Michael Jordan Jr.

This weekend Ollie discovered his tongue. He stuck his tongue out all weekend. Raspberries - tongue out, eating - tongue out, playing - tongue out. I took a picture of it, but it'll be awhile before it gets developed. Maybe I'll have more pictures up this week.

Sleep Roulette

These past two weeks have been different in trying to get Ollie to sleep than any we've had up to this point. Ollie has started to want to stay up more. He's fighting his sleep harder than before. So the usual tricks have not worked as well.

Last week, I could put him on my chest with a binky and pat his back and he'd fall asleep, if I caught him at the right time. It seemed to work quite a bit that week. Then this week came. He didn't want anything to do with me this week. He didn't want to be on my chest, he just didn't want me. The vacuum cleaner has even begun to fail unless he's really tired. Last night he wouldn't nap around 7pm. So, we put him in his swing. He played for awhile and we gave him a rattle toy. Of course he chewed on it. I started saying prodding him with mamamamamamama. He got sleepy and fell asleep while swinging, eating his rattle and me saying mamamamamamama. Strange, strange boy. The below links are Ollie getting frustrated playing in his exersaucer and trying to eat his toys.

Ollie Frustrated 1

Ollie Frustrated 2

Sleep

It's been strange the last couple of nights. Ollie has been skipping his ride home nap and going to bed earlier. Sunday it was 8pm, he slept 'til 2. Monday it was 8 and he got up at 10 and 2. Last night it was 7. He got up at 9 and 2. He woke at 5am for another bottle and then took a cat nap in bed with his dad while his mom got ready for work. I hope this isn't changing his current sleep schedule. I just hope he gets a nap on his way home tonight. Maybe his sleeping patterns are beginning to change. He's supposed to start sleeping longer at night...without interruption. He hasn't conquered that part yet.

Strength

Ollie has become a rather strong boy lately. Last night while playing, his momma and I were able to set him in a crawling position. You know arms fully extended, legs under butt on his knees. He wasn't able to hold this position long, but long enough for us to recognize it. He also is getting better at sitting on his own. He pretty much held himself up during his bath last night. Granted he grabbed the sides for stability, but he did it on his own. He does not like to be down much anymore. He also LOVES watching the fish in the fish tank. He keeps pulling himself as close to the tank as he can when he's in his high-chair. It makes for a good distraction for him. The cats on the other hand, don't want a thing to do with him, just his bed. I found Splatter taking a nap in his bed the other night, she got thrown out in a hurry. Any time he's near them and he can grab the cats, he tries...and they run. I don't blame them though, if someone grabbed my hair and pulled as hard as possible, I wouldn't want to be around them either. Oh wait Ollie does that to Tresa and I too. As well as pinching our skin, eyes, mouth, ears and anything else he can get a hold of. If you have sparkly things on, you are his favorite things to grab. I guess this year, we'll not only have to keep the cats out of the Christmas tree, but Ollie as well.

Waaaaaaaah!

That's pretty much what Ollie sounded like yesterday. He was crabby almost all day. He couldn't get a good nap in for anything. So, he would wake up crabby. Then we'd have to attempt to entertain a crabby boy for 2 hrs. until his next nap. Luckily he went to be about 8pm and slept until 1am. Then from 2-6. He was tired. He woke up happy and all smiles, which always makes up for all his crabbiness the previous day. They say if your first baby is easy the second will be difficult or vice versa. Well, I'm hoping he's on the difficult side.

He's also becoming more mobile and interactive. He regularly rolls his way to things without hesitation. He also likes to play peek-a-boo sometimes. His favorite new thing is to get raspberries on the side of his stomach instead of his belly. He laughs and giggles like crazy. Then of course he pays you back with raspberries during feedings. His white high-chair looks like the food dejure after some feedings. Ollie has to help clean up the high-chair by gumming the plastic. What a messy boy!

Strange

I was looking through who had visited Ollie's page and someone got to this site by typing in the following "a picture of a bottle of prune juice". Granted I've mentioned prune juice before, but I guess Google isn't perfect.

Yes he's still only getting up once a night! Yea! He's also not becoming more vocal and more active and LOVES to stand and sit. He sat yesterday by himself, but it was a slumped over sit. We all gotta start somewhere. Besides he was too interested in his feet to straighten himself up. He had on colored socks, don't you know they make great play toys! And I thought I'd have nothing to write today.

Routine

Ollie seem's to have gotten into a routine lately. At least sleeping routine. It has been great to get a normal amount of sleep again. He usually falls asleep between 9 and 10. Then gets up only once during the night and again about 5 or 6 when we usually get up for work. It probably won't be much longer and he'll sleep through the night. Then of course his teeth will start to come in and we'll start all over. Sigh

He is also becoming very adept at sitting up and standing and loves both. He is almost able to sit on his own, but he'll have the occasional jerk reaction and go flying. We still have our hands on him, so he doesn't get far. He can't stand on his own, obviously, but he's gotten tot he point that we can hold his hands only and he can stand with that little bit of help. I bet he'll be sitting by himself by the 6 month mark and start standing on his own a bit after that. He also loves playing peek-a-boo...sometimes. Growing and changing it seems almost every day. He's going to be a really big boy soon.

Ollie's First Picture

It occurred to me the other day that I had never posted a pic of Ollie's first professional picture. So I'll post a link to it, since a huge pic! It does contain some graphical content and those bits are labeled, so you've been warned!

Ollie's First Picture

Who's the sleeping baby?

This weekend Ollie slept in his own room, in spite of our trepidation about it. He did extremely well. Especially last night. Friday he had 2-4 hr. stretches. Last night he got up once. ONCE! My body is in shock from so much sleep! It turned out better than we thought. We are guessing that us moving, the cats running around in our room (they have bells) and our floor boards creaking was waking him up. He has a nice quiet serene room. He also took naps and went to sleep and back to sleep without the vacuum cleaner. Maybe we won't burn the engine up on the thing. Hopefully his sleep habits will continue to improve.

He also played more with other toys. His exersaucer got a good workout. His swing (which he's almost too big for), his bouncy seat (he can now grab the rings on his own) and of course his toes are competing for his attention. We got some good video of other strange Ollie occurrences over the weekend. He also like his back pack. He got strapped to dadda while they took the cats outside and seemed to enjoy it, even laughing a few times. He is also big into standing and sitting on you. Still can't sit on his own, but he's getting there. I guess next will be his enjoyment of this:



1 weekend - POOF - new baby. I hope it continues.

Moving on Out

This weekend Ollie gets to sleep in his own room for the first time. Tresa isn't to sure about this. I'm still wondering if we'll here him with the baby monitor on. I'm used to getting up every 3 hrs, so maybe we'll be up out of habit. Hopefully he'll stay asleep, like in the picture, for a longer period of time.



I doubt we'll get this lucky, but at least we'll get our bedroom back. We changed his schedule a bit last night, he did go 5 hrs without a bottle, though it was 8pm to 1:30am. Not exactly peak parents sleeping time. Especially since he was up until 10pm! Though it was better getting up just twice instead of 3 times a night. Now if we could only get him to soothe himself back to sleep without a bottle. Better yet, soothe himself at all! Jamming your whole hand down your throat and rolling isn't very soothing.