6 months doc update

So here are Nate's statistics.  He gets to be on two charts because he's just so darn special!
Weight - 15 pounds 4.5 ounces
Length 26 inches - I think she maybe gave him a half an inch or so due to extreme squirminess
Head circumference - 16.5 inches

For a 4 month old baby- which is how the doctor views him.  She says for the preemies you follow them and their development from their actual due date.
Weight - 50th percentile
Length - 90th percentile
Head circumference -30-40th percentile

For a 6 month old baby
Weight- 10th percentile
Length- 50th percentile
Head- 10th percentile
So, he's right on par for his due date age which is great and it's so cool to see him gaining on his 6 month old chart as well! 
6 Month battle scars below

Well, how exciting those stats are.  I'm not really too hung up on all those percentile thingies...just thought I'd share them.  He's healthy and chunky which is just fine with us!  In a wonderful turn of events, Nate has not been overly cranky or fussy since the shots.  He slept a bit longer the first day but now is back to normal.  Besides some bruises on his legs he's good to go.
  Our doctor really is great and such a fan of him.  She takes him out of the room every time to two of the nurses who have gotten to see him since his 4 pound days and of course he charmed em!  This was before the shots mind you when he still was happy as a clam.  He really gave us all that "bite me" look after the shots :)  I really feel like a traitor in that moment but oh well, he'll get over it.  He did his usual scream with no noise coming out, then we put the nuk in and he was fine in 10 seconds, but definitely eyed us all up.  Next check up is at 9 months where thank goodness, no shots will be administered.
Nate has now figured out how to outsmart his arm and get fully from his back to his stomach.  This latest hurdle was just figured out in the last day or so!  It's dark and a little fuzzy but hopefully you can make it out.

Nate got some fun presents from his Aunt Trisha and Kristi for the big 6 months.  He has a new squeaky toy because Bella the dog thought that little ducky was hers to play with...now there is a new duck in town!  Last week my co-workers also threw me a surprise baby shower which was a blast and Nate was overly spoiled with toys and clothes to set him up for winter.  I was totally shocked and have never had a surprise party before so I'm not gonna lie, it was kind of flattering :) yah, yah, I know it was mostly just to see Nate!
My high school friends are coming up this weekend to hit the town so I'm very excited for that!  Poppa Joe is on duty Saturday night, then Grandma Jeanne is up for a few days to help Trisha move to her new apartment.  Should be a busy fun weekend!

6 Months...what what!

I can't believe the little bugger is 6 months today.  Well, I'm lying because it's currently 10:30 pm on Monday night but close enough.  We have his 6 month checkup Tuesday at 8 am.  SOOOO not excited for the shots again but hopefully he won't react as bad as last time.  We are excited to see how much the little chunker weighs though! This will maybe be a longer blog since I haven't blogged in a while...yes mom, I know.
We had a great time last weekend at Ryan and Lindsay's wedding.  Nate stayed with his Grandma and Grandpa Olson while mom and dad had a good time at the party!  Here's a picture of Nate and Joe back at the house.  I believe there may be a similarity to the way they sleep :)

 Last week Kristi and I took Nate to this little lake near our house.  They have what is called a "splash pad" for little kids.  Basically it's a bunch of different spouts with water coming out with different pressures and patterns??  Not really sure how to explain it but here are some photos.

I know he looks a little bored but he was actually kind of intrigued by the whole thing.  He's a nature boy and whenever he's fussy we go outside and he calms down like magic.  I'm not sure we can do that in December though because Children's Services may take him from us if we do that :)  He did like the water though, even though it was pretty chilly.  Here's Nate with Kristi at a different spout.

This is the shot where Kristi has yanked Nate away because the soft little water spray turned in to a full on fire hose type of spray which got both her and Nate.  He didn't seem to mind at all!

After the splash pad, we headed to the little man made lake for his first time in the sand.  He was very intrigued by the whole feet in the sand situation.  Later he relaxed with his tigger towel.

Nate's been working on his eating of rice cereal.  This happened the other day when I came home to find Joe feeding Nate with no bib, and mostly putting cereal anywhere but his mouth.

He was over it by the time I took this video.

Here's another video Trisha took of Nate working towards rolling over.  This was a few weeks ago.  He's still working on going all the way over from his back to his stomach.  That one arm really slows him up and he can't figure out how to get around it.

 Here's a few from home...now all you Packer fans calm down.  We got a few Bears onesies for Nate and couldn't resist a 3 generations Ruf household Bears photo.  Keep in mind Grandma Jeanne and Joe wanted nothing to do with it and Grandma almost wouldn't take the photo!  I think we look schnazzy.  I'm sure there is at least one Bear fan out there who agrees...probably only one though :)

Now, relax again Packer fans because Nate does have a few Packer outfits he's been given and I'm sure eventually he'll be placed in them.  He needs some new spit up rags anyways :) I kid I kid.  It's funny because we Bear fans aren't really a big threat to you all, now are we!  He's going to be so confused because he also has a bunch of Badger and Gopher gear.  He's like a little sports United Nations kid!
Here's a few photos from when we went to brunch for Trisha and Beaner's combined birthday celebrations.  Joe was teaching Nate how exciting food can be.

Someone actually thought it would be nice to get a photo of mom and Nate for once!

These next photos are of this past weekend at our friend Cassi and Tom's house for their son Garrett's 2 year old birthday party.  Needless to say, there was a big boy playing in the bouncy house.

Hopefully you can somehow zoom in to the extreme joy that is on Joe's face...it's pretty hysterical.  It took a little coaxing to get him in there but he was pretty thrilled by the time he was in.  Garrett's little friend Max was so excited Joe was in there and to throw him about.  He just kept throwing his arms up and saying up, up!

Here's Garrett and Joe in the middle of their somersaults.

Now, I realize those have nothing to do with Nate, I just find them entertaining.  I'm not going to lie either because I got my butt in that bouncy house too and had a little fun.  I flashed back to a time where a certain 12 year old Megan and Ms. Kelly Hyland may have broken the giant inflatable burger that was in front of the Burger King one summer by my house after rough-housing a bit too much :)  We may have been afraid the police were coming for us as we got our behinds out of that deflating burger and ran home!  ah, memories.
I'll let you know this week how the doctor appointment's go and how Nate is stacking up!

First tornado experience

Here's some shots of Nate through the storm last week.  It started with him being very prepared with his flash light, weather radio, and remote to check the news.  Sure, he doesn't like sky aware, but he was just resting before the weather got there!

The sky from that night looked like it was on fire.

Nate and Matt were busy checking the radar on tv to make sure they should stay downstairs in the basement.

Kristi-keeping Nate calm.

And of course, Mama Bella making sure the humans were properly taking care of her baby.

Someone was not as brave as Nate and at one point decided he could fend for himself.

The day after Joe and I went over to help clean up the yard and Joe and Matt cut down a lot of the fallen twigs and branches.

This is a tree down the road that landed on the garage and a few cars.

Thankfully all of our homes were fine and everybody ended up being safe!  Nate is still sleeping really well.  He usually wakes up around 2 or 3 oclock and puts himself back to sleep after some grunting.  Then he gets up around 6 or 7 in the morning so it's been quite nice.  I'm still struggling to sleep through the nights but hopefully I'll get better.  I'm too trained now to get up multiple times!  We tried Nate on rice cereal about a week ago but he is definitely not a fan of that yet so we are going to wait a bit longer.

Miracles do happen!!!!

July 20th, 2010 will go down in history in our house as our.....FIRST FULL NIGHT OF SLEEP!  I'm still a little bit in shock and confused as to what happened myself :)  I woke up around 4:30 and was a bit shocked that I hadn't woken up yet so of course I went in his room to make sure he was still breathing which he was.  I still had trouble going back to sleep but eventually I did a little lightly and Nate didn't wake up until 7 this morning.  He slept from 9-7 so that is 10 hours!!!  Over the past few days he's been sleeping a little longer but still waking up in the night and needing to be calmed down.  I think it's a combination of a lot of things that's helping him sleep.  He's seeing a chiropractor, he's eating more food during the day, I took him off the medicine because I didn't feel like it was doing that much, who cares, all I know is that he slept all night!  I think he even shocked himself because when I went in at 7 he was laying there bug-eyed and grunting.  I knew he was himself when I showed up and he started laughing and smiling.  Ahhh, what a night!

Anyways, here are a few videos that I've been trying to upload for forever.  Nate is much like his dad and enjoys sitting around the house with just his underwear on.  I used to take his temperature constantly even when he wasn't acting sick because he's so hot.  He's been just fine, he's just a very warm baby, even with the AC blasting!  Nate has over the past month or so found his fingers especially fascinating and likes to slop loudly on them.  I don't think he'll be the most polite eater :)

   In this video you may think we have inherited a purring cat but it is just the little beast snoring.

  We celebrated Aunt Trisha's big 3-0 this weekend and Nate spent the night with Kristi and Matt.  There were tornadoes all over the metro that night so Nate got to experience his first tornado sirens which he was apparently not a fan of.  Like mother, like son.  Our house was fine as was Kristi and Matts but a lot of the ones around the area had trees down.  I'll post some pictures later, just wanted to share the good news of a full nights sleep!

Montages...just cause they're funny

Nate was wearing his fleece hunting outfit the other day to go to sleep downstairs so we thought we'd try out his camo hat. Funniness ensued...

Joe of course thought it was fun.

Nate did at first as well

Uh oh, then the lip

Full blown unhappiness

Very, very, very over it

Again, thoughts of what is wrong with you people

Grandma Jeanne and Grandpa Jimbo were up this past weekend to spend some time with Nate, celebrate Trisha's birthday next week, and because mom had her 6 month check up at Mayo. Mom got a clean bill of health so woo hoo! While they were here we stopped at the Twins stadium so dad could see the field. Here he and Trisha are smiling and not bantering back and forth in their lovely way :)

Back to montage #2 of Nate...

This is a 3-6 month outfit and he's almost too long for it. He's too long for those but has a bit of room to fill them out girth-wise. Again, where he got his long slender frame from is beyond me. I'm assuming at some point the legs will start growing and the torso won't seem so long!

Nate actually rolled over a few weeks ago but neither Joe nor I was there for it! Aunt Trisha and Grandma Jeanne had Nate on his stomach for tummy time and he pushed himself up and rolled over..what a pro!


Nate's reallly started to enjoy laughing and playing in the mornings. He seems really drawn to the colors orange and red. He also likes listening to and watching music videos :) He's just recently discovered tv and apparently watches a lot of hunting/fishing shows when I'm gone as well...shocking I know.

Happy 5 months (yesterday) Nate! Woo hoo! Before we went home for the 4th, Nate and I went over to Amanda's to hang out and spend some time in her pool. He liked it but I think he would have enjoyed it more if the water was a bit warmer :) Again, I still don't know how to turn the pictures obviously.

Nate did a good job swimming around with us and showing off his new swim trunks. I'm going to try and get him in some swim classes at the YMCA soon because he likes the water so much.
Well Nate had a wonderful time down in Monroe for the 4th holiday. Here he is driving us down there.

He did a wonderful job driving and we made it home in record time :) The way back was even better with only one pit stop in Mauston so the trip was just 6 hours. I like the picture above because you can sort of see Nate's "old man" hairline. Because he rubs his head so much it's worn away hair and he has this line of hair curled around the base of his head and a bald spot above it...too funny.
Here's Nate and Grandma Jeanne passed out on the deck. This wasn't after a crazy night-o-drinking, it was just nap time.

Here's Grandpa Jimbo overstimulating Nate with many things.

Nate's American Pride...

Here's Nate with what Joe calls his trigger finger ready :)

Joe took Nate to the doctor for a check-up because of a bump on his head...it's fine, just a bacteria thing to be cleared up with ointment...gross I know. Anyways, he weighed in at 13 pounds 7 ounces. Porker is doing well!