9 Months Old!!

Happy 9 months, Cael! (39&1 weeks old)

I have to admit that I've been slacking horribly in updating my blog. To be quite honest, Cael is a HANDFUL! He is just everywhere, and getting into everything. I can't turn my back for more than 2 seconds before he's into something. Mostly, it's the entertainment center, in which he likes to touch Matt's XBox and tug on its' wires. The kid is obsessed with power cords, controllers and any and all wires. So because of that, I'm finally getting to write his 9 Months Old post on Thursday.

I didn't take a "39 week" picture on Sunday this week for 2 reasons. First, being he turned 9 months old on Monday, so I might as well just take one picture (especially since it's horribly difficult now to get him to stay still on his back for more than a second). And two, Matt and I were away all.day.long. We went to Atlantic City for the day SANS CAEL!!! That's right - for the first time in 9 months, I left Cael for the entire day, from 5:45 am to 11 pm.

We went with our Sunday night bowling league, and we left Cael with Matt's mom. I had major anxiety the night before, and didn't get much sleep, but in the end, I was ok. I had fun (for the most part), and didn't cry at all like I thought I would, from missing Cael. I had my pump in tow, along with a cooler, so my shoulders are not happy with me for carrying around so much weight for 10+ hours. It was very stressful figuring out where to pump during the day. I'm extremely pissed with the casino's, because they are obviously not nursing/pumping-mom friendly. At all. An employee in one casino (I can't remember which one), had no idea what I meant by "pumping" after having me repeat it three times. So SHE made me announce loudly, in front of a lot of people, "pumping, you know...breast milk?" I'm not normally embarrassed by stuff like that, but I think it was her arrogance and rudeness that bothered me the most. She told me that I would have to pump in the bathroom. Say what!? Uh, yea no.

It's getting impossible to get good
 weekly/monthly pictures of him now

We went into the next casino, and the accommodations were the same. So, reluctantly, I went into the ladies room, sat on the edge of the toilet seat in the handicapped bathroom, and pumped for 20 minutes. Gross. I was NOT happy. At that point, I didn't care one iota that I was occupying the only handicapped stall for such a long amount of time. They can deal with it, like I'm having to deal with my lack of accommodations.Do they eat their food, or prepare their food, in the bathroom? I think not, so why should I have to do that with my son's food?? Needless to say, as much as I had fun, I don't think I'll be doing such a lengthy day trip away from Cael again, until he's weaned. I would have much rather sat in the corner of the casino floor, facing the wall, and pumped in front of everyone, than pump in the bathroom. But Matt didn't exactly want me doing that, so the bathroom it was. Fortunately, I left AC $111 richer than when I went, and Matt left up as well. He won enough money to break even after buying Oakley sunglasses. I was very happy about that.

39 weeks old

Unfortunately, after all the stress of pumping while in AC, I had to throw away all the milk I pumped. About 16 ounces in all. I was really heartbroken and upset over it. I brought 2 ice packs with me, but they were already not cold enough by the time we arrived in AC. So we went into a nearby RiteAid and bought 2 instant ice packs. I popped one right away, and put it in the cooler, expecting it to last a while. Unfortunately, by the end of the day, the cooler was no longer cold, and the milk was at room temperature for longer than 5 hours by the time we got home at 11 pm. I went to use 4.5 ounces on Tuesday, and it smelled spoiled. So that means the rest of it was spoiled. How upsetting. But Cael only managed to drink 8 ounces all day (which wasn't that much, but he ate a lot of solid food while with grandma), so I'm only down by 8 ounces in my stash.

Cael had fun being with grandma all day, and she kept me updated with texts and pictures. I needed some pictures of him for Sunday (when he turned 39 weeks old), so I was happy for the pictures. He was out most of the day with her at a library function, and according to Laureen, everyone loved him. I'm glad he wasn't cranky, or crying all day, like I thought he would be. We figured out that if he doesn't see me, he's fine. The second he sees or hears me, it's over. He cries and claws to get to me. But if I'm nowhere around, he's fine.

Climbing!!

Regarding mobility, Cael is still amazing me. It seems that every passing day, he gets braver and better at moving around. Today (Thursday), he proceeded to climb up onto his walker (the bottom part with the wheels), and step sideways around it, keeping his balance. He did this right in front of us, and Matt and I couldn't believe our eyes. He is now able to climb on things. We.Are.Screwed! However, although he has already proven that he can stand unassisted for about 30 or so seconds, he hasn't had any desire to do it again. Not even for Matt, so he still hasn't seen him do it. I'll stand him up and hold his hands, but he immediately sits down. Oh well, that's fine with me! If he's happy just crawling and pulling himself until a year or older, I'll be perfectly fine with that! We thought he'd be walking by now, but I'm thinking it will be closer to a year - which, again, is fine with me.

Getting messy eating blueberries
with grandma.

Cael loves food. There's no if's, and's or but's about it. Well, maybe except some pureed foods, but for the most part, the kid can eat. And he'll let you know if you're not feeding him fast enough. He loves feeding himself, and prefers it. He's had a wide variety of foods by now. Countless, actually. It would take me a while, I think, to name everything. His favorites are chicken, puffs, cheerios, mashed potatoes, ground beef and pasta. At this point, he can pretty  much eat whatever we're eating for dinner. I still give him pureed food (apples, pears, mango, etc) for breakfast mixed with cereal, and he takes that happily. I think it's because they're so sweet. He loves his fruit. It's his veggies that he won't eat pureed, but if he can pick it up and feed himself, he'll eat it. He's getting much better at his pincer grasp. He uses mainly his right hand to pick up foods, so he's not as good with his left hand. We'll have to start putting some food on the left side of the tray, so that he's more apt to use his left hand as well. His old pediatrician said that if they start favoring one hand over the other at this age (earlier than 2 years), it's not usually a good sign. I'm not too sure what that entirely means, but I'm not concerned about it. He can still use both hands, but I honestly think it's us just putting food mainly on the right side of the tray.

Cael is back to teething again. He's been up in the middle of the night screaming for the last 3 nights. It's exhausting, as I've become used to him sleeping from 8 to 4:30am. But the past few nights, he's woken up anywhere between 1 and 3 am. After Advil, Orajel, and my attempts at soothing, I've given in and brought him to bed to feed him. This is NOT something I want to get him used to again, since we did so well weaning him off overnight feedings. I hope it's just the teething, and not him regressing. He had a low grade fever yesterday, so I'm pretty sure it's teething. No signs of the top middle teeth, but his right lateral incisor is continuing to come down, and now his left lateral incisor is just visible under the gums. You can't feel it yet, but you can see it. He's going to be a vampire!! He'll look so funny with only fangs up top, and no middle teeth. It's a little weird, but I'm sure it's normal at the same time. Again, not something I'm going to worry about.

So I think that's all the updates for now. I'll (hopefully!) update tomorrow, as Cael has his 9 month appointment at his new doctor tomorrow. I'm convinced that he doesn't yet weigh 19 pounds, so we'll find out. I'm really curious to see what he weighs, and how tall he is. I'm almost positive that he doesn't get any shots tomorrow, so it should be a relatively short visit. Hopefully all is well (as I expect it to be!).