Clingy Bradley

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!

Grandpa Dan being the most fun!