TWO TEETH!!!

Luca has sprouted 2 teeth! They came in a week apart, with the first one making its appearance on December 29th, and the second one breaking through on December 5th. They are his bottom front teeth (usually the first to erupt). Now all I have to do is to somehow teach him not to bite or his days of nursing are numbered....

He is babbling LOTS, and loves to make different sounds. He often surprises himself when he makes a new sound, or a loud sound. It is so neat to watch him learning to use his voice, mouth and tongue all at once in an effort to learn to speak.

He is somewhat mobile now, as well. He now loves to lay on his belly and turn around in circles, propelling himself with his left arm (he can only turn Left so far!). He can also move backwards by kicking his legs (picture the "worm" dance, but in reverse). He gets a bit frustrated when he is actually trying to reach something infront of him and he moves further away from it, but he will learn to move forwards soon, I imagine. He is getting better at lifting himself up on his arms, and I don't think that it will be long before he is able to get his knees up under himself.

Lately we have been working on getting him to fall asleep without being nursed or rocked. He is getting good at soothing himself in his crib and falling asleep. This came about mostly by him, as he used to nurse to sleep. Now he eats, then turns away and falls asleep, so now when he is done eating, I just lay him in his crib awake and he gets comfy and falls asleep. Yippee! So far, this has meant that I am up less during the night to help him fall back asleep when he wakes himself up. He is also able to put himself to sleep at nap time, too. When he appears tired, I feed him and then put him in his crib. Sometimes this takes a little longer for him to fall asleep and he fusses a bit, but he does go to sleep (once in a while with the lulling sound of the vacuum cleaner...whatever works!).

My little boy is growing up! Sniff, sniff!

I am feeling better, but Luca is actually getting worse. He now also has quite a cough, and is often coughing so hard that he is throwing up. So, we have a doctor's appointment tomorrow just to check things out. I am sure that it is just a cold, but better to be safe than sorry, right?

Chris is on his way home after being gone for nearly 2 weeks. He was home for 24 hours last week, and that's all. He is on days off for the next 3 days, so it will be nice to have him home again for a while. Unfortunately, he is coming home with the cold that Luca and I passed on to him when he was home for one night last week. Hopefully some R&R will do the trick.

(Another new post below).