The Frenches: September 2011

Here are a few extra tidbits I wanted to share along with some of the photos taken this weekend at the farm:

Gavin said ‘Mom’ and ‘Mama’ today, along with a lot of Mmmmmmms.

The boys have started to mimic us. Just this weekend Wyatt learned how to high five from his Grandma French. Gavin started to do this today. Both boys pat the ground and other types of motions when we do.

As I’ve mentioned before, we are signing with the boys. This past weekend Wyatt is starting to sign ‘milk’ during meal time. It’s so cute. I don’t think he knows the difference between milk and eat yet, but he is learning that this is done during meal time. Gavin still says ‘Mmmmm’ when he’s hungry or during meal time to let me know he’s ready for food or more!

Wyatt is moving. He can takes a few official crawling steps off and on, but he always gets to where he wants to go no matter what; moving in circles, sideways, backwards and now forward! He’s real close to going from the crawling position to the sitting position too. Gavin started getting up on all fours, rocking and trying to crawl last night (09/25). He thinks a lot about his motions before trying it seems.

Gavin is pulling himself up from the sitting (on the floor) position to his knees these days. He loves to pull up the whole way when he’s sitting on our legs to begin with. He has great balance and focus when standing.

Wyatt began to take steps while holding on to my fingers late last week. He loves to practice walking now! Just today (09/26) he walked from the activity table, to the bookshelf (holding on of course) and then walked along the bookshelf. He then let go and just started walking to the next activity center; good thing I was there to catch him and give him support!

Parenting has defiantly changed the past couple of weeks now that they are very mobile. They love to stand and walk, but often want to go in different directions. This is very hard since they are both unbalanced and need me for support. I often end up as their very own human jungle gym!

Gavin and Wyatt have started to scream and squeal in excitement. Toys are very exciting these days. They are spending less and less time in their jumparoo and stationary activity center and more and more time at the activity tables, walkers and other mobile toys.

Gavin and Wyatt are still eating very well. They are eating more and more solids. They are also now eating puffs and other types of finger foods; practicing picking them up and putting them in their mouth. They are also starting to get a little table food here and there if I know they’ve tried all the ingredients in it already. They loved great-grandma’s biscuits and plum jelly this past weekend at the farm! Both boys are also doing great at using a sippy cup now.

Here is a great video of Gavin having fun with Daddy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjE4olrLFwI

Six months. Our boys are six months. Wow, I just can’t believe a half a year has past already since their birthday! What an amazing and beautiful half year this has been! I am so thankful for our beautiful blessings from God. Here are some things I want to remember about Gavin and Wyatt this past month.

• Their personalities are really starting to blossom and we are continuing to see differences between Gavin and Wyatt already. Although both love to study the world around them and practice their movement, Gavin spends a lot of time study everything and Wyatt spends his time practicing his movements.
• Gavin and Wyatt are taking baths together now. They are both sitting in the seats still for safety. I’ve been putting more water in the tub these days and they just love to splash with their feet and hands and run their hands under the running water.

• The boys love the dogs and the dogs love them. They love to not only watch them, but pet them as well.

• Both boys are sitting on their own real well. They do tumble over though when they try to look up or behind them while sitting. We either keep the boppy behind them when we walk away for a second, or make sure there are no hard toys around for them to hit their heads on. Gavin has excellent posture and sits for very long periods of time, content as can be playing and studying his toys. Wyatt does not ‘enjoy’ sitting quite as long though, but rather prefers to be moving instead.
• Gavin and Wyatt had their first restaurant highchair experience the other day! They did great and thoroughly enjoyed throwing every toy on the ground at least 5 times and chewing on the package of crackers and trying to drink from their sippy cup. It was a great success and we honestly really enjoyed this milestone!

• Just this past week or so, Gavin and Wyatt get so excited about toys. They show so much wonder and enthusiasm as they play and explore. They are also starting to play with the toys more instead of just putting them in their mouth (but they do this plenty still as well!).
• When the boys get really excited they start to move their arms around and ‘pant’, blow bubbles, 'spit' and become very chatty and loud. It’s so cute to watch. They seem to get very excited a lot these days! Gavin also loves buttons right now. They both have really enjoyed the 'spinning' toys the past couple of months as well.
• Both boys love their Daddy. They light up when they see him and they get to play with him! They especially love it when Daddy ‘tosses’ them in the air and turns them into airplanes!
• Gavin and Wyatt are very ticklish. Both boys are ticklish on their lower back, inside thighs, tummy and feet. Wyatt is also ticklish around his neck. They giggle just as much when I give them ‘Mommy Kisses’ on their neck and tummy.
• Gavin started to ‘hug’ me the past couple of weeks. He’ll pull his body into mine and put his arms out and his head on my chest. Oh my… how it melts my heart! He’s also started to snuggle in and put his head on your chest when sitting on your lap. He’ll do this to both Jason and me.
• Gavin and Wyatt love everything they are not supposed to have: the remote, our phones, and my iPad… They also now want my food and drinks when it’s my turn to eat!

• Wyatt wants to stand a large majority of his day. He is most content standing up holding on to my finger with one hand and a toy with the other, or holding on to the toy box and pulling toys out.
• Both boys are standing excellent when holding on to something; our fingers, the toy box, activity table, etc. They will pull themselves up when sitting on our laps using the toybox, but can not do so while sitting on the floor as it is too high for them. They are starting to understand how to move from one object to another by moving sideways, but they do not have the ‘stepping motion’ down yet, nor the balance. They love their new activity table we bought them.

• Both boys are trying so hard to crawl, but just don’t have it quite figured out yet. They can roll across the floor, they can move in circles and side to side, and push backwards real well. They get around well, but get so frustrated when trying to move forward. They bring their knees up, but just don’t understand to move the arms forward yet. It’s so cute to watch them rock back and forth on all fours! Just yesterday Wyatt actually moved forward doing the army crawl! Today he actually took two real crawling steps, but because he was so frustrated, he never really understood that the got it. We don't lay a blanket down for them to lay on much any more during playtime. They prefer to just move all over the living room or gameroom floors!
• Oh how they love to hear and make noises! They have mastered the art of spitting, blowing bubbles and making all sorts of sounds. They both talk a lot, but no ‘words’ yet. We are working on trying to get them to say Dada and Mama, but no luck yet!
• They giggle all the time. What a beautiful sound and warms my heart!!!
• They are wearing size 12 months these days. They can fit into some 9 month clothes and a few 18 months, but the majority of their outfits are 12 months. They have not had their 6 month check up, but our scales at home say they are over 18 lbs right now. Both boys have really grown a lot in length as well just this past month. We’ve had to move all their activity centers up to the next stage.
• Wyatt does not enjoy the jumparoos much any more these days. He will play in them every now and then, but never for more than 5 minutes. He does enjoy the activity saucer a little more, but even that he just isn’t happy in any more. He does however still really enjoy the activity center upstairs where he can not only spin around in his chair, but walk around the table as well. He loves to move and walk around, so this is still great for him. Gavin still enjoys all of these. He is very content jumping and/or playing with all the toys.
• They can no longer safely sit in their bouncers and thus we have retired them. They sit straight up in them and then lean side to side and just about flip the seats over. I am sure there is a weight limit on these anyways that they might be boarder lining.

Although Gavin and Wyatt LOVE to move, they are also very content with just sitting and playing with their toys for 20-30 minute stretches with nothing else going on. They are very content and joyful little boys. They also are now starting to enjoy Baby Einstein and can watch it for 15-20 minutes without losing interest. Giggles can be heard while watching the show and lots of smiles seen!

• Our evening routines were not going smooth for a while and so we decided to take bath time out of it and instead I bathe them in the mornings now before their first nap. This change has worked wonderfully.
• Gavin and Wyatt sleep about 9-10 hours at night. They are still waking up sometime between 4 and 5 AM each morning; averaging between 4:20 and 4:40. We have tried everything to get them to sleep until at least 5:30, but nothing works. (On occation they do sleep until 5:30 or 6 though, but rarely do both of them do this together!) It does not matter what their bed time is, what their naps are like, when dinner is, etc… They wake up each morning between 4 and 5! We don’t get them out of bed though until 5:30. I then feed them breakfast at 6:30. Here is a typical schedule for us these days:
5:30 AM out of bed
6:30 breakfast
8:30 first nap
10:30 ‘Lunch’
12 or 12:30 second nap
2:30 Milk Feeding
4:30 third nap
6 Dinner (if poor naps) or 6:30 Dinner (if napped well)
Bedtime between 7 and 8PM
• Naps still range between 30 minutes and 2+hours. On average they are napping about 2.5 hours to 3.5 hours a day.
• Gavin and Wyatt are wonderful eaters. To date they are eating: carrots, butternut squash, acorn squash, parsnips, green beans, peas, sweet potatoes, bananas, apples, pears, peaches, plums, avocado, chicken, as well as rice and oatmeal cereals. I love making all their food. They are doing great with all the different textures and flavors. They get so excited when eating solids. Their least favorite is plums and chicken. I am assuming it’s because the plums are slightly tart. I always end up combining it with bananas and oatmeal to balance out the flavor. They just didn't seem to enjoy the texture of the chicken. They get a small couple of bites just plain chicken to get used to the different textures and taste, then I combine it with a veggie or fruit. Gavin ate it mixed pretty well, but Wyatt... he was a trooper and ate it all, but it looked like he was going to gag at every bite. Their daily eating routine is to eat oatmeal and fruit at breakfast, a fruit and veggie at lunch and then a veggie and cereal or a veggie and chicken at dinner. During meals that they have solids, they also drink about 6 oz of milk (they’d drink more, but I stop them because that’s plenty!) and 8-9oz when only milk. Gavin and Wyatt love to eat.

• They boys don’t pay much attention to TV until recently. Both boys enjoyed 20 minutes of Baby Einstein recently and Wyatt also gets so excited when football is on. That’s the extent of their TV watching though! Wyatt first showed his football excitement during the Aggie's first game!
• After going through a slew of Aggie outfits, we finally were able to get these great family shots on the boys’ first Aggie football day. To get these pictures, Gavin went through 2 shirts and shorts, Jason and I both went through two shirts and shorts and Wyatt went through 3 outfits and 2 bibs.

I recently joined a local playgroup that I am very excited about for both the boys and myself. We went to our first playdate this week and had fun. The boys loved watching the children walking around. Wyatt thought watching them play cars was the greatest! They are really loving watching children who walk around. I will post about our new group after I attend a few more get togethers.

I'm working on child-proofing the house as this will be a necessity very soon.

These past six months have been such a beautiful gift; a great time of growth in so many areas for myself as a mother and wife. I thank God for continuing to mold me into the woman He wants me to be and am thankful that He has allowed our sweet Gavin and Wyatt to teach me so much about myself, life and God. Oh how I love our little boys... I love watching them grow into the young boys God made them to be... and I'm thankful that God has entrusted us to care for, love and guide them on their journey.