Swimming Lessons

For the first four weeks of October I put you into baby swimming lessons at the West YMCA. It was rewarding, fun, challenging, and tiring and I would do it all over again. I had my friend Lindsay join us for the lessons and she also included her sister in law and niece. It was great because it was just the three of us plus one other mom that joined halfway through the lessons.

The challenging parts were the fact that the lessons were at 6:30 which is right during your nap time in the evening (next time I will try to get you in at a different time). In addition you were usually starving once we got done, even if you had eaten a snack beforehand. On top of this you had a double ear infection one week and that complicated things further. Aside from these struggles I’m glad we did it and I will continue to take you. My goal is to try and go twice a year until you hit three and take actual swimming lessons that aren’t ‘mommy and me’ lessons.

Now the fun part… we played games like ‘Wheels on the Bus’ and the ‘Hokey Pokey.’ We practiced back floating, getting in and out of the pool, chasing after balls to get into the ‘superman’ position, and blowing bubbles/sticking your face in the water. You are a water baby for the most part. You  were happy at most of the lessons except for when you were sick and the instructor loved you and was constantly trying to coax smiles out of your handsome face. 

You Practing Your Backfloating Skills on Mommy

Superman Floating

More Teething Than Practicing Your Swimming Skills

Practicing Crawling Out of the Pool

Watching Daddy While Singing 'Humpty Dumpty'

My Swimming Graduate!

Sleeping Habits

There are so many sleeping habits that you are developing. Some are funny, some endearing. As far as 'sleeping through the night' goes, you are slowly progressing. You now sleep most of the time from 9 to about 4 in the morning. At 4 you nurse and then go back to bed. The way I figure, you are making progress in sleeping longer through the night so I'm not pushing anything as far as going past 4 in the morning before waking up. 

Now the fun stuff....

Whenever you sleep you constantly try to be as close to something as possible. So while you are sleeping in your crib it always weirds me out that you are crammed up into the corner of your crib with your head touching the wood. I used to try and move you to the middle of the crib but to no avail because you eventually make your way back to the corner of the crib. 

This habit continues when you are in our bed. If Cole is in the bed, you instantly gravitate towards him because of the warmth. Your Dad loves and hates this, he wonders why you are always moving towards him, but you can tell that he loves you try to snuggle with him. When Dad isn't in bed, then you will snuggle towards me. It is funny because we can start with you on one side of the bed and then I will be pushed to the complete opposite side of the bed from you constantly snuggling up against me. 

The other funny thing that you do is you will start facing in one direction and then you will wind up in the complete opposite direction. I know all of these things are pretty normal for babies, but I think it is very adorable.

Goings on of the Past Few Weeks

A post with pictures to tell the stories.... Napping with Bailey on the weekend.

Getting into Bailey's water bowl! You are so proud of yourself every time you get a hold of it. Then you proceed to bang it on the floor. When offered another bowl, it isn't good enough. Only Bailey's bowl is! Too cute!

Eating watermelon that Daddy cut up and bought for you. (Mommy doesn't like watermelon, but you sure do!)

Going to PoJos for a birthday party. You rode the rides and LOVED it to our surprise.

Big boy riding the moving Tonka truck all by yourself!

Daddy being silly and you reaching for the camera...

Family photo at PoJos! We tried the photo booth but it was an epic fail. The first time the pictures didn't print and the second time it cut off your head in all of them even though we had you in the frame.

Drinking out of a big boy cup now. You like to chew on the soft top since you are teething (still no teeth!)

Playing in the morning with Daddy. You are standing on the couch and using it to "walk" along the length of it. You are such a big boy!!

Your First Moment of Displayed Jealousy

You made me smile today (not that you don't every day). I was over at the daycare and had just gotten done feeding you so we were playing together on the floor. One of the other little baby girls crawled up to me and wanted to sit with me, so I put her in my lap. You looked at her, crawled over to me and proceeded to climb up on me and to wrap your arms around my neck. You then turned to look at her and gave her the look of "this is my mom - back off!" She looked at you as if to get the message and proceeded to get off of my lap and to go and play. To which you of course responded by doing the same once you knew she was no longer sitting with me. The teacher and I had a good laugh at your jealousy and you sure did make momma's heart glow. I'm okay if your jealous as long as it is about me.  ;o)  I know it won't last very long so I will take it while I can get it!

I love you.