Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Climbing and cruising

Over the last week Nate has gone from trying to pull-up to a standing position on everything to pulling-up and then trying to climb up on things and doing some cruising. I'm thinking he would be doing more cruising if we weren't in a rather sparsely decorated apartment. Since so much of our stuff is in storage he just doesn't have as many items to grab on to.

Nate has managed to find other items rather than furniture to use for his adventures. There are two small boxes in his room. Nate has managed to climb on top of them so he can look out the window. The boxes are not tall, but this could be foreshadowing of more climbing to come. He has also gotten pretty good at cruising around a number of things around the apartment includes those boxes in his room, his wagon, and a table. He is starting to get steps down pretty well and his legs are strong enough to hold him up. Only figuring out coordination and balance are going to be what keeps Nate from walking. While we are excited to possibly see Nate take his first steps, we know that also means that much more movement and our chasing down Nate. If his crawling is any indication he'll go from steps to running in no time.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

More Teeth

We believe Nate is getting in more teeth. Nate has been a little fussy of late, plus he seems to be drooling more, and he even has a little runny nose. Nate only has six teeth so far, but those seem to be the tell-tale signs of new teeth coming in. Right now it appears that Nate is getting his lower lateral incisors. I don't see the teeth breaking through yet, but I can see what looks like teeth right below the surface.

Currently Nate has both his lower and upper central incisors and his upper lateral incisors. So we are expecting a few more nights of iffy sleep. We'll keep the Tylenol nearby even though we rarely use it. Hopefully this shall pass quickly and he'll have another tooth or two to use to smile at people.

Monday, April 12, 2010

What will Nate get into next

Nate has shown that he is pretty good at getting into things. He has no problem opening cabinets, drawers, and unlatched doors. More baby-proofing in store for me. This weekend he proved that his skills of using his fingers are getting better. He managed to open a bottle of moisturizer. I had left him to play for a few minutes and I came back and he the bottle separated into the two parts. He had the pump section up around his mouth. I caught him before he tried to ingest any significant quantities. The bottle is relatively easy to open it just spins off. However, I hadn't expected him to figure out how to open and to already remember lefty loosey.

For the time being that bottle will no longer be within Nate's reach. I'm sure I could use some glue to keep the lid on any only have access through the pump. Actually some loctite might work really well on items like this. Just strong enough that Nate couldn't open, but if you really needed to get into it you could with a little force.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

No more doorstops

Suddenly all the doorstops in our house have disappeared. For quite some time these were one of Nate's favorite toys. You would hear that boing, boing noise quite often. Now Nate has an affinity for taking these off the wall. I guess you could say he has figured out to use his fingers. The doorstops are rather easy to take off it is just a twist. However, Nate has gotten ready good at it. He can crawl over to door stop and in a couple seconds have the doorstop in his hand. So for the time being we have a stack of doorstops on a shelf until I can get around to securing the better. I've got experiment with some glue/adhesive or a shim to hold spring like doorstop in place. I also need to glue little rubber caps on so once Nate figures out how to get around this he won't be able to get rubber cap off.

Until then we just have to be very careful when opening doors and making sure we don't cause any damage. Just another example of the things I would have never thought I would have to secure. I'm sure this will continue and Nate will get into, take apart, or find things we never expected.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Things have calmed down

It has been a whirlwind of late. I've been putting together this long list of topics to talk about, but for some reason nothing has seem to been written down.

So here is the full update. My wife was offered a great opportunity in Houston, TX. She had been staying at home with Nate while I was working. So we made the decision that she would accept job in Houston and I would significantly cut back my work to pretty much zero and concentrate on taking care of Nate, selling the house, and moving to Houston.

So I've become a stay-at-home dad (at least temporarily). He is a handful especially now that he has become more mobile. Besides taking care of Nate full-time, I've been back and forth with Nate between Houston and Austin taking care of cleaning up house, taking care of all the things needed to sell the house, trying to get us set up in Houston, and looking for employment for myself on top of all this. I think I've worked harder than I have in a long time. I felt exhausted after every day.

So last week we got a contract on the house in Austin and the inspection went well. Those were huge milestones in my book. I briefly met the buyers and they seemed like a really nice couple. I feel really good about them buying the house. I put a lot of sweat equity into that house and while I would sell it to anyone it feels good when the right people for the house end up buying the place. The area was great and we'll miss it. We were a little outside of Austin (almost Lakeway) and the Hill Country and lakes were right there. It really is a wonderful area. The area had changed over the years with more houses and much more retail. The schools were great. There was an exemplary elementary school in which you could watch your kid walk to school. It was a combination that will be difficult to beat.

When we initially moved to Houston we were able to stay with some of my wife's relatives. That was such a blessing. It made that transition so much easier. We have found an apartment to stay in for a few months. This gives us time to get our lives straightened out, close on the house in Austin, and not be in rush to find a house in Houston.

So being around Nate more has been wonderful. While staying home with Nate was not part of my plan it has been a wonderful opportunity. I had tried to be pretty active when I could with Nate, but mom was almost always there. When we made the switchover to her working there was no longer the safety net and there were many days in which we were in Austin and she was in Houston. I know it was a little tough on her not being around her son she had been around 24/7 for the first 7+ months.

So Nate is doing great. At his nine month check-up he was right at 20 lbs (actually 1 oz under, but close enough). He is not only crawling, but he is crawling really fast. He is getting into everything he can. I've spent a lot of time babyproofing and moving things so he can't reach them. He still finds things or gets into things I was not expecting. He is trying to pull up on everything. We've had to put stuff away as he has pulled numerous things down on himself. He has started doing a little cruising and we think walking will come soon.

Nate has been eating well. He was a puff-a-holic for a while, now he can't get enough cheerios. His mother makes sure he gets lots of fruits and veges, which he eats with no problem. We've moved to partial formula and the wife keeps threatening to completely ween Nate every time is uses his teeth.

We still have to get everything moved out of house in Austin, but I think we've settled down a little and I can get back to a more regular cadence of posting things. We'll have a lot of new things to explore as Nate grows up. Hopefully, some of my job leads will come through soon. It will be sad if I don't spend as much time with Nate. We'll have to deal with all the issues of day care, but I'm pretty sure Nate is very resilient and he'll probably do better with all the changes than his mom and I.