Six Months

Today you turned 6 months old.  Half a year.  The time has flown by.  I can’t believe how old and big you are getting on me, and so fast too.  It makes me a little sad that you are growing up so seemingly fast, but it is all part of life.

No matter where we go people love you.  You are usually smiling.  You seem to like old men the best.  You always flirt with them, and giggle and coo, and of course, flash your gorgeous smile.  We went to Chili’s last Monday because it was their annual St. Jude’s night.  We were there for almost 3 hours.  It was crowded, and noisy, but you were so good.  Good enough for some of the staff to come over and tell us how good you were, as if we don’t know!  We were with some of daddy’s work friends, and so they all got to see you, and a few got to love on you.  Not once did you get fussy.

Most days you are an easy baby.  I think it’s only when you don’t feel too well is when you’re really fussy, and even then, it’s not too bad.  We are such lucky parents.  You are such a joy to have around.  So far, you are good-natured, happy, go to bed (for the most part) on time, and without much fight, you try not to wake us up in the middle of the night, and you are always ready for cuddles!  We really couldn’t ask for better.

At day care you have made a friend, her name is Lilly.  She is about 3 or 4 weeks younger than you are, but you would never guess it for her size.  You two like to hang out on the floor and play with toys.  Her mom told me how you guys were playing a few weeks ago, and I didn’t get to see it until this week, and I must say, it is pretty sweet how you two are to each other.  One morning, we came in, and your teacher was already there, holding her, and you reached out and gave her a big wet kiss.  It almost brought tears to my eyes; it was such a beautiful moment.  Another day she came in right about when we did, you looked at her, took a hold of her dress, as if to say, “I love your outfit,” and you smiled at her.  You are getting such a personality.  We saw pictures last Friday of you two playing together, and you both had such big smiles on your faces.  I’m glad you’re able to make friends easily.  I love the fact that you are so loving and so caring already.

One of the downsides to this month was that we thought that you had some sort of bladder / urinary tract infection.  I will say right now, I am so sorry we had to put you through that.  We still don’t know what the problem is, but the way they test is horrible.  They had to put a needle into your bladder, and of course, they have your parent (only I was there) hold you down while they do it.  It was awful.  You cried, before, during, and even after when I was holding you, I almost cried right along with you, but I tried my hardest to stay strong.  It’s been almost a week, and I still feel bad that we put you through it, although I am thankful that nothing was wrong.

Today we signed a lease on a new (to us) house.  This one is bigger, and we won’t be living in fear that we may have to move on a whim because something went wrong.  You are getting the bigger room because we want you to have all the space you need for all the toys that you have.  Don’t worry though; I am sure your stuff will still be all over the house so that no matter where we are, you are entertained.  My biggest fear at this point is that the place has stairs, steep ones, and although you aren’t walking yet, they make me a little uneasy.  I’m going to be a nervous wreck anytime I walk on them with you.  I’m a nervous wreck walking on stairs alone.  Another concern I have is that the cat, Jack, will be in the house with us.  Since you were born, he has been living in the garage.  He likes it, the dogs can’t get him or his food, and that’s just the way it’s been.  This new house has no garage, and the storage addition to the house has no ventilation.  You are not a huge fan of Jack by any means, and I don’t think he is a huge fan of you either, so it should be interesting.  I hope that we won’t be dealing with tear-filled nights like tonight, every night.  Maybe you two can just leave each other alone.  I am super excited about finally getting to decorate your room the way it deserves to be decorated.  We have had a ton of stuff to put on the walls for your room since before you were born, but knew that where we are now, was not the place to put them.  This new place feels like home, even though we aren't living in it.  I cannot wait to personalize your living space, and show you how much we love you!

At this point in your life, we are starting to explore food.  So far, we've just experimented with cereal.  Most of it ends up your nose, so we have to work on that, but you really just want to help, and get in there.  You love to do things with your hands, period.  You love sitting in the bathtub splashing water, you love grabbing toys, you enjoy just making grabbing motions with your hands on various surfaces, and you get a little irritated when we try to help you hold your bottle, because you can do it!  I love your chubby little hands, and all that they are exploring.  You never stay in the same place for long, not even when you’re sleeping.  You are never in the same area we left you in the next morning.  

I love waking up to your face, even at 3 am, because I know that these moments where you need me, and you want me and only me, won’t last forever.  I love being your comfort.  I love the fact that you smile every morning when I come to see you, and most of the time if you are upset, and I come to get you, that makes everything better.  I love everything about you.  I am your world, and you are mine.  Occasionally I share you with dad too… but not too much.  

Love,

Momma

Sweet, or sickening?

I don't know if I just witnessed the sweetest, or the most disgusting thing ever. I had just put Quinn into her swing, and she spit up (a fair amount) all over her shoulder, and it was starting to run down her front. No burp cloth in sight, I had to go to the other room to grab one, and as I leave I hear the noise of a dog licking her. I yell at Landon to stop, come back to the room with burp cloth in hand, and dog and baby have bigger smiles than I have ever seen on either one of them... and no puke for me to clean up.

Ugh.

First Trip to the Zoo

Yesterday, we took you on your first trip to the Tulsa Zoo.  Luckily, you will never remember this trip, and you slept through most of it, because long-story short, it sucked.

You looked really cute though:

We went to the zoo with Nana Tracey, and Grandpa.  They had 4 free passes to the zoo, it’s Labor Day weekend, the zoo’s hours were going to be cut down after today, and it was supposed to be nice, so we figured, well, why not?

We get there, and literally, a quarter of the main exhibits are closed, maybe more.  We all grumble before we walk in, but we didn’t pay, so it wasn’t that tragic.  We got there about 9 am, and it was hot.  We were going to do all the outside exhibits first, and then move to inside, but most of the inside ones were the closed ones, so that didn’t work out for us, so we just started following the path.  Our first exhibit was the monkeys!  We were super excited for you to see them because all week daddy had been acting like one, and making noise, and you loved it.  While the monkeys were quite entertaining, and a little bit of show-offs, you really weren’t interested, and within 2 minutes of you being lifted onto daddy’s shoulders you had spit-up on him, his hat, his back, and his front, so he was not a happy camper.  Moved on from the monkeys. 

You slept pretty much the remainder of the day, and when you were awake showed no real interest in anything much.  Can’t say I blame you for sleeping, the main exhibits that were open most of the smaller exhibits within them were either closed for cleaning, or closed for renovation.  Lame.  It was also hot.  Really hot.  It was only 94°, but because of the humidity, it was recorded as feeling like 111°.  We all felt like we were going to die, and ended up skipping the last 1/3 of the zoo.

I can just say I’m glad you slept through most of it, and even if you hadn’t I’m glad that you will probably never remember this trip, as it probably would have ruined your zoo experiences for life.

The end.

Love,

Momma

Five Months

Little Quinn.  Well, you are not so little anymore, you are 5 months old!  I can’t believe the time has flown by.  I was going through my emails this morning, looking for your birth announcement because one of my friends said that they never got it.  I never found it, but I was rereading all of our adventures of our first week together.  You really scared momma, and even reading about it put me in tears, even though now, you are as healthy and perfect as perfect can be.  Despite that first large bump in the road, you are growing more and more every day.  Every time I look at your pictures, I want to reach out and hold you.  You are my everything, and I don’t know how I ever survived in this world without you.

This past month, a lot has happened with everyone and everything around us.  It has been rough and fun, and full of adventure, both the good and the bad kind.  I don’t even know where to begin.  First, our housing situation was in jeopardy.  The air conditioning went out, and our landlord basically told us that we were lucky it wasn’t something major, and that it was an easy fix because he couldn’t afford to fix anything for us, and would give us a 30-days to vacate notice should anything else go wrong.  That really freaked me and dad out.  It’s one thing to put us on the street, we can be nomads if need be, but we have you now.  You to care for, you who needs a stable, and comfortable home; you, who needs so many things that moving from place to place, cannot be provided.  I was really scared for the first few days.  Scared and angry.  For once in our lives, daddy and I switched roles.  He was the one freaking out about what the plan was going to be, and telling us we had to move, move, move, and I was the one who wanted to ride it out, and see where life was going to take us.  Don’t expect that to ever happen again.  We are still in the same place, but still keeping our eyes open.  I want to find a good home that we can be in for a few years.  Something not too crowded something I won’t fear for you to walk around in, when the time comes, or even for you to crawl around.  I always told myself I didn’t want to have children while living in an apartment, because an apartment is so temporary, so not homey.  Unfortunately, thanks to our mistakes, we can’t provide you with a home to grow up in now, either.  I guess I should have clarified my future thoughts with “rentals” versus “apartments” because, we may be in a house right now, but it is not ours, and it is definitely not our “home.”  Someday we will have one for you, and hopefully, that will be the only home you remember, one filled with love, and laughter.  The middle of the month also brought about a LOT of changes.  In the same week your dad finally got back to a normal schedule at work, you got back to a normal sleep schedule (rather quickly, I might add), and you started day care.  Your dad learned of his new schedule on a Thursday morning, he went to work that night, stayed up as late as he could Friday, and then spent all weekend with you.  I pretty much only saw you when you were hungry.  It was the first time he actually got to enjoy you in all your glory and you got to enjoy him.  You were both so happy, and I am so excited that this opportunity fell in his lap.  That Monday, he started his new shift, Monday through Friday, 8 am to 5 pm, like a normal dad, he also started school that day, and that Wednesday, you started day care.  We are starting to shape up like the all-American family.  Day care was really rough on me.  I didn’t want to trust someone else, someone I didn’t even know to take care of you for any extended period of time, much less 10 hours a day, 5 days a week.  Although this is one of the best day cares in the city, we got off to a bit of a rocky start, but I think things are ok now.  You had no problems with them; it was just your crazy parents who did.  You love daycare.  They sent me pictures of your first day there, and you were smiling in both of them.  You are smiling when we drop you off, and smiling when we pick you up.  You get wagon rides, and lots of cuddles, they absolutely adore you, and I’m pretty sure you enjoy it there too.  I cried your first day, and then sat at home for 9 hours wondering what you were doing, and didn’t do much else.  It was my first day without you ever, and I was pretty lost.  It’s still hard to drop you off every day, but I’m doing better.  I come home now and look for jobs, cook, or clean.  I’m still not working, and I really want to have you by my side all the time, but I need to get used to not having you there, and I also need to get things done around the house.  About an hour before I get to pick you up, I get antsy, and can’t wait to see you.  It’s like that last hour before you get to go home from work or school.  It’s so close, but so far.  Someday you will know what I am talking about.

  

At your 4-month checkup (which was almost two weeks after you turned 4 months), you weighed 13 lbs. ½ an oz.  You just now fit perfectly into 3-month-old clothing.  I am slowly starting to have to pack away your 0-3 month clothes, which is not as traumatic as I thought it would be, because you have a LOT of clothes.  At your appointment, you got shots, and this time you didn’t crash out, and you were miserable for a few days.  I felt so bad, and you were so cranky.  The doctor said that we could start trying out solid foods starting with cereal if you showed any interest in it.  You already get cereal in your bottles to help you keep it down, but I made up a bowl of cereal for you to eat, and you had no real interest in it.  I will try again next month, but I won’t pressure you at all.  The more food you eat, the less bonding time you and I get, so I’m being selfish with it.  You don’t truly need to start exploring with solid foods anyway until you’re a year old.  The doctor also suggested that we let to start drinking from a cup.  She personally doesn’t like sippy cups, and recommended little bathroom cups.  She showed us how to give you about an ounce of water in one, and you drank it so fast, as if we were starving you.  We didn’t have any bathroom cups at home, so I gave you my old Tommee Tippee Cup to try and you loved it.  You got the hang of it right away, and you could tell how proud of yourself that you were when you first used it.  Daddy, going with doctors’ orders, didn’t want to use a sippee cup, so we went out and bought a bottle with handles and a bottle like nipple that had 3 stages (bottle nipple, a square-ish nipple to transition you to a sippee cup type drinking device, and eventually cup) but I think it was too big, and you weren’t really digging it.

 Developmentally, you can now roll from your tummy to your back, and your back to your tummy, but not back to your original starting position.  Not sure why you do it that way, but you will figure it out.  It turns out tummy time is not as traumatic as you originally thought, and for the last week, when I come in to get you in the morning, you are either fast asleep on your tummy (you sleep in almost the same exact position as your momma!) or you are on your tummy trying to crawl around, and usually making a ruckus.  On your first day of day care, dad saw another baby (who is a few months older than you are) on her back grabbing her feet and rolling back and forth.  He thought it was so cute, and talked to you about grabbing your feet, and doing it too.  In the next few days, you did it, and he was overjoyed.  He loves when you do it every time.  You are a smart little cookie, and I don’t think people give babies enough credit for what they know.  You are at the age that we can start teaching you sign language to communicate better, and while we are eager to do so, we can’t find out little book we got for you.  Chaos is our life, and maybe someday we will get our act together, but probably not.  I think, despite no real effort going into it, you are learning to wave as a greeting.  You often lift up your hand when people enter or leave a room, or when we come to pick you up from day care, and someone says “bye” to you.  You’re somewhat shy about it at first, and you hesitatingly put your hand up, but every now and then, you will shake it at them.

We recently got you a Taggie toy.  It’s simply a sewn triangular piece of fabric with various tags hanging off it.  Simple, but you love it.  We’ve attached it to your car seat, and pretty much, it’s our “go-to” toy of the moment.  You still really enjoy your swing, but I think you like it too much sometimes, and although you are nowhere near the 25-pound weight limit, you get so excited, and so carried away with kicking for joy, you shake it, and it scares me a little.  This weekend we are going to the zoo pending the weather.  I’m excited to see your reaction to all the animals, but I think you will like the monkeys the most, unless they have some underwater animals.  Daddy fully plans to parade you around on his shoulders the entire time.  I think he might have to fight grandpa for it, and I have a feeling that excitement will end the second time you spit up on his head.  I’m giving you a freebie because he will probably be wearing a hat, and won’t mind until you actually make it to his hair.

I love you!

Love,

Momma

Gerber Baby

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