Tonight was the first night since we started David on a bedtime routine that he fell straight to sleep without any complaining. It was great. Since Adam was at the elders' meeting Becky got to spend an hour in the tub reading right after David went to sleep.

We had dinner at the buffet place (Reid's Harvest House) and we fed David some watered-down mashed potatoes. He really likes mashed potatoes. These were a little more seasoned than the last ones he ate, so hopefully it doesn't bother him or anything. So far, so good!

For the past two nights we've started to do a bedtime routine with David. We probably should have started one sooner, but oh well. Both nights it's taken David about half an hour to stop crying and go to sleep, which isn't bad! From what I've read, the first two nights can be the worst, so it'll only get better from here. He got to sleep at about 9:45pm both nights. He woke up at 3:30am to eat but went back to sleep, and the same about about 6:45am. Then he was ready to get up at about 8:30am. We'll see what he does tonight.

The pastors in the circuit had an "Epiphany" party last night. We went to a restaurant a few towns away and had dinner with some of the pastors and their families. David got to try some mashed potatoes, which he liked. They were a little thicker than we usually make his rice cereal, so we mixed a little water with it. He even ate it off of a regular size teaspoon, since we hadn't brought one of his spoons along. He also got to sit in the highchair at the restaurant. We stuffed Becky's coat and a blanket in there with him, but he seemed to really enjoy not being in the pumpkin seat. He still fits within the size and weight guidelines, but we'll probably start leaving the carseat in the car and letting him sit in store carts and highchairs because he's getting better about sitting up for a little bit.

David definitely thinks he can talk now. When he wakes up in the morning he lays in there talking to himself. He's starting to make more than just vowel sounds, too. He makes an "n" or "ng" sound along with the "ah" sound, so it comes out something like "nah-ngah-ngah-nah ". It's pretty cute watching his little lips and tongue shaping the sounds instead of him just opening up his mouth and making noise.

So we went to St. Louis after church on Christmas Day. We intended to stay two nights and go home on Thursday evening. Someone from the Chester congregation died, so Adam needed to go back right after lunch on Thursday to get there in time to help with the funeral service arrangements, because Pastor Willig and his family went to Chicago to visit his family. We were planning on coming back to St. Louis after church Sunday to spend the night, so Adam went home and David and I stayed in St. Louis. Poor Adam has to do the funeral service on Saturday and get his Monday evening New Year's Eve service prepared so that he can come back to St. Louis on Sunday afternoon after church in Chester and visiting some St. John members in St. Louis hospitals.

David slept all night last night from 10pm to 9am. It was great. Mom W. and I took him to the mall for the first time today over lunch. He slept for half of it, but it was nice to walk around a mall again! Danny & Nathan had a bunch of their friends over today, and since they had gotten Rock Band for their XBox360 for Christmas we all had fun playing it.

Nothing too exciting going on in Chester right now. We had a few inches of snow on Sunday, but it was melted and gone by Tuesday. We've gotten lots of Christmas cards, and they're taped to the basement door, and now the bathroom door. If we get many more they'll be taped to our bedroom door, too! We decided this is our version of Christmas decorations this year, because we just don't have room in the house for a tree, and we don't have the right types of front and back doors to put our wreaths on.

David had an "accident" today. He was sitting in the jumperoo in only a shirt(onesie) and socks, no pants. I was out of the room doing something and I go back into the living room and there is poop on the floor underneath his left foot. Of course he's bouncing his foot into the mess on the floor. Half of the poop decided to bypass his diaper and go out the side, and since he wasn't wearing pants it went onto the floor. We don't have any Resolve or carpet cleaner, so I used David's laundry detergent to get it out of the carpet. It worked really well. Oh the joys of motherhood... :)

David saw Dr. Platt today. Dr. Platt is a member of St. John Lutheran Church here in Chester, IL, so we know him from the congregation. David's on medicaid through the state of Illinois, and Dr. Mathews, his pediatrician in St. Louis doesn't accept that insurance. Dr. Platt is great, and we like him a lot, but hopefully we'll be able to take David to Dr. Mathews for his next appointment in two months. We should be able to get him private insurance by then. We're getting very close to getting coverage for him.

Wednesday David gets another set of shots. He's going to be crabby, I'm sure, so handbell practice, the Advent service, etc. are going to be interesting/difficult this week. We're taking him to Chester Health Department to get the shots, they don't do them at the doctors' offices, I guess. The nice thing about having medicaid for him is that we don't have to pay anything for this week's doctor visit or shots. We'll have to pay copays and deductibles when we're all on a private health insurance plan, but that'll make the transition back to St. Louis post-vicarage easier because we'll all have insurance, and we won't qualify for government insurance when I'm working again (hopefully!!). As long as you can have Humana insurance as a Missouri resident, we'll be fine when we move back to St. Louis (provided David's medical record gets straightened out at the insurance office, and they offer him coverage, which they sound like they will). 

As you can see from the new pictures, David has very strong neck muscles, and he's working on his back muscles. He's getting pretty good about sitting fairly straight for a few seconds. He doesn't like being on his tummy for longer than a minute or two, so it's difficult working on his arm muscles and trying to encourage him to roll over.

He's enjoying playing in the Rainforest Jumperoo that Uncle Matt, Aunt Maria, and cousin Ayden are letting us borrow. David loves standing, so it's great for him to play in, and he's getting pretty good at grabbing some of the toys that are in front of his face.

We started trying to feed him rice cereal last night. We're trying to teach him how to eat off of a spoon, which is going to take a while for him to get the hang of it. He seems to like the rice cereal though, so that's good at least.