Thursday, February 22, 2007

Loudest Baby Ever...

I went to visit my friend Sarah to see their new baby, Collin. Fox, predictably, screamed for half of the trip down to Southwood. When we arrived, he was wailing at about a 7 (he has cranked it up to 13 on occasion). It was great to see Sarah, KC, and their daughter Emily, and meet little Collin. After awhile, Collin got tired and began fussing, making these tiny little cries. I observed for a bit, and then asked Sarah if that was as loud as he got. She replied that yes, he was pretty upset.
I shook my head, realizing that Collin's 'pretty upset' ranked about a 1 on Fox's scale of mad.
We have the Loudest Baby Ever.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Such a happy boy...

Anna told us a story about something she heard at an infant massage therapy workshop. Apparently, there is anecdotal evidence that babies whose mothers ate chocolate have happier babies. Here are some pictures to back up that theory...





And yes, I totally ate A TON of chocolate. Good thing!
As always, you can see the rest of these pics here...

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Slacker me...this is going to be a long one.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. So much has been happening, I'll try to recap.

Let's see. Our trip to Arkansas for Bonnie's wedding in December was awesome. All the prayers must have made a huge difference, because we had the world's best traveling baby with us. He was happy and/or sleepy the whole trip, and only fussed when it was time for him to eat.
We visited with Bonnie, Justin, and Bonnie's family the night. They were all so excited to meet Fox! The next day we were up for the complimentary breakfast at 6am-when it started! That would never have happened before we became parents.
It was also our 5th wedding anniversary. We celebrated in style, eating two meals at McDonalds and visiting the Walmart in Bentonville, Arkansas (right across the street from the enormous Home Office!) After that we headed to the Wal-Marts ; ) to buy the necessary ingredients for the Wedding Night Basket 'O Fun I put together for special people when they marry.
The wedding was beautiful. I only cried a little, not like the huge racking sobs I busted out with at Shannon's wedding. It was amazing, getting to be a part of such a special time.
Fox was awesome the whole time. What a blessing!

Christmas was beautiful. We enjoyed seeing both sides of Vance's family in PC, and celebrated with our Canopy Roads family Christmas Eve. The next day we joined the Theobalds for Christmas Dinner and Jesus' birthday cake! Wow, I think that may have been the last time I had chocolate. (We figured out that chocolate upsets Fox's tummy. Yeah, it sucks.)

My folks came up for a few days shortly before the New Year. It's so great having them here with us. Fox got way too much stuff (I know, it's just going to get worse each year) and we all ate too much.

We went to Flager's for New Year's Eve, but left around 10 to try and get the Little Man to sleep.

January was an eventful month of milestones. On the 12th, he let out his first big belly laugh. Ironically, he was strapped in his car seat at Smokey Bones while Vance and I enjoyed lunch with some of Vance's coworkers. The next day we took him over to Julie's house for his first set of pictures. They turned out so great! We, of course, bought one of each one she took! (So did the grandparents). The next day was Sunday. I went into Fox's room to get him up for church. The sight that greeted me was Mr. Fox on his back. He had rolled over and I missed it! Four days later, he slept throught the night (9:30pm to 7:30am with two wakeups) without a feeding.
February has been exciting too. Last week Fox slept all night (no waking) three times. He woke up twice last night, but is on par to make it all night again. This morning I went in to get him up for church (it was his debut for drama-more about that later) and once again, he had flipped himself onto his back. That makes it 4 times that he's done it - AND I HAVE MISSED IT EACH TIME! Little stinker won't do it when he's with me, just when he's waking up. And each time, when I come in for him, he has the biggest, sweetest grin on his face. He seems quite proud of his latest little trick.

So now about the drama. Fox played my son (I know, a stretch) in a powerful piece about a family who is on the verge of splitting up due to the parents not appreciating each other, and losing sight of why they got together in the first place. Fox stole the show when he started cooing and blowing raspberries into my mic. But the point was made. I think a lot of folks were touched today, and it was an honor to be able to help facilitate that.

So what's been going on? Well, Fox still loves standing up, but now he's liking to sit up too. He's able to stay upright for about a minute and a half before leaning over and toppling. He thinks its just great, and then tries to eat his toes as he tips over forward.
We have the happiest baby (most of the time). He's much less fussy, and when he does get fussy, he calms down when we take him outside or hang out in front of the radio. Vance has made him a playlist with lots of funky grooves so we can dance around the house. He has the best laugh. Vance gets him going better than I can. Everyone we see comments on how smiley Fox is.

I've gone back to Irish Dancing. It was easier than I though to just jump back in and pick up where I left off 7 months ago. I really missed my friends from the group, and it's a good break to get out of the house and do something for 'me time'.

I think that about covers everything I can think of. I'd better sign off so Vance and I can catch up on '24'. We're a year behind, but we're going to finish!