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Nathaniel can also say sausage “autage”, bad (not that he is ever…), bed (refers to a nice red silk Pottery Barn comforter that the kids have claimed as theirs), scootch, stairs, medicine “medeeche”, juice (referring to Mommy’s beer when we went out for dinner the other night). Again, I’m sure there are words I’m missing, he learns new ones daily! Oh, we can’t forget buttons and buckle!

Things Nathaniel likes to watch on TV:

• dogs (we’re watching the Iditarod Great Sled Race right now);
• race cars (Nathaniel watched some of the Daytona 500 with me in February);
• steak commercials (each time ads for The Keg appear, Nathaniel points and laughs);
• Barney (daddy is not a fan);
• Four Square on Treehouse.

Well, it only took 10 months, but Nathaniel slept through the night last night, 11 hours.

Of course Don and I didn’t sleep that much- I woke up around 5am, couldn’t go back to sleep. I got around 7hours straight- an unknown phenomenon to my body this year, it thought it had enough I guess.

I know now why my parents have gray hair. It’s not because Chrissy and I were terrible teenagers, it’s simply because they had children!!!! It ages you like nothing else can…

Currently Nathaniel is into everything, He can climb onto stools, turn the taps on for the bathtub, gets into any cupboard or drawer. And for whatever reason, when he hears or sees a gate open, he makes a b-line for it. A few weeks ago he took a tumble down the stairs- all 12. He was okay, but don’t you think he’d remember that it maybe wasn’t such a good time? He’s still too young to process reason, I guess.

He points at everything, and says “up”. He loves lights, and the celing fan. He knows that if you turn the switch, the fan will come on- as soon as you turn it, he looks up and points.

Nathaniel is so strong and active, we have to weigh his high chair and jolly jumper down with sandbags. And, the 10lb ones we’re using don’t appear to be heavy enough… yikes, I know!

As for shoes, he’s in a size 5. Yes, size 5.

Sleep? We don’t get much. This whole year has been pretty consistently low in that cagegory. Nathaniel is 9 months old, and still wakes at least once to eat. He eats full bottles when he does eat in the night, so it’s not like he’s waking just for the fun of it (though, sometimes that is the case). Sometimes he’s up every 3-4 hours, and sometimes (if we’re lucky) he’ll go longer. ie/ bed at 7:30pm, up at 11:30 to eat, then right back to sleep, and then not wake again until he’s up for the day (anywhere from 5-6:30am- still night time in Mommy’s book). A few weeks ago we started limiting his naps to only a max. of 45min. in the am and pm.

So 1 1/2 hrs. total for naps, half what he used to nap. For the most part, this has been effective at ensuring he dosen’t wake up in the middle of the night to “play”. Who wakes up at 2 or 3 am to play?

Nathaniel.

Well, our little guy is full on crawling now, moving from room to room exploring his world. Don had to put the gate back up in the kitchen, and we have to try to remember to close them when Nathaniel is in the room!

Of course, he’s still not sleeping through the night…he never has been a big sleeper. He wakes usually 2 times/night, and is up for the day between 5-6am. Dr. Pow said he’d likely start sleeping through the night once he started solids- that was 2 months ago, and nothing has changed! We’re fearing this is his way, but of course won’t be on bottles forever, and I think in 4 months this night time feeding business will be over…

Nathaniel can also bring himself up to a kneeling position; last night we found him holding on to the bar of the island stool, kneeling and then brought himself to a standing position! Don moved his crib down to the low setting yesterday, as Nathaniel loves to hold his crib rail while kneeling…we don’t want topple over baby!

Chase is indeed quite concerned about Nathaniel being mobile- anywhere Chase goes Nathaniel is sure to follow! Poor Chase…

This morning Nathaniel was crawling around on the doffice floor, while Alice watched one of the new movies she got for her fourth birthday. I turned my head, and then Nathaniel was sitting on his bum

I’ve never seen him do this before. Technically, I still haven’t seen him do this, only the final result. I’m not really sure how he manages to get from tummy/hands/knees to his bum.

By the way, Chase is not very impressed with all this crawling business. He liked Nathaniel a lot more when he stayed in one place. The first time I saw Nathaniel crawl, it was to try to get to Chase. As you can imagine, babies think you should always grab fur, paws, tails, whenever you get close enough to your cat. As with Alice, Chase is pretty understanding about this abuse — he usually just runs away.

Our little guy has been moving about the last week or so; at first, just rocking back and forth on his hands and knees, which progressed to a bum hop (how cute is that!) and now he can crawl, moving his arms and legs.

Nathaniel had his 6 month visit with Dr. Pow August 1st, and his vaccinations Aug 8th.

His measurements are:

17 lb. 1 oz

27 1/4 inches long

So he remains in the 50th percentile for weight, and 75th for length; as the nurse described him, “long and lean”. He looks smaller than many other babies his age, cuz he’s just so darn solid! Not much chub, he bounces around in his jolly jumper too much for that! Don always says after he gets Nathaniel out of it after his early morning workout, his legs are hot! If he’s in the right mood, Nathaniel is happy jolly jumping for an hour or longer. He has recently taken to swinging in it from side to side as well. Thank you Auntie Chrissy for letting us borrow this most valuable piece of equipment!

Nathaniel is now full bore on solids, and enjoying all of it, except peas, and some things he finds sour ie/ apples. He is still up at least once/night, lately for 1-2 hours at a time- yikes! But if this is the case, it tends to be the only time he is up, and has 2 feedings worth during that period. IE/ last night he woke at 11:30pm- just after Mommy fell alseep from being at work at a 50 person hors d’oeuvre party- and he ate 160ml, was awake until 1:30am, but had another 140 ml in there somewhere (I don’t remember when)… I always go back to bed and let him try to settle himself, but he moves around and rolls too much, and eventually gets stuck and/or frustrated and I have to go rescue him. By 1:30am last night (or I guess this morning) I went in and picked him up- he was flailing away and not happy. So when I picked him up, he completely stopped moving, and just stared at his blue night light. After only a minute or so, his poor little head fell onto my shoulder, and he was fast asleep. It was so precious, I wish I was more rested to be able to enjoy these moments more!!! But, on the other hand,  the one good thing about doing the night feedings is that I get one on one time with him, which is the only time of the day/night I get this. So in some ways I look forward to it!

Also, when Nathaniel was exactly 6 months, that day nana and papa were here, and Nathaniel sat up by himself for several minutes. Nana even got a photo! We’re glad that we all got to witness such a wonderful thing, as is rarely the case!