Milestones

The months have been flying by since sweet Hyrum joined our family. He is everything we wanted and needed. I have only updated up through month 3 in previous posts, so I wanted to record some of his fun milestones since then. Prepare for photo overload...

4 months

We started Hyrum on "solid" food at four months. He mainly only ate rice cereal and oatmeal. We did it for a few days, and then he started spitting it back out. He thought it was so funny to see all the food flying out of his mouth. We got pretty fed up with all the food that he was wasting, so we took a break and tried again at 5 months, which worked a lot better.

5 months

Hyrum learned to roll one direction around Christmas time. He could only roll to his right, so we put him on one side of the room and let him roll all the way to the other side. Then we would take him back and start over. He was so happy to be able to move. His cute hair started getting long enough that we could comb it up in a faux hawk. We think he looks so much like Tin Tin from the comic books and recent movie... especially because of the red hair.

Tin Tin

6 months

Hyrum turned six months old in January and was finally able to roll both directions. This was pretty exciting for him, and a lot more work for us. He could pretty much go wherever he wanted, so we had to start being a lot more careful about leaving him on the ground. He also got his first two teeth just before he turned 6 months old. He was fussy for a few days and even ran a low-grade fever. Then one morning, both bottom teeth popped through.

7 months

Hyrum started sitting up at six months, but didn't get to the point where he was really stable until around 7 months. I love being able to sit him in the room with some toys and get things done that I need to. It is quickly coming to an end though because he is starting to crawl. It is a rather unconventional crawl (more like army crawling), but it allows him to go anywhere and everywhere. Christian used the exact same technique, so I guess Hyrum might turn out okay:) He also is able to pick up small things with his fingers and put them in his mouth. I worry about his safety every day because he seems drawn to choking hazards.

In the last few months, we have been on several different baby formulas to try to get his eczema under control. Soy seemed to help a little bit, but not completely. After researching some of the problems that could potentially be caused by soy, we decided that we would rather not take the risk since it didn't even solve the problem completely. Our doctor thought that he might have a milk/soy protein allergy, so he recommended a hypoallergenic formula called Nutramigen. It is super expensive, but we were willing to try it in order to help his poor skin. We have been using it for 6 weeks now, and it seemed to work for a while, but then he broke out again. We are beginning to think that perhaps he just has redhead skin that is super sensitive. Hopefully, he outgrows it because it is so sad to see him itching and chapped. To compensate for his dry skin, we rub his legs, arms, and cheeks with lotion several times a day. Despite it all, he remains incredibly pleasant and congenial.

He has also stopped sleeping through the night. It was a sad day when he started waking up again. Hopefully, since he has done it before, he can do it again... and quickly for our sanity! When he is sleeping, he loves to stick his leg up on the rails. Almost every time I check on him, he is curled up with one or two legs propped on the railing.

Hyrum is generally very happy and even-tempered, but I can tell that he also has a stubborn streak in him. He really loves to stand up now, and every time we put him in the highchair, he goes stiff as a board so that we can't sit him down in it. He tenses every muscle in his body and will not be forced to sit until he is good and ready. It has gotten to the point where I will just let him stand while I stay right by him so he won't fall out. At some point, he decides he wants to sit down and eat and will sit down by himself. 

The poor little boy isn't going to know what his real name is because we all have so many nicknames for him. Our favorite and most used is Hy-Guy, but he also goes by Hyser, Doodlebug, Bubba, and the list goes on. Christian decided that "Rum" was a cute name, but we quickly nixed that one.
We sure love our sweet Hyrum!