teething | The Angel Forever

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An introduction to fruity goodness & more toofers

Posted on December 29, 2007 9:52 pm by TheAngelForever

At 7 1/2 months old JSL is anxious to dive into anything that he sees that is edible. Unfortunately for him, we have been slow introducing things to him. We wanted to make sure he got tastes of all things veggie before going on to fruits. Last night this changed. Finally it was time to enter into the land of fruits.

Here is JL feeding JSL his first bite of banana.

He was quite anxious to put it into his mouth and seemed to like it rather quickly. After chomping on it for a few seconds he wanted to get a better look at what it was that he put into his mouth.

Next came the touch test. Little did he know . . . this sucker was slippery!

He was successful and got the slick banana piece to his mouth.

Thanks to copious amounts of saliva (teething ya know) the banana quickly turned to mushy goo and was not suitable for JSL to hold anymore. He got quite upset when I took it away to mash up into some oatmeal. He kept "barking" at me to bring it back. He was happy once he saw that I had some very yummy cereal for him to gobble up.

He was a VERY happy camper. In fact he slept through the night again. Then this morning when I looked into his mouth I saw white at the tip of his gum. I did not feel it cut through yet, but man it is close. From the cranky nature of things tonight during a tub and getting dressed, my guess is they may be here Sunday morning.

Categories:
jsl milestone sleep teething

Sleep . . . the final frontier!

Posted on December 28, 2007 11:54 pm by TheAngelForever

We all had sleep last night. . . . WAHOO BABY!

Yes, you read that correctly. Even the teething baby slept through the night. He actually fell asleep on JL early. He went into his crib and only fussed twice early on. Both times a binky and tucking his blanket buddy under his arm to snuggle did the trick. So he basically slept from 7:30 to almost 7:00. Not too shabby.

When the boys woke up they came into our cloudy warm wonderland of fun flannel sheets.

NHL petting JSL’s hand:

And now a kiss:

A certain 7 1/2 month old was VERY serious. We have been worried since he just has not been his smiling/laughing self. Teething is just evil I tell you. Here is Mr. Serious:

Meanwhile Daddy is making funny faces and saying silly things. JSL thinks about smiling:

Yes Houston. . . we finally have a smile:

It was so nice to see that sweet little smile after the last few miserable days without it. Meanwhile a certain little person was devising his own plan.

Seconds later he went for a sneak tickle attack on his little brother. NHL knows that JSL is super ticklish on his neck if he kisses it. So that is exactly what he did.

I love my boys . . . all three of them!

Categories:
brothers jsl nhl photos sleep teething

Not a lot of sleep. . . for mommy & daddy

Posted on December 27, 2007 9:26 am by TheAngelForever

Sleep . . . . what is that again? I seriously do not think that JL and I have a clue these days. It has been WAY too long since we have been able to sleep more than 6 hours a night. For me I think it was likely before I was pregnant with NHL (think November 2002), aside from when I am sick.

The last three nights have been VERY rough. JSL is getting at least his top two front teeth and he is a mess. His gums are so swollen, he is clingy, he keeps throwing up, and he whimpers when going to sleep. In addition to this, he wakes up when resting all the time. Naps only last 20-30 minutes unless I am holding his for the entire nap (like yesterday – thanks Mom). Last night he cried through our entire dinner. We were keeping my mother company and had brought things for JSL to eat. He wanted nothing to do with the green beans, rice cereal, or puffs. He just wanted to be held, nursed or cry. Not the happy, smiling baby we are used to. We dosed him up with some Tylenol since he was clearly in pain.

When we got home JSL only wanted to nursed. He fell asleep at that point and we moved him into his crib. He woke up several times and quickly drifted back with a quick binky application. Before we went to sleep I went to check on the boys. Here is how I found NHL:

This really dose prove he could sleep anywhere! The night time camera setting did make him stir a little. Here he is seconds later:

Meanwhile the little teething machine was snoring away in his crib. He was all cozy and happy thanks to the milk and Tylenol.

And another view of the sleep that did not last long.

As hinted at this sleep did not last long. At 2:00 JSL was up and crying again. He came into our bed and was ready to party from not wanting to sleep. JL was able to get him to curl up and get back to sleep with us after 30+ minutes. Then at 6:30 NHL woke us up and it was time to get Daddy out to work.

*sigh*

Now I have a little teething monkey asleep on me as I type. He was crying again, so I gave him more Tylenol (it had been well over 12 hours) and he is catching up on sleep. I am off to see if I can convince another little boy to rest so I can as well. I feel bad for JL since I know his boss will not allow him to curl up and nap under his desk.

Categories:
jsl nhl photos sleep teething

Snow, sleet, sledding, secret ingredient cookies & sleepy babies

Posted on December 17, 2007 12:15 am by TheAngelForever

Storm #2 of the not even officially winter season is heading out (I think). As of this morning we had 5-6 inches of snow and the ice kept on coming all day. Our plan was to stay home, watch movies, dig out, and bake cookies. Some of those were accomplished. We are partially out from under the snow and ice, we never had a chance to watch a movie (thanks to a certain little monkey), and we ate cookies that were delicious.

By mid-morning JL finally decided that it was time to head out into the snowy cold "fun" and took NHL with him to get out some energy. The poor kid was experiencing some serious cabin fever from being in the house since early Thursday afternoon. Here is Darth Daddy with his camera of course!

Now please note the dorky Abominable Cameraman taking a photo here while measuring the snow fall:

Finally it was time for NHL and JL to dig out at least the front area of the house:

After some time they finally made it further down the sidewalk to clean up more of the snow. Look at the little guy following his daddy – AWWWWW!

Digging, digging. . . . and yes more digging!

I went back inside to check on the little guy who was keeping warm. As you can see he was having a blast playing, but you can also see his poor little nose was very sore looking. He now cries when he sees a tissue coming toward him.

A little while later JL came in to get me for some photos. The boys had decided to take a break from cleaning up snow to play in it. Here is a mosaic of their sledding fun.

The smiles one both of their faces were just SO big!

Soon after this the boys came inside to get warm and eat lunch. We had lunch that NHL picked out – tomato soup with alphabet noodles in it. Mommy thought he might get a kick out of them and bought them. After this we noticed that NHL was getting tired. We knew he would not go to his bed. Instead we got him to snuggle up on the couch under a blanket. After fighting the nap we finally noticed that he was quiet and calm. Here is how I found the little guy. It still amazes me how kids can fall asleep in the most odd ways.

Meanwhile another little boy in the family was miserable. He refused to eat solid food, wanted to be held and could not sleep. He would settle, get into his crib and wake up crying within 20 minutes or so thanks to his poor nose. Here is how he greeted me after one of the mini-naps. The shine on his nose is vasoline to help the sore areas from constantly wiping all of the dripping.

While NHL was napping JL was ambitious and made some chocolate chip cookies using the recipe from Deceptively Delicious. The secret ingredient in these cookies are whole chickpeas. NHL woke up just in time for the first batch to come out of the oven. JL made one recipe which yielded 40 cookies (Seinfeld’s recipe says it will make 2 dozen – what size cookies does she make?). As you can see NHL approved and wanted more than the two that he was allowed. They truly were YUMMY and you never would know there was something like chickpeas inside.

Now both of the boys are in bed and the house is quiet. The 7 month old was a struggle since he was beyond overtired, congested (did the milk thing to help), and two teeth are really coming in. He also learned a lesson – you do NOT bite mommy when nursing and laugh. If you do that mommy will pass you to Daddy and say "No BOOB for you!"

Night-night for now since the morning will be here soon to finish digging out.

Categories:
food glorious food fun jl jsl nhl photos sick kid teething weather weekend winter yummy

Chanukah Night 1 and Feeding take 2

Posted on December 7, 2007 5:15 pm by TheAngelForever

Tuesday night we lit the first Chanukah candles and boys opening their presents. Unfortunately, the photos of the menorah with the candles burning were taken on JL’s camera and I do not have them yet. I did take my camera out and catch a few of the boys.

Here is NHL playing with an amazing wooden Chanukah set that he received from a family friend a two years ago. It is an amazing toy. There is a menorah that he can set up and then "light" his own candles. Here NHL is setting up his menorah and the Chanukah gelt (coins) are also seen.

01 - Chanukah 2007

There is also a fry pan to make latkes, along with a spatula for flipping them. We can not forget the dreidel that must be there to play!

02 - Chanukah 2007

Each night (and after school some times as well), NHL takes out his Chanukah set and plays with them. It is too cute to hear him reciting his own version of the prayers said when lightning the candles. I will have to try to get a video of that.

On the first night when NHL was playing, JL was cooking dinner, and I fed JSL. Last week I decided to pull out the baby food and give it a try. I just made rice cereal – VERY thick. The kid likes to "chew" so he accepted it. After a night or two of him gobbling that up, along with Cheerios and Gerber veggie puffs I decided to try something different.

For the first night of Chanukah I added a "secret ingredient" to his rice cereal. Hey why not try it – right? JSL will not eat his veggies if they are too soupy – a la baby food. So, this seemed like the perfect solution. I put half of a stage two jar of butternut squash into JSL’s rice cereal. He looked at me funny, noting it was different.

04 - JSL feeding time

He stopped and wanted to watch NHL playing. Then this is what he decided to do . . .

03 - JSL feeding time

Clearly the little guy was a little confused. Actually he was teething and must have just figured out a new and inventive way to gnaw at his gums. *sigh*

After a while of chewing on the high chair tray he decided he wanted to try the rice cereal with my "secret ingredient" again. This time he was much more interested and gobbled it all up. Here are some of his faces with his big blue eyes.

05 - JSL feeding time

Thank goodness he was not coordinated enough to stick his fingers up his nose! Also note he is wearing his hockey shirt just for mommy!

02 - JSL Feeding time

Then he got VERY serious about eating and seemed to be annoyed with Mommy and her flashy thing. Hmmm. . . unless it was when he was loading his diaper!

01 - JSL feeding time

More photos of Chanukah to come later. Now I am off to take care of a sick NHL. His teacher called me at 9:20 this morning to tell me he had a fever (almost 101) and to pick him up. Poor little guy asked her to rest and crashed when he got home. If everyone is feeling well we are going to have Chanukah dinner with my parents, grandmother, and brother and his family (in from out of town).