Houston’s second tooth popped through his bottom gum on January 4. He is handling the whole teething thing pretty well. The pain seems to affect him on occason in the evenings just before bed, but a dab of Baby Anbesol and a little love from Mommy quells the tears. He’s not quite sure what is happening in his mouth, but he certainly loves to rub the new foreign objects with his tongue.
Stephen and I are teaching Houston baby sign language. We officially began the process at about six months, when babies’ memories really start to take hold, although I have been showing him the “milk” sign for many months now. I figured it couldn’t harm … and it hasn’t. He has been recognizing the sign when I do it for a while, cooing and kicking his feet in sweet anticipation of Mommy’s yummy nectar. Well, during the last week of January, he started doing the “milk” sign both before and during his nursing sessions, as well as when I feed him solids. So, he hasn’t obviously grasped the “eat” sign yet (which we do when he’s being fed in his high chair), but he does at least understand the concept of his hunger being satiated. Pretty cool, huh?!

I’ve been trying to tweak his sleep patterns a bit, getting him to bed later (around 7 p.m.), so that he won’t be waking at the crack of dawn (now 7 a.m., instead of 6 a.m.) It took a couple of weeks — and his teething, which would sometimes wake him in the middle of the night, didn’t help — but we seem to finally be getting a more sane schedule down. As the world’s grumpiest morning person, which most of y’all can attest to, this makes me extremely happy!
Some other things we are working on:
*Getting Houston more comfortable around other kids when Mommy’s not around. The proving ground for this has been the nursery at church and last Sunday was his best effort to date. He was tear-free for the entire service, minus the last five minutes. I think the fact that there was a man working in the nursery that day helped ’cause he tends to be more comfortable around men than women. I don’t know if that’s ’cause most females usually smother him or if he has a better sense of security around males or what.
*Getting Houston used to entertaining himself in his playpen. Once he can get up on his knees, sit better by himself and pull himself up to a standing position, I’m sure he’ll think his playpen isn’t near as boring.

*Getting Houston to a point where he can sit by himself for longer periods of time. His current record is about three minutes, but he still tumbles over a lot, usually when he’s reaching for a toy.
Houston has also started playing ball with Mommy and Daddy. He’s a champ at catching the ball when we roll or throw it to him, but he hasn’t yet returned the ball. Peek-a-boo is still a favorite game. Pulling the burp cloth covering his face or Mommy’s face off always excites him, as does Mommy peeking out from behind the fridge or laundry door. It never is a dull time!
Lastly, my boy is growing into a monster. He’s popping out of most of his 12-month size clothing and he’s not even 8 months old yet. He will be towering over Stephen and me before we know it!
You can now view photos from the second half of January and some recent February shots in gallery.
With Granny and Grumps visiting to help with Houston, we hope to wrap up the laminate installation this weekend. We will be doing the bedroom and we won’t be able to sleep in our bed during the process, so it’s gonna stink, but we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.