Update

Our apologies for not posting for a while. We were sleep-deprieved (more on that below) and the grind of daily life doesn't leave many opportunities for pictures (aside from the situations like those below).

Overall, Chase is doing great. He's generally pretty happy, eating more solid food, and getting stronger. He laughs and LOVES it when we sing to him. His favorite songs are Snuggle Puppy and Winnie the Pooh.

He had his first "sick" visit to the doctor last week. He felt warm to us, but according to the ear thermometer his temperature was only 98 degrees. We sent him over to the nanny share and warned Kayla about him feeling warm and a few hours later she texted me that he was coughing and felt warm. So I called the doctor's office and they said to bring him right in. An hour later, we're in the exam room and he's having the time of his life moving his arms and legs and making the paper on the exam table make noise. His temperature was 97.5. Chase was laughing and smiling when the doctor walked in and said "well, he certainly doesn't look sick." As you probably guessed, everything was fine. Dr. Wirt thought maybe Chase was getting a cold, but his ears and chest were clear. Harley Mae, his nanny share friend, was just getting a cold so I took him home and we napped and stayed germ free.

Sleep isn't going too well.  The past two week's his wakings have has been all over the place. Sometimes he wakes up 5 times, other times just once or twice. Sometimes he wakes up at 10:30pm and every 2 hours after that, other times he doesn't wake up until 3 and then doesn't really go back to sleep. We've tried just about everything we could think of, short of sleep training which we don't feel that he (or we) is ready for. So I go to bed as early as possible and Stephen gets up with Chase sometimes and we're surviving. Hopefully it'll get better soon!

As I said, there isn't much time to get pictures of Chase during a regular day and our weekends are spent catching up on sleep, running errands, and seeing friends. Most of his pictures are during dinner time or while he's in the exersaucer. But I'm committed to getting more pictures of him, especially now that it's fall and there are pumpkins and leaves and so many great photo ops! In the meantime, enjoy...

(Blogger added a new feature that makes it easy to add lots of pictures at once. I LOVE IT!)

While we were not sleeping..

In our sleep-deprived state, our postings haven't kept up with all of Chase's developments. Here's a brief summary.


1. The Exersaucer
He LOVES it. Chase gets to sit up and move himself. Plus it lights up and things move and so much fun!

2. Teething
This is really not helping the whole sleep situation. I'll get a picture of the incoming teeth when I can. For now, we just get to see Chase's hands in his mouth.


3. Sitting/Leaning Up
He's throwing his weight around. Literally. It's time to start strapping him in to all his seats.


Caught!
4. Reading
Did you know his Grammy and Uncle Billy are librarians?



5. Being adorable

(No explanation needed!)

"Solid" Food

Per the doctor's recommendation, our concern that he was still hungry, and our own desire for sleep, we've started giving Chase solid food. I had hoped to wait until Chase was closer to 6 months and perhaps try baby led weaning where babies don't start solid foods until they can pick them up and put them in their mouths themselves, but his behavior during his nighttime wakings (particularly his screaming until he was fed and then feverishly nursing for a long time) led me to believe that it was a hunger issue.

We started on Thursday with organic rice cereal mixed with breast milk (again, per the doctor's rec). To be honest, it does not look appealing...

Baby's first feeding is supposed to be more about him experiencing the sensation of something new in his mouth and perhaps swallowing some rather than actually eating. By all accounts, it's normal for babies to have kind of a "WTF?" look on their faces when eating new foods. Chase did not disappoint.

Part of the problem was that we started late and he was tired. This is what Chase looked like BEFORE we even gave him any food.

His first bite:

His very discerning palate was none too pleased:
But it went better the next few days:


(We also didn't take the high chair down from the attic until this week, so he's tried a variety of seating arrangements)

Per the Super Baby Food book (Thank you, Carrie!), we gave him rice cereal for 4 days before starting a new food (to ensure he wasn't allergic to rice cereal). Our doctor had recommended another type of cereal next, but at this point he was STILL waking a lot at night and the carb-heavy rice cereal did not seem to be doing it. So we went with a great whole food, with plenty of healthy and, most importantly, filling fats: Avocado.

Stephen and I both love avocado (and guacamole) so it's almost always in the house. Plus, prepping it for Chase is easy- just mash up, mix with breastmilk, and serve. And not only is avocado nutritionally superior to many other foods, it's also green, which makes feeding time fun!

Yum

ALL DONE
Overall, Chase seems to be liking this new experience. And I'm happy to report that the nights after he had avocado, he slept better (knock on wood. seriously). The social scientist in me needs to admit that it wasn't a true experiment because we varied a number of factors (sleep position, timing, medicine for his teething) at once, but introducing Chase to foods serves to do more than help him sleep so it doesn't really matter. Plus, feeding time is fun for all of us.

Up next? Banana!