1) He rolled over by himself for the first time on Easter morning. We didn't see it happen, but we put him on his belly and then looked over and he was on his back! He's done it a few more times on his own, but sometimes his arm still gets in the way. We're so proud of him! Here's a picture of him on Easter that has nothing to do with him rolling over. And yes, he did spit up all over the place before I managed to get a picture.
2) He can sit by himself for a few seconds without toppling. Here are some pictures, although it is hard to get him propped and steady and then have time to grab the camera and actually get an in focus picture before he starts tipping over. You'll see I've attempted it many times.
3) Speaking of sitting, Dean sat in the grocery cart like a big kid for the first time last week. He did great. I put the blanket around him to provide some extra support, but he didn't even need it!
4) I was tired too many feedings of him in his bouncy seat kicking his legs and him bouncing all over the place. It's not so easy. And it's really low to the ground. I would sit in a kitchen chair and put by feet up on his legs to keep him from kicking and then have to bend way over to feed him. Not very effective and not easy. So I was thinking about getting a high chair. I also thought about a Bumbo seat with a tray. But I didn't think he would use that for very long. Then I found this chair at Target (they had mailed me a $5 off coupon).
It's perfect! It is like a Bumbo, but it can be strapped to the chair so it's also a space saver high chair. The tray stores under the seat, so it's easy to put it away. It unstraps from the table and can be a floor seat. The little blue part comes out so that when he gets bigger, it can be his booster seat. Dean likes sitting in it, and feedings go so much smoother! Which is one reason why...
5) He has REALLY taken to eaten solids. He has the spoon thing down pretty good. So far he's had rice cereal and oatmeal, carrots, avocado, squash, peas, and sweet potatoes. He's also gnawed on a few of my apple cores. Today he's going to get green beans. I honestly feel bad giving them to him since I hate green beans so much. How could I do that to him? {Update: He liked them!} His favorite so far is squash. He will take a bite and then open his mouth super wide while he waits for another bite. It's so cute! He has definitely had some "solid food = solid poop" moments, and he isn't so much a fan of that.
6) We went to California for conference weekend. Our nephew, Nate, was performing a solo in the local symphony. I didn't get to go since you don't exactly take little babies to the symphony, but I watched a video of it later and it was awesome. We enjoyed spending time with family. Liz was such a good little mother junior to him.
7) This is one of my favorite things: He has enough hair that we can style it!! Oh, the cuteness.
Now if only his hair was thicker or darker, you could actually see what I'm talking about :)
8) Dean has officially transferred to his crib from the rock-n-play. It was a little rough. The rock-n-play is on an incline, which he loves, but he's getting a little big for it. I put a blanket under one end of the mattress to create a slight incline to help him transition. At first, I just did nap time in the crib and he slept in the rock-n-play at night. I did that for about a week until his naps were longer than 20 minutes. Then I put him in the crib at night. I was nervous, but he's done well. Last night he slept from 7:30pm-7:00am with NO wake ups! He got to the point of doing 8-6 pretty regularly, but last night was the BEST he's ever slept. I hope it continues. He's in the awesome mini crib that Melissa refinished for now. He'll get a full sized crib when Mom and Dad come for Trevor's graduation in a couple weeks. Thank you, Eric, for letting us take it!!
9) He's started making funny noises with his lips. He tucks his bottom lip in and makes a smacking sound. I've tried getting video of it, but none of them have really turned out very good. Seeing as how I can't get a video to upload, you wouldn't have been able to see it anyway.
10) The weather was so nice this month that we did lots of outside tummy time. Dean did great!
11) Dean has grown out of most of his 3-6 month onesies. The 6-9 month onesies are in the bottom drawer of my dresser (I'm working on packing the 3-6 away and getting those moved to his drawers). Anyway, I was holding Dean when I bent town to get a onesie out of that bottom drawer and this ensued:
In case you couldn't tell, he spit up directly into the drawer of clean clothes. And all over the carpet and our throw pillow. He's had a lot of spit ups, but that was perhaps the worst clean up to date.
12) We've gone to the park a few times. There's a splash pad at the park, so I put Dean in his little swim outfit. This about sums up what he thought of the experience:
He didn't like me putting sunscreen on him and he REALLY didn't like the cold water. I took him twice this last week. Yesterday he even screamed if any mist got on him at all. Hopefully when the water gets warmer he'll be okay with swimming. Because I want to go swimming and I can't go without him. But for real, isn't that the cutest little outfit? (he wasn't a big fan of the sunglasses either...)
Yesterday I took him down the slides a few times. Once I held him in my lap, but mostly I just sat him up and held his hands and slowly slid him down. He was completely indifferent.
Splash pad aside, Dean continues to be pretty smiley and happy for the most part. We just love his little laugh so much. He still loves bath time and it's fun to see his face light up when he sees his bottle. He sure is one loved little boy!
Here's the blanket and elephant pictures. In them, you'll see the rocking recliner we found on Craigslist for $25. It's much better than the old chair we had in his room. And next to the recliner is a bag of library books. We've been scouting out the library every week or so for the past few weeks. Any suggestions for cute picture books would be appreciated. I prefer ones I will enjoy reading since Dean doesn't know what's going on, and that don't have too many words on a page since Dean gets impatient and wants to eat the pages if I don't move along quickly enough.
He LOVES to superman it. The blurry arm slightly captures the flapping that accompanies this pose. Also, this is the second time he's been able to wear this cute shirt because long sleeves aren't the best right now, but today's HIGH was 70. That was cool. (see what I did there?)
