19 weeks old....

First of all, happy 19 weeks little guy. Second of all, I apologize for the delayed update. I would like all of my lovely followers to know that they are going to have a full week of many updates from me though :) We were in Kansas over the holidays, & spent 11 awesome days there. I have lots of wonderful to share. We had our 4 month checkup quite a while back, everything is still okay from the immunizations, glad that is over with for now at least. 

Health: Little man is doing awesome. He is in the 25-50% for all categories. He is growing so fast & changing each & everyday. He still hasn't been sick yet, I'm praying to get through the flu season. My friend was in the hospital for a dislocated shoulder, so I had to go into a hospital with Matthew, ended up sitting outside after I saw all the people with masks on from having the flu. Lots of drooling, teething has begun officially. I notice a lot of flakes in his ears, even after he gets bathed? I'm thinking its possibly shampoo that got in there, or dry skin? I don't want to shove anything in there to get it out, recommendations welcome!!
Weight: 15.2 pounds

Length: 25 inches
Hair: Blonde, darker at the tips, lighter at the roots!!
Eyes: Blue

Social: Matthew is a social butterfly. Cooing, screaming, the whole ordeal. I love secretly listening to him. He loves being scared, like, when we say BOO, or hit around his mobile. He really likes feeling wind of his face, blowing on his face, or blowing a blanket on him. Some times the things he says look like he is asking a question, concerned, angry. It's great that he already has so many facial expressions. He must know exactly what he is trying to tell us!! 

I only ended up getting to 10 days of Christmas, I had two more outfits, making it a total of 17 Christmas outfits for him :) I went a little overboard. I absolutely love the holidays. I guess once we got to Kansas I had so much to do there that I didn't have time to buy more outfits & take more pictures ha. It was fun doing it this far though. You can tell Matthew was getting a little tired of the pictures after a while. 

Sleep: Matthew has still been doing great!! I can't believe I'm still saying this, its been like 4 months of 8-12 hour nights. I'm loving it. The update that says "18 weeks old" has a little advice on how we get that many hours of sleep with him, hopefully it will help any of you mommies who aren't getting good sleep & having little night owls. We do have a little snorer though. Does anyone know if that's a bad thing? He does it a lot. For Atlanta's Young Faces we had to send in 10-20 photos for them to pick one, & then we make 10 copies of it. You don't have to have professional pictures done when they are so young, because they need you to update the picture every month & that would get pricey. But this is the photo they chose for me to send :)

Toys: Matthew is grabbing for toys now, loving the sound the most still. But EVERYTHING is going into his mouth. It goes straight in the mouth once, & then falls out of his hand on to the floor most likely, depending on where we have him at. Don't let this picture fool you too much, he normally screams when we put him in the car seat now, if its during the day he will keep it up for a while, but at night he does a little better. 

Clothing: He is wearing 6 months now, 3 months have officially become too small. The hardest part is getting the smaller clothes over his collarbone area, like his shoulders are wide I think. It's not so bad in the tummy, leg regain. He fits nicely into 9 months as well, just depending on the brand I guess. He wears a lot of carters, & gap. With a few random name brands like Polo, Hurley so on. My favorite are the sleepers that zip, & long sleeve onsies, all the buttons, & extra clothing sure does become a pain after a while. He is wearing size 4 diapers. The size 3 are a little tight, but probably fit "just right", but I've heard from a lot of people that putting them in a size up helps them sleep longer, & have less blow outs, & since he sleeps 12 hours at night at the most, & never has blow outs, i'm going to stick with that advice :)

BEFORE I HAVE ANY MOMMIES GET MAD AT ME THIS HAS NOTHING IN IT :) But how funny is this, that my sister would hand him this & he would hold it up perfectly when he hasn't even learned how to hold his own bottle yet. Maybe because it was so light? I was cracking up. Early signs of alcoholism, lets hope not, kidding :) 

Matthew loves standing up, sitting up, anything unless its laying flat on his back. I have a feeling this child is going to be walking extremely fast. I'm calling 8 months right now!! That's when my mom walked!!

Nutrition: So after our lousy experience with rice cereal, at least feeding it with a spoon. I decided to break my baby bullet out & make something. I was reading through the pamphlet  & also reading through the sheet our pediatrician gave me. The pediatrician sheet said "four months veggies", "5 months fruits", & "6 months-on meat". The baby bullet listed 10 or so different foods that were the "safest first foods to try". Which included fruits & veggies at 4 months. I've heard before that giving them fruits before veggies will spoil their taste buds & make them dislike veggies, but the only thing I had in the house the day after we got home from the doctor's was bananas that were on the safe list so I decided to give him bananas as his first solid food. We tried the cereal on the spoon the first day=didn't work, so the next day I gave him bananas lol & it was success. He had a hard time keeping it in his mouth, but he was really trying compared to the cereal. He was "mhmming" & using his tongue & fingers to keep it in, & no crying. We are giving him 4 ounces of Gerber Good Start Gentle Formula with 5 spoon fulls of Gerber Single Grain Rice every 2 hours or so. & Now feeding him like 1/4 a cup or more of food. 

Nutrition continued.... After four days of bananas, he became a pro at the spoon. No longer spitting it out unintentionally. He actually began feeding him self. He gets so excited for the food that he starts to scream for more & grab the spoon from me & shove it into his mouth. Every single time the spoon gets near his face he grabs it like it's the bottle & tries to take it like i'm not feeding him fast enough & he is starving. Next we gave him apples. So with the bananas it was just a "hmmm yummy" face, but with the apples, as soon as they hit his mouth he goes "eh eh eh" over & over again. & then pushing it out with his tongue. It was hillarious to watch. After about 10 minutes of doing this, he got used to the texture & started begging for more. Just so everyone knows, when you make your own baby food & put it into the fridge, pretty much all of it turns brown!! Don't leave your baby unattended on the table in a bumbo lol, I was watching him the whole time & we were on vacay.

More Nutrition: & for the last food of the week we tried pears, which ended up being his favorite so far. He really made smiles & giggles with them. I would also suggest using rubber spoons, I bought the Oneida kids brand & they were too rough on his little gums right now. I got this highchair from Target. I wasn't feeling the standing ones, taking up a ton of room, & not able to fit or take them anywhere, annoying. So I got him one that just sits on a chair, & it reclines to a full laying back position which is nice. So after two weeks of food, he is a spoon pro, it defiantly didn't take long at all. Plus the food is really helping him keep his formula down!! 

Doing great with the head support. I put him on the nap nanny to help him out at tummy time & it has really helped him when we put him on the floor. Just giving him a little support with pillow, & nap nanny, so on really gives them a chance to actually like tummy time. 

Weekly Baby Topic

- Please go to "YouTube" & type in "Twins dancing to dad's guitar". It is the cutest video I have ever seen. Too little twin girls smiling & giggling & swaying back & forth at their daddies song that he wrote for them. They are like 9 months old or maybe a little older I can't remember. & Also if you haven't seen the "baby yoga" video I would look that up too. I would NEVER do that with my child. I can't believe people actually think that is good for them, you can even hear a baby crying in the video.  & one more, type in "Talking Twin Babies", it is absolutely adorable. This is exactly what I am talking about when I say Matthew has his expressions & knows exactly what he is saying.