Emmett’s First Move

Well, this is our last night in our apartment.  I have really enjoyed it here – our apartment was a decent size, and it was fairly new and quite nice inside (plus I actually spent some time in “decorating” it).  I am going to miss our lake to walk around.  I’m going to miss all the ducks and the turtles too.  Today Emmett and I got to see a mama duck with all her sweet little ducklings, and also got to see about 30 turtles sun-baking on the side of the lake.  I like to see how many turtles jump back into the lake when we walk by – usually only 1 or 2 are brave enough to stick it out on the shore!  I am certainly going to miss having a pool….but I can always come back for a visit during the summer!  Plus, I plan to get that kiddie pool for our backyard, and maybe some fun sprinklers (if I can convince Chris that we definitely need them!).  But with all this said, I am so excited to be moving back into a house, and even move excited that we’re moving into a house that we now own!!  Chris and I bought a house!  That’s just crazy.  It’s so beautiful – I can’t wait to post pictures.  The apartment is almost all packed and we moved a few things today, but tomorrow is the official moving day.  I actually think that tomorrow will go quite smoothly since we’ve got most of our things ready to go!

As Emmett is an experienced crawler now, I can’t wait to move into the house so that we can babyproof simply by closing doors to rooms.  In our apartment, the computers are in the living room, and Emmett LOVES to head straight for all the wires.  I am constantly having to keep him away from them.

At 8 and 1/2 months, Emmett has been acting a little clingy.  Some days he plays nicely with his toys, other days he follows me around all day long trying to pull up on my legs.  Around the 8 month mark, he stopped loving the change table and actually became quite difficult to change – always squirming and trying to turn over and sit up.  I’ve had to have Chris come and distract him quite a few times just so that I can get his pajamas on.  Oh my!  And he’s a strong kid too. 

As I’ve already mentioned, he’s got the crawling thing down, and also pulls up on everything!  He loves to bang his hand on walls and doors and chew on everything he can get his hands on.  One of the cutest things I’ve noticed is that Emmett loves playing with other kids.  He loves his friend Bristol and his other friends at our (almost) weekly playdates.  He sees Bristol a little more than his other friends because I’ve babysat him a couple of times for my friend.  Emmett follows Bristol around everywhere, and when we’re at our place, all Emmett’s toys are suddenly way more interesting to him because Bristol is playing with them!

The move for Emmett has actually been a little upsetting so far.  Thankfully I’ve had a lot of help with packing, because I’ve not been able to do as much as I thought I could while looking after a baby!!  Don’t really know why that was surprising to me.  But Emmett has been having a hard time because he hates the sound of the tape dispenser when we’re putting the boxes together.  He cries a real real cry – not a whiney cry – but one of those heartbreaking cries.  So we’ve tried to make the boxes in the other room with the door closed to muffle the sound a little!  Poor thing.  And then today while at the new house moving some things in, Emmett would not let me put him down.  If I did put him down to try to help move boxes, he cried that cry.  So so sad.  I understand that the house is unfamiliar, and is almost completely empty and obviously a little scary for him, but we weren’t there for long and I was still in sight.  He really didn’t want to be there today!  Tomorrow, we have Chris’s family helping us, and I’m sure Emmett’s Ouma will LOVE the job of watching Emmett for us and making him feel loved!!

Anyway.  This whole buying a house thing went really smoothly and quite quickly for us.  We asked a friend to be our realtor, and she really helped us out a lot.  I’ll be taking photos of the house pretty soon, but may not get them on here for a little while since there will be a couple of days without internet.  Plus I’ll be quite busy unpacking at the new house and cleaning the apartment. 

 

I know I said Emmett’s been clingy lately, but he really is a happy baby….and sometimes a completely crazy little baby!  I can’t help feeling partly responsible for the silliness of this little boy!!!  :)

And here’s Emmett in April 201o – 8 months old

Emmett and Bristol

First hair cut!!!  ….well, just trimming the hair around his ears!! 

Having so much fun with an Elmo costume we found while packing….

And the silliness continues!!!  :)

Sitting’s a Cinch!

In 11 days, Emmett will be 8 months old. Wow time flies!  I know that I will probably always be saying that, but it’s always going to be true…..especially when you’re talking about babies growing up.

I’m not sure how many teeth we were up to last post, but we are now at 8….that’s right, 8 teeth.  Just when he’s done sprouting a couple of new teeth and we think we’re done for a while, he goes ahead a sprouts a few more.  And for some reason, I don’t instantly expect teething to be the problem, since we only just got over the last couple of teeth.  Anyway, Emmett has 4 teeth on top, and 4 on the bottom.

In one of the videos from the last post, Emmett accidentally sat up….well, he’s very serious about it now.  He’s also very serious about crawling and pulling up on things.  He’s still a little wobbly, but he’s really getting there!  In one video, you can hopefully hear Chris comparing Emmett’s crawling to that of a zombie baby and a frog.  I agreed to him looking like a frog….and picturing a frog actually made Emmett’s crawling even cuter!

March did bring us one last snow storm – Emmett’s 6th(?) snow storm – but I think I can say that winter is finally over.  The weather has been lovely and warm (even hot the other day), so we’ve been going out for walks around our lake, at the park, and to the shops.  Unfortunately, the last couple of days have been incredibly windy….but Emmett is surviving.  Just being outside is good enough for him!  I let him taste some grass and some willow tree branches, so he was perfectly happy!

Emmett now loves banana, avocado, pear, and yoghurt.  He was starting to get a little sick of his veggie dinners, but Cath suggested I add a little cheese, and that worked wonders!  I even sneak in a little broccoli and he gobbles it all up…thanks Cath and cheese!  Emmett got to eat his first Vegemite sandwich a couple of days ago, and now enjoys vegemite on toast for breakfast!  And also had his first ice block/popsicle the day that it was actually kind of hot! 

I bought Emmett 2 sippy cups to start transitioning from his bottles, and I finally started offering them to him the other day.  I put water in them so that I don’t have to clean him up every time he tries to drink from them.  He’s getting the hang of it though!!

Other than all the teething that’s been going on, he’s been a happy chappy.  He really loves to read his TRUCKS book, and loves to play peek-a-boo even more now that he can move himself around.  And I was just going to mention that I’ve had to go through all his clothes and put away outfits he’s outgrown, when I remembered that I had not yet mentioned that we BOUGHT A HOUSE!  So we’ll be moving again around the last week of April.  We are obviously very excited to be getting our own place!  It’s really beautiful!  And I’m excited to be getting a backyard again – just in time for summer, and perfect for little kiddie pools!  Just wait for pictures of Emmett and his mummy sitting in the kiddie pool and eating ice blocks!  :)

OK…now for what you might have just skipped all the above to see!!….  ;)

This video is a little long, so I don’t mind if you don’t make it to the end.  But you need to see the first minute or so, because Emmett very clearly says, “Hello Dad!”  :)  Funny boy.  Oh and it was finally warm enough to let Emmett play clothes-free!

Our little frog….or zombie baby!

Emmett played with this paper for ages.  Clearly his mother doesn’t normally let him have paper!

He’s always been extremely vocal!! 

Snack time…..and building up those fine motor skills!

Time for some water!

Clapping hands!

 

A good friend took these next set of photos for us while at their place for dinner!  She did an amazing job….and she was just snapping away for fun!  Please remember to click on the photos to see the originals.

And here are my photos from March 2010….

And I’ve been meaning to get this photo to Miranda for a while now.  Here it is, Miranda!  Sorry it took me so long. 

Guess Who Managed to Sit Up??!!

Just after reaching 6 months, Emmett started teething again, which kept him (and us) up at night.  Every time he woke up he would start crying and not stop until we came and got him.  That was not too fun.  Then he became congested and couldn’t breath through his nose.  Because he couldn’t breathe very well through his nose, he took fewer bottles and ate less in general.  Then we had his 6 month checkup, and since he hadn’t had a fever with his congestion, I went ahead and had them give him his vaccinations/shots.  So, back at home, I had a teething, congested, and freshly vaccinated baby to deal with!  Poor thing.  He wasn’t too happy, and has taken a couple of days to start feeling better.  He is still a little congested, but he is starting to eat more…..which always makes me feel better!

And at 6 months, the official weight and height are as follows:  20.8 pounds/9.5 kgs, 28.5 inches/72.4 cms.

I really don’t think it will be long before Emmett starts crawling since he now gets up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth.  He sometimes rocks so much that he launches himself forward and bonks his head on stuff.  He also goes backwards a little,  and has an easy time spinning around in circles to reach his toys.

This video shows him up on his hands and knees and how he managed to get himself up to a sitting position!!  He probably won’t do that again for some time, but it was exciting to see!

 

As I mentioned in the previous post, I made baby food last weekend.  We’ve now tried sweet potato, butternut squash, pear, apple, and banana.  He’s very happy eating the sweet potato, but he’s taking a little longer to get used to the butternut squash.  Sometimes he eats it, sometimes not!  He eats his pears, and is not minding the apple.  But he did not like the bananas at all!!!  even when I mixed them with some cereal!

Emmett’s Ouma made us some food as well, so we’ve also got the freezer packed full of carrots, squash, green beans, and broccoli!

And here’s a fun video of Emmett being silly with his Uncle Les and Aunty Jackie!