All about Brecken

I was emailing Brecken's great grandma in Arizona this morning, telling her all about little B and it crossed my mind that maybe I should give everyone some "Brecken facts" as opposed to "just" the normal pictures and "what we've been up to" stories. So here is what I can tell you...

He has the SWEETEST personality! He coos all the time and talks up a storm... Now if only Daddy and I could decipher his language. He is becoming SO alert. He will turn his head to watch something go by him, no matter how small or quick. He is starting to grab onto toys and TRY to put them into his mouth (I say "try" because he still has a ways to go when it comes to coordination- Another trait he must have inherited from his momma!) He completely shuns the pacifier now and will spit it out if you try to give it to him. He has now moved on to his thumb.... Or his wrist.... Or his knuckles... Or pretty much whatever part of his hands he can find. It's great for self-soothing, but now that the little man is working on teeth and it's more CHEWING than SUCKING he sure looks to be causing pain to his fingers!! Lots of bright redness and a few little cracks it looks like. According to my baby book, I sucked my fingers until they got infected when I was a baby. Oooops :) I hope he doesn't do the same! Brecken laughs a LOT and loves it when Eric and I make faces at him. He adores bath time more than anything and is starting to accept the fact that there is always an end to bath time, so is a little less emotional now when we get to that point. He loves spending his days with his cousin Julia and goes between big smiles and "what are you doing????" faces of curiosity. Oh, and his new "favorite" thing is mirrors. He apparently likes what he sees in there because it always causes a break out of smiles. With the exception of two nights when he was sick, he has been sleeping through the night since 12 weeks. He typically goes to bed between 7:30-8:00pm and I wake him up around 7:30 or 8:00am. He wakes up smiley with lots to say and goes to bed with his eyes wide open and that big toothless grin smiling up at us. It's fun to listen to his talking over the monitor as he falls asleep and wakes up. That's not to say he doesn't have his moments of fussiness over bed time, but for the most part, we consider ourselves pretty lucky. We also are happy that all of our hard work at getting him "on a schedule" (I know, a baby on a schedule?? Yeah right!) and working with him to sleep through the night has paid off. There was a time not all that long ago where we could never imagine sleeping more than 4-5 hours, and now we barely remember how tired we used to be!!

As you can all tell from the pictures, he isn't a small boy :) He's all across the board with his clothes, depending on the brand and type. His pajamas are currently 9-12 months, pants 6-9 months (though he still fits into a few 3 months), and his tops are mostly 9-12 months. Socks don't seem to stay on at all, which is a pain after the 900th time of putting them. Suggestions anyone?? I used to go through his drawers every once and awhile to filter out the things he's outgrown... Now I just have a big open tub next to dresser and just throw things in as he outgrows them.

We are still waiting to hear back from the doctor (hopefully today!?) about a potential milk allergy he might have. He had a few bloody diapers last week so they had us switch formula and ran a few tests. I was hoping and assuming that we would be on a "course of action" by now, but like I said, we're not-so-patiently waiting for the doctor's call. In the mean time, he seems to like anything you put in his bottle so he doesn't seem to mind the switch until we figure things out.

We have also been holding off on solids until we figure out whether or not he is allergic to the milk protein in formula.... We bought the rice cereal and are excited to see how it goes for the first time! I also decided I would try and make some of his baby food so tackled that excitement early this morning! We bought some squash on Sunday as it was on sale this week.... It was funny because beneath the "Squash" sign at the grocery store was a bundle of three totally different looking vegetables. Eric and I looked at each other and asked "Which one is squash?" Maybe they all were, who knows. Regardless, we settled on a type and brought them home. I was thinking I'd make the baby food this weekend, but Brecken decided to wake up at 6:30 for some reason which left me plenty of time before "work." Since I've never baked squash, and never made baby food, I thought I'd start simple with just one. It was pretty easy to throw together and his little cubes are currently freezing in their little trays :)

Now for the fun part, and the reason I know you're all still following this blog, here are some pictures of Brecken :)