Henry is 7 months old!

Time certainly does fly - even in the midst of teething. It is hard to believe, but Henry is now 7 months old!

His first tooth (bottom right center) FINALLY broke through about a week and a half after his teething pain/agony/misery/whatever word you would like to use began. We had 2 days of a fun, calm, relaxed, joyful, well rested, well napping baby. Now - the other bottom tooth is coming through. Poor baby! You can't feel the tooth at all through the gum yet, but the gum is very puffy, red, and swollen, so it is only a matter of time. Luckily, this time we know what to expect and have an arsenal of tricks to try and use (who knew he would enjoy frozen bananas in a mesh feeder so much?). It is harder to check on the daily progress of this tooth, though, since he can now actually bite you when you put a finger in there to check!!!

Other than the teething, Henry is doing well. Not much progress on crawling, but I think a lot of that is due to him wanting to be held quite a bit these last few weeks, so he hasn't had much practice time on the floor. He did crawl about a foot earlier today and was VERY pleased with himself. Unlike when he learned to roll, though, he doesn't seem very interested in practicing continually. He has to be "in the mood". He LOVES trying to pull up to standing, though - my legs are a favorite practice area, as are some very unstable plastic toys he has. Continual toppling over has not deterred him - I think his goal is to actually walk before he crawls.

Henry is getting excited about the upcoming Christmas season. He experienced his first snowfall here in Boston last week (although truthfully he seemed not to really notice...). The tree should be making its arrival in the next week or so, and I am sure Henry will be enthralled by the lights. I am on the search for a local "mall Santa" to go to and have his picture taken - don't we all have pictures of ourselves as a baby screaming on Santa's lap??? I am also on the search for some festive, non-toxic wrapping paper (since we all know he will love the paper a lot more than his gifts...)

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Weekend

It was another fun-filled weekend in the Powell household!

Henry is, unfortunately, still going through some teething pains. The tooth is being a little stubborn and has not yet broken through - we have our fingers crossed that the little bugger will pop through soon and give poor Henry some relief. In the meantime, he is enjoying chewing on ice in a mesh feeder and the wonders of Infant Motrin.

Henry is also progressing on the physical skills - we witnessed an official "crawl" on Saturday evening - we put him on our bed, he got up on hands and knees and made a beeline for a a stuffed animal. We then got the video camera and he, of course, refused to perform for the camera (and in fact, has chosen not to crawl since then!). Also, on Saturday Mike went into the nursery to discover Henry had pulled himself to standing in the crib. So, we have now lowered the crib to its lowest setting to prevent baby escape.

On Saturday we all headed to the Plewak household in Western MA for Griffin's 1st birthday party! It was exciting for Henry because 3 dogs were there. He hasn't had a lot of interaction with animals yet, so this was a big deal for him. One of the dogs, Anchor - a very large flat coat retriever - gave Henry massive tongue baths every time he passed by. Henry took it like a man - I don't know if he ENJOYED the massive licking, but he was intrigued by it. Another dog at the party was a small Boston Terrier - Scooter. Every time Henry saw Scooter wander by, Henry would burst into laughter. He was highly amused and it was hysterically funny to see.

At the party Henry also was able to see a fish tank for the first time and play on Griffin's swing set in the backyard. He let us know that he wants to live at the Plewaks - our house now seems very dull compared to theirs.

We hope all is going well for everyone, and we ill keep you updated on Henry's teething and crawling progress!

Give our address to the tooth fairy...

Henry's shall we say...challenging temperament of the past few days has finally been explained! This morning after he began crying uncontrollably after I placed him on the floor with a toy (Hey, I had to make coffee!!!) I finally put two and two together and felt his gums. Yep - there it is! You can see a little slit in his bottom gum and while you can't see any of the tooth yet, if you run your finger along his gum you can feel something hard and sharp poking through a bit. Poor baby :( So, the arrival of this tooth explains several things from the past few days:

- refusal to nap
- hysterical crying every now and again for no obvious reason
- a slight problem with whining. Oh Lord, the whining!!!
- severe drool rash
- Did I mention some whining?

Henry has now received some doses of both homeopathic "teething tablets" and good old Motrin and is - thankfully - taking a nap for now. Supposedly, once the tooth actually pops through the pain for them ends, so let's hope that happens soon! The bottom middle two teeth are almost always the first to arrive, followed by the top two middle teeth.

I have to admit that I am going to miss his cute, huge gummy smile :( He is getting so big!!!!!

Henry is on the move

Henry continues to practice his early crawling skills - he is now getting quite adept at pulling himself forward to go after toys. His current method is to get himself on hands and knees, pull his knees forward a bit, and then move his hands forward - then repeat. This does involve collapsing on the floor in between moves forward quite a bit, but he is getting better. He does best on his playmat or the rug in his room - the hardwood floors cause some slipping and sliding (while Mike and I find this amusing, Henry does not).

He is also pulling himself up on things as you can see from this picture. He was fascinated by the water filling his bathtub.

Daylight Savings

Ah...I remember the days when "Falling Back" meant an extra hour of sleep, waking up and being pleasantly surprised that it was actually an hour earlier than you thought. Alas, Daylight Savings is no longer as joyful an experience.

As expected, attempts to keep Henry up later at night in preparation for the time change have failed (we long ago discovered that he wakes when he wants, regardless of later or earlier bedtime changes, and 90% of the time he likes to wake up around 5:30 AM), and our wake up call this morning came at...4:45 AM. It is now not quite 8 AM and Henry has already woken up from his first nap of the day! Mike is really the one we should be feeling sorry for, as Sunday is my "sleep in day", so he was the one in charge this morning.

So, it looks like the Powells are in for a few long days and a lot of coffee (and some early bedtimes for us). Everyone cross your fingers that it doesn't take Henry TOO long to adjust to this absurdity of changing the clocks (WHY do we do this again? Didn't Ben Franklin come up with this idea as a way to save candles? Is this really still necessary???). We are going to do lots of "crawling practice" today to try and wear him out. The good news is that it looks like a wonderful New England autumn day outside - yesterday we were all trapped inside due to Tropical Storm Noel coming through.

We will keep everyone updated!

HENRY CRAWLS!!!

Well, kind of :)

Henry has been getting up on hands and knees for a few weeks now and either just hanging out for a while in that position, or rocking back and forth for a bit. He has been doing it more consistently and more often as of late - whenever we watch him on the video monitor going down for a nap we see him hanging out on hands and knees.

This morning Henry was on the floor playing with his chime ball (a toy that is pretty much what it sounds like...) It rolled away from him, and instead of waiting for me to roll it back, Henry went after it! He propped himself up a bit on his arms and pulled his body forward towards the toy. He reached it, accidentally batted it further away, and pulled himself after it again! He probably moved about 3 feet total. It was somewhat sad looking - kind of like watching a paralyzed man crawl on the ground and drag his legs behind him, but it was a start! Each time after reaching the ball he would get fully on hands and knees and rock for a bit - you can tell that his brain is working on coordinating all the different things he has to do to "officially" crawl. He has the various parts down, but can't quite do them all at the same time yet.

Henry was so excited from his crawling that he then took a 2 hour nap! That made mom happy (of course, he has not napped since then, but we take what we can get). Later in the afternoon Henry showed off his new skills in our baby class, causing much admiration. It is a good thing we have those baby gates up!

In other news, Henry is still doing well on solids. He has now had sweet potatoes, bananas, peas, and pears. He did not do well with peas - they bothered his stomach quite a bit, so those have been tabled for a while. He is also becoming an expert with the sippy cup. He drank an entire bottle's worth of formula from a sippy in the time it took me to put a load of laundry in - I was amazed. I think he likes the "independence" of a sippy as opposed to the bottle. Henry's only issue with solids is that he insists on feeding himself. If I attempt to put the spoon in his mouth without his hand also being on it, hysterical crying ensues. So, we just let him do it. It is leading to some very messy meals, but hopefully his coordination will improve soon.

He has been having a little trouble with napping, but I think it is a combination of him beginning to transition from 3 naps a day to 2 naps a day, and learning to crawl (reaching physical milestones can often disrupt sleeping patterns. They get so excited that they can't sleep!). We are interested to see what Daylight Savings brings this weekend. There is a good chance that Henry will have a 4:30 AM wake up call for a day or two before he gets used to the time change, so that will be fun!

We will try to get some action photos of Henry on the move. Someday I will also figure out how to transfer our home movies onto the computer so we can post the videos here, as well.