Video of Garrett at 9 Months

Easter 2010

Happy Easter!

Garrett's First Top Tooth

Garrett's first top tooth cut through his gums earlier this week.

Garrett is 9 Months Old

It’s hard to believe he is already nine months old.  That’s probably how I’ll start every post about him from now on.  “It’s hard to believe he is already ___ old.”

 

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We took Garrett to the pediatrician yesterday for his nine-month checkup.  He is 29” long and weighs 21 lbs.  He is in the 90th percentile for his height and the 60th percentile for his weight.  Basically he is a giant kid and growing fast.  He’s pretty tough too.  He got a shot in the leg and barely cried and when they pricked his finger to get blood he didn’t cry at all.  The doctor said he was doing excellent and we go back to see her when he is 1 year old.

His days start at 7:30 am sharp every morning.  He gets an 8 oz. bottle of formula and some cereal and a fruit and plays for a little while then get goes down for a little nap around 9 am.  Then he wakes up around 11am and has another bottle, some veggies, and a meat.  He’s up for a few hours playing and then around 2:00 he takes another nap until 4:30 or 5:00 pm.  Then he drinks another bottle, eats some meat and veggies or fruit and plays for a while longer.  At 7:30 we give him a bath and then he get’s his last bottle and passes out, and sleeps all night.  Then he does it all over again.

He crawls all over the place really fast and tries to get into everything.  He can pull himself up on whatever is close by and cruise around holding on to it.  He can stand up on his own for about 5-10 seconds before he realizes what he’s doing.  Once he figures it out, he sits down.  He can also take a short step from one couch to the other or from the couch to the table.  I’ve put covers on all the electrical outlets and kid-proof latches on the cabinets in the kitchen.  His favorite things to get into are the TV cables, the potted plants, Abigail’s water dish, and stacks of magazines.  But his absolute favorite trouble to get into is pulling rocks out of the fireplace.  So far we have been keeping one step ahead.  Telling him, “No!” just makes him giggle.

He still likes his “Your Baby Can Read” videos and American Idol but he really likes Kung Fu Panda.  He even light up when he hears Jack Black’s voice in other shows.

He’s got a million funny facial expressions that crack us up all day long.  He likes to be upside down too.  If he wants to see behind him, rather than turning around, he leans his head way back and looks over his shoulder.  He also likes playing tug with Abigail and she is warming up to him a little more.

He is a happy, healthy, hilarious, handful.

Garrett Christmas 2009 thru January 2010

New home movie of Garrett's first Christmas, standing up, and playing in his walker.

Garrett’s First Tooth

Garrett’s first tooth poked through his gums today.   It’s his lower left central tooth.

Garrett is 7 Months Old

Garrett is 7 months old today. It seems like just yesterday when he would hardly move at all, now he is a happy little ball of energy. It sure does go by fast.

He’s eating solid food now. A few weeks ago we started him on rice cereal then moved on to barley cereal, this week it’s carrots and next week it’ll be squash. He’s a really good eater. You just have to hold to spoon up to his mouth and he opens wide. Of course, a lot of it gets spread from ear to ear and nose to neck on the first try but we're working on it. He can also feed himself a whole bottle.

He’s crawling now too and he gets around really good. When you set him down he’ll crawl all over the room and check out everything he can get his hands on. He’ll crawl from the living room, around the kitchen, out by the foyer, toward the front door, back around to the utility room to spill Abigail’s water bowl. One of his favorite discoveries are the metal springy doorstoppers. We took the tips off of them to be safe but likes to plunk them because they make a loud twanging noise.

He pulls himself up on everything he too. He’ll walk up to a table or chair or box or anything and pull himself all the way up to standing. He’ll then take a step or two around whatever he’s holding. Earlier this week he pulled himself up on a chair then reached out to his bouncer that was about a foot and half away so he was holding onto both, then he let go of the chair and moved over to stand next to the bouncer. He’s was pretty proud and let out a high squeak.

Every day he learns so much. He’s an amazing little guy.

Garrett’s ExerSaucer

Garrett is outgrowing his bouncer so we got him what's called an ExerSaucer.  It is kindof like a walker with no wheels.  It's covered with all sorts of stuff to play with and he loves it.

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4 Months Old

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Wow, it’s been a busy few weeks.

We were having trouble with Garrett sleeping through the night.  We were doing everything we were supposed to.  We were consistent in our routine, relaxed him with a warm bath, kept the lights dim and noises low, and read bedtime stories or sang lullabies.  None of this was working. Every night we would put him down around 9pm and he’s always get up around 3am.  But when he’d spend the night with grandparents he’d always sleep through the night.  All the grandparent’s houses are warmer than ours by several degrees so we closed the AC vents in the nursery and doubled up on the blankets in his crib.  We found Enfamil RestFull which digest slowly so he doesn’t wake up hungry.  We switched him to that at night and I’m happy to say that for the last few weeks he’s sleeping all night.  He goes to sleep around 9pm now and sleeps until about 7am.  Mommy & Daddy don’t have bags under their eyes anymore!

Friday we went to the doctor for Garrett’s 4-month checkup.  He weighs 15 lbs 4 oz (6.9kg) and he is 25 ¼” (64 cm) long.  She said that physically and developmentally he is doing great.  He drinks about 4-6 oz at a time and about 30-40 oz a day. He has a very mild case of Cradle Cap which is a crusty skin rash on his scalp.  He had to get more vaccination shots which he didn’t care for at all but got over quickly.  The doctor said he wouldn’t be ready for solid food for another 2 months.  We go again for his 6-month checkup the second week of December.

He can roll over from his back to his front and from his front to back and he can hold his head up on his own.  A couple of weeks ago he started to reach for things and grab them and hold on to them or, more likely, put them in his mouth.  He has a couple of little stuffed animals and rattles and toys that he likes.  His favorite is Tigger.  He likes to suck on his tail.

He’s making a lot more noises now too.  He jabbers a lot and it sounds like he really has something to say.  Occasionally he’ll try to hold a sound as long as he can.  Like  “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” until he runs out of breath.  Or he’ll try to see how high pitched of a squeak he can make.  Every now and then he’ll just let out an “EEEEK” real loud and then go back to what he was doing.  He giggles now too when you tickle him or give him smooches on the neck.

This guy LOVES his fingers. The first thing he does in the morning and the last thing every night (and most of the time in between) he is sucking on his fingers.  A lot of times he’s not really sucking on them though.  It’s more like he just puts them in his mouth in order to make drool.  He likes to try to get both fists in his mouth at the same time.  A couple of times he’ll stick them so far in his mouth, he’ll gag.  This skill combined with his new found voice makes for some interesting shows. 

We’ve got some good videos that I want to post but I recently upgraded our computer to Windows 7 and my old video editing software isn’t compatible.  As soon as I find some new software I’ll get them posted.

I can’t wait to get home from work every day to see what he’s going to do next.

3 Months Old

For the first week after we put Garrett in the nursery he slept pretty good.  Since then he’s had a hard time staying asleep.  His being in the nursery has been harder on us than it has been on him.  The baby monitor we got is pretty cool. It has a night vision camera on it so after we put him to bed Kelly and I lay in our bed and watch him sleep on the monitor.  It's our new favorite TV show.

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This past week Kelly got sick. She went to the doctor and they told her that she had a double ear infection and a throat infection. She had the exact same thing last year around this time. They prescribed some antibiotics.  I worked from home for a couple of days so I could take care of Garrett.   Then I started to get sick too, but I took some of Kelly's antibiotics to nip it in the bud.

Grandma & Grandpa rescued him from us on Friday and kept him through the weekend so he wouldn't get sick. We missed him so much while he was gone. It was nice to rest for a couple of days but we were really glad to have him back home.

 

We had tickets to the Nickleback concert for Saturday but we were too sick to go. We tried to sell the tickets but couldn't find anyone to buy them. At the last minute we were able to give them away so they wouldn't go to waste. It rained and it was muddy, but we heard it was an awesome show. Bummer.

12 Weeks Old

Garrett is 12 weeks old today.  We started him on the "Your Baby Can Read” program.  He loves it.  He is completely enthralled with the DVD.

We also got a baby monitor and we’re going to start putting him in the nursery.

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He’s the best baby in the world.

Garrett’s First Tooth

Actually, his first teeth.  It’s unusual that he would get five at a time an that they would be so big… and hillbilly-ish  Maybe we should take him to the baby dentist.

11 Weeks

We’ve started a pretty good routine with Garrett.  Or he’s started a good routine with us, depending on how you look at it.  He wakes up every day around 7:30am and has breakfast.  Then he naps and eats off and on until about 2:30pm.  Then he’s pretty much up all evening until around 9 or 10 pm.  Then we feed him, give him a bath and I read him a story, top him off and he goes to sleep.  If we stick to this he sleeps a lot longer.  One time he slept for 9.5 hours and a few times he’s slept for 7+ hours.  If we get off the routine  though, he only sleeps for about 4 hours.

He’s a lot more alert and attentive now.  He smiles at everything.  He watches some kids shows and likes all the bright colors.  There’s a show on HBO called Classical Baby that he loves.

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2 Month Old Videos

 

 

2 Month Checkup

We took Garrett to his 2 month checkup today. He weighed in at a whopping 12 lbs 7 ozs and is 23" inches long or tall depending on how you look at it. The doctor said that developmentally he is on-track and physically he's perfect. He had to get four vaccinations today. Three of them were shots in his legs and one of them was oral. The needles for the shots were not little baby needles either. They were big Capri-Sun-straw needles. He cried for a little bit, but, I was surprised that by the time we put him in the car seat to leave he was fine.

Fake Cry & Bumbo

This is from when Garrett was 6 weeks old.  He's got this thing he does where he cries the absolute minimum possible to get stuff done. He'll work up a little cry to a little yelp and then quit.  Also we have a Bumbo chair that he wasn't sure of the first time he sat in it.  Since then he likes it more.

2 Months Old

Garret is 8 weeks old today.  He’s so much fun.  He wakes up laughing and smiling in the morning.  He still only sleeps about 4 hours at a time but we are starting to get on a regular routine.

Garrett Videos

I’ve been a little late on posting some of these videos.

 

 

 

6 Weeks Old

On Wednesday, Garrett turned 6 weeks old.

 

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A co-worker of mine asked me the popular question, “how much sleep are you getting?”  I gave him a sleepy grunt.  He recommended a book called “On Becoming Baby Wise: Giving Your Infant The Gift Of Nighttime Sleep.”  And touted that by following the instructions in this book from day one he was able to get his baby to sleep through the night at two months old.  Obviously I was interested so he lent me the book.  I began reading it and it seemed to have some answers about feeding and sleep.

Then in another really good book we got from the obstetrician called “Baby 411,” it rates different sleep techniques.  The Babywise method was rated an “F”.  It went on to say that the “American Academy of Pediatrics issued an alert regarding their concerns with this book.” 

Wow, we’ve got to be careful where we get our advice from.

Also Garrett hadn’t pooped in a day. Since almost every diaper we changed was dirty, we were concerned that he may be constipated.  We looked it up in “Baby 411,” and it said that at around 6 weeks a baby’s bowels slow down and they may only poop once every 24 hours and be prepared for “The Mother Load.”  Which we experience every day now.

A few people have also recommended that we try adding  a little rice cereal mixed in with his formula to help him sleep through the night.  We tried this and it didn’t have any effect on him.  We looked that up in the “Baby 411” too and it says that’s an old wives tale.  This book has been really helpful.

Kelly’s Baby Picture

Here’s a baby picture of Kelly when she was still in the hospital.

A lot of people say that Garrett doesn’t really look like either Kelly or I, but if you take this picture and the previously posted baby pictures of me, I think its pretty easy to see the resemblances.