Nathan is ONE!!!

It is official, Nathan is one! He turned one on April 26th. It really is hard to believe that he is already a year old. The time flew by! On 4/25 we had a little birthday party for him and if you go to gallery.christopheraedo.com you will find all of the birthday pictures (and more). Nathan didn't understand the concept of opening gifts and was more interested in crawling around, but he did love his cupcake! He wasn't sure about the cupcake at first, but then once he had a bite he tried to shove the whole thing in his mouth. We also discovered that Nathan loves Mac & Cheese! Nathan's Grandma and Grandpa O'Neill were also in town to help celebrate his big day!

On Nathan's actual birthday we just hung out around the house. Both Nathan and I were sick and we got Sandra and my dad sick :( I blame Christopher because he was sick the week before! At least we don't have the Swine flu!

On Tuesday we went in for Nathan's 1-year check-up and here are his stats:

Weight: 22lbs -25th-50th percentile
Height: 28.5" -10th-25th percentile...I personally think that the lady could have gotten a longer reading if she stretched him a little better :)

Nathan also had to get his blood taken because they have to test iron levels and some other stuff. I couldn't be in the room when they took the blood from his arm. I was getting squimish just looking at the guy next to us get blood taken. I also could hear Nathan screaming and I don't think that I would have been able to handle being in the same room. Nathan did great though!

Nathan is still not walking (he does cruise around on the furniture a lot!). He babbles so much, but isn't saying any words on purpose. He is climbing on furniture. If the furniture is low enough to the ground he can hoist his body up on it! He still only has two teeth, but it looks like his two top front teeth will be coming in very soon!

That is about all for now!

-Heather

Busy, busy, busy

Wow, we have been so busy that I have not had much time to post in our blog. There is a lot to write, but hopefully I can summarize it all without writing a book :)

-Swim lessons:
Nathan finally did great on his refresher classes. It turned out that all he needed was to be rested. We joked around saying that we have to make sure that when Nathan accidentally falls in the pool he has to be well rested. We will be doing refresher classes again sometime in May.

-Hair:
Christopher and I got hair cuts. You may be wondering why I mention this and it is because I got about 14-15" cut off! I was ready for a change and told our stylist that she could do what she wanted. She cut off 10" to donate and then the rest was for her to play with. I am on the fence with the hair cut (it is really short for me), but I think that once it grows out a little I will like it. It kind of reminds me of my mom's hair!

-Birthday Party for Christopher:
Even though he said it wasn't his birthday party it was, sort of. He had his annual big bash and he was able to get a couple of kegs emptied. The house was packed and the disco floor was a lit. I think that most everyone had a good time. Nathan was even able to take a nap during it all!

-Australia:
On 3/27 we left LA to Australia. The flight there was 14 hours and I think that it was the longest 14 hours ever! Our plane left at 11pm and Nathan could not fall asleep in the terminal. It then took him forever to fall asleep on the plane. They provide you with bassinets on the plane, but the catch is that if there is turbulence you have to take the baby out and put them on your lap with the kid belt. Well, there always seemed to be turbulence right when we would put Nathan down to sleep. We thought that we would just keep him there and not move him, but we got busted! We didn't get much sleep and I basically was Nathan's pacifier for the whole trip. We did fly V Australia which was really nice and the staff was GREAT! We also got seated in an area that had more room for babies which was really nice. Nathan got diarrhea on the flight and it lasted for a few days and that wasn't fun!

It was so nice to be visiting with Crystal, Sam, Ziah, and Marley! Their house was so cute and felt like we were at home. Much better than staying at a hotel! Nathan who is 11 months was about the same size as Marley who is 3 months. Nathan was heavier, but Marley didn't look that much smaller. Ziah was a great big sister! She loved playing with Nathan and being around him. She was wanting to hold his hand all of the time. I think that Ziah really enjoyed having some new playmates (Christopher and I included).

We took a trip up to Cairns (Australians pronounce it like "can") so that Christopher could dive the Great Barrier Reef. I was not excited about the 3 hour flight there, but it wasn't too bad. The hotel that we were at was beautiful and we had a water view from our room. The hotel also had it's own indoor rainforest and that ended up being the place that Nathan and I went to all of the time. They had a ton of birds and Nathan is very fond of the birds. He even would start saying "ba, ba" when he would see the birds. There was one cockatoo that used to be a pet that was there. His name was Big Bird and he couldn't fly, but he loved being on you. All you had to do was go up to his cage and he would climb on you. It was really hard to get him off of you too! The only bad part about the rainforest was that it was HOT! While Christopher did his diving, which he said was great, Nathan and I mostly stayed in our room because it was hot. Christopher did pay for me to get a massage because he felt bad for leaving us for two days (he was back for the night).

When we were in Sydney we saw the Aquarium, which is supposed to be the largest in the world. It was pretty good, but it was raining so hard and Nathan was grumpy which wasn't a great combination. When we got back to Crystal and Sam's they asked us if we had been swimming because we were so wet. We had taken public transportation and had to do some walking. The public transit was really easy to navigate. We checked out some of the beaches that were gorgeous! We toured the Harbor and saw the infamous Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. We went to a great park where there were wallabies and Kangaroos that were roaming around in the park that you could pet and feed. It really was a great park and even though it was crowded for the park, it wasn't that bad! We had a really great time!

Driving on the opposite side of the road was interesting. I didn't do any of the driving, but it was weird being a passenger. The city streets in Sydney were not very grid-like so it looked too confusing for me to drive it. That is one reason we took public transportation to some things. Trying to do anything all together was almost impossible. Having three kids that were taking naps at all different times made it hard to do some stuff together. It was nice though to just relax at home! Crystal made us some amazing dinners! She really is a great chef and she makes some great sandwich bread that I tried to copy and didn't succeed at. We also got to meet Sam's parents and have dinner with them. They too are great cooks and were really nice!

Christopher and I discovered on our trip that when Nathan is fussy all we have to do is give him some bread or other food and he is happy! Kind of bad that food makes our baby happy. Hopefully, he won't have serious issues when he is older :). Nathan was also a great eater and I think that he may have eaten more than Ziah at each meal!

Our flight home was only 13 hours and it wasn't as bad, but it was still long and a little painful! The hardest part is getting Nathan readjusted to the time change. He did ok there, but now that we are home he is having the hardest time. We put him down at his normal time and either 5 minutes or an hour later he is up. He would be up until 2 am and that was killing us. Now he goes to bed with us. It was nice not having him sleep with us, but it seems to be the only thing that calms him down. We hope that soon he will be back to his old sleep habits!

THANK YOU CRYSTAL AND SAM FOR BEING GREAT HOSTS!!!!! WE LOVED VISITING WITH YOU GUYS!

Here is a link to all of our Australia pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/christopheraedo/OZ#

-Family:
Once we got home Christopher's sister Karen was here with her two daughters Danielle and Natalie. Natalie stayed with me while the rest of them went shopping and it was very nice to have Natalie watch Nathan so that I could do some things.

-Nathan:
-Is a VERY FAST crawler!
-Is babbling like crazy! We think that he will be talking soon
-Walks around holding onto the furniture like a pro, but isn't even close to wanting to walk by himself
-He still only has two teeth and it doesn't look like more are coming in
-He likes to imitate Christopher and me. He will do hand motions or mouth motions after we do them. He still will not wave though!
-He plays peek-a-boo with his blanket and it is super cute
-If you ask Nathan "how big is Nathan" he will lift both of his arms up in the air
-He loves the animals and will constantly go after them. Bella has scratched him a few times (we trimmed her claws so this wouldn't happen again!)
-Nathan is into headbutting everything. The cutest is when he headbutts a cat or dog. Sometimes one of our cats will headbutt him back.
-Nathan is almost ONE! Only a week to go!

That is it for now. We have to go to bed!

-Heather

Waving

Just a quick update.  Nathan is now waving.  We have been working on this for a long time and sometime last week he figured out how to do it.  The only thing is that he doesn't like waving at humans, but rather at cars and airplanes!  It is really funny to watch.  The first time he waved we were in a parking lot and a car was coming towards us and he stuck out his hand and started waving.  When we go on our daily walks Nathan likes to wave at cars if they are coming towards us.  I sometimes wonder what the people in the cars think.  When he hears an airplane going by he will look up and stick his hand up and start waving.  I think that him waving is more like him pointing, but he puts the wave in.  I hope that he will start waving at us when we say "hi" or "bye" :).  

Nathan also has not adjusted to the time change and we LIKE that!  He was waking up at 6 in the morning, but now is getting up at 7.  We tried to change his daily schedule to make it similar to what he was already on, but then we thought that we really like him waking up later so we are keeping him on the same schedule he was on so now he gets up later and takes his naps later.

Nathan LOVES food.  He gets that from both Christopher and me.  He will eat practically anything that we give him and when we stop feeding him he will start screaming.  He loves to feed himself and we are giving him lots of finger foods now.  He is like a little chipmunk though because he puts a lot of food in his mouth and stores it there.  It is hilarious because he will have his mouth completely full and if we try to make him laugh he will lock his lips up and not open them so that no food will escape!

That is about it for now.  This coming up weekend I should be posting about the refresher swim lessons that we did!

-Heather

10 Months and the News

Nathan turned 10 months on 2/26 which was Christopher's 36th birthday! We didn't have a big birthday celebration because Christopher worked and then Nathan goes to bed early. Hard to believe that in just two months Nathan will be a year old.

Nothing much has changed from last week. Nathan is standing up on furniture a lot and his balance seems to be getting better. I don't foresee him walking in the near future though :)

We still have Grandpa Aedo here and he will be here until the end of next week. We are hoping that next week we will be able to go to the zoo because Bill and Nathan should really like that.

Lastly, we were asked by our instructor if we would be one of the demo babies for a piece that the ABC news in LA was doing on swimming. We agreed, but then the instructor called and said that the piece was canceled so we would not be doing it. We were really excited about it, but oh well. I am also not quite sure if the piece was canceled or if our instructor decided that she didn't want us to demo and was saying that it was canceled to be nice.

The reason for our instructor not wanting us to do the news piece is that we had to go to her house during the weekend for a refresher class and Nathan didn't do so well. Nathan started crying immediately and then he was kicking and flailing all over the place. He was having a hard time floating. After a few minutes he calmed down and was able to float, but he was having a hard time rolling over. He got the rollovers except when he was put face down in the water. In the pool he had a huge burp and threw-up some water. When Jessica took him out of the pool he threw-up water a few more times. He also fell asleep right away. I then moved him to change him and he was having a hard time trying to stay awake. He then threw-up again and got me and him all wet. We came home and he threw-up about five more times and completely drenched himself and me and got the floor all wet. I tried breastfeeding a little after he had thrown-up and he threw that all up. It was incredible how much water he had thrown-up. He swallowed a ton of water during the refresher class. It was a little worrying that he had such a hard time floating and rolling over considering that we didn't finish classes too long ago. Jessica called me over the weekend to say that the piece was canceled and she also wanted to talk about what was going on with Nathan. She wants me to bring him back to classes in a week for a couple of days to see what may be going on. I think that he was just super tired because he had missed his nap. By putting him in the pool and "working" it really tired him out. He also had been eating apple products which makes kids super gassy. It should be interesting to see how he does in a week. I hope that he does well because it worries me that he wouldn't do well if he fell in the pool. Jessica is also going to talk to her instructor to see what may be going on. I hope that it was just a case of Nathan being overly exhausted!

-Heather

ISR "Float" Lessons

As most of you know we enrolled Nathan in the ISR (Infant Swim Resource) program.  They teach babies 6-14 months how to float on their back if they ever fall into a body of water.  You may have seen the clip of "Miles" falling into the pool in his pjs and then floating on his back until someone came to get him.  We saw this clip and thought that this was something that we needed to teach Nathan.  We looked on the website for instructors near us and we got the last slot for the winter session with Jessica.  She is a new instructor and was having these classes at her house in her heated pool. 

The classes were for 10 minutes a day for five days a week.  The session was to be five weeks, but longer if we needed it.  Part of this program is documenting EVERY time Nathan pooped, peed, slept, ate, drank, had medicine, went to the doctor.  I also had to document everything that he ate.  Nathan was also not allowed to have certain foods at all times, certain foods some of the time, and have limits to when he could eat before class.  It was a lot of work on my part :)

Jessica started Nathan off with getting him to float properly.  His biggest problem was that he wanted to keep his arms real close to his body and with time Jessica was able to get him to spread his arms out to his side.  The next step was making sure that Nathan had good breath control when he was being turned down into the water.  Jessica would make sure that he was closing his mouth when he was getting close to going under water.  Then when Nathan would turn back on his back she would make sure that he would spit out any water that he swallowed (he is really good at this).  She then would make sure that Nathan was taking good deep breaths when we was floating.  At the beginning he would only take short fast breaths.  Once they are able to take deep, relaxed breaths she starts working on flipping the babies face down in the water and helping them turn over onto their backs.  Jessica helps out the babies less and less until they can rollback on their own.

For three weeks Nathan needed Jessica's help to roll over onto his back.  He would always be searching for her to help him out.  We were going into week four and he was still unable to do it on his own and I thought for sure that we would have to go longer than five weeks.  Then one day Nathan just got it.  It was amazing to see.  She flipped him over and he rolled back like a cork screw.  It was so fast and so smooth.  She did it several more times and he kept doing it.  He didn't need her help at all anymore.  It really was funny how it just "clicked" for him one day.

Now that he could roll back every time Jessica rolled him into the water it was time to move onto the next step.  She would flip him backwards into the water from the pool.  She would put him on the edge of the pool and toss him into the water at different angles.  She would also drop him down into the water as if he was jumping in.  Every time she did this he managed to roll on his back and float.  It was incredible to watch.  Once he got down this part it was time for the clothes!  The first clothing lesson Nathan had to wear summer clothes.  We had him in a regular diaper, shorts, t-shirt, and flip-flops.  He did all of the flips and rollovers in these clothes.  It was hilarious to see him in the pool in flip-flops.  I didn't bring a camera so I don't have pictures but trust me, it was hilarious.  The weight of the diaper when he got out was so heavy!  After summer clothes it was time for winter clothes.  He was wearing pants, socks, boots, a long sleeved shirt, and a jacket.  He was able to float on his back with all of the weight of the wet clothes.  He was so heavy from all of that water weight and it was great seeing that he could float on his back.

Christopher and I are confident that if Nathan fell into our pool he wouldn't drown because he would be able to turn over and float on his back.  I am still amazed that a 9 month old could figure this out.  The program is great!  Once Nathan is over 14 months and walking we will do the swimming portion of the lessons.

Below is a video we took on the last day of classes for Nathan.  I think that it is amazing to watch Nathan.  I also want to mention that out of the five babies Nathan was the 2nd one to graduate from the classes!

-Heather

I'm a bad blogger!

I hadn't realized how long it has been since I have last written in here and I am shocked that it has been over a month! Hopefully, I will be a little better at this in the coming weeks :)

Since I know that everyone is dying to know, Nathan is a crawling pro! He crawls all over the place and fast. It was amazing how quick he got in such a short time. He loves to go after Lucy, the cats, Lucy's toys, and the water bowl for the animals. I think that he must want to be one of the animals :) Shortly after he started crawling he started pulling himself up to a standing position and now he is a pro at that too. The one big problem is that he has trouble getting down from a standing position and this isn't very fun during the middle of the night when he wakes up! He is starting to cruise around on the furniture, but he still isn't too confident about it and will not go very fast or far.

You might also be wondering about swimming lessons. We started those almost five weeks ago and this next week will be our last week. As soon as I hand Nathan over to the instructor he cries, but he stops once they start working. Nathan was working on floating and then rolling over onto his back. He had the float down really good, but wasn't doing so good on the rolling over to his back. I thought that we would probably be told that we need to go for an extra week or so of lessons until Nathan figured it out. When he would roll over he would need Jessica's (the instructor) help. Just last week it seemed to click for him and it was amazing to watch. When she would roll him face down in the water he would roll over onto his back so quick and without any help. She put him in the water in different positions and he was always able to roll over and get on his back and float. It was so great to see and I can't believe that a 9 month old has figured this out. Next week we will be working on "falling" into the pool from the sides of the pool and falling in the pool with clothes on. It should be interesting to watch. I think that it is awesome that Nathan will know what to do if he ever falls into a pool. A great part about these lessons is that they are happening in the LA winter. It has been ridiculous with the temperature and the weather has been perfect for the classes. The pool is outside and just this past week when we finally had rain the classes were canceled. Below is a little clip from one of the lessons that Nathan took. Next week I hope to get a new clip and it should be more interesting :)



Nathan now has TEETH! He got his first tooth a few weeks after he turned 8 months. When Nathan was crying during his swim lessons the instructor said that it looked like he had two teeth coming in. The Saturday after she said that one of the bottom front ones broke through. The second bottom one came in last weekend. I had thought that when the teeth came I would be able to see the whole tooth. I didn't realize that it takes forever for the whole tooth to come out. The first one that came out is now visible, but it still seems like it has a ways to go before it is out all of the way. Once I can get a good picture of his teeth I will post that! It is nice to know that Nathan has some teeth. Nathan has not bitten me yet while breastfeeding and I will keep my fingers crossed that he doesn't do that!

Nathan is now 9 months old! It is hard to believe that I have had him as long as I was pregnant with him. When I was pregnant the time went by so slowly and now it has gone by so quickly. At Nathan's appointment he weighed 19 lbs 3 oz and moved up to the 25th percentile for weight! I really think that having 3 solid meals a day with a couple of snacks has helped him gain some weight. He was 27 1/4" long and was in the 25th percentile for height. He is right on schedule with everything and our next appointment will be when he is a year old!

Nathan is eating like a champ! He eats everything we have given him and doesn't seem to be picky at all. Just recently I have started giving him more finger foods and he loves being able to feed himself...and Lucy. It is hilarious because he will hold out his hand with food in it and try and give it to Lucy. I now have to keep treats by Nathan when I am feeding him so that I can reward Lucy when she doesn't take food from Nathan. I am still making all of Nathan's food for him and it has been really easy to do and I think that we are saving more money by doing this. It has also given us the opportunity to pick out a whole bunch of weird combinations for foods. I never thought that broccoli, asparagus, sweet potato, and pear would taste good all mixed up together. His favorite food is the Gerber Puffs. Another mom described them as being "crack" for babies. They are pretty tasty and I can understand why the babies love them so much.

What else for us? Our family is going to Australia at the end of March to visit the Stone family and we are so excited about it! Christopher went and got certified for diving and we are planning on going to the Great Barrier Reef so that Christopher can dive there. Christopher is obsessed with brewing all grain beer and he has a whole set-up and loves to talk about it! We now have four full kegs on tap and Christopher wants to brew more even though we don't we room for it! I have joined a couple of moms groups and I have met some cool moms. I haven't been able to go to a lot of the gatherings, but that should change once we finish with the swim lessons.

I think that I have written about all of the biggest and latest news for us. We are still adding photos to our gallery if you want to check them out. Thanks for reading my short book :)

-Heather

HAPPY 2009!

Wow, I have a lot to write in here because we have had a busy couple of weeks.

Nathan had his first Christmas up in Graeagle.  Nathan and I flew up and he was doing great until the landing.  He started crying and then just as we were close to landing the pilot had to abort the landing because it was too windy!  On the second try we landed, but Nathan was crying the whole time.  Luckily, I was seated around some really nice people and one lady was playing peek-a-boo with him.  I really hate flying into and out of Reno. 

Graeagle was a winter wonderland!  It was snowing while we were there and we were so happy that we got to have a white Christmas.  Nathan didn't seem to pay the snow much attention, but Lucy sure did love running and jumping in it.  Here is a picture with Nathan in his huge jacket outside of my parent's house.  

Nathan hit the jackpot with presents this year!  He got a lot of books, which he promptly put in his mouth, some toys and clothes :)  He tried opening up some presents, but he just didn't get it!  I don't know why he doesn't know how to open up presents yet :)  Later that day we went up to my Grandma O'Neill's house for our annual Christmas dinner.  Like usual, the food was delicious!  

It was so nice visiting with my family and friends.  We also enjoyed the cold weather.  When we got back to LA it was in the mid-70s and it felt like it was Autumn.  For New Years we ended up staying at home because Nathan has been sleeping so horrible and we didn't want to have his sleep disturbed by being somewhere other than at home.  We don't know what is going on, but he is only sleeping for an hour or two before waking up and crying non-stop.  It is really frustrating because nothing seems to calm him down except for me feeding him, which we don't want to keep doing.  We think that his sleeping problems are associated to teething because there doesn't seem to be any other reason for it, but we have yet to see any teeth come through.

On 12/26 Nathan turned 8 months old!  It is so hard to believe that in four months he will be a year old.  The time has just flown by and everyone that I talk to that has kids tells me that I need to enjoy this time because it goes by so fast and I really do believe it.  Now that Nathan can sit unsupported we put him on our scale to weigh him.  He is almost 18 pounds, which is small for a baby his age, but he looks healthy and he has some really big thunder thighs!

The biggest news is that Nathan is crawling!!!!  Over the Christmas holiday he was getting up on all fours and rocking back and forth and a couple of times he scooted forward.  Then on 1/1 he was able to move a couple paces forward and then fall down.  This was huge progress!  Now he gets up on all fours and starts crawling around.  He isn't fast and falls a lot, but I think that by next week he will be a pro at it.  He seems to be getting better at it each day.  Both Christopher and I are excited that he is finally crawling!

Lastly, we are starting Nathan on "swim" lessons in a couple of weeks.  The lessons really aren't on how to swim, but rather on how to survive if you fell in the pool.  With kids Nathan's age they teach them how to hold their breath underwater and then how to float on their back.  We are really excited about this because the group's (Infant Swim Resource) video was pretty remarkable and having Nathan know what to do if he fell in the pool will be so valuable.  

Like always, we have added more pictures to our gallery and if you click on the slide show in the upper right hand corner it will take you to those pictures.  There are a ton so you will have to scroll to the bottom to get the most recent ones.  You can also go to gallery.christopheraedo.com and it will take you to all of our pictures.

We hope that everyone has a great New Year!!!

-Heather