Week 45: 10 Months Old

The week started with a baby shower that several of us hosted for good friend, Heather Cochran.  We held the shower at my house with Lisa D being responsible for the food and Amy Z being responsible for  decorations & ideas.  I got to give our house a thorough cleaning and then help Lisa & Amy with various small tasks as needed.  The fact that we were having lots of company over also meant that Kent had to quickly finish some home repairs in our guest bathrooms!!  It seems like it has been a very long time since I've helped to host a shower, so I was very happy that Heather's shower went well! 

Group shot at Heather's shower

We ended the month of May with a much needed Memorial Day long weekend at the beach with our friends the Zbaraschuks and the Deiningers.  We teamed up and rented a condo at Hammock Beach in Palm Coast, Florida.  We had no objectives other than to rest, relax and make it to either the beach or the pool once per day!  Erik has just been a trooper with all the traveling and location changes that we've thrown at him this year!  He slept great and had a wonderful time with the big boys in the condo to play with him.  Erik proved that our initial visit to the beach in April wasn't a fluke and he loved the water and the waves again on this trip.  It was VERY windy due to a storm approaching, so we didn't put him in the ocean very much, but he certainly enjoyed the time we gave him.  We have also learned that Erik will keep his sunhat and his sunglasses on (for the most part); it is very cute, if I do say so myself.  It was actually very surprising how much attention Erik gets when he wears his hat & glasses.  People were coming across the large hotel pool to say "Hi" to the "cute baby" - and it wasn't just women, but men would come over & comment as well!  I think that Erik is an awfully cute baby, but I'm always surprised by how many people will stop & chat with him!!

Johnsons, Zbaraschuks & Deiningers

Kent & Erik

Kelli & Erik

Erik's latest accomplishments include clapping his hands, crawling and finally eating!  I've not blogged about the struggles that we've had with him over the last few months.  We started Erik on solid foods at 6 months (the first part of February) and after a week or so of eating well and expanding his menu, he started to refuse everything - he would throw up anything we tried to feed him.  I finally just quit trying to give him solids and would only try once a week or so.  Towards the end of April, he started to accept more solid foods and has become a pretty good eater.  Our pediatrician said that it is fairly common for some babies to reject food until they are 9 months old as Erik did.  He will now eat nearly everything we give him - though he won't take some foods every time we offer it - he won't always eat avocado or squash.

Another recent accomplishment is that he now says "Uh-Oh".  On the way home from Hammock Beach, I sat in the back with Erik to entertain him and every time he would drop a toy, I would say "Uh-Oh".  After a few times of that, he actually started to say it with me!!  I was sooo excited.  He actually will say it rather consistently. I just hope that he doesn't start to drop stuff just so he can say it!

Kent's comments: Erik enjoyed the sand and ocean...it was hard for him to do much in the water, but I took him and held his feet in the shallow water where the waves came in.  He liked to look at the water coming in and out very quickly.  The next day I sat with him in this area of the beach and let the waves come in on us.  We both got a lot of sand in our shorts, but we had fun watching the water race in and out over the broken sea shells.  Erik wore his sunglasses often at the beach which made him look like a pretty cool dude!  

Erik is perfecting his kissing sounds that he makes with his lips...he just came home from daycare doing it one day and now can do it on command most times.

On Friday after work Erik rode on the lawn tractor with Daddy.  Erik wore his ear protectors albeit under protest.  As we went by different trees and bushes I slowed down for him to touch the different leaves (at least on the first couple rounds).  Erik started touching his ear protectors less and less and finally I thought to myself...he is being so good!  Then I noticed his head listing to one side.  A quick check of the eyelids revealed that Mr. Erik had decided that this would be a great time for a nap.  The hum of the mower inside the ear protectors was apparently too much like the hum of the car tires, which signaled the heavy eye-lids to close.  He stayed asleep for the last half of the yard (about 15 min) and also on the trip in the house where we put him down to finish his nap.  I used to sleep in the tractor with my Dad and bonk my head on the side of the window in the tractor cab when we hit bumps.  Guess it runs in the family!

Week 41: On the Move!

This has been a busy week which ended in a super busy weekend.  Erik & I spent Monday at Legoland with Tom & Lauron Henkel before I had to take them to the airport.  We were very sad to see them leave; we had had such a great time visiting with them.  We wish that they lived much closer!  I spent the rest of the week trying to catch up at work and Kent spent the rest of the week fixing up the two hallway half baths (new fixtures, new mirrors).  We are getting closer to checking off most of our major to-do items.  What a great feeling that is!

Kelli & Erik at Legoland

Cutest baby ever!

Erik riding a lego donkey

We ended the week with Erik having his first platform performance at church.  He did the offering call at all 3 services at Forest Lake Church.  He let Kent & I help him...but he definitely was the star of the show!  The offering call was for the building fund and so our family was asked to serve as interviewees to talk about how Erik’s Sabbath School class is crowded  and more space would be so nice for all the Sabbath School rooms.  There are about 120 names on the nametag board in Erik’s cradle roll class; there are 2 Sabbath School sessions each weekend, but the room’s capacity is 40 kids.  If there was a week when more than a third of the total possible kids showed up, families would have to be turned away from Sabbath School.  By the time that we were done with all 3 services, we were exhausted!  We were at church from 8:20AM until after 12 noon.  Erik was a super trooper and performed like a champ.  He was content and happy on stage; he tried to take the mike when he got close to him.  By 3rd service, he was reaching out to the pastor to get closer to the microphone and he made a few sounds.  You could hear the laughter in the audience.  We got lots of compliments on our little guy!

The big news of this week is that Erik is crawling - or kind of crawling!  He took his first few “steps” on Wednesday night.  The caregivers at daycare said that he had been crawling that day while with them, so we made double the effort to get him to crawl for us at home.  Kent said that he saw Erik move both his legs & his arms and officially called it crawling.  I didn’t really see any actual crawling movement until the weekend, when Erik terrorized his room and attacked every bit of furniture in there!  He pulled things off the bottom shelf of the bookcase, tried to pull himself up on the rocker’s ottoman, pulled open his dresser drawers, tried to pry the bars off his crib and toppled a little end table on top of himself - twice!  Our easy existence as parents of a non-mobile child is over.  We enjoyed it while we had it - and never really lamented the fact that several babies at daycare that are younger than Erik have been crawling & nearly walking for weeks now.

Let’s hope that Kent & I can keep up!

Week 40: Maryland Visitors

We started the week out with Erik’s 9-month pictures with Tim Putt on Sunday morning.  I mentioned it on last week’s post in regards to Erik’s first big owie that he suffered during the photo shoot.  After the photo shoot, we went to a surprise birthday party for a very special lady, Loretta Hauck.  The party was beautiful and actually was a surprise to Loretta!  The party planners had used decorating ideas from Loretta’s own Pinterest website, so everyone was joking that Loretta planned & decorated her own surprise party.  On Monday, Kent flew out to Kansas City for an overnight business trip, so Kelli was a single mom for 2 days.  I may have said it before, but I have no idea how single parents do it.  There is never enough time to everything done!

We had some more visitors this week - Tom & Lauron Henkel flew down  on Wednesday from Maryland to see Erik for the first time!  We hadn’t seen Tom & Lauron for a year when they came down last June for my baby shower.  It was so wonderful to see them again; I had been anxious for Auntie Lauron to see my little guy.  While they were here, we also had Rosalie & David Oliver up for the day on Sabbath to visit with them.  The 3 Musketeers from Southern (um, that would be Lauron, Rosalie & Kelli) were together again!  Lauron & Tom also helped us celebrate my first Mother’s Day on Sunday; we went out to a breakfast restaurant called “keke’s” which we had never tried before.  The food was delicious and we saw several of our friends there as well.

Erik with his "Auntie" Lauron

All the Moms at breakfast on Mother's Day

Kent & I were also curious to see what Lauron & Tom thought of our new house.  When they were here last year, we were still in the closing process on the house. We were able to give them a quick tour last June, but they hadn’t seen any of our changes, of course.  What changes have we made, you ask?  Well, let me give you just a little recap:

1. Put on a new roof
2. Redid the pool surface
3. Changed the pool tile & replaced the pool equipment
4. Tore out & redid the pool patio deck
5. Took out about 9 trees
6. Resodded sections of the lawn
7. Fixed drainage issues on the pool patio and in the backyard
8. Bought over 150 plants and planted them as most of the plant beds had been stripped prior to the house being sold or that Kent cleaned out himself (this project is still ongoing)
9. Had wallpaper removed from one of the hall baths
10. Had the walls textured in the 2 hall baths, the dining room and the kitchen
11. Repainted almost the entire interior of the house - the only rooms that were repainted were the 2 guest bedrooms and the greatroom (or “old” master)
12. Had the beams in our hallway and our kitchen repainted to look like wood - it is amazing how much like wood the beams actually appear.  Some of our guests have been certain they were wood!
13. Replaced the chandelier in the dining room
14. Bought some furniture for the office, guest room, living room and dining room
15. Bought carpet/rugs for 3 rooms
16. Bought artwork for 4 rooms
17. We could think of more, but I’m getting exhausted just thinking of everything that we’ve done in the past 9 months since we’ve moved in!

Week 39: Catching up & Some Firsts

Oh man, I am so far behind that I’m not sure I’ll ever catch up.  How did this happen to me?!  Does anyone want a job being my personal assistant?  Apparently, I can’t finish my own personal goals or meet my own deadlines.  Alright, enough fussing.  

If you are just checking back into this blog, there are 5 new entries (Week 31 and forward); some aren’t finished yet and I’m missing all the April entries.  However, I’m going to post this entry and then hopefully fill in the missing weeks from March & April.  I’ve been feeling so stressed that I haven’t updated the blog that I have to put something out here for you!  I’ll also post more photo albums later.

Erik is now 9 months old!  His pediatrician asked me whether the 40 weeks of pregnancy or the 40 weeks of Erik’s life had gone faster.  I definitely have to vote for the past 40 weeks!  Since we’ve brought Erik home from the hospital, I’m still waiting for some free time to appear.  At his 9 month appointment, Erik weighed in at 20 pounds and 28 inches tall.  His weight is in the 75% percentile and his height is closer to the 50% percentile.  Kent & I were actually surprised that Erik was only 20 pounds since his last weigh-in in February was 18 pounds; we were expecting him to be closer to 24 or 25 pounds!

Erik is on the verge of crawling - he rolls over all the time now and goes from sitting to lying down very easily.  He gets on his hands & knees and rocks back & forth, but so far has only managed to push himself backwards.  Erik also likes to stand next to the couch and coffee table - he cannot pull himself up yet, but I guess that skill isn’t too far in the future either.  Kent & I are actually happy that he isn’t crawling yet - we haven’t managed to baby-proof our house yet, so we are enjoying that Erik stays, or mostly stays, where we put him!

While not very mobile, Erik is quite the talker.  He babbles and “sings” all the time now.  He uses various tones, inflections and octaves when “talking”.  He mimics the sounds that we make, trying to say the same thing we are.  He is currently learning how to make the “t” sound and even made the “th” sound the other day!  He is correctly using “Mama” and “Dada” at the appropriate places now.  The coolest thing is that Erik has said “All Done” 2 or 3 times at the end of some recent nursing sessions!  Whenever he is done, I will ask him if he is all done and he has responded a few times with “A-don”.  Kent & I have been using certain sign language signs to communicate with Erik.  Erik has seemingly ignored all signs that we have used with him.  Until this week when he nearly made the sign for Daddy. It is so exciting to see Erik learn and grow.

A rather unfortunate first that Erik experienced this week is that he had his first accident with resulting “owie”. We were taking family pictures Sunday morning at a local park for Erik’s 9th month; we were about 15-20 minutes into our hour long session when Erik tipped over while sitting on a little wagon and hit the pavement face first.  He had been laughing at some antics that Kent & I were doing off camera and leaned over towards us...then, boom, he was on the ground.  Poor little guy.  We cleaned him up (not as much blood as we thought there would be) and continued with our photos.  We hope that his resulting swollen lip isn’t noticeable when he smiles & laughs.  By the afternoon, his lip was very swollen and we could see that he actually landed on his nose, lip and the skin between.  I've attached some of the photos from that morning; they were taken by Tim Putt and he did an amazing job!

Erik - just prior to falling

9 months old

Erik

Kent, Kelli & Erik

Week 38: Kent's Family Visits

Roger and Mary came to spend about 10 days with us.  Their visit during this time of year was extra special as Roger and Kent have the same birthday so were able to celebrate together on the 16th!  Of course Grandpa and Grandma were excited to see Erik as he had changed quite a bit from their visit at Christmas.  They were able to spend the week taking care of him and playing with him while relaxing and doing various things around the house.  We appreciated having them there to visit with us, help us cook food and do some projects!

Also during this time, Natalie and her fiancé Casey flew in from MT.  Natalie had not seen Erik yet so was fun to see her get to spend time with him.  We had also not met Casey yet so were very happy they could both come to see us before their wedding, which is July 28.  We enjoyed getting to know Casey and was nice to have Kent's family all together for this time.

During the time Natalie and Casey were here we spent time in the pool and made a trip to the beach, which was Erik's first time at the Ocean.  We visited with the Reinke family while at the beach and enjoyed catching up with them.

Kent also bought his riding lawn tractor during this week which he had been greatly anticipating.  The timing was good since the push mower wheels stopped turning.  Guess we got our money's worth out of that mower.  Still runs well after 12 years, but if you can't move the mower, its difficult to cut the grass!!  We'll have to see if Erik likes riding on the lawn tractor or not!

It was so nice of the family to fly down here to visit us and we look forward to having them back soon! See you in July!

Erik experiencing waves for the first time!

The family at the beach

Erik's new John Deere...oops, I mean Kent's!

The entire Johnson family

Week 36: Easter

I'm writing this blog post several months after the fact and it is proving very difficult to remember what really happened this week!  Thankfully, I do have some notes written down, but this feels more like a recitation of facts than anything else.

Kent had a business trip this week that lasted several days.  I decided to take advantage of this by introducing Erik to sleep training and to cut out night-time nursing - why should both Kent & I both have to suffer through this difficult task, right?!  Up to this point, I was still getting up and nursing Erik at least once every night - sometimes twice.  If Erik woke up, he expected to eat and I had let him have his way in this, but this was the week my tolerance ended!

Sleep training started on April 1 (Erik is now 8 months old); I nursed him at 8:30pm and put him to bed.  He didn't eat again until 7:00am the next morning!  Of course, he did wake up 5 times during the night to fuss and cry, but thankfully, he would only cry for about 10 minutes and then went back to sleep.  The hardest part was not going into his room to pat his back or give him his pacifier since I didn't want him to think he would be fed if I showed up.  The 2nd night of sleep training was not as great as the first night - he woke up multiple times between 11pm and 1am, then again at 3am and then several times between 5-6am.  His longest awake & crying episode lasted a total of 30 minutes; that was the hardest one to get through.  However, I've been told that I'm very lucky in this since some of my friends have had their babies cry for over an hour during sleep training.  Ouch.  The next several nights showed slow & steady improvements with Erik still waking up about 5 times, but being very easy to put back to sleep.  When Kent came back from his business trip, I would send Kent into the nursery to give Erik his pacifier which shortened the crying episodes.  By the end of the week, Erik was waking up maybe twice a night, but he wasn't desperate for food.  He's a very chubby baby, so he clearly has been getting enough to eat!

This week ended with us attending the annual Hilliard Easter party on Sunday afternoon.  It was wonderful to visit with friends, eat great food and watch Erik explore new surroundings.  We put him down in the grass to "meet" Brady Grodack who is only a few months older than Erik.  After a few minutes, Erik decided that he didn't like how grass felt and voiced his displeasure until he was picked up!!  The party included an Easter egg hunt and a visit from the Easter bunny - Erik discovered that the plastic eggs are the perfect size for his hands and he loved playing with them.  He wasn't sure what to make of the Easter bunny, but at least he didn't scream when we took pictures!

Erik & Kent on the hunt for Easter eggs

Erik is much more interested in the plastic eggs than the giant bunny next to him!

Week 34: Erik's Dedication

Earlier this year, Kent & I decided to dedicate Erik in a church ceremony.  Our church, Forest Lake SDA Church, had implemented a new baby dedication service this year.  Rather than having individual baby dedications at random times through-out the year, the church decided to hold 3 group dedications, one each for the first three quarters of the year.  One of the main reasons for this change was to add intentional interaction between the pastoral staff and parents.  In addition to having a group dedication service, the pastoral staff had a pre-meeting with all the families to discuss the dedication process and to provide us with parenting spiritual tools & resources.  They also let us create a little video where we could talk to Erik about why we decided to dedicate him and our hopes/goals for his future. After the actual dedication ceremony, the church also hosted a dinner for the families where we received baby quilts, had family pictures taken and were able to interact with the pastoral staff again.

The actual dedication ceremony took place on Sabbath, March 24, during the 3rd church service at 11:30AM.  Thankfully, Erik did great up on stage even though this is usually his nap time.  There were a lot of people on the stage, including the church choir!  There was a pastor or an elder on stage for each family; the elder that was assigned to us was Steve Sherman, who is the principal of our elementary school.  He was very pleased by how Erik’s name was a nod to our Scandinavian heritage since he is also Scandinavian.  The service included a video montage of pictures of all the babies that played while we were walking up on the stage, then one of the pastors gave a brief introduction of each baby and then our head pastor gave a short homily and then the dedication prayer.  I started out holding Erik, but had to give him to Kent about half way through.  Elder Sherman held Erik during the prayer and thankfully, Erik didn’t fuss or cry, though he did squirm quite a bit during that part.

One of the key elements of the baby dedication pre-meeting was to encourage us parents to choose a Blessing Verse for our children that we could pray for and with our child through-out their life.  Kent and I chose Ephesians 3:16-19; after reading various translations, I found one that I especially liked - the God’s Word Translation.  I liked it because it is in today’s language style and it sounds like an actual conversation between us & Erik:

    “I’m asking God to give you a gift from the wealth of His glory.  I pray that He would give you inner strength and power through His Spirit.  Then Christ will live in you through faith.  I also pray that love may be the ground into which you sink your roots and on which you have your foundation.  This way, with all of God’s people you will be able to understand how wide, long, high, and deep His love is.  You will know Christ’s love, which goes far beyond any knowledge.  I am praying this so that you may be completely filled with God.”

Kent & I ask that if & when you pray for Erik that you pray Ephesians 3:16-19 for him.  Pray that Erik will put his foundation in God and that he will know God’s love.

The dedication prayer with Elder Sherman

The Johnson Family before the dedication

Up on stage during dedication - there wasn't enough room on stage for individual family shots!

Week 33: Cousins

We had a busy week & a half of company starting on March 16.  Erik got to meet a lot of new people, too.  We first had Kent’s cousin, Stacey, her husband, Mike and their two little boys, Preston & Caleb, visit us for a long weekend.  They had been down here for a week visiting various theme parks and the beach; they were able to spend their last few days with us.  We spent a good bit of our time in the pool since it has been a rather warm March this year.  This was one of Erik’s first times in the pool.  We had a couple little rafts for him to sit in and while he seemed to like it, he again just solemnly observed the whole process similar to his behavior at the tubing hill in Utah.  We also went to a park and put Erik on the slides and the swings for the first time. Erik wasn’t too sure about the slides, especially the one with roller bars rather than a smooth slide surface.  However, he did really like the swings; I think he could have stayed in the swing for hours.  Kent & I hadn’t met Stacey & Mike’s youngest son, Caleb, yet so it was wonderful to reconnect and spend time with them.  

Erik with Stacey

Erik & Preston

Erik & Caleb on the roller slide

Mike & Stacey left on Monday morning and Kelli’s brother’s family flew in that afternoon.  It was a quick change for the guest room!  We hadn’t seen them since last year Christmas, so I was anxious & excited to introduce Erik to his Uncle Kurt, Aunt Jennifer & cousins Jake & Caden.  They were super excited to see Erik; they practically bowled me over when I answered the door to get to the room where Erik was playing!  Erik was thoroughly pampered that week for sure.  We again spent a lot of time in the pool. I was also able to only work part-time this week so I could spend more time with my family.  It was a lovely way to spend a week.  We were also very pleased to be able to see Kelli’s parents, Nana & Pops, for 2 days this week, one of which happened to be Nana’s birthday!  We had a special birthday celebration dinner for her which they repaid me for by helping me get ready for Erik’s baby dedication at church that took place over the next weekend.  More on that on the next blog entry!

Erik with Uncle Kurt, Caden & Jake

Jake, Auntie Jennifer, Erik, Caden & Uncle Kurt

Caden, me, Erik, Kent & Jake

Week 31: Our First Trip

We have finally taken our first trip with Erik!  We went to our annual CFO/Controller Conference in Park City, Utah.  I was super, super nervous about how all three of us would handle not only the plane ride, but also a time change and different sleeping arrangements.  After the trip, I can say that we did superb on 2 out of 3 areas and we survived the third.  Erik did great on the plane ride, sleeping through the majority of the trip and nursing/eating during the landing & take-off - it was such a relief as I really didn’t want to have “that crying baby” on our plane.  Erik also did great with the time change - his behavior and attitude stayed pretty much the same.  The sleeping wasn’t so great; Erik was in his pack-n-play in a big closet in our hotel room.  He would go to sleep with no problem, but would then wake up & cry every 2 hours.  I still nurse Erik at night and after multiple attempts to put Erik back to sleep, I ended up nursing Erik in order to get him back to sleep.  Shockingly, I didn’t feel any more tired than normal.  I must really be messed up!!

Kent & I are attendees at the conference, so we were very fortunate to have our baby-sitter, Karli, also at the conference (her dad works for AHS, too).  She was willing to forgo skiing on the 3 mornings of the conference so that she could watch Erik for us.  I opted out of skiing for the 2nd year (I couldn’t ski last year since I was pregnant); I spent my afternoons with Erik instead.  I will be honest and admit to taking a lot of naps!!     

From our brief time in Utah, it appears that we may have a lover of snow on our hands!  Erik was very curious about the snow and didn’t seem to mind sitting in a snow bank while Mom & Dad took numerous pictures of him. We took him to a tubing hill that had a little “snow park” for children under the age of 3.  They had a tiny tubing hill that we sent him down a few times – he didn’t laugh or cry during this, but rather just solemnly observed everything.  There was also a ride where Erik sat inside a tube and was then pulled in a circle.  He didn’t crack a smile the entire ride, but he did cry when it stopped and we took him out of the tube. 

Our Snow Baby

Our hotel room in Utah didn’t have a tub, so we gave Erik his nightly baths in the sink.  He barely fit in there, but he absolutely loved it!  He was able to see himself in the mirror which he thought was pretty cool.  He would scoot himself down in the sink until he could put one or both of his feet up on the counter and then lean back so that his neck rested on the edge of the sink.  It was too funny to watch him.  I put some pictures in the March 2012 album of Erik in the tub.

It doesn't look comfortable, but he loved it!

The bad news from this trip is that all 3 of us got sick again.  We had all just gotten better (or were on the mend) but the change in environment and the sleeplessness (Erik was waking up every 2 hours to eat! Ouch) got to us by week’s end.  Oh well, we are getting used to being more sick than well these days.

Week 29: Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! As this was Erik’s first time celebrating this illustrious holiday, he decided that the best way to celebrate was to play hooky from school!  His daycare called me late in the morning to inform me that Erik had a temperature of 100.2 and that I needed to come pick him up.  I rushed around getting together some paperwork that I could work on at home and then raced over to the daycare to pick up Erik.  

When I walked into his room, I was expecting to see Erik crying & being held or at least laying down in his crib. But no, he was sitting at the “scoop” table (a semi-circle table with infant chairs cut into it, so all the babies can sit and look at the teacher who sits opposite them).  He was happy to see me, smiling and waving his arms.  I just chalked it up to Erik not being a fussy baby, even when sick.  I had already called his pediatrician’s office and they were expecting us, so we drove immediately to their office.   Guess Erik’s temperature - 98.6 - huh, what happened to his temp?!  They checked it several times to be sure.  I have no idea why he was hot at daycare, but something clearly wasn’t right!!  

However, since we were already there, the doctor’s office decided to treat Erik’s cough that he has had since Christmas.  So we will be getting a nebulizer this week and doing misting treatments at home twice a day.  By the time we finally left the doctor’s office, I decided it wouldn’t be worth it to take Erik back to daycare so I could go back to work.  We just went home, Erik took a nice long nap while I tried to get some work done.  When Erik woke up from his nap, I took some photos of him in his Valentine’s shirt and with the big blue bear that cousins Jake & Caden had bought for Erik while I was still pregnant!  Erik thought the stuffed bear was the greatest thing and I got some really cute pictures.

I just love the expression on his face here!

Happy Boy

Kent & I celebrated Valentine’s on Sunday by going to a couple’s dinner hosted by our church.  Several of our friends were also there: Bergherm’s, Cochran’s, Deininger’s, Grodack’s, Isidro’s, and Zbaraschuk’s.  The event was sponsored by Focus on the Family and featured a very good comedian (of course, I can’t remember his name).  The particular message that the dinner was trying to get out was that couples need to take time to focus on just each other, such as having a regular date night away from the kids and from any other responsibilities.  It sounded like a great idea; hopefully, Kent and I will be able to incorporate a regular date night into our routine soon.

Week 28: Eating Solids

The big event this week has been that Erik has officially been introduced to solid food!  We started him on Sunday morning with organic mashed bananas.  I argued back & forth with myself on whether I should start him on a “sweet” item, but eventually caved since it was easy and he was sure to like it.  I am going to try to make all of Erik’s food and have been following a combination of our pediatrician’s advice and the Super Baby Food book.  Both these sources listed bananas as a good first food, so I decided it would be okay.  The other “best” first foods were avocado or sweet potato and I’ve learned that it is harder to consistently find organic food in my grocery store than I thought.  

Erik’s first solid meal went very well.  He loved the banana and eagerly ate everything.  He has been making the chewing motion for several weeks now, so he didn’t have any problem with swallowing or gagging.  Erik is a very laid back kid and while he wanted to hold or touch the spoon a few times while we were feeding him, he was content to just hang on to it while we moved it back & forth between the bowl & his mouth!

I hope that all the food we introduce him to will be as well accepted as this one, but it may be a foolish hope if he takes after his Mother.  I was the pickiest eater EVER as a child (and kinda still am)!!  I also hope that getting him on solids will help Erik to sleep better at night and totally eliminate all middle of the night awakenings.  

Week 27: Big News

This has been a rather quiet week for the Johnson Family - which is a lovely thing, really!  It is especially fortunate for Kent, who is coming down with a really bad cold.  A quiet week means that he can take it easy and rest, including sleeping in on Sabbath morning.  But no, Kent woke up on Sabbath morning at 5:30AM, decided that he felt just fine and went out for his normal bike ride.  Of course, after he got home, we all rushed around getting ready for church and then, while we were sitting in the sanctuary listening to the sermon, he started feeling even worse than before.  Poor fellow.  He spent the rest of the day in bed while I got to have Erik all to myself.  We played with toys, read stories, went for a walk and took lots of pictures & videos.

Cutie Pie

Erik loves his burp clothes!

I forgot to post this last week but some exciting news was revealed last week at the Saturday night party.  We got together with our friends, the Cochran’s, the Deininger’s and the Zbaraschuk’s for the kids’ Christmas gift exchange.  The BIG NEWS is that two of the families there will each be growing by one member later this summer!!!  Amy is due with her third baby in early August and Heather is due with her second in mid-July.  Two new babies within a month of each other - and their birthdays will book-end Erik’s!  I was super excited to hear the news.  Both families made their announcements in unique ways.  Amy had Zachary put together a puzzle that showed the Z-family sitting in chairs of step-down sizes, with the smallest chair empty. The puzzle said that by August 2012, all the chairs would be full.  I had seen the picture before and as soon as I recognized the chairs, I started screaming and jumping up & down and running around in circles.  Actually, Amy said I was really calm, but in my mind, I was running around, jumping up & down and screaming!!  Before anyone else had read the script on the picture, I yanked Kent into the room so that he would be there when the puzzle was solved.  He likes to tease Karis about having a 3rd baby and without looking at the picture, jokingly asked Karis if this was how they were announcing their third!  Karis just smirked and said maybe.  Kent then looked back at the picture and had to pick his jaw up from off the floor.  He couldn’t believe it!!  

After that, we all settled in to look at a slideshow of William & Heather’s trip to New Zealand that they had taken over Christmas.  We were all enjoying the pictures of the beautiful scenery and the fun train ride adventure they took, when up popped pictures of William & Kieran (their 3-year old) sitting with their heads on their hands looking at something we couldn’t see.  Then all of a sudden an ultrasound picture was flashed onto the screen!!  The screaming & shouting that took place then was doubly loud from before.  Again, this may be more in my head than what actually happened, but I’m pretty sure that there were at least a few very loud gasps and exclamations of “What?? Wait - go back!!!”

Needless to say, I am super excited for Amy & Heather both.  Erik won’t be the baby in our group for much longer.  Now, if just one of the pregnant ladies could have a girl and break the trend of all boys (for those of you who may not know, between our 4 families there are 6 boys)!

Week 26: Blessed Sleep

I’m going to keep this blog post short & to the point, so that I can go get some rest:  Erik is sleeping through the night (almost)!!!  I can hear the heavenly hosts singing every time I say that!  I decided to try and “tank” him up in the evening so that he would be completely full before bedtime in the hopes that this would get him to go more than 3 or 4 hours between feedings at night.  I had tried this before, but it hadn’t worked.  I was hoping that since he turns 6 months old on January 30th, that his age would be the magic turning point.  

Sleeping Baby!!!

The first night that we tried this, we fed him every 1 1/2 to  2 hours plus we gave him a “dream feed” at 10:30pm (a bottle that we give him while he is sleeping to help him stay that way) and he slept nearly 7 hours!!  [cue the heavenly chorus]  He woke up around 3:30 the first night and has been waking up anytime between 2 and 3 since then.  We’ve tried to soothe him back to sleep without a bottle or nursing, but so far that hasn’t worked.  But I’ll take it!!  This lovely sleep pattern has continued through the rest of this week and I hope will continue on into next week and beyond!

Other news of the week is that we hosted the Oliver family for part of the weekend.  David, Rosalie and their 2 adorable kids drove up to Orlando from Sebring after Sabbath School, arriving in time for lunch.  We spent the afternoon introducing Mallory & Zachary to Erik and playing on our deck.  In the late afternoon, we took ourselves to a park in Maitland for play on the slides & swings before heading over to the Deininger’s for a very belated Christmas and January birthdays party.  The Oliver’s were able to spend Saturday night with us and go out to eat Sunday brunch before heading back home.  Kent & I were very pleased with the fact that Mallory & Zachary were such warm, friendly kids; they didn’t act shy around us at all, which is what we were expecting.  We had a great time visiting and playing with them (even though the adults stayed up way too late playing Mexican Train with dominoes!)

6 months old; 18 lbs & 26 in

Week 25: Not What I was Planning...

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?!!  

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!

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!

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!!!