Steps

It's hard to believe in less than three weeks, we'll be celebrating Nathan's first birthday. In some ways, I'm sad because it went by so quickly. But in other ways, I'm excited to find out what the future holds for this sweet little boy! He is such a joy, and we are so thankful to have him in our family!

He's making all kinds of progress in all kinds of areas, so I thought I'd take the time to tell you all about Mr. Nathan at this point.

1. As you can tell by the title of this post, Nathan is ready to take his first steps. He is SO close to walking, which is good and bad. He has taken several steps with hand-support, and I truly believe if he'd just let go, he'd be off. But this also means work for Mommy and Daddy! Not only will we be chasing around after him, but we are frantically trying to get the house baby-proofed before he takes his first steps. Plug covers are in place, cabinet locks are going on, and the baby gate is being installed at the top of the stairs.

2. He's eating lots of solid foods. This is a fairly new development, but he has certainly taken to it! We have been eating Stage 2 foods for some time, but you can go broke buying those, so I've decided to start gradually introducing table food. In fact, for the first time last night, I made dinner for a family of FOUR, and everyone devoured it...especially Nathan! (Note: Chicken Noodle Casserole with Veggies=SCORE!!!) As I write this, he's sitting beside me on the couch while I spoon banana and feed him Cheerios.

3. Sleeping. Or the lack thereof. Ever since we moved into the new house, things have been different, and sleeping has been hit or miss. It's difficult because he was always such a good sleeper prior to our move, but since he was older at the time of the move, adjusting was harder. By that, I mean, he had never been made to cry it out because he always slept. Even when we had just brought him home from the hospital, he'd only wake once during the night to eat and then would go right back to sleep. But since we've been here, he developed RSV and required daily breathing treatments. Consequently, when he'd wake in the middle of the night hacking and coughing, I'd have to go in to check on him. He's doing better, but he has gotten into the habit of waking two, three, sometimes four times during the night. And he's conditioned me to jump up and run in there to check on him.
How do we fix all of that???? Well, we've tried everything. Let him cry it out. Didn't work...he threw up after hacking for 20 minutes. Feed him a big bottle right before bed. He still wakes up. Give him a dose of Tylenol before bed. He still wakes up. So we still don't know what to do. He's not even sleeping in his room; he's sleeping in the swing in our room, but that's better than nothing!
And then all of a sudden, he started stretching it out until 4:30 or 5:00. Okay, I can handle that. I thought we were rounding a bend. But lo, three nights later he started back to his old habits. And now we're up every two hours during the night. AAAAHHHH!!! So, three steps forward, four steps back. But even when I have to resort to putting him in the bed with us, as I lay there holding my baby, I think about how lucky we are to have him and how much I love him!!

4. He's so much fun! The other night, we had a load of laundry sitting in the basket in our room. He crawled over to it and began pulling things out. It was so funny to watch him pull one sock at a time and strew them all over the floor. I know that may not sound like your kind of fun, but I captured it on camera, and you'll be able to see the smile that was spread all the way across his face! PRICELESS!!!

So, in a nutshell, this is just a glimpse of the fun this little man has brought into our lives. Despite the ups and downs, we love him bunches and couldn't imagine life without him.

Happy (early) Birthday, Nate-Nate!