I’m hoping last night was not a fluke because Gabriel slept from 8pm until 8am this morning. He has not slept that long since right before he turned six months. For the last month he has been waking up once or twice a night acting like he’s starving. Last night I heard him start to fuss at 12:29am. I decided to give him five minutes and see if he would go back to sleep. The next thing I knew I was waking up all on my own and it was 7:22am. And he didn’t wake up for another half hour! I felt so refreshed this morning.
In other good news, Gabriel’s plugged tear duct has opened. We went to visit Grandma & Grandpa Finke in Winona last weekend and sometime over the course of the weekend it must have opened because his eye has been draining fine now. We haven’t had to clean it out once.
Here are some pictures of Gabriel’s newest favorite hobby – playing in the pet dishes!
As soon as we set him on the floor, he makes a beeline for those dishes.
Gabriel and I started parent-child swimming lessons about a month ago. We go Monday nights for a half hour at the Chaska Community Center. It’s not so much “lessons” as a chance for the babies to get used to the water and have positive experiences. The babies range in age from 6 months to 2 years. I think Gabriel is the youngest one in the class. Most of the time we put them on a kickboard and try to get them to blow bubbles or kick their feet. We also lay them on their backs to get them used to the feeling of water around their heads and ears. We also use these little watering cans to pour water on their heads and shoulders.
The last few weeks we also dunked them under the water. I was nervous about it, but Gabriel took it in stride and it didn’t seem traumatic for him. He instinctively knew to close his mouth and eyes so when he came up he just blinked a lot and looked a little dazed. Some of the older babies got pretty upset though. He really loves to splash around and last week he kept trying to dip his mouth in to drink the water. Here are a few pictures:
On the kickboard
Last week was the first time we used the floating barbell. Gabriel prefers the kickboard.
Last week we used life jackets & went in the deep end. They only had a pink one left so that's what Gabriel got stuck with...My little pink marshmallow.
Imagine you are a dog that doesn’t like having his feet touched. Also imagine that there is a small child in your home who has just learned to crawl, and he wants nothing more than to touch your feet. Pedro is that dog; Gabriel is that child:
A few weeks ago, Gabriel learned that he could do more than just roll over in order to get places. He started inch-worming across the carpet, and by now, he has become quite adept at creepy-crawling across the floor towards whatever toy he wants. I took a video of one of his earlier attempts last week; you’ll notice that he revs up his motor before he hits the gas:
He’s much better at it now, almost able to crawl three or four steps before going back on his stomach. The first time he actually crawled (rather than creeped), he zipped across the floor to a plate of Chinese food and had his hand in the sweet-and-sour sauce before anyone could stop him. Looks like milk and applesauce aren’t cutting it anymore…
P.S. Do you know what a baby’s favorite Chinese food is? Goo-Goo Ga-Gai Pan.
His percentiles went down a little since his last visit but the doctor said it was nothing to be concerned about. He looks very healthy. He got four shots (one of them was the flu shot).
This month has been very eventful for Gabriel. He got his second bottom tooth, started solid foods (he has tried rice cereal, bananas, peas, & apples so far), started a parent/child swim class, sits up very well on his own, and has just about started to crawl.
He hasn’t been doing as well with sleeping through the night the past few weeks. He used to go to bed around 8 and not wake up until 7, but lately he has been waking up as much as twice a night (usually around 2 and 5am). He has seemed very hungry as well so maybe he is going through a growth spurt.
He now wears size 3 diapers and 6-9 month clothes.
He has also been making a lot of new noises (lots of ba ba baas). He still takes three naps per day but has usually been getting an extra bottle during the day and an extra feeding at night. He is starting to mimic some of the things we do (mouth motions like sticking his tongue out and trying to copy sounds).
Below are his monkey pics. The last few pictures are of him up on his hands and knees.
