March 1, 2011

Here's a picture of little man helping Dad grill pork chops for dinner tonight. Today J and G took a little trip to Target to do some grocery shopping. The last time that Gage went grocery shopping with his Dad he made it so tough that I was a little worried about them, but today he did really well. They made it out of the store without attracting a lot of attention - and they attracted a LOT of attention last time.

According to J, he had a pretty good day - took a couple of naps, they took a walk, and even though he was a little crabby later in the day, overall it was a good day. When I got home he had lots of smiles and sweet laughs for me, he was actually in a great mood. J and I were both cracking him up and I love that sound. He just gets to cackling and laughing at us and it's so funny. He has moved up in baby food stages, so his foods are more mixed now. Tonight he had harvest vegetables with grains and he loved it. Guess what else he had? Apples! Apparently J fed him apples earlier today and he loved them, so we tried it again for dessert tonight and he ate them up.

We have a new bedtime routine that has worked the last couple of nights - knock on wood. We spend time in his room after his bath, we read a book, we play on the floor for a little while and then about 15 minutes before knockout time, I turn on his nightlight, turn off his lights and we stand by the bed (I'm holding him). We are just standing - very important to make the distinction to Gage that we are just standing here, not actually getting IN bed. He starts to get a little vocal about it, and he'll throw himself into me, grabbing around my neck so I won't put him down. But we just stand there, rocking and singing and he'll start rubbing his eyes like crazy, fighting it with everything he has. Eventually - it takes about 15 minutes - he'll lay sideways with his head in the crook of my arm and nod off. He'll still fight it a little, but after just a few minutes he is sleepy enough that I can put him in the bed. No screaming, just a little extra snuggles and he's gone down pretty easily. He STILL threw a middle of the night party last night, from 11p-1a. It seemed like he just wanted me to hold him and after trying a few times, he finally went back down and talked himself back to sleep. Eventually we have to figure out how to limit these middle of the night snuggle sessions. It's sweet, and I love seeing that cute face, but Mama needs some sleep!