It is a lot more hectic and active, involves a lot less sleep, occasional frustration and less time, but it is so much more fulfilled and fun than the old normal used to be. But sometime over the course of the last year, we learned to just accept things as they happen and go with the flow. Night with little sleep? Tough luck, next one might be better. I think it’s really important to understand that not everything is in our control anymore and that you have to make the best of things – I have a feeling this will be infinitely more true when we add another little person in our lives (no plans as of right now, but one day!).

Sometimes, even when bordering on zombie state in the morning, it’s important to just enjoy the pretty sunrise you can catch thanks to a certain early bird:

And now that things are fairly predictable, we have time to do stuff like bake birthday cupcakes for a very special person:

And birthday cakes to celebrate that very special person’s birthday with extended family:

Life may not be perfect, but it is fun. So much more fun than it ever used to be. Thank you for my new normal, little boy. I love you.

Whoa. Still blows my mind. My baby is no longer a baby… I’m glad I more or less chronicled his first year in pictures, and hope to continue to be able to do so in his future. It’s important to me, and I think he might find his early life interesting in the future, too.

Anyway, what is Logan up to these days? While he’s not yet walking, he stands and cruises (a little reluctantly). He crawls, he dashes and he climbs stairs (up, not down). He’s very mobile, and while it might still be months until he walks, he’s doing everything but. I’m thinking about getting him a walker soon.

We’re down to 2-3 bottles a day and I intend to have him weaned and on whole (or 2%) milk within a month. He eats 3 regular meals and has 1-2 snacks in between. His favorites are yogurt, cheese, fruit, tomatoes and eggs. He’s not terribly fond of meats or breads yet. He feeds himself, but I don’t let him self-feed yogurt yet. He still eats that from the spoon without complaint.

Sleep has improved. *knocks on wood* For over a week now, we’ve had pretty consistent 10-11 hours of sleep a night, with few and short to no wake-ups. In fact, the night we returned from Germany, he slept 14 hours! I’m sure jet lag had a hand in it, but since I was working on correcting my own sleep schedule at the same time, this was amazing. He either has two short naps or one long nap per day. I’d say it’s about a 50/50 chance at either scenario. If he sleeps particularly well at night, a 1-nap day is more likely.

He’s having a blast trying to figure out the world. He hates most toys, though ones that make sound or flash will hold his interest for a few minutes. Much more interesting is everything around the house, especially the things mama doesn’t want him to get into.

It’s really fun to watch him figure out concepts, though. He’s a huge fan of open-close, and everything that is in his reach and can be opened and closed has been opened and closed by him at some point in time now. I’m not sure when it happened exactly, but he understands object permanence. If daddy disappears up the stairs, he’ll crawl over to the stairs and attempt to climb them (provided the gate is open) in search of daddy. He also understands a lot of buttons and what they do.

While he isn’t talking other than “mama” and “dada” yet, he’s been babbling up a storm featuring many different vowels and consonants. He understands a lot of words, too. New words he gets are “down”, “no”, “ok”, “come here”, “diaper”, “nose”, “bedtime” and I -think- “bath”.

He’s still overall very joyful, but a little clingy. He only clings to me and not so much his dad, though. It’s cute but exhausting. He loves most people, though he’s not sure about some (mostly males) and takes a little to warm up to them. But once he warms up, he’s the life of the party.

Sometimes, Logan throws tantrums. I thought they didn’t come until later, but perhaps it’s the frustration about not being able to properly communicate his needs. Whatever it is, sometimes he’ll throw himself on the floor and bawl theatrically. As soon as he’s picked up, it’s as if it never happened. We’re starting to just let him cry it out when we’re certain nothing is wrong with him. Much as I love him, I can’t have him attached to me 24/7. After crying for a little while, he’ll crawl off and do his own thing. The sheer drama he can command is pretty comical.

We’re not sure about his weight and height, since his one year check-up is not til the 5th, but I can’t wait to find out how much he’s grown! He’s in 18-24 month clothing, though, that’s for sure.

I can’t wait to see how much he’s going to change this coming year!

Now that he’s crawling though, I really miss my baby being predictably confined to a space. We have most areas of the house baby-proofed, but there are some things that will need more elaborate solutions.. like computer cables, that are more or less unprotected at the moment. We’re always watching him when he’s around the computer area and do a pretty good job of warding him off.

However, with crawling and pulling up comes greater opportunity for, well, falling and tumbling and bumping and hurting. We’ve seen a great deal of this lately – most notably a very, very scary tumble down the stairs when we neglected to fully close the baby gate after he’d just become mobile. We’re not making that mistake again of course, but the memory is fresh. Logan was completely fine – he had a little bruise and cried for about 20 seconds and that was that. Mommy and daddy on the other hand still feel guilty.

Anyway, that really prompted us to up our awareness and remove potentially dangerous situations. I really want to nail some boards in front of the computer cords when we get a spare moment (probably not until after our excursion to Germany), but we have a pretty good handle on everything else.

Logan’s been developing his motor skills a lot since starting to crawl, and interestingly is babbling a lot less since then. I’ve read that when babies concentrate on one area of skills, other already developed skills may take a backseat until they’ve mastered the new thing. It seems plausible, though I miss the random “mamas”.

We also think he just got over a minor ear infection (the pedi was called, but we were advised that unless things get more severe, he’ll probably get over whatever it is himself), which turned him into quite the crabmonster for a few days. Thankfully, we now have our happy baby back.

It really is true that once you have kids you never stop worrying. Sick babies are stress – not taking care of them, that comes with the territory, but worrying about their well-being and wishing you could take their pain away. I expect the stress and worrying will change as he gets older, but never again disappear. I have so much new-found appreciation for my own mother since becoming a mom myself.

On a more positive note, Logan’s passport arrived! I’m happy to report it only took two weeks, and they processed it despite of a spelling error on his birth certificate (in my name, nonetheless). One less thing to worry about!

In fact, I probably didn’t care about dressing nicely until I shed the weight at around age 20. Then, though, I had catching up to do. All of a sudden I felt attractive and I wanted my outside to reflect that. I started taking care of my skin and my hair, I started figuring out a sensible make-up routine and I finally dressed my body appropriately. I was also in my early 20s, enjoying my exterior for the first time and wanted to have fun with pretty things. Sometimes pretty short things, and sometimes things that showed cleavage.

Now, though, I’m not that early-20s girl anymore. I had enough time to flaunt. I had a retail job in my mid-20s that required me to adhere to a pretty strict black-and-white dress code, so for a while the majority of my wardrobe was black and white and of course fairly demure. Then I got pregnant, and again my wardrobe needs changed. I wasn’t happy with my body during my pregnancy and subsequently didn’t much care about what I wore – or at least didn’t dress to express myself, rather to contain damages.

After I had Logan, I had a lot of weight to lose. It didn’t make sense to acquire a whole new wardrobe for my slightly chubbier self, so I just got a couple of jeans two sizes bigger and wore loose tops. Hiding, not expressing.

Now, though, I’m about 5lbs over my happy weight. I’m really not far off, and I’ve been starting to take a look at how my fashion sense has evolved and what I like now. Again, I’m putting a new wardrobe together that’s more fun than the retail code, but also more grown-up than me in my early 20s. I’m a mom now, I can look good and grown-up at the same time! I’m realizing that I love – and look really good in – sheath dresses, pencil skirts, grown-up shorts, blouses (tucked in! totally new to me), blazers and skinny jeans (those have been on my shopping list for years, though). I’ve been working on acquiring a few key pieces and want to really stock up my new style. I’m also realizing that accessories are a lot more important than I previously thought.

I was at a Banana Republic Factory store the other day and tried on their winter tweed sheath dress. However, that one is $100, and while I liked it very very much, I didn’t completely love it. I ended up putting it away and instead ended up getting a very soft, very classic pullover, a skinny belt, a golden scarf and black booties. Together those 4 items equaled the price tag of the dress. All together they make for a great outfit!

I also got this dress – the occasion was a funeral, but it’s very versatile. Don’t mind the deer-in-headlights shot, the webcam went off too soon. I am most definitely not a fashion blogger.

Perhaps, if I manage to find a good fall wardrobe, I’ll put some effort into photographing it. I certainly feel like I’ve found myself again, and that was something I missed during my pregnancy and the last 9 months.

The crawling really only started yesterday, at about 9 months and 4 weeks. Fairly late, but I must say it’s kind of like he just decided one day that he’s been avoiding it long enough and it’s time to just do it. He didn’t have an awkward learning stage, and he’s had all the different moves down forever. He just put all the puzzle pieces together and decided to go cruisin’. Still baffles me. I was starting to think he’d skip it. Anyway, I ordered cabinet locks today. Much needed.

The sitting up is kind of a blessing and a curse.

In the middle of the night, I wake up to strange noises coming out of the video monitor, and when I look I see Logan sitting in his crib trying to eat it. The first night after learning how to sit up, he was up for three hours at night. Three hours of sitting up. Gah. He’s been progressively getting better about NOT sitting up at night, though he still does at least for a little while. At first, when I laid him back down, he’d just sit back up.

I learned not to lie him back down and instead wait until he either a) gets upset or b) lies down by himself. Works pretty well. He has slightly more trouble calming himself enough to sleep, but 20 minutes beats 3 hours. Beats it by a lot.

Nighttime sleep in general is still iffy. Some nights, he goes 8-9 hours without waking up at all. Other nights he’s up 3+ times. It certainly didn’t help that he had both front top teeth coming in at once a few weeks ago, which made for awful sleep. Usually, he goes to bed between 7:30pm and 8:30pm and is up for the day between 5:30am and 7am. The more he’s up at night, the later we’re up for the day.

Naps are starting to be more sporadic. We’re at the point where we usually have one very short nap (30mins) and one long nap (usually 2-3 hours in the afternoon). There’ve been a few days where we only had one nap. I think in another month or so we might consolidate it down to one nap a day. Perhaps we can delay it until he’s starting to walk, but we’ll see.

His play style has changed a lot. He’s figuring out how objects interact with each other, and how to manipulate them (ie opening and closing things, dropping and picking up, throwing and crawling after it to throw it again, bashing things together, putting things on top of one another). It’s pretty cool to see him figure out concepts like gravity and object permanence.

He babbles like crazy and says dada and mama, usually to the correct parent. The “mamas” are often accompanied by some sort of need (wanting to be picked up, hungry, thirsty, tired, hurt) and looking at me, whereas the “dadas” usually come out when he’s having fun. Figures. Still, there’s nothing more precious than a baby in need babbling your name. His good moods still prevail, he’s a happy baby overall and only really gets crabby when he’s bored or tired or hurts himself on something.

Since he’s figured out how to crawl, he’s bored less often, but hurts himself more often, so I guess the crabbiness evens out.

Eating’s going great. He’s basically had everything I can think of other than honey and peanut butter, and I’m starting to think about how to wean him off formula (probably at about a year of age).

We’ve been enjoying the last few days of summer – Washington state weather declines usually as soon as August winks out – and I’m getting really excited about this fall/winter season. Halloween, his first birthday and Christmas are going to be so much fun, and I can’t wait to see how they’ll evolve over the years.

For one, I’m going to miss him like mad. We’ve hardly been apart in the last few years – at most two days when he flew out to a job interview in California – and now I’m going to be gone for sixteen days. Sixteen! I’m mad. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, I suppose?

Also, I’m going to have two 14-hour travels with an 11-month old baby boy. An almost-toddler that hates sitting still or being confined to his seat, and of course everyone hates children on flights. Let alone 10-hour flights. I hope all goes well. I think I have been preparing as well as I possibly can given the circumstances, but a large part of how the travel goes is up to Logan and his mood at the time of take-off.

Here’s what I’ve done so far (or is on the travel preparation to-do list):

- Infants under 2 years old usually travel for a small fee on a parent’s lap. Some airlines let you purchase a seat for your infant if you bring a car seat, which is always recommended for safety and comfort reasons. Alas, we didn’t have the money for that this time.

- I’ve done research on airlines and found one that not only flies straight to Germany (with a layover in Frankfurt, but hey, I’m going to be in the right country after just one flight at least), but also has bassinets available for babies up to a weight of 14kg and 83cm, which Logan is under. He’ll be 11 months old, but they don’t have an age limit. Many airlines do!

- I did want to get a night flight, but sadly there was no 6pm+ flight available with the airline I picked out. Instead, we leave in the middle of the day, which should span one nap and a considerable amount of night sleep (4+h).

- I will sleep in on the day we leave, so I won’t get tired on the flight(s). Ideally I want to stay awake the whole time to supervise Logan and make sure he’s ok.

- I called the airline to reserve a bulkhead seat. Infant bassinets attach to these, and they have extra legroom, which means Logan can play on the floor.

- I will buy a completely new set of toys for the flight, and introduce them at about a rate of one per hour.

- I will take his bottle and sippy cup and let him drink during take-off and landing to make pressure acclimation as painless as possible.

- I bought an umbrella stroller to make getting around the airports easier. The stroller can come on board, but flight personnel will take it and stow it away until we depart the airplane.

- I made sure we have an adequate amount of time on our layover (2 hours).

- We have applied for an expedited passport for him. Not all places that normally take passport photos will take infant passport photos. I didn’t know that before!

- I will take two outfit changes for Logan and perhaps an extra shirt for me. Just in case something happens. I will also take infant tylenol and perhaps even nose drops for air pressure equalization in case he’s congested. Ear planes for me. Lifesavers.

- I will take his favorite snacks, lovie and blanket.

I think that’s all I can think of right now. It’s going to be an adventure, and I’m scared. I’m already scared of planes – in fact, most of my worst nightmares involve planes – this is going to add a whole new level. We’ll get through it though, and it’s worth it to have my parents see their grandson. In case of my father, for the first time!

I weighed in this month at 129.4lbs, which means I lost about 4lbs since my 7-month update. I really had to crack down and adjust my diet to see continued results, so 2lbs/month is pretty good in my book. I would like to lose another 4, but I fit into most of my old clothes (minus some jeans) and I don’t think I look too bad. I’ve upped my exercise/strength training routines and things are definitely falling into place.

I still get the random agonizing backaches that I never had prior to giving birth. I definitely relate them to either my body being stretched out of whack during pregnancy or the epidural I received in the hospital. I haven’t seen a doctor for it though, as the frequency has dramatically reduced.

It always amazes me that at the hospital I thought my 8-pound baby was heavy to pick up and carry around and – in my Percocet-induced awkward state of mind – wondered how I would manage to always, always hold and carry him if it makes my arms hurt so much. He’s now weighing in at 23lbs and while I objectively know that he’s pretty heavy, he doesn’t really feel that heavy to me. Definite mommy guns at work, there!

This is me at 9 months postpartum. Not the best pictures, but it’s been a busy month – we took Logan to Yellowstone! (next post will be about that) – and you get the idea.

Logan’s definitely not an early crawler. He’s still close to crawling, rolling and getting on all fours and rocking back and forth, but his main ways of getting about are rolling and scooting on his butt. Little guy makes his own path. There’s still no pulling up on stuff to speak of.

However, we had some big improvements in the language department! Mama, dada, ada, baba, blabla and fah are some of his most-used words, but sometimes he gets crazy and up to 3- and 4-syllable words. He also understands more words. “Mama”, “Dada”, “more”, “all done”, “sit”, “up”, “Logan”, “good job” and “kissy” are the ones we’ve figured out he knows for sure. I kinda hope he knows “no”, but since he doesn’t stop doing whatever he’s not supposed to do and I have to manually detach him, I don’t have my hopes up high.

He actually gives kisses now. When we say “kissy”, he’ll open his mouth and wait to get kissed. It’s very cute! When we point at something, he’ll follow the finger and look at the thing we pointed at. That’s pretty amazing to me!

He has an excellent pincer grasp and can eat pretty much anything we do now, at least anything that’s soft. We’ve gone through pretty much everything but peanut butter, cow’s milk and honey. Some of his current favorites are blueberries, strawberries, cherries, mangoes, oats and mashed potatoes. He’s also pretty fond of meats, but shies away from cheese (I keep trying!). Yogurt is still a definite favorite. He’s not a picky eater, but he does have preferences. Sometimes it’s easy to get him to eat veggies, other times he won’t touch them. On the whole, it’s going fairly well!

We haven’t had his 9-month checkup yet, it’s scheduled for the 3rd and then we’ll find out how tall he is now and what he weighs. He wears 18-24 month clothes, some of his 12-month stuff still fits too. I’m expecting his numbers to be fairly big!

This is Logan at Old Faithful in Yellowstone, waiting for the geyser to erupt!

We’re up to three teeth – the upper right one has broken through! It actually happened during our trip to Yellowstone. He was a little crabby for a few days, but overall it didn’t seem too bad. Speaking of the trip, Logan handled it like a trooper. We drove 12 hours each way, and while he wasn’t happy for some parts of it, he slept a lot and I was able to entertain him by sitting next to him in the backseat for stretches too.

He slept in a pack and play that the hotel provided. I was kinda worried about how he’d handle it, but it wasn’t too bad. He didn’t sleep all that well the first night, but the other two nights went really well. In fact, it was a lot harder to get him to sleep in his crib upon our return! He was so excited to be home that he just didn’t want to sleep. It was cute… but exhausting. Now, though, things are back to almost normal. We’ve had a few night wakings the past nights, but nothing bad.

Overall, this month has been a blast. He’s so much more interactive, talks to us, expects replies, makes himself understood, plays games and loves life. 3 more months to his birthday party!

This week, Munchkin Meals is focusing on breakfast. In a perfect world, Logan (8 months) would eat everything on my plate. In the real world, he gets his own meals and is somewhat less interested in them. He eats – which I’m thankful for! I’ve heard of some babies that have NO interest in solids – but after a few bites of everything he tends to get disinterested. In an effort to counter this, I try to make his plate colorful and flavorful. I usually offer a vegetable, a fruit and a carb for breakfast. Dinner focuses more on proteins, though sometimes we have yogurt for breakfast (mostly when I’ve found a food he absolutely doesn’t want to eat… yogurt always works).

In this picture, Logan is having ww bread with philadelphia, tomatoes, cucumbers and grapes. He’s also holding a book, because having toys to play with keeps him interested in his food for longer. Funny how that goes.

He’s surprisingly fond of tomatoes, I think it must be the color. Next grocery haul, I’ll grab some peppers and perhaps some other more colorful stuff.

In this one, we – again – have toast with philadelphia, cheerios and microwaved apples with cinnamon. This was after a disastrous experience with peas and I was at the point where I kind of just wanted him to eat something; I’d given up on vegetables for that day.

Waffles, eggs, broccoli, mangoes, nectarines, peaches, plums, yogurt and cream of wheat are some other breakfast favorites at our place!

The older he gets, the more fun he becomes. Especially now that he’s starting to understand some things (words, cause/effect, pointing) and does hilarious things all the time, sometimes even with the intent to make us laugh. I really really love the stage, but I have a feeling I’m going to be saying that about many stages to come!