Social Child

Shocker, looks like Nathan and I have a social child.

I just got back from a trip to the library for infant storytime. Guess whose child crawled around and visited as many people as he could around the room? My child! We had never been before and didn't know a soul. Bradley promptly ditched me as soon as we sat down and crawled over to the woman next to us and impressed her by pushing himself up to a standing position using her leg as support. He then crawled over her foot and rolled over and crashed in his quest to get to a group of ladies and their babies across the room. He didn't make a peep after the crash, just continued over to the other side of the room where he smiled at everyone and tried to grab at a baby face or two. I got him back in time for the beginning of the organized events and he paid a moderate amount of attention to me and only tried to escape whenever we weren't singing or bouncing. At the end the lady who led the story time came up to me as I was putting on his jacket and he literally lunged for her. Stranger, never met her before. I got him back after a few minutes of chatting and he continued to lean away from me and try to get back into her arms until she walked out of reach. I think he would have been most happy if I had just had him passed around the room for the entire time we were there.

I did get him to briefly look at a couple books. The first one was fine, my child turned the pages himself and I was very proud because a couple people definitely noticed how smart and advanced my child was. But then we started going on the second book which had pictures of babies in it. Bradley made it to page three before he started trying to give kisses to every baby in the book.

This behavior didn't come as too much of a surprise. Bradley and his little friend Makayla from our parenting group exchanged their first kiss a couple weeks ago. Open-mouthed. They seemed to enjoy it quite a bit and were very upset with me and Makayla's mom the next time we met up because Bradley was a little sniffly and we didn't let them make out at all. Poor babies.

It's a good thing we didn't let them get their smooch on, Bradley got worse and has spent most of the last week being a sick little boy. He was cheerful enough while there were people around which was fine during the day and not so great at night. But at least he was mostly happy and ready to play while Colleen and Kerry were here for part two of their visit. After they left I took him to the doctor and it seems that in addition to a stuffed up nose and a cough our sweet boy also had an ear infection. He's on antibiotics now and is sleeping much better at night. We ended up just taking him into bed with us, something I swore we'd NEVER do, because the alternative was to sleep on the recliner while holding him and I really didn't see much of a difference between doing that and having him in bed with us. He spent all of last night in his crib so it seems we didn't do any permanent damage to our sleep training with him by taking him into bed with us for a few nights. Lesson learned, no need to be super strict and by the book for every little thing when you have a sick baby on your hands.

And I wish I could blame it on being sick but it seems that we have a clingy baby on our hands. Clingy is probably not the best word ... extremely social baby. Except when I'm home with him I'm the only social he's got so he just clings to me and cries if I try to put him in any of his fun toys like his exersaucer or jumperoo that allow me to do anything besides sit with him all day long. The only time he doesn't want to be around me is when he makes a break for the forbidden kitchen where he tries to get to the forbidden cat food. He'll make his move and I'll speak sternly to him and tell him to come back and he'll sit and look me in the eye and cry until he decides to make a break for it or come back to Mommy. What a kid.

We're having such a blast with this sweet boy. He's becoming more and more of a little person and it's amazing to watch.

New Achievements

There have been a few development milestones in the past few days. Literally days. He didn't do any of these things four days ago and now he does them all the time. It's amazing to both me and Nathan how quickly these new skills can be acquired and there would probably be a lot more melancholy mixed with our pride at how quickly he's growing up if it wasn't for new baby on the way. Hurray for new baby!

Bradley's favorite new achievement for all involved is his newfound ability to clap, which is adorable and he'll do on command with a little encouragement. I guess all our games of patty cake have paid off! He also waves and is growing quite adept at turning pages in books. He also lives to pull himself up into a standing position ... which is cute in theory but is also the bane of my existence at the moment.

It started out cute enough, he'd crawl over to someone and want to hold onto their hands so he could pull himself up. He would then shake his hands free from said person so he could hold on to objects or do any of the other important things that one does with ones hands and it was up to the person to hold onto the swaying baby with very little sense of balance. He generally likes to clap while standing, which is pretty funny since it looks like he's applauding himself for his accomplishment. What a cutie.

However, since then he has started pulling himself up on inanimate objects and trying to do the same thing with less than stellar results. At least I'm around when he's in the living room so I can mostly save him from himself. But he discovered this morning that he could pull himself up in his crib and has spent approximately an hour pulling himself up, chattering excitedly, and soon falling over and whacking his face and head. Repeatedly. He's generally sad for about two minutes but then he gets up and repeats the process. At least the crib mattress is cushy. This is all too exciting and I fear there will be little napping today. Especially since he can reach the curtain and let in sunshine and also turn on his mobile now. Oh joy.

He started doing these new things at my parents' house this past weekend, much to their delight.

We were visiting because my brother Thomas was in town. We don't know if Bradley really remembers meeting Thomas from five months ago when he visited in the summer but he is certainly a fan now. Our child loves everyone though and while he still prefers mommy when he's very sad or very sleepy I can still hand him off to anyone and he's pretty content. And sometimes he flat out chooses someone more fun over me, like his Grandpa Redfern who spent over a half an hour with a delighted Bradley up on his shoulders singing songs and bouncing him up and down for a good portion of that time, all the while telling us how sore he was going to be the next day. And Grandma took him over to his favorite bear carving whenever he desired which is whenever Thomas wasn't airplaning him into a foam tower he had created specifically for destruction by baby. It's good for a number of reasons that we're having baby number two sooner rather than later, Bradley is going to have to adjust to sharing some of the limelight.

Poor Layla still can't believe that she has to share Nathan with this tiny interloper.

Visit From Grandma Colleen and Kerry

A few bonus pics from Christmas time fun!

We just had a nice visit from Nathan's mom and stepdad. It's actually part one of two since they're off to Hawaii and then will be coming back to spend a few days with us before going back to Iowa.

Bradley had the best time while they were here. Plenty of company in the back seat of the car (finally!) and as much playtime and attention as he could handle throughout the day. And he can handle as much as you can dish out. We went on little outings each day and Bradley's favorite was probably the aquarium. Nathan took an amazing video of him trying to watch all the tropical fish at once as they swam around their tank.

Our little stinker kept waking up early while his grandparents were visiting but he's so darn cheery in the morning that you can't help but forgive him. I'd take him out to the living room to play and since he isn't very quiet he would soon wake up his grandma. She'd walk out in her bathrobe and he'd flail all his limbs in delight while grinning and making happy noises. It's hard not to melt when it happens to you.

Bath time with Grandma!

And I'm sorry to report that I was cruel, yes cruel, to poor Bradley while Grandma Colleen and Grandpa Kerry were here and I made him stay in a cart while we were out shopping when he obviously should have been held cozy in someone's arms. I was finally holding him when we walked out to the car but he had to cry and fuss and hold out his arms for Grandma - who melted and immediately held him. This happened twice within a short period of time. If his Grandma Colleen wasn't already head over heels for Bradley this would have sealed the deal.

They're off to Hawaii now but will be back before too long.

The day after they left I went to not one but two doctor appointments, one for each baby! Baby in my belly is doing well and we find out gender in about a month. My obgyn scored points for being able to find the baby's heartbeat as the child did a little jig in my belly - she did this one handed while holding Bradley. Quite impressive.

And Bradley's 9 month appointment went well, he flirted up a storm with anyone who would look at him including the nurse who has given him a fair number of shots in his short life. She was delighted by this, apparently most children hold a grudge. Then the doctor came in and Bradley spent most of the time I was talking to him trying to eat his own reflection in the mirror. Absolutely amazing, I tried to take a picture after the doctor left but this was the best I got.

Here are his stats: he's 21 lb 9 oz (75th percentile) and 29 1/4 inch tall (75th-90th percentile). I had to go back and ask for a copy of his sheet with his stats and explain to the doctor that I do so because my husband likes to keep track so he can compare with our friends that have kids. And that my husband and I have bets on Bradley's weight each time we take him in. He seemed amused/flabbergasted and said that this was why America had an obesity problem. Um, we just want our child to WIN at being big and awesome! Speaking of which, Nathan is definitely a little sad that Bradley is no longer up around the 90th percentile in both height and weight. He said something about blaming how mobile he is now for burning off the extra weight. Hilarious.

Our little Bradley continues to grow more dear to us every day. It's hard to imagine what life was like before he came. He cries now when Nathan or I leave the room if he feels like we're ignoring him or deserting him. And if I leave him playing in the living room and go to the kitchen and make any noise he follows me in there as quick as he can! We need more baby gates.

He's so chatty and fun these days. Which has both its benefits and drawbacks. Bradley and I went to a kid friendly showing of a movie today at noon with my friend Christine who also has a baby. My child spent the early part of the movie stealing as much as he could of my lunch of apple slices and a muffin (he would lunge for muffin bites. Sigh) and then downing his own lunch as rapidly as possible. He then spent the remainder of the movie trying to flirt with Christine which involved babbling loudly and leaning over and grinning in her face and then trying to grab her nose to make it go honk (an "adorable" game his daddy taught him). We were the loudest ones in the theater by far. Fortunately for Bradley, both Christine and I thought it was rather adorable and the movie was not too great so we didn't mind the floor show. I just hope none of the other moms were particularly interested in the movie.

We get to go to the aquarium again before our evening PEPS parenting group meeting. Bradley is having a delightful day today.

9 Months Old

Bradley turned 9 months old yesterday. We celebrated by hanging out with our PEPS parenting group in the morning (nothing special, a regularly planned meeting) and spending time with my parents and my little brother and his girlfriend in the afternoon. Bradley had a very social day.

We had a nice day today, my little guy and I. He's hilarious now for naps, he just wanders around his crib and occasionally gets himself stuck in impossible positions and I have to go up and save him from being flat on his back with a leg lodged in the crib bars. His average wander time is 20 minutes. You wouldn't think a crib could be interesting for that long but Bradley keeps busy! It's very fun to have the video baby monitor so I can watch him as he wanders and turns in circles and gets himself tangled up in his blanket.

He also follows me around the house now. Literally. In the morning I'll be running back and forth between the kitchen and the living room straightening things and getting Bradley's breakfast ready and wherever I go, there's a baby crawling behind me trying to catch up. He's quite cheerful about the whole thing and to be honest it's pretty heartwarming. Nathan experienced this firsthand today when he came home from work and a delighted Bradley make excited noises as he crawled across the room and around the couch as fast as he could so he could grab at Daddy's feet. Nathan said that Bradley could do whatever he wanted tonight after that, it was spoil Bradley time.

Unfortunately for Nathan, I had decided that tonight was feed Bradley solid chunks of food night and had steamed some butternut squash, carrots, and peas for Nathan to try to get Bradley to eat with dinner. There were two problems with this plan. 1) Bradley is STARVING come dinnertime and just wants you to shovel food into his mouth as rapidly as possible. Finger foods are not conducive to this. Also 2) Bradley is not a huge fan of carrots or butternut squash and he hate hate hates peas. Tonight may have been the worst dinner Bradley has had to endure for some time. I tried to help at the end by holding up the steamed foods to Bradley's mouth and I have to say, not laughing at my child when he makes faces at foods is something I really have to work at. The faces are amazing. Also amazing is when I hold up a single pea to his mouth and he closes it firmly while pushing my hand away. I'm not supposed to laugh at this?

We're looking forward to Nathan's mom and stepdad coming to visit us for a few days at the end of this week. Bradley is looking forward to the spoiling he is sure to receive and I'm looking forward to lots of good family pictures!

In the meantime, here are some Bradley videos!

 Daddy is just the funniest ever!

Dressed up for Christmas with his friend Brynn

And here are a few holiday photos! It was a great Christmas!

SO many presents for one small person. Fortunately he did not complain.

So much fun with Aunt Nancy!

Pregnant! Hurray!

Yes, we are pregnant with baby #2! I hope this provides at least some excuse for the sorry state of this blog in the last month or so. The first trimester hit rather hard this time. But now I'm 14 weeks along and energy levels are going back up so hopefully I'll be able to catch up soon and Nathan may even get a home cooked meal again someday! (We've been living off of Costco meals and soup and sandwiches for quite some time now)


Nathan got a picture of my parents' reaction when they found out. It was pretty fun to surprise them!

We feel so fortunate that we have had such an easy time getting pregnant whenever we've been in the market for a baby ... but it wouldn't have been too terrible if it had taken just a little bit longer this time around. I'm both excited and a little embarrassed that we seem to be repopulating the earth and Nathan - Nathan is so proud of himself. Shocker.

I found out after feeling a little queasy most of a Saturday a couple months back. I took a pregnancy test while Nathan was out with a friend and I might have flipped out when it turned out to be positive. I couldn't keep the news to myself so I decided to call Nathan.

Me (too brightly) "Hi!"
Nathan "Hi ... what's up?"
Me "Oh, nothing. Everything is good. You should come home to watch your movie with Pat"
Nathan "Uh, why?"
Me "I just think it would be a really good idea. You'd get to see Bradley ... just come home."
Nathan "Anne, is everything okay? You're acting a little weird?"
Me: "No I'm not. Just come home. As soon as you can."
Nathan "Okay, I'm in a private place. What's up?"
Me: "Nothing nothing nothing. Okay, I want to tell you something. But you need to come home."
Nathan: "Why can't you tell me on the phone?"
Me: "Because I want to see your face ... it's not BAD. I just ... come home."
Nathan: "... are you pregnant?"

Darn him. It's funny, looking back there are some real indicators that something was up. A couple of weeks earlier I had cried a little at the Price is Right when a blind man won money on the show. Drew Carey was so NICE to him and he won a bonus and he had a dog and ... I shed tears. And I had tried to get out of some evening activities a couple days before finding out but Nathan was so mean to me and encouraged me to go out and spend time with friends even though the couch was so cozy. The jerk. I was obviously justified in being furious with him for his betrayal of my need to rest on the couch and watch Hulu shows. And then there was the time that I yelled at him because he went and got me a couple Swedish fish when he OBVIOUSLY should be helping me get Bradley ready for his solids meal instead. Let's just say that both of us were relieved to discover that this moodiness was likely linked to pregnancy. Ordinarily I am a delight!

Patrick has quite the fan club of nurses when we go into my OB appointments. Normally the older sibling is not still a baby when the mother is pregnant with #2 ...

In my defense, my body has been taking a beating with this pregnancy. It's not like I can rest whenever I like, Bradley doesn't allow that. Things have gotten a lot nicer now that he sleeps through the night. And if he wakes up, Nathan goes up and changes his diaper and I get to sleep. But I'm also still breastfeeding, despite the doctors telling me that is not a great idea. I would be delighted to give Bradley formula at this point but Bradley does not agree with me. So we continue to breastfeed.

Luckily, Bradley is growing more adorable and charming every day so we're hopeful that by the time baby #2 gets here we'll have a reasonable time of it. He had a blast over Christmas with his Grandma and Grandpa Redfern who spoiled him beyond measure. He was carried around as much as he liked and every grunt and whine was responded to quickly and cheerfully, which is just the way he likes it.

The kitties had a rougher time over the holidays. We drove up to my parents' house and had Layla and Meg in a carrier together so Layla would be happy and calm for the ride. It didn't work, we found out when we got there that she had thrown up. A lot. Including on Meg. The unhappy kitties were given a bath by Daniel and Nathan, which was not their favorite Christmas present ever. Sookie gets to be Layla's car buddy from now on.

And if things weren't rough enough on a kitty, Bradley has caught the kitty fever and there is nothing he loves so much as chasing down a kitty from across the room. He spies them, gives a squeal of glee, and then crawls over at a surprisingly rapid pace. The cats wait until he's about a foot away from them and then he generally pauses and gives a few more loud squeals which is when they make their escape. Poor kitties. I try to protect them by chasing them down and holding them for Bradley so he can get good and close to them. It sounds cruel but I make sure that Bradley is gentle with them.

The other day we couldn't find Layla anywhere ...

She was so so warm and happy.

Bradley has encountered a few dogs in the past few weeks and he isn't as sure about them. We went to my friend Cerra's house over Christmas and he cried a little after the two family dogs barked quite loudly when we walked in. But then he tried to chase after the frightened dog half an hour later, so he recovered. He giggled a lot when another friend's dog licked his hand but he wasn't as much of a fan of his face getting licked. But then, neither was I. I just have to tell myself that he's getting exposed to the good germs. Not that there isn't enough of that at home. Pregnancy has taken a toll on my housecleaning and now he crawls all over ... I just have to keep telling myself that those are the good germs. If this kid has any allergies it's not my doing.

And he continues to eat like a crazy person. Meals with Bradley are an experience, he wolfs down food as fast as you can give it to him and makes frantic whiny noises if there is any slight delay. And he'll cry when we cut him off - after 12-14 ice cubes of food. For comparison, his little friends in our parenting group are eating a max of 5-6 ice cubes of food for a meal. We have a pediatrician appointment in about a week, I'm very interested to hear what he has to say about this. Thank goodness for my mom's help making baby food, we go through it at an astounding rate.

We are having a blast with this kid, it's probably good that #2 is coming along sooner rather than later so he doesn't get more of a complex from being the center of attention all the time.

Especially with his loving grandparents.

Bradley the Menace

Bradley is becoming a menace. This kid can motor around pretty efficiently these days and his favorite things are eating pieces of his foam mat (acceptable), trying to grab and eat Christmas decorations off the tree (unacceptable), and trying to eat any power cords he can find (HIGHLY unacceptable). Nathan took a video today of me moving the vacuum cleaner and Nathan's slippers away from Bradley as the child scoots after them with great determination. What a stinker. We don't have any baby gates as of yet so it's a little thrilling whenever I try to leave him alone in the living room for 30 seconds in order to use the bathroom or get food or any other silly thing I like to do. He'll be happily playing with his little people cars one minute and the next minute he's moved on to trying to take down the Christmas tree. I have a video of him getting upset at the tree when the branches touch his head while he's trying to get his grubby little hands on a shiny ornament. This is my kid all right.

He's getting moderately better at being left alone to play. I've learned that he doesn't like to be totally abandoned, he prefers it when I come and check in on him and say hi every few minutes. That way you know that if you need Mommy she will be available to you in a timely manner. These things are important to a little boy.

And in AMAZING MARVELOUS news, Bradley now sleeps through the night! At least, he doesn't require any milk during the night anymore. On the night that he turned 8 months old Nathan and I had grand plans of trying to wean him off his night feed and have Nathan go in to do the "pick up put down" method of handling a crying baby in order to get him to sleep despite only getting half of a meal from Mommy. Which was going to work down to a quarter meal and then nothing at all over subsequent nights. Bradley must have heard what was in store for him because he slept through the entire night and didn't even bother waking for what was certain to be an unpleasant experience. Smart baby! Since then he's done a moderately good job of sleeping through the night. He'll wake up if he has a poo and generally go right back to sleep. After 8 months of disrupted sleep this is miraculously amazingly wonderful for his poor parents.

A problem has been the number of poos he's had during the night though ... there were two or even three per night for a while. It turned out the issue was that our little tank of a child was eating too much. You know how they say to feed your child as long as they seem interested in the food and aren't turning it away? That doesn't work with Bradley. He LOVES food so much and doesn't seem to realize that he has an option not to eat what is held up in a spoon in front of him. One day I fed him 14 or 15 ice cubes of food for lunch - that's an entire ice cube tray of food. For a 22 lb baby. That's crazy. So now we cut him off at 10 or 11 ice cubes and it seems to be working. Maybe if we only fed him peas and zucchini we wouldn't have a problem since he actively hates both of these foods and might not eat them even if he was starving.

Among the things Bradley likes to eat these days are my hair and my shoulder. I don't really mind him chewing on my hair, he seems to especially like it when it's wet, I just think it's a little odd. But I am not cool with the shoulder chewing, especially now that he likes to get his teeth into the action. Bradley definitely knows the word "no" now and cries whenever I use it.

We've been working on baby signs ... sort of. The issue may be that I really don't care if he learns how to sign and I only want to teach him a few signs anyway. We've been doing a lot of "more" during meals and he just makes excited anxious noises whenever I pause to do so, mostly because I think he's upset that the progression of food to his mouth has been slowed. The only baby sign that I'm sure I could teach him almost instantly is "I want that forbidden thing over there." If he made a sign and immediately got the forbidden thing he'd be doing it all day.

He is getting rather verbal, it's rather shocking that a child left with me all day would like to talk! He somehow learned how to roll his r's and likes to practice this skill a lot. One's chin gets covered in a good amount of drool when one does this properly, luckily Bradley doesn't seem to mind.

We just had another meeting with our parenting group a couple nights ago and had a blast with all the babies rolling around excitedly playing with toys and trying to grab at each other. We are loving this stage with Bradley, it's so fun to see him so interested in everything and getting to be so aware of the world around him. It's also such a sweet stage, he adores his mommy and daddy and all he needs to be happy is to have one of us spending time with him. And I know I'm going to regret saying this when he's older and truly getting into some trouble - but I love that I'm getting to see his impish side. What a fun kid!

8 Months Old Today

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!