10 months

 Lawson, you are TEN months old! 

Here is some of what you are up to at 10 months old.

• You are 22 pounds, which is the 60th percentile (you were only 28th last month!)
• You are 30 inches tall, which is the 85th percentile
• Your head is (finally) in the 50th percentile! 
• You wear size 12 month clothes
• You have 6 teeth (no new ones since last month)
• You are a great eater, as evidenced by your jump in growth from last month!  You don't miss a meal (or even a snack), that's for sure! :)
• You sleep from 8 pm-6am (sometimes 7!) and you take 2 naps a day.  You went on a nap strike for a week this month, but now you are back on track.
• You are STANDING on your own all the time now!  You are still a little wobbly, but you are great at balancing, and you don't even need to pull up anymore, you can go from squatting to standing all on your own!
• You are such a happy little boy!  You smile at us all the time and your favorite game is chase!  You think the word no is funny- which is not looking good for us for future years. :-/
• You say dada, mama, uh-oh, and up.  Uh-oh is probably one of the funniest.  You like to "drop" things so you can say it. That game got old quickly, ha!  If you don't want to go to sleep, you will throw all of your pacis out of your crib and say "uh-oh" after each one. ha!
• Your favorite time of day is when Daddy gets home. You squeal and speed crawl to him!  Your eyes light up just hearing the key in the lock, haha!
• You are so sweet and occasionally you will cuddle.  I love Lawson snuggles.
• You will be 1 in TWO months.  Holy cow!  Where has the time gone!  I can't believe it.  I'm in denial for sure.

These next few pictures are hilarious.  We let you play in your diaper bag because you like to put things in and out of it, and there's nothing in there that can hurt you. Well, after about  5 seconds of you being REALLY quiet in your diaper bag, we found you with the can of formula flipped over and you were shoving the powder in your mouth by the fistful.  GROSS!  Haha!  In hindsight it was funny, and of course being the great mom I am, I took pictures. ;)

Your first Fourth of July.

Sitting in the big kid chair playing Legos at Carters.

Mommy caught you "reading" in your room. So sweet.

Your happy little self having a screaming contest with Daddy.  :)

I can't believe how much you've grown!  I love watching you grow up, but it is definitely bittersweet.  Can't wait to see what you will learn next month!

9 Months

Lawson, you are NINE months old!

 

Here is what you are up to:

• You are 19.1 pounds (27th percentile) and 28.5 inches long (60th percentile). Your little head is17.25 inches around, which is the 13th percentile.
• You wear size 9-12 months or 12 months clothes in anything that's one piece (onesies, rompers, sleepers).  If it's pants and a shirt, you can still wear smaller sizes.
• You still fit in a size 3 disposable diaper, but you don't wear them often.  We love cloth diapers. :)
• You have FIVE teeth, and a sixth on it's way in.  We hate teething around here.
• You are spider crawling everywhere, pulling up on anything and everything, and cruising EVERYWHERE!  You hardly ever sit still.  You took a couple unassisted steps last week, but I think it was a fluke and you probably don't even know you did it. You were trying to get from your toy to the chair and got lucky, ha!
• You are a great eater!  You had to take a steroid for your allergic reaction, and that made you eat SO much, but now your eating is back to normal. You eat mostly table food with some purees mixed in, and you eat 3 meals a day.
• Since starting cloth diapering, you are an AWESOME sleeper.  You go to sleep anywhere between 6:30 and 8 depending on your mood, and you don't wake up until 7 or later.  Momma is loving your new summer schedule. :)  You don't have any wake ups anymore either, when you used to have one or two for the paci.  You put them in during your sleep and don't wake up for it anymore.
• You say mama, dada, and repeat lots of things we say without meaning it.  You will sometimes say night-night and bite.  We are working on up and down.
• You LOVE to give kisses, and you're starting to like snuggling again too when you're settled down enough.  It's so sweet.
•  You have your own little personality, and you are so fun!  I call you a little steamboat because as soon as you wake up you are off and running with no stopping you!  You are a little ball of energy.
• You like to tell us when you don't like something now.  You have learned the word "no" quickly, and you listen when we tell you no (for now, ha!), but you scream at us to let us know you don't like it.  After talking with some other moms with babies the same age, I have concluded that it's normal, thank goodness.  Apparently at 9 months you think you are a grown up, and you don't like hearing otherwise, ha!
• You are generally so happy except for an occasional fit.  When you are grumpy, we know it's time for a nap!
• Speaking of naps, Momma is afraid you are transitioning to only one day time nap.  YIKES!  If you weren't sleeping so well at night, I would be more concerned.  I'm not ready for it though, ha!

 You were not happy that Momma and Daddy wanted you to sit still for a picture.  :)

 Always finding something to get into. :)

 "Helping" with laundry

 You were supposed to be napping...instead you were playing with your humidifier.  Busy bee.

 Before and after of your food tray during the time you were taking the steroid. You ate EVERYTHING in sight, haha!  It was pretty funny to watch.

 Playing with your kitchen. You  like to play with your big kid toys now. :)

 

Totally random, but this is a teething chart I got from a friend.  It's just interesting to me.  Every baby is different, so obviously it's all relative, but I just think it's so funny that you have gotten each tooth so far at the very beginning of the monthly window.  Your top lateral incisors came in/are coming in now, and you just turned 9 months.  Hopefully this is an indicator of when to expect teeth to come in for the future, and hopefully it means we will be done with teething early. :)

 

 

Playing with Daddy's shoes...

 Showing off your teeth!

 Happy boy

 This is how you go to sleep. With at least 3 pacis.  You find them in your sleep and put them in so that you don't cry.  Sometimes they get lost or fall out of your crib, so we put extra in there just in case.  :)

 Teething on the couch. With a bump on your head. You are ALL boy and bump into everything.  We try to baby proof everything, but you are good at finding things to run into, ha!

Showing us that you were unhappy. I think you had tried to bite my toes here and I told you "no."  You don't like to be told no. hahaha!

Lawson, you are such a cute, sweet, loveable little man, and we can't believe how big you are getting!  You are practically a big boy now!  We can't wait to see what you will learn next.

A first for the baby book...

Lawson had his first trip to the Emergency Room Tuesday night. :( 

He had ravioli and carrots for dinner...

 

And then 30 minutes later he looked like this!  This picture doesn't even do it justice because of the flash.  He looked HORRIBLE and had bright red hives everywhere.  :(  They were ALL OVER his body, but mostly on his face and neck.  Since they were on his face, his pediatrician wanted him seen in the ER to make sure it wasn't affecting his breathing.

By the time we got to the ER, he already looked much better! They were almost completely gone here!

 After three and a half hours, we were discharged with no diagnosis.  But at least my little guy was feeling better, and he was a trooper.  He was only minimally fussy even though we were there until 3 hours past his bedtime!

Lawson saw his pediatrician the next day for a follow up, and she thinks it may have been a virus.  He didn't have a fever, but his heart rate was elevated.  It still could have been a food reaction, but we may never know (and I sure as heck am not giving him those foods again to find out!).  For now, he is on a steroid for a few days and we will keep Benadryl on us at all times.

Here's hoping for no more ER visits for my boy!  :)

Cloth Diapers

I NEVER thought I would even consider cloth diapering.  Like, I NEVER NEVER NEVER would have considered it before becoming a mom.  I thought it was gross and definitely not for me!  Just add that to the list of "I never...."s that happened anyway.  :)

Lawson sleeps 11-12 hours at night.  Which is AWESOME!! But because he sleeps for so long, he pees through every single disposable diaper we have tried, which makes him wake up sooner and more often because he is wet and cold.  After some coaxing from some great friends, I decided to give cloth diapering at night a go!  Apparently they are more absorbent and I was willing to try anything!  In general, I don't like to put chemicals on my baby, and I like to feed him natural or organic things.  While it was definitely not my first reason for trying cloth, it makes me feel good that I'm keeping the chemicals off my baby and putting more natural things on him.  Just another plus, although I'm not opposed to disposables either.  We are avid Pampers users around here, and will continue to be while Lawson is in daycare and when we leave the house. Cloth diapering is kind of complicated outside of the house, and I'm not ready to try it yet.  Maybe one day I will be. :)

Here's what I purchased (I figured if I was going to really try it, I had to give it a fair chance. The good thing about cloth diapers is that they hold their value, so if we hated it, we weren't going to be out much money).

Cloth diapers (duh, right?!?):

This one is a sustainablebabyish (sbish)

Here's Lawson's mini-stash (before three more have been purchased, ha!)  ALL of Lawson's diapers are blue or have some sort of blue in them.  We like blue here.  :)  These are:

Top row:  Lotus Bumz, Sbish; Bottom row: Etsy seller Turtle Love, Bagshot Row Bamboo (BSRB). All of these are fitteds and are the most absorbent cloth diaper (which we need for night), but require a cover to be water proof. I bought covers too (you'll see that in a below picture). :)

 

This one is Bububebe and is an All In 2 diaper (doesn't require a cover because the outer is already wetproof)

 Cloth wipes, and I make my own solution with just water and baby shampoo.

Detergent.  I ordered the Rockin' Green online, but it took too long to get here and I got impatient, so I bought the All at the grocery store.  All is not as good as Rockin' Green, but I was anxious to get started and I figured it wouldn't hurt to use it just once.  :)

A wet bag (this is where the used diapers go until I wash them).  And it's washable too!  I just throw the whole thing in the washer. :)

 

So far....I REALLY like it!  I didn't think I would, but I really do!  I have plans to buy more diapers and hopefully work up to full time cloth diapering in the summer time. It's so easy, and I love that Lawson has a cute booty!  :)  Plus, cloth diapers are a one time purchase unlike disposables, and I can resell them after baby/ies, so in the long run it saves us money, although I admit that wasn't one of my first reasons for doing it. I just wanted a night time solution that kept us all asleep and happy, and that has turned into a whole new world of cloth diapering! :)

A few things:

1) Yes, I put poopy diapers in my washer (or I will, I haven't had a poopy cloth diaper yet since we are only cloth part time until we build our stash, but I know it's coming).  No, it's not gross. Well, it is gross, but not any grosser than putting poopy clothes in my washer which has happened on more than one occasion after a blow out.  Blow outs are not common at all in cloth diapers.  So, yes, I put poopy diapers in my washer, but poopy clothes have been in there before, so this isn't new.  It sounded WAY gross to me before becoming a mom, but I've been pooped on, peed on, spit up on, etc, so it's just part of motherhood now, lol!  Throwing poopy diapers into the wash is WAY more appealing than cleaning up a baby after a disposable blow out, haha!

2) Yes, I have to do laundry more often now.  Diaper laundry actually isn't that bad because there's nothing to fold and folding is my least favorite part.

3) I'm still learning about cloth diapering and all that comes with it.  So far I really enjoy it, but I reserve the right to change my mind.  :)

Now some WAY CUTE booty pictures of my little man!  :)

 Monkey butt!

 Lawson with a fitted diaper on and a cover.  The covers are the waterproof that keeps the wetness from getting on his clothes. How cute is this owl cover???

 Lawson with his fitted BSRB diaper.  *A note about fitteds.  They require a cover to be waterproof, but it takes a WHILE to soak a cloth diaper (like overnight).  When we first put his diaper on, we let him go coverless for a while until bed time, which is good for baby's skin because it allows it to breathe, plus it's just so stinkin' cute!  ;)

 Lawson in his Goodmama fitted, which may be my favorite fitted so far. 

 I would love to answer any questions you have about cloth diapering. It's so overwhelming at first, but so far it works so well for our family!  Chris is even on board if it means less night time wake ups.  :)

I guess we can add cloth diapering to the list of "I will never..."s that I had before becoming a mom that I do now that I am a mom.  Actually BEING a parent changes a lot about my views pre-parenthood. :)