Little Mechanic

Sorry for the long delay in posts, but Axel and I have been recovering from being quite ill. Axel developed his first ear infection from the virus he picked up a couple of weeks ago. Monday, MLK day, Axel had a high fever and Keith had to stay home to take care of the two of us. Axel is almost done with his 10 days of antibiotics and is doing much better now. I actually had to miss work on Tuesday because Axel couldn't go to day care until he was fever free for 24 hours and I was feeling so bad I decided to stay home and try to "recover" as best I could while taking care of Axel. In the picture above Axel is a bit frustrated that he is lying on his stomach and wants to stand and play. He was crying with his head down until I picked him up. Because of the rain and bad weather Keith and I did a lot more riding on the trainer the past week. Axel absolutely LOVES the bike and the trainer. You can see from the pictures below how fascinated he was with every part of the bike.....even my shoes....and Keith's helmet (picture not included) He also loved the trainer itself. Auntie Shannon and Ryan came over for our first adventure out for dinner as a family since Axel was born. (the only other time I went out to dinner is when my parents were here over Mother's day when Axel was a couple months and that was without Keith)We all had a great time and Axel did fabulously. Keith and I were so proud. Mind you we had to go to dinner at 4pm so that we could be back to put Axel to bed by 5:30pm, but it was still progress. I have been working on extending Axel's bedtime this week and he is up to 5:45pm. I am hoping with the time change he will be able to go to bed around 6:30pm so daddy gets to see him before bed :)

We have a few short videos. One is of Axel dancing with the trainer and Auntie Shannon. Another is daddy and Axel throwing the ball with the dogs and the last video is Axel cruising along the coffee table. We hope you enjoy!

Axel's first fall

Well, I had hoped for something exciting to happen in order to have a topic to post on. Unfortunately, the excitement wasn't exactly what I had in mind. On Sunday Axel was a bit fussy in the morning and when he is, he wants me to be around him and play with him all of the time. I was getting tired of squatting behind him as he was cruising along our bench so I decided to stand behind him and write in his memory book. Low and behold he turned left lunging for the TV stand and I didn't have time to catch him. He hit his head on the side of our wooden TV stand. I felt soooo awful. It took all my courage not to cry. I iced his head for about 3-4 minutes. That is about all he would let me and then I gave him some Tylenol after rechecking all of the signs to look for after your infant or toddler hits his head. We went for a walk in his infant carrier which I haven't used for a few months. He seemed like his normal self so then I let him take his morning nap. He arouse his happy playful self. Everyone tells me that I need to get use to it, especially because we have a boy, but I don't know if I am ever going to get use to Axel hurting himself. You can see the bruise on the side of his head if you look closely.


Axel is still scooting on his belly and loving the assisted walking and cruising along furniture and walls. The funny thing that he started doing this week is stopping and plopping on his butt when he wants to get something on the floor or wants to change direction. From what I have heard most kids don't know how to get from standing to sitting, but like his mom and dad Axel does everything backwards. He still doesn't quite get how to pull himself up to standing. He is super strong in his legs and he gets his legs straight under him with his butt in the air, but he forgets to use his upper body to finish the job. I suppose that is my fault since I am typically their helping or assisting him :)


Axel also started "biting the couch" like our Pug Louis. I wish I had my camera handy yesterday but by the time I found where it was it had no charge so I missed a ton of cute pictures and one of those was Axel biting the blanket on the couch next to Louis doing the same thing.

I also missed Axel's first experience with macaroni and cheese. I made the Organics for the first time and it was good. We ate it together, but I am not sure Axel cared for the cheese. The funny part about the experience is Axel didn't want to feed himself with his hands, he didn't want to eat with his spoon, but the only way he would eat any is with my fork. So I would take a bite and then he would take a bite. With every bite he would make a face as the fork went into his mouth, but he refused to take it any other way. Boy, did I wish our camera was charged for that one....next time!

I forgot to mention last week that Axel seemed to be completely healthy and doing quite well. He had been in a great routine day and night only waking once at night. Well, since an entire week or so went by with him being healthy, guess what?! That's right folks...he picked up another cold at daycare this week. Awful runny nose, cough and horrible couple of nights with frequent wakings. The unfortunate thing about this cold is I caught it, hence the delay in posting this weeks update. Luckily day care is closed tomorrow so Axel and I will have one more day to recover! Here is a picture I took on Thursday of him using the snack tray in his exersaucer for the first time. How cool to snack and play at the same time, despite the runny nose!

Oh, I had to include this picture. Last Sunday about an hour before bed Axel peed all over his clothes while I was changing his diaper. I didn't want to dirty any "cute outfits" so I put on these green pants and pooh onesie that he hadn't worn in some time. I think he looked hilarious, almost 80ish.

Last, but not least Axel has become quite the investigator. Here he is playing with the "dog towels" while I was preparing dinner. I thought it was hilarious how much fun he had taking them out of the cupboard. As you can see from this picture he is pretty good at responding to his name now. I would say he turns to look at us about 90% of the time.

Ok, that's all for now!

Our little walker

The Szolushas have had a wonderful week. Axel transitioned wonderfully back to day care. With a couple of key modifications Axel is now taking two, 1+ hour naps at day care. They finally put Axel's pack n play in the bedroom with a heater running for white noise. With Axel no longer getting overly tired he is continuing to be more and more active. He is starting to get hard to keep up with. He has mastered the scooting thing and can scoot quite quickly around the house. So much so if I leave him for a second I will find him pulling on a cord or going to his two favorite places, the dog bowls and the dog door. I can't figure out why Axel likes playing with the dog bowls, putting his hand in the dog bowl filled with water and playing/trying to eat the dog food during dinner time, but he consistently does the same thing every night. During the day he is fascinated with the doggy door and my book shelf, as well as the bottom of the refrigerator and our floor heaters. Axel sure is an investigator. Auntie Shannon and Ryan stopped by on Saturday to bring Christmas gifts they purchased from their Australia trip. Axel likes his rattle but he plays with the box it came in even more. You can see here he went right for the box after opening it! Keith and I got a very cool wine holder that was hand painted. Since our Italy trip, 3years ago, Keith and I have become quite the wine drinkers (a whole 10-12 bottles a year :) which is a lot for us) Shannon also brought gifts from Grandpa Brian. Now all three of our boys have their own new foot. However, despite them each having a foot of their own, they still all want to play and chew on the same one. Good thing Axel thinks its fun, although Louis and Touis get a little frustrated. Now onto the title of today's blog. Keith and I finally made time to take a video of Axel walking. We went outside because we have had several comments from our friends and relatives that our videos are too dark because of our poorly lit house.
I was also able to take a few videos of Axel cruising along the coffee table today. Here is the best one.

It was hard to take because Axel has no fear and sometimes he gets ahead of himself. Our coffee table has very hard edges and I am just dreading the day that I hear a clunk. I still let Axel fall but I always catch him so that he has a soft landing. I am trying to teach him by saying "Axel go boom", but he doesn't seem to quite get it. If I see he is going to fall directly on his butt I let him. Keith and I are both praying that Axel will start to have more self preservation instincts soon because otherwise we are going to be really old in a few years due to worrying about our little guy getting hurt!

Axel's 9 month check up was today. The bummer news is he only weighed 17 lbs 2 oz. which puts him at the 5th percentile, but the good news is his height of 27.5 inches is the 22nd%ile. We also found out that Axel is a little anemic so we will be enforcing more oatmeal and rice cereal until he is fully transitioned to formula. Axel loves fruits and veggies so much I often forget to mix them with cereal, but now we really have to, at least for the next month. Most likely within 4-6 weeks my freezer full of breast milk will be gone and I am on my last few days of pumping. I am a bit sad to stop providing for Axel, but at the same time I am really ready to be done with the whole nursing/pumping thing.

Keith and I both decided for our next child we will wait much longer before transitioning him or her to a bottle in order to reduce the amount of pumping. I have spent 1-3 hours a day pumping over the past 9 months on top of the hours of nursing for the first 5 months. That is a lot of hours if you ask me. No more Internet surfing for me! I will no longer have an excuse to sit in front of the computer for 20 minutes at a time throughout the day...... thank goodness! Anyway, the Szolushas have a low key weekend ahead of family time and bike riding. Hopefully something exciting will happen so I have something to write about next week!

Axel turns 9 months!

Yesterday Axel turned 9 months with the rolling in of the new year. He has now officially been out of the womb longer than he was in the womb. Keith and I are amazed at how much he has changed over the past 1 month let alone the 9 months he has been around.

Good news is Axel seems to be getting better by the day. He is now sleeping in his own room again. Keith and I also seem to be on the mend. We are unsure if all of us keep getting sick due to the old house we are living in so we continue to inspect for mold and continue saving for a house that we hope to purchase in the near future.
We are hoping that our constant cold like symptoms are due to Axel being in day care and not the house, but we will soon find out as we continue to monitor the house and all of our symptoms.

Ok, back to our cute child. Axel must be catching up for his decreased appetite or in a growth spurt because he has been consuming 35-40 oz of milk over the past 3 days. He also ate a whopping 8 cubes yesterday on top of the 35 oz of milk! We love it when he eats, but I am getting a little sick of the 2-3 night wakings and hope that he resumes his 1-2 night wakings soon!

We added beets and kale to Axel's diet. I don't think he really cares for them, but as long as we mix it with sweet potatoes, yams or squash he will pretty much eat anything. Now that he is 9 months we will be introducing a much wider range of food. Keith and I are both excited about this because within the next three months he should be getting closer and closer to a "normal" toddler diet which will be a lot less work for us. I do enjoy making Axel's food, but I rather make it along with the dinner I make for Keith and I.

I forgot to mention that Axel weighed in at 17lb and 1 oz during our ER visit last week. We have his 9 month check up next Thursday on the 7th so I will be sure to include his new stats next week. I am looking forward to seeing how much he gained in 2 weeks with the huge increase in food consumption.

Since Axel has been home for over a week now he seems to be doing a lot better in the mobility department. He has really become quite comfortable scooting around the entire house. He also loves to play standing.


He can stand for nearly an hour. The only bummer thing for him is he doesn't know how to go from stomach to sitting or standing. I have to assist him, otherwise he just lies on his stomach reaching up with his hand crying.

I think it is hilarious at how frustrated he gets. I already see mommy and daddy personality traits in him. Both Keith and I get frustrated when we can't do something, especially when it comes to athletics because it has always come naturally for us. Hopefully Axel will learn patience sooner than his mommy and daddy learned it :)

Axel is becoming more and more talkative. It often sounds like he is having a conversation with us. Sometimes it also sounds like he is saying something in Spanish. For those of you who don't know Axel is in a full Spanish Immersion Day care. They speak 100% Spanish there. Axel also received the coolest present from great G and G Eick of a drum that sounds the alphabet in Spanish and English. Keith and I have been practicing X and Y a lot and now it sounds like Axel is saying equis. I griega, or "Y", and Jota or "J" are the Szolusha favorites :)

Axel still does not have any teeth, but continues to show signs of teething. I have even caught him chewing/sucking on his thumb 3 times in he past two weeks. Usually he chooses to put all of his fingers in his mouth as pictured below.

Despite the lack of teeth, Axel's hair seems to be coming in at a more rapid pace the past few weeks. He is looking more and more like a little boy every day.

We wish you all a very Happy 2010. We are looking forward to spending it with our little bundle of joy!

1st Christmas Blues

Well, Christmas has come and gone, almost unnoticed by the Szolushas. With my immediate family cancelling our usual Christmas Eve and Christmas get together (because of much needed rest) and no other family gathering known to us we decided to have a low key weekend at home. Our weekend has definitely been low key as most would describe, but somehow with a very sick little Axel, Keith and I, are still exhausted! We actually made plans with friends to have dinner, drinks and game playing on Christmas Eve, but Axel decided he wanted to visit the ER.

Axel's cold like symptoms and fussiness started increasing again about a week ago. He had been feeling warm to me for a few days, but his temperature was always between 99 and 100 degrees. Keith and I had decided that he had to be finally getting his first tooth with the runny nose, loose stools, decreased appetite and increased fussiness, a.k.a. the inability to sleep more than two hours straight. Unfortunately, we were wrong again as Axel had a full blown sand paper like rash over his entire body by late afternoon on Christmas Eve. After doing such a good job of packing the car, preparing a salad and getting ready for Church, we had to leave church early, cancel on our friends and head to the ER, per the advice nurse we called. Not exactly what we had in mind with setting our own traditions, but the tradition making is definitely a work in progress :)

Here Axel and I are before our morning walk Christmas morning.
Good thing is Axel finally ate his first solid food today after three days of no solids and hardly any milk consumption. He also is back up to nearly 30oz so we are both happy about that. Apparently, for those of you wondering Axel is still suffering from the 5th disease that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. This is his 5th week of it! To add to the poor guys discomfort he appeared to loose his voice a couple of days ago, but has recovered most of it today. Keith and I are not totally convinced that all of his symptoms are because of the 5th disease virus, but all we care about is that he is on the right track and getting healthy.

Despite Axel being sick he always loves to be outside. In order to calm Axel we went on several walks and a Burley ride together Thursday and Friday. It was really nice to spend the entire day together two days in a row! I love family time!

I also wanted to mention Axel did great when we went to our friend Dai's house for dinner last Sunday. He fell asleep marvelously in the pack and play. The only difficult part was getting him to fall back to sleep when we got home. Oh well, practice makes perfect. We will be trying this dinner thing with Axel sleeping in the pack and play more often in the future :) Here is Axel playing on Laura's key board (Dai's daughter). He loved it to say the least!
Here is Axel all ready to take the dogs for a walk before heading to Dai's house for dinner. I think he loves the dogs more than Keith does!
I showed Keith one of Axel's favorite games. 'Where's Axel?' Axel and I started playing this when he was about 3 months while I folded laundry. As you can see he thinks it is the greatest thing!

I have talked about how much Axel loves crackers now. Here is a video of Axel thoroughly enjoying one of his crackers.

Last I leave you with Axel playing with his new alphabet caterpillar. Thanks Grandma Susan!

Big boy...or little boy?

Since our last post Axel has officially become a big boy as he is now in a big boy car seat. He had out grown his old car seat over a month or two ago, but it wasn't until this past Thursday that we finally went to Lucile Packard Children's Hospital for the car seat installation. They provide an amazing service of helping us busy parents to install new car seats properly. His new car seat installation was much more complicated then his previous car seat so I am glad we went. The only sad thing about Axel being in a grown up car seat is that the convenience of carrying him in and out of the car without unbuckling him is gone. Today for the first time coming home from day care he woke when I got him out of the car instead of taking a longer nap. He also didn't seem as comfortable sleeping because he is more upright, or so it seems. With the above pictures it looks like Axel really is a big boy, but here is a picture of him from the back of the car. From this view his car seat looks like an over sized king's throne :) Yes, I know my car is dirty. Washing it is on the to do list! Last week the huge batch of Kringlas that Grandma Sonia made arrived. Axel, Keith and I have all enjoyed eating them. I believe we have easily consumed a third of them already :) You can see Axel is concentrating hard at figuring out how to get it in his mouth. Daddy also had Axel try some persimmon, but I don't think he liked it nearly as much as the Kringlas. Can you see how Axel's hair is coming in nicely from the above picture? We are soooooo excited to see what our boy looks like with a full head of hair. Just a few more months!!!! Keith and I think it is kind of ironic that Axel's hair is where most men's bald spots would be. :) Axel has also been scooting much more lately as well as walking with me holding onto him and going from sit to stand. The only one I was able to capture on film was his combat scooting since I only have two hands :). I think he is ready to join his cousin Cory in the army :)
As you can hear from the video Axel is still under the weather. He is much better overall, but wakes with a running/crusty nose in the morning and coughs throughout the day. We are hoping he will be 100% shortly. We don't mind him being sick, but the unpredictable sleep schedule is starting to wear on Keith and I. It will truly be amazing the first time we get 8 hours of sleep straight. Right now we are thankful for 4 hours straight when we can get it. I finally got a video of Axel playing tug of war with the dogs. As I have said many times before he LOVES the dogs, their toys and playing with them. I am sure you can hear how much he is enjoying himself.

We hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and we will post again shortly!

It's Christmas time at the Szolushas

Axel has been blessed with very loving grandparents. This week re-iterated how loved he is by the many Christmas presents that showed up on our front porch. (not that gifts = love, but you get the point). Since Mommy and Daddy are not very good at keeping secrets or waiting to open up gifts and because Axel is really too young to know what Christmas is Mommy decided to open up all of Axel's gifts early. Grammy and Grampy Goodrow sent Axel ABC small wooden blocks and other fun "Melissa and Doug" toys. Axel absolutely loves the wooden blocks or should I say the wooden case that holds the blocks :) Grandma and Grandpa Burgess sent awesome foam alphabet play mats. Now both Axel and Mommy feel safe and better about Axel playing on the floor. Axel likes them so much he tries to play with the mats instead of on them :) Gramma Susan bought Axel a robe for after bath time months ago. I finally had the chance to put Axel in it to take some photos. Axel has officially grown out of his 3-6 month clothing and is now wearing 6 month, 6-9 month and some 9 month clothing. We want to give another shout out and thank you to the Anderson's for all of the clothing they passed on to Axel. We are sooooo grateful!!!! On the last posting I included a few photos of Axel feeding himself. Well he not only like to feed himself now, but the dogs as well. Touis learned about a month ago that if he sits next to Axel he will get some food that falls on the ground. Now Touis is even more excited seeing that Axel is intentionally dropping food for him. I had to include one more picture of Axel playing with one of the dog's toys. Grandpa Brian found squeaky feet for the dogs last year for Christmas. They have provided the dogs with hours of fun and from the looks of it will provide Axel with hours of more fun :) Here is a video of Axel's spinning and scooting. I finally was able to capture it since I don't feel I have to spot his head anymore with the foam mats. Enjoy!

Oh, I promise next year that we will give Axel a "real" Christmas and wait to open up his gifts......