A New Wheeler

• All four of Zachary’s molars have now cut through the gums.  They still have a long ways to go before they’re “in,” but at least we’re a step closer.
• It’s official…our boy is a snorter!  On Monday while Zachary and Momma were playing, he suddenly found something to be extraordinarily funny.  I truly have never seen him laugh so hard!  And then it started.  Shriek, laugh, SNORT, laugh, shriek, laugh, SNORT.  This in turn led Momma to hysterical laughter.  This hysterical laugher may have involved snorting.  Yes, he gets this from me.  I’m not ashamed (too much)!
• With each day that passes, Zachary seems to be more and more interested in being Momma’s Little Helper.  I try my best to embrace this and encourage little tasks that he can do to help.  He seems to be most proud when I let him help with laundry.  When switching the loads of laundry around, I usually let him help me load the dryer.  Sometimes, things get a little lost in translation, and he instead starts pulling clothes out of the dryer.  What can I say, it’s a work in progress.

• This week, Zachary’s been giving lots of extra attention to his ball-popper.  I think his interest with this toy directly coincides with this increasingly ability to go after the balls when the start flying in various directions. 

• Last night, Zachary and I went for a little walk to check the mail while we waited for Daddy to get home from work.  Zachary had a fantastic time and protested when I brought him back inside.  He immediately went to the front door and was pounding on the door and waving for me to “come along.”  We ended up going back outside until Daddy came home.  Zachary got frustrated when I made him stay on our front porch (he really wanted to go across the street again!), but he definitely seemed to enjoy himself just wandering around the yard and front porch.  He also had a little “chat” with that cats, who were watching from the other side of the screen door.  This chat included a lot of “come on” gestures.  I can’t be certain, but I’m pretty sure that he was asking them to come outside and play.  Reggie meowed back a couple times…probably telling Zachary he’d love to, but he gets in trouble when he goes outside.

In other, random news, I’ve finally put away the suitcases from our trip to Boise last month.  I realized it was long overdue when this started happening:

As sad as I’ve been to say good-bye to the baby stage, I have to admit there are some definite benefits to having a toddler.  One of the biggies, for me, is that Zachary can now entertain himself for a little while so that I can get some things done around the house.  He’s quickly learned that TIME IN THE KITCHEN + SOME RANDOM TOYS = A GRAND TIME.

Sometimes, Zachary decides that he wants to “help,” rather than just play.  I try to embrace this for the high adorability rating that it has, but I confess that sometimes it gets rather frustrating.  Like when he “helps” by pushing the dishwasher rack in and closing the door while I’m trying to load the dishwasher.

Usually, though, while I’m getting chores done in the kitchen, he’s keeping himself occupied by doing something like this:

Note: Yes, we keep a few cleaning items (dish detergent) in a cabinet that Zachary can reach.  Please don’t worry yourself about this being dangerous.  Zachary is never allowed in the kitchen unsupervised (big thanks to the inventor of the baby gate!), and he is watched like a hawk while he plays in any of the cabinets.

I’ve decided that I’m going to start a regular feature here that I’m calling Zacharyisms.  The idea is to share random little parts of our little man’s everyday life.  Things that may not warrant their very own post but seem worthy of sharing none-the-less.  I hope you’ll enjoy getting these glimpses into what Zachary is up to at any given time.

• Zachary has started blowing kisses!  Well, mostly, anyways. This is something that I’ve been trying to teach him since he was about six months old.  Until just Monday, he would always give me a blank stare.  Suddenly, though, something seems to have clicked.  At first, he would just put his hand to his mouth and grin at me through his spread fingers.  But he’s progressing and really “getting it” now.  He puts his hand up to his mouth, then puts it down and blows. Doesn’t actually kiss and doesn’t do the sweeping motion with his hand as he moves it away. But that’s okay, it’s actually even cuter this way.
• Our boy LOVES yogurt. On Wednesday when he got up from his morning nap, he walked straight into the kitchen and started pounding on the refrigerator door. I opened the door, and he started pointing emphatically. When I lifted him up so he could show me what he wanted, he reached into the box of yogurt and proceeded to get TICKED when he couldn’t get the container out of the box.
• We’ve recently decided that Zachary is, apparently, lactose intolerant.  After a few weeks of being on cow’s milk, I contacted our pediatrician because Zachary had started spitting up very frequently, and I finally noticed the trend that it was happening after nearly every bottle.  And he VERY RARELY spit up prior to that.  Dr Z recommended that he put him on soy milk.  We made the switch a few weeks ago, and all was well.  After talking with my mom last week, I decided to try lactose-free cow’s milk to see whether that just might be the issue (my brother is lactose intolerant, for whatever that’s worth).  We made the switch on Sunday morning and haven’t had any issues with spitting up.  Seems Nana just might have known what she was talking about (at least this time!).  Mom, if you’re reading this…thanks!  I’ve been meaning to call and tell you it seems to be working.
• He has started to actually play with his ring stacker appropriately. As in, more than just ripping all the rings off it to wear them as bracelets while he toddles around the house. Most of the time, he even puts the rings back on in the correct order.
• He’s suddenly gotten really into his Alphabooks. This is awesome. Except that he gets fixated on one book and wants me to read that one a gazillion times in a day. There’s three words to each book. Talk about monotonous. I try to grab other letters and get him interested in those, but he only wants THE ONE (whichever that ONE may be for the day) and will have nothing to do with any of the others. For the past couple days, we’ve focused on H. For those who are curious, H consists of hands, hat, and horse.
• When we’re not reading Alphabooks, Zachary’s favorite book is currently “Sheep in a Shop”.
• His favorite toy seems to be a three-way tie between his corn-popper, Scout, and his farm.
• Zachary is currently working on getting all four of his first molars.  The top two actually cut through the gums last week (yep, right smack-dab in the middle of bottle-weaning…our poor little guy!).  The bottom two are taking a little longer to break through.  His bottom gums are VERY swollen, and the teeth are visibly “right there.”  They just haven’t actually broken through yet.
• Little Man is starting to learn his body parts.  Specifically, he has learned his belly.  We have a little game we play where I “find” his belly under his shirt and then proceed to tickle him.  Zachary finds this game to be hysterical.  This week when we were playing the game, I dutifully asked “where’s your belly?” and Zachary lifted his shirt and pointed right to it!
• We’re currently trying to figure out how to get Zachary to be less interested in being one of the furbabies.  When he started occasionally dipping his head down to eat his food directly off his tray, James and I chuckled and joked about how he’d been spending too much time with the cats.  Recently, though, he’s started getting into the cat dishes, and that is less humorous…as in, not at all funny.  Most of the time, he can’t get to them, as they’re on the other side of the gate that blocks him out of the kitchen.  But when Momma is needing to get dinner ready or complete some other task, Zachary comes in and too often heads to the cat dishes.  Usually, to play in the water dish as if it’s his own personal water park.  As if that weren’t bad enough, he has eaten some of their food on more than one occasion.  It troubles me, and I really want to figure out how to stop it.  Any suggestions are appreciated!

I shared this picture on my blog for this week’s Wordless Wednesday post.  I thought I might as well post it here as well.  Believe it or not, this is actually a huge improvement over this time last week.  We’re starting to seriously discuss just going cold turkey on the bottles.  I don’t know if this is going to get any better until he learns that bottles aren’t an option, period.  *SIGH*

He thinks he’s out-smarting me.  I see it in his face.  This victorious expression, as if to say “I Win!”  He really thinks he’s on to something.  And maybe he is.  He’s decided if I won’t give him a bottle, he’ll just nurse more often.  So now what?  I honestly don’t mind him nursing more frequently.  Despite my mother’s question this morning (“and then how are you going to get rid of the boob?”), I’m convinced that weaning from nursing won’t be much of an issue, when we embark on that journey.  But this “solution” doesn’t get me any closer to getting rid of the bottle, really, since he’s still refusing to drink his milk from his cup!

Dear Internet…

I write today to ask for your help!  Momma has suddenly become very, very mean.  I thought she was mean before, what with the way that she won’t let me play with the movies and constantly tells me to stay out of the cats’ dishes.  But this is different.  This is the kind of mean that I didn’t even know was possible.  This is the kind of mean that could lead to me dying of thirst.  You see, all of a sudden, she won’t give me my bottle!

Each day when we get up, I get to have a bottle.  And I think that things are finally back to normal, and I am happy.  When it’s time for my breakfast, she brings out the cup.  And I look at her and think, “you can’t really think we’re going to do this again…can you?”  As the day passes, it becomes clear that she definitely does intend for us to do this all over again. 

Lately, Momma has been telling me a lot to use my words.  I decided to humor her on this and have asked many times for my “ba.”  Nothing.  I thought that maybe she couldn’t hear me.  So, I said it louder.  Nothing.  I screamed it.  Still, nothing.  It occurred to me that maybe she didn’t understand what I was saying.  So, I said it again, this time as clearly as I possibly could, and I pointed towards the kitchen in hopes of getting through to her.  Nothing.  I cried…and screamed…and threw my body on the floor in a fit.  Surely, this would finally make her see that I NEEDED my bottle.  Instead, she brought me the stupid cup again.  Why doesn’t she understand?  I don’t want to drink my milk from a cup!!! 

And so this is why I write to you today.  I haven’t been able to make her see how silly she is being.  Maybe you can talk some sense into her???

~Zachary

Note from the mean Momma:

Yes, that’s right, friends.  This week began Operation Buh-Bye Bottle.  We’re 4 days into it now, and I can’t say that I think it’s going very smoothly.  In fact, it’s much, much harder than I ever expected it to be.  I expected the fits…the begging for the bottle…the refusal to accept that this is the new “norm” in life.  Even with the expectation of the fits, though, I didn’t anticipate the inconsolable crying.  The look that he gives me that seems to say that I’m shattering his world into a thousand pieces was not on my radar.  And I especially didn’t expect just how guilty I would feel over denying his pleas.  There’s something so incredibly unnatural about watching your child cry…knowing exactly what would fix everything…and not immediately doing it for them.  I’ve been tempted to give in.  Both to be his “hero” who saved the day with that badly desired bottle and to save my own sanity (listening to a child scream for hours is not for sissies, that’s for sure!).  But I’m sticking to it.  I won’t give in.  No matter how badly those sad little eyes make me want to.

The main issue, I believe, is that Zachary has never taken milk from a cup.  I’ve tried offering it to him in his sippy cups since the time that we first started transitioning to milk at a year old.  But he has always refused it…spit it right out, in fact.  I haven’t pressed the issue.  Now, I wonder if I should have.

Our current project is to get rid of his mid-day bottles. Right now, he’s still getting his morning and bedtime bottles. I keep going back and forth on whether I should do it this way or just get rid of them all at once. For whatever reason, I feel like those two are the most traumatic to take away. And I hope it will be slightly less so once we’ve at least gotten him used to drinking milk from his cup.
Overall, the days have been pretty long and stressful. He seems to do mostly okay until after lunch. Then, we have a series of meltdowns and temper tantrums while screaming (and I mean SCREAMING) for a bottle. He refuses my attempts to snuggle…wants nothing to do with me if I’m not going to give him what he wants. Then he’ll calm down for a while and cuddle with me and play. And then it starts all over again.

Yesterday, I tried something a little different than I had been doing the past two days. When I brought out his cup of milk, all other beverage choices were put away. The days before that, I’d still had his ice water out, as well as my own water (which he likes to take sips from). I thought maybe he would be more likely to try the milk from the cup if there wasn’t another option to turn to.  I also realized that I needed to put a lot less pressure on it all. I just brought the cup out, offered him his milk, then set it on the coffee table. If he asked for his bottle, I explained that the milk is in his cup and offered it to him. But I’ve started letting go of stressing over whether he actually accepts it or not.

He took four sips of milk from his cup yesterday. I’m considering that a triumphant victory.  Maybe today we can get at least to five.

If anyone has any tips/tricks/advice for this process, please share them!  Or even if you just want to reassure me that we will get there…my son won’t be going off to college with his bottle…that would be just as appreciated.

Last week, we took Zachary on his first trip out of town.  We headed up to the Boise area to visit Grandma & Grandpa and to introduce Zachary to more family members.  Zachary did awesomely on the car ride (about 6 hours); James and I were both very proud of him (and quite relieved!).

The plan was for Zachary to meet his great-aunt, Nancy, great-uncle, Duane, and first-cousin-once-removed, Drew.  We got even better than that, though, as Nancy put together a lovely little get-together for us.  Several family members, many who I had not even met yet, joined us at “aunt” Lois’ for some family time.  It was a wonderful time visiting with everyone.  Zachary was actually quite shy for the majority of the time, something which was new to us.  I think he was just a little overwhelmed by the number of strangers, as he gradually started to relax as the afternoon went on. 

It was a great weekend.  And another item is now checked off the list of firsts.

Check out the pictures from our trip!

The time has come for me to accept reality and officially announce that our little man is now walking.  It’s been quite some time now since Zachary took his first steps.  Over the last month and a half or so, he’s been getting more and more brave, frequently taking a couple steps at a time.  And James has told me…”he’s walking.”  I have stood my ground, though, in saying that he’s learning to walk, but not really walking yet.  I recognize that makes little to no sense, but I wasn’t (and, really, I’m still not) ready to have a walker.  That just seems like the final step in saying goodbye to my baby and hello to a toddler.  Over the last couple days, I’ve started to admit to myself that it really doesn’t matter whether I’m ready.  Today, I was forced to face the fact that my little boy is officially a “big boy,” as he walked all the way across the living room to me.

Over the past week, Zachary has had a great time hanging out with and bonding with James’ brother, Dave.  This is only the second opportunity that Dave has had to see Zachary, the first being last Christmas.  Dave came up to Reno last week and will be here with us until the end of this week.

Needless to say, this visit is quite different than the one we had with Dave when Zachary was barely a week old.  Uncle and nephew have had a wonderful time hanging out with one another.  Dave has taught Zachary how to give high-fives, something James and I have been trying to do for a few months now.  Uncle Dave is also taking great pride in working with Zachary on his walking.  We are getting closer and closer everyday, and I think it’s safe to say that all the grown ups here are hoping that Zachary will progress even more over the next few days while Dave is still here to witness it.

With all the special attention and playtime, Zachary definitely seems to have decided that Uncle Dave is a pretty cool guy to have around.  It’s been wonderful to watch as they have gotten to know each other these past few days.  It seems we’re off to a great start in forming a special bond between the two of them, which makes me so very happy.

For those who don’t follow our Family Blog (and why don’t you, I might ask), I wanted to post a quick heads up that we’ve uploaded a ton of pictures from Christmas.

Christmas Eve
Christmas Day
Family Portraits

Just a little side note:
If you’ve subscribed to this blog, you might want to also consider subscribing to the family one.  We’re going to start using that one more frequently for updates that are related to all of us, rather than just Zachary.  And if you’re not currently subscribed to either blog, you might want to consider that as well.  It’s a great way to get notifications when we post new updates.  You just have to fill out the little form in the sidebar.