Life

*COLDS*

Cruz has now experienced his first full-fledged cold. It came on slowly and then BAM it hit hard. His first night was the hardest. Not being able to get him to understand to breathe through his mouth, or how to blow his nose or even just the simple fact that it won't last forever. He screamed, all be it very horsely, every time he realized he couldn't breathe properly through his nose. He stayed up til past midnight screaming and crying. We did all we could to comfort him. What wound up working was sitting down with him in front of the aquarium. He loves watching those fishies! Since he needed to be elevated in order to breathe, we put his car seat in the bed with us for him to sleep in. It was the only thing that didn't make him scream. I stayed awake most of the night listening to the poor guy struggling to breathe right. He still slept 6 hours before waking up for the first night feeding, which is impressive on any day for him.
I also was fighting my own cold while Cruz was dealing with his. We're both still fighting to get the last bits out of our systems, but we're much much better than we were.

*VISITS*

Rick had planned months ago to go Edmonton and Calgary to watch some hockey games with his cousin. My plan since the day he told me this was to go stay at my parents with the baby. He was gone for basically 3 days.
I stayed 2 nights at my parents and had a really good time. My parents didn't work for the first day I was out, so they had a full day of playing with Cruz. He took lots of naps with my mom. She's great at putting him to sleep!
Every year my mom puts up a cute Christmas village above the piano, so I helped her with that while I was out. She sat and held the baby and directed me where to go! It turned out quite nicely.

*CRUZ CHANGES*

I am loving watching all of the different things that Cruz has started doing. He is now holding his head very well on his own (he always could, but he can hold it longer now). Yesterday while I had him laying on my knees, he was trying to push himself forward to get to his toes. That was the first time he's tried getting his toes, but he sure does love looking at them!
He's become a major hand sucker. He can fit his whole fist in there when he really wants to. At times he sticks his hand too far in his mouth and is learning cause and effect... hand down throat leads to vomiting! Fun stuff...!
His eyes are so big and bright when he's in a good mood. His smile is pretty amazing, and I find it's pretty easy for myself to get him to smile and laugh. His cooing almost sounds like words, which I think is really neat. I love watching his mouth move to try and make different sounds.
One of the things I love is that he loves books. We lay down on the bed together and while I read to him and show him the book he smiles and coos throughout the whole book. He knows when I'm not reading too and gets upset if I start talking to Rick during the story. I hope loving books is something that sticks with him.
Cruz has somewhat of a bedtime routine now too. He gets pj's on, I read him a story, feed him and try putting him down for sleep. Only sometimes it works. Sometimes this can take 3 hours. I'm not at the point of letting him cry himself to sleep since he's in a good mood when I pick him up. He'll get tired enough eventually and sleep. This can be anywhere between 8-10:30 that he's out for the night. I find I put myself to sleep at the same time too :-)