The Harvey Family: November {2014}

This month was much nicer as far as weather goes so we have finally been able to play outside more! I think I ended up taking most of the outside pics on my cell phone though so you'll have to wait for the next post for those. As far as everything goes we've mostly been in the groove this month. The one thing that really freaked us out was me getting a pretty bad case of the hives. At first I thought it was bug bites then realized that they were appearing all over my body and soon figured out it was hives. I ended up going to Urgent Care the following morning (it was a Saturday of course) and was told I had no other symptoms other than itchy red bumps (or in some cases, solid red) all over me so it wasn't anything affecting my breathing at least. I went home with a prescription for Predizone and decided to wait and see if I could beat it with a couple benedryl. Sadly, each morning I woke up worse and worse so I ended up going on a 6 day prescription of steriods that were consisdered safe for breastfeeding. Finally on day 4 I think I was hive free. The doctor and dermotologist that I saw said that I would most likely have to be the one to figure out what caused it. My best guess is that it was the 2 bananas a day that I had been eating. I've always had a mild histamine reaction and I'm guessing it just overwhelmed my system to eat that many, so I've cut back and hopefully they won't return!

One other thing we changed this month was to move the rocking chair to our bedroom. It started in Blake's room, then moved to the living room when Brett started only napping while being rocked by someone, and now we've moved it yet again. That way Blake doesn't have to be as quiet in the main living area while Brett is sleeping. It works really well and it's nice to have it in the room where Brett goes to sleep at night too.

This month Brett:

grabs my face while feeding him. It's really quite painful since he wants to rake his nails down my chin and stick fingers in my nose and mouth. Sadly, he can't settle unless his free hand is in that position. This too shall pass!
raises both arms up when he wants to be picked up and carried. He's got really long arms too! If he's in his exersaucer or rock n play (which he really only goes in for medicine) and he's ready to get out he whines and raises both arms up with grabby fingers.
shows a major interest in food. He loves watching people eat and just stares at the food and the chewing motion. He thinks it is really interesting and I'm sure he can't wait to join in on the fun that is eating.
rolls back to front. He is great at rolling and ends up on his tummy a lot. Once he's there he is very unhappy and starts fussing almost instantly instead of either trying to roll back to his back or try and crawl somewhere. He seems to do better on really soft cushiony surfaces like the bed, where he'll try and squirm on his side for a bit to try and grab something. He's so strong, I wish he'd try and crawl instead of just giving up once he gets on his tummy and rubbing his feet together.
has gotten really good at raking for and grabbing things. While he's sitting up, he will reach over and pull toys toward him pretty effectively. We've also put a ton of loose toys on his exersaucers and he does a great job picking those up and getting them in his mouth. For a while he'd drop them and they'd collect at his belly and we'd have to pick them all out and put them back on the tray. Now he can get them out of his belly area and either push them down a leg hole or just throw them on the floor. He almost throws them all down faster than I can pick them up, haha.
loves being outside. This is the place where we go to calm down when things inside get to be too much. It will almost always calm him down (unless he's hungry).
started getting eczema. After I tried some gluten free pancakes he ended up showing his first signs on eczema. He now gets it in the creases of his elbows and behind his knees, behind his neck, in the folds of his leg rolls, and the spot that seems to bother him the most is on the side of his foot. We treat it with topical steroids and it seems to keep it under control. His right elbow crease was so inflamed that it took quite a few days of steroid cream to get it to clear the first time but it seems to be responding faster each subsequent time now at least.
started doing much better on car trips! He loves the Sesame Street music cd that Mimi got for Blake and ever since we started playing that on trips (under 30 mins) he has been doing much better and rarely fusses for too long! I'm so so grateful that we can take him out of the house now since he really enjoys getting out and seeing new places. He's even fallen asleep in the car a few times, woohoo!
tried rice cereal. This was his first food that he ate with a spoon and did pretty well with it. He doesn't love it as much as I thought he might but he's getting better at eating every day. He didn't get quite as excited about it when it was pretty watery, but when it is thicker he gets much more into it. He also tried pears and seems to like those too!
sits up unsupported. He can sit up on his own for a while but he certainly still needs either pillows or my legs surrounding him for when he inevitably falls over. He always has to be grabbing for something so he rarely sits for too long. He's gotten a lot stronger too and once he falls over he'll try and use his legs to push himself back up. Once his arms get a bit stronger we'll be able to let him sit on his own more since he doesn't really catch himself when he falls over.
night sleep has gotten a little more consistent. We've settled into a 9/930 bed time for the most part and he got down to only waking up 2x a night, but there is still a lot of inconsistency. Once 4am rolls around he will sometimes never get back into a deep sleep and he's up every few minutes until I give in and let him get up (I like to try and wait until 6).
moves his arm like he's shaking a rattle when he has a toy in it. He does this with all toys, I guess to see if they'll rattle. He'll also do it with nothing in his hand and just band his hand on me if I'm carrying him. He also uses the same motion when he's in the exersaucer to throw toys on the floor, and he can get some good distance for a 6 month old.
had to try milk of magnesia. Now that I've finally established a diet that I can eat and keep his tummy happy, we've gone the other direction. Instead of him having poop all the time, he has started to get constipated. This started even before we introduced him to solids. He ended up going a week with no poop and then we called the GI to find out what we should do and were told to try milk of magnesia. Originally she said pooping anywhere from 3x a day to 1x a week was normal. Once we got that in his system he went 3x that day (on day 9, I believe) and then again the next day.
will stay in his exersaucer for longer stretches of time. He's getting much better at standing and I guess his attention span is increasing a bit so he's stayed in his exersaucer to let me get a shower a couple times which is nice. We keep one in the bathroom so he has something to entertain him in there and one in the kitchen for when I have to do things in there.
hums with music when he's trying to fall asleep. I noticed it over a month ago that this was the first sign I saw of him starting to self soothe. Now when he is being rocked to sleep (and he isn't eating) he'll do this really loud hum until he drifts off... he's going to give Blake a run for his money in the loud voice department, haha.
finally got a jumperoo and he doesn't like it. He loves to be held and jump in your arms but as soon as he gets jumping in the jumperoo, he can't stop the bouncing motion and starts crying... doesn't quite make sense.
uses his paci as a toy. I figured if we had any chance of him taking it, maybe we should introduce it as a toy first. We'll it turns out he loves chewing on the plastic sides of it, and if he actually gets the right part in his mouth he'll chew on it for a second and then proceed to move it around so the side is back in his mouth. He really does seem to enjoy it as a teething toy though.
went to the doctor for his 6 month checkup and also got another vaccine. This time he was pretty fussy for quite a few days afterward and he had redness at the injection site for the first time. The last couple times he's gotten shots he's done great and sleepiness and slight lack of appetite were his only side effects. At the doc, he weighed in at 17 lb 13 oz (53%) was 27.25" long (75%) and head circumference was 44.5cm (68%).

This month Blake:

drinks prune juice. He got a cold the end of last month and I'd been meaning to find a more natural way to get his stool to be easier to pass (instead of the MiraLax), so I started adding it to his juice while his taste buds weren't fully working. Much to my surprise he liked it and asks for his special purple juice now. Surprisingly it doesn't do the trick on it's own but it seems to help at least.
loves construction equipment and is obsessed with Bob the Builder still. His favorite episodes are the "On Site" ones where they show actual footage on construction sites for buildings, new roads, bridges, and train tracks etc. He knows all the different construction equipment now and loves to explain how they're all built.
wants to "play" a lot (as long as Bob the Builder isn't an option), but it has to be with someone. If it's time to do something he doesn't want to do, he'll say "It's not time for that, it's time to play instead." Or "Let's play first and do that second."
wants to talk loudly and says BAHHHH at the top of his lungs. It's been tricky having a small house with 2 boys who nap on completely opposite schedules for the most part. Poor Blake has to be quiet a lot while Brett is napping and I guess it just gets to him sometimes so he started making this loud sound with no warning as loud as possible, so even if we reprimand him, the damage is done (Brett wakes up crying). He also does this if he isn't getting 100% attention from someone... toddlers... they're so good at pushing your buttons!
did great with potty training at first. He really picked it up quickly at the beginning of the month and he was going tinkle on the potty a few times a day. He even woke up one morning and said he needed to go to the potty. We were using a reward system, and once he got 5 magnets for going in the potty he'd get a race car. Well at some point it got increased to 10 magnets and then he seemed to lose interest in the whole thing almost over night... ugh. Now it is a struggle to get him to go. He even lets us know every time he goes, in a sing-songy voice he'll say "I'm going in my DIA-per" and give us this evil little grin. He still has never gone poop in the potty but I don't see that happening for a while really since we still struggle to get him to go every couple days in his diaper.
if he doesn't want to do something he'll say "let's do it on Sunday".
started answering questions or responding to things with, "sorry". For example, Me: Blake, it's time to go get dinner. Blake: Sorry, it's time to play. Or Me: Do you have a full diaper Blake? Blake: Sorry, it's just a good diaper and we can change it later.
his favorite phrases this month were "you were supposed to..." and "I thought you were going to...".
likes digging in the dirt and sand. After going over to our friend Melissa's house and digging in the dirt and playing with the garbage truck, he talks about it a lot and how he wants to either go to the beach or go back over to Melissa's and dig.
has gotten tons of comments from other parents about how advanced his language is. He really talks a ton and likes to describe things in detail. He also adds in phrases that I had no idea he had even heard and they're rarely used incorrectly. He has turned into quite the manipulator and will basically tell you what he wants you to do so he can get his way.
has become the light nazi. We explained to him that it wastes power to leave a light on in a room that you're not in, and he took that to heart. He'll even try and turn it off if you're in the room and he says "you're not supposed to waste power."