Holy Bananas, it’s September 1st. Where the H did Summer go?

I’ve never been a huge Summer lover like a lot of my friends seem to be. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike Summer for any reason, but my heart has always belonged 100% to the Fall. Crisp, dewy morning air, cool evenings, knee high boots and sweaters, plaid everything, trips to the farm, pumpkin treats, Thanksgiving, Halloween…alllllllll of it is a big yes please from me! And now we have another reason to love the Fall: Austin’s birthday!

Can we take a minute to let that soak in please?

Austin’s 1st birthday is just over 2 months away. It honestly feels like no more than 6 weeks ago that I was writing my big welcome to the world post and now I’m almost the mother of a 1 year old. Insanity.

It’s been a GIGANTIC couple of months over here in our little corner of the world; we’ve moved since my last Austin update! I’m writing this post from our brand new couch set in our brand new living room, surrounded by a mountain of boxes and chaos! Although we’re still very much settling in, our new house already feels so much like home, and we are sooooo, so super happy here.

We live on an absolutely amazing circle now that backs onto a gorgeous park, and we’ve had such a wonderful experience already getting to know our neighbours and other people in the neighbourhood.  It’s the type of place where people leave containers of dog treats and bowls of water out on their front lawn for people walking their dogs to stop and help themselves, and everyone you pass on the street waves to you, even if they’ve never met you before. We are soooo excited and feel so lucky that we snagged this house on the circle. We are doing some renovations on the lower levels of the house, and those should be wrapped up in the next few weeks, which will allow us to get fully unpacked and settled with things in their final homes.

Austin from Boston has been a champ through a VERY chaotic couple of months between packing and moving and unpacking, and has really made this whole process as smooth and easy as it could have been on us. It has been a bit of a challenging couple of months in another way though.

About 5 or 6 weeks ago now, Austin started to start refusing his bottle at feedings. It started off gradually, and he just wouldn’t finish his full bottle. Then progressed to him not wanting the bottle at all for certain feeds. Then progressed to full on bottle refusal. He is also refusing all cups and different bottles. We’ve been struggling a lot trying to get liquids into him in any way, and seem to be in a bit of a holding pattern now with him getting all of his liquids mixed into his pureed foods, by eating water-rich foods like watermelons and oranges and by giving him liquids on a spoon…but we are now stuck in a really stressful position where his pediatrician (yep, got ourselves one of those now….sigh) wants to run some really invasive and traumatic tests down his throat to see if there is a physical problem that could be preventing him from drinking. My mama bear horns are coming out big time, and I’m feeling super defensive of my little man. My issue with the whole situation is that Austin is doing so incredibly well in every way, aside from the drinking strike of 2018. He’s well hydrated from all of the milk in his foods, full of energy, great appetite, eats solid foods like a CHAMP, gaining weight like crazy, progressing with his development and milestones well, and is just all around my happy, cheeky, stubborn little guy that I’ve known from Day 1.

A lot of people have told me over the past two years to trust my gut, and that my mama instincts won’t often lead me astray. And really and truly, my mama instinct is telling me that this is a behavioural thing that will eventually pass or evolve. I’m really digging in my heels and preparing for a fight on this, because I won’t be agreeing to subjecting Austin to any tests unless (God forbid) his health took a downturn.

Put your money on me folks, I can take this pediatrician lol

ANYWAYS… this whole situation has been a huge source of stress and worry for me, but in and amongst all of that, Austin has been doing amazing!

All About Austin – 9 & 10 Month Edition 

Favourite Foods: Holy crap does this kid every love his solid foods now! He eats like a horse (not unlike his mama lol) and LOVES shredded cheddar cheese more then anything on the planet. He shovels fistfuls of it into his mouth at a time. Also really loves my garlic green beans, strawberries and oranges right now!

Least Favourite Foods: Still not a big fan of prunes lol also doesn’t love creamed corn… what can I say, when he makes up his mind about something, he makes up his mind! (See: Drinking Crisis 2018)

Sleeping: Reeeeally well, I feel like we’re finally somewhat out of the woods with the sleeping disaster of the past 11 months. He sleeps through the night pretty consistently now, and is up around 7am every day. We’ve found ourselves on a 2-3-4 schedule during the day, meaning that he naps about 2 hours after he wakes up in the morning around 9ish, then about 3 hours after he wakes up from that nap around 2 – 2:30ish, and then goes to bed about 4 hours after he wakes up from that nap around 7:30 – 8:00ish. It’s working really well for us, he’s like a little clock now, gets tired and cranky right on the button!

Mobility: Houston, we have a stander. Austin’s latest and greatest trick is scrambling over to any and everything he can get his hands on and pulling himself up to stand. He thinks he’s soooooooo clever lol I just love it! He’s taken a couple of nasty spills toppling over before we could get to him, but seems to be pretty resilient. He walks around holding onto our hands now as well, but is still pretty unsteady on his feet even while holding onto our hands (we call it the drunk Elvis walk because his hips and pelvis go a little crazy while he’s doing it LOL). He’s definitely working on it though, and is super determined to get walking, even though I think it’s still a little ways away!

Personality: More and more of Austin’s personality is coming out every day, and it’s becoming very obvious that our sweet little baby is a shy one. He really doesn’t love the group setting, and really prefers to be at home in his environment with Matt and I. At home he’s a total clown, always full of big laughs and smiles and getting into everything…but in group environments, he is really scared and shy and clings onto Matt or I with all his might, normally while crying 😦 I’m not really sure where this has come from, because we’ve been going to Mom & Tot classes together since he was about 3 months old…. but it’s something that we’ll have to work on together because……..

Daycare: We have a start date for daycare….October 16th. My heart shatters into a million pieces every time I think about it. Because Austin is really quite shy and reserved in a group setting, I really don’t know how he’s going to do at daycare. I can’t even think about it to be honest, it just stresses me out and upsets me 😦

Birthday Celebrations: I’m starting to work on planning Austin’s first birthday party!! Eee!! I’m so excited for it (although I also want time to STOP), and in true first time parent style am going way over the top I’m sure. I’m toying with a few ideas for the party right now, but want to start getting things locked down soon!

Guaranteed to Make Him Laugh: Throwing him in the air (lol), stooping down quickly with him in your arms, blowing on his face so that his hair blows off his forehead (lol), making animal sounds (duck quacks are his favourite), hiding around corners and jumping out and yelling PEEK as high pitched as you can, sticking your hand up his onesie shirt and ticking his bare chest, blowing raspberries on his bare belly…. the list could go on and on and on. I swear Austin spends 75% of his day laughing, and my god when he gets laughing can he ever get going! His laugh has evolved into this real little person laugh, and sometimes he laughs so hard that it stops making sound LOL it just kills me…

Fall Fun: I am sooo excited for all of the Fall activities to come this year! We took Austin to the pumpkin patch last year when he was literally about 10 days old, but this year should be quite a bit different! He will be 1 by the time we go to the farm, maybe even walking!? I’m planning a couple of trips to the farm for sure, and starting to think about our Halloween costumes too! Last year we just took him dressed in a lion costume over to my parents house, but this year I think he could handle a few houses of trick or treating! We are trying to come up with a good “trio” costume for Matt, Austin and I to be together….

Favourite Books: I was worried very early on in Austin’s life that we weren’t reading to him enough, but man oh man are we making up for it now. We probably read about 20 stories a day to him, no word of a lie. He LOVES books so much, they are his absolute, 100% favourite thing to occupy himself with. His very favourites are “The Little Blue Truck” and “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”. He also likes “Brown Bear Brown Bear” and “I Have to Go”….and really any other book he can get his hands on! I’m so happy that he likes books and likes to be read to, I really hope that this continues!

All in all it’s been a busy and stressful, but also wonderful couple of months. I promise to be back here again BEFORE Austin’s first birthday! In the meantime, enjoy the start to Fall! Grab your plaid scarves and pumpkin scones!

-Sara xo

 

 

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