Events

Calan has officially made it to three-quarters of a year old. For the past month, he has continued to charm us with his little milestones. He started smiling when we put him down at naptime and bedtime, so there’s no more sneaking out, hoping he doesn’t realize we’re leaving. He is actually happy and contented, and falls asleep on his own:) And he’s shown great strides at actually sleeping too! He now takes just two long naps – good ones:) – instead of three shorter, and potentially challenging, naps. And to top it all off, he started truly sleeping through the night. Eleven or twelve hours almost every single night!! We don’t know what to do with ourselves we have so much free time;)

The past few weeks have brought several musical strides forward as well. Calan now reaches for the keyboard. He knows what it does, and he loves to play!! His “compositions” are becoming purposeful, emotional, and complex, even if they are a bit abstract and atonal. In addition to his skills at the piano, he has taken up singing. He has a high, pure soprano, with far more upper range and agility than his mama, as he demonstrated one Wednesday spent rehearsing for his debut as Queen of the Night. Still needs a little work on the intonation and rhythm, but otherwise, he’s pretty close. And, he is buzzing more than ever! He really is walking in his parents footsteps, preparing to be a singing, trumpet-playing pianist.

On the academic front, Calan is also showing great progress. He loves reading and now has several favorite books that he asks for by grunting, groaning, and reaching. Now, if only we could make some progress on saying words . . . might make the guesswork a little easier;) He also continues to study things intently when he plays quietly. We often watch him staring and poring over tiny details (a small flap in a blanket for example) or watching with great focus people talking or moving around him. He usually doesn’t show much expression in these moments, unless it’s a cat (Cole!) or a dog (Wyatt!). When he spots these critters, he lights up with a smile, rocks back and forth and reaches for his small friends.

Lastly, as you may know, Calan is a late bloomer in the mobility department (not that we’re complaining!), but he finally got up on all fours, and any day now, we expect some movement . . . or maybe not . . . the doc said this kid may go straight to walking. We’ll see what the next month brings . . .

5/12/11:

Height: 28 1/4″
Weight: 20 lbs. 14 oz.

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Calan has now officially left his “8th” month and is on to his “9th”. But according to timekeeping theory, we get to call him “eight” months old for now. A few highlights over the last 30 days:

Calan gave up his vegetarianism this month as we added chicken and turkey to his organic baby food diet. Sorry Calan, if you were planning to be a ‘lacto-vegetarian’ for the rest of your life. If he’s anything like his parents though, he’ll be happy he came over to the other side long before he can remember.

Our little “bebop” (one of his nicknames) continues to work at his own pace when it comes to mobility. It’s interesting to see him get just a little bit closer as the weeks go by, i.e. the little guy we’ll be chasing around the house someday. 🙂 This month, Calan showed us a few times how he can lift his butt up in the air while on his hands and belly and scoot backwards in a series of thrusts. It’s not an everyday thing, but it’s a sign of progress nonetheless.

Also this month, we’ve hopefully seen the end to the UTI saga. In January, Calan had a supposed bout with a UTI. Since then, we’ve had several doctors weighing in about him needing to be tested/monitored in case another UTI comes up. And we were even urged to sign him up for a pretty invasive (at least according to us, but not the docs) test that would help determine if Calan is anatomically prone to these kinds of infections; a condition which can be harmful to the kidneys if not addressed early on. Anyway, after an early morning expedition to a special doc (urologist) in LA it was determined that for now we could avoid the painful test and just keep watching Calan as we always do for signs of UTIs. We have a hunch we’re in the clear, and feel good knowing we’ve done everything reasonable up to this point to make sure he’s normal and healthy.

Speaking of health, Calan had his second official cold during the last week. This one was a bit longer than his first one months ago. It’s finally clearing up slowly, but not without having a congested and then runny nose for the last ten days. One funny side note along with trying to make Calan feel better: We had a humidifier going on high in the nursery for several days, and after a while the fine mist began to accumulate in the air. This made a thick, ‘smoky’ haze in the room. It was reminiscent of a college dorm room I (Tyson) once had where the students directly below must’ve had terrible colds because they were running their humidifiers all the time. 😉

That’s it for now. Here are some of our favorite photos from the past weeks (more than anyone will ever need to look at, right?). We only have a few short weeks to call Calan “eight months” before the “he’s almost nine months” line pops out, and our little guy is one month older. All the more reason to cherish every single day we have with our little bebop.

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So our friend Dave stopped by last week to try out a new camera lens he was thinking of buying. Calan helped out by posing for Dave’s camera in the back yard. We also borrowed one of Dave’s nice “portrait” lenses, and pointed that at Calan as well. In the end, we discovered there’s a bit more camera tweaking that comes with using a fancier lens, but if you take enough shots you end up with some good photos that are worth keeping. We’re posting those and a couple others here, since after all, this seems like the perfect place to do so. Don’t tell Calan though…he hasn’t signed off on these yet. 😉

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This past weekend, Calan hooked up with his old buddy Casimir for a play-date. Casimir is the son of Wes and Amina, who we met at our childbirth class last year. Calan last saw “Cas” at the birth class reunion party. Cas is just 6 1/2 weeks older than Calan, but has the hair of a 2 year old!

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Wow, we know February is a short month but we could hardly believe it when March 10th rolled around, and Calan added one more month to his age. Big “7” came upon us quickly, but that didn’t mean we didn’t capture some of Calan’s extraordinary moments.

This month Calan began rolling over regularly and without assistance (finally!). Now this doesn’t necessarily mean he could get himself back from his rolled-over position, but it’s a start nevertheless. This isn’t generally a problem (not being able to roll back), because we can usually just help him with his “roll reversal”. But Calan started rolling over in the middle of the night and early in the morning, where he would essentially get “stuck” lying on his tummy. This isn’t the most comfortable, or safe, especially when he’d become so tired that he’d fall back to sleep face down on the mattress. He’s been learning though that flipping over only gets him stuck, so he stays on his back most of the time now in his crib.

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Calan also continues to expand his palate. He’s been adding new foods almost every day. In fact, Heidi started to make homemade baby food in addition to the store-bought organic food jars and pouches. She uses the Baby Brezza, which steams and purees just about any fruit, vegetable or meat. Calan continues to get better at the eating process, opening his mouth wide and grunting and growling (with pleasure?) at the spoon coming toward his face. 🙂

Another nice physical development that progressed this past month was Calan being able to sit upright on his bottom for long periods of time. He’s figured out how to balance himself and stay in this position during playtime. This makes playtime a bit more fun since now he can sit and reach for various things around him more easily. He especially likes picking up small measuring spoons and beating them on things like a drummer.

For his birthday, Calan took a trip with his dad to visit Louis and Benicio for the afternoon and early evening. It was a boys night, since both Heidi and Dea work late that day. Calan had fun bonding and learning a few tricks from his older buddy “Ben.”

3/3/11:

Height: 26 1/2″
Weight: 18 lbs. 4 oz.

Calan celebrated his half-year milestone by going to the doctor’s for his usual check-up. All is well, and he continues to grow at a healthy, steady rate. This holds true for his appetite too! One of the biggest developments over the past couple weeks is Calan’s intake of a variety of “solid” foods. He finally got the knack of swallowing mushy food with the help of a small net he could chew bits of banana through. Now, he’s able to take jarred baby food off a spoon. And to our delight, he loves it. So much so, that during these high-chair feedings at the kitchen table he grunts and growls as he waits for us to deliver the next spoonful to his open mouth. It’s cute, and is nice to see his growing love for real food so far…and many flavors of it too. Right now, he’s eating peas, squash, carrots, pears, peaches and apples.  Mmmm.

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One area the doctor wants to see Calan improve in is rolling over. Calan has never done this on his own naturally. Up until this age, it’s been fine, but the doc would like to see him start by the end of his next month since it’s important to his development going forward. This means increasing floor/play time. We’ve been having fun putting Calan down on a blanket or play-mat and timing his tummy-time and encouraging roll-over moves. He’ll get there soon! Interestingly enough, he has just started sitting up on his own for a few seconds at a time. It’s fun to watch him list to one side and then correct himself and stay upright for a few more moments. Staying up on his own for long periods of time is just around the corner.

This past month we officially moved bathing operations from the bathroom counter to the bathtub. Calan still uses his nifty baby tub, but now he can splash and splatter soap suds a little more freely – something he started doing as soon as he discovered how fun it was. Next up – install a hand-sprayer in the tub to make rinsing even easier.

As usual, we’ve taken lots of pictures and are including some of our favorites here. Our love, affection and enjoyment of Calan grows more and more each day. We can’t wait for what’s in store next.

Height: 26″
Weight: 16 lbs. 8 oz.

Calan celebrated his five-month birthday this week. He’s also developing some new skills and continues to work on sleeping.

As Calan finished up his fifth month, we noticed he was waking up more during the night, needing to eat. It was a sign that the little guy just needed more food in general. Time to add some rice cereal to his diet! This meant trying out his first ever spoon-fed “solid” food. After mixing up a slurry of milk and rice cereal powder, Calan gave it his best shot. He’ll learn (just like we all did) how to accept and swallow such a funny texture off of a spoon, but for now we just cheat a little and dissolve the cereal in a bottle of milk so he can suck it – he doesn’t suspect a thing…and is sleeping through the night again. 😉

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The end of 2010 was extra special for us with Calan’s first Christmas and many visits from friends and family. Calan’s grandparents from Oregon arrived a couple days before Christmas. We celebrated their (late and early) birthdays with a movie outing of ‘Meet the Fockers’ and coffee. Dave and Cathy Guerra, along with Dave’s parents, Humberto and Eliana made the group all the merrier by joining us. This gave the elder Guerra’s a chance to meet Baby Calan.

On Christmas Eve, Calan got to meet his Uncle Ed, who drove down from the Bay Area to be with us for Christmas. We all enjoyed watching Calan on his first Christmas. He may not have known exactly what was going on, but he seemed to love taking it all in–the people, all his cute presents, the cooking, and other festivities.

The day after Christmas, our friends Dan and Denise Smathers from Boulder came to visit for a couple days. This was an especially fun visit, as they brought their new son Luca. Luca is just 36 days older than Calan, and the two of them hit it off immediately. We all had a lot of fun watching the two little guys together. We also had fun during Calan/Luca nap times, playing the board game Cranium – one of Heidi’s favorite Christmas presents!

Calan spent new year’s eve sleeping while we hosted a pizza-making party (and some more Cranium) with a small group of friends.

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Calan did great at his four-month doctor’s visit . He’s growing and growing, gaining over 3 lbs. since his two-month checkup and falling roughly in the 30th percentile now (his head size is in the 40th). Some other things to note from the visit:

• The doc was surprised to hear that Calan still required a swaddle (1-arm) during sleep time. Only recently has he been able to sleep with one arm out, which we started after he rolled over for the first time during sleep.
• Heidi asked about introducing more dairy (namely, cheese), peanut butter and eggs back into her diet. We’re hoping Calan will soon grow more tolerant of these foods, but he may not be there quite yet. The doctor suggested trying a little bit more at a time, but still recommended peanut butter be avoided. Poor Heidi!
• Calan had his second round of vaccinations. He’s a real trooper, putting up with several “pokes” of the yucky needle.
• The doctor cautioned us about visitors this holiday season, echoing the golden rules that anyone who touches or handles Calan must wash their hands first, and if anyone is sick they shouldn’t even come close to him, i.e. stay out of the house. 🙂

After the doctor’s visit, we went to Border’s book store, where Calan enjoyed a long snooze under the canopy in his stroller. Finishing up the busy day, we went and visited Dea and Louis (“Dea-Lou”) and their 20 1/2-month-old son, Benicio. This was our first real time going to someone else’s house with Calan (other than the birth class reunion). It really  helped that they also had a little guy–who was kind enough to offer his nursery and old swing while we were there. We had a great time, eating piping hot lasagna and enjoying the best of company on a wintery, rainy day.

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