LaTour Creations

OK, so it’s been a ridiculously long time since we’ve posted anything, but that certainly doesn’t mean that things haven’t been happening. As a matter of fact, Henry has gone from crawling like a pro to walking like one.

Yep, our little guy is now mobile in the standing position, and I can’t get enough of how cool it is. He started the weekend just after he turned ten months, and improves more and more every day.

Henry and Laura are in Louisiana (after a triumphant plane flight!) visiting Laura’s Dad while I work really long days and sleepless nights trying to get the new Boston office up and running. I spoke to Laura last night, and she noted that Pat didn’t think she had ever seen Henry crawl yet. Last time I saw the little guy, he was still crawling about half the time, so perhaps he’s gone to walking full-time?

(Yes, we have the first attempts on video. No, I haven’t downloaded it from the camera yet, but when I do, there’s always the chance I’ll post it.)

They return on Wednesday. Meanwhile, I have a lot of work to do.

Henry and I have sequestered ourselves inside for the past two weeks because we were accidentally exposed to the chicken pox at our playgroup. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize that we weren’t contagious until this week…so, there’s been an extra week’s worth of cabin fever for nothing. Bleh!

I really hope Henry gets the pox because I think the whole idea of a chicken pox vaccine is unnecessary. However, I suspect that we won’t as we haven’t had any signs yet and the kid we got it from (Hi, Cole!) may have contracted it from his own vaccine, in which case he is non-contagious. At any rate, if he gets it it needs to be soon so we don’t miss our trip to Grampa’s house. Double-bleh!!

On a more positive note, Henry’s progress is coming fast and furious. We just had our 9 month check-up with the doctor and discovered Henry is now 22 lbs. 8 oz. and 30 inches tall. Big boy! (Here he is in his “dapper little gentleman outfit” which we wore to his cousin’s baby shower)

Henry has become MUCH more interested in big people food and has taken to begging (he literally whines like a little puppy) whenever John and I are eating. For his own safety (and our sanity), Henry now spends our mealtimes in his highchair feeding himself cheerios or teething biscuits. Here’s a picture of him with one of his “cookies.” They sure do make a big mess! Crumbs and cookie residue everywhere. I need to get on the ball and start cooking Henry some finger foods like squash and carrots, peas and zucchini, so we can all eat together.

Henry has also become much more interested in games (see picture of us at Gymboree session) like “hats on/hats off” and “where’s Tux?”. He has also developed some cute new noises. He clucks his tongue like a chicken and has recently started what we call his “Tarzan voice” in which he does a modified yodel. But most of all, he’s interested in walking!

Lately, Henry spends more and more time standing alone (like the cheese…hee hee). He is VERY good at lowering himself to the ground from a standing position and standing up from a squatting position. He cruises around the furniture like a champ and spends most of his crawling time moving from one place to stand (like Mommy’s chair) to another (like Daddy’s couch). John’s dad (Pepe) gave him this cool push-cart thing that Henry has been getting a lot of use out of lately. He can walk all the way across the room with it but then he usually gets stuck at the other end because he hasn’t figured out how to turn the thing around or back up. He usually steers it one-handed though… I swear, it’s just a matter of time before he’s walking!

On the sleep front, John and I finally decided to go cold turkey and try the “cry-it-out” approach. We tried every other “gradual” or “soothing” method we could think of and nothing worked…except ignoring him. It was hell for the first few nights. Hell for Mommy, that is…I couldn’t get back to sleep worrying about whether or not I was scarring him for life. But Henry was a champ. The first night he woke around 2 am and cried about 30 minutes then slept til 7. The second night he woke around 3am and cried about 15 minutes then slept in til 7. The third night he didn’t wake until 5ish and cried a few minutes then went back to sleep. Now, most nights he sleeps a solid 8 to 10 hours and wakes around 6 am. YAY!!!

Here’s a pic of John and Henry at the Working Waterfront Festival last weekend. Yup! That about says it all!!

Henry has really gotten much better at babbling syllables lately, and yesterday was no exception. According to Laura, he was saying “da da da da” most of the day. He also picked up a really cool clicking noise with his tongue that he seems to have a ball repeating.

While getting Henry ready for bed last night, Laura pointed at me and asked him, “Who’s that?” He replied with “da da da”. We were both really impressed, but realized that it since it was the syllable du jour, it was probably just a coincidence.

So she asked him again. “Who’s that?” And to our great amazement, he said, “da da”. We were both so happy to hear it, that we both yelled in excitement and clapped our hands at the wonder that is Henry!

Unfortunately, all of the sudden loud celebration scared the little guy. He grabbed momma’s arm, and got thiiiis close to crying before I was able to soothe him.

He hasn’t said “da” to me since. Hope I didn’t ruin it.

Okay, I’m starting to think this kid is taking some kind of perverse pleasure in refuting everything I proclaim on this blog! Two days after I posted my last entry saying that Henry still wasn’t crawling and it looked like he was going to skip crawling altogether and just start walking…he started crawling.

Last Thursday, I was checking my email and looked over into the livingroom to check on Henry. He was sitting up! Now, this is not an unusual occurrence because he’s been sitting for months. What was weird is that I left him on his tummy. He had never figured out how to get into the seated position from his tummy until that day.

By the next day he was making tentative creeping/crawling motions…and by Labor Day weekend he’ was pretty much crawling, albeit very slowly. Now, he can crawl pretty quickly and straight for whatever he’s aiming at (usually Mommy, Daddy, or some enticing piece of fluff on the carpet).

Of course there is no progress without pain. And HEnry got his share of bumps, scuffs, bruises and scrapes. The worse occured on Saturday when he tried to lean on (or crawl over) his bongo drum and it tipped on it’s side. Henry went spilling over and bumped his mouth on the wooden side of the drum. There were many tears (his and mine) and we even witness our first bloodshed as he had a small cut on his gums.

And speaking of gums…Henry now has fewer of them. This weekend Henry cut two more teeth (top left front and second right front)! We have one more tooth to go in this round of teething and it’s very close to breaking thru the surface. Here is a better picture of Henry’s lower teeth. It is very hard to take a picture of his top teeth but I’ll get some eventually. :^)

In other news, Henry has also discovered his pincer grip and has been practicing feeding himself Cheerios (actually the generic Oats & O’s). We are all very proud!

This here is one of my favorite expressions of Henry’s…I call it his “inquisitive monkey.”

Wow! I have been very bad about updating our blog lately. I can’t believe two whole months have passed without a peep from me. (FOR SHAME!)

Well, I learned my lesson. No more bragging about how great Henry is doing in the sleep department because it is a jinx! Not a week after I last posted my glowing review, Henry completely forgot how to sleep. For real! The whole month of July is just a sleepless blur.

Apparently, Henry was teething (which we suspected) because our former sleeping angel became Rosemary’s baby. There was one week where he was literally waking up every hour or two! Nothing helped. (Usually if we think Henry’s going to have an ultra-cranky night we slip him the Motrin and get him to sleep for four blissful uninterrupted hours…but this time, even that wasn’t working)

By the time Henry cut his second bottom tooth (this all lasted about three weeks) , John and I were seriously considering abandoning the child in the nearest cabbage patch for some kinder, more patient soul to find and care for. But, finally, the worst seemed to be over and he went back to a more manageable sleep schedule, only waking once or twice a night.

That lasted about five days. Now he just cut his third tooth (right, top tooth) and seems to be working on his fourth. Will the torture ever end? Luckily, Henry seems a tad less cranky this time around and is only waking twice a night (usually). I just want to get this over with so we can go back to trying to train him to sleep thru the night.

You’d think that Henry would be chomping at the bit (tee-hee) to try out his new chompers, but he’s still not all that interested in solid food. I’ve decided to step up his feeding schedule and try and feed him his baby food twice a day instead of just once in order to stretch out his breast-feeding schedule (the kid still wants to eat every two hours). But sadly, adding the extra mealtimes doesn’t make him want to skip a breast session. And, as he still won’t drink his milk from a bottle…I’m stuck being Henry’s 24-hour buffet.

In other news, Henry is making progress in the sippy-cup department. He does need help as he hasn’t figured out the whole tipping-your-head-back-to-drink thing…but there are days when he’ll drink 4-8 ounces of juice or water. I’m hoping that eventually we’ll be able to slip him some breast milk or formula this way. But, for now, it’s still very hit-or-miss.

Henry is still not crawling. He’s creeping (sort of), he’s a champ at sitting, and is VERY interested in walking (if he had his druthers, he’d stand for hours)…but he just can’t get the hang of the crawl position. And, as he still hates his tummy-time, when I try to “train” him to crawl he just winds up flat on his tummy fussing and whining at me.

He also refuses to roll from his tummy to his back. He did it once or twice in the early days but then decided that fussing and whining until mommy or daddy give in and rescue him works much better. This is probably the most annoying development because if he rolls over onto his tummy in his crib he will start crying and wake himself and his parents up. Nine times out of ten, when Henry is crying in his crib it is because he’s flopped onto his tummy and can’t roll over. Sometimes he does this an hour after we’ve put him down and John has to bounce him back to sleep on the Yoga ball.

Uh-oh Henry’s whining for me…gotta go. Will write more this weekend