Gavin Michael Curt

I would so much rather be home with sweet baby Gavin than sitting at work waiting for 5:00. Some day soon hopefully. Then I will look back on this moment and wonder what I was thinking.

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quitting and staying home

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Sometimes Tyler is sweet as pie to Gavin, dishing out hugs and kisses, proudly displaying affection and announcing to all that he kissed baby. Sometimes Tyler is mean as the devil, biting, hitting, pulling the baby's arm, and recently, pushing him over. When he's in a mood it's all or none: Excessive hugs and kisses or excessive hitting and hurting. Gavin has a real fetish for pulling hair. Yesterday as Tyler ignored my repeated warnings and requests to stop hurting the baby, Gavin grabbed a hold of Tyler's hair. Instead of running over to help when Tyler screamed "Baby pull mine hair," I walked slowly, letting the baby get some revenge. Does that make me a bad person?

Baby has a new trick--peekaboo! He puts a blanket over his face and then pulls it down and we say peekaboo! We discovered this new trick at the hospital while Tyler was laying on the gurney and I was holding squirmy Gavin trying to keep him from fussing too much for not being able to get on the ground and participate in his favorite activity: crawling. Gavin's latest trick entertained us for a long time that day. He gives us the biggest toothless grin and then sucks in an excited little gasp as he peeks over the blanket, so proud of his new trick.

Gavin just had his nine-month checkup. This boy is skinny. 40th percentile for weight. Eat, boy, eat! I'm trying to get him eating more solids but he has choked several times so we're mostly sticking with the jarred baby foods still. 80th percentile for height, so I guess he's going to be tall and skinny like Papa Neb! Yesterday he and Tyler were both standing very close together, hovering over an activity table and I was shocked at how close to Tyler's height Gavin is. The doctor's appointment confirmed it, there's only a seven-inch difference between the two boys. Just when Dr. Zubach asked if he's babbling much, Gavin took his cue. We both got a good laugh at how much he just rambled on and on babble babble babble! We are so lucky to have such a healthy baby!

Why didn't I think of this sooner? The playpen is a perfect haven for Gavin. He's protected from Tyler's recent hitting, biting, pinching and arm-pulling afflictions. He can stand up and hang onto the sides. He can play nicely with his own toys without having Tyler take them away just as soon as he's really into them...

Aside from the fact that Tyler's driving me crazy begging to put him in the playpen with Baby, it's a perfect solution. Last night while cooking dinner and doing my best to tune out Tyler's repetitive begging to go in the playpen, I caught a quick glimpse in my peripheral vision just in time to see Tyler climbing up onto the coffee table so he could dive head-first in to the playpen. I haven't run that fast in a long time but I made it just in time to stop him from either breaking his neck or from crushing the baby. Note to self: Playpen is only sort of a haven, any day now Tyler will figure out he can push a chair up against it and climb in that way.

This baby is cruising! Just in the past four weeks, he's gone from rolling around to sitting up, to crawling, to pulling himself up on furniture! What upper body strength! Last night I sat him in the play pen and turned on Baby Bach while I cooked dinner for Tyler. Gavin stood up the entire 30 minute duration! I wonder if he's sore today?

Baby met the Easter Bunny this weekend! He posed very sweetly at first and I wondered why they weren't snapping the camera away. My philosophy is take the three shots as soon as possible, before he decides he'd rather be with me. (He is suffering from some severe separation anxiety which we all need to remind ourselves is just temporary). Anyway, they took one picture and baby turned around to check out the bunny. He reached his hand up to explore the furry face and suddenly jumped as if it just dawned on him that the furry face and those furry hands didn't belong to mommy. He screamed and cried very hurtfully so I immediately ran to the rescue. Luckily the one pose they took was great and we were done! I think it's safe to assume he won't be sitting with Santa at Christmas this year.

Baby Gavin is in the house! This boy is changing so much he needs his own blog! He came home yesterday with a bloody nose. Little busybody couldn't keep from pulling up on to everything and fell to the ground. Made me wish I didn't send him to daycare so I could have been there to make him feel better. Sigh.

"This is the time when your baby starts showing extreme attachment to you and an intense dislike for everyone else." --BabyCenter.com

Sigh.