8 months

Our little 8 month pal:

Well, what to say about eight months besides the same thing every other mom says - I can believe he's eight months old already!  Which is kind of weird to think about . . . closer to one year than baby-baby.  Bo's been on the same schedule since about five months, and I love the consistency of that.  Lately he's had some MAJOR stranger danger, which is not so convenient since we are going to see family for the next two weeks.  Instead of the smiles and waves he used to offer to people, his new reaction is to immediately burst into tears.  Not awesome when you're at the grocery, or church, or anywhere.  But as the nurse reassured me at our 8 month visit - it's normal, right on track, etc.  Just not fun.  Bo's first tooth started peeking in the day he turned 8 months!! (again, how convenient - teething while we travel...)  He acted weird for a couple days, not napping well, but since it has started popping up a little bit, he's been good on the sleep again.  Sidenote- when something goes awry I go into problem solving mode and try to figure out what is causing the issue.  After fiddling with the temp of the room, what was in bed with him, and then blaming myself for enabling him and going in and rescuing him . . . the problem resolved itself.  I guess I just need to relax.

Unfortunately, my lightweight baby really showed his true colors at his checkup when he fell under the 3rd percentile in weight.  I mean I guess I saw this coming since he's been at the 10th percentile for several months.  So now we're adding formula to everything and adding more fats to his diet.  Buddy loves him some cheese!

In other milestone news, it's clear that Bo is becoming more aware of his surroundings and interacting with us so much more.  It is super fun to make sounds for him to imitate and he loves clapping to congratulate himself on a trick.  He still shows no interest in crawling!  But loves standing and is starting to maneuver around a bit that way, holding on to furniture or our hands.  The throwing stage is here in earnest and and I am constantly hunting for toys that he's chucked across the room.

Besides the meltdowns around anyone besides Matt and me, Bo just gets more fun.  We love him.  

family christmas

We're headed out of here for Christmas and I'm the Scrooge who wants to take the tree down before we go . . . so we had a little family Christmas this weekend.  Our present time focused a lot on one little guy in particular . . .

 Not that guy!!

This guy:

We opened our Christmas pajamas and some other gifts that had been mailed here, and Bo got his little Scout the Dog from Matt and me.

It's programmable and it sings cute songs about "Me and my friend BO . . . we like to do everything together!" etc.

New Elfin PJ's:

That afternoon we went to the mall so that Bo could tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas.  

So sweet, right?  Even when it's sandwiched between these two gems?

Yikes.  Poor Santa.

After filling his head with whimsy, we went to a living nativity and bundled up against the cold to walk through a little Bethlehem and read the verses of the Christmas story.  On the way home we looked at Christmas lights, and all my Christmas dreams came true.

34 weeks

Not time to chat... the UPS man just brought round 2 of our Christmas cards.  Somehow round 1 was not sendable but I must give credit to Winkflash for their customer service and quick turnaround on the new cards.  Hopefully these cards will be out by Christmas! :) 

babies take new york

I love visiting New York City at Christmas, but I wasn't sure it was going to happen this year since we now have a baby.  Truthfully, I was scared for a long time to take Bo into the city, but now that he's older and more laid back and doesn't need to eat as often and is less prone to dramatic diaper changes, it  seemed like a good time to go.  That and we hit the last warm weekend before the endless winter sets in.  Our friends Kim and Lucas and their baby Malin (see the post below) came in with us, because everybody knows two babies are more fun!  

It was soon after this picture that Matt noted that his grandfather would've never been seen wearing a baby while the wives walked ahead with their shopping bags.  I appreciate you, dear. :)

And Bo likes the ride:

Pictures by the Rockefeller Tree:

 We didn't do much, but it was nice to be in the city and get a little shopping done.  The babies were great.  Malin did have an unfortunate incident that will probably go down in the books as the most amazing poop of all time.  Matt and I watched puzzled customers in the Korean restaurant dialogue about the strange shrieking sounds coming from the bathroom while Kim and Lucas, ahem, cleaned up.  

SoHo

Train ride home.

I'm so glad we made it in for what is probably our last Christmas in New York!  

holiday romance

Last weekend our friends Kim and Lucas came by so that I could take their family picture, and we could not resist a little photo session with the happy couple:

Malin and Bo

Christmas 2011

One baby is great.  We can sit around and watch him all day.  But two babies?  Two babies are hilarious.  

if you're happy and you know it

I wasn't sure what could top the waving event of last Wednesday . . . until Bo learned how to clap this weekend.  It happened to be the same day as the UK-UNC game so I think this little fan wanted to celebrate the victory along with his dad.  Matt worked with him and Bo got it!  

And now he does it alllll the time.  I love it.  

Now we're running out of tricks to teach him.  Matt was trying to get him to 'clap his feet' while putting him in his PJ's tonight.  Maybe potty training . . .

paper chain

I put a paper chain on the tree this year.  After a moment of skepticism about the logic of committing to making such a thing . . . Matt graciously lent a hand in the stapling and assembling.  

I like it.  

33 weeks

Our 33 week picture didn't go so well . . . 

Because Bo LOVES his blankies and couldn't leave this one alone!

Those Aidan + Anais blankets were a GREAT buy.  After he (finally) outgrew the swaddling phase, which they were great for, he still loves sleeping with them.  Now he literally flails around with glee when it's naptime and I hand him a blankey.  He could easily become one of those Linus kids who drags the dirty blanket around but hopefully we can keep this contained to just naptimes.  Our little routine is to approach the crib, yell out "Blankey!" and hand him the blanket, and yell out "Paci!" and hand him a pacifier.  When I put him in the crib he either rolls over in exhaustion or kicks around for a bit with joy that he is reunited with blankey and paci . . . and generally falls asleep without issue.  It's a great moment for all of us.  

32 weeks

Bo's acting squirrely on his new blanket from Miss Joanna.  All those little animals you see are hand embroidered on there!  I'll get a pic of the other side soon but I was so impressed with her special gift! 

We put up the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving.  Bo is enjoying it. 

Breaking News:

Bo waved bye-bye for the first time yesterday!!  And Matt grabbed it on his phone.  We were SOOO proud and kind of amazed, that came out of nowhere. 

I'm sure you were so entranced with Bo you didn't notice my weird outfit . . . I know, it's weird, no comments necessary. 

holiday kick-off

For Thanksgiving we had our friends Megan and Esteban come up to visit us from Baltimore.  I am so glad they made the long bus ride up here!  Megan finally met Matt and it was great to spend more time with Esteban.  I wanted to provide his first American Thanksgiving dinner but alas, he's been to one before.  But we still pulled out all the stops.  

Bo's first Thanksgiving:

After our big old meal, we went on the requisite post-binging walk around the pond.

On Friday my longtime friends (like since I was four) the McMahans came out to see us, I mean BO!  We had fun catching up over lunch and picking out a Christmas tree.  Despite Bo's hysterical tired screaming when we picked them up from the train station, he was a whole different child after his nap and was able to share some love.  

We enjoyed our fair share of leftovers, pie for breakfast, and the wonderful gift of a days without work!  It was SO nice to chill out at home and put up our Christmas decorations.  

31 weeks

little thanksgiving ragamuffin. 

7 months, baby!

(november 20, 2011)

Oh, boy, buddy!!  

Bo is just more fun than ever.  He sleeps like a champ, no teeth peeking through to spoil our fun, just a little buddy to spend my every waking moment with.  We are CLOSE, Bo and I . . . too bad for the nursery volunteers!  Fortunately Bo goes to bed early (like 6:15 early) which makes it easy for Matt and me to sneak out every so often.  Bo LOVES his daddy and lights up when he spots him.  He's not crawling but he loves to stand and is beginning to support himself with only one hand on the toy or chair.  We had to move his crib down and it makes me sad to think of my little baby getting big!

We love that little guy! 

30 weeks

All bundled up for a walk with his girlfriend.  Has he mentioned her before?  Their dates are usually supervised, but we left them alone once.  It didn't go so well.

And here they are as little wee things... I think Malin was just a few weeks old here!  

what to make in the fall

I went through a recent dry spell in the crafty department.  I've since been revived and my dining room/sewing table is a mess of threads and fleece remnants.  (Baby mittens - should be easy, but elastic is so hard!)  Tomorrow is Veterans Day and I'll be home with a bunch of little boys so I'm looking for more "projects" to keep us occupied.  I was home with them several days in September for holidays, and I had more ideas back then:

Rice Krispy treats made to look like apples (with Tootsie Roll stems).  The idea was to do pumpkins but it was a little early in the season so I went for apples.  

We also made this apple banner that weekend which looked pretty cute.  I cut small apples in half and let them paint and stamp.  They drew in stems and seeds later.  Even the three year old could participate.

We made these shirts using clorox in a spray bottle.  I'm anti-scary so even though they were Halloween-ish, the shapes were of a friendly sort.

The black looked pretty good for Halloween because it turns orange when bleached.

 

I found little orange hoodies at Target, perfect for making into a jack-o-lantern.

I made these cupcakes for small group last night because I realized I hadn't made anything fall-ish.  Apple crisp should be coming up soon.  I've totally lost any desire to bake but I'm trying to resurrect in honor of my favorite fall flavors.  

Matt works a lot . . . I've had several Saturdays alone in the past month.  (Although no boo-hoos for me, being home alone is infinitely better than being at the hospital for 24 hours, or 25 if you happen to be on call during the daylight savings switch . . . wop-wop.)  One of those Saturdays I made this random-looking wreath.  That's not what it was supposed to look like, but burlap is messy and I was ready to be done.  I still like it.

Another one of those home-alone Saturdays a bunch of girls from my small group came over and I forced them to make flowers with me.  In the middle of it, one of my friends confessed that she hated crafts and her mom and husband gave her pep-talks before she came!!!  I find that both tragic and hilarious.  This is my childish-looking wool flower I pinned to my new coat.  

So I don't think I can convince the boys to make flowers tomorrow.  If it's not raining, we will be tracking down lovely leaves.  If it is raining... well, it might be a movie day!  

29 weeks

Nothing like daylight savings time to help me realize how MUCH of a schedule we were actually on!  That one hour made a big difference.  Bo's been but at 5:00/5:30 since Sunday, which means the mornings are all screwed up because he wants to take a nap at like 7:30am ?!?! which can not happen.  But we have persisted with a normal bedtime and this morning he slept until after 6:00, which made me so happy.  Hopefully he'll stretch it a little past that.  I think the 'spring forward' is more my style.

Love you, Bo. 

28 weeks

No interest in crawling, but that's ok with mommy! 

It sure is nice to set him down and know he'll still be there.