7 months...

Sitting up all by himself!!

Length: 26ish inches (I don't measure... I leave that to the professionals)

Weight: 17.3 lbs.

Feeding Schedule: HELLO SOLIDS! Our feeding schedule has totally been thrown on it's ass in the last month. The week after Cohen's surgery we started feeding him oatmeal before his bath at night. He thought it was pretty tasty and is a champ about finishing his meals. Last week we started him on mixed grains at night and kept with his cereal in the morning and he's still going strong. We don't really do the whole 'measuring thing' but he eats... A LOT. So a typical day is a 5am bottle (6oz.), cereal around 8am, a snack bottle around 11am (4oz), a bottle at 2pm (6oz), and a bottle at 5pm (6oz), mixed grains at 7:30pm, and then about 2oz. after his bath to help him fall asleep. My boy can EAT.
Sleeping Schedule: His sleep routine is a bath after dinner and a small bottle, I rock him to sleep (yah, I know, I know... let him fall asleep on his own.. blah, blah, blah... THIS IS MY LAST BABY - I WILL ROCK HIM UNTIL HE IS 18 IF HE'LL LET ME!!) down but about 8:15pm. Since starting solids he usually sleeps until 5am when we get up, unless he does something amazing in his diaper in the middle of the night. If we give him a bottle at 5am and lay him back down, we can usually get him to sleep until 8 or even 9 if we're lucky...
Milestones: He loves sitting (with safety guards, he still topples when he gets tired), he finds standing to be AMAZING and loves to stand in our laps, he's eating solids {which means his poop is CRAZY WEIRD now}, and he STILL hasn't produced a tooth {which means he's made a liar out of me for the past two months...}.
Best Moment This Month: It's not anything new but I'm so in love with rocking him to sleep... he has this little thing where he does his baby yawn {omahgawd SO sweet} and grabs on to the neck of my shirt when he's ready to fall asleep. Like I said, I'll rock this boy to sleep as long as he'll let me. 
Loves: Jumping in his bouncer, standing, sitting up, chewing on spoons, taking baths, giggling, smiling, wrestling with blankets, babble, chew on mama's knees, pull on facial features and hair...
Hates: He fights going to sleep, having his neck cleaned (although we're almost out of the 'no neck' stage, having to wait for a bottle...
What We're Looking Forward To: I'm dying to see him crawl... I don't know how far off it is because he is WAY more laid back than Addison ever was but I can't wait for him to start crawling around. He inches along now and can roll pretty strategically but so far that is the extent of his mobility. We're also looking forward to his first Christmas, I'll be curious to see what he thinks of Santa.

Dear Annonymous,

Enough already. GTFO my blog and quit with the comments.

Kaithxbai.

Fall Family Pics

I happen to think I make ridiculously adorable children... so I feel the need to share their every moment with the interwebs. You're welcome...

Special thanks to Kristen at KD Portraiture for once again taking amazing pics!!

The good news... and the bad news...

On 10/26 I went in to Valley Imaging for three separate MRI scans. I have been having numbness in my left arm and leg off and on and have a large numb 'patch' in the center of my back. I had sprained my neck a week or so prior when I was playing with Addison and have been having stiff neck and intense aching back pain ever since. The MRI was ordered to rule out Multiple Sclerosis, something that the doctors had suspected before I got pregnant with Cohen. Thankfully, the scans came back clear for MS but showed some alarming problems with my spine. I am now waiting on a call from the Spine Clinic and getting ready to take some real pain killers for the first time in weeks in hopes of getting some relief. I found a diagram so I can 'show' you where it hurts.

Here's my diagnosis right from the doctors report...

Bulging T4-5 and T7-8 discs
C5-6 central protrusion
Spinal Stenosis

 

If it's not one thing... it's another. There is a hot pack and a couple of Vicodin calling my name so I'm off to bed. Pray to God this is something that is easily managed - I have too much to do to have a bad back. 

Cohen vs. Solids (Round 1)

Today is a mighty big day for Sir Cohen. Not only has he moved on from his Nap Nanny {a man needs to be able to MOVE people...} but he has also finally entered the world of solid foods. I'm not sure that single grain oatmeal was quite the tenderloin he had been dreaming of, he has been watching us eat with puppy dog eyes for the last few weeks, but he seemed pretty excited nonetheless.

Can't you tell by this face?

Let's do this Mama!! Bring on the runny oatmeal that only slightly thicker than milk!! I'm READY!!

He HAD to hold the spoon... he's kind of a control freak like that. I have absolutely  NO idea where he gets that from...

And here, if you want the live action, is the video of this exciting moment in parenting...

Solid foods put up a mighty fight, but I think the judges would score this one: Solids - 0, Cohen - 1.

PS... This is a scene from the bath that followed. Derek and Cohen have a 'steal the wash cloth' game that goes on every night... it's pretty damn cute. :)

A letter to myself...

Dear Self,

I would like you to read this post tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that too. In fact, I'd like you to read it every day for the next year or so. Got it? I hope so.

Today you and the hubs bought a plot of land... it won't be a big move, maybe a 1/4 mile at the most but it will be into a new, custom home, with all your own upgrades and fancy door knobs, etc., etc. It will be bigger than your current house, not by a ton but you will get that 4th bedroom that you've been dying for and the open floor plan that you've wanted all along. You'll get granite counter tops and white moldings and hardwood floors, the double master bath sinks, walk in closet - all of the things you've been dreaming about.

{Can you sense the big 'ole BUT that's coming?}

There is a price for all of those things you've wanted... and  you're going to have to sit down with a lender and fess up about your credit card and come to terms with your {GINORMOUS} student loan debt. You are going to have to learn how to resist the urge to shop - the impulse buys at Costco [but Carters stuff is SO cheap there!], you can't download books to your Kindle app whenever you want [especially because you have a STACK of books on the nightstand waiting to be read], you have to tone down the grocery list, and cut out the morning mocha... YOU. HAVE. TO. QUIT. SPENDING. Not only that, but you have to pay off that damn credit card bill that you racked up while you were on bedrest... and after Cohen was born... and last week. You have to resist the jeans at The Buckle and the free shipping lure at Victoria Secret... You have to quit buying classroom books that you "need"... at least for now. It's time to pull your shit together and make this house thing happen. You're the one with the debt - not Derek. The financing, the APR, the loan amount - that will all be a result of YOUR financial situation. Derek has saved. Derek has paid his debts. You've bought Miss Me's and half of the teen fiction section on Amazon.

As if that wasn't enough - you have to sell your house. The one thing that has terrified you about this whole process. You have to pack up the clutter, clean up the yard, clear out the garage, and keep the house clean {with two tiny tornadoes ripping through it every two seconds... okay, one tornado... but she's equivalent to two}. You have to keep it 'showing' ready... you have to allow strangers in your home when you aren't here, you have to be ready to disappear for an hour at a moments notice [in the dead of winter]. Then, you have to wait on pins and needles for an offer, for escrow, for the whole nail biting process that you went through eight years ago. Then, if the timing isn't right you will have to rent? Live with Derek's parents? In any regard, you will be living out of a suitcase with two small children in the middle of winter.

{Oh gawd... another but}

This is what you wanted. So, get it together. Like, yesterday.