9 month checkup

I took Noah in for his 9 month checkup today. The Dr. thought everything looked good. He was pleased with his development especially in gross motor where Noah is now standing up on his own for about 4-5 seconds. He's still too scared to take a step but that's okay with his parents right now :)

On to his size which is what everyone wants to know. You'll all be happy to know that we are in fact NOT starving our son and the proof is that we went from the 3rd percentile in weight to the 7-8th percentile in weight-16lb 14 oz. It's not much but it's something. The big news is in his height, where our little boy went from the 55th percentile to the 80th percentile!!!!! He's now just shy of 30 inches. I told him when we left that he's long and lean like Muhammed Ali. He's pretty too :)

Cutting more teeth

Noah's gums are at it again we think. Last night he kept waking up with that 'pain' cry. You know that loud shriek followed by silence because he ran out of air and is still screaming. We alternated getting up with him a couple of times and started the teething tablets/Motrin/Mylecon cycle to cover everything. Finally at 2 I told Jenna to go to bed and I'll stay up with him. The thing is if you held him vertically he was fine unless you moved of course. When he laid down he would scream. This makes me think ear infection or reflux but this is how he acted when he cut his first 2 teeth. Then at 4:15...that's AM...I tried the OriGel. Last time OriGel had no effect but this time it calmed him down bigtime. In fact he fell asleep at 4:30. I held him for about 30 minutes and then put him down with no fuss.

Needless to say the side effects of all his medicine and late night wakefulness is I'm having my 3rd Dr Pepper and am about to take my second dose of DayQuil to shake off the fatigue. When did I get so old I couldn't stay up til 5AM? I think a gene triggers when you are no longer single that anything past 11PM is vague and not worthy of consideration.

Noah cut his first tooth (actually 2)

Well we now know why Noah hasn't been sleeping. The first 2 nights in Florida were perfect and then today Magga yelled "I feel a tooth." After a lot of looking and rubbing, sure enough Noah has 2 teeth. They are the 2 bottom center ones. We knew it was probably teeth or ears or belly but just weren't sure. I feel bad because at 3AM a couple of times we've lost patience with him and handed him off. I guess we 'knew' he was in pain but now that we 'know' he was in pain and not just messed up from traveling so much we could have been more sympathetic.

In Florida

We got to Destin last night.  The drive went great.  Noah slept for much of the morning but woke up for the afteroon/night leg and was really good.  Jenna set the laptop up so he could watch his Baby Einstein so he was of course happy.  Melissa, Jay, and Jana left a little after us from ElDorado and we didn't catch them until we were at the gate of the condo.  The first thing we did before unpacking was go see the beach.  Jana ran around all crazy like.  Noah wasn't interested in the water, but he digs sand.  He grabbed a handful and turned his hand over and just stared at it.  He'd let go, look at his hand, process the information, then grab some more.  Magga and Aunt Holly got here about an hour or two after we did.  The weather's supposed to be pretty good with a chance of rain on the weekend.  Strangely, Noah slept pretty good last night, but he had to be exhausted from playing with Jana before bedtime.

Santa Came!

Santa found little Noah in Texarkana this morning. He brought him a jumping zebra and some other toys. I'm surprised Santa showed up since Noah didsn't sleep last night. In fact, Noah has slept since we left Fayetteville.

We left Friday night and went to ElDorado where he slept the entire trip down so it was forgivable when he woke up on arrival and didn't go back to sleep easy. Saturday night wasn't much better. In fact, Noah and I went for a drive to see if it would put him to sleep. We ended up driving to Magnolia (30 miles away) and back. Then last night I slept on the couch and Jenna put him in bed with her to help him sleep, but he still woke up all night. We're not sure if he has an ear infection, teething, a bug, or whatever but Daddy needs sleep. We even discussed if we should be going to Florida or not, but I have high hopes he just needs to adapt.

Anyways, Merry Christmas everybody. Noah loved most of his Christmas presents. Mostly he loved the paper that wrapped the presents but he loved them nonetheless :)

Here's a quick vid of him Christmas morning on his zebra. His feet don't quite touch the ground but he loved it. Click here for video!

Noah met Santa!

Today at Mamaw and Papaw's house, we were minding our own business.  The kids were all playing in the floor, Noah was crying, and everyone was stuffed full of good eats.  When all of a sudden Santa Claus came by!!!  He was checking his list and decided a bunch of good kids were in one spot and stopped by for a last minute check to see where everybody was.  Noah wasn't so sure about him, but luckily he had worn his own Santa suit.  Santa seemed impressed and offered him a position with his elves, but Jenna stepped in and said he couldn't have a job until he is 13.  Here are some pics.

Noah with Santa

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Noah with grandkids

Holiday Plans

I thought I'd post here and tell everyone our holiday plans next week.  First we leave Friday night and head to ElDorado.  Saturday morning we are having Christmas at Mamaw and Papaw Sullivan's (where I hear Santa may make a visit) and then at Magga's house that night.  We are then leaving Sunday morning and headed to Texarkana.  We will take Noah along for the Johnson tradition of church on Christmas Eve.  Then we'll wake up Christmas morning in T-town with Uncle Jared, Pops, and Granda. We'll hang out there until Wednesday AM when we leave for ElDorado where we will join the Sullivan caravan headed to Destin, FL.  That's right, it's vacation time!!!!!  Aunt Holly is flying in from AZ to join us, Magga, Aunt Melissa, Uncle Jay, and Cousin Jana and we'll ring in the New Year on the beach, mon.  Then its back home for the rest of the holiday break.  Woohoo!

Noah has a sibling...sort of

In case you don't know I've had a kidney stone trying to pass since Thanksgiving.  The pain would come and go over the past few weeks, but it was always there.  A lady I work with claims this is the male 'almost' equivalent of giving birth and convinced me to name it. You wouldn't believe the sympathy I got from women.  Men just go pale and walk away :)
Well I am happy to say that yesterday I gave 'birth' to a 4mm baby rock.  We've named him Larry and he'll be a member of the family until next month (I'm going to wait til next month to take it in for pathology so it can count on next year's deductible).

Congratulations me!

Rough Week!

Wow!  It has been a rough week at the sullivan house.  Noah started throwing up on Monday and seemed a little better on Tues.  Then Wednesday, I started throwing up and my sitter and her kid and two other kids were sick.  So i called my mom to come help me.  She got here around noon.  Noah cried all day and was really warm running fever by late afternoon.  i could hardly get out of bed.  Mom and Chad took Noah to the dr.  He had strep throat.  He screamed all night.  So much, that mom and I drove him around at 3 o clock  in the morning.  Yesterday I managed to squeak out a half day at work, but got little accomplished.  Noah did better yesterday and seemed to like his pedialyte in slushie form.  He slept better last night.  This morning, mom woke up with the yukky virus.  Chad and I scrambled and got Noah to the sitter where every kid there is on antibiotics.  I finally had an appetite and stopped at McDonalds to get a biscuit.  I ate it and the sausage on it and by the time I got to work was feeling ill again.  Finally at about 10:30 I came back home and the bisuit came back up.  Noah came home too because my sitter could not keep him from crying.  So now here we all are sitting in our germ infested house starting our weekend.  Luckily Chad does not seem to have caught anything yet....  Hopefully we will be recovering tomorrow.

My little Noah

Wow, it is hard to believe my little Noah is six month old. He is so precious and has such a little personality. He has really mastered sitting up and is on his way to crawling way before mom is ready! He is already pushing up on his knees and elbows and rocking back and forth. He is busy moving, reaching, touching every second he is awake! That is probably why is he still such a peanut! Recently, he has discovered his penis. In the bathtub the other night, he was sitting up and he looked down and there is was. It was like when he discovered his feet. He started playing with it and I hollored for Chad. We were cracking up! Then last night, same story except he was not in the exact same position and his belly was somewhat in the way. He kept bucking backwards to try to get better access to it. Chad tells me he will never grow out of this! Great! So now it is my job to teach him when it is appropriate to play with his penis and when it's not!!

And in this corner weighing in at ...

Noah had his 6 month checkup/shots on Wednesday.  Since his 3 month checkup he has grown 2+ inches but only 1 measly pound.  One pound!!!  Can you believe that.  The doctor asked if his motor always ran that fast when he wouldn't sit still.  Of course, it does.  We are going to up his caloric intake not the volume he is eating.  We are going to just use more powder in his bottle instead of making bigger bottles.  Hopefully we can fatten him up a little bit over the holidays.

Congratulations Brian and Karen

Last weekend we went to Austin for Jenna's cousin Brian's wedding. Noah went too. I'll say that again...we took our 5 month old to Austin. Actually he did great. We left on Thursday at his bedtime and he slept about 90% of the way down. The next day he went with Jenna and his Granda to the groom's parents' house while I played golf. That night he went to the rehearsal dinner and refused to be put down for bed. He didn't go to bed until over 2 hours past his bedtime.

The next night he had a sitter during the wedding. She was very sweet and he did great for her. He and I sat in the hotel room and watched Game 1 of the World Series while Jenna stayed at the reception. Once again it was too much new stuff for him and he didn't go to bed until after 9.

The ride home was...okay. He was a little fussy, mostly because he was constipated. I never knew how funny it could be to hear a baby grunt and hold their breath to push. I think it was the look on his face more than anything. It took us about 10 hours to get home but we stopped and stretched our legs a lot. Jenna fed him a bottle on the grass at a shopping center in Dallas and it was kind of nice.

The whole thing really wore him out though. He was sent home sick on Monday with a fever and runny nose. I really think it was just the lack of good rest and the little cold snap that got his immune system down. By Tuesday he was his usual little happy, bouncing self so I think he finally caught up on his sleep.

Lack of updates

I'm sorry about the lack of updates.  Honestly, we've all been sick around here.  Last week, I was puny and this week Noah came home Monday with a fever and Jenna didn't make it to work on Tuesday.
But I'm gonna catch you all up pretty soon.  Also, to the lack of pictures, I'll work on that this weekend.  We haven't taken many pics lately but we've been taking a lot of video.  And video is so time consuming to put on the computer.  But I'll get to it :)