Phew. It's been a busy couple of weeks. This is going to be a few blog posts worth of material. And it's all delightful stuff if I don't say so myself!
Everyone is delighted by the Bradley blog posts!
Adorable video of my boys playing together
Bradley Meets his Cousin Emmett for the First Time
We had a sort of mini family reunion of sorts based around my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary. Not only did Bradley get to meet his big cousin Emmett who is six months older than him, he got to meet his uncle Thomas for the first time too!
He looks a little unsure of Emmett here but it's really that he just can't take his eyes off of him. My sister's husband Ryan is holding Emmett and Uncle Thomas is on the right.
Our social child was so excited to see people that he barely slept over the weekend while we were at my parents' house. He couldn't get enough of Emmett. Emmett is 10 months old and is quite active, so it was a job to let them admire each other without having Emmett grab Bradley's head or ear or eyeball. Auntie Laura did a great job of moderating.
Our two children did have a lovely exchange at one point while Emmett was in his high chair. Emmett has recently discovered his nose and likes to "explore" it with his finger. So he was busy exploring while sitting in his high chair and then he noticed Bradley, who I was holding up so he could see his cool cousin. Emmett removed the finger from his nose, waved it around, then held it out for Bradley. My child promptly chewed on the offered finger. I don't know if I win or lose mommy points for laughing when this happened, I figure boogers aren't the worst thing that Bradley is going to put in his mouth.
We had this exchange a couple times. Emmett's finger would go from his nose, swinging around in the air, then offered to Bradley, then back to nose. But the joke's on Emmett, Bradley had just finished eating yams and you can see some residue on his chin. Emmett definitely got some yam up his nose.
Bradley adores his Grandpa Redfern
And he's rather fond of his Grandma Redfern too.
My Grandma and Pa's anniversary was also a highlight, we got a lot of good family photos!
Cousins with their great-grandparents!
This is the last of a series of photos of Bradley with his Uncle Daniel. Uncle Daniel's forehead vein got more and more pronounced the longer he held Bradley. My child is a giant.
Love this picture of me and my sweet Bradley
After leaving on Sunday, I realized that Laura and I had somehow managed not to take any photos of the two of us with our babies. Ridiculous. So I went back up to Camano on Wednesday and we took a bunch of pictures!
Grandma and Grandpa needed a picture with the two cousins as well
We also got some great photos of Uncle Thomas with Bradley. Bradley adores his Uncle Thomas.
And here are some swimming shots! Emmett splashed a lot and Bradley was quite impressed.
Unswaddling the Bradley
Nathan and I have been extremely dependent on swaddling for sleep, happiness, and sanity pretty much since the first week of bringing Bradley home. But he can roll over now, both front to back and back to front, and it has been time to unswaddle for some time now. We were both pretty worried about how this would go. And then I tried it and besides a rather hilarious hour of trying to put to sleep a child excited to have both arms free, it's gone off without a hitch.
Back in the days of the one armed legless swaddle
Here is the journey, we are loving unswaddled Bradley!
The "tired" child upon discovering that the swaddle I wrapped around him hasn't trapped any arms this time.
Step 1: Put baby in crib
Step 2: Okay, that didn't work, let's try the swing
Step 3: Wait it out
Success!
We may have cheated a bit, I don't think we ever really sleep trained this kid. We just started laying him down to sleep on his side once he could roll both ways and apparently that makes things super easy. One time about a month ago we tried to sleep train him by laying him down on his back and going in every five minutes of crying to comfort him. He cried for an hour and a half and never actually fell asleep. So we said forget that and started doing this. Everyone is much much happier and Bradley seems to be able to put himself back to sleep just fine when he stirs during his naps. I like to credit the parenting whenever possible but I think Bradley gets the credit for being naturally wonderful for this one.
Zoo Trip
We took Bradley to the zoo! The Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle is the cutest little zoo. And we are now members! I'm looking forward to making many a zoo trip in the coming years.
That said, I wouldn't say Bradley was exactly interested in most of the exhibits during our first trip to the zoo. Nathan thinks he may be more of a botanist at the moment since he loves looking at leaves!
By a jaguar! Bradley is not impressed.
But Nathan and I had a good time and we very much enjoyed playing with
Bradley outside and having wonderfully observant strangers tell us how
adorable our child is.
And the following series of photos shows what happens when you put a boy with grabby fingers near your long hair.
Family portrait!
I LOVE this photo of Nathan holding Bradley up in the air. We were waiting in line for the baby snow leopards, we had plenty of time to take pictures.
And here we are at another exhibit, Nathan is listening to his daddy tell him about all the animals
Entranced by his daddy's words
No longer interested in what Daddy has to say
Our cute boy. Notice the stroller we brought along in order to carry everything BUT the baby
Watching our first nature show
Golden Eagle in background
Most of our time at the zoo was spent doing things like this with our cute boy
Looking at the elephants with his daddy
A welcome break for all involved.
We had quite a fun time, despite Bradley being a bit too young to really appreciate the animals. He's starting to notice though, these zoo animals just can't get close enough yet for him to really care about them. I put a kitty in his stroller with him today after we got back from our walk and he was delighted, the cat less so. Perhaps if he hadn't grabbed her tail ...
Return to Camano Island
We went back up to Camano Island yet again for another family day on the day after our zoo trip. A highlight from that was my silly Grandma trying to play patty cake with Bradley. She'd hold his hands and clap them and say "patty cake patty cake" and exactly at the second cake Bradley would stick his fist in his mouth. Every time. She tried quite a few times with exactly the same result. It was quite hilarious.
My Aunt Nancy also had a good time with Bradley. She clapped for him and he laughed and laughed like it was the best thing he'd ever heard in his life. My mom decided to take a picture of the two of them together and wanted him smiling for the photo. So I clapped for him - and got nothing. Aunt Nancy clapped again and he laughed and laughed! So apparently I need to work on my clapping skills if I want to keep up.
Odds and Ends
Bradley is getting more and more mobile. He can scoot backwards now, but not forwards. He also can rotate to see objects or persons of interest. We're getting closer and closer to crawling!
He has also discovered his tongue lately and it's getting a LOT of good use. It's sticking out in half the pictures we take of him these days.
And development landmark! He can grab for items he's interested in and pass them back and forth between his hands. I think that's supposed to happen at a later age for most babies, just another example of how my child is brilliant. However, this also means that reading books to him is a lot more difficult now. Someone seems a lot more interested in eating the book than reading it and with his newfound dexterity there can be a bit of a battle over the book. He's strong!
He's also recently discovered he can grab and chew on objects on his exersaucer. Happy boy!
And I lose parenting points for what I now refer to as the "Q-Tip Incident". I discovered our unused pack of baby safe Q-Tips in the bathroom and decided to use one to clean out Bradley's ears. It wasn't after a bath so he was dry, and I decided that the logical thing to do was to get the Q-Tip wet and stick it in his ear to clean it out. You would have thought that Bradley was experiencing an electric shock from his reaction! His eyes got big and he made upset noises while he thrashed around for a couple seconds. So I did the obvious thing and waited a few seconds before trying it again, reasoning that he'd know to expect it this time. Nope. Electric shock again. My poor child, I comforted him and decided to leave the ear cleaning to his daddy.
I keep calling Bradley our "experiment child". He's getting a lot of attention but he's paying for it while his first time parents figure things out. We have mostly good results but every once in a while he gets a cold Q-Tip to the ear. Poor kid.
We also put him in nerd outfits. Thanks to my mom for the adorable onesie!
It's been an educational couple of weeks. I thought we were natural parenting pros. I was incorrect. We're getting better though.
Here are some fun items of note!
1) How to get the kid to sleep better/longer
Keep him awake as long as possible! Bradley goes down like a rock these days and takes long naps. It's delightful for all involved.
Nathan was beyond delighted when Bradley fell asleep like this at our parenting group meeting.
Sleeping on tummy!
Bradley is now sleeping on his stomach a good portion of the time!
Technically you're supposed to stop swaddling when they do this, but we
had my mom make special one armed legless swaddles so we're keeping it
up for the time being. Bradley is a muscle man and has no problem
pushing himself up on the one arm that's out of the swaddle. It's pretty
funny to watch too. If he's really good at one armed push ups when he
gets older I'm taking the credit.
And here he is waking up from a nap. I love the part where he's relieved to see that he's not alone.
2) How to feed the kid solids
Don't play games, shovel it in. Unless you are feeding him vegetables and it's important to take pictures of the faces he makes at vegetables. Hilarious.
My mom demonstrating how to feed the baby yams.
3) It's okay to laugh at your child
The faces he makes at vegetables ... I want to feed him peas and yellow squash for every meal
It's also okay to chuckle at this face. Food everywhere!
4) When you're sick, can you hold the kid?
Not if you can help it, even if you're his mommy and you have to hold him so he can breast feed. I had the most horrible cold over the weekend and Poppa Nathan got to take over. He's a champ. We barely left the house all weekend because of my cold and on Monday when he went back to work he sent me a text saying how much he missed our weekend fun. Love this man. No photos from the weekend, only illness.
5) How gentle do you have to be with a 4 and a half month old baby?
Bradley loves it when I lay down on the couch and bounce him on my leg and gently crash him into the couch and/or pillows. He also likes being bounced upside down on his head. We're THIS close to getting to stack blocks and knock them down, I can feel it!
Feeding Photos and Video
And here are a bunch of photos and a video of me feeding the baby. Bradley is growing increasingly opinionated when it comes to his solid
food. He has quickly developed a sweet tooth and hates all the
vegetables and loves all the fruits. We are already battling over the
veggies ... it started at 4 months and will end when he's 23 if my
brothers are any indication of what we have to expect. But man oh man,
when we give him something he likes! We can hold spoonfuls of applesauce
in front of him and he will lunge forward with his mouth open wide in
order to get at it. Applesauce is his favorite by far. So far he's had
rice cereal, peas, applesauce, yellow squash, yams, bananas, and pears.
We've only been doing this solid food thing for three weeks,
not too shabby!
I think I'm feeding him yellow squash. This is when he still tolerated it.
Feeding time is pretty fun. I was told to make sure I congratulated him a bunch on being a good eater. Done!
Looking right at me. Such a cutie!
Oh my. Is that really my excited face?
A video of happy eating! Hopefully this balances out all the times I will whip out the camera when Bradley hates a meal. Sad eating faces are funnier that happy eating faces.
Current concerns:
1) My child has taken to scratching at everything. I know he is just checking out different materials and feelings but ... he scratches at whatever he's lying on when it's tummy time. And he likes scratching at books now as well as my arms. Is this normal behavior?
2) My child pinches now! He got Sookie once and she yowled and he got my arm while I was helping him fall asleep and I yowled too. I guess it's the next stage after scratching. This kid's got a grip!
3) My child is fat. He is such a chunk. He's in 9 month clothes now and barely fits into 12 month clothes because the crazy people who make baby clothes assume that your child grows taller, not wider by the time they're a year old. I need to find a husky child baby clothes store.
So we're learning a lot and getting into a bit of a routine, which is very nice. Nathan and I got to go out on a date about a two weeks ago! An official date, without the kid! My parents watched Bradley and we played tennis and then had a couple drinks at the Newcastle Golf Course. Fancy shmancy.
Grown-Up Stuff
Nathan and I have been able to do more now that Bradley is getting bigger. Nathan went out for a day on the lake with some guy friends for Seafair, I win an amazing wife award for letting him be gone from 11am-8pm on a Saturday for this adventure. He spent a day out in the sun, drinking beer and having water fights with other people out on the water.
I spent my day indoors, with some friends from our parenting group and then at a baby shower for our friend Christine who is expecting. We've been saying that her daughter is going to be Bradley's future wife, and after the baby shower I'm pretty sure it's all settled but the dowry.
It really was a pretty fun day for both of us, I'm jealous of Nathan's time out on the boat but I get to go swimming with Bradley while he is at work so perhaps it evens out.
Other Items of Note:
Bradley definitely likes my singing. I wasn't sure before now but when
he's fussy and I start to sing to him he usually settles down for at
least a little while. Unfortunately for Bradley, I can only sing Twinkle
Twinkle so many times before going crazy so I mostly sing You're Just
Too Good to Be True, A You're Adorable, You Are My Sunshine, Disney
songs (Upon a Dream and The Lion Sleeps Tonight are my favorites), and
Backstreet Boys songs. Is it bad parenting if I teach him choreography? I
think it will be maaaaahvelous!
And our poor cats. They're so neglected but they better cherish these days. Meg runs in front of me when I walk and flops down on the ground in my path so maybe I'll pet her. Layla runs around crying and casually rubs her tail against my leg when I'm sitting playing with Bradley. And poor Sookie wants to cuddle in between me and Bradley when I'm holding him, but that's going to stop soon now that he's getting grabby. They're going to get far too much attention very soon, they don't know what's coming.
Kitty pictures! Hurray!
Wherever I go, the kittens, they follow.
Layla acting out in order to get attention
It worked. I pulled her out of the linen closet and gave her pets.
Favorite Bradleyism of the Week:
Bradley has a love/hate relationship with nature. As in he loves to
tear leaves off of branches. We've started taking him out on the deck to
help keep him occupied when we're trying to extend his awake time so
he'll go down better for his nap. He loves going outside, especially
when he gets to play with leaves. It's adorable to watch. I typically
carry him on my right hip now since he's close to 18 lbs and he grips
tightly on to me with his legs and reaches out with his right arm to get
at the leaves.
So much good stuff. I feel like we're finally settling into the parenting thing. And this weekend Bradley gets to meet his big cousin Emmett for the first time! Emmett is 6 months older than Bradley and I plan on taking approximately 1 million photos of the two of them together. Can't wait!
