Almost A Little Man

I do not have near enough time to give this post the detail that is deserves, but I’m going to write down a few things that have been making my heart smile lately:

*Thomas is now saying “Uh-Oh”…and it is every bit adorable as you might think it is. For a couple of weeks he would only say “UH!” when he dropped something, but within the past day or so he has started saying the full “Uh Oh!”…and if you say “Uh Oh” to him while he’s holding something, he’s likely to throw it down!

 

*Thomas took his first steps a few days before he turned ten months old. He is now walking all over the place! Such a fun and busy stage.

 

*Thomas is also making a “mmm” sound. I think he is trying to say “moooo”

 

*Thomas has started vocalizing what he wants and doesn’t want. For example, if I put him down in the kitchen, he walks straight to our bedroom and to our bathtub. When I tell him that it’s not time for a bath and pick him up and carry him out of the room, he pitches a fit protests

 

*Thomas is doing pretty good with his finger foods. We mainly just use purees to top off his dinners. He has started throwing his food everywhere. We are having a hard time deciding how/how often/how hard/what type of discipline to give. And how much he is capable of understanding at this age. We don’t want to use that as an excuse for bad behavior, but it is something to consider.

This week I tried to introduce cow’s milk to Thomas…he does not like it! So, I’m not mixing it with his formula in hopes of putting more and more cow’s milk and less formula each time until he is eventually only taking cow’s milk! Talk about a financial opportunity! Thomas gets his sippy cup with water during all three meals, but he does not want his milk in his cup….he wants that in his bottle! My first priority is to get him off of formula, next will be weaning from the bottle.

 

*We LOVE this stage. Having an almost one year old is so fun! We talk about how much fun he is almost everyday. One of the best things about being a first time parent is that there is so much joy and appreciation for each stage and milestone. I imagine after having several children it is easier not to rejoice so much in each stage with each child because of all the noise and business of everyday life. But for now, Daniel and I are truly soaking in these moments and having a lot of fun watching and attempting to teach Thomas new things.

 

My blog posts will probably continue to be short and sweet and far and few inbetween. I am keeping busy doing the everyday things of a wife and mother and trying to keep myself from doing pointless things like reading 1084390584 blogs a day and watching reality tv trash. I have joined a Kay Arthur bible study at our church, and I work on it during the week while Thomas is napping. He is on this irregular napping schedule, so I never know if he’s going to take one long nap, one short nap, two long naps, two short naps, or one of each in a day! Needless to say, I work diligently on my bible study while he is sleeping. That time is priceless.

 

I’m signed up to run another 5k this coming Saturday. To say that I am not prepared is an understatement. The cold weather and the whole having a one year old thing makes finding time to go for a run very difficult during the winter. There are many mornings when Deborah and I want to go but decided the temperature being in the “teens” is a little too cold. It was so much easier when I could just throw T in the stroller.  It will be interesting to see if/how I complete the race! As Summer and I joked at our last 5k, “We’re completing, not competing!” Amen, Sista!

 

Ok, Thomas just went down for a nap so now I must go find something productive to fill my mind with! I think I’m going to make a green smoothie before I read…yummy! I’ll have to post about eating those next month later. I may even do a little online research of cloth diapering today because I think I may hear it calling my name. It sounds like such a great way to save money! Feel free to write me and tell me how much you love using them and how much money you save and how adorable your kid looks in them in hopes of encouraging me to take the plunge, please! Good-bye, Friends!

I Have A 9 Month Old…..

And I can’t believe it. The whole “enjoy them while they’re yours, they grow up way too fast” does not even begin to give light to the truth that every parents knows deep in their heart of hearts that these long days and endless around-the-clock hours spent tending to my little one’s every need really are the good ole’ days that I’ll spend my golden years looking back on and yearning for every time I see a tired mother and her little one who is incapable of running out of energy (longest sentence ever??). Well, I don’t know that I’ll quite yearn for them, but there will definitely always be a little place in my heart that appreciates and longs for the joy that only a baby can put in a Mommy’s heart.

I took Thomas to his nine month well-check yesterday. He got the first round of his flu shots and will go back in four weeks to get the final shot. He weighed 19lbs 12oz, which put him in the 25% for his age. When he went on August 25, he weighed 17lbs 2 oz. Dr.Rice said he has quit gaining so much weight so fast because he is mobile and active now. She also said that babies who are breastfed tend to stay in the eight percentiles with their weight, and once they are weaned (around 8.5 months for Thomas), their weight gain usually slows down drastically.

He was 29.5 inches tall (75%) and his head was 45.5cm (45%).

Thomas has recently taken to a particular “lovie”, his frog. The frog stays in the crib with Thomas’s pacies and can most likely be found snuggled under Thomas’s arm as he drifts off to sleep.

Thomas is still saying words like “ma ma” and “da da” and “ra ra”…he loves to clap and will wave bye-bye, although he finds clapping much more amusing!

He is a very efficient crawler and loves to pull up and cruise along the sofa and fire place. He can actually kind of “run” while he cruises. In the past week or so, he has started letting go of the furniture he was holding onto for balance and standing on his own for about five seconds. I know it doesn’t sound like long, but it seems like an eternity when you are watching him do it!

I tried introducing some finger foods (sweet peas) last night, and he was not crazy about the idea. I would put one in his mouth, and you could tell he did not understand the whole “chew it up and swallow it” concept. He would just kind of work his tongue around and then spit it back out. It is going to take some work.

He officially weaned around 8.5 months, and it now taking a combination of formula and breastmilk that I had stored up in the deep freezer. He get a sippy cup of mostly water and a little bit of organic apple juice with his lunch and dinner.

He is very comfortable around mine and Daniel’s family and would (FINALLY!!) be okay if I left him with one of them during the day. He still absolutely despises the nursery at church, so I am still spending every Sunday morning in the nursery. I always try to leave the room for a few minutes, and it always results in a total panic attack on T-Bird’s behalf.

We have been traveling so much and having so many visitors in town that he really is not on quite as much of a sleeping schedule as he used to be. He still goes to bed around 7:00p.m. but is now waking up anywhere from 5:00am-6:30a.m. And he may or may not go directly back down after he gets a bottle. On the way to and from Valdosta for Thanksgiving, he fell asleep in his car seat for a nap without any crying. This was a first. Usually, we have to listen to about ten minutes of screaming before he’ll give it up and go to sleep. We are about to put him in his Britax Advocate 70CS carseat…aka, his Big Boy car seat! We still have had him in his Graco SnugRide 32 Infant Carseat up to this point because it will go in the middle of the car and the Britax (while rear facing) must go on one of the side seats. Daniel felt that having the Graco car seat in the center of the car was safer than having the Britax on an outside seat. However, Thomas just looks ridiculously too big to still be in his infant carrier. So, onto the Big Boy car seat it is! I can’t wait until he is a year old and can be forward facing!

He is still taking a definite two, some days three, naps a day. His morning nap is 1hr 15mins most days, and his afternoon nap is anywhere from 1-2 hours. Since we have been so off schedule lately, he sometimes is getting in a third nap in the late afternoon. Oddly enough, it doesn’t seem to effect his bedtime that much. Yesterday, he slept from 4:00-5:15p.m. and was still out cold by 7:30p.m.

Thomas’s most important milestone recently was his FIRST TOOTH! I just happen to notice it the Tuesday before Thanksgiving when we were in Valdosta. I did not know he was even cutting one, and so far, I don’t see or feel the second one coming in. I must say, I thought his gummy little grins were adorable, but that one bottom tooth shining when he smiles is cute in a whole ‘nother way.

Bye-Bye Blackberry

I got a new phone today. Nothing savvy.  It will call and text people. It’s just a simple phone. And I love that concept…simple. As I was going through all of the pictures on my old blackberry, I realized just how much of real life I had captured with the camera on my phone. Most of these pictures are of Thomas, of course, and were taken to send as a text  to my Romeo while he was at work during the day.  Most of them are me without any make-up on, Thomas’s first grins/smiles, pregnancy belly photos, some baby pics of Mary Frances, and a few more really random ones…..so this, my friends, is probably the most accurate view of my life over the past year or two….

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Anyways, in case you haven’t noticed or have just quit checking-in here completely, I haven’t been blogging as much lately. I hate to spend time on the computer once my Catfish Killer of a husband is home from work, and I definitely don’t want Thomas to remember his Momma spending all of  her days staring into a laptop screen.

 

But, while T is napping, I’ll do a quick update on where we’ve been lately:

 

We have been starting our days earlier (anywhere from 5:30a.m.-7:00a.m.) and ending them earlier! Daniel and I are the oldest farts you’ll ever meet when it comes to bedtimes. We love going to bed early and starting our days early.

 

We have been laying on the floor wrestling with our little 8 month old boy and chasing him all over the house as he crawls EVERYWHERE!! He has so much curiosity about what is around the next corner that we can’t even sit down for we are constantly chasing that boy!

 

We have been taking lots of last minute golf cart rides before the weather turns too cold.

 

We have been laughing as we watch Thomas learn to splash in tub and how his face lights up when he sees the water splatter everywhere.

 

We have been turning our heat on at night and our air on during the day (which drives my husband crazy, by the way).

 

We have been cringing as Thomas cruises down the couch and fireplace because we know 0ur little boy have more guts than he does brains at this point and is a little dare-devilish when explores his world:)  He takes some pretty hard falls. 

 

We have been unpacking the last of the boxes from the sunroom and finally hanging some pictures on the walls. Yes, we have lived here a year and not fully unpacked or hung many, if any, pictures on the walls

 

We have been feeding Thomas broccoli, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, acorn squash, summer squash, butternut squash, prunes, apples, peaches, nectarines, pumpkins, green beans, sweet peas, carrots, bananas, pears, and avocados.

 

We have still been mainly nursing but have had to start doing a bottle or two a day of formula to keep this baby full and content.

 

We have been praising the Lord in our hearts every time we hear “ma ma ma ma ma ma” and “da da da da da da” come out of  that precious little mouth.

 

We have been brainstorming about building our own swing set and how we want to design it.

 

We I have been training to run a 5k with Deborah….we don’t have one planned yet because our schedules are so hectic, but we are training our little butts off anyways! Pushing the kids up and down these hills and around the farm  in the jogging strollers has proven to whip our lungs into shape! Running has actually been enjoyable lately because I have a partner.

 

We have been dressing Thomas in his size 12 months clothes. They have a little bit of growing room which is nice because hopefully they’ll last us through the winter.

 

We have been going into our guest bedroom and petting the deer that’s on the wall. Yes, you read that correctly. Thomas loves staring at the deer. And like any other 8 month old, he then wants to touch it. And would probably put it in his mouth if I let him….

 

We have been attending Carriage Lane church and go to a small group on Monday nights. We have finally found a church that speaks Truth to our hearts, and we leave feeling both convicted and encouraged. We have fallen in love with the dynamics of the small group we attend. We are so excited, relieved, and refreshed.

 

We I have been sitting in the nursery during the church service with Thomas trying to get him used to the environment so hopefully he will be comfortable enough in there to stay by himself. No such luck yet. I tried sitting in there for fifteen minutes and then leaving for five minutes last Sunday, and he was so ticked the moment he realized that I was gone. This too shall pass, this too shall pass, this too shall pass…..

 

We have been watching the leaves outside turn to rich, golden colors and Thomas’s eyes turn even more blue.

 

We have been affectionately calling Thomas “Stinker”….”T-Bird”….”Bruiser”….”Red Bird”….and whatever else comes to mind at the moment:)

 

Ok, well Thomas is up from his nap now and wants his Mommy’s attention…imagine that:) I have many more blog posts  in my drafts folder that I began and never got to finish and publish so hopefully before Christmas I’ll get caught up!

The Real World of Mommy-Hood

Update: I just found this draft that I had forgotten to publish on my blog! Thought I’d share it anyways! It looks like it’s from about two months ago! Better late than never:)

 

Having spent the last six months as a first time Mommy, I have had a lot of new experience and many different types of them.

 

Some embarrassing…some fun…some humbling….some exciting….some exhausting…some overwhelming…some rewarding…some sobering…some life-changing….some that brought out my true colors….some that Daniel and I bonded over….some that we argued over….but more often than not, they were moments that our hearts fell in love with Thomas and each other all over again.

 

Daniel and I are very different people today than we were six months ago, to say the very least.  Here’s a glimpse of some of the things I find myself doing/feeling that I never imagined I would be doing/feeling at this point in my life:

 

For example, I keep finding myself googling what time the grocery store, the health food store, and many other stores open because our days often start at 7:00a.m. and so early morning errands sound like a great activity to make the time pass! And when I’m at the grocery store, I no longer look for the closest available parking spot, but rather the one closest to the place where you return your shopping cart so I don’t have to carry my very heavy six month old quite as far in the sizzling summer heat. And while we’re on the grocery store, I have to mention that my heart goes out to the sweet Publix produce men who are working whole-heartedly at keeping the fresh produce stocked when I come up to them and bombard them with questions like, “So how exactly do I tell if this avocado is ripe??”  or, “Excuse me, Sir. Could you please tell me what fruits are about to go out of season?? See, I’m trying to make some baby food, and if this stuff goes out of season before I can find it and get it put up then how in the world am I supposed to get my hands on some then?” Or maybe the most annoying question that I’ve asked them before is, “Do you have organic apples…When will you get them in??…Well, what if this was your last shipment, like you think it may have been, then when will they be back???….Do you know of any other place I could find organic apples?….By the way, where do these apples come from??….Is there any way that if you do get some in that you could like call me or something??….So, here is my shout-out to the Publix Produce men….I really appreciate y’alls willingness to answer my questions and patience as I go in circles with y’all!

 

Another person/place that is really patient with me is my pediatrician’s office. I recently called up there so many times in a span of a couple of days that I finally just quit identifying myself and would say, “Hey Latrell. It’s me again. Thomas finally pooped!! Yayyyy!” And speaking of poop, I also recently surprise myself (and grossed my dinner guests out…Sorry James, Leigh, and Cass!) when Daniel yelled from the bedroom that Thomas had a stinky, funny looking color diaper, and I jumped up from eating my dinner and said, “Ouuu, hold on!!  Don’t throw it away yet!! I want to see it!!”

 

On a little bit of a sadder note, I went shopping the other day at this cute little boutique that carries super cute and trendy clothes and did not find a single thing that I could or would even attempt to  pull off.  I kept looking at the clothes and thinking to myself, “Geez, I could never wear that….Oh wow, that would draw so much attention to my post-baby belly flab….Oh my, is this in style?! Man, I must be really be out of style if this is in style….what is this, a shirt? A skirt?…Huh?!?….” To further  describe my change in opinion on clothing items, I now think that finding  a bra with good support is worth more than my right hand. Ahem, I think all you nursing mothers know exactly what I’m talking about….

 

And while we’re on the nursing note, I considered giving this topic  an entire post of its very own, and then decided that this is one of the topics that my husband would probably say, “Amanda, you don’t have to tell everybody everything all the time.” Sweet Daniel. He tries his hardest to stop me before I embarrass myself. Too bad he’s not here now while I’m typing this post….Back to nursing. Oh, the places and predicaments you will find yourself in while nursing!  I could tell you every truck stop and/or restaurant between here and South Georgia that is “nursing-friendly,” meaning their parking lot has a good secluded corner you can use.  I also can tell you where we do not stop under any circumstances….and that is places with loud bathrooms!! There is nothing more complicated and frustrating that when I’m traveling by myself with Thomas and have to stop to use the restroom.  Thomas hates how loud public toilets flush. They terrify him, to say the LEAST. So, I have learned to use the restroom while holding Thomas in my lap and singing and smiling to him every time I hear a toilet flush in hopes of distracting him enough that he forgets how scared he feels. It’s exhausting. And complicated. It really is. 

 

Thomas still will not stay with anyone but me or Daniel. We have not been on a date since we tried to go on this fishing date, which seems like an eternity ago. When I hosted a couples wedding shower for Jenny last weekend, I went alone while Daniel stayed back with Thomas. When I need a hair cut, I wait and go after Daniel gets home from work so he can keep Thomas. When I have to go to the dentist and get x-rays, Daniel has to come home from work so I can run up there. I have had to take Thomas to several doctors appointments with me, and they ended up being every bit as disastrous as I had imagined they would be. So I think that it goes without saying that I really appreciate that Thomas will at least stay with Daniel! For my yearly gyn appointment, Thomas stayed home with Daniel. Usually, I am very impatient when it comes to waiting on doctors. I mean, really, why are they always running so behind?? But ever since I had Thomas, I find myself enjoying the wait. The waiting room is quiet. I know Thomas is in good hands. I can zone out and relax. Not to mention these waiting rooms are always full of good magazines like People. I love celebrity trash. It’s my guilty pleasure.  Leave your judgment at the door, please.

 

One of the biggest changes in our lives since Thomas was born is our schedule. I feel like people with young children are on a different planet from the rest of the world from about 5:00-8:00p.m. We go into survival mode. Get dinner going for me and Daniel. Put Thomas’s pacie in so he’ll temporarily quit fussing. Get out his baby food cubes and start heating them up on the stove top. Put Thomas’s pacie back in. Give Daniel a “Where are you and how soon will you be home!?” phone call.  Smile at Thomas and clap your hands to entertain him. Give D a kiss when he walks in. Inform him that Thomas missed his afternoon nap and is very cranky. Roll your eyes when Thomas starts screaming, again. Say to Daniel, “See, I told you he was cranky”. Apologize to Daniel for being grumpy. Blame it on being hungry and sleepy. Clean up the dishes from warming Thomas’s food so they can be used again in the morning while Daniel feeds himhis dinner. Decide who is the hungriest and who gets to hold Thomas while the other one eats first. Or, on a good night where Thomas did get a late nap, lay him down on the floor in the den while we both get to eat at the same time. A luxury, I tell ya! Clean up the dishes while the boys play. Go for a ride on the golf cart to pass the time and entertain Thomas until closer to bed time. Bathe Thomas. Maybe bathe myself while D but Thomas into his pajamas. Ahhh, bed time! Nurse Thomas so he’ll get a really full belly and hopefully sleep until seven or so the next morning. All that to say, if you have a child or children, you know exactly what I am talking about. If you don’t, then you probably can not imagine eating dinner at 5:30p.m. Before having Thomas, we would have never eaten dinner that early. Never say never:)

 

There are a few other ways that I’m reminded that I am a really different person after becoming Thomas’s Mother. I do not text and drive anymore, and I think it’s really dangerous and reckless when other people do it….the sexiest thing I own is my one-piece or maybe my tankini….the most entertaining thing that I watch is a two minute video clip of Thomas lying on the floor doing absolutely nothing, I love it and can watch it multiple times…my idea of going to church is now sitting in the nursery with the nursery workers and getting to know them. I only dream of being able to attend a service and sit all of the way through it.

 

Lastly, my twenty-fifth birthday is coming up. I am almost a quarter of a century old! Somehow, “25” sounds a lot older than “24” to me. When thinking of what I “want” for my birthday, the words '”grocery store gift card,” “a nanny,” and “a glass of wine” come to mind….and the combination of all three in the same day would just be too much for this housewife to handle. I don’t think I would have asked for these things on my twenty-fourth birthday:)

6 Months Old Today!!!

As cliché as this sounds, I can not believe Thomas is already six months old! Time is flying by!! I’ve heard somewhere before that “The days are long, but the years are short” and I feel that is the perfect way to describe life with your children! There are some really, reeeeeally long days.  I mean like, really long. The kind of days where I start counting down the hours, minutes, and seconds until Daddy gets home from work and can offer some relief at breakfast time. But those are far and few between.

 

These past few weeks have been really fun with Thomas. He started getting up on all four’s about a week ago and now he is rocking on all four’s! I really believe crawling is just around the corner! Our house is so not baby-proofed yet! I guess maybe I should get the Clorox out from under the sink??

 

T-Bird also loves to roll, roll, roll! He can make his way all across our living room bY rolling. He LOVES his walker, and spends a lot of time in it while I make his food, cook dinner, clean the kitchen, etc. He can kind of sit up on his own, but I would never leave him unattended because he kind of flops backwards when he gets tired.

 

Thomas is still going to bed usually by 8:00p.m. and waking up at around 7:00-7:30a.m. These past several nights he has been waking up a lot during the night, and I’m hoping this will end very soon. It seems like it was easier to get up all during the night when Thomas was a newborn or a couple of months old. But now that he is six months old, Momma and Daddy are wanting their sleep! During the day, he takes about four forty-five minute naps.

 

So far, Thomas has tried sweet potatoes, avocados, bananas, and plums! I don’t think he’s crazy about the avocados, but he’ll eat them if I mix them in with something else!  Since he is now six months old, I’m going to introduce some cereal made from millet for him to have for breakfast. I am still nursing you, and I have been making his baby food myself. For the most part, I have really enjoyed doing it. I’m not sure how much Thomas’s Aunt Katie enjoys me doing it because I may call her twelve times a day a lot with tons of questions! I guess that’s what she gets for being the Book Worm who does all the reading on everything:) We’ll have to remember to get her a good birthday present this year.

 

Thomas was getting much better about going to “strangers”, who are really family members, but he treated them like strangers sometimes. He really was getting better about it, until we spent some time in Statesboro last week. He digressed rather quickly. Thomas would hardly have anything to do with anyone that wasn’t his M-o-m-m-a!! I thought we getting past that stage, but Thomas made it very clear that we weren’t. To this day, we have yet to leave Thomas with a baby-sitter (Grandma’s, Aunt’s, Friends, nursery workers….you name it, we’ve tried it) and things go smoothly. Heck, I wouldn’t even care if they went smoothly if they would just “go” at all! Thomas completely freaks out when he realizes that we are not around, and our time alone is cut short. It’s a good thing he’s so darn cute;)

 

Another thing I love about this age  is that Thomas is very ticklish on his thighs and underneath his chubby cheeks. He giggles and laughs out loud anytime we tickle him. All we have to do is look at Thomas, and he just grins from ear to ear. “Jolly” is a good way to describe him!  He has also started “babbling” more lately, and it is starting to sound more like “words” than just squeals. For example, a lot of times it sounds like he is saying “naa naa” or “ahhh”.  He can look pick his pacie up off the ground and put it in his mouth, too.

 

All in all, six months is by far the most fun stage yet!  We absolutely love being parents! It is incredible.

 

I am hosting a wedding shower for my dear friend Jenny this weekend, and then me and the boys are heading to the farmers market Saturday morning! Hopefully, we will find lots of fresh organic fruits and vegetables to put up in the freezer!  And once I catch my breath from doing all of that, I have July 4th pictures to post!!! Be back soon:)

Video Post-Tongue Surgery and 11 Weeks Old

Thomas was tongue-tied when he was born, but it was not extremely bad. He was able to nurse with the assistance of a shield for the first two weeks, and then we stopped using the shield. A lot of pediatricians do not recommend doing anything when a baby is tongue-tied because a lot of kids out grow it, or it doesn’t end up causing them any speech problems. It is a very, very simple procedure to clip the part of the tongue that is being restrained. The absolute worst part of it is seeing your baby in a hospital gown.

 

They shouldn’t even make hospital gowns that small.

 

He had to have very light anesthesia, and was a little disoriented for about ten minutes after the surgery. He refused to nurse, but luckily I had packed a bottle just in case, and he took it fine.  We were back home by about 10:00 in the morning, and by about 10:30, Thomas was playing on his activity mat. If you had not told me that the child had surgery three hours before, I never would have known it. So, anyways. Here’s a short video showing that Thomas was alive and well that same day of the surgery!

 

*****ATTENTION ALL MOTHERS: WHAT I WISH I WOULD HAVE KNOWN:  If we would have made an appointment with the ENT doctor within the first 10 days/2 weeks (I can’t remember exactly which one!) he said that he would have been able to do this simple little procedure in his office. Since Thomas was already older than 10 days/2 weeks by the time we saw him, we had to do it as an out-patient surgery, which includes a trip to the old hospital, anesthesia, nurses, baby hospital gowns, and bills, bills, bills!

 

Video Post-Thomas at 10 Weeks

Another video (10 weeks old at this point)!! It’s amazing to see how much he has changed since then! This is what Kennedy will be like shortly, Summer! If she ever gets out of her bouncy seat:) When I took this video, I had all intentions of uploading it within a few days so my parents and sisters could see what all Thomas was doing now….so what if it follows my “Five Month Update” on Thomas!? Don’t judge:)

 

Video Post-Thomas at 8 Weeks Old

I have been trying to upload videos to my blog for forever now, and it has not been working!! Finally, today, it works!! So, I am going to start where I left off with the videos…T-bird at 8 weeks old!  And again, I promise to blog about things other than my adorable little boy….one day:) (kidding!!)

A Fabulous Five Months

As we visited with Cousin Kennedy this past weekend, I found myself frustrated that I already could not remember what Thomas was doing and not doing at her age (8 weeks). I kept saying, “I don’t ever remember Thomas sleeping that much….I don’t know if Thomas was smiling a lot by then or not…”

So, as if my blog were already not bad enough about being one of those “all about the kid/mommy blogs”, I’m about to add to it by doing random posts with facts about where Thomas is developmentally and what he is doing at each particular stage!

Let me apologize up front to all of you who are not our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers, cousins, or best friends….you are about to be bored to tears as I overload you with facts that are probably very boring to you…but if you know and love my jolly little boy, then enjoy these milestones and memories with me:)

**Thomas will be five months old on July 12. According to my scales at home, he weighs about 16.1 ounces, but we will see for sure when he goes to his well-check in a few days.

**Thomas’s latest hobbies are grabbing his toes, which he started about three weeks ago, and smiling all of the time. Today was the first time he actually got his toes in his mouth! I guess I’ll have to start making sure I wash between his toes well!

**Thomas grins each and every time I look over at him at talk or sing. He LOVES attention, especially from his Momma and Daddy!

**Thomas takes a little 20-45 nap around 6:00p.m. every night and then goes to down again around 8:45p.m. Then, when I go to bed around 10:30 or 11:00, I wake him up to nurse one last time. If we’re lucky, we don’t hear a peep out of little red bird until around 6:00a.m. when his Daddy gets up and changes his diaper before he starts getting ready for work. Then, Thomas gets in bed with Momma and does a little nursing, which I usually sleep through, until he drifts back off to sleep. Again, if I’m lucky, Thomas will sleep until anywhere from 7:00-9:00a.m. And then we continue on our little morning routine of nursing, napping, pumping, eating oatmeal (me, not Thomas!), drinking coffee, watching Regis and Kelly, catching up with the sisters, letting Lady out, and starting our day!!

**Thomas is wearing a size two diaper, although I will probably start buying size three’s! And I’m seriously considering switching to the Luvs brand because they are so much cheaper, and we still go through like ten a day!

**Thomas rode all the way back from Mimi and Papa’s with his Daddy in his truck (we drove separately because I went down earlier in the week) and the boys made it all the way back (all 3.5 hours with the holiday traffic) without stopping once! Momma, on the other hand, had to pull over to pee once! Imagine that! Also, Thomas, his Daddy and his Papa Joe took a man trip to Home Depot this week together. This is the first time Thomas has ever gone to town without Momma! We usually do all of our errands together during the day while his Daddy is at work, and Daniel hardly ever does “errands” in town, so this was kind of a rare but cute circumstance!

**Thomas’s favorite toy right now is Sophie the giraffe, his teething toy. He loves her and grins from ear to ear when I bring her out.

**Thomas has just this past week or so started to really enjoy bath time. He kicks and kicks and love feeling the water splash all around him. And he definitely pees during most baths, too….while I’m in the tub with him!!!

**Thomas has become VERY interested in everything that I eat or drink. He watches my every move. We have not started any solids yet, and I do not plan to until he is six months old. I have already started making some of his baby food. I used the fresh squash and green beans from the garden, and it is ready and waiting in the freezer!

**We STILL have not sat through a church service without our beeper going off. You know the “come get your kid from the nursery because he’s screaming, and we can’t control him” beeper. Daniel and I dropped him off in the church nursery two weeks ago, and then I ran into the ladies room (two doors down from the nursery) before the service started. When I got out of the restroom, I asked Daniel if he had the pager, and he replied, “No.” So, we rounded the corner (remember, we had only gone two doors down) to go get the pager that we had left and instantly recognized the screaming coming from the nursery. Thomas was already upset. We hadn’t even made it to the church service yet. So I stayed in the nursery soothing Thomas and sent Daniel on to church. Once he was settled down some, I put him in the swing and instructed the nursery workers to not feel bad if they had to page me again and to please not hesitate. I scooted into the back row of church next to Daniel with the pager in hand. I don’t dare put it down. It’s not a matter of if our pager will go off, but rather when will our pager go off. I accidently hit the black button on the pager and was worried that I had turned it off so I sent Daniel back to the nursery so the nursery workers could check and make sure it was on. He returned and said it was fine. About fifteen minutes later it starts vibrating in my hand. Round two!! When I reach the nursery, Thomas was so upset. The nursery workers felt so bad that they could not sooth him and apologized for having to page me. Some even reassured me that they had been through these similar experiences with some of their children. I decided to spend the rest of the church service and sunday school time in the nursery with Thomas. I just sat in there and rocked him and let him get accustomed to hearing other babies cry and being around strangers. Oh, well. What can we do besides keep trying??

**Another one of Thomas’s hobbies is taking his paci out of his mouth and then trying to put it back in! He’s getting really good at it! It’s really cute because sometimes he puts the hard plastic part of the paci in his mouth along with the nipple of the paci! It’s like he’s trying to eat it!

**Another big milestone we’ve reach recently is having Thomas take all of his naps in his crib in his nursery. He still sleeps in our room at night because of two reasons: one being that sometimes we do have to get up and put his paci back in several times during the night and who really wants to walk all the way across the house to do that at 3:00a.m. and the second reason is that we are waiting until we get our security system installed…which reminds me…Daniel, if you are reading this…GO CALL THE ADT PEOPLE!!!!:)

**I am a big believer in putting babies on their backs to sleep…regardless of whether or not they sleep better on their tummies! I just think it’s safer on the back! Well, up until about two weeks ago we were still swaddling Thomas for every nap and at night time, too. He loved it and slept very well while swaddled. Once he was big enough to bust out of the swaddle, I felt like it was no longer safe to swaddle him because he would bust out of it in the middle of the night and have all that loose material around him, and I was afraid it would get wrapped around his face. Well, the last time we tried not swaddling Thomas did not go so well. He freak out. And by freaked out, I mean went hysterical. So, we gave in after letting him cry it out for a little while and said “the heck with it!…that’s another battle for another day…” So naturally, we feared we had a long night ahead of us this time, too. We realized that Thomas was very easily wiggling out of his swaddled, and we put the swaddle blankets away that very same night. Into the sleep sacks he went! We laid him down in his pack-n-play wide awake, he immediately rolled over onto his tummy, and went right to sleep! We were shocked and amazed! AND WORRIED!!!! I started googling things to do to reduce the risk of SIDS (which I surprisingly have not really worried about much up until this point) and decided the only thing I could do differently was point the box fan a little more in the direction of his pack-n-play to ensure that the air was circulating well around him. I was so worried that first night. I felt so completely out of control, and I knew that once babies could roll over and decided they wanted to sleep on their tummies, there was basically nothing you could do about it besides stay up all night long and constantly put them back on their backs, and staying up all night is not an option at all around here anymore:) Finally, I came to the realization that this was one of those times where I truly had to find peace with the fact that there is only so much you can do to protect your little one. After obsessively moving the fan around until I found the perfect angle and watching his back move up and down with each breath he drew in, I finally laid my head down on my pillow and confessed my fears and sin to The One Who Is In Control and prayed for peace in my heart and enough faith to trust in God and His will for Thomas’s life. And then I went to sleep.

Video Post-Thomas’s First Weeks and Mimi Saying Good Bye to Thomas