I had planned to post an update last week that would focus on Erik’s latest achievements & skills. The last 2 weeks have been relatively quiet in terms of major events, but for accountants like me, our work schedule in January is less than to be desired and I’ve tried to squeeze work projects into every available minute that I have in the evenings! So, two weeks after my statement that I was going to keep this blog up to date, I’m behind schedule. Oh well - are you really surprised that I’m late?!!
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| Erik "flying" with help from Daddy |
The big news that happened this past weekend is that Erik has pink-eye. Yeah. We have gone through our second visit to the ER - this time on Sunday morning. Erik isn’t even 6 months old yet! How many visits to the ER are we going to have this first year?! Erik started having symptoms Sabbath afternoon with drainage from his eyes; then over night as I checked on him, I noticed that his left eye was swollen & red. Our wonderful doctor lets us call him whenever we need to and he recommended that we go to the ER if his symptoms didn’t go away. On Sunday morning, after no real improvements were detected, we took ourselves off to the Children’s ER at Florida Hospital. For being an ER (and inherently scary in my opinion), I do like the Children’s ER. The wait times have been very short, if there’s a wait at all, and all the medical professionals are pediatric-oriented so you know you are getting the best of care. Erik was diagnosed with pink-eye and an ear infection in both ears, though the right one was only a slight infection (of course, that’s the ear he is always pulling on). Erik is a very good patient and tolerates really well the eye treatments and antibiotics that we have to give him. I’m more anxious & upset about the whole experience than he is; I hate feeling helpless and anything slightly medical-related makes me feel helpless.
The other big news is that Erik slept through most of the night on Sunday (I hear an angel chorus singing “Hallelujah” every time I say that)!! He went from 8:30 until 3:30 - a wonderful 7 hours of blissful rest. Of course, he didn’t repeat that glorious experience last night, but I’m hoping that we have turned the corner and more full nights of sleeping will soon follow.
Now that I covered those major events, here are some of Erik’s latest achievements, skills and traits! I may say it too much (or think it, if you haven’t heard me say it), but Erik is just the cutest, sweetest and the best baby ever. He is truly a gift from God and Kent & I are thrilled to have him. It seems like his motor skills, actions & reactions have just grown by leaps and bounds this month so far. He will be 6 months old on January 30th and I’ve been told that “everything” changes at 6 months. It would certainly seem that way from how Erik is gearing up for his milestone birthday.
Talking - he babbles a lot - sometimes while sleeping in the middle of the night! He seems to be focusing first on the ‘ma’ sounds, which makes my heart sing! We hear mamamamamama a lot from Erik.
Laughing - up until this past week, Erik would only give a silent laugh - his mouth would open wide and and he would smile big. However, if Kent & I work really hard at it, we can now get him to give us chuckles and belly laughs. They are still very rare and therefore, very precious.
Sitting up - Erik started to sit up by himself last week. He now wants to sit unassisted all the time and he loves it when we let him sit up on his changing table so he can reach out and grab items off the storage area. We discovered this sitting up skill a bit by accident one night during bathtime, when I was looking at his blue plastic tub that has different positions for infants, newborns & toddlers. I realized that we had never moved him from the newborn bathing position and so we tried the next position and he loved it. Oops - sorry to hold you back, kiddo!
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| Erik sitting up all by himself! |
Grabbing - Erik has become very “handsy” in the last week; he reaches out for anything near him and tries to grab objects from tables, dressers, other people. To get to all the objects that he desires, he can reach across his body, stretch way up over his head, lean over so far you’re certain he is going to do a face-plant and just hold his hands up begging for the object! I’ve been told that Kent was also very handsy and wanted to touch everything as a baby, so we are going to say that Erik takes after his Daddy in this regard.
Toes - Erik discovered his feet in late November or early December and he will grab his toes and cram them into his mouth every chance he gets - usually on the changing table. He also is super accommodating to whoever is changing his diaper and will always pull his legs up when you lay him on his back so that you can easily change his diaper!
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| Showing off his incredible flexibility |
Cheeks - with all the grabbing and reaching that Erik is doing now, one thing that is super cute and precious is that he will reach out to Kent or I and just pat our cheeks or chin as if to say Hello and then will move on to something else! Sometimes the pats aren’t so gentle, but I’m going to say that’s because he is excited to see us! He also loves to have his cheek pressed to the mattress when he is going to sleep - rubbing his cheek when he is fretting also works! As we are getting him ready for bed, he will turn his face to the side, press his cheek to the mattress or changing table and be asleep in a few minutes! As a child, I also loved to rub Mom’s or Dad’s cheeks when I was going to sleep, so I’m attributing this trait to me!
Waking up - this last category isn’t so much a skill as a cute trait that I wanted to share. In the morning, when Erik wakes up, he will lay in his crib quietly or talking/singing to himself - often with his eyes still tightly closed. When Kent or I go in to get him up, he will open his eyes, squint at us and then give us the biggest, sweetest smile ever. We swaddle Erik at night and as we open the swaddler in the morning, he “explodes” out of it with arms & legs stretched wide, sort of like a caterpillar coming out of his cocoon. Sometimes Kent & I argue over who gets to pick up Erik - we’ve even once resorted to bumping the other person out of the way to get to the nursery first! Hmmm, we could be gearing up to spoiling Erik just a teensy bit!!!
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