Miss a month…and you miss A LOT!

Porter hanging on the deck (day after I returned from CA)

Our Little Centerfold

JACKPOT!  Rollin' in the toys :)

Little Miss Taylor Grace Kriegel about 1 month old

Grandpa and Porter - January 1st - 2010

This month has been very crazy for me, starting off with a week in California with my Mom and Sisters, catching up around home and this past weekend a visit back to Delhi and Cedar Rapids to meet my friend Gretchen's newest beauty and Mom's birthday and to quickly see a few friends and family….so I haven't updated in over a month, sorry!
So….In the meantime – Porter keeps growing and changing so fast, we cannot even believe my eyes and ears!
BIG Notables:

• He has now gone more than a month sleeping through the night!!! I can't tell you how much of a difference this makes for our quality of life! Thank you ear tubes =)
• Has 4 new teeth coming in on the top making the grand total 6 Teeth!
  
• While I was in California, his Dad worked on letting him cry it out at bedtime and since then, we are pretty much able to lay him down a week and let him fall asleep in his bed at bed time. He occasionally cries for 5 minutes or less, but is doing wonderful!
  
• He is pulling himself up (as long as what he is using to do so can support him) and seems to prefer playing standing to anything else
  
• Porter has always liked music, but it is becoming apparent his favorite things are those that incorporate music. A piano, xylophone and bongo drums among his favorites
  
• He is now saying Ma-Ma, Ni-Ni, Bye-Bye in addition to his favorite….Da-DaJ
  
• In the past week or so, he has picked up a little shyness every once in a while, I don't know where he gets that ?!?!
  
• He may not say a lot yet, but he is very capable of letting you know what he wants and what he doesn't want. I think we are in for some battles of the will
  
• Been trying table food in the past few weeks and he seems to like it and handle it well. Eating has never been an issue with the little guy. His favorite has been cottage cheese so far!
  
• Is scooting backwards, but mostly rolling around as his main mode of transportation
  

In general – Porter is just a sweet little guy these days who lights up a room with his little toothy grin and wonderful giggle. He loves other kids and people in general. He is a big show-off!

 We celebrated his 9 month milestone last Wednesday on the same day as what would have been my Dad's 70^th Birthday. Celebrating Porter was another way to celebrate Dad – I only wish we got to celebrate with him in person! 

Happy Birthday Grandpa, we miss you so much!

Porter had his 9 month appointment and he is no longer off the charts, but safely in the 90^th percentile range for weight, height and cranium measurements!
 

SO Big!

As I said in my last post, Porter and I started waterbabies on Monday night at the Y.  It was so fun!  I am surprised how layed back and relaxed he is in the water - he really likes it.  On his back, on his tummy - whatever - he is comfortable and so far trusts me completely ;) Chasing rubber ducks in the pool helped me see how far he has come with hand eye coordination!  Pretty impressive, though I may be just a little biased!

What is new with P this week?

• holding is bottle consistently....thank gosh - lazy bones ;)
• still sleeping through the night (crossed fingers)
• is now quite a little show-off!
• has eaten an animal cracker, a few biter biscuits and some puffed corn finger food (and loves them all!)
• learned SO BIG at the sitters yesterday

It seems that Ollie has determined that Porter is an official member of the pack!  I had him on his belly and Ollie layed down right up against him like he does us ;)  No - I did not pose them for this picture!

8 months TODAY!!!

We are now going on over a week of a happier little guy and sleep filled nights for all! We are not wanting to jinx ourselves because it is really great! We are really enjoying it and starting to think life might start to return to some healthier version of our new "normal" – both physically and mentally!

We had a busy week last week and a busy weekend with a Poker Party for Steve and me, on Friday and the Price Family Reunion on Saturday in the Quad Cities. It was a nice time and had the chance to see a lot of my Mom's family, and my Mom doing SO well after her hip surgery! It was pretty hot outside but we still spent a little time outside and even got in a little volleyball. It was a lot of fun, but a long day since we drove home that night.

Porter's been probably mostly capable, but really lazy about holding his own bottle for a while now. Toward the end of last week his Dad started working on this with him and as I said – he is capable….just lazy! We pretty much can get him to do it with a little prodding.

He was being pretty grumpy later in the day yesterday, which I thought was weird until I saw 2 HUGE choppers that were peaking out…his top teeth are coming in. They really do look huge, we are wondering if we are going to have a Bucky Beaver on our hands in a few more weeks ;)

Tonight, Porter and I are going to our 1^st Aquababies class at the YMCA. I am looking forward to it. The few times we have had him in a pool, he seemed like he was really going to like it – this should be a good test!

Ear Tubes....Magic?

The week went ok after the tubes surgery. Porter seemed to be doing pretty well, but still was trying to pull out of that nasty respiratory thing he has been fighting. But as the week got toward the end, we started seeing some signs that he wasn’t feeling perfect, until finally Friday afternoon I got the call from the sitter and he was running a pretty good temp.

We spend the afternoon/early evening at Urgent Care. This is always unpleasant, but made more unpleasant by the fact that I couldn’t get anyone to get his records from his Dr. (whom they share a company and a building with). They didn’t seem to think it important, but with his history and my lack of attention to detail – I was thinking they could benefit from a written history under the circumstances! Porter had some major infection (per his temp and white blood cell count), probably one of his ears since it looked quite enflamed…but they weren’t sure that was causing it and he has thrush. Bummer!

He had the magical series or 3 sets of 2 antibiotics shots over the weekend and has seemed good as new….we are crossing our fingers! He deserves some time being WELL, finally!

Unfortunately because of all these lovely trips needed to the Dr. over the weekend, we had to skip our trip to Cedar Rapids to celebrate Ben, Ryan and Leah’s birthdays :( With any luck we will get to see the family this coming weekend at the Price Family Reunion in the Quad Cities!


Notable Porter “news”


• He has really started waving bye-bye pretty consistently


• He has become fond of slapping his head with his and with either 1 or both hands at a time…not the most intelligent look ;)


• Porter loves to shake his head! He may or may not know what it means, but it sure tickles him


• Since he has been sick again over these past few weeks, we have been leaving him un-swaddled and it seems like he kind or just weaned himself


• I don’t want to jinx us, but since he has felt better over the weekend – he has been consistently sleeping through the night…we really hope this continues!!!!


• He loves to mimic everything…such a little sponge!


• He really LOVES his puppies! He loves to watch them and “pet” them. They are very good sports.