What's New These Days {with Everett}

I've kind of gotten behind on my ramblings about Everett and have a mouthful at this time. He has reached so many developmental milestones this past week and I just love how intuitive he has become. He is so smiley and so giggly these days and last night, I heard the one word that made me feel as if I died and went to heaven. He said Mama! He said it while he was crying and I know it wasn't what he meant to say but it was so pronounced and it made my heart skip a beat. I love this little guy so much!



He has been sitting up so well now and even though he's not much of a fan of the Bumbo, I try to get him in it several times a day. The photo above was from today and he has improved from last week. I think he was more interested in sucking on his little fingers that he lost all concentration and energy put forth to holding himself up.



He has also gotten so buff that he can get out of his swaddle within seconds so Dale and I have not had much sleep these past handful of nights. He awakens once he gets his arms out and we have been getting up and down and up and down numerous times during the night to re-swaddle him. I think it's definitely time for us to wean him off the swaddle. We plan to start putting him to bed swaddled but with one arm out. That's a start there. I've become impressed at how well I can function on so little sleep. It's been a little exhausting getting up several times a night. And at the moment, this lack of sleep has weakened Dale's immune system and he's fightin' a cold. I think we will have several weeks of no sleep ahead of us now as we wean the swaddle off. Everett has also become mobile and I found him like this this morning:


The weather has been gorgeous and we've spent some time relaxing out on our patio and taking Everett out there to get some fresh air. He loves it. He stares at all the cars going by and tracks the Max with his eyes so closely when it hums past our building.


Look at that frown!


Mr. Smiley


Other Everett News includes:

-finding his feet/toes. He found them 2 days ago. He saw his foot move out of the corner of his eye and he froze and his eyes got huge and he just stared. It was entertaining watching him be so amused at his own foot. He moved it again and slowly reached for it and his eyes got even larger. Since then, he loves hanging onto his left foot.

-going to Soy formula. We changed Everett from Similac Sensitive to Similac Isomil (Soy). His eczema was only getting worse and in hope that one of the causes was due to a milk allergy, we went milk free. It has constipated him these past several days but I am hoping he will become more regular as his digestive system slowly befriends the Soy. Also, we upped his feed amount to 5 ounces and he drinks his bottles bone dry now. For the past month and a half, we have struggled to get this kid to eat and we just figured he hated eating but I advanced him to the next nipple flow and he goes to town now. I think he was just getting so frustrated at having to work so hard to get anything out with the Newborn flow nipples. Now I'm just waiting for him to chunk up! Ha.

-sucking on his fingers ALL THE TIME! If I'm not feeding him, he has his fingers in his mouth. He's become quite the drool head and when I take him out of his mouth, he gets SO mad at me. Does this mean he's starting to teeth?!?!?

-reaching and grabbing for things. He has the coordination to reach for things now and hold onto it. He will also grab at my hand and will pull it towards his mouth.

-not wanting to nap. We've been so spoiled these past 4.5 months. He went down for naps, no prob, but now, he screams and kicks his legs. He's at the point where he wants to stay up and play but to ensure that we have a happy baby, we don't let him win the fight and will endure all the screaming until he falls asleep. I think that's a problem that some parents make is not having the patience to fight their child's desire stay up and not nap but I think if we start this early to teach him to nap, it will save us a lot of work in napping him as he gets older.

I've taken several fun videos of him and will make sure to post them within the next several days!