Holy Guacamole

Alex waved to me for the first time today as I left for work... I have been trying to get him to do it for a very long time, and it was adorable.  Also, I let him feed himself some avocado (guacamole pieces) at dinner.  He loves avocado!

Alex

Alex went swimming for the first time two weekends ago.  The pool was 92 degrees, so naturally, he enjoyed himself.  It was at Aunt Nina & Uncle Andy's pool.  He got tired of the water after about 15 minutes, so we had to take him out & bathe him.  A few days ago he was screaming & screaming when we put him down to sleep and we couldn't figure out why.  I went in for a third time to see what was wrong & took his pacifier out of his mouth.  It had blood on it.  After more than 2 months, his next two teeth (the top two, the bottom two are already in) are on their way in for real.  Yesterday, he met Ayugi & Jennie.  He ate jello for the first time.  I also gave him some pudding.  He hasn't been taking his second nap much.  He still doesn't wave at will, which worries us, since the doctor said he should be doing that by now.  He did wave with both hands a few times on the day we had Brian's birthday dinner (the 29th).  Tomorrow will be his first 4th of July.  I think he'll like the sparklers we're going to show him with Renee.  More about that later.  I need to buy birthday invitations and start filling them out to invite people to our gross, dirty house.  

Stands alone

We put Alex down for a nap this afternoon and I kept hearing this clicking sound from the other room, so sent Chris to check on him.  Chris says, "he's standing up!"  I said, "what??"  He had been pulling himself up on stuff recently but never in his crib.  He was playing with the dial on his mobile, which was the clicking sound I had heard.  I took pictures.

Octopus on wheels

Alex had his most recent well check on this past Tuesday and all is well.  He is 18.5 pounds, a little on the small side I guess, but the doctor said it's normal because he is so active - finally, justification for me feeling so worn out all the time!  We're not close with any other people Alex's age so sometimes I have nothing else to compare him to & don't realize this kind of stuff!

MAJOR milestone

Alex crawled (FORWARD!!!) for the first time today!!!  

A tooth is born

Alex has been fussy for what seems like forever, but the last 2-3 weeks have been extra trying... he was very fussy this past week, and today after his fourthmeal, I gave him a mesh feeder with some chopped up apples in it.  He was chew, chew, chewing away and finally got tired of it, so I stuck my finger in his mouth to see if anything had changed, and lo and behold, my finger was met with a sharp little tooth!  It's barely showing but there's no doubt that it has erupted! I don't know why, but it made me really excited. 

Yikes!

Today Alex fed himself 3 oz of bottle while doing hip thrusts and grunting.  It was pretty funny... and it's the first time that he's really truly fed himself.  He also stayed occupied doing this for a very long time - probably at least 10 minutes - a long time for him to be rolling around on the bed entertaining himself without fussing.  He is also getting pretty good at crawling, although it's backwards most of the time.  He can move a few feet now going backwards.  I put his binky out of his reach just slightly and he got up on his hands and knees trying to get at it.  As soon as he almost touched it, he would start crawling backward.  He can't figure out the forward thing yet; for right now he's stuck in reverse.