Enough said.

Food coma

Last night as I sat Cavin down for his dinner I had no idea what was in store for me. 40 minutes, one sore mommy arm, one full plate of food, 1/2 a banana, and 3 empty jars of food later, I finally had a full baby tummy on my hands. I'm still trying to figure out what got into the little guy as he ate about 5 times as much as he normally does in one sitting.

As I picked up the camera to mark this momentous occasion, he managed to squeeze out one last smile for his fans...

Some things never change...

At 9 weeks of age....


and at 36 weeks of age...

...he is still very comfortable in his Adidas.

Happy Eight Month Birthday Cavin!

Cavin's 8th month was pretty much like his 7 month except on overdrive. He doesn't have many more motor skills to add to his list; however we did catch him standing on his own for about 5 seconds just before his 8 month birthday. Other than that he has just become stronger and stronger on his legs, he cruises around a lot more, crawls a lot faster, and sits up on his knees a lot.

Taking after his dad, Cavin has become quite the talker and has increased his vocabulary this past month. He's consistently saying "dadadadada" and "mamamamama" (the "mamamama" only comes when he's upset or tired...typical), "ooooohhhh" (while making the so-called "O lips" that his Aunt Amy S loves so much), "yayaya", "babababa", and "thathatha" (only in a whisper...if you can figure that one out let me know). As you can tell he's well on his way to becoming a literary genius.

Between 7 and 8 months, Mike and I experienced a bit of a challenge in the solid foods category. We tried everything! Serving the foods warm, serving them cold, before his bottle, after his bottle, after his nap, in his high chair, in our lap, mixing the foods, separating the foods, fruits, veggies, rice, oatmeal...you name it we tried it. Cavin would take a couple bites, clamp his lips shut, and eventually cry in protest. After about 6 weeks of this we figured it out. It wasn't that he didn't like pears, or squash, or sweet potato. Or that it was too warm, too cold, not the right time of day, or not the right color spoon. Nope. None of that. It was that he didn't like mommy's cooking. That's right. All this time I was making his baby food and thinking I'm such a great mommy making his food from scratch. When all he wanted was jarred foods. That's just great. In my defense I think I wasn't pureeing the food enough because at this point he will take some of my foods - the more liquid-y ones such as pears and squash. I will also blame teething because...well...that gets blamed for everything and by Cavin's 8 month b-day he had two bottom teeth and was working on his two top ones (which he now can mark off his list as well).

This month's Elmo picture proved to be like last month's. He can sit on Elmo for as long as he wants. Unfortunately, since he's a 'man on the move' he chooses to sit for.....about 5 seconds...just enough to get one picture. I think this has become some sort of game to him. Look at those devilish eyes!



Then he was off and on to better things like:

Perfecting his swing using his Astros bat that Auntie Adrienne and Uncle David gave him...



Pretending he is Sandy...

Turning around to play with Elmo himself...

And grabbing mommy's camera.

As you can tell we've got our hands full with a very playful baby boy! Cavin has proved to be so much fun. Gone are the days when we place him on the play mat and hope he engages with the toys...now he rips the toys off and turns the mat upside down. Mike and I truly have a lot of fun engaging him in various activities and watching our little guy figure out the world around him.

Now on to his stats!

This month Cavin had a doctor's appointments so they are more official. However, what is strange is they are less than my unofficial measurements from last month. And since I don't make mistakes :) I will blame it on the nurse that took his measurements very quickly. That being said, here's what is being recorded in his medical records:

Weight: 19 pounds, 2 ounces (25-50th percentile)
Height: 28.75 inches (90th percentile)
Head: 46cm (80th percentile)

I was originally concerned with his slight drop in weight and height percentiles. The doctor said she is not at all worried due to how much he moves around and how he started crawling earlier than the average age...therefore burning more calories. Who knew that Cavin was already on some sort of exercise regime. Since then, Cavin has increased his solids intake so I'm interested to see his weigh-in come his 10 month check-up!

Happy birthday little guy!

"Whaat? Whooo? Hooow?"

These are the questions I could see running through my little tot's head when he first met Santa Clause. I should caviat this post with the fact that Cavin was tired, hungry, and had just sat through an hour long Catholic mass in an uncomfortable 'I'm wearing this outfit b/c it appeases my mom and is festive' outfit.

When I sat him down on Santa's lap he immediately became infatuated with the beard. Seriously, he would not stop staring. I was beginning to think Santa would take offense and become uncomfortable. And with Cavin's obsession in pulling my hair and sticking it in my mouth I had serious concern that Santa's gross beard would find it in my child's clean mouth. Alas, no...just...a lot of....staring.

Meanwhile, 50,000 people (okay, maybe there were really just 5 adults but daddy and mommy count as 49,997) were screaming Cavin's name, jumping up and down, waving toys, acting like complete fools to get just one precious photo of Cavin, Santa, and Mrs. Clause looking at the camera. But nope. We have one excellent photo of Santa looking at Cavin and Cavin....looking at the beard. All 50,000 adults tried for what felt like 5 minutes until Cavin got completely overwhelmed and burst into tears!

And with a "maybe you should take him" from Santa, mommy swooped him up in hopes that despite Cavin's "naughty" behavior he will still be considered on Santa's "nice" list.

Sweet Relief

A night time ritual: a tantalizing menu of rice cereal mixed with fruits and / or veggies followed by a chilled dessert - a teething ring.




Showing off his festive "My first tooth" onesie...

Happy Seven Month Birthday Cavin!

He is getting up there! I apologize for the late birthday post this month...things have been pretty hectic in the Spruiell household between my NY trip, our Houston trip, and Thanksgiving. Okay, enough with the excuses....onto the birthday boy!

When it came to the monthly Elmo shot, this month proved a LITTLE easier. Since he's very comfortable sitting up these days, he would stay on Elmo for a little more time. The tough part was getting him to pose and smile at the same time. He'd sit there for a few seconds with this look like 'can I go now??? can I?? please! I want to go!!!!'

Cavin: "Okay, it's time to go. That's okay right?"

Cavin: "Screw this. I'm out."

Cavin: "Get out of my way mom!!!"

This month Cavin perfected his crawling technique. This little guy is pretty fast. He kicks it into high gear when he sees one of his furry friends. Once one of the dogs see he is headed their way, they meet him half way with lots of licks...it is such a cute relationship he has with those two. As for Toby, it took Toby 8 months to warm up to each of these dogs so I'm hoping to have some good news right around Cavin's 9 month Elmo picture.

In other news, at around 6.5 months Cavin started pulling himself up to stand! And about a week and a half after that he was already cruising around...in other words, taking steps while holding onto something. He still doesn't cruise that fast or go that far....for long! He even takes one hand off and uses it to pull down toys.

As you can probably imagine, the second Cavin wakes up, the productivity levels in our household decrease by 50%. Meaning, one parent is constantly following after Cavin picking up after him or ensuring he doesn't injure himself too bad. Mike has been baby proofing as much as possible but we feel like we barely keep up.



We also started solid foods this month. We began with rice cereal which went over pretty well. Then we figured we'd begin his fruit / veggie experience with avocado since, other than Jerry, he's the only native Californian in our family. Well, apparently the CO and TX in his blood was stronger than CA b/c he didn't take to the avocados very well. We'll try those again soon. He warmed up to sweet potatoes, likes bananas, and loves pears! Cavin has never been a big eater so we are finding that solid feeding time is a bit of a challenge to keep him interested but he's getting better as the days go on.


He also has TWO bottom teeth! Okay, so one showed up before his 7 month bday and one showed up after...but I'm included the second tooth in this post anyways. We endured quite a few sleepless nights for those bad boys. Mr. Molar, you can wait for now. And as with all big occasions he dressed appropriately and sported a "My First Tooth" onesie to daycare the day is first tooth popped in. I'll post the pic of that later.


So as you can see it has been a BIG month!


Now on to the stats! Since Cavin didn't have a doctor's appointment this month, the stats are VERY approximate.


Weight: 19 pounds, 6 ounces
Height: 29.5 inches
Head: enormous - he's grown out of all but two of his hats


Happy Birthday honey-bunny!