Country Roads

The other night, Austin and I were having a discussion about whether he needed another bottle to go back to sleep.  He thought he did; I disagreed.  After rocking him for a bit I decided to sing to him one of my favorite childhood songs and one that I had been singing to him since he was weeks old, "Country Roads" by John Denver.  

I have one specific memory that I am fond of when I think of this song and that is on my fifth birthday in Hawaii.  I was "queen for the day" and was proudly wearing, what I think was, a Burger King crown hat.  A couple neighborhood kids and I decided we were going to sing "Country Roads" to our parents and I got to stand on a tree stump as the center of attention.  Have no idea if those details are true or if they were conjured up in my day dreams (I did that a lot as a kid), but nevertheless, it is a memory that I love.  I love singing it to Austin as well and it seems to settle him just fine:

Country Roads, by John Denver

Almost heaven, West Virginia
Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River
Life is old there, older than the trees
Younger than the mountains, blowing like a breeze

Chorus:
Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West Virginia, Mountain Mama
Take me home, country roads

All my memories, gathered 'round her
Miners' Lady, stranger to blue water
Dark and dusty, painted on the sky
Misty taste of moonshine, teardrop in my eye

Chorus

I hear her voice, in the morning hour she calls me
The radio reminds me of my home far away
And drivin' down the road I get the feeling
That I should have been home yesterday, yesterday

Chorus x 2

7 Mos Old!

This last month has been extraordinary in the changes we have seen in Austin!  He is sitting on his own and is super active on the floor now.  He rolls over to get where ever he wants to go.  Front to back, back to front, non stop. We are grabbing cords, reaching for things otherwise out of his reach and rocking constantly. Changing a diaper is interesting because the rolling over does not stop. 

Bath time fun!

First swim!

"Reading"

Blueberry fun!

Austin's has taken to eating mommy's homemade foods.  He has had sweet potatoes, squash, baked apples, baked pears with cinnamon, green beans, carrots, blueberries, watermelon, bananas thus far and we are going to start trying out some meat in the next couple weeks.  We are eating three meals a day while reducing our formula intake by about 10oz/day.  

Homemade goodness

We had a huge breakthrough just recently with stopping the acid reflux medicine that he had been taking since he was 8 weeks old.  We were so excited about this and I am sure Austin was glad to stop taking his daily "strawberry delight".  Also, we have also just recently switched to regular formula containing milk and he seems to be handling it well.  Looks like the milk intolerance is behind us as well!

First swing!

Austin slept for his first eight hour stretch a couple weeks ago so we got to experience a few "once a night" feedings for about a week, which was nice.  We are back to two times per night but his stretches are longer overall and he is learning to fall back asleep on his own although he definitely needs help to get to sleep.  This is fine by us as we do enjoy rocking him to sleep in our arms.

Homey

Standing practice

Drool machine!

As posted before, teething has been uncomfortable for Austin this time around.  We think the top two are coming in but it is still hard to tell at this point.  

Seven months old little boy!  Yay!

Teething

Just the other day a friend had wondered why I hadn't posted anything about teething.  The truth was, Austin went through the first set of teeth (the bottom two) with really no effort.  I mean, there was a lot of drooling and he did have a fever for one day about a month prior to them coming in but one day they just popped through and walla!

Well, literally that very night after speaking to my friend I discovered Austin had a low grade fever and realized that he may be teething again.  He had been drooling quite a bit again and chewing everything in sight (including trying for the dog's paw - yuck!). He also has had a few nights of having a tough time going down and staying asleep for any length of time.  Once we realized this, we started giving him Tylenol for relief and then switched to Advil.

It has been three days now and the poor kid is still running a low grade fever and seems to be bothered a little more than usual.  To say the least, it has been a nightmarish week for all of us.

Sweet Austin, believe me we enjoy every moment with you.  We are documenting these little trials though so we remember them with laughter and to eventually hold it over your head!  xoxo, Mommy and Daddy.