Breaking the Addiction

Mason is officially addicted to his paci. We would give him his paci right when we laid him in bed, and he would fall asleep on his own. It was great! It would normally fall out once he was asleep, but it was no big deal. Until he got sick.... When he was sick a couple of weeks ago he would wake up in the middle of the night. So being sleep deprived we gave him his paci, and he would go back to sleep (it's like a sleeping drug to him). The only problem is now he is in the habit of waking up in the middle of the night and wanting his paci put back in his mouth. We decided we would break him of this habit this week while I'm not working. So last night at 1:30 he woke up and started stirring and making light fussy sounds. This contiued for about 20 mins, and I thought this isn't so bad it sounds like he's about to fall back asleep. Then he straight up screaming started. I'm sure this is hard for every parent to hear, and especially for us because he rarely cries like this. I go in, get him out of the corner of his bed, shush him, and leave. Of course all he wanted was his paci so he continued to scream for 15 minutes...until we gave him his paci. Yes, we caved but there is always hope for tomorrow! On a positive note he was so worn out from crying he didn't wake up again until 6...so that's progress.

In my last post I mentioned that Mason has been moving around a lot...mostly crawling/scooting backwards. Here is a picture of him. He started at the front of the blanket where the toys are then when I came back in the room about a minute or two later he was under the tree. It won't be long till he's really on the move.

We noticed the past week that he will twirl his hands and feet when he's happy and especially when he's eating. It's so cute! Here is a short video showing it.

Susie homemaker

While I'm far from being a true "homemaker"...whatever that really is I don't know...I'm so excited about all the stuff I've made recently. Mason has been sick the last several days (upper respiratory infection) so I've used the time quarantined to get some things done around the house. I have been talking to my mom and some people from work about making my own detergent. I was shocked at how easy and cheap it is to make. The items I used cost less than $10 to make, and it makes so much that i won't have to buy anything for months. I hate to admit how excited I was to make this...I've never been more pumped to do a load of laundry knowing how little it cost.
Here is the finished product...below is a big bowl of detergent (you use about 1-2 tbs per load) and I only used half the grated zote. It's great because I can even use it on cloth diapers since it is residue free.

Last week we started Mason on his first food other than cereal - sweet potatoes - and he loved them! Saturday I made some butternut squash, green beans, and apple sauce. I hope to make peas and carrots later this week also.

A couple weeks ago he started getting on his hands and knees, rocking back and forth, and then "crawling"/scooting backwards. It's funny because if there is something out of his reach he'll get up on his knees, rock, and then scoot back. He will then look and reach for the item again only to find it farther away. He just can't quite figure out how to go forward.

He loves this pop-up book, and tries to grab all the pictures that pop! It is by far his favorite book right now.

Mason with his cousins over thanksgiving.

My dad is building a huge fort for all the grandkids so he put the guys and kayla to work on it. I cant tell who's going to be more excited when it's finished...the adults or the kids!

Mohawk Man

Here is Mason at 6 months. We just love our sweet, smiley kiddo and have had so much fun with him this past month! He is always cracking us up. I thought I'd share some interesting things we've noticed this past month. He will open his mouth really wide immediately when I put the snot sucker in his nose. He will rub his eyes when he's tired...I don't know when he started it, but I've really noticed it the last few weeks. He squints his eyes and shudders when he tries something he doesn't like or anything new for that matter. He will grab and bring the bottle towards his mouth if he's really hungry. He's not a good napper at day care or church. If a lot of things are going on around him he just won't fall asleep because he's too busy watching everyone. He loves the thrill of rolling over from his back to his front, but he's not good at rolling from his tummy to his back. Once he starts fussing when he's sick of being on his stomach, I'll turn him on his back only to have him immediately roll over on his tummy again. It's an endless cycle, and not a fun one at 5 in the morning. His hair in the middle of his head continues to grow so we had to run with it and give him a green mohawk for Halloween.

Other things about this month...he loves his giraffe chew toy and jumperoo. He is getting better about putting the paci back in his mouth after taking it out. He's noticing more and more details in books, on us (jewelry, glasses, hair), Sammy, etc. He is getting really good at sitting up especially in the last week which was perfect timing since we had his pictures taken yesterday. As long as his attention is forward he can stay up for a long time which was perfect timing, but if he tries to lean or grab for something on the side he will usually fall over. We started cereal right before he turned 6 months as I mentioned in the last post, and he's doing even better with it now. We have gone through 2 rounds of antibiotics this month to get rid of an ear infection. He's such a laid back kid the only reason we found out he had one is because he had a fever and was congested.

Confessions

I absolutely love junk food! I particularly love chips (nacho doritos, cheetos, and bbq are my favorites) and peanut m&ms. I would consider myself a healthy eater, but deep down I crave the junk...which is why I won't buy it. Since I've had Mason my cravings have gotten even worse. I try not to go to walmart hungry because I will often end up grabbing a bag of chips and start eating them before I even leave the store. To make matters worse my co-worker got me an enormous 3 lb bag of peanut m&ms for my birthday so of course I have to eat a large handful everyday. Needless to say it has made losing my baby weight a slow process especially since I'm not working out at all. It's a good thing I'm still nursing...that's my only saving grace.


Last week we tried feeding Mason cereal for the first time. He wasn't too impressed. Even after a week of eating the cereal he still squints his eyes and shivers with his first few bites. Here are some pictures of him eating.
He just turned 6 months over the weekend so I plan to give a monthly update sometime this week.

Growing boy

It amazes me how much Mason learns/changes each week. Oct. 12th he turned 5 months and here is a recap of things he has done the previous month. Things he started this past month: giggling, chewing on his toes, using the stand up activity center, occasionally rolling from his belly to his back, taking the paci out of his mouth and trying to stick it back in again, and two days before his 5 month bday he started sitting up a bit...he can only stay up for about 10 seconds. Things he loves: grabbing my face (particularly my nose) and hair especially when he's eating his bottle, scratching his nails on things like the couch, sleeping with a blanket over his face, watching Sammy, making all kinds of noises, and chewing/slobbering like crazy. His tooth is still just a little spot just chilling right below the gums. I wish it would just pop through so he could be done with it. Here are some pictures from the past month.
I love this one of Grandpa Bray when he came up for Bikes, Blues, and BBQ. He's been working on rolling over from his back to his front. He wasn't able to do it until yesterday, and he's been doing it like crazy since.

He loves sleeping with the Afghan my Grandma Bean made him.

Gotta love the wild hair!

Here's my bundle of joy at 5 months old. He weighed just over 15 lbs.

4 1/2 months

Below is a picture of Mason at 4 months. His 4 month appointment was last Thursday...late just like this post. He weighed 14.5 lbs (50th %tile) and was 26.5 inches long (90th %tile). He's going to be a tall skinny kid. Unfortunatelyhe reacted badly to his shots again. Friday he had a temp over 100 most of the day, and he had a few huge throw-ups. My poor little man!It's been so fun watching him learn to do more and more things. Last month he started getting a lot more vocal...he's definitely finding his voice. In fact right now Zac is playing his guitar, and Mason is singing/squealing along. It's hysterical! Mason's gotten a lot better this past month pushing himself up when on his tummy. He's grabbing for toys and pulling himself up when we grab his hands. He rolls to his side a lot, but he's only rolled over 2 times from his stomach to his back...I think it was more by accident, but hey it counts right? He's also getting really good about looking for us. He loves looking at his momma and daddy! Here's a few pictures from last month.

He loves to grab the monkey on his car seat. It is definitely one his favorite past times on top of grabbing his feet and watching Baby Einstein.
Here are two very short videos (less than 30 seconds) of him talking/squealing. The second one is of him tonight singing along with Zac on the guitar.

Finally a new post! :)

We've been doing a lot of traveling the past month which has been fun, but we are glad we aren't going anywhere for awhile because we're pooped! In August my college friends all got together...we get together once a year. It was so good to catch up. 3 of us had babies over the summer, and it was so fun to see every one's babies. We had a good laugh about the silly arguments we all had with our husbands (like who is the grumpier one) due to sleep deprivation.Here's our beautiful boys!Tyce was due 2 days after Mason's original due date, and he came a week after Mason. But he definitely has Mason beat in size! Our next travels was Disney World and Universal Studio. We had a great weekend getaway with a couple from church (Whitney & Jay). We went to see the Harry Potter world...which was awesome! Mason was an excellent traveler which is good because we are always on the go. Here are a few pictures from the trip...I posted a lot more on facebook. The only thing that sucked about the trip was pumping. I tried to nurse Mason while we were at the parks, but it just wasn't working. He would thrash around (he did not like the nursing cover) and take forever. So I just had to throw away all reservations and pump out in the open...covered of course. I pumped in cars, planes, airports, restaurants, park trains, etc. A mommas gotta do what a mommas got to do. Jay was such a good sport considering that not something he sees everyday! On a side note we saw John Travolta and his wife at Universal. They walked right in front of us! We got a video as soon as I get around to it I'll try to snap a pic out of it and post it for proof.



The following weekend was my 10 year high school reunion. It was good to see and catch up with some of my friends. Unfortunately I only took one picture. Deidra's baby girl is due in a couple weeks.

Thankfully this past weekend we stayed home! We had a great seminar at church Saturday morning, that got us excited about the future direction of our church. We spent the rest of the weekend getting stuff done around the house and watching football. I'll leave you with a cute picture of Mason. He turned 4 months Sept 12 so hopefully I'll do his 4 month post by this weekend.

Just a few pictures

The past few weeks have been a whirl wind with me going back to work, and then trying to be super mom when I'm home with Mason in the evenings. Here are a few recent pictures.

Diapers, Day Care, and More!

Since it's been awhile, I'm going to have 3 blogs crammed into one: cloth diapers, first day of day care, and 3 months.

So the first time I heard about cloth diapering (other than being a thing of the past) was last fall when talking to Cami (Zac's cousin's wife). When I first heard about it, I thought that's nuts! Who on earth would want to go back to the dark diaper ages when we've got nice disposables. Well, after talking more to Cami and Jenny Goss I've finally decided I can do this. It took me several months to get mentally ready. But I can say that Zac and I've been doing them for the past 3 weeks, and we love it! Who would have thought! Below is a picture of the diaper cover and an insert that fits into it. We have a few different types of diapers, but the Thirsties brand is definitely my favorite and I like the flip inserts best.

It's exciting to think about how much money we are saving especially since I'm hooked on pampers! For now we are going to continue using disposables at day care, but I plan to ask them about the possiblity in a couple months. I want to get on their good side first. ;)

I also love how cute he looks in these diapers!

Thankfully Aunt Stephanie came to stay last week when I went back to work on Monday. It helped ease me into leaving my baby. I hadn't been away from him for more than 4 hours yet, so it was nice to have him home with her those first two days . Wednesday he went to day care for half the day, and then Stephanie brought him up to see me for lunch. Thursday he started day care full time, and boy was this momma a mess! I cried on both Wednesday and Thursday, and by Friday I did better...I just got teary instead of cry for 20 minutes!

Here is us packing before his first day.

Here he is on his first day. He is actually doing really good at day care. The care taker pictured below seems to be smitten with him. She is always talking to him in baby talk. They said he just loves to look around and rarely fusses. I know it will be fine, and it's only for one year.

Our freezer was getting over taken with breast milk so Zac and I bought a small chest deep freeze over the weekend which i'm pumped about!It's hard to believe our little baby is already 3 months old!

This past month he has learned to do a lot. He has started cooing a lot, has great neck control, loves to stand up, grabs his knees, rolls to his sides, he reaches for his toys, pulls on my hair and shirt, likes to look at himself in the mirror, sleeps till 7am, and squeals when he gets excited (but hasn't actually laughed yet). Friday he pulled himself up when holding our hands for the first time, but technically that was after his 3 month birthday. He still doesn't push himself up when he's doing tummy time. His legs are much stronger than his arms. He's a wiggle worm and rarely stays still which has been the case ever since he's been in the womb. The pediatrician always comments on how wiggly he is. He's gonna be a busy body like his mom and dad! :)

We just love him go pieces!