More things he can do

Just a few more things he has learned how to do lately - it's getting hard to keep up!
- bang two objects together
- share his food, loves sharing his soggy toast with mama!
- scoot forward on his bum a few inches
- starting to imitate sounds: I will say "duck" and he says "dut", "quack quack quack" and he'll say "dat dat dat", this morning I said "that's your BRUSH" and he said "Bthhh". :)
- now waves hi, bye and goodnight. So cute!
- can turn himself around 90 degrees while sitting
- feeds himself with a spoon if I hand him the spoon with food on it (and he's in the mood). We're working on getting him to hand BACK the spoon, instead of biffing it to the floor.

Leaps and Bounds!

Matt will be 8 months old this week, and I just had to share all the things he has learned to do in just the past couple of weeks. It's amazing to me how quickly he learns things now!!

- He can wave "bye bye"! This just started on the weekend.
- Takes toys out of his toy container one by one... and last night started putting them back too
- Raises his arms when he wants to be picked up (sometimes)
- Will stand himself up from sitting if you give him your fingers to hold onto
- Throws small toys (oh joy ;) ), rolls balls, and can make cars 'go' if you set them up for him
- He'll use a toy in his hand like a tool to knock down a tower of blocks
- He sleeps on his side sometimes - as I discovered this afternoon!
- He can turn on the music on his train - no small feat considering he has to tip it over and reach in to press the big button on the bottom
- He dances to music!
- He knows the word 'banana'... as we found out last night when he was being a pill at dinner, not wanting anything and protesting everything being offered. Finally Sean said "Banana? Would you like some banana?" and Matt immediately stopped crying and looked at him all happy. We gave him some banana and he gobbled it all up!
- And of course he has been sitting up really well for a couple of weeks now.

Can you believe all the amazing things he can do? :)

"Bonk!"

Check out these videos that I shot today... Matthew and I were getting ready to go out (hence the fleece suit - yes it has ears!) and I accidentally bonked heads with him. In order to make it funny so he wouldn't get upset, I sortof hit my head and said "bonk!" and he burst out laughing! We did this for like 10 minutes, it was soooo funny (apparently!) - I was totally cracking up! :)

Little swimmer!

Matthew had his very first swim class today and it was awesome!

It's held at a nearby community pool, and is a class designed for kids under 5 - parents go in the water with them and the instructor does these little games and songs. It's mostly to get them used to the water, start kicking and splashing, blowing bubbles, etc.

He didn't really like it much when we first got in - it was a lot of new sights and sounds and his first time in a pool. He also hadn't had breakfast so for one reason or another he started crying when we first got in. I think he was also a bit cold since I kept holding him out of the water.

But... once he got used to it he really seemed to enjoy it! By the end of the class he was dunking his face in the water (much to my horror, but he loved it) and splashing and kicking. I was able to just hold him under the armpits and swing him around and splash and stuff - it was great! In addition to him liking it, which was a bonus, I was just thankful that he wasn't THAT KID... you know the one - at the side of the pool, cute as can be in his shiny new swim trunks and red face, screaming bloody murder and trying to claw his way out of the building ;)

Either way, I can't wait til next week. Hopefully Matthew will jump right in and start swimming with gusto like some of the other kids :) but I'll be happy if he just splashes around and enjoys himself.

Pictures: December / January

Just a few recent pictures and videos I thought I'd share...

Mmmm... these peas are pretty good!

This is how we found him after a nap one day, Aunt Dominica thought it was hilarious!

Sitting in the high chair - he spent lots of time here while in NS!

Like a big boy in the Blues Clues chair

I'm so proud, I can feed myself with this mesh feeder!

Finally, a video of him eating from the mesh feeder (which he now loves)

Long overdue update!

Matthew is now 7.5 months old... can everyone say "WOW"? Insane is what I say!

Well we had a wonderful holiday season, made all the more merry and bright by our little elf. He was such a star and learned very quickly that the things wrapped in pretty paper had something fun inside! Nonna restrained herself quite well and didn't give him all his gifts the first day we got to Nova Scotia.

I think little Matty must have gone through a big growth spurt while we were out east though. He had about 2 weeks of waking during the night to eat, and during the day he would gobble up 4+ bowls of food at each meal (3x a day) and still be crying for more. Plus I am still nursing him - I don't know where he puts it all!! I didn't know what to do, I thought if it continues at this rate we'll have to buy him a bigger high chair! Not to mention the loss of sleep on our part, I really don't know how I survived the first 2 months of his life, seriously.

Thankfully, he seems to be past all that now, he is back to sleeping through the night (7:30 pm to 7:30 am) and having two long naps during the day. Yay!

He's also slowing down in the food department, at least in the amount that he's eating (more like 2 bowls of food). We are trying lots of different foods these days, which is fun, albeit rather messy. I'm not sure why I even put clothes on him, he goes through 2-3 outfits a day :) But he is enjoying feeding himself more and more. For lunch today he had a cereal biscuit, mixed veggies with plain yogurt, and avocado smeared on toast fingers. Fun!

I have a lot of pictures to post since it's been a while, so I'll make a separate post for that.