Pictures Galore...

I'm going to be making a change to the blog starting with this entry. Since we are doing the blog every two weeks now, I've decided to change the blog in terms of the number of pictures the blog will hold. This week, the blog will have a picture for each subject we have one for. So you may get as many as 4-5 pictures in a given week instead of just 1 or 2. I hope you all prefer the changes.

This is the blog entry just before our Halloween themed blog entry on Halloween weekend and it was full of all sorts of firsts for the little guy. Last weekend, we took Billy to beach for the third time, although this is the first time we actually hung out at the beach for more than 10-15 minutes without him being covered up in a stroller. We made sure to cover him in sun block and to bring a beach umbrella to keep him the shade, but being the water baby that he is, Billy wanted to spend a lot of time down by the water. Of course I had to walk him out into the ocean so he could get dipped in for the first time.

After some time in the water, Billy and Antoinette settled in at the water's edge, just far enough to not get hit by big waves, but close enough to get washed over by the remnants of what was left before they receded back to the ocean. He would get startled with each wave, as if not expecting them when they rushed over his feet and legs and then smile and occasionally smack the water. But he seemed more interested in watching the water rush back out after it had gained his attention.

After a long day at the beach, it was time for a nap, which is the picture you're seeing below. But there were plenty of other stories that happened this week. Like Billy's trip to the grocery store with his Mother. Billy has a tendency to scream at the top of his lungs in excitement at just about anything. Usually his screams are accompanied by a big grin and happy hands smacking things, but one thing they are not is restricted to the house. He's more than happy to unleash these ear piercing screams in public. Well, on this trip to the grocery store, Billy was in need of some distraction, so Antoinette handed him the grocery list. Not a good idea. After tossing a couple items in the cart, she turned to realize he had the list in his mouth, and when she took it out, Billy had munched off a Jaws sized bite mark. Not bad for a toothless mouth. She was able to recover the lost pieces, although they were now in the form of a wadded up ball of paper. That will be the last time we hand the little guy anything in paper form.

Billy's diet is coming along nicely. He's broadened his solid food horizons to include a host of fruits and vegetables out of the jar, as well as his oatmeal and rice cereal. Antoinette has also been blending up some green beans and bananas to baby food consistency and he's been taking those, too. He threw up once from some solid food, but everything else since has gone down well. So far, we really haven't found much he doesn't like, except he isn't really a juice drinker. Could be the sippy cup or it could be the watered down juice is just too much after a few sips. We're not really sure. We've also been working on getting his schedule to 3 big meals a day with a couple snacks and reducing his naps to a pair of 2 hour naps a day. The naps are dwindling in number, but the meal reduction is coming much slower. I know it will take some time, but we'll get there. Billy has been holding his bottle up on his own for longer periods of time now. He's getting about 10-15 seconds straight sometimes before dropping and needing it repositioned.

There are other signs of physical development in the little guy, as well. His jabbering has increased where he is now shortening his "dadadadada's" down to just "dada", "baba", and "rara". We're not real sure if he knows what he's saying yet, but its improved. He is also quickly developing an understanding of the word "no", like when he pulls Momma's hair or tries to reach into his mouth to touch his food after the spoon comes out. I'm fairly certain its the tone of voice that he's responding to and not the word itself, but it gets the point across. Billy has also seen an increase in his hand control which has led to several new developments, such as trying to "catch" his pee stream in the bathtub and being confused when it seems to slip right through his grasp every time.

Speaking of baths, the little guy has outgrown his existing tub and graduated to the next level up, which is a giant inflatable rubber duck given to us by my former coworkers at my previous job that sits in the bathtub. Billy seems to get a better grip in this thing and therefore has less of a risk of falling forward, or so I am told by Antoinette, who is the only one to have used it so far. It also has a temperature sensor in the bottom of it that changes color if/when the water temperature is too hot for a baby. Billy's introduction to Mr. Duck was an interesting one as he seemed intrigued by the expression on his new buddy's face.

Billy's increased hand control is also leading to changes in his ability to move. From the ground, he uses a combination of rolls and spins to orient himself and move himself around the room. While he's not stationary, he certainly isn't crawling yet either. These new techniques are not exactly efficient, but they are new to him and he seems to enjoy them. Basically, he rolls to his stomach and then uses his hands to rotate his body 90, 180, 270, or 360 degrees, and then he begins rolling again. In a matter of minutes, he is often found 6-7 feet from where he started and in a reverse directional facing position. He also seems to have discovered the first step of crawling although I can't get him to duplicate it. Billy has this blowup penguin that when hit, bounces back up like one of those kids punching bags. But when it does so, it sings and makes noise. He loves it, so I set it about two feet in front of him. Over the course of about 15 minutes, he managed to drag himself 2 feet to reach the penguin. Each time he dragged himself by smacking his hands on the ground and pulling a little, moving him about a 1/4 inch or so. Pretty funny, but more importantly, he's learning that he can control his body and the direction it moves and he can therefore change the set of objects and circumstances before him.

Finally, the temperature has dipped quite a bit this weekend. We are getting January temps in Jacksonville in mid October. The high today is 68 degrees, which has people here in a panic mode, just about freezing to death. Billy got his first taste of some chilly weather and he was initially startled by the first cool breeze to his face and then just went with the flow. Antoinette had some friends in town, Uncle Steve and Aunt Rhonda, so we met them in St. Augustine for Billy's first trip to a restaurant and also the farthest he's ever traveled from home (about 45 minutes south of where live). He was very well behaved at Cracker Barrel, where we met them, and only needed to be picked up a couple times to limit his fussing. It was a very fun weekend with Steve and Rhonda.

Then we went into St. Augustine so the youngest Lionhood could visit the oldest city in this country. We even took him to see the oldest fort in the United States, which is about 400 years old and where they were firing off live cannons this weekend. We then took him on a stroller ride up and down St. George street, which for those of you unfamiliar, is a small tourist street that is loaded with shops and restaurants all set to look like they are hundreds of years old. Much of the city street and the cemeteries are easily that old, as are the 200 year old gates that line the entrance to St. George. It was quite an experience and a beautiful 70 degree day (again, chilly enough to bundle up in jeans and sweatshirts).

Hope you all enjoy and see you for Halloween...

A Month in the Making...

I can't believe it has been a month since our last blog entry. There's been so much going on that there just hasn't been time to get this updated. I just had my new bank constructed from the ground up and I have been putting in 10-14 hour days on a regular basis, including on Saturday's to make sure the transition was flawless. You'd be surprised at the complexity behind moving a bank two blocks down the street, and doing it all in two days. Closed on Friday evening, open at the new location on Monday morning. Anyway, the new building has worked out about 85% of the inevitable kinks that come with opening a new location, but working through those issues and adding my new staff has allowed me to get back to a much more reasonable work schedule. That being said, I expect the blog updates to start coming about every 2 weeks now that Billy is nearly 6 months old.

Since its been nearly a month since the last entry, prepare for this one to be pretty extensive. First up is Billy's diet. We transitioned him to rice cereal about a month or so ago when he was just four months old. He spent the better part of his first feeding pushing that out of his mouth with his tongue, but by feeding number 2, the little guy was mouth wide open waiting for each spoon full. Gradually, week by week, we began adding new solid foods to his diet. First up was green beans. Apparently little Billy loves green beans. He would cry in between spoon fulls until you came near him with another scoop. Then he'll stop crying and open as wide as he can. Its pretty funny to watch actually. The next meal on tap was banana. He ate all of that right up without a problem, so Antoinette tried a real banana. She would give him a little squished up piece to see if he would eat it. No dice. He didn't want anything to do with it. So she took the entire banana, added some water, and blended both into a thinner banana paste. Then she put it in a bowl and fed that to him. He proceeded to eat the entire blended banana!!! Guess he likes bananas. The one item of baby food he doesn't seem to like, since he throws it up, is butternut squash. He's tried it twice and both times it has completely disagreed with him. He's also trying watered down juice and licking apples when Mom and Dad are eating one. Seems to love the sour taste of green apples. So far, like his Father, he's not a very picky eater.

Physically, Billy is developing quite well. On the scale at home, Billy is now nearly 16.5 lbs., which for a 5.5 month old, puts him in the 55th percentile in body weight. But its more than just weight that is changing for him. The other day we caught him with his socks off and one of them stuffed into his mouth. He was chewing on it. I'm pretty sure the issue is his new found ability to get his feet up to his head because we continuously catch him chewing on his toes. He's also nearly sitting on his own now. He can sit upright with his hands down in front of him for a minute or two, but eventually he keels over. He seems to have much more strength in his core, but his issue is balance now. He seems to topple after awhile, so we'll just keep working at it.

I think he's at least a couple months from crawling at this point. When on his belly, his knees still point outward and he's made no effort to get them underneath of himself. I'm assuming we're going to need to see him get on all fours before we actually see him use this position for any sort of locomotion. So for now, he gets around by rolling, and he's quite the roller. Especially when he wants something. If he's not engaged with something, he seems content to entertain himself by rolling around. Its quite common to see him 3-5 feet from where he started in a matter of minutes. That's a good 5-6 rolls, just seconds apart. His new thing is rolling into the dog, who likes to lay next to him when he's on the ground. I know that its inevitable that he's going to grab onto the dog's ears at some point and I have no idea how that's going to go over. My guess is the dog will just yelp and move, but I have to see that before I'm entirely comfortable with the notion. So for now, we watch the two of them whenever they are together. They really do seem to enjoy each other though.

Now that Billy is a little older, we've been getting him out of the house quite often. Aside from our 2-3 neighborhood walks (we try to go on when I'm not working), we've been taking him to the zoo every other weekend with our free zoo pass. When we're not at the zoo, we were getting him over to the pool which he absolutely loves. He'll play in the pool with you for an hour or more if you'll let him, so we go nice and early in the morning when nobody is there and the temperature is closer to 80-85 degrees outside instead of the 90-95 it will be hitting by noon. We've also screened in the back patio, which is now a pretty large 22 x 8 room with a 10 foot ceiling. Billy loves to sit out there with his Mother and I, free from the bugs that often accompany the sunset, and just enjoy the breeze. There's a ceiling fan out there, so whatever breeze that's blocked by the screen is more than made up for by the fan. And this time of year in Florida, the evenings are great. 70-75 degrees, little to no humidity, blue skies, and gentle breezes. You can't beat it. October and November are the best months in Jacksonville.

We also need to discuss Billy's mouth. This little attachment has gone through quite the overhaul since our last blog entry. He's using it for everything. While he still puts everything he can get his hands on in his mouth, he's also using it to give "kisses", or at least his version of "kisses". If you ask him for a kiss and you start kissing his cheeks, he turns toward you with his mouth as wide open as he can get it. Then he'll proceed to gum whatever part of your face he can clamp his mouth onto. Its pretty funny. He's also very snuggily at certain parts of the day. While he gets very excited when he sees me and starts to lean toward me as if he wants me to hold him, when he's with his Mother, he acts differently and attempts to snuggle up and nuzzle in there around her neck and face. Its very interesting how he really seems to treat the two of us differently. He has also figured out that his mouth is used for eating food, which we discussed earlier. But the biggest change regarding his mouth is that he is using it more to try and communicate. His vocalizations have become more complex and he's added a new sound into his little arsenal that sounds like "da da da da da da". He uses it now for everything in varying degrees of volume and inflection to indicate different needs. He's also begun screaming at everything with this ear piercing high pitched squeal. He unleashes that sucker wherever he is. Grocery stores, swimming pools, zoos, car rides, diaper changes, or just in routine play. He's got a mouth on him, that's for sure.

Among the most concerning developments for the little guy is this incessant desire to sleep on his belly. Every time you put him down, he rolls to his front. We are always concerned with SIDS and the unknowns surrounding it, so we have done what we can to prevent it from what is known. The #1 item on that list was putting the baby down on his back. Some facts about SIDS. Caucasian children are far less likely to suffer from this than African American children. Most of these deaths occur between birth and four months, although they do occur all the way up to 1 year. According to the Mayo Clinic, cases occurring in babies earlier than 1 month old and older than 6 months old are rare. Most of the cases occur in the Fall and Winter in places with colder climates. The number of children who die from SIDS in the US is about 1 in every 1,000 births. Based on these numbers, we figure that with Billy being Caucasian, over 4 months old, living in the South, and generally healthy, his chances have to be closer to about 1 in 10,000 or 1 in 20,000 at this point, and at that 6 month mark, probably closer to 1 in 50,000 or so, but that being said, we continue to put him down on his back and then check on him 20 minutes later to flip him onto his back once he's asleep. He won't stay that way all night, but for at least half of it and that makes me feel better. At one year, he can sleep standing on his head for all I care.

Finally, Billy's hand control is much better. He can grasp and reach for objects at will, even from a Tummy Time position. Unfortunately, that brings the dog into question again. We are trying to ease him in with the dog where his Mother and I are there for when the baby is grabbing and pinching at the dog. We can be there to keep him relaxed, which he pretty much is anyway.

The next two weeks are going to mark another transition period for little Billy. We are going to start the process of working him toward three major meals per day with two snack times in between. Right now, he's on more of a 5-6 meal schedule with maybe one solid snack meal somewhere during the day. That will not be an easy transition and should take about a month or so to complete. To complement those major meals, each of the big ones should be a combination of solid and liquid meals and his snacks should be liquid meals only. Since we are starting from a point of no consistent solid meals, it will be interesting to see how it goes.

Additionally, during that same stretch, we are going to start transitioning Billy's sleep schedule. He is still getting 8-10 hours when he first goes down, then he's up for a 20 minute pit stop of changing/feeding, followed by another 2-3 hours down. That's about 10-13 hours straight a night. The remaining portion of the day, approximately 12 hours, needs to broken up into three awake sessions and two nap sessions. The naps need to be about 2 hours a piece, which leaves about 8-9 hours of awake time during the day. That means he needs to be up for 3-4 hour windows during the day before each 2 hour nap. Now, of course all kids are different, so this may not work out as planned, but that doesn't mean its not a good idea to have a goal/plan to work toward and see how it shakes out. That is how we got him to sleep through the night so early. Set a goal and worked toward it. This will also likely take about a month or so to complete, by my estimation.

Some other developmental goals we are going to work on are sitting up, maybe balancing on all fours, and putting objects just out of reach and see how he does about reaching for those objects and pulling them close to himself.