And he's off...

After about a week and half of rocking back and forth or taking a few crawling "steps" and falling, Brady's on the move now! I first noticed it yesterday when he took about 5 "steps" towards me. Brett tried to get him to repeat it, but it wasn't happening. This morning I realized Brady just required the proper motivation. He didn't feel like moving towards his toys or us. But when he spotted the tv remote or I put paper within his line of sight, it was ON!

Reduce, reuse, recycle

We've found a new way to recycle in our house. Old magazines become new toys- sweet! :) Brady LOVES paper. Tonight while I was getting his bath ready, I sat him outside the bathroom and gave him a magazine I was done reading. He went to town and happily sat destroying thumbing through it while he waited.

Huffing and Puffing

Brady had his first finger food this weekend...banana flavored Puffs. These are like Cheerios, but are designed for babies because they dissolve almost instantly when they are wet. Seeing as Brady only has two spuds, which are like less than half teeth :) and they're the front bottom ones, he's not able to chew hard food. Gumming is as good as it gets. I remember reading Soma's account of Kadyn's first finger foods and giggling because it was adorable. Soma, we had a similar experience with the difficulty in the release...too cute! I thought self feeding would be easy because Brady puts Everything in his mouth. Go figure that the one thing he's supposed to put in his mouth...he didn't. He would smash them with his hands (such a little boy!) or squeeze them in his palm. At first he only ate them if we held them...then it was almost instinctual to mouth them. We guided his hands and finally he would bring his hand up to his mouth himself. But often times the Puff would be stuck to his hand and he'd wind up sucking his thumb. It was making me laugh...it was like he was playing that magic shell game or being a magician for himself.
Where's the puff?

Learning the art of conversation

Romey's doing his part to help develop Brady's language skills. He's actually been talking to his little bro since he was 3 days old. He sees me chattering away to Brady all the time as I narrate life and expose him to language. This afternoon Romey was his narrator. Brady attended well. However Romey was a poor model of turn-taking skills...he's a conversation hog...he hardly let Brady get a word in! Not for lack of Brady's trying though. If you listen carefully you can hear Brady's quiet "da" sounds over Romey's incessant barking.

You can't have cookies for breakfast...

But you can teethe on a plastic Oreo at 7:00 in the morning. :)

At 7.5 months, Brady's 2 bottom teeth finally poked through today...we have spuds!!! He's also getting going on crawling...sort of. He did it for the first time today. He goes one or two "steps" forward, then falls, and marine crawls or rolls the rest of the way to the object he's seeking.

Sealed With A Kiss

When I picked Brady up at daycare today, just-turned-8-year-old Angie (who is the niece of Miss Adela and Miss Flori...she is there for summer camp) said to me, "Brady is married to me now." I said, "Oh really? How do you know?" She said, "because he kissed me on the mouth today." So there you have it.

Modified Child's Pose

I went to check on Brady tonight as I always do. Okay, so he really doesn't need to be checked on, but I love to peek at him and watch him sleep...he's just so sweet. He usually stirs a little when I go in, but tonight he didn't move at all. He was sound asleep with a slight congested snore. This was the first time in a while that I didn't put him in his sleepy-sack. We need to get the next size up because I'm not sure he can completely stretch out in his current one. Anyway, so he slept in just a little footless outfit. When I peeked at him, he looked so adorable with his little diaper butt raised up in the air and his hands snuggled beneath him in his modified yoga child's pose position. I had to chance taking a picture so that I could capture this moment. He didn't even flinch when the flash went off.

I. Love. This. Sweet. Sweet. Boy.

Do you have your VIC card?

This Very Important Customer had a new experience @ Harris Teeter today. He finally got to ride in the front of the grocery cart instead of in the basket in his car seat or in the bjorn or sling. Nosy boy was Loving it! He kept twisting around to see all the colorful things the store has to offer. He also really enjoyed kicking his feet. Oh, and going through the checkout was fun too!

There was a good sale on kids...

this one seemed to be the best of the bunch.
So we took him home! :)

Uncle Basil's Fiesta

We were out to celebrate Uncle Basil's birthday tonight. Happy Birthday Uncle Basil...thanks for being born! Thanks for dinner Auntie Soma! Brady had a great time hanging out with the aunties and uncles. He had his own dinner then took a little siesta @ Guajillo but did wake up after we had been @ Cafe Asia for a bit. He was a little squirmy, but was content playing with Auntie Hema's wristlet, which she thought was hysterical. She tried to tell Brett about how enamored Brady was with her purse, but when she offered it to him in his daddy's presence he didn't even give it a second glance. :p

Another daddy-in-training

Piyush and Toby are expecting their first child in January!
Congratulations!!

Mommy's Mom

I read on another blog once that "sometimes moms just need their moms." This week my mom had come to help out with Brady and being her usual self, wound up helping me out with Everything! After a very full week of taking care of Brady, the dogs, our house, and ME (!), Meemaw is going home today. Even though she had to use vacation from her full time job at Nascar to be here, I think she needs a vacation after this week she's had with us! It was more like a vacation for me...yummy home cooked meals (and leftovers too!); a clean house and laundry; and a happy kid and dogs...and I hardly did a thing! Thanks Mom!!!

btw, isn't this little baller outfit a riot? It's the first time I've put him in it, and unfortunately he's already growing out of it. I love it though! He totally looks like a little player. :) (and the fabric is awesome, so easy to clean- baby food, milk, and drool just wipe right off it!)

Another happy Friday

Meemaw's off to dinner with Tim, her former boss @ Nascar (who now works for the Redskins and lives just a few miles away from us!) and Brady's off to bed.

"Wanna play ball?"

Outdoor command center

Yes, he can control his little world from outside on the porch as well. Again, we Love this toy! :)

Rack 'em up!

Dadadada

"Ma-ma does everything for the baby, who responds by saying Da-da first." ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

You know the Bill Cosby "Himself" routine from 1983 where he describes how as a father he works so hard with his son teaching him the game of football, letting the boy tackle him, etc....then the boy plays in a college football game on tv, makes a big play, and then looks in to the camera and says, "Hi Mom!" That's nothing compared to the moms who grow their babies, birth their babies, feed their babies, diaper their babies, clean their babies, Love their babies, etc....then have the first "word-like sound" that comes out of that same baby be "dada dada." I've heard countless stories of this from other mamas, but as a former speech therapist I know that these sounds naturally develop first. :) Today Brady finally started vocalizing the consonant-vowel repetition babble (when he wasn't upset). All he's been saying all day is "dadadadadada."

As Bill says, "Well, you don't mind that...you know who taught him." :)

By the time it occurred to us to stop laughing and take some video, Brady wasn't too talkative. But my mom and I were cracking up because he said "dada" for literally everything today. I was sitting on the couch with him. We're nose to nose and he looks at me and says, "da. da." and I said, "mama?" He immediately replies, "dada." "Dada" was his response to every word or sound we said to him all day long. It was comical!

Drinking and driving

So apparently Brady can hold his bottle by himself...he doesn't always tip it to get to the milk, but we learned yesterday that he can hold it up to his mouth independently. We haven't given him a bottle at home in a while because he nurses here and only gets bottles at daycare. This week daycare is closed for vacation and Meemaw is in town to care for him while I'm working. It was news to me yesterday when she told me that he holds the bottle himself, but sure enough he does!

Meemaw also taught Brady to drive his car yesterday. Previously he just sat in his Jeep and sometimes pushed backwards. If you wanted him to go forward, you had to tow his Jeep by pulling him along. ;p But Meemaw enticed him with toys and encouraged him to use his Fred Flintstone mobile like it was intended. He was motoring all over the place! Meemaw had to stop him and cite him for speeding a few times! Well, today he combined his two new tricks and our result is that Brady now drinks and drives:

Have you gone M.A.D.D.? :)

Deciding that drinking while trying to operate his Jeep was too distracting and that his Mother was Against it, ;p Brady sat with Meemaw and a pillow prop on the couch to have his early lunch.

IPlay @ IHOP

Some pictures from breakfast at IHOP this morning. Seeing as this is something like the fourth time I've mentioned the acclaimed International House of Pancakes, it's also my attempt to document my indulging Brett when he asks, "Can we go to IHOP?" Funny how the tides have changed. A few years ago it was always me always asking him that and he who begrudgingly went. I was hooked on cheese blintzes with blueberry compote. But then one day the love affair ended. Unfortunately it was about the same time that Brett struck up an IHOP romance of his own with the ham, egg, and cheese melt. So here we are again. It does make for some good people watching for Brady though...lots of babies and kids...and that keeps him amused and quiet.

TGIF!

Thank Goodness It's FAVday! Yay! The weather has been absolutely gorgeous the past two days (80's and low humidity...it's like early fall weather in July!). This morning we had a nice walk around the neighborhood, then we had breakfast, then Brady had a nap and I had cleaning time, then we sat out on the porch together. It was so perfect! I took a bunch of timer and self-portrait pictures to remember how fun it was just the two of us hanging out. As I was reviewing them I was LOL because in many of the pictures our facial expressions look similar...it's totally unplanned (I really was not mimicking him) and the results are funny!

Then we had a long overdue meet-up with our buds Kellan (and Danisa) and Oliver (and Christin). It's been forever since I've seen these wonderful women and Brady's seen his pals (well, it was April when the moms and boys got together. In May we had a mommies night out to see the Sex and the City movie). The boys are growing up so fast! It was really fun to stroll the mall and catch up on what the boys are doing and what we've been doing.The hives reappeared at around noon today. I noticed them when we got to the mall. That is really strange because Brady had bananas, but at 9:00 this morning. Again, they sort of went away by themselves. But when we got home around 2:00, I noticed Brady looked like his winter baby self- with rosy red cheeks and Rudolph's nose. I tried to take pictures of it in natural light (so the camera wouldn't flash and I could see the redness). I put him in the solarium where I knew the floor was clean. This was the first time I let Brady lay around on the hardwood and some of the pictures are actually pretty good (or funny as they depict real life and close-up drool).

He looks like a big boy the way he's sitting in this picture, doesn't he?

We also got to meet our newest neighbor Sawyer today! Riley (who is 6 weeks younger than Brady) is our neighbor to the one side and now Sawyer (who is 7 months younger than Brady) is our neighbor on the other side. I'm sure these boys will be best buds...they'll all be in the same grade in school! Riley, Brady, and Sawyer...how awesome that sounds together! Too cool!