Carsten eats solid food

For the last couple of weeks, Carsten has been seeming more and more interested in solid foods. In fact, one time last week, he saw me eating yogurt and proceeded to get upset. We finally got our high chair two weeks ago, and we've had him sitting at the table at suppertime, so perhaps that also helped him get interested in food. We started out his adventures in solid food with rice cereal on Friday night. He didn't seem to like it that much, but I think that was perhaps our fault because I think we didn't make it runny enough (it was a bit on the pasty side). We tried again Saturday night and had much more success with a very runny version of rice cereal. In fact, he ate the entire bowl. Sunday night went even better. We skyped with my parents while we were feeding him and by the end of the bowl he was trying to get to the spoon by leaning forward. On a side note, has anyone ever tried this stuff? It's really not that good... So hooray! His first venture into solid food seems to be going very well! I would like to also say, thanks Mom Huisman for the amazing bibs! She makes these wonderful bibs from hand towels that do an amazing job of catching most things on the actual bib. These photos are from Friday night, when the rice cereal was a bit on the pasty side.

"Mom, have you tried this stuff?!"

"I have, and I'm not so sure..."

"Yep, it's pretty gross."

We've been excited for some time to start trying a sippy cup. Somewhere in the midst of moving from Madison, our extended Christmas holiday, and moving to Switzerland, he lost the ability to take a bottle nicely. So, we've been excited to get him fluids in an alternative way. Here we have not had as much success, he'll suck on it a little bit, but not overly much. However, last night, just out of curiousity, I got out a bottle to see if he would take it while in his chair. To our surprise, he did take some of it (normally he just screams and screams and screams), so I think we'll try the bottle route again today and maybe we can reintroduce it that way!

Last week also marked a breakthrough in rolling for Carsten as well. Two weeks ago or so he rolled from his back to his tummy twice, but last week he spent a great deal of time perfecting that skill. In fact, he even perfected it in his crib, but this practice time had its downsides for him. Even though he's rolled from his tummy to his back quite a few times, they've been sporadic so I'm not sure I'd call it a skill that he's mastered yet. So, when he rolls in his crib to his tummy, he's not always the happiest to fall asleep in this position and he has a tough time getting back to his tummy by himself. We had some really rough nights and days where any time he rolled onto his tummy he would wake up mad. After about two days of this (going in and rolling him over and then he wouldn't fall back asleep) I put him down for a nap and he'd immediate roll onto his tummy, so I'd flip him back and he'd do it again. I didn't want this to become a game, so I let him roll onto his tummy and then cry for ~45 min before he fell asleep. I felt pretty awful about it, but I think the results have paid off. He'll now fall asleep on his tummy with only a little bit of complaining and it doesn't make him mad to roll onto his tummy in the crib anymore (unless he gets stuck in the crib bars). Plus, I don't feel the need to flip him over since I know he can sleep successfully on his tummy. Last night we finally settled back into our night-time sleeping routine of him getting up only once during the night. It makes such a difference to us! And most likely to him, he's been very tired during the day the last week, due to more interrupted sleep.

Now, a little bit about our weekend: We spent most of the day on Saturday hanging up photos and artwork. This was no small task since all but one of the walls we tried to hang stuff on was cement. I must say this: Andy is a champ! He got all of our stuff hung up (seriously, it took us all afternoon and we just had a few things), and he even helped me make dinner (tomato, bacon, and mozzarella pasta). What a guy! Sunday was very nice and relaxing, and we even spent most of the day in our pjs (Carsten too!). We don't usually just sit around and relax, but it rained all day, so getting outside for a walk was not an attractive option.

Allright, I think that's a pretty good summation of our week. Today is laundry day, and I only have three loads to do, which is nice. And, I've already achieved two goals for the day: dishes are done and so is this post! Sometimes it's difficult to be productive (especially last week with Carsten being overtired and not napping very well during the day), so I have to celebrate when I am :).