I’ve read that how to get a baby to go to sleep is one of the most popular searches for parents. I can believe it as there have been many nights especially lately when it was hard to get William to go to bed. Candy has mentioned how we need to get him on a specific bedtime routine and we’ve tried including putting him in a sleepsac, singing to him and feeding him before bed. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always get him to go down and sleep fast.
It’s been a while since I have blogged a book review. This month Amazon suggested a lot of suspense books for my free Kindle book, and it was hard to choose just one. I chose “The Thinnest Air” as it seemed like a fun mystery to get into, the disappearance of a young socialite in a ski town.
One of the best parts of the book is use of two narrative voices – Meredith who has disappeared and her sister, Greer. Meredith narrates from her honeymoon onward and Greer narrates from the present day. This way we get lots of details of who Meredith was before her strange disappearance and the mystery and tension build as we follow Greer as she tries to piece together who is responsible and if Meredith is still alive or not.
As many books do, there are some characters who are well fleshed out and others who we only get some details of. For this reason it is likely that some one or more of the well developed ones were part of the disappearance, though the book does keep you guessing. Many readers will be able to piece together whoodunit, but I did not. I can’t even remember one of the main characters names afterwards, only that it was an unusual name.
The book was very fast paced for the first half, I stayed up later than I should have getting through that part. It was even a great background distraction while I pumped milk for one session.
This being said the book had quite a few flaws. One of the biggest is that for the story to work at all Meredith had to not confide in her sister a lot of what was going on in her life, even though both Greer and Meredith said they were close. This is even more unbelievable as she did confide in a few other people in ways that created the whole situation of the disappearance.
The book involved characters acting out in ways that were just unbelievable. This was again required for the story to work, yet felt false. Two major characters had to act completely different in the second half than the first.
Lastly, the ending felt rushed and completely counter to other information we’d been given from the behavior of many characters. It’s possible that that is how people would react given how the disappearance is resolved, yet, it feels unlikely with what we’ve heard about the characters up until that point.
Rating – two baby booties out of five
William is getting so alert and active. He loves to reach for thing, move about and twist and turn. While we have him on the changing table, he loves to move out of reach and turn over, while grabbing for anything in sight. While I’m too busy trying to change him, sometimes with Matt’s help, when this happens, this is definitely when we have to tell him no to squirming about so.
As I’ve blogged before William really enjoys attending the nursery at church. We arrived a bit earlier than normal, so at first it was just us, then the first childcare provider arrived.
When the second one arrived she brought her grandson with her. He was immediately taken over to say hello to William.
I had brought some of William’s new toys. Both boys wanted to try them out.
William couldn’t wait to start playing with this boy as well.
With two young boys, the caretakers were ready to have a fun, active and noisy day.
William had a wonderful time having someone there close to his own age.
~ Danielle
Matt and I usually grocery shop for the upcoming week on Sundays. However today we decided to go early so we could relax tomorrow. William was sleeping when we arrived so we kept him in his carseat and took him in his stroller. While walking around a little girl asked if she could peak at the baby. It turns out he had awoken and was happy to say hello.
For William’s seven month photo shoot I went with a Mickey theme as he has some adorable Mickey clothes and a stuffed Mickey that is a present from his Godparents. Matt warned me before I started the session that putting him on the couch, the usual spot would not work as he was in an active mood. Even though it was a short time before his bedtime, it turns out Matt was right.
As many moms are, I was excited for William’s firsts including his first teeth. He has two and while they are sharp, for the most part they haven’t caused any problems until recently. 
Over the last weeks I’ve seen my milk supply drop in terms of what I can pump. I’m still able to make some milk to leave for when I’m at work, but it’s been less. Around this time William has now and then used his teeth while I’ve been trying to feed him.
Breastfeeding normally is quite comfortable, but being bitten is not. I’ve made sure to end the sessions in terms of breast feeding him when he does, though I do then let him finish up with his bottle.
It doesn’t happen every time luckily. Perhaps this is a way to try to get more milk, though a baby cannot of course bite and suckle at the same time. I’ve definitely seen him biting his bottle nipple. I’m hoping this behavior goes away and that I can boost the amount of milk I pump back up.
~ Danielle
William’s life is pretty routine now in that he has certain days when he goes to daycare and others when he is at home. Maribel was taking off Friday this week, so we sent him to daycare Tuesday in place of Friday. I wondered how he would react to this change if he’d noticed it at all. He did seem sad, perhaps even a little surprised to be woken up early instead of getting to sleep in as he gets to on his days at home.
Still once he got to daycare it was a regular day for him. Maribel sent me lots of photos of him enjoying himself.
He really enjoyed having his cap, so I sent it back for today. Somehow all three boys that Maribel watches had hats, so they had a little day where they all had fun wearing them inside.
William loves seeing the other boys dance about. Still, I know he wishes he could join them.
Though I of course miss him so much when I’m at work, I love seeing photos from those watching him and all the fun he is having.
~ Danielle
Even though William had been eating pureed solids for over a month, we hadn’t yet tried meat. Matt had bought him a baby food jar with meat with gravy in it, so for Sunday dinner we decided to give it a chance. He clearly was interested in the jar.
As always, we didn’t know if this would be a food he’d like right away or take some getting used to. As Matt and I are huge fans of beef with gravy, we figured he’d love it.
At first he didn’t even want to try it. Perhaps he was reacting just to the smell.
After his first bites, he made faces and didn’t seem to like it at all.
He tried clamping his mouth shut, clearly not liking the taste at all.
Yet someone else was very intrigued by the smell and decided to come take a look for herself.
To William’s delight, Inky came right up to the high chair to check it out and beg for some herself.
I’ve never seen her so close to the high chair or even William in general when he was eating.
Despite Inky’s desire to try some, we didn’t let her have any. William ended up spitting all of it up repeatedly. I’ve since learned that chicken or turkey would have been a better introduction to meat, so we will try one of those next.
~ Danielle
It always amazes me seeing how much William is growing and changing. In answer to the question below, while in some ways it seems real that he’s almost eight months old, in others it’s absolutely unbelievable. I’ve been trying to get him to learn to clap and play peek-a-boo, the former he has never done and the latter only one time, yet he already is pulling himself up by things to briefly stand.
Over 40 First Time Mom 