11 Month

Taking pictures of this little dude has become quite the challenge... Notice the many different objects in the pictures trying to keep him distracted and in one place!

We'll be celebrating a birthday in a month and I can't believe how fast this past year has gone by. This little stinker is 11 months old! I mean... How and when did that happen?! Austin is now 28 3/4 inches tall and weighs 19 lbs 5 oz. He has bypassed my other children and is the biggest of the three. He is wearing 12 month clothes and size 3 diapers. His size 3 shoes are getting pretty tight and he probably won't be wearing them for much longer. His eyes are brown but still have grey speckles in them. (The closest to having an eye color at this age then my other kids so I'll take it!) And his hair is the same light brown with a hint of red undertones that all my other kids has been. He does seem to have a little bit of baby curl on the back of my head that I think is really cute but gets turned into a rats nest very easily.

I still can't get over this boys smile. It is just the best and I love it! Austin has now mastered the stairs and can go up and down them without any problem which means he has full range of the house and a mind of his own. He learned how to turn around at the top of the stairs shortly after he turned 10 months old and has just improved from there and has started venturing out on climbing up on things. He also likes to play with the doors. Opening and closing them, and has locked himself behind a door or two. Austin has also mastered the "moglie" crawl. He is all over the place on this hands and feet and he is fast! So far he hasn't ever face planted it but I keep waiting for it to happen because of how fast he is going. He did get his first black eye a couple weeks ago from banging his eye on the edge of a table....

Some things that Austin is doing right now is roaring, like a lion or dinosaur. Waving hi with his whole arm and hi or bye with just his hand opening and closing. He is giving high fives and has started to blow kisses (although right now it just means spreading is burgers all over his face) and hitting. He is the quickest of my kids to learn to hit because of the lovely example from his older siblings. Mostly the one just above him. Him and Ida fight a lot but they also have started to play a lot and Austin loves it when his older siblings play with him! He loves singing and doing the signs to pat-a-cake and when I do "Shoe the old horsey" on his feet. He also likes to randomly just lay out on the floor (on his tummy) and watch what's going on around him. Austin likes to brush my hair. And if he finds a brush laying around he will seek me out so that he can brush my hair with it. He is really better at putting it in knots... But I'm sure he will improve with practice!

Austin does not like teething and unfortunately he has been teething for like the past month. He is currently working on his top two middle teeth and his gums have been off and on swollen and red this past month. Right now they are so red and I can see them through his gums but they just haven't popped through yet! It has taken forever but I know they are just days away from getting them both! He has not been a very happy boy... But pain can do that to you! I have realized Austin is really only super attached to me when he is in pain or not feeling well. When he is feeling good he will happily go to anyone! Austin is also really mastering the fits. He has gotten really good and laying himself down and rolling around and around on the floor. He is also mastering throwing a fit in your lap. If you are holding him facing out then he throws himself backwards and arches his back then if you turn him around and stand him on your lap he buckles over and face plants it with your stomach. And he just continues to do this over and over depending on the direction you face him until you just put him down where he continues his fit on the ground. He has improved with swimming though and we can now take him and he isn't clinging to us the whole time. I realized I think it's more the cold water he hates more than the water. Although he is more cautious of the water than any of my other kids. But getting him to stand in the water by himself is a start!

Austin is so close to walking! I mean... He is going to be walking within the next week or two. I feel like at this point he has the ability to walk he just has to decide that's what he wants to do. He can take up to 12 or 13 controlled steps at a time and if he is close to something he will stand up in the middle of the floor then walk to the object. He will also walk between the furniture if it is only a few steps. He is really good at walking while you hold onto one of his hands and we try to do that as much as he will let us.

Something I find funny that Austin does is crawling around the house with an object in both hands. He just loves having something to hold onto. He is constantly dragging things up and down the stairs and all over the house. My favorite is when he has a ball in each hand... It makes it pretty funny to watch him slide all over the place when he's crawling.

Just enjoying a movie...

Austin's eating unfortunately hasn't really gotten any better. In fact I think it just continues to get worse. I don't know what I'm doing wrong! Why are all my kids bad eaters! Especially when they start out so well! I don't get it... I am still offering him as much as I can and I hope he decides he likes eating again someday. He is drinking from a sippy cup really well and can drink himself from it. We are trying to nurse every 3 to 4 hours but easily go 5 or 6 hours sometimes if we aren't paying attention. We had kind of gotten so nursing was getting rough. My letdown has been a little slower and Austin has become pretty impatient with it. Then all of the sudden one day he just decided he was patient again and doesn't get angry or upset when he has to wait a little for my letdown. He just keeps sucking. So that has been nice.

About 10 days ago I moved Austin over to the kids room. I was going to wait until he was sleeping through the night but his sleeping alone has been so challenging I decided if I waiting till he was sleeping through the night, moving him might cause him to stop sleeping through the night, so I would have to teach him twice to sleep through the night. In the end I decided just moving him over and letting him learn to sleep through the night once was all I wanted to deal with. When I asked Jacob if he wanted Austin to sleep in his room Jacob said no because he didn't want Austin's crying to wake him up. Understandably...
But Austin has really done great with the transition! He has had to cry it out a couple of times but I'm pretty sure both kids fell asleep while Austin was still crying. So it all went pretty smoothly. He is going to bed at 8:30 and usually waking up twice a night, once between 11:30-12:30 and another between 4:30-5:30. When he does only wake up once he skips out on one of those two times and will very occasionally just sleep through the night. He is taking two naps a day. One around 11 and the other around 2.

10 Months

Austin is 10 months old, which means.... I almost have a 1 year old! It always hits me at 10 months that we are almost done with the first year. I think because he follows so close behind Ida I feel like he hits these mile stones so quickly. As soon as Ida gets out of a phase Austin is getting into it without a real break in between.  Austin has become pretty difficult to take pictures of... this photo session took a loooong time. As soon as you sit him down he starts rolling around and won't look at the camera. We did finally get one good picture though. :) With moving and the craziness we didn't make it to Austin's 9 month doctor appointment so we did it this month instead. He is 18 pounds 10 ounces and 28 1/2 inches tall. He is wearing size 3 diapers, size three shoes and 9 month clothes. He seems to have brown eyes which makes me so excited because he is the first of my kids to actually have an eye color by this age!

This past week or so Austin has hit a big mental developmental jump! He is so much more aware of what is going on around him and involving himself in what's going on. He has realized he has the ability to get reactions from what he does and if he notices that he is doing something that causes a reaction, like laughter, he will continue to do whatever he is doing. This stage is so fun because their personalities really start to peek through. Austin definitely likes company. He does not like being left in a room alone and if he discovers that everyone has left him he will immediately go on a search around the house until he finds someone. Sometimes I feel like he is more of a handful when I have him alone then when his siblings are around because his siblings entertain him and give him company and when they are gone the full responsibility falls on me. haha He loves to be played with and tries to involve himself anytime mom and dad are on the ground rolling around with the kids. He also loves being chased but instead of running away he tends to just run towards you. :)

Some fun things Austin is doing right now is clicking his tongue, clapping his hands, pointing with his finger at things and dancing. He has started sticking out his tongue to the left side of his mouth all the time! He also can do all the actions to pat-a-cake by himself and likes playing pick-a-boo. It's fun because in the car if he has a blanket he will cover and uncover his face with it and wants you to say "Where's Ausitn?" We can also start singing pat-a-cake in the car and it works as a great distraction! One of my favorite things Austin is doing right now is giving hugs when I ask for them. All I have to say is "Hugs Austin" and he will lean into my shoulder and lay his head down. It's the cutest! He has started pushing cars around all over the place and makes a cute vroom sound while he does it. :

Austin really likes to transfer objects from one place to another. Some example.... He will transfer all the food on his tray to the table and then back to his tray again while he is eating. Or he will dump out a box of toys or something and then transfer them all (one by one I might add) back into the box and then out again. It is really helpful when it's time to clean up the toys and he jumps right in putting all the toys in the box! He also seems to really like the TV... already... If it is on he zones in on it pretty intensely. He has done this for awhile now. I fear we might have another TV lover on our hands. He also likes using the table legs and chair legs around the table as a jungle gym. He crawls around and around under the table crawling over, under or around all the wrung of the chair and table legs. It's pretty funny. He is also getting a bit more adventurous at climbing things. He does not like however, not getting his way or anything being taken away from him and will throw a nice fit, rolling all over the floor, if either of these things happen. Again... Pretty funny to watch.

I think Austin might beat the rest of my kids with walking. Just a couple days ago he he stood up in the middle of the floor from sitting! And he has gotten really good at walking around when you are holding one of his hands. He also learned how to go down the stairs by himself.. One of my personal favorites, although he can't turn around at the top of the stairs yet so I still have to go rescue him and turn him around so he can go down. Very soon though he will have stairs mastered and I won't have to worry about them anymore!

Austin is still eating pretty well although he has started to become a little more picky with food. I'm hoping it's just a phase and he will be back to eating most foods soon. I have started giving him a sippy cup with water during meals and although I feel like it took him awhile, he can now drink from it pretty well although he still wont hold it by himself. Nursing is going pretty good. I've had a few phases here and there where my milk supply and let down have been a little low and slow so we have had some problems with that. But thankfully it has always bounced back. I feed him on demand but demand is becoming more like 3 to 4 hours apart with the occasional 2 hour.

Austin is still getting up 1 to 3 times a night although he has slept through the whole night 2 or 3 times! I feel like his sleeping has never really been consistent but I feel like us traveling so much affects that as well. He doesn't sleep the greatest when we travel and usually the first night is the hardest. Then when we get back we kind of have to figure things out again. I also feel like every couple weeks he tries to start waking up every couple hours again and we have to do another cry it out session. It's kind of frustrating. But we manage. He is going to bed between 8 and 9 and waking up between 7 and 8 and has officially gone down to 2 naps a day. All in all it's going pretty well. Sleeping will get there.

9 Months

Siblings!!!!

Austin is now 18 pounds 2 ounces and 27 inches tall. I think he weighs a little more than Jacob did but is shorter than Jacob was. He is wearing size 3 diapers and 6 month clothes. Seriously... This kid with his smile is the greatest! How can you not just love it! 

Austin has defiantly become more comfortable with the stairs and can now go up them without any problem! He has also started to become more adventurous and standing on his own! For a few seconds anyways... :) If he is standing next to the couch he will occasionally let go for a couple seconds or if he is holding something and I stand him in the middle of the floor he can stand for a few seconds. But he is starting to do it more often. He has also finally started to walk along the furniture. I don't know why but I feel like it took forever for him to start doing this. He likes to play with the cupboard doors and can now open and close them and finds it to be very entertaining. Surprisingly he doesn't play with the stuff inside the cupboards very often...

Austin loves to sit and look at books. All the time I walk in on him sitting on the floor with a couple books around him looking through the books. I think it's really cute! He also really likes being "chased" up the stairs and gets a kick out of it! He has also started getting really good at the walker and can pretty much maneuver it anywhere he likes. Although I'm trying not to put him in it as much because I feel like it is throwing off his walking because he always tries to lean way to far forward.

Austin got his second tooth this past month. His bottom left and now has both his front bottom teeth. He also started clapping his hands and clicking his tongue. He does not like it when you take anything away from him. And he has got a mean grip... I'm pretty sure this is because Ida tries to take things from him all the time and he has discovered his only way of keeping it is to not let go... ever... In a tug of war match between Austin and Ida, Austin wins 90% of the time. I have seen Ida drag him across the floor trying to get something from his and he will not let go. He also doesn't like swimming... We took him for the first time this past month and he clung to me the whole 2 hours we were there.  We at least got a small little smile out of him :)

Austin is pretty much eating all table foods now and is my best eater! Although he doesn't really like banana's and like the rest of my kids, veggies. He eats veggies better if they are whole and not mashed or pureed at all. Austin does not like wearing bibs though and it drives me crazy. He rips them off pretty quickly but I am very persistent. He has gotten better at keeping them on but still will eventually always rip them off. Nursing is going well. Our biggest struggle is distraction. And with two older siblings there are lots to be distracted with. I have started trying to nurse him right before he goes down for sleeping and right when he wakes up when we are alone to avoid distractions.

Since letting Austin cry it out sleeping has become so much better! He will sleep 6 to 7 hour stretches regularly and only gets up 1-2 times a night to nurse. So much better then what we were dealing with! I actually have more energy as well because I'm sleeping more! Crying it out was the best thing we could have done. It has helped his sleeping so much! And I don't typically like the method, but some kids it is the best option. He is going to bed between 8 and 9 and waking up between 7 and 8. He is taking two naps a day, although sometimes he struggles taking naps and takes really short ones so we'll have to do the occasional 3 naps a day. 

8 Months

This past month I have caught myself a lot watching Austin and thinking, "You shouldn't be doing that yet." In reality... I think Austin really should be doing all that he is doing, he just has grown up so fast that in my mind he should only be 5 months old still. I sometimes feel like I'm missing it all! Austin is now 17 lbs 6 ounces and 26 3/4 inches tall. He is right in the middle of Jacob and Ida for height. He is wearing 6 month clothes and size 3 diapers.

I feel like Austin's personality has started to come out. He really loves trying to involve himself when Dad is playing with Jacob or Ida. Especially rough housing. Austin really enjoys rough housing. There have been many times when I think Jacob is being to rough with Austin but he is just laughing and laughing and laughing so I just let him keep doing it. Ida has also started playing with Austin more as well and she can get him to laugh probably the best of anyone. I don't know what it is. But she knows how to get him laughing hard. It is so fun to watch! Austin really loves company. He does not like being left in any room by himself. He also likes being held and will crawl to mom or dad so we will pick him up. He does NOT like being in any kind of pain and he is a drama king. He is so full of drama. Way more than my other two. When he gets hurt you have to wait a minute or two to see if he's actually hurt or if he is just being dramatic. Because initially they both sound the same.

Austin started crawling a few days after turning 7 months and it took him about a week after that before he was crawling all over the house. You will often times see him one leg crawling. With one leg walking and the other crawling. He has also been getting better at the Moglie crawl on all fours. Also the week following him turning 7 months he learned to walk while holding onto someones hands, sit on his knees and walk forward in the walker. It was a really busy couple weeks for him then. Shortly after he learned how to pull himself up next to the furniture and stand in his  crib. Then about a week before turning 8 months he taught himself how to gracefully get down from standing. I was sitting next to him while he was playing next to his activity table when I noticed he kept getting down then standing back up over and over. He did it like 10 times in a row. He can now get down from standing without falling. He also got his first tooth about a week ago (bottom right)! So this month has been full of fun new learning things!

Austin has joined the rest of his siblings with screaming. His is probably the worst of all though. It is the definition of an ear splitting scream. High pitched and all. He does it when he is really really upset or really frustrated. Sometimes when he is playing with one of his toys he will just randomly let one out. Probably from frustration. Also when he is really upset he will start hitting and swinging his head around. You want to make sure you are out of the way. Some other things he's doing right now are chewing on his thumb when he is bored, slapping the table while he is eating and covering his eyes when you are trying to feed him. He randomly decided he likes baths now, with his siblings and all. But doesn't like getting his clothes changed or diaper changed. Sometimes if he is really upset it's like impossible to change his diaper. Other times he will sit nicely. So it really is just kind of hit and miss.

Austin had a first this month, moving to a new house. I feel like he adjusted normally. Pretty fussy the first couple weeks but have adjusted pretty well now. He likes being in his walker now and having a huge tile floor to walk all around now. He also still likes being in the jumper and I'll put him in there usually when I'm cooking dinner. He also still really likes being tickled. :) Austin first tried to venture out on the stairs a few weeks ago but I really don't think he likes them. He isn't very good at doing them and has fallen on the bottom one or two steps a couple times which I think has scared him of them. So he pretty much avoids them for the most part, but every once in awhile will try them out again and go up a step or two. He also is starting to learn how to walk along the furniture although I don't think he realizes he is doing it when he does it.

Once we got moved out here to Springville I started eating everything I had cut from my diet and Austin seems to be doing great with it. I also really started him on food but pretty much went straight into table foods. Besides the fact that I don't really like purees at all, neither does Austin. And he really struggles to eat them. He just can't figure it out. haha.
It is actually quite funny to watch him try. He does really really well with regular food and likes them much more. So that's what we do. Or I'll dice up fruits and veggies for him. He will hardly eat anything that's been pureed but will eat pretty much anything if it is diced or mashed. So that is what we do. He can also self feed and we break up food for him to feed himself. But beware. He will not eat anything that he doesn't like and if you try to feed him something he doesn't like he will quickly and suddenly hit the spoon with his hands so before he even know what happened the spoon and food are all over the wall and floor. He will take the feeder with purees in it so I will sometimes bring that with me for something easy. I just have to feed it to him like I'm giving him a bottle. :) He pretty much nurses just whenever he wants to. So anywhere from a hour and a half to 3 hours.

Austin's sleeping has pretty much been the struggle of our whole life. After getting to Springville I also decided I really had to get his sleeping better. 8 months is just about 3 to 4 months to long fore me to be getting up every 1 to 2 hours with him every single night. So I really focused on not letting him eat unless it had been 4 hours. Sometimes if he woke up I'd just let him cry himself back to sleep. Other times I would go in and try to pat his stomach. But let me tell you. Trying to teach an 8 month old to go to sleep on their own is hard. Trying to teach an 8 month old to go to sleep on their own who can stand up in their crib is nearly impossible. So after he started standing up I would go in and
 hold him down so he couldn't roll over to get up and stroke his head. The good news is it only took a few days for him to stop waking up every hour till 1 or 2 in the morning. The bad news is he pretty much stopped going to sleep at all unless I nursing him. The day after he turned 8 months old I was I was so frustrated and so over it all. I sat next to his crib where he couldn't see him and watched him stand up. I then watched him get down on his own and that's when I decided it was time that I just left him in there to scream and I went to the computer and pulled up "Crying it out". As I read and researched how to let your baby cry it out Austin lay in the other room screaming. He cried for 25 minutes before he went to sleep. Not bad. For once I felt like Austin was following the same pattern that most babies follow. The second night was not so easy. I was not frustrated and Austin was super happy and smiley. When I lay him down he started screaming. I was so sad to make his sad after being so happy. The screaming continued for 40 minutes. It. Was. The. Worst! I was so sad! Most cry it out methods say 3 days. 3 days for the baby to figure it out. On the third day I didn't want to lay him down. I didn't want to know that he was up in his room screaming. But! He only cried, not screamed, for 3 minutes, fussed off and on for another 7. Then was asleep. I was so HAPPY!!!!! Now for the first time in his life I feel like he is on some kind of regular pattern for sleeping! He has been going to bed between 8:30 and 10. Getting up to eat at 2 and 5. Then getting up for the day between 7:30 and 8:30. I am finally getting more then a two hour stretch of sleep and it feels great! And he is finally getting more than a two hour stretch which is great for him! He will go anywhere from 4 to 6 hours. I just really hope it sticks. I think it will. Especially if we are firm. I know find him all over the crib when I check on him and in all different kinds of positions. He still isn't overly attached to his pacifier at night and will often go to sleep without it.

Sibling Love