Week 34

Nathan has a third tooth! It's his top second to the front right tooth. It's been a few rough nights, so I suspected that he was teething. It is by no means over yet, but now I know that there's a reason for these weird sleep nights.

He's been going down to sleep on his own, usually without tears. But for the past week or so, he's been waking up 30-40 minutes after he goes down and will cry and cry until I go up and pat him to sleep. On the worst night, he continued this pattern 3 times. I can still feel swollen gums on the left side, so I know that this phase isn't over yet. Hopefully that tooth will emerge soon and we can all sleep better.

I feel like this week Nathan has hit a major cognitive milestone. He is now able to elicit a repeated response from me. He now knows that he can convey "more" or "again" to me to get me to repeat an action over and over and over and over again. Some of his favorite things are for me to blow in his face, blow in his tummy, jiggle my lips back and forth with my fingers, or fake gobble on anything that he puts into my mouth.

Another cool thing that happened this week happened one morning when Steve went up to get the just waken Nathan as I lazily laid around in bed. As Nathan was playing on his activity mat, I called out to him and there was no response, Steve said that he just looked around for me. I then called out to him in Chinese, using his nickname and he responded back!

As each week passes, this little guy is becoming more and more human. It's so cool to see him learn new thing things every day. I am so lucky to be able to stay at home to witness these things as they occur.

Nathan is also lunging forward more often. Sometimes he will even push up with his arms and get onto his hands and knees. No rocking yet, but I have a feeling that by the time I make my next post, we will have a rocker. Check out the Nathan Bug that I made him so that he can play with his toys nearby while I cook in the kitchen. He really likes it.

We've been to the pool 3-4 times this week. Nathan's really enjoying splashing around in the water. He really likes to ride around in the little tube that I got him. He had a few friends over today for a swim party.

We also took Nathan to see a movie. The Alamo Drafthouse by our house does this baby day every Tuesday where they turn down the sound and turn up the lights a bit for the babies. Overall it was a good experience. Nathan was very engaged by all of the bright lights and loud sound at first, but after about 10 minutes, I think he got a bit overstimulated. He did get a bit fussy, but all it took was a bit of nursing and took a short nap. After he woke up, he was pretty good and if he got a bit restless, I just took him and stood against the wall as I rocked or swung him in my arms. There were so many babies there. I think the youngest one couldn't have been more than a month old. Can you guess what movie we saw?

Steve is on a month long sabbatical and it's been really nice having some extra help. I was able to go shopping for a few hours on my own and I am really liking not having to change so many diapers. I'm looking forward to spending time with my two guys.