9 months

Playing in the crib.

 Lincoln is already 9 months old! Let me tell you a little bit about him: He has become quite a fantastic crawler. 2 months ago I thought he would never crawl. He hated being on his tummy and wouldn't even roll over to get onto his back. At 8 months he started to get up on all fours and by the end of May he was going slow, but getting around. Now he's a pro. He's turned into a little explorer as he goes from room to room in the house and checks things out. He pulls himself up on everything he can, and he is also confidant enough to sit back down and move to the next thing. That skill took a week or so to figure out as well. He gets into anything interesting he can find. But luckily he hasn't figured out how to open cabinet doors yet, so he mostly just plays with whatever I leave out for him on the floor to discover.

Loved the swing. Wasn't scared for even a second.

Lincoln loves to pull down all those DVD's and books on our shelf. He also loves to pull himself up on the TV stand a push all the buttons on the sound system. He doesn't know he's pushing them but he will turn the sound on and of several times while we are trying to watch something. It's funny...and also annoying. But mostly funny. :)

Lincoln totally hated the baby pool I got for him and Sean. Sean put his feet in the water while it was cold and he freaked out and would scream every time we brought him near it afterwards. Sean even got warm water in there and he still freaked when we put him in there. haha.

Lately Lincoln hates everything I do to keep him clean. He hates having his face wiped. He won't let me brush his teeth. He spits out fluoride vitamins. He screams when i get him dressed. But the worst of it is that he now hates having his diaper changed. As soon as I lay him down on the bed he starts crying and tries to make a run for it. Usually before I can even get the diaper off he is already trying to roll over and crawl away from me across the bed. Getting a fresh diaper back on is also a nightmare. I have to pin him down just to get it on especially because cloth diapers take just a little extra coordination, but I am determined not to waste my precious disposables just because he is going thorugh this little stubborn phase. Now that I expect him to run away it's not a big deal unless he has pooped. Just know it gets messy. And I wanna go crazy. :)

Here's a pic of him on the run across our bed. No diaper.

Fresh from the bath.

Lincoln still loves his baby food, and he loves his milky. As far as nursing goes I don't really see him quitting anytime relatively soon.  This past week I even made some baby food for him and it was the easiest thing ever. All I did was throw the fruits of veggies in the blender, puree them, and then you stick them in ice cube trays for a few hours. After they are frozen you take them out of the trays and put them in freezer bags and then just warm them up when you're ready to eat them. He's started to learn how to eat food he can chew. So far he loves cheese and small chunks of fruit. His top two teeth just barely cut through his gums, so I think he'll be getting better at feeding himself soon.

Kitchen utensils make wonderful toys. :)

Fathers Day

             

Sean's first fathers day was wonderful! We started off with a yummy breakfast before church and ended with making cookies at 10:30 at night. In between we went up to Highland to celerate with my dad and Nate and McKayla. Sean requested to have a BBQ with all the fixin's and so we did! He made the burgers and they were super good!! It was a delicious meal.

As a gift I got Sean new swim trunks and a baby pool for him and Lincoln to play in this summer. Random fact about Sean: when it comes to giving and receiving gifts he has the patience level of about -5. I always get my gifts early, and now his anxiousness has rubbed off on me and I can't seem to wait to give him gifts until the day of the event either. But, for the last 4 days I had self control and he opened his gift at dinner! I did, however, make the mistake of telling him yesterday morning that I got him a gift and he begged me to tell him what it was for like 10 minutes. Then he wanted to play 20 questions to try to figure out what it was going to be. haha. I answered 2 questions and then decided he couldn't ask anymore cuz he would probably figure it out.  More often than we realize our conversations sound like two little kids bargaining with one another. Weird...I know.

Anyways, Happy Fathers Day, Seany! We love you! :)

Crawling Photos

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

1. The good: Lincoln officially started crawling on the night of the 31st, and yesterday morning he started off the day crawling around and having a great time. He is also already getting into mischief, and I need to start baby proofing everything asap.

2. The bad: Lincoln has started biting me while nursing. The first few times he did it I yelped in pain and firmly told him 'NO BITING'. He cried. So I did a little reading and decided that next time I would be watching him very closely and as soon as he started to bite down I would stick my finger in his mouth and force him to unlatch. He also cried like I had terribly hurt his feelings. haha. Is he just mad because he's getting caught? I don't know. I just hope he makes it through this phase quickly.

3. The ugly: Lincoln has never been a good sleeper. He had made significant progress sleeping through the night until he started teething. For at least a month he has been waking up every 3 to 4 hours every night. This week has gotten even worse because he also won't take his naps during the day without going down with a serious fight. Last night was bad. He woke up, I fed him, but then he didn't fall back asleep and just progressively became more alert. I was exhausted trying to rock him in the rocking chair, pat his back, etc to help him relax, but nothing was working. I layed him down in the crib for a few minutes to take a break and of course he starts crying etc. I let him cry for a few minutes until I worked up the patience to go back in and deal with him. By this point almost an hour had passed and Sean had woken up as well. I went back in the room and layed Lincoln on the bed to change his diaper at which point I start to tell him that it is the middle of the night and he needs to go back to sleep. I proceeded saying that he was driving me crazy and that I might lose my mind and then eventually my hair and teeth will all fall out. We sat back in the rocking chair and finally he dozed off. Sean heard the whole thing and has not stopped making fun of me for it since we woke up. I guess the hair and teeth thing were a little much. haha. But that's what happens to me in the middle of the night. I pretty much go crazy.

4. The silver lining: When Lincoln woke up again I brought him to bed with us... we both fell asleep again and then he woke up first. He climbed up on me and gave my cheek the most slobbery 'kiss' it's ever seen. Sean happened to see the whole thing in action... I was half asleep and just remember a lot of spit. I'm not sure if Lincoln was trying to show affection or not, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he does really love me afterall. :)