Tooth #7 & The "Army" Crawl!

Fischer's gotten his 7th tooth--on top to the right of his middle teeth. It popped through the last week in February, resulting in more cold-like symptoms for our little man. Despite a crusty nose and cough, however, he's as smiley as ever! These 2 pics were taken by Ms. Diane at daycare when Fischer was goofing around before falling asleep for his morning nap (her camera's date was off). The cribs have plexiglass on the ends to allow them to be end to end without the babies pawing at each other through the bars. What a goofball!

Fischer has a lot to be proud of in the last 2 weeks, at age 8 1/2 months. He can pull himself up to standing while hanging onto anything stable, and likes to stand whenever he can. In fact, he whines if he comes over to us and we don't hold out our hands for him to pull up on! The weekend of February 21 & 22, he also began doing the army crawl. He uses his elbows to pull his body forward while his feet scramble to keep his back end moving, too. It looks like a lot of effort, but he sure is proud of himself :) You can check the Fisch Finder for a video of his army crawl. I've found that cell phones are good motivation to get him scooting across the floor! This week at daycare, the Picture People came and took photos of all of the kids and their classes. They wanted me to sign a model release form, too, so that Fischer's pics could be on display in their store window. He's so easy to photograph, and quick to smile for the camera.

This past week, Uncle Nate stayed with us for a few days. It sure was nice to have some time with him beyond the usual short weekend visit. Fischer seemed at ease with Nate right away, and spent time closely examining his face--I wonder if he was noticing features that Nate and I have in common, or comparing Nate in person to a big photo I have of him in Fischer's room from when Nate was 12. In any case, it was fun to go out to eat with all of my boys a couple times--Fischer loves restaurants and has always been very well-behaved when we're out!

This week Tuesday, Fischer turned 9 months old! We're still breastfeeding, and despite the recent bumps in the road, it's going very well. I can't thank my lactation consultants from Aurora Hospital enough! They hear from me regularly :) We offer Fischer just about anything to eat--except, of course, choking hazards, or foods not recommended for babies due to risk of allergic reaction or other illness. He's sporradic about when and what he'll eat well, but as long as he continues to nurse or take his bottle/sippy cup well, we're not concerned. He's super-squirmy when getting his diapers and clothes changed--it's become a game to him :) Next week, we have Fischer's 9 month well-baby check-up and shots. I'll do another update with his latest stats!

WOW!!! Tooth #6 and Hunk of Burnin' Love

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! We spent our V-Day together as a family, as we always do on Saturdays. We didn't have any plans, and it's a good thing, because Fischer napped for the better part of the day. Joe and I watched movies and cuddled on the couch until our lover boy awoke and we discovered tooth number 6! It just came in on top to the left of his middle teeth. Boy oh boy! This means that Fischer's gotten 4 new teeth in January and February so far!


Above is his latest attempt at crawling--look at the height on that "push-up"! He doesn't quite get his knees under his body, yet, but when he does come down, it results in a scooting backwards motion.Well, that's all for now. We hope you all enjoy the coming week.

OMG!!! A 5th Tooth & Getting over Thrush

This week has been a very crazy one--at home and at work. Fischer and I are getting over Thrush, a yeast infection we passed to each other through nursing. So he's been on a liquid medicine, which he takes like a champ, and I've had an ointment to apply to my nips. It took a couple days, but we're both back to normal, just finishing our meds this weekend. (Phwew!)

Clapping is a regular part of Fischer's communication these days. Sometimes, all you have to say is a brightly drawn-out "yaaaaaaay!" and he'll start clapping away and saying his version of "yay". It's especially fun when Fischer's hands are all full of food--yay!

Before I figured out it was Thrush that the two of us had, I thought my parts were sore because he popped his second tooth on top Sunday, Feb. 1st, and I fugured he had altered his latch to put pressure on his sore gums. That was the infection starting :(

However, now that Fischer's become a shameless ham in front of the camera, I was able to get a good shot of all of his teeth:In the photo below, you can see his 5th tooth emerging--It took me 3 days to realize it was there--a little preoccupied with getting us feeling better!

Fischer's a near-expert at feeding himself bits of food. We can put anything in front of him that we would eat (of course either cut up, cooked soft, or otherwise made baby-safe). Fischer continues to eat pureed fruits and veggies, often with baby oatmeal or rice cereal mixed in for texture, but he's a very good sport about trying table foods. He LOVES cheese pizza. When he's got the appetite, he will try anything you put on his tray. When he isn't in the mood, he's got a very emphatic way of turning his nose up and away from your spoon!

Our clapper...

In the midst of a toy-strewn living room...he occupies himself for 15-20 minutes by taking his toys out of the toybox one at a time, inspecting and playing with them and tossing them aside. In these pics he began applauding the evening news.

Last Saturday we enjoyed a "Welcome Leo" potluck at the Enz's (Kristy, Tom, Flora & Leo). There were a good number of kids there from newborn up to school-age. It was a very good time with lots of tasty food. I was funny to think back to the potlucks we had in college, where it was just us "kids", and now we're the parents :)

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. We hope you are able to spend the day in the company of those you love. Saturdays are always mine and Joe and Fischer's family day--so I get to spend Valentine's Day with my two boys. Sweet!

8 Months Old & Tooth #4

This entry will be another hodgepodge of photos and info, as lots of fun things have been going on since the last time I updated the blog.

For starters, Fischer is trying his darndest to learn how to crawl. He can get his top half high up with his arms straight, he can get his body into a push-up stance on hands and toes briefly, or his butt in the air, but he has yet to put it all together. It's fun to watch as he works on it--grunting with the effort.

This past weekend, I decided to begin a search for a new dining room table set for us. We took Fischer everywhere on Saturday. We began at Bill's Pancake Restaurant for breakfast. Fischer chowed down as soon as we got comfy. His head was on a swivel watching the waitresses go by!

Next, I think we made it to 5 or 6 furniture places! Fischer was extremely "portable" and naturally charmed everyone we met.

Well, our searching on Saturday didn't yield any purchases. But we had a good day as a family.

On Sunday, Fischer's 4th tooth began to emerge--2nd one on top. This caused him to basically chew on me when he'd nurse. It felt a bit uncomfortable, but I figured he had altered his latch to soothe his gums. Well, Monday was a bad day for me--my "spiggots" were on the verge of bleeding, like bad hickies, and I had to gently pump and bottle feed Fischer for the next 24 hours. That seemed to help, along with applications of lanolin after every pumping or feeding for the rest of this week. I thought we'd have to end our nursing relationship--but happily the nips have healed!!!

On Tuesday it was "ugly sweater day" at daycare. It's hard to find ugly sweaters for babies...so we did our best with this nice red plaid number. That evening at home, after we had a dinner picnic on the kitchen floor, I got out a spoon and pan for Fischer to play with while I finished in the kitchen. He was thrilled!

There are two new videos of him--one of his "kitchen concert" and another of him laughing hysterically while I played with a tanktop I was trying to put away. Watch for them on the "Fisch Finder".

On Wednesday, we went as a family for the first time to the Baypark Square Mall. After chowing down in the foodcourt, Joe took Fischer in the Kohl's stroller and I went off to get my couple of errands taken care of. I stopped by Mrs. Fields to buy a cookie to fuel my shopping. When we met up at Build-A-Bear, where I had made a bear for a co-worker recovering from surgery (we all took up a collection--what a cute get-well present they make!), Joe told me that the lady at Mrs. Fields had given him 4 free cookies because Fischer was so cute. Ha! Do moms get free stuff like that? Anyway, Fischer passed out from all the mall excitement. As we walked past one of the jewelry stores, the man behind the counter cupped his hands around his mouth and said from across the way "He's SO cute!!!" I said back, "He already earned some free cookies with his looks, how about some jewelry?" No such luck.

Last night, Fischer and I went to Kavarna for coffee with Kristy, Flora, and Leo. He was slow to get interested in his dinner, but then I could barely keep up! What a champ. When the owner, Alex, came and sat with us to catch up on family news, Fischer waved at him. Then, later in our stay, we heard a good song, so Fischer and I were dancing and got the attention of two ladies who began talking with us and asking about him. He began waving at them, too! Although his timing is still a bit patchy, Fischer can now officially wave! This morning at daycare, he even showed signs that soon he'll be clapping his hands. Wow!!! It amazes me how quickly he learns and how much FUN he has doing it.

Visit from Grandpa Ken & Fighting a Cold

The past several days, Fischer has been fighting a cold--I'm guessing that his future teething times will include colds as his first two bouts with teeth have. Bummer--at least we can go through each episode knowing we'll have the "reward" of teeth. Since he's a very healthy boy otherwise, it's only been with teething so far that Fischer's not felt like himself. I guess it will be better to endure teething and colds simultaneously instead of more tough times enduring teething and illness separately!

Now that his appetite is returning, we can continue our adventures in feeding. Meals are almost always very messy! In the pic below, Fischer's sucking on his top gums where his newest tooth is emerging--a habit he's gotten into :) It looks like he's got puffy lips, because he folds his bottom lip down. He's kind of a comic--wonder who he got that from?!
On Thursday we finally celebrated Christmas with Grandpa Ken and his friend Grace when they came for a visit. It wasn't long after they arrived that they insisted we dig into the gifts. Fischer opened his presents with a little help, and lots of chewing on giftwrap :) His favorite present was an interactive puppy that sings, talks, counts, plays music--you name it--when you press different body parts. Even with all of that to offer, Fischer still searched the puppy for its tag, and spent most of his time with it chewing on it. It looks silly when he does, because the tag happens to be on the puppy's bottom :)
Grandpa Ken and Fischer were excited to see each other. It took Fischer just a couple minutes to soak it all in, and it wasn't long before he was loving being the center of Grandpa and Grace's attention. Even though he was a little tired and restless from being sick and all the excitement of the visit, Fischer was good company as usual. We all really enjoyed the visit.

Now that he can sit up nicely in a shopping cart, it's easy--with a little planning and timing--to bring Fischer out to the store. We wanted to get out of the house the other night, so Daddy sent us to Menards for a couple things. Fischer was such a good boy that I got him his first kickball. When I put it in the cart next to him, he patted it and spent the rest of our shopping trip rubbing it with his fingers--it's got a dimpled surface. He likes to bounce his hands on it and try and mouth it. With as much as he's been drooling, it doesn't take long to make almost the entire surface wet with his slobber :) He really likes the ball. It's a treat when Fischer gets to take a bath with Joe these days, because Joe often works past Fischer's bedtime. When we're all home and one of us takes a bath with Fischer, the other stays on standby, ready to dry, diaper and pajama him. When Joe bathes with him, I'll check on them after what I think is plenty of time to get pruney, but they're not even washed yet because they've been playing!
When we hold him, Fischer is constantly wiggling. He likes to 'stand' and even tries to wriggle up our fronts when we hold him--something kind of like a humping motion that I can't help laughing at. It just means he's getting ready to turn our house upside down when he starts scooting and crawling--it won't be long before I'm blogging about that!

In the meanwhile, we're all trying to make the most of these long winter weeks. Soon the groundhog will tell us what's in store.

Beating Winter Boredom / First Accident Report

The first couple of weeks of 2009 have been about staying warm and avoiding boredom! The other day, I even brought Fischer's stroller upstairs and wheeled him around for a change of pace.


Schmooze hopped in the basket under the stroller. At first I didn't notice he was there, because he peacefully strolled around with us. He must've been bored, too!


Fischer and I even decided to go to East Towne Mall to walk around one Sunday evening. He loved watching people go by, and really enjoyed all of the colors of the clothes. We walked from Kohl's, where we got the stroller cart, out into the rest of the mall before I realized that the mall was closing. Unfortunately, we couldn't go back the way we'd come, so we had a long cold walk back to the car. Oh well--it kept us busy for awhile! Fischer has recently "graduated" to the next carseat. He's no longer in his "bucket", but rather in the seat that stays in the car. So it's taking me awhile to get used to loading my arms up differently with him and all of our stuff. He's slippery in his snowsuit, too!

On Monday, January 12th, Fischer got his first accident report from daycare. Maybe you can see the faint red mark above his right eyebrow--he was clobbered by one of his classmates with a plastic cauliflower--ouch! I guess he cried pretty hard--more from surprise and hurt feelings than from pain. But, as you can see, it wasn't bothering him later!

Today at daycare, Fischer's 3rd tooth finally began to emerge! It is the left top middle tooth. No pics for awhile until it's come down more--I learned from our first teeth 2 months ago--it's futile to try and get a shot until he's ready to show it! We've kept an eye there for awhile--as those gums have been pretty puffy and sore-looking. He's also been breaking away from nursing or his bottle to curl his tongue up over his top gums to suck on them. He had a fever off and on a couple days this week, and it seems that Tylenol was the trick to get evening relief from his sore/weird-feeling gums. We took him in to see Dr. Hoyer Wednesday because with his fever, and his cough getting a little more frequent, we wanted to make sure it was just teething. She checked his ears ("perfect"), and listened to his lungs. Since there's a lot of pneumonia going around, Dr. Hoyer ordered a "pulse-ox" to be sure Fischer's blood had enough oxygen in it ("passed 100%"), and also a chest x-ray because she heard a little bit of noise high up in his lungs ("looked excellent, all clear"). So he's a healthy teething boy.

At daycare, Fischer's been offered pretty much what all of the other kids get served for meals. It's so much fun to walk in and see him trying noodles, bread, green beans, oranges, yogurt, you name it! I hear he's a good sport, too about trying new foods. He still mainly eats his mushy foods with cereal and of course breastmilk, but he's on his way to more! As it is, he eats best at home when we eat with him :) Now I've been giving him bits of my dinner chopped up on his tray.

Here he is playing in a tunnel at daycare with his teacher, Ms. Diane. It was his first time in the tunnel, and I hear he got upset when tunnel play was over :) He loves being at daycare--they keep him in a good routine and he likes all of the activity and people around him. It is pretty exhausting, though!

Christmas '08 to New Year's '09

We hope everyone had a very nice holiday season--it was nice to have more time together as a family, but it went by much too quickly!We got to visit with Grandma D, Grandpa Mike and that whole side of the family on Christmas Day. It was a very nice visit--and everyone was thrilled to see Fischer. He is the youngest of several kids we got to visit with. Kaylee, who was one-year-old on December 17, is walking confidently. Cousin April's twin girls, Abby and Annie are 3 years old, and were excited to play with Fischer once he woke up (he was sleeping upon arrival). Everyone seemed pleased to have young children around for the family gatherings, again!
For New Year's Eve, we visited our "chosen" family at George, Joess & Nina's house. George & Joess are incredible cooks, so there's always good food involved when we spend time there! It was funny thinking about how different things were at our last New Year's celebration--some of our friends were still learning that I was pregnant. Now Fischer's here, and our lives will never be the same. We did get through a scrumptious Italian dinner and dessert before Fischer dictated our exit time for us...I knew we wouldn't make it until midnight. He just couldn't unwind until we were home and settled for the evening. Oh well. We had a great time--and with breaks between courses, we left the "table of pain" feeling full but not too over-stuffed :) Yum!
New developments since just before Christmas: Fischer is now rolling in every direction with good control and purpose. He sits up, too. These new abilities make diaper and clothing changes interesting, and sink baths easier!
The last week or so, Fischer has been a bit more demanding. He still has his moments of independence, but more often he wants one-on-one attention at home. The last few days, he whines if I don't involve him in what I'm doing. So I end up bringing him into the kitchen to sit in his box so he can watch me make dinner! He's becoming more leary of new people, too. He warmed up quickly at Christmas, but he turns and grabs for Mom or Dad to bury his head and pretend to be shy, or for a quick hug of reassurance. He reaches out, now, too to be picked up and held.Can you believe our little Fischer man is 7 months old!?

I'm still breastfeeding. We've settled into it quite well. Although I have been bitten several times (ouch!), I've been able to avoid most ncidents by making sure Fischer's hungry, and not just bored, when I offer for him to nurse. If he's really hungry, he even kind of velcros himself to me like a little monkey. It's super cute.

Thanks to everyone for gifts and cards we received!