9 months old

Update:
The baby is now 22lbs 11oz (81%) and 29-1/2" tall (86%).

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There's something so big about being 9 months ... like he isn't a baby anymore. Well, we have his 9-month appointment on Wednesday so I'll let you all know how "big" my baby really is.

Not a lot has changed from last month

• He still doesn't crawl or pull himself up to a stand, but he's steadier on his feet when we help him stand (or he holds on to the couch).
• He has started to roll over from back to stomach, which means that we can no longer swaddle him when he sleeps. (This is new, so we just started to try his naps without his woombie and it's not going well. 20 minutes and he wakes up.)
• At night, he still sleeps with us and needs no woombie/swaddle at all. (So we know he can sleep without one - he just needs to learn how to in the crib.)
• He's pretty much mastered his sippy cup. 
• But he's starting to regress on feeding himself. He's happier now being fed rather than trying to do it on his own(and he was getting good at it).
• He's also stopped plateau'ing when he's on his stomach. I don't get it - maybe he'd just rather concentrate on trying to stand/walk. (A question for the doctor).
• He's taking a bottle now only 3x a day (24oz) and 3 food feedings.

First Easter

Today is Wesley's first Easter ... and the Easter bunny came to visit to bring him some goodies!

First Easter Basket

In the basket is: his Easter outfit, a stuffed animal, a toy, sunscreen (for Florida), lotion (for his excema), and a drum filled with instruments (he loves to make noise).

With the Easter Bunny @ Brunch (the creepiest thing is that you can see his face in the large eyeball!)

Next year, the Easter Bunny promises to hide some eggs!

The Great Cloth Diaper Change was today!

This event started to build awareness and enthusiasm for cloth diapering our babies and keeping disposable diapers out of the landfills. It grew into a worldwide event, and we were part of it!

Hubby, Baby & I joined 30 other cloth diapered babies and their moms and dads nearby where we simultaneously changed a cloth diaper at approximately 11:30 a.m. today.

Me & Wes as the room gets ready

getting our babies ready

Holding up the cloth diaper we'll put them in

Holding up our newly changed babies (Wes is hidden)

Only 9 months old and already part of history!

Making Beer

For Valentine's Day, I got Matt a Beer-making class for the 2 of us. Matt loves all different kinds of beers and has recently started talking about flavor profiles, pairing beers with food, and just the general beer making process. What better way to say "I love you" then with a class on making beer. Yes, I thought it was brilliant too.

After much search I found one place on the southside that, in addition to being a beer & wine supply store, has beer & wine making classes. All we needed to do was pick what kind of beer we wanted to make. Matt loves IPAs, but because I'm not a hops-gal, Matt chose the Hefeweizen.

So here's our chronicle of our Beer-making class.

The 1st half of the class was all about the home-brewing process and the chemistry behind beer.

During the class, we got to nosh on dorritos and unlimited beer. This beer they called "spring cleaning" because they used all sorts of leftover grains/spices/etc to make it. It was delicious but can never be recreated.

Here's a demo of beer going from the primary fermenting container to secondary container.

Our turn to make the beer.

In to the brew pot goes our "tea" of specialty grains for the Hefeweizen (the brew pot already had 2-row grains brewing- a basic profile).

After steeping, we take it out the wort and the tea bag.

Toil Toil Boil & trouble ... or Stir Stir

In goes the malt extract

2 kinds - 1 is hopped the other is not - both for hefeweizen

Now it's a caramel hue

The "tea" bag come out and we pour cold filtered water over it until we have 5 gallons an the temp goes below 70

In goes the yeast - liquid yeast especially for hefeweizen

It's all ready to sit and ferment. Yum Yum

The only picture I didn't take was when our teacher tested it for an appx alcohol content. A Hefeweizen should be pretty low and the scale should read 1050, but ours read 1058 so that was a little high. Oops!

They will transfer it to the secondary fermenting container. After the 15th, we can go and bottle it in which it will then sit for another 2 week at our house until it is ready to be drunk ...Labor Memorial Day Weekend!

Beautiful Weekend

We had such a beautiful weekend here in Chicago -- the sun was out and tipped the temperature into the 80's on Sunday. I'm not complaining -- anything beats the frigid cold -- but 80's in April? That's too much for us. I love to keep the windows open and have plenty of fresh air flowing through the house, but having the windows open on Sunday just made the house hot. When we went to bed, our bedroom was 79 degrees. We were forced to turn on the air because Wes would get too hot in the swaddle (if only he would sleep in just a diaper... )

One of Matt's fraternity brothers came for a visit so Wes had a genuine play mate this weekend. We left them alone to get ready one morning and ...

I like the box of Wal-Phed in his hand!

And for the first time, we introduced the baby to the backyard on a blanket and he quickly learned that pulling away the blanket revealed this amazing thing called grass. He keeps us on our toes now!

Scenic Sunday

Morton Arboretum, IL - January 2009

This photo always makes me laugh.  The quintessential sign that says "Keep Off Ice" and the footprints in the ice behind it.  Does anyone ever pay attention to signs, anyway?

For more Scenic Sundays, please visit scenicsunday.blogspot.com.

Wordless Wesley Weekly

Wes & Elvis - April 2011

"You're not the real King, are you?"

Scenic Sunday

St Simon's Island, GA - September 2009

My husband took this photo and surprised me with it because it turned out so nice. He loves to take great photos and show me -- I think he thinks I'm the better photo-taker, which is not the case. I just "have" the cameras.  Another vacation that Matt and I enjoyed -- the last one we took before getting pregnant with Wes.

For more Scenic Sundays, please visit scenicsunday.blogspot.com.

Wes has Excema and a Friend

We had a busy Wednesday!

Wesley broke out in a rash on Tuesday afternoon all over his chest, stomach, and back.  Before that, he had dry patches on his shoulder (only noticeable by touch), but when this rash broke out, those patches became all red and scaly. Time to call the doctor!

We got in Wednesday morning and confirmed it to be contact dermatitis and excema.  So now I have a prescription steroidal cream that he has to get slathered on, and he's best friends with the vaseline. It's nothing too serious, but the doctor was glad that I came in at the onset of the breakout because it would get worse if left untreated.  Now. we're trying to figure out the cause and it's a mystery.  We ruled out the laundry detergent (because we only use the baby kind we've been using since he's been born). The swimming pool is probably a culprit, but we didn't have swimming this week.  Oh well, the mystery continues...

After the doctor visit, Wesley had his first friend come over (I refuse to say "Playdate")!  One of the girls from our music class came over with her son who's 7 weeks older than Wes. They actually played - as in, they sat on the playmat together and shared toys and Wesley laughed at him when he crawled and played. I was happy to see this because you never know how your kid will react when a new kid tries to play with his toys. Wes didn't seem to care a lick.  But the funniest moment was when her son crawled to Wes and then tried to sit down on top of him (no spatial concept in a 9 month old) -  Wes looked at him trying to sit on him and decided he'd have none of that, so he stuck his hand out to push him over.