He's an active boy, high-speed crawling, pulling himself up to standing, cruising along whatever he can use to support him, and even has tried standing on his own.
He got 8 teeth before he was even 8 months, and he's still rocking those 8 teeth. He's drooling everywhere and everything goes in his mouth, so I always think he's going to be getting more teeth at any moment. We've had great success with "baby-led weaning," and he loves to eat a wide variety of foods.
The major thing we are struggling with at this time is sleeping at night. It seems like the older he gets, the more he wants to nurse at night! He wants to nurse about every 2 hours (anywhere from 1-3 hours) from about 7PM to 7AM. Needless to say, it is very tiring for me.
He's also going through an extreme "mommy" phase right now, which is both sweet but more so tiring. Developmentally he seems to be getting "stranger danger" and wants to only be with me or Kennet, and this is compounded by the fact that he isn't out and about much or exposed to many people.
In December, he finally got to meet Kennet's family. He was totally overwhelmed at first with all the attention and excitement, but got over that after a few days.
We went to the beach in Roatan (Honduras) over the Valentine's holiday, getting to see Kennet's family again! That was the first time his parents/family got to vacation there, so that that was a really fun time. My brother-in-law also came, and it was nice to see him after nearly a year.
We are now here in Weslaco, in the same town where I work, so my commute is less than 10 minutes as opposed to 25- 30 minutes when we lived at the apartment in Edinburg. Below, us outside our apartment on the day we moved out.
As far as work, Kennet is still working from home with the stock market and taking care of Kian when I am at work. He is quite the super dad and Kian is very fortunate to have him.
I will complete the whole year of the nurse-midwife fellowship, ending July 1. They offered me a position to stay on as a fulltime CNM, but I will likely stay on part-time and work 3 days week between the clinic/ birth center, and respite center (for people immigrating to the US).
I feel fortunate to be able to work and live here. The hardest part is being very far from family and friends in PA and Maryland. Most of my family is spread out very far across the US and beyond, so this situation isn't entirely new to us. I would still like to live closer to a larger airport such as DFW or Houston, as travel domestically and to Honduras would be much easier. Traveling with baby takes quite the physical and mental toll!
This is the update in a nutshell, I hope 2022 is going well for you and I would love to hear from you and see you here at our house in beautiful south Texas! Remember, we are just an hour from beautiful beaches on South Padre Island, and 14 miles from Mexico!
