On borrowed time...

Well, not exactly "borrowed." Unpaid parental leave is the official term. "Warden Brett" (aka CFO in the Luhring household) granted a stay of execution for my freedom to be at home with Brady for 6 more weeks. WHOO HOO! Yay! Thanks Daddy! My (paid) maternity leave is scheduled to end today and I was going to return to work on April 1. I've used all my short term disability and paid vacation. Any time after this is classified as unpaid parental leave, but really it is Totally worth it. As I told my manager, I am just enjoying being Brady's mommy too much! :) Brady is happy about this extended time too. The picture below is another self-timer shot from this morning because it's just us and the dogs home but we're both saying "Yay!" for more time together. btw, the cool "my mom rocks" onesie is another borrowed from the Riley Collection.

Brownie Sunday

Brady had the opportunity to meet a bunch of his Indian uncles and aunties today. Before you know it, Daddy's little "beta" (the Hindi word for son, that Brett uses ALL the time, usually inappropriately and with his "white bread" twist...it's now evolved to "bear-tas!" and he is always saying it to me) will be just like him- eating butta chicken, changing light bulbs to bhangra, and trying to speak Bengali.

I don't know, aside from the fact that Brady's a few shades lighter, they all look pretty comfortable and natural with him...hmm, in addition to Avi and Kadyn, maybe Brady will have his only little "brownie posse" to hang out with soon! ;-p

All of the aunties brought him some adorable clothes (cute little springtime plaid overalls, an adorable preppy button down and sweater vest, and of course Hokie gear! Thank you aunties!) ...watch for them to be posted to Brady's fashion show. :)

Baby Fashion Show...an ongoing series

One of the most fun things about having a kid is the pint-sized clothing you get to dress them up in. :) My neighbor Laura's son Riley is about 6 weeks younger and a little smaller than Brady. Riley received all sorts of hand-me-downs from his cousin. Laura figured he doesn't need them and cannot fit them just yet, so she is letting us borrow them. There are some ultra cute things in the dozens of outfits she brought over. I'll be taking pictures of Brady in them and having an online fashion show. Yeah, I'm sure he'll really appreciate that when he's older...nice, I'm an embarrassing mom already!

First up, we have Brady modeling a piece from the sleepwear collection. This one made me laugh because in addition to the penguins on his feet (which I didn't get a picture of) there is a giant penguin on his butt. Cool! ;-p

We're floored...

and very happy with the way the new hardwood looks. The "other associated work" is just about complete. Thank goodness we did hire installers instead of having Brett do all the work himself (as he thought he might since he had installed hardwood in the condo before). It's just too much for him to do while also working full time and having an infant. However he did want to do the baseboards himself because he wanted to have new taller ones with fresh paint. Well after having the floors done for almost 3 weeks now, Brett finished most of the baseboards this weekend. Hooray!

Here are some before and after shots:










I don't have a before shot of our bedroom. It was carpeted previously.

Happy Hour

It's Friday and we're having happy hour (literally!) at our house. Although there have been some awesome happy hours in our past, the ones we are experiencing these days are the Best! After some visits from the Purple Tera Dactyl during the "bewitching" evening hours, Brady only needed a mirror, some "bye bye Bradys" (where Daddy flaps his arms), and some tickles to be Mr. Happy. We absolutely Love the sound of his belly laugh!!!

As with any good happy hour, the evidence is on Brady's shirt. He shows us in the picture below. It made Daddy reminiscent of Uncle Basil after the Hokie/BC game of this past season. ;-p

Daily dose of vitamin D

What a beautiful day! Lately Brady's liking being held facing out. Today he rode this way in the Baby Bjorn for the first time during a walk. Excuse the spazz picture...it was my first time taking a timer shot with this camera, but I wanted to take one because I thought he looked so cute! As we were strolling along with Romey and getting our daily dose of vitamin D, I kept thinking how great life is. What a gift to enjoy such an amazing spring day with a happy little three-month-old! I was laughing out loud much of the way because Brady was expressing his joy too...he kept sighing happily and going "oooo!" when the wind blew. For the last leg of the trip, his sounds turned to snores and he slept...so cute!

Farm Friends

Among a bunch of other silly things, I often call Brady my "fuzzy bunny" or "bunny bear" (makes no sense, I know). Anyway, I didn't think much about it until I said it to him last night and Chuck goes, "Do you call him bunny? We call her (Gybson) Goose." Which got me thinking, many of Brady's friends have animal nicknames too- Brady is Bunny...Gybson is Goose...Drea is Piggy...Eli is Chicken (btw, her dad Stephen is called "Noodle" by his high school buds...which always made me laugh and wonder if we should start calling her mom Sharon "Soup").

Visiting with Goose

"Everything's bigger in Texas" is what our friend Chuck often likes to say (well he did the entire time we were at the Renaissance Festival with them a few years ago). :-p Anyway, Chuck, Becky, and their daughter Gybson (aka the Goose) were visiting from Texas and we met them for dinner. Indeed Gybson is bigger than Brady...but then she is one full year older. Exactly one year- Gybson was born on December 20, 2006 and of course Brady was born on December 20, 2007. It was really fun catching up with the Consers and seeing what we have to look forward to.

Gybson loves babies and immediately gravitated to Brady. She did seem a little concerned when her mommy was holding Brady, but she handled it well like a big girl and hugged her own little baby doll. Then she hugged her birthday buddy goodbye:

Turn and Burn

My sister says that's what the military calls the type of travel weekend we just had- a "turn and burn." We drove to Charleston, SC on Friday, spent Saturday visiting with family and celebrating Easter, and drove back home on Sunday. Brady did really well in the car and it only took us about 9 hours to get there (with 3 stops) and only a little over 8 (with 2 stops and some major traffic around Fredericksburg) to get home. The 17 hours traveling was well worth the visit with family and the fun we had...

Brady lounged and relaxed a bit. Here he is in some cute springwear. This was the first outfit Grandma Luhring ever got for him. She sent it while Brady was still growing inside me:He also did some workouts/tummy time with Daddy:
Had some male bonding with Uncle Josh and Daddy while they played video games:Got the "royal treatment" from Aunt Kris (she said he looked like the Emperor when she propped him up on her oriental decor pillows):

He even got to ride a bike...
...and a horse too! (Okay, so he's not really a horse, he's Aunt Kris' big doggie Noah. But weighing over 100 lbs. and standing over four feet tall, I'd say he counts as a small pony at least!)
And of course, no visit with Aunt Kris would be complete without a round of target practice. We believe this is Brady's way of showing Aunt Kris how much he loves her. He loves her ALOT! :)

The Pig Pen

You have to visit Brady's friend Drea's blog (the Pig Pen) and watch her watching the video of Brady and his Wacky Doodle Dandy duck. Hysterical! She is precious!!!

My boys

Brett is for sure my Mr. Right...he is a terrific husband and an awesome daddy. Between the two of us, I pray that we can raise Brady to be someone's Mr. Right. For now, he's my little man and these two mean the world to me.

3 months old

Happy Birthday Brady! There is not a 3 month wellness doctor's visit, so we took our own unofficial stats this month
(see below):

Weight: 14 lbs.
Height: 25 inches

Visiting the Easter Bunny

Brady met the Easter Bunny today. We were super lucky with the line to meet the big guy. We just missed the spring break crowds and did not have to wait long at all. We also had a great visit with Amanda and Jackson and Danisa and Kellan. While we were hanging out and having lunch in the food court, Kellan attempted to share his wisdom with Brady, who listened intently. Kellan is exactly one month older than Brady...today Brady is 3 months and Kellan is 4 months old. Danisa and I got lots of laughs watching them and tried to get some pictures of it.

Introducing Booz Allen's Youngest Intern

His name is Brady Luhring and he has a innate knack for consulting. I mean, it's in his genes! (Both Mommy and Daddy are consultants at Booz Allen. Daddy just joined the firm on March 3.)

We went to visit Daddy at work today. Being a new parent can be really exhausting (Daddy's tired), so Brady decided to do his part to help out.

You can take a nap Daddy.
I'll just have a look at the project plan...Keep napping Daddy, I'll take this call.
Clients can be so demanding...
they make me want to cry!

A Happy Keister!

It should be a happy Easter for us now that Brady has a happy keister!
Warning: this will be another pooping post. ;-p

This time the dookie men's strike lasted for 8-9 days. I am not entirely sure because I really can't remember the last dirty diaper I saw. I know it was at least since last Sunday (March 9). He had only one small dirty diaper a week later.

Yesterday was a crazy day. It started with happy Brady in his Bumbo (photo 1). After consulting with the pediatrician about the work stoppage, I told Brady about the suppository that they suggested. He appears to be questioning this strategy (photo 2). Then saying, "Hold on now, isn't there anything else we can try first?" (photo 3)


Well yes, there is...they also suggested 3 oz. of prune juice. That made me laugh though because I haven't seen prune juice since I was a kid and watched my 72-year-old great aunt drink it. So I took an uncomfortable Purple Tera Dactyl to the grocery store and bought a suppository (just in case) and some prune juice. At first, he didn't know what to think of the strange stuff coming out of his bottle. I thought 3 oz. seemed like a lot and it may have been if Brady had ingested it all. But I think he spit up at least 2 of the 3 oz. on his shirt. But it worked!!! WHOOHOO!!! He was a little unhappy as the dookie men slowly got back to work. (Yes, I took a picture of sad Brady, but it was only a second before I scooped him up and comforted him.) Sure enough, little man was feeling much better after letting it all out.

At this point a little over 24 hours since he's had his prune juice, we've seen 8 explosive diapers...maybe one for each day? It's Newton's Third Law applied to infant care: for every action (force) in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction. I suppose what goes in must come out (at some point) though, huh?