Today Bradley turned 8 months old! We celebrated having family dinner tonight which is a first, usually Bradley eats a little earlier than Nathan and me but I've been trying to push back his dinnertime so we can all eat together. We also let him try feeding himself puff cereal for the first time last night and by today he was a champ. If it involves food he masters the skill quickly. If it involves milk however ... Mommy is still best. We've been letting him play with a sippy cup in hopes that it will be more of a hit than the bottle. So far he really likes chewing on it and acts surprised whenever he manages to get a little water out.
He's also been much less clingy since my last post. I guess he's feeling better. Thank goodness, my patience was wearing thin. I'm sure I'll laugh at this when he's a toddler causing mayhem but in the meantime it's been very taxing. It's nice to be wanted but oh my gosh, I'm okay with some limits.
Bradley has a few new quirks that are rather amusing. I've been taking him into the bathroom with me while I take my morning shower and fastening him into this cute baby rocking chair contraption with toys hanging from it. This has worked like a charm for about the past month ... until he decided he was no longer interested in the chair and was going to dedicate his life to trying to get at the bathroom cupboards. These cupboards are not actually within reach of the chair (I'm no fool) so one has to do some serious contortions to even get close. Yesterday I was almost done with my shower when I heard some loud sounds of distress on the other side of the shower curtain and when I looked out I saw my son dangling from the front of the rocking chair, unable to pull himself back up. I had to haul him up by the back of his shirt (he was not a fan of this treatment) and quickly rinse myself off so I could get out of the shower before I had to rescue him again. He now gets to play in his pack n play during my showers. This is lonely and he doesn't like it. Stinker.
He also has two teeth now and likes to test them out on mommy at the end of mealtimes. Not okay. I was told in my parenting group that you're supposed to smoosh their faces into you when they do this so they can't breath and learn that this is not okay behavior. My son GRINS when I do this to him. Like we're playing a very fun game. How did I end up with a little imp? I just have to be watchful now and when he slows down the eating we call mealtime over. Stinker.
But he's getting to be so much fun - Nathan and I love how we're getting to see more and more of his personality. If he can tell that one of us is teasing him he gets SO excited. I sometimes lay down next to him and pretend to snore and open one eye to look at him and quickly close it and he will get a huge smile on his face and cackle when I open both eyes and look at him. And he gets so excited when Nathan gets home or walks in the room. Nathan is in charge of bath time and those guys have a ball. And he loves the kitties, especially Layla. He grins whenever he sees her and when she brushes against his face (with some help from Mommy!) he giggles. He lives to grab her tail. I'm so glad our cats are sweethearts, I have zero concern about any of them taking a swat at him. Still, we're trying to teach him to be gentle.
And here are some pics from our Christmas card photo shoot we did at my parents' house!
Aunt Nancy got some snuggle time.
And so did Grandma and Pa. Bradley likes being properly appreciated by all his fans!
Bradley Clingy Scott (We're changing his middle name)
Bradley has officially entered into clingy baby territory. Seriously clingy.
There were indicators that I initially thought were rather cute - him reaching out for me when I came to pick him up after a nap or trying to scooch over to me when playing on the floor. But something has happened in the last few weeks and now this child is beside himself when he can see me but he is not being held by me.
Here is a video of Bradley being pretty clingy with his daddy first thing in the morning
I was feeling pretty cocky prior to this. I could just put the sleepy but awake baby down in his crib for a nap and walk out of the room and he would gently fall to sleep on his own. Now Bradley sobs like he's being abandoned forever and ever and he generally manages to roll over and bonk his head on the crib while trying to decide between comforting the screaming child or running out of the room. More and more I've been going for running out of the room ... great parenting, Anne.
He also screams if I try to put him down on the floor to play on his own so more and more I try to ease him onto the floor on his blanket and if he happens not to scream I'll run out of the room so mommy doesn't compete with tummy time. This works moderately well. I did it this morning and when I peeked my head in the room to check on how he was doing he had scooched over to the scratching pad for the kitties and was checking out the texture of the cardboard ... seriously, the ONLY thing in the room I didn't want him to touch and he made a beeline for it. We really need to get some baby gates.
And because they're adorable, here are a couple of Bradley eating videos!
This is one of my favorite Bradley videos of all time. He's such a funny, precious little guy.
And this is pretty sweet as well, although not as action packed as the first video.
Scary Grandpa Redfern
The title is really self explanatory on this one. Bradley LOVES to be scared a little and this is what happened when my dad was trying to play with him.
Also please notice how I'm getting cuddles from Bradley here. Not the norm. I was so so happy.
Grandma is not scary and is in fact rather delightful.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Nathan and I managed to make it to a Red Hot Chili Peppers show a few weeks ago. It was my birthday present to Nathan! We had our friends Kelsey and Heather watch Bradley while we were out and everything went pretty smoothly.
He woke up about 15 minutes before we got home and was a bit of a stinker to his babysitters who were trying to put him back to sleep but luckily he didn't pull anything worse than that. And the show was so fun, despite the apparent celebration of Washington's new marijuana law. The good herb was being enjoyed all around us, despite it being on indoor venue. I got to breath through Nathan's new Red Hot Chili Peppers t-shirt for a reasonable amount of the show, which was a little ridiculous. Still, it was really fun to go out on our third official date since Bradley has been born. We felt incredibly cool to be going out on a Thursday night, although we were zombies the next day because we ended up staying up until midnight. An ungodly hour, to be sure!
Thanksgiving in Boise
We just returned from a very fun Thanksgiving trip to visit Nathan's family in Idaho. It's amazing how much more complicated things get with the addition of one little person, it's an 8 hour drive to Boise and we had quite a few discussions about how to time the trip. Finally we decided on leaving at 3:30am after Bradley's nighttime feed in order to maximize his unconscious time in the car and also give Mommy and Daddy at least a few hours to sleep in a cozy bed. It worked like a charm on the way out and was okay on the way back. We certainly missed any Thanksgiving traffic, that's for sure!
It was so fun to see Nathan's family. They hadn't seen Bradley since he was about three months old so it was very fun to bring our big guy to see everyone. And it was his first time meeting his Aunt Amber and Uncle Steve and his three cousins Logan, Caitlyn, and Connor. It was a bit overwhelming for him at times to be around so many people but he got used to it. And he loved his cousins, they were so good with him. Logan brought Bradley a toy and I thanked him for sharing and the next thing I knew just about every toy in the house was being brought to Bradley by his sweet cousins.
They also covered him in blankets when he seemed sleepy and made animal noises to make him smile. And they also screamed and ran around the house when Bradley "chased" them. Bradley was smiling with his hands crammed in his mouth the whole time, while a helpful grownup helped him fly through the air after his big cousins.
An example how adorable Bradley's cousins were with him
Bradley had a horrible cold pretty much the entire time we were in Idaho, which was not fun. Because of this, Nathan and his brother Jake got to do some Black Friday shopping! We finally figured out by about 10:00 on Thanksgiving night that Bradley really and truly needed a humidifier and Nathan said to me, "Where am I supposed to get a humidifier at this time at night?" and I said, "Anywhere! It's Black Friday!" He and his brother went to Walmart, apparently they were the only people there who weren't getting at least two tvs.
At least one of the perks of the cold was that I got some serious cuddles from my little guy. He never cuddles so this was hugely exciting. We'd give him his pacifier and then he would just rest his head on my chest and look around at people. Hugely exciting. What was less exciting was him being whiny and clingy pretty much every waking hour. I was sympathetic but I was also pretty tired. Thankfully he's over the worst of the cold now.
The kitties went up to my parents' house while we were gone and we heard many happy reports from my family about how much fun they were having with the kitties while we were gone. Sookie slept on my little brother's face whenever possible, Layla got to eat some plants, and Meg fooled people into petting her stomach and then she attacked them. Everyone had a good time. My family could have pretended to miss MY company a bit more instead of being so gleeful about getting the kitties ... also, Nathan would appreciate it if you'd stop threatening to steal them from us.
We enjoyed our holiday travels but we are very glad we have no more 3:30am drives in store for us for some time. Especially poor Nathan, who took the first shift both ways and let me sleep. What a wonderful husband and father. He also took the vast majority of the nighttime duties with our poor sick baby boy while we were in Boise.
Many thanks to Nathan's dad Dan for feeding us within an inch of our lives while we were there and to Kati for being willing to hold her grandbaby anytime anywhere. Thank you Abby for letting us take over your room yet again and joining me on a very fun shopping trip / my only real chance to get out of the house for an afternoon. Thanks Jake for listening to a crying baby for a number of nights and letting me hand you Bradley and telling you to go take him to chase his cousins. He loved it. And thank you Anna for being such a wonderful auntie to Bradley and being so careful with him whenever you held him. Can't wait for him to see all of you again soon!
We have a crawler! Well, more of an inchworm. But I'll take it! He's so cute, squirming after toys at home or after his friends at our parenting group. His first official crawling took place this past Tuesday, when he decided that he had to grab his friend's feet and he got up on his knees and made a quick job of getting over to grab at her little toes. But generally he's just inchworming his way around the house. It's cute but we need to get a babygate stat.
This video is from a few days ago. He's moving even better now!
Our little boy is also starting to finally get a bit clingy. He still loves anyone and everyone he meets but he likes them a little more in the safety of his mother's arms. We're working on continuing to introduce him to new people and have him be okay with being held by them ... but I rather LOVE how when he sees me he leans in my direction and holds out his arms. He's my little guy!
Sometimes he has trouble going to sleep because he knows he'll miss me. Observe.
This is from another another day. Now I just stick the pacifier in his mouth and leave the room, I'm too distracting when a boy is supposed to fall asleep.
Here are a couple of videos of Bradley playing with Grandpa Redfern from the comfort of Mommy's arms. He doesn't really play peekaboo yet, he likes it best when he can still see and you just look elsewhere before turning and looking at him and saying boo!
We had such a nice visit with my parents. Bradley enjoys family time, he gets much needed attention! And I get much needed help making baby food. My mom is the queen of baby food, don't know what I'd do without her help.
Poor neglected child. I hope this blog conveys just how much hardship he has to endure.
Here he is enduring hardship one more.
Bradley is getting better and better at expressing his wants and desires. He LOVES a couple of the baby cards we have on our fridge and will kick with excitement whenever he gets close. It's adorable. One has bunny slippers on it and the other has sparkly animals and he cannot really decide which he loves more. It makes it hard to carry him by the fridge at all without stopping to visit the cards of awesome, he's rather insistent about it.
He's also rather into remote controls these days. Or anything Mommy or Daddy happen to be holding when the baby is near. The baby wants what it wants ... which is anything and everything!
Similar things happen when we're out shopping. Bradley can sit in the cart now and he likes to be given an item or two while we are shopping. He's good about giving them back so far so they can be purchased ... I'm worried about how this will work in the future.
Halloween Updates
I already posted about Halloween, we had a great time, but here are a few additional photos from our visit to the Swedish Hospital party.
I had to clear all items of interest from within arm's reach and then clap for the baby until I got a smile.
Look at those chins. What a doll.
And a video. Superman!
I'm Hilarious
And did you know that I'm hilarious? Yes, it's true. Here's proof.
Family Time and Snuggles
We went to the zoo a few weekends ago. Had a blast, despite the rain and gloom! Bradley saw a hippo laugh and was unimpressed. At least he pays some attention to the animals now.
And my boys still get occasional snuggles in, they're so cute! Snuggles are more fun these days because they happen during the daytime. Bradley has turned into a fabulous sleeper now that he's not dealing with teething. He typically wakes up once to eat and goes right back to sleep after he's done. Good boy!
Sometimes the boys have fun together even while they are awake!
Bradley love love loves riding on his daddy's shoulders!
Best Video Ever
And this is the BEST video I have ever taken of Bradley. We may need to work on our table manners. In the meantime, video gold!
