Talking Gavin

I got a video here of Gavin in the bathtub speaking his own little language. Going to upload some more photos next.

Some Changes

Alright Heidi and I want to get out of debt before we die, so we are cutting some monthly expenses starting in January. Cable TV w/ DVR, DSL Internet, and this website, will all go bye-bye. Should gives us around 750 dollars to fight off our school loans. Anyway to save a little extra money I have moved the website to here



http://thegavinproject.blogspot.com



So I will putting photos and videos of him there, and the website will still act the same, just a new home. This site will still exist until my current credit with the hosting company runs out. So change your bookmarks and tell your friends that Gavin has a new home. Oh and I have upload a new video there already.

Video of Gavin Crawling

A video of Gavin crawling. Shot this back in September, so it is ancient in Gavin days. I he can zip across the floor now in no time. I uploaded the video to YouTube, the site might be block at some companies since it contains streaming media. I know I block it at my job.

9 month checkup

Well we took Gavin in for his nine month check up at the doctor's office. He got an all clear and a clean bill of health. The only thing the doctor brought up was that we need to be concern about safety around the house. Since Gavin is at the age that he will start getting into to things. And boy does he now get into things. I upload a bunch of photos of him getting into things. So you'll have to check them out. We have also grabbed some quick videos of him crawling and babbling baby talk but I haven't spent any time trying to figure out how to upload them.

mama mama mama

"mama mama mama..." is now a common phrase that we hear from Gavin. Though we don't think he is truly saying Mama, but it is still fun to hear that come from his mouth of babble. He seems to be no longer sick, while I still have some "being sick" left in me. Tonight during bath time we took him out of the baby tub and just let him play in the big tub. He did really well, so tomorrow I'll let him take a shower. (Just kidding) Still no signs of that sixth tooth dropping down, and the drooling has subsided so I think it may be a while. He did excellent yesterday in the mall, rode around in the stroller looking at all the funny-looking people. It seem like the people that go shopping at Wal-Mart at 3:00 AM where at the mall on Saturday. (Present readers excluded from that comment if you happen to shop at Wal-Mart at 3:00 AM.) Oh well he will be going on many more shopping trips as we attempt to buy Christmas presents for our family over the next few weeks. Just think he'll be almost 11 months at Christmas and might be walking by April 2007, and starting school by September 2011, driving a car by 2021, graduating high school by 2023. Oh and I can retire by 2042 (unless they push it back by then.)

Halloween Pictures

Tiggers like to pounce,
originally uploaded by satterfield.ben.

Well even though he wasn't feeling good we still put the costume on him for a bit and took some photos. (Can't tell from this photo) After about ten minutes he was not digging being in the hood outfit. So I took some photos of him and even upload a photo from the other day of him eating.

Getting Better

Well Gavin's fever has come down, but he is still cranky. Hardly slept at all last night, keeping the whole house up. At some point in the middle of the night I even got fed up with him wailing. It is good to have Heidi and I swap him off when we can't deal with the crying any more. I'm amazed at single mom's, cause I would have gone insane by now or been a horrible parent. But he's not a bad kid at all, just he's been sick and not sleeping well. Oh well Halloween is tonight and we're going to stick a costume on him. I'll grab a photo and throw it up on the site tomorrow.

Weekend of Sick

Well Gavin was sick all weekend with a fever, ranging from 101 to 103. We spent most of the weekend comforting him and trying to make life easier. Heidi went to the doctor on Saturday fearing that he might have another bladder infection but the test came back OK, he just had a viral infection, (if that could be a good thing). I also got sick and lost my voice, I feel like crap but haven't had a fever so I'm at work today. Heidi some how managed avoiding getting sick, guess the JuicePlus is working for her, might have to start taken them myself. Anyway they are home today, last time I talked to her she said his temperature was 99 degrees, so a lot better than all weekend.

Cheerios

Gavin has discovered that he likes to eat Cheerios, but he hasn't mastered the skill of getting them to his mouth. He can pick them up, but they somehow resist being eaten. They end up sticking to his face or falling to the floor. If we only had a dog then we wouldn't have to clean it up after every meal. The cats took interest at first, but after a sniff they didn't care so much. The most I could get Bristo (our cat) to do was bat them across the floor and under the furniture. Also Gavin is sitting in high chairs at restaurants, which really shows how quickly he is growing up. Well tomorrow we are taken him to Apple Festival in Bedford, should be fun.

First cold and some new teeth

Gavin got his first cold. On Tuesday night he started coughing and had a runny noise. That night was a long one since he couldn't sleep well, he kept waking up and Heidi got up like five times. She took a sick day for Wednesday just in case he was running a fever. He never did, but Wednesday night was a little rough. I ended up sleeping on the Living Room floor so I could get some sleep, since Gavin and Mom were in bed.

Anyway tonight we were using the nose sucking thingy to extract some boogies and I noticed that his top teeth are poking through his gums. I am suprise that his teeth are coming in so early. From what I had read it said that teeth could come in as last as 14 month and he has his in less than 9.

Eight months and counting.

Well on October 3rd, Gavin will be eight months old. He is already crawling, pulling himself up on furniture, and getting into trouble. His babble has taken on a whole new set of unique sounds, we've even heard "mam-ma", but I'm sure he doesn't mean mommy. I leave my guitar next to the crib, and this morning we awoke to him strumming the strings. He was reaching through the crib and touching the strings. It was really neat to have do that in the morning. I try to get some current photos of him up soon.

It's Official

We now have to rearrange the house, because Gavin is on the move. He is crawling, and not a slow predictable pace, I mean blink and he has left the room. The cat bowls that once contain water now empty. The shoes that were once safe are now the new toy. And the cats are on edge since they are fair game for attack. It is completely different now that he can crawl. I laugh when he sees my feet and decides to cross the room to get my shoes.

Rumor of a crawl

Heidi told me today that he crawled a few feet, but I didn't see it so it is not official. He does move across the room, if we put a toy down on the other side he will get there. Gavin is starting to find things he's not suppose to get into and he fusses when we take them away. Peas are now the official first "I don't like them" food, too many yucky faces when feeding him and a few gags.

Heidi is still having a hard time leaving him every day, so please pray for peace until we can have her stay home.

The picture below is not Gavin, but I can see this happening in a few years if we're not careful.

Not officially crawling, yet.

He isn't crawling, officially. A lot of army crawling towards a toy if he wants it. He can move five feet in a couple of seconds. We can no longer leave him on the bed, surrounded by pillows and brush our teeth. We had a lot of fun with him this weekend, carrots are the new food of the week. Diapers are starting to reek, not something that I can pretend not to notice. Worked a lot around the house, somehow household chores are not included in the Labor Day holiday. Didn't get a chance to move the photos off Flickr, will try to do that soon.

Crawling by the weekend

I am convinced that he will be crawling by this weekend. Of course it is an uneducated guess, since I have never seen a baby develop outside of our son. But none the less, he gets up on all fours and rocks back and forth, it is really close to crawling. This afternoon I sat in front of him and call him towards me. He would smile and grunt, but in the end he just rolled over on his back and stared at me. So for the rest of week I plan on seeing if I can get him to crawl towards me. Of course once he starts crawling we have to baby-proof the house. So next weekend is going to be "moving-everything-out-of-reach" weekend.

Side Note - I am frustrated with Flickr not working like it should and will return the photos back to the old way (maybe this weekend)

Eight New Photos

Some are from back when we went to Ill. around the 4th of July. Some are even from today. I even got one today with him smiling and showing those pearly whites. Still working on trying to get the post to work correctly and show the picture.

Gavin is pretty content

Gavin is pretty content

Originally uploaded by satterfield.ben.

Took this photo back around the 4th of July up in Chicago. We were awaiting a dolphin show to start and I flip the camera around to took a quick snap shot. Came out pretty good.
I am planning this weekend to put on more photos so check back.

Meal time has variety

Since birth Gavin has known only one type of food, breast milk. Now he is a seasoned connoisseur of a whole smorgasbord of delicacies. Starting with the always nasty (I mean tasty) squash, of course he doesn't know it is nasty. Heidi has also introduced him to sweat potato and banana. They are mix to a constancy that could be compared to a milkshake. He really likes to help with the spoon, but I think he just wants to eat the spoon. He does get this “rice cereal” every so often, but it looks like the infamous “grits”.

Well tomorrow marks the first weekend since Heidi has started back to work. We are going to celebrate by sleeping in and being lazy.

Finish Uploading Old Pics

I have uploaded all the old photos (minus one or two of Heidi) to Flickr. You can view our photo album by clicking here. Sometime by this weekend I'll post a bunch of new photos for your enjoyment. I switched to Flickr since it an easy way to manage my pictures of him that I was sharing with the whole world. Also you can do a lot of things with Flickr that I wasn't able to do before. Check it out.

v2.0 is out

Well I slaved over the computer most of the night to get this up and running. At this point I'll have to stop till tomorrow to fix the little things. Please do check back over the next few days since I plan on putting a whole slew of updates (photos and a video of Gavin). The older post from v1.0 will be posted sometime this weekend.

You can now leave comments of the photos and updates that we post. And I have made it easier for Heidi to post comments. So I am really excite to be able to change the site this way. Let me know what you think.

Trip to UVa today

We went to doctor today up at UVa and the outlook was good. We decided (with agreement of the doctor) to not have the procedure on Gavin down next month. We will continue to give him antibiotic until he is a year old. If he gets another UTI then we will go back to the doctor. Heidi and I were both relieved to have it go smoothly for Gavin.

Gavin reading his first book

Gavin reading his first book

Originally uploaded by satterfield.ben.

Hey just testing the connection between Flickr and the website. Tomorrow I'll move the rest of the photos over and since I have my laptop back I can post all the new photos of the little guy. So for now you'll have to be content with the few I have already uploaded.

Back to Work

We are establishing a new pattern for day to day. I drop him off in the mornings and Heidi picks him up in the afternoons. I think he is on the brink of crawling. Those knees get under him and he somehow moves across the floor. It isn't graceful but if you aren't watching he'll move a couple of feet before you know it. I still haven't got my laptop back, need to check on that so I can throw so pictures up.
I also have something new in the works.

Tooth Monster on the loose

Gavin has his first teeth. Maybe I'll snap a photo of his toothy smile. He has been doing well, the fevers have gone. I suspect that his teething cause the fevers, but I'm not a doctor. Heidi starts back to school next week, so our summer schedule will come to an end. I'll be dropping him off in the mornings and she'll pick him up in the afternoon. My laptop is in the shop, so once it is back I'll post a good chunk of pictures. Sorry for the gap in post, I'll try to keep you guys up-to-date.

He can roll

He can roll folks! From his back to his stomach and then back again, can't stay still. He spend a good amount of time on his stomach and prop his head up until he gets tired. Heidi is off for the summer so we are forming a bedtime schedule. Around 8:00 pm we give him a bath, one last feeding and then down for the count. Most nights he will wake up around 2:00 am and then again at 5:30 am. Mainly he is hungry so my night role is light. We have been battling a low grade fever for the last few weeks. We have to check his temperature every diaper change to see if it is going up. I have more pictures to post, so check back this week.