The Quiet Life of Violet: Squid

Yup, Mr. Roman, that you are. It blows my mind that on the 19th, he'll be 8 months old. EIGHT MONTHS OLD. What the heck?! How is it possible that I have an eight month old? It seems like I was just pregnant. And I was. I remember that belly like an old friend. I remember how Roman used to get the hiccups when ever I needed to eat. I remember the shifting and kicking and full-belly rolls, and now he is rolling outside my belly and still kicking and still hiccuping when he's hungry.

He's a pretty mellow baby, at least that's what others tell me. I've never been around young babies before him, so everything is a new experience for me. He loves to eat in his highchair and wants the food in his hands NOW. He wants the little baby plate and the bib and my fingers in his mouth NOW. Are you eating something with that fork? Oh, let me lunge at it like a baby piranha. Nibble, nibble, CRUNCH!

We do a sort of modified Baby Led Weaning feeding routine. Roman is SO independent and wants to do everything himself, so the self feeding really just came naturally. He loves to hold things and loves to put things in his mouth, so it's a win/win in his opinion. We try to feed him as organically as possible, but I don't stress if he has a bit of "regular" food. He hasn't had any meat, seafood, wheat, eggs, corn or dairy (besides what's in his formula).

A typical meal goes something like this:

I give him two sorts of food in the baby mesh eater things (we've had the Munchkin kind for about two weeks and LOVE them), usually a banana and either a peach, orange, nectarine or plum for breakfast, plus some oatmeal baby cereal made with a bit of juice and then some mooshy baby food. Dinner is usually frozen blueberries, pickles (much to his Father's disgust), strawberries, mango or peas in the mesh eater, plus rice cereal and more baby mushies. Sometimes we let him hold slices of orange or BIG chunks of food like they do in true Baby Led Weaning and he loves it, but sometimes I just use the mesh eater. The only down side to the mesh eaters are 1) they use plastics and colored plastic mesh, and 2) cleaning bananas out of them are a royal pain in my pretty ass. I wish someone would come up with a "natural" fabric mesh bag, even if the bottoms were still plastic, the part that goes into his mouth would be a bit better for him.

As far as baby mush goes, he likes berry applesauce a LOT. Not too keen on sweet potatoes, and cinnamon gave his face a huge rash! I use my Brezza to make some foods, but I'm finding that it doesn't work as well as advertised and doesn't blend things perfectly smooth. I tried to make peas and it left HUGE bits of pea... skin(?) in the mix. He loves when I blend peaches, mango and kiwi. He ate it up like it was going out of style. I do buy packets of HappyBabby, and love that company. They are priced reasonably and Roman seems to love them. I'd say we do about 50% homemade mush and 50% store bought. With each meal, he gets lots of choices and there's no pressure to eat it all, but he usually eats everything. Minus avocados... he looked at me like I was insane when I tried to make him some savory rice cereal with thyme and avocado. It tasted good to me! Perhaps babies don't develop a taste for un-sweet food for a while or maybe he's just like his Daddy and has a sweet-tooth.

He eats two meals a day (sometimes with water or very weak chamomile tea or juice in a sippy), plus all the formula he wants.

Let me take a minute to talk about his formula, Baby's Only by Nature's One. As you know, I had an EXTREMELY hard time giving him formula, as I wanted to breastfeed until at least one year but it wasn't in the stars for us. At first I had a hard time giving him anything that wasn't from me, but slowly the Baby's Only crept in and took over and Roman loved it. Not only is the company great, but the product is amazing. They market the formula as a "Toddler Formula" because they believe that breastfeeding is the best feeding and want to encourage it. How amazing is that?! They invite you to look at their nutritional comparison chart to see where their formula stands against other, more traditional brands of formula, and after careful research, they measure up just fine. It is not a formula for just Toddlers. ;) I wouldn't give him anything else unless we HAD to. It is made from organic, non-GMO ingredients and it is just really pleasant. It uses brown rice syrup as the carb/sweetener and is MUCH better than the gross GMO corn syrup used in other formulas. I used to babysit a few kids that used traditional formula and their spit up smelled PUTRID. Baby's Only does not have that gross, heavy fake vitamin smell, not in the bottle or on the burp rag. It smells surprisingly good and doesn't taste bad at all (I've tried it). It is expensive (I think, I've never bought any other brand), but we buy it from Vitacost.com for about $10.75 for a 12.7 ounce can, which is $3 cheaper than out local health food store. The formula canisters are BPA and melamine free, which is important, too! I'm VERY happy with our choice to use Baby's Only. Nope, this wasn't even a paid endorsement.. I just love the product and would recommend it to ANYONE who needs to venture into formula use.

As far as sleeping goes, he fusses a bit when he's tired and when he starts sounding a little... frantic, I know it's time to lay him down. Once he's in his bed, he looks like this:

That sweet little SUPER HAPPY GRUNT face means, I'm so tired that I could fall asleep. And he does. I give him his bottle, stay with him until he's done and then sing him the Bug-Bug song. He usually just laughs (LAUGHS, people!) and then falls asleep. He might whimper for about 30 seconds, but then he falls asleep. That goes for every nap and bed-time, too. Yes, I know just how lucky I am!

Bedtime is 7:30 and he rarely fights it. He wakes up around midnight for a bottle and a diaper change and goes right back to sleep until about 5 or 6a.m., diaper and bottle, back to sleep and then we wake up for the day around 9a.m. Some days he doesn't even do the second wake-up and sleeps from midnight until 8:30 or 9 a.m. He loves having a standing schedule and so do I. Momma loves knowing when what is going to happen. :)

Roman is able to sit for short spurts if I actually sit him up, but he's such a tipper! Like a Weeble, only he really does fall down. Ker-plunk! He loves sitting in his Bumbo and I got the little tray attachment so that I can hook toys onto it and it keeps him entertained if I'm folding laundry or writing a quick email. I get nervous and never leave him alone in it (even for a second) unless he's on the floor with a good amount of clearance around him. I'm one of those nervous mom (as in,"If I sit him here and there's an earthquake, the pens and scissors on the shelf across the room might fall down and hit him in the soft spot, so let's just go play in another room." Ummm... yeah, that's an everyday self-battle!)

He tolerates a good 6-10 minutes in a row of tummy time now! We do that lots and he seems to enjoy it, although he's recently begun scooting and somehow manages to scoot him self in circles and ends up with his head smooshed at the opposite side of the crib/blanket/bed/wall. I'm in no rush for him to start crawling all over the place. No rush at all!

We still cloth-diaper and do so about 75% of the time. When everything goes smoothly and the diapers get washed before we run out of cleans, he uses one disposable a day. He has a predictable poo schedule, so Bubby puts him in a 'sposie right before he goes to work and when Roman and I wake up for the morning, he usually has a nice surprise in his baby-chonies just for me. I have no idea how I'm going to fare with a giant baby dump first thing when we get pregnant again. Maybe I'll have evening sickness again like I did with Roman. I plan on doing a nice long post with video about our cloth diapering system and likes/dislikes, so watch for that!

Two weeks ago, little mister was a total cranky-pants and I had NO idea why. SO crabby, not napping as long as usual, hardly eating and drool/chomp city. Duh, teeth. Not just one tooth, but TWO. He popped his bottom two teeth one day apart. Poor guy. He's a total finger muncher now and I have to watch myself! He gave me a blood blister on one of my fingers when he decided to chomp and pull my finger out of his mouth at the same time. We joke that he's just craving artichokes. If you get that, you're a cool foodie. ;)

He loves to play with simple toys and chew on everything. He doesn't discriminate! A measruing cup is a neat as a BPA-free squeezie block is as cool as this little musical Baby Einstein turtle thing is as cool as his Sophie teething toy is as cool as a baby spoon. Paper is extra fun, but I get nervous that he'll paper cut himself on the mouth, so he doesn't get much paper play! Book time is carefully supervised because he like to lurch forward and grab a handful of page. "Ahh! Papercuts, Buggy! Be careful!" He seems to like Yo Gabba Gabba, which I was hesitant to put on at first, but after watching it once I've discovered that it's SUCH a cute show! It's so charming and reminds me of my Nickelodeon childhood cartoon watching with Ren and Stimpy, Rocko and the like.

He loves to go on walks and go on car trips and to Target and everywhere. He is a do-er. A busy body. He constantly want to be entertained and see new things and observes EVERYTHING. Dustin gallops around the house with him ("horsey") and he loves the movement. He loves songs with hand-movements and loves staring at the T.V. (limited T.V. time, though). He likes to flirt and hear his own voice and he LOVES bath-time. He's my Mer-Man. I think his favorite thing to do, though, is to just be around Dustin and I. Bed cuddles, giggles in the kitchen, eating with us, couch cuddles, all of it.

Life is good.

Four months ago on this day, our little Squid was born. He came into the world, all five pounds and seven ounces of him, and was so teeny tiny. Big feet and hands, and trim little waist. It was love at first sight for us even though it took two hours for me to see him after he was born. My perfect boy.

I have a four month old baby.