Day 151- Caleb turns 8 months!

Caleb is now 8 months old!

Here are some pics:

Standing up (he started pulling to stand last week)

Chewing on a pen (the only way to distract him from chewing on the paper- hehe)

SOOOOO cute!

Crawling independently

Oh Dear Caleb!

I love you so much! You are growing and changing at an incredibly rapid rate right now. You learned to crawl with your belly off the floor and pull to stand on the same day last week. Since then, you've wanted to do nothing but stand up! I think you'll be walking before we know it. You are nursing/taking a bottle 3-5 times a day, eating baby food 3 times, and trying a few "real" solids like puffs and tiny bits of banana. Your favorite things to play with are stackable rings, anything electronic, water, and your toy bin at the bottom of the dresser. You also love to listen to stories and make the raspberry sound. You recently started imitating us, but the only thing you consistently do is shake your head "no." You learned this from your Grandma Hunt (thanks Kayleen- haha). I've been working on "yes" and waving to no avail. You also hide your head and play peek-a-boo. You've recently started crawling to find mama or daddy if we leave the room. Although you're sleep habits are having a bit of trouble adjusting to your new life here, overall you are going to bed around 8pm and waking up around 7am (with a feeding at 11 by dad and one at 4 by mom- hopefully this will change asap as you get used to the new schedule). You take naps around 10 or 11 and 2 or 3. You are still curious as ever, with a very concentrated look on your face most of the time. You are VERY excited because you just found out that you're going to have a boy "cousin" to play with, since mama and daddy's friends are having a boy. Dear, sweet Caleb, I can't wait to see all the ways you grow and change even in the next 4 weeks. I love you so much and am so excited to see the person that you are becoming!

Love,

Mama

Day 138- Socks are so funny!

Caleb thinks that socks are HILARIOUS!!!!!

Day 135- Diaper review

I thought I would do a diaper review on the 3 types of diapers we've used: Pampers, Huggies, and Earth's Best...

Pampers:

We have used both Pampers Swaddlers and Pampers Baby Dry (the nighttime kind). I really like Pampers Swaddlers and have had pretty good luck with them. I know that every baby is shaped differently, but for Caleb, Pampers have proven to work well overall as long as we had the right sized diaper. Side note on Baby Dry: We didn't really like Baby Dry very much. It did hold a lot of urine for overnight, but it seemed to also keep Caleb's skin fairly wet. He never got diaper rash or anything, but I just didn't like the way it smelled/felt in the morning. I like Pampers because the absorbent material gets pretty firm when he uses the bathroom, so it's easy to tell when he needs to be changed. Also, for those that really need help, there is a yellow stripe that turns blue when baby needs to be changed as well. The material does seem fairly chemical-ish though, and it makes you wonder what it is if it keeps baby so dry. Also, Pampers didn't use the Dry Max in Europe and I wonder if it doesn't have the technology or if it had been banned? We never had any side leaks with Pampers, but we did have quite a few blowouts up the back, which really stinks (literally). In Pampers, we've used sizes NB, 1, 1-2, and 2.

Huggies:

We're not big Huggies fans around our household. We've tried multiple sizes and given several good attempts at using them, but Caleb must not be a Huggies baby. We also get way more coupons for Huggies than Pampers. Our main problem was that he kept leaking with them. We got frequent leaks from the sides and front. I just got tired of changing his clothes! Huggies seems to be a little less chemical-ish than Pampers, and they are soft. We just couldn't deal with the leaks. We tried sizes NB, 1, and 3.

Earth's Best:
Recently, I ordered Earth's Best diapers, which are chlorine, latex, dye, and perfume free. They are also supposed to be more biodegradable than the average diaper. They only cost $0.01 more per diaper than Pampers on Amazon. I have loved them! They fit Caleb great (waist and legs), are soft, but don't seem chemical-ish. He has yet to leak or have a blow-out, which is great! They are a little harder to tell whether he needs to be changed or not, but I'm pretty good at figuring that out anyway these days. I'll need to use them a little longer to know for sure (we've only been using them for a week), but I think we may permanently switch! It's my best attempt at being more green and baby-bottom friendly, since I'm not up for switching to cloth just yet.

Day 130- Somewhere in the depths (is my camera battery charger)

So, I haven't been very diligent about posting lately. It may have something to do with the fact that I have a 1 1/2 hour commute one way, that we sold our house and moved out in exactly 1 month, that I can't find my camera battery charger in our mass of boxes to take Caleb pics, or that I simply can't keep up with daily life, let alone blog about it.

I hope to get back to the blogging world soon, especially after we have internet and are settled in our new home in Prairie Village, KS. Perhaps I'll get a good 7 month blog post in for Caleb. He's changing and growing at warp speed right now. Until then...