Update with Pictures

Just a little update on my cute little man. I might be speaking too early, but I think Josh and I have conquered bedtime. For a whole week this kid has been going to sleep without so much as a whimper. Now I'm sure you are all wondering what our secret to successful parenting is. Well, we don't have one. I really don't know what changed. We've been putting him to bed the same way, and he'd cry for an hour before finally settling down. I guess he just decided one day to not cry and go to sleep. I don't think he goes to sleep right away. He moves around a lot, and it may take him 20 minutes I'm guessing. I'm not really sure, cause I don't want to keep checking on him and disturb him. I think the Lord has something to do with Matthew going to bed nicely. I really can't take any credit, cause I don't know what triggered this behavior. I think I will just be grateful for it and smile. Now if he can only do that for nap time, I would be ecstatic. For instance, yesterday he didn't take one nap. He just cried and cried. I feel so bad that he spent a lot of the day crying, but I don't know what else to do. Trust me, he's tired, so I know he needs to sleep. He's just a determined young fellow. Which is a good trait in other settings. But today, I put him down for a nap, and in 10 minutes he was asleep. He only slept for 30 minutes, but hey, he did it all by himself. Does this gray cloud have a silver lining? Stay tuned!

Ok, I admit, these are a little staged. I had to make his hand touch his foot, but he grabbed on and held on all by himself.




In other Matthew news, his tooth is really starting to shoot up. I noticed he's got a red spot behind it, and the other day he was chewing on his zipper sweater thing, and we found some blood on his clothes. Now at first I thought he must have knicked himself on the zipper, but now I'm thinking that maybe his gum was just bleeding a little bit by itself. It makes sense, cause he's got this new tooth that his gums have to make room for, so they would be a little sore and ready to bleed perhaps. It doesn't seem to bother him either, so I'm happy for him. The tooth next to this one is visible, but it hasn't actually surfaced yet. I can't wait to have pictures of him with his new teeth. There's nothing like a baby's gummy smile with two little white friends peeking through :)

I love his goofy-looking smile here.

He likes to practice his new sound. He was saying "da-da-da-da" in Wal-Mart really loud yesterday. And he likes to spit too. Especially when I'm trying to feed him. And while we're on that subject, I haven't seen much improvement with him liking baby food. He doesn't hate it, but he's also not begging for more. It's almost like he tolerates it for my sake. He's gotta learn to swallow, which I know only comes with practice. If he gets confident with that, he may enjoy eating better. For now I just put it in, and it sits on his tongue before it comes back out, watered down with drool. He grabs the spoon when it comes close enough, like he's trying to feed himself, and he'll chew on it and swing it around.

This is the face he makes when Daddy holds him. Just kidding! This was a particularly grumpy day. I know it's blurry, but I figure I get all these pictures when he's smiling, and I need to capture the cranky side of him too. I don't want to look back and think my kid was perfect :)

He seems to laugh pretty easy these days. People at church might not believe me, since whenever we're there he seems so tired and subdued. But I promise he's got energy! He loves to grab at people's faces now. The other day he grabbed my cheeks, so I made a game out of it. I said "These are Mommy's cheeks" and then I'd tickle his cheeks and say "These are Matthew's cheeks." We continued that with our noses and lips and chins, and he kept giggling every time I touched his face. It was a lot of fun.

This is how we found him asleep one night. See what I mean about him moving around a lot? I certainly didn't lay him in the crib that way!

Oh yeah! The other day he reached for me for the first time! Josh was holding him, and he said "Do you want to go to Mommy?" I held out my hands, and he reached out both arms for me. And he was doing it over Josh's shoulder, which made it a little more challenging, but he did it! He's getting much stronger these days. When we hold him, his back is straighter, and he supports himself by pressing his hand on us so he can look around. We're still trying to get him to sit up on his own. He's definitely not always in the mood for it, and he'll let us know, but sometimes he likes it. A friend of mine let me borrow the Bumbo they had for their little girl, and I tried Matthew in it. It was a snug fit, but he didn't mind it for the first couple minutes. But once he dropped his toy and couldn't get to it, then he'd had enough. I think we'll keep using it though, cause I want him to realize that he can play with his toys while sitting up.


Whatchu lookin' at?

Hey, where'd that toy go? It was here a second ago!

And last but not least, some of the cutest pictures ever, in my objective, unbiased opinion ;)