Houston’s 1st Christmas

Houston & Meredith on Christmas Day 2007.

Houston had a nice first Christmas up in Virginia at Gramsey and Papa’s house. Much like Thanksgiving, things started off a bit rough (i.e., his sleeping patterns were all out of whack), but got progressively better as the days passed. The whole family, though, is pretty darn burned out on traveling. Packing took me an entire day and a half for a five-day, four-night trip. Ridiculous! So if you happen to have a yearning to see Houston (or Stephen and me), you bes’ be trekking our way ’cause we’re doing the homebody thing for at least a good long while.

Houston opening Christmas presents with Granny and Grumps on New Year's Eve 2007.

Granny and Grumps came to get their Houston fill on New Year’s Eve. They spent a couple nights with us, showering Houston with love and many gifts from the family, ringing in 2008 with Stephen and me, helping us tend to Houston, and giving me the opportunity to sleep in a bit. Click here to see all the December pics.

Granny feeding Houston Cheerios on New Year's Day 2008.

Houston has been eating finger foods (or at least attempting to) since he got the okay from his pediatrician at his six-month appointment on December 28, and he has also moved on to stage-two foods. So far, his finger foods have included rice-rusk treats, sweet potato and peach puffs, Cheerios, toast and banana, while his new pureed foods have included yogurt, berries, corn, peach cobbler, guava, spinach and other yummy stuff. Houston has really taken to eating any and all pureed foods without any hesitation. He also likes the finger foods, but cannot yet put them into his mouth himself. He’s great about letting me do it, but I think the process of getting actual food down his throat and into his belly becomes a little tedious after a few minutes, and his bear-like grunts let me know to move on to another more efficient food item. As of his last appointment, Houston weighed just over 18 pounds, he was 28 1/4″ long and his head was 18″ around. He is in the 95 percentile for length and the 75 percentile for weight. Yep, he is one long and skinny little man. Knowing that, as well as the fact that he has grown 7 1/4″ in six months (more than an inch a month … yowzee!), I have been trying diligently to get his food intake to a healthy level, upping both his solids and breastfeeding. It’s seriously a full-time job just feeding that boy! Plus, the more satisfied he is food-wise, the better he sleeps at night. His sleeping had really never been a problem until recently when he awakened in the middle of a few nights seemingly famished. We nipped that in the bud asap. Click here to see the few January photos thus far.

P.S. We are taking our Mac into the shop to get some work done on it, so this may be the last blog entry for a while.

Tis’ the Season

Houston donning his political onesie!

The political  season, that is. Yes, Houston is our little politico, thanks to the awesome onesie given to him by Ashley Bahen.
Well, our boy still has the sniffles a bit, but his cold is much better. I just keep the cool-mist humidifier going in his nursery pretty much non-stop and make sure his nostrils are kept as unclogged as possible, so he’s surviving the fall/winter weather fine thus far. He’s been eating solids twice a day since my last blog about it (turns out my pediatrician said I was doing it right!) and we’ve also added in both fruit and juice once a day. In fact, he successfully ate his first pureed turkey yesterday; he had tried it a few days before, but totally hated it (the cats liked it, though). All the November photos are now available in gallery.
Other big news is that Stephen and I were recruited to play Mary and Joseph in our church’s Christmas play. No, Houston will not be playing baby Jesus ’cause the guy who’s in charge of the production doesn’t want to deal with the possible stress that that would entail. Going to play practice on Monday nights throws Houston off of his sleep schedule for the next day, but he has been a trooper. Plus, it will have been worth the hassle when mommy and daddy win their Oscars!
And the last bit of news if that we’re finally replacing our impossible-to-keep-clean cream carpet with Pergo laminate flooring. That project will start later this week with us ripping up the nasty carpet, reinforcing our subflooring and laying down the underlayment. Gramsey and Papa are visiting to assist with this task; Papa will help with the labor and Gramsey will tend to Houston so that I can help Papa. And then our pals Greg and Meredith are coming over on Saturday to help us install the flooring. I’m sooooo excited; this has been a dream of mine for about a year now and it’s finally happening. Now when Houston pukes on the floor or the cats track in their muddy paw prints, the clean-up will be a breeze!

Houston at two days old with Grumps and Daddy!

There are now more old photos of Houston’s first weeks at home available in gallery.

Houston with Daddy and Papa in late July 2007.

And here are the rest of the Houston photos from July 2007.