peas

so after over a week of eating carrots we decided to graduate talan and move him on to peas. so this evening dave fed him while i took some photos. he took them down pretty well. they are much thicker than the carrots so i wasn't sure what kind of reaction to expect. but he ate them all and dave did a great job too. maybe better than i did. he just shoves them in there and doesn't let talan's tongue get in the way. made for a much easier, faster feeding. i should just let dave and hayden do this feeding thing from now on.


what is this?!:
seriously? when is this going to end:
i guess it's not so bad:


tonite there were no tongue tricks but he decided to stick his lips out in a "watchu talkin' 'bout willis" sort of way:

tongue tricks

talan learned a new trick. it makes feeding him that much more difficult. lucky me.

carrots

talan has finally started to open his mouth on a regular basis in order to get fairly good at eating cereal. we were told once he was eating cereal for a couple of weeks we could then move him on to veggies. so that's just what we did yesterday. i fed him carrots. there was no real ugly face or anything like that. he pretty much took it the way he takes his cereal. he didn't seem to necessarily love it, but he certainly doesn't hate it. he's just big time into his bottle and he doesn't really seem to care to eat any other way. but he'll do it, usually.
hayden has been in helpful mode all afternoon so when i was getting talan ready to eat i asked hayden if he would bring the bowl of carrots over. he then said he could feed him. and because really, feeding him is pretty much a pain, i agreed. i certainly don't think that talan got as much in his mouth as he did last nite, but they both had fun. hayden isn't much for patience (wonder where that comes from) so he didn't really like to wait until talan opened his mouth himself. well, whatever. at least i didn't have to do it.


he has no idea what he's in for:
what is this?!:
i guess i'll take some more:


oh good, we're done:
this evening's festivities:


that was much more fun than last nite:

5 months

talan is 5 months old already. it's hard to believe it, but then again, it seems like he's always been here. and that's a good thing. talan is continuing to grow. we're curious to see if he'll end up being even bigger than hayden was in his first few years. so far they've been neck in neck. as mentioned in one of the previous posts, talan started eating cereal. like the horrible mother i am, i haven't been religious about feeding it to him every single day. it is a huge pain in the butt. i honestly don't remember it being this difficult with hayden. you can't feed him when he's too hungry, cuz he just screams for his bottle. you can't feed him when the bottle is gone cuz he's full and he won't open his mouth. so at random times, when i remember, i'll stick him in the bumbo seat and feed him some cereal. even then it's difficult. he just doesn't open his mouth all the time when you stick the spoon in his face. and he's always looking around to see if something better is going on. then he starts sucking on his messy bib or his fingers and cereal ends up everywhere but in his mouth. i hate cereal time.
he is constantly rolling over. he can do it both ways, be he prefers back to stomach. then if he wants to get over to his back again, he likes to let us do that for him. but he doesn't mind being on his stomach at all. in fact, many times, he prefers it. we usually find him in bed in the mornings on his stomach.
we put him to sleep several nites without being swaddled. the first two nites didn't go to badly at all. we had to go in several times to roll him back over and stick his binky back in his mouth, but after awhile he fell asleep and stayed that way until his typical 7am wake time. we've had a lot going on recently where he hasn't gotten his usual naps so he's been exhausted. when we've tried laying him down unswaddled when he's that tired, it just doesn't work so well. we have been able to get away with just swaddling his legs. so i guess we're a step closer to "normal." although, i guess what he's doing now is more normal to me. i mean, i hate sleeping without a sheet covering me. so why wouldn't he?!
he continues to love standing while someone holds on to him and he just keeps getting stronger. just today i had him sitting by himself for probably about 10 seconds. then he just falls to the side. but it's a start. he's been grabbing on to the toys on the tray of his swing to sit himself forward. all day today he's just hung out that way. he refuses to let go and just lay back. i figure he'll be sitting in no time.
he took his first trip to apple orchard (photos to be posted soon on my page) and we put him in the church nursery for the first time last week. not because we don't trust them, or we have to have our children near us. but just because he's such a good baby, he never really made any noise. it was just easier keeping him with us. we made the mistake of dropping him off at his class before we dropped off hayden and when then took him into his room hayden just started screaming "NO....I WANT TALAN BACK!!" he was quite upset. this week we made sure to drop hayden off first.
he cries almost every time we put him in his car seat, but just usually while we're sitting him in and buckling him up. then he stops and is back to his happy self. he still prefers naps either in the swing or swaddled but will take what dave has now dubbed "cash naps" if we're out and about. he'll fall asleep for a bit in his car seat and then about 10-15 minutes later his eyes pop open and he's back in business. he still loves hayden to death and continues to laugh harder for him than anyone else. he's usually eating about 6 ounces at each feeding which is every 3-4 hours with some bottles, usually the one first thing in the morning, being 8 ounces. although, the other morning he ended up eating 10 ounces. he still continues to only cry when he's hungry or tired. and sometimes when he's just tired of being ignored. the other day i put him in front of a baby einstein and he watched most of it, but still nowhere close to as intently as hayden used to watch them. he's lost quite a bit of his hair, and at certain angles looks like a balding man. but the hair growing in has covered his head and is totally blonde. which makes him look even balder at times. he loves to be outside laying on a blanket. he'll just kick and look up at leafs blowing and squeal. his talking has gotten even lower. sometimes it sounds like he's growling at us. and he still has his horrible pneumonia cough but it still doesn't seem to bother him. but then again, what does?
here's to another great month. happy 5 months, talan!

somebody should really get this kid a bed