My Little Gymnast

Okay, so I know that babies are supposed to be flexible but Hunter gets himself into positions that I'm like, "AHH, don't break anything!" He has quite an arsenal of acrobatic moves... for instance...

The Headstand: He does this ALL of the time. It's one of his signature moves now... Oh, the pic on the trampoline is actually his first time on the tramp (on July 19)... he absolutely LOVED it - as demonstrated with the headstand... :)

The Middle Splits: Even when I danced in high school, I could barely do it that good!

The Lookie Loo: Pretty good camera shot, eh? Mommy's getting better at this stuff! :P

Teeth Pics

Everyone kept asking where the pictures of his teeth were... well, here they are! This first picture is of his first tooth. It was just barely coming in when we took this, so you have to look REALLY closely. The tooth is the little white shiny blur on the bottom of his mouth...

But there's no mistaking where his teeth are in this picture! So cute!!!

And here are a couple of pictures of his first tooth brushing! Gotta keep those new teeth clean!

A Lengthy Update

Hunter is doing lots of new stuff, so I thought I better document all of it before I forget...

I mentioned that he was army crawling in a post about a month or so ago. Well, a few days after I made that post, he decided that army crawling was for wimps and upgraded to the real thing. So for the past month he's been cruising around the house; improving his crawling skills and getting FASTER. He is now to the point where when he is on his way to play with something that he shouldn't be playing with, if I say "Hunter Nielson!" he will totally book it towards the forbidden item as fast as he can!

He's also figured out how to pull himself up onto things in the last week or so. He's still trying to figure out the whole balance thing, so he's ended up with quite a few bumps and bruises. I hope that people realize that he's in the stage where he's going to fall down a lot and get bruises and that I'm not beating him or something... I blame gravity!

He's been jabbering a lot more lately. It seems like he knows what he is saying and we just can't understand him. He is also getting better at recognizing things by name - like he knows what "light" is and when I ask where the light is, he'll look up and sometimes point or wave at it. That may be because for the past few months, I have been letting him flip the light switch on and off, so I'm sure he's heard the word "light" more than anyone ever wants to... :P

Also, he's been "singing" right after he wakes up in the morning for months now. He apparently is so happy to be awake and he lets everyone in ear shot know it! He says, "da da da da" and then makes a fart noise and then screams a little and then a little more "da da da" and "ba ba ba" and then an elephant noise... and well, you get the point. It goes on for about 20 minutes and then he realizes that he's hungry and starts whining. It's very entertaining. Oh, and if you're wondering why I haven't mentioned this before, it's because I realized that I hadn't yet and so I figured better late than never!

He also does this lizard tongue thing. It is so funny! Here's a video of my little lizard... make sure you watch it with sound! :D

The "Toot" Master

Last night when I went to put a little blankey on Hunter while he was sleeping, he decided that he wanted to give mommy a surprise. As I put the blanket on him, he let out a big ol' toot while he was sleeping! I hadn't even gotten the blanket on him correctly yet but I had to run out of the room before I bust out laughing - which would've woken him up. I ended up going back in after I composed myself and situated the blanket right but I almost bust up laughing again...

Well, I thought that was pretty funny but I had NO idea what he had in store for me today! He has been tooting all day long! And the most hilarious thing about it is that he recognizes what he is doing and smiles after he does it - and even laughs! As disgusting as that is, I think it's funny and kinda cute... :P

Teething

I have been so busy the last few weeks that I haven't updated this for a while. So, I will do my best to post all of Hunter's recent developments in the next few days...

Okay, so a few weeks ago, I posted that Hunter sprouted his first tooth. Well, on June 28th, I noticed that he had one of his front teeth coming in... and then the next day I noticed that he had his OTHER front tooth coming in! Well, the next night, we had a rough night. Hunter's nose was stuffing up from the teething experience, so he kept waking up and crying because he couldn't breathe. So, we both didn't get much sleep... and then the next day, he was SO awnry... chewing on everything, crying, whining, etc. I wondered to myself, "What happened to my little boy?"

Well, I would love to say it got better after that... but it didn't. We noticed a couple of days later that he had ANOTHER tooth coming in on the bottom! THREE teeth, all at once! So, it was definitely a treat for mommy - sudden awakenings in the night, 102.5 degree fever, diarrhea - accompanied by bad diaper rashes, whining, screaming, crying, biting... UGH...

Everyone kept swearing by these teething tablet things - family, friends, even the doctor - so I thought I would try them out. They seemed to be working and it made me feel better that they were "100% natural," so I didn't have any reservations giving them to him... until Josh's dad read the ingredients in them. He said, "Uh, these have Chamomilla and Coffea Cruda in them - they use Chamomilla to make tea and Coffea Cruda to make Coffee... so you are basically giving Hunter tea, coffee and caffeine..." I was like HOLY CRAP! I am so adament that people not feed him any weird foods and here I am giving him THIS stuff! Well, after thinking about it and talking to Josh about it, we decided that it wasn't THAT bad to give him those tablets. They are so tiny and it's not like we are directly feeding him coffee and tea, so we figure that if they work, we are okay with giving them to him.

Finally, a few days ago, all of the teeth broke through and aren't bothering him anymore. He is now the happy boy that I remember! Babbling, laughing, smiling & screaming (happily)! It is definitely a relief to have my little boy "back" but I keep reminding myself that he has a ton more teeth left to sprout... only to have them fall out years later and start all over again... Well, I'll enjoy my happy boy while I can! :P