Colson’s Thirteenth Month

(November 6 - December 5)

By the time we got back from the cruise (mid November) Colson was exclusively walking. No more crawling. He would raise his shoulders and bend his arms like wings while he walked. It was hilarious! As would be expected, he got a lot of head injuries.

To get a good look at the life of Colson (and me) at this age, he are the comprehensive notes I left for Nancy and George about tending him:

6:30-7:30 am  - The boys wake up

• Colson: He may wake up before 6:00, if so, leave him in there to cry. Close your door so you can go back to sleep. If he wakes up between 6:00 and 7:00 (too early to fully get up, but too late to let him keep crying), take him a 6 oz bottle (lukewarm) while you sit in the chair in the dark room. Don’t worry about changing his diaper at this point. After he finishes the bottle or pushes it away, stand up, burp him for a few seconds, and then lay him down and put the blanket over his legs. Even if he cries for a second after putting him down, he will likely fall asleep again until 8:00 or so. If he wakes up for the first time after 7:00, give him the 6 oz bottle while you change his diaper and clothes and get him up.

7:30 am - Breakfast

• I would suggest using the same bowls, plates, cups, bottles, spoons each day for the boys, otherwise you will go through a lot of dishes and bottles and run out before you even run the dishwasher.

8:00  - 10:00 am

• PLAY
• Keep bathroom doors closed, as well as all doors downstairs
• Keep the Ottoman in front of the XBox and the white foam board on the other side of the book case
• We no longer use the gates. He is great on the small stairs, but we keep an eye on him on the big stairs. You are welcome to use them if you would like, though.
• I would recommend only getting out so many toys at a time, and getting him to clean up after he is done with one activity before moving to the next. This isn’t mandatory (and hardly happens here) but it helps keep the clutter down at the end of the day.
• They love music.

10:00ish am - Colson Nap

• Take Charlie to the bathroom and then give him the iPad to play games while you put Colson down for a nap. Get a 6 oz bottle (lukewarm) and feed it to him on the changing table while you change his diaper. Then hold him while you sit in the chair and he finishes the bottle. Have the fan on and curtains closed. I have one big soft blanket laid down and then another one ready to lay on top of him. I also usually keep the sheep and duck stuffed animals in the crib with him at his feet. Once he finishes the bottle, pushes it away, or falls asleep, stand up and burp him, then lay him down and put the blanket over his legs/body (I leave his arms out). Leave the room and close the door. If he cries, he usually stops after a few minutes. He should sleep for 1-2 hours. If he continues to cry hard for 20 minutes, then get him and wait until the next nap (maybe bump it up by an hour). (If, however, you think he is really tired and is just fighting the sleep, you can always try getting another bottle and trying again). If I hear him moving around up there, I usually leave him there until he whines or cries.

11:30 am - Lunch

• See Food Suggestions

12:00 - 2:30 pm

• PLAY
• If Colson is acting cranky and needing to be held, he may be hungry. Between naps, I usually give him a 4 oz bottle. This is especially helpful when driving somewhere. I will just give it to him in the carseat. Generally, if it has been about three hours since his last bottle (from his nap) I give him 4 oz. So if you put him down at 10:00 am, you may notice he is cranky around 1:00 pm and you should give him a bottle.

2:30 pm - Colson Nap

• See 1st Nap Notes

3:00 - 5:30 pm

• PLAY
• If it is warm enough, Charlie likes to go for a walk. I take Colson in the stroller and Charlie leads the way on his bike or scooter.

5:30 pm - Dinner

• See Food Suggestions

6:00 - 7:00

• PLAY
• Clean Up

7:00 - 7:30 pm - Bath and Bed

• Bathe them together, just pay close attention to Colson
• Give them their toothbrushes as you get them out of the tub. This helps Colson calm down because he is not happy coming out of the tub.
• Turn on the fan, turn off the light and feed him a 6 oz bottle while sitting in the chair. Just like the nap, once he finishes or falls asleep, burp him and lay him down. Put blanket on him. Leave and close the door. If need be, let him cry for 20 minutes before trying to give him another bottle.
• YOU’VE MADE IT! :)
• Before I go to bed, I like to put 3 scoops of formula in a dry bottle and put it in the upstairs bathroom. That way when Colson wakes up in the morning I don’t have to come downstairs to prepare it.

FOOD SUGGESTIONS:

(Give him 2-4 items)

Breakfast:

Colson

Pieces of anything you are eating

Toast/Bread

Cereal Pieces

Waffle Pieces

Rice Cereal/Oatmeal

Bananas (sliced and cut in half)

Scrambled Eggs

Lunch and Dinner:

Colson

*Be careful with Peanut Butter, give it to him only in small amounts. His mouth gets red, so may be some kind of irritation/allergy, but no swelling*

Pieces of anything you are eating

Pureed Food Jars

Cut Tomatoes

Cut Grapes

Plain or flavored macaroni (he can eat them whole)

Rice

Cut Oranges

Frozen Peas (cut in half)

Cut Chicken

Applesauce

You can really try giving him anything

SNACKS:

Colson

Puffs

Crackers

Bread

Smoothie in orange sippy

Here are some pictures from his stay with Grandma and Grandpa Gruber:

Practically the first day I was back with the boys, Colson fell while trying to sit in his block wagon, hitting the top of his eye right on the corner of the black play table. It totally split it open. Luckily Daddy hadn't left for work yet. He helped take care of the cut. We weren't sure if he would need stitches. The bleeding stopped so we were okay to wait until the next day when Colson had his wellness check up. The doctor said it had already closed up nicely and there was nothing more that stitches could really do. However, he would probably have a good scar there for the rest of his life.

These pictures are the day of the cut. I'm so glad that he was at least a happy boy.

Here are his measurements from his twelve month check up:

Weight: 19 lbs 7.5 oz - 18%

Length: 28.5 inches - 5%

Head circumference: 46.6 cm - 63%

At this age, Colson had another bottom tooth cut through.

Colson is now on whole milk! Hallelujah! We changed him from formula to whole milk cold turkey. I could tell that he still wanted formula, but he still drank the milk. After a day or two, he was totally fine with milk and he didn’t hesitate drinking it. I would heat it up for about 20 seconds in the microwave.

Colson will pat his head when we say bonk (thanks to those head injuries), he can clap his hands, give high fives, and use the sign for “more”.

Colson loves climbing everything, like slides and ladders if available.

Here are more pictures from the month:

A much needed haircut:

PicSkip - A New Business Idea

It was right around Colson’s first birthday that Jason and I were looking at some of the photo books of Colson as a baby and Charlie when he turned one. We were flipping through the pages when Jason said, “Wouldn’t it be great if you could just scan one of these pictures and it would play a home video from that time?” Of course I agreed, but didn’t think much of it, assuming it was impossible. Jason thought for another minute and explained that it actually was possible if that image was a QR code. He was right! I kissed him for being a genius.

And so began our planning and obsession with PicSkip. I was thrilled because I quickly realized that this idea was a solution to one of the major problems I was having with all of the videos that we have taken. We have hours and hours of video, especially now since our smart phones take such great videos, but I didn’t know what to do with all of them. They pretty much just sit on the computer, hidden in the folders, and are watched only when I venture through the files searching for a particular video. I figured my video options were to make a ten hour DVD that I would never really watch, post it on YouTube where no one would watch them, take the time to put them on my blog where no one would watch them, or email random clips to my family that they would watch once and never again. What do I do with all of my videos that are worthwhile and meaningful to me? I hadn’t done anything with them as I didn’t see a solution that made sense to me and my needs. That is until Jason realized that we could use QR codes in our photo books that could be linked to our home videos that are stored online. We already use OneDrive, so we tested it out and it worked!

We were so excited about the idea and knew that others would be too! The possibilities don’t stop with photo books, there are cards, calendars, cook books, yearbooks, and the list goes on. There are already free QR code generators out there, but their focus is usually on helping commercial businesses advertise. Our focus would be helping the everyday person use QR codes to put home videos in their personal projects.

It has been a very interesting experience. A day has not gone by since Jason had the idea that we have not discussed some aspect of the project. We have talked about this idea forwards, backwards, and inside out. Do we go to photo book companies directly, do we host our own service, do we provide our own cloud storage, what should we call it? The questions never stop coming. I feel like Jason and I have only grown closer as we have worked on this idea. Morning, day, and night we are brainstorming, and every night we are working to progress and plan out the idea. Our free time is pretty much nonexistent and we may be a little more stressed, but it has been exciting. We are passionate about this idea.

We got to the point that we knew we needed to bring a developer into the mix. We were fortunate enough to have a smart web and app developer in our ward. We had a meeting with Austin the first part of December to get his thoughts and advice. He really helped point us in the right direction. He is so busy with work, two kids, and his own side projects that he wasn’t able to work on this project with us, but he was able to connect us with two other developers that were looking for a project to be a part of. We met with them a week or two later and we put our project into action. Now, we are only a couple of weeks away from a beta release of our website and app! Our vision for PicSkip goes beyond what our beta release will include, but it is a good place to start.