The Bacher Blog

This little thing struck me several times this evening, so it’s worth sharing.

For the past couple weeks, Caden has been repeating, “baff,” when we tell him it’s bathtime. Taking a bath is part of his usual going to bed routine, and he likes it. But tonight, we didn’t give Caden a bath — it was a long day, he was exhausted, and we’re doing a little training to make sure things go smoothly when grandma and grandpa have to put him to bed next weekend.

As I was reading books to him tonight, several times he looked me in the eye and said, “Baff.” I don’t think he has the vocal control to turn a word into a question by using intonation, but it sure seemed like he was asking me a question.

My first reaction was of course, that it’s completely adorable for my son to ask me whether he’ll be having a bath tonight. In thinking about it later though, it’s pretty amazing what’s going on in that brain to bring together the predictability of past events with this new ability to name activities (not just things) and to ask Daddy, “what’s going on?”

It’s not as if this is completely unexpected and new, these abilities with language and pattern recognition have been building up steadily. But still, it’s little moments of realization like this that are really special.

I recently took on a photo challenge presented by another local mom. She decided to document a day with her son to be able to share it with her husband who was traveling oversees. Although Dave hasn’t been away from us for more than even 12 hours (luckily!)- I liked the idea of doing a photo documentary of a typical day in Caden’s life. Or really in my life with Caden. I ended up taking way too many photos to post here. Instead I started another blog that I will keep up every so often as I continue to occasionally do more “Day in the Life” photo shoots. So- if you have a good chunk of time and you are interested… below is the link… If you don’t have a lot of time, be sure to at least just jump down to 5:20pm for a chuckle.

Here was Friday 8/8/08 in our lives: http://cadens-corner.blogspot.com/

Our baby is one! We had a small birthday party for him a few days before his actual birthday. His Great Aunt Lorri traveled from Oregon and his uncle and fam drove from Fresno to help him celebrate. Other friends and relatives also gathered on the gorgeous afternoon to party with Caden. He really enjoyed the attention, especially when eating and playing with his birthday cake. He was able to show off his painting skills- using the back of his chair as his canvas and the cake frosting as his paint. We think he may take after his Grandma Jeanne and be an artist someday. He also thoroughly enjoyed sharing and playing in his new sand and water table that he got from his Grandma Vicki and Grandpa Bruce.

Some milestones that Caden is working on include unassisted standing, “walking” forward (holding mama’s hands), and much more communication. He has mastered consonants d, b, p, k, l, m, n, s, and sometimes t, often practicing those sounds when reading his “Eating the Alphabet” picture book. For instance when we turn to the page with peaches, he will say “pa, pa, pa…” He still loves to point and grunt at things until we name items for him. He sometimes waves hello and goodbye, but isn’t consistent yet.

Although last month I posted that Caden has become pickier with eating…  that seems to have changed a bit.  He has been a much better eater lately. In addition to meats, cheeses, carbs, and veggies, Caden is a huge fruit lover.  With all of the fresh fruit out now, he has tried many types and seems to love them all. Even when we think he is full- after slowing down with eating the main course- he will shovel in fruit as if he is starving. We haven’t given him much sugar (besides his birthday cake and the natural sugars in fruit), so we think he must consider fruit his dessert. We may as well keep it that way for awhile.

Overall- things are going so wonderfully with Caden. We love him more than we ever imagined possible and he makes us laugh everyday with his contagious giggles, funny expressions and great humor. We are always finding ourselves amazed at his growth and changes. Where did my little, itty baby go? Happy Happy Birthday, Caden!

It is so hard to believe how time flies. I have to be honest that it did not fly by quickly the first few months, as there were some close to sleepless nights and lotsa tears. But for the past couple months, because Caden’s sleep has improved, his demeanor and zest for learning also has. He is so amazing. He laughs at us (and with us), points to things and grunts for us to tell him what they are, loves for us to read books to him over and over… just trying to soak up as much knowledge as possible.

About a month ago he started consistently saying “D” or “Dah” or “Dog” for any friendly canine. Well, sometimes also when he sees other furry animals in books… but he is identifying them correctly out in public. He also has been sorta saying Mama, Dada, Ball, and Up. And definitely knows and says “nana” for banana. We are amazed each day to see what words he already knows- window, flowers, hat, book, sock, bear, boat, milk, light, bird, fish, the list goes on and on.

We also are amazed at how quickly he learned to pull himself up to stand and lower himself to sitting before and after he cruises around the room. Although he was behind in his gross motor skills early on, he seems to have caught up. I actually attribute a lot of his gross motor learning to the “SuperYard” (which unfortunately looks too much like a cage) in our living room. Because he can place his hands at many heights, and he loves to stand, he has spent so much time cruisin’ the SuperYard… working those muscles

So much to report, since I have been so bad about updating this blog. For now, I will just list a few more exciting things…

• Caden started weekly swimming lessons w/ Mama a few weeks ago. Still not excited about it, but hopefully by summer!
• About a week ago his third tooth cut through. This time around teething didn’t seem to affect his sleep or mood as much, luckily!
• Finally has accepted bottles! Because Caden’s weight has been a bit of a concern (for us, but not our Pedi), we are very excited that he is finally taking some formula.
• Loves to throw food on the floor now. He has become pickier in his eating. Which makes mealtime not so enjoyable. Hopefully he will grow out of the food throwing.
• Celebrated his first Mother’s Day w/ his Mama, Daddy, and all three grandparents.
• Loves music. (Even has a dance on on our YouTube Channel)… http://www.youtube.com/user/kellina71

There’s a race going on between Caden’s development and our desire to protect the house — I mean protect Caden from hurting himself.

First, Caden started scooting. He’ll use his legs a bit, but mostly he’s pulling himself along on his stomach using his arms. The doctor says it’s considered crawling. We call it the army crawl.

Caden’s new mobility encouraged us to redecorate the living room (more on that later). The crawling also lets him experience new tastes (yummy leaves!).

But he’s not content with staying at ground level. He’s standing, if he has something to hang onto. He’s still working on pulling himself up — can’t quite do it on his own — but once he’s up, he can maintain himself for a minute or two.

He’s working on cruising too (or at least exploring his new boundaries).

Caden has always been quite the active boy, but now that he is rolling and scooting all over… we are busy! It is fun to watch him try to get to things, but he does get frustrated at times.

He is a little behind on some of the developmental milestones, but we are not too worried. He always seems to do things on his own time frame (like refusing to be born on or near his due date). We have been taking him to physical therapy appointments, because we noticed that his head/ neck control was not up to par at about four months. He has improved tremendously, but I still think he is behind in areas, because he got a slow start. I think once he is able to get around more and become more independent, he will be so much happier. He seems to have an independent spirit.

YAY! Now we can post videos of Caden. We have a few on there already. Here is a link to my YouTube Page, for all who are interested in seeing Caden in action.

http://www.youtube.com/user/kellina71

And just for fun- here is one of Caden’s laughter right on our website…

I have been such a slacker about keeping up this blog! I have no good excuses. Since the last entry a lot has happened…

• We (Dave & Kelli) had our 1st date night since Caden was born. (This was unbeknownst to him, as we left after he was sleeping since he goes down to bed at 7pm. Pelly & Edwin were kind enough to babysit!)

• Traveled to Minnesota for Christmas. (1st flight for Caden, got to meet Grandma Jeanne and Uncle Hart, had some sleep issues since it was unfamiliar, experienced snow!)

• Caden loves to roll all over the place now! And he is starting to learn to sit.

• Started solid foods. (Caden is such a good eater! So far he has liked every food we have introduced to him. He especially likes applesauce and bananas. Carrots are yummy too!)

• Had his first tooth cut through. (This actually happened just two days ago! It is very exciting, except that it has cause some discomfort, clinginess, and more sleep issues.)

• And much more! (See Caden’s photos for more of a photo journal.)

Wow- We are behind on our “Monthly Updates”. Time sure flies. Caden is now 5 1/2 months old and is learning new things every day.

Caden has been enjoying his rides attached to Mom in the “Ergo”. It is so much more cozy than a stroller and he can look around at the world while upright. It’s a new perspective on life!

He is starting to roll a bit, but mainly only rolls from tummy to back, since he is not a fan of Tummy Time (TT). So we have to be creative to get him to do TT. (TT is important to give his neck and trunk muscles a work out and to prepare for crawling.) He sometimes enjoys being Superman- held above us with our hands and flying. The danger in this is we have to watch out for the cascading drool. Although we lucked out and don’t have a baby that spits-up much, his drool has been increasing over the past couple months. Fun. And as all babies do at this age- everything is going in the mouth- from his feet to his fingers, from his toys to our arms.

Sleep issues are getting a bit better. Caden now goes down for naps without much fuss. Unfortunately for the past couple of nights, he has been waking up more often. We are not sure what that is about, but we sure hope that ceases. Next week we will be flying to Minnesota to celebrate Christmas, and we are a bit worried about how the travel and different environment will affect his sleep. We will hope for the best! Happy Holidays to you all!

Okay- so our wonderful Caden has been a high needs (the PC term for fussy) baby in some ways for the first few months. I haven’t posted much about his fussiness, since that is not too exciting to read about. And who wants to admit that they may have fallen in to “accidental parenting”?!?! One of our big issues over the months has been Caden’s sleep patterns and habits. We always thought of him as a restless sleeper and a baby who “fights” falling to sleep. Sometimes I would need to swaddle him, rock him, nurse him, play white noise all in a dark room to get him to fall asleep. And then he would often wake up after putting him in his crib. At night we got into the habit of letting him co-sleep with us at times, to be sure he got some good sleep. He seemed to sleep much better right next to me nursing off and on through the night. During the day I would often have him nap on my lap, as he slept better there. We felt like the more sleep he got, the less cranky awake time he would have, so we were doing whatever we could to help him sleep. But those things were clearly turning into bad habits.

According to many sleep experts, 4 months is the age to start sleep training, so last night we began this process! There are SO many different theories on sleep training, so Dave did some book research and I did some Internet research. (Since I could surf the Net while Caden slept on my lap, but it was hard to turn pages quietly…) We combined a couple of the sleep training techniques that we felt comfortable with and came up with a game plan. Some experts are adamant against letting babies cry themselves to sleep- noting that crying release a stress chemical (Cortisol) into babies brains. Others say that babies will feel abandoned if left to “Cry It Out”. Because Caden often cries before going to sleep anyway (because he fights sleep), we thought some crying now will actually mean less cumulative crying if he can learn to soothe himself to sleep. But instead of just leaving him completely to “Cry It Out,” we go in to his room at various time intervals to soothe him, let him know we are here and not abandoning him.

So last night was the 1st night we were able to get some good sleep with Caden sleeping fairly well in his crib! YAY! There was a bit of crying, but it was not nearly as much as I had feared it could be. There may be a few more days of hurdles and crying, but he seems to be learning how to soothe himself to sleep fairly well. He has a little soft blanket with a stuffed animal head that we have introduced him to and slept with for the week before the training. He really seem to find comfort in his “ducky”. Wish us luck in the upcoming days!