Sooo big!!

In the last month it seems that Caleb has grown up a lot. Every month he becomes more interactive and reactive. He has a really funny laugh. He opens his mouth as big as he can and then eventually gets out what sounds more like short little coughs than laughs. Sometimes there's a few squeals in there too. Caleb is sitting up on his own now (mostly), enjoying 3 meals of baby foods every day and he got his first teeth! First he got the two teeth on the bottom in the middle, and just this last week the two top middle teeth came through. I think he's going to have a big gap between the top teeth!

We started working on getting Caleb's room ready last winter. We finally finished getting it together a couple weeks ago! There were a lot of hold ups including some unknown water damage and mold behind the wall which finally led us to having all the windows in the house worked on. The contractor we wanted to use for the windows wasn't able to get to the project until after Caleb was 5 weeks old. The was a crazy time...having a newborn with acid reflux who cried all the time and if I could finally get him to sleep someone would start banging on a window! But anyways, the windows are fixed, the mold is gone, new drywall is up, the walls are painted and the room is put together. I'll post photos soon.

We keep hoping Caleb will get better at sleeping. We keep thinking it'll get better...after his acid reflux is under control, after he starts eating solids, after he sleeps in his own room, after his first teeth come in. But, despite meeting all those milestones he still doesn't sleep very well at night. He falls asleep on his own but wakes up crying and needing his pacifier back or to be straightened out in the crib. So we usually only have to go in for a few minutes but 6-8 times a night of going into his room, even briefly, is starting to be a pain. At least the first couple times we have to go in are usually before we go to bed.

Besides the sleep issues we're really enjoying being parents. Caleb is for the most part a really happy kid. I think we're even more appreciative of this after the first few months were so hard. I'm sure at the time he wanted to be happy but he was just in pain so much of the time from the reflux. He gets really excited for his meals and loves eating anything except for green beans. His first try of green beans he acted like he had just been poisoned, sputtered and gagged and grimaced. It's so fun to go into his room in the morning when he smiles and just looks so excited to see us.

His personality has been so interesting to observe as more and more of it comes out. He's starting to show more affection and does hugs and kisses (or at least that's what we're calling them...we may just be hopeful). He hugs your neck or grabs your ears or hair and pulls your face to his mouth and then opens his mouth as big as he can and gives you a huge sloppy wet kiss in your face. This past week he's also started saying da da da da da. We weren't sure if he knew that meant Kyle or not, but yesterday Kyle got him out of his crib in the morning and when he went into the room Caleb started saying da da. I get him most mornings and he never says that to me, so I think he knows it's Kyle!