to get down, gently, from standing too. That happened today, actually. We lowered the crib mattress this week, and in turn "installed" a step for short me to help me put him in the crib. haha

He's a little strongman... he loves to kick me, pull my hair and pinch/scratch my skin. And it HURTS!!! He also thinks it's funny to smack or punch us in the face. I think I have some small bruises on my body from him. He's also a little squirmy turd now with the diaper changes! He's impossible to change. He absolutely HATES it now. That and getting dressed. We can hardly keep him down. Sometimes it takes 2 of us to put his diaper on while he's in a standing position (because he doesn't like being held down).

I don't think he likes to be held a lot now either, ever since he learned how to move on his own. It seems like that's all he wants to do!

He did a funny thing earlier this week. Before he got the hang of pulling himself up, he'd practice, but then fall on his butt. Then he'd laugh at himself. And then another time, he sat himself up against a door and he kind of lost his balance a bit and hit the back of his head on the door. I thought he was going to cry, but he didn't. He started laughing! And then he did it again, and laughed, and again, and again!! It was the funniest thing to watch!!

The food pureés are going well, except they ran out of mangoes at the store we normally go to! What am I going to do! He liked the organic pears I made, but they don't have those at our normal store either. I made him some strained peas and oh my... THAT was hard! I guess I don't have the right equipment to properly strain... I pureéd the peas, then used a wooden spoon and metal mesh strainer thing and pushed the pea "meat" through the strainer. It was hard work!!! I was going to do the same with the string beans I got, but now I am not sure. He might like the texture, I may try it this week. I have been mixing the beans I made last week with gerber squash, which he liked. I also bought some of that Yo Baby banana yogurt, and he seemed to enjoy that, too.

Liam's sleeping has FOR ONCE, been looking good. One night last week, it was my turn to be on night duty (the one to get up and put Liam back to sleep if he woke up). I heard him crying, but was being a bad mom and told Joel, "let's see if he can cry it out (CIO), and give him a chance to go back to sleep on his own. just give him a few minutes..." 5 minutes (maybe less) went by and he stopped. I was holding my breath because before this night, he'd cry for a while, then pause for a bit, but then come back with even louder cries. This time, however, he fell back asleep. Yay! My lazy ass got to stay in bed!!! He woke again that same night, but he might have only had 2 or 3 "Waaaaaah"s... then silence. The silence kind of scared me a little... but then I heard some reassuring sleeping sounds and went back to sleep myself. We tried this CIO method (if you even want to call it that) ever since then, and we haven't had to go in there to put him back to sleep...

Oh, and one more FIRST this week: He had his first injury. He tried to pull himself up using our coffee table, but slipped and ended up with a busted lip. He was bleeding!!! :( Poor guy. He did one of those loud cries, then a long, silent "it hurts so much I can't even produce sound" cry, then more hysterical sounding crying after that. I felt so bad for him. But of course kids bounce back from things like this so easily and he was crawling all over the place minutes afterward.

7 Months, 2 Weeks: .....and we're crawling!

First of all, we got more preview pics from the photo sessions we had while we were up in DC! Posted above are a couple from the 2 sessions, but I uploaded the rest of them to Liam's Shutterfly site, if you would like to see the rest of them.

The other pic is of Liam in his cute new b-baller outfit that my mom got him... along with the shoes that his cousin Owen gave him!

So, yes it is true, as the subject says... Liam learned to crawl! He first did it last Wednesday (Jul 14, 2010). We knew he was getting so close when he showed signs of moving with his arms (which was the last step needed!), and then he finally put it all together shortly after that! It was so cool to see him move. And really funny! haha... He likes to crawl to the dogs and to me! Here's a short video of him crawling to me as I was filming him. (sorry the lighting isn't so great...)

Kalyan was nice enough to give Liam her old foam floor tiles! We put them on the carpet in front of the TV in the living room. Now he's got room to practice crawling without getting hair in his toes and fingers! Although that doesn't stop him from crawling on the carpet! haha Now the next skill to learn is pulling up to a standing position! He's really close to that too... he can "climb" us while we lay on the floor and he'll pull himself up on his feet to a leaning-standing position (if that makes sense).

As for eating, I've learned that Liam doesn't really like peaches! I think I have a funny pic of Shonna trying to get him to taste a peach slice in my Vacation photo album on Shutterfly! But he doesn't seem to like the Gerber pureéd peaches either. So much for my Georgia Peach! But he does LOVE some mangoes!!! Funny thing is that dried mangoes were in my top 3 cravings while I was pregnant. And I never really liked them before that. Now Liam can't get enough of them!

I have been pureéing more foods for him... I've done sweet potatoes, carrots, pears, green beans and mangoes so far. I still buy some Gerber packs to mix with them because I'm trying to move him onto foods with more texture. Some of my pureés aren't totally smooth, so I think mixing them will help with the transition.

His 2 teeth are still coming in. The tops are out of the gums, but still have to pop out more. They don't seem to be bothering him too much. The frozen teethers seem to help a lot.

7 Months: Vacation!!!!

(photos by Mararac Photography 2010)

Sorry I missed a week... we were on vacation and I had limited internet access.

But, OH what a week! Liam must have been on total visual overload all week. This week, not only did Liam meet more people in this one week than he has in the past 7 months, but his first teeth have started to come in!! AND his BFF Scarlett had her first tooth come in this past weekend as well! Talk about good timing... well, not really for us parents because they were a little more fussy than normal. Shoot, if I had a razor sharp piece of bone cutting through my gums, I would be upset too. But despite the pains, we had a fun week.

We drove through the night last Friday to my parents house and arrived there at 4am. Liam met a bunch of my family on Saturday night and he entertained everyone with his baby-ness: sitting, crying, babbling, squealing... Sunday, he reunited with Scarlett after a long 6 months. They played together and I took a bunch of pics of them. Scarlett is just as I remembered her... happy and smiley!! She can clap her hands, it's so cute!! That night (4th of July), we all Metro'ed over to Joel's Aunt Laura's house for dinner and fireworks. He met some other family there as well and everyone had fun with the babies. We had an adventurous time trying to get back to the house due to the Metro being PACKED and had no room for babies in strollers. We decided to just walk about 3 miles back to their house from the station we transferred to since it was so packed!

After a long night Sunday, we had a photoshoot with the babies in the heat... ugh. It was hot, but the babies didn't complain! A high school buddy of mine, Chris and his wife Qiao have a photo biz (Mararac Photography: mararac.com) and they did the shoot. They did a great job and were very accommodating to the babies and the heat! They did LOTS of poses! The pics above are from the shoot with the babies. I love it and can't wait to see the rest!

Tuesday thru Wednesday we were back at my parents house and I asked Chris if he could do another shoot with my parents and grandma. We did it in the morning, but even then, it was still pretty damn hot. I can't wait to see these either! That night Liam met even more family at another family get-together. Tuesday was also Liam's 7-month birthday!

Thursday we went back to Scarlett's house to hang out again. We went to a beer tasting and then to dinner, but at dinner, the babies didn't seem to like the restaurant we went to because they BOTH had fits of crankiness, due to their new teeth and the pain that accompanies it. Boo.

The following day we went downtown and checked out the crowded Natural History Museum at the Smithsonian. Unfortunately, both babies again got a little cranky at certain points due to lack of quality sleep and most likely teeth pain. After departing the "Watrups", we met up with some of my cousins who I have not seen in years! It was a short visit, but I was happy to see them!

Now, we are on our way back to Savannah... we are doing another all-nighter with the driving, but it's not going as great as the way up. Lots of unnecessary traffic in VA. At least we have wifi, a power inverter and caffeine! Nothing like blogging on a long boring road trip!!

I will probably post pics to the shutterfly this week...