HaHaaaHaa or Waaaaaaaaaaaa!

The outline of life the last 10 days or “hell week or HW” is what I will call it in the future.
(I know a normal week is 7 days, but “HW” is 10 and counting, I hope just 10)

I am going to try to keep this as brief as possible and at the end of it you will see that extra time for detailed stories is not really plausible at this point. I will also try and keep the order correct, not only for your clarity but for my record of how events unfold during “hell week” (ha, the marines ain’t got nuttin on my life)<<<<

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Wednesday Sept. 23rd

Leaf swallowing
*picture of similar leaf and complete story coming soon* Fungus covered Leaf was swallowed at the (sarcastically) convenient time to assume the next two topics were caused by it and not a contagious virus.

Vomiting
*sorry no picture* Lot’s of vomiting, exorcist style, he is such a talented baby.

Diarrhea
*again no picture, sorry for the disappointment* Do I need to explain? Ok if so...it is when you pee poo.

M&P come over

to watch liquid spewing child while we were at the title company, what a blessing.

House sold

This house

Yay *insert hand clapping here*, we finally sold the one bedroom to small, laundry list of hunny do’s, currently cracked to pieces house. With a October 14th get the heck out or you will be paying hotel costs to live there rental lease was signing (remember that date, you will see it again)

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Thursday Sept. 24th

Vomiting

(see above explanation)

Diarrhea
(see above explanation)

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Friday Sept. 25th

New House failing inspection

This House
(failing - that’s what you call it when the inspector refuses to finish his job, failing?)
Um, I have nothing to say other than REALLY????? And 19 days until we have to vacate!! Inspector says "well there are a bunch of bridges in the area" SLAP!

Vomiting
(see above explanation)

Diarrhea
(see above explanation)

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Saturday Sept. 26th

Flu shot cancelled

Gage is still doing fluid expulsion tricks, I make a decision to forgo the shot. Stupid Leaf

M&P come over
Was suppose to be a packing weekend but turned to feverish house hunting after previous issue. They helped tremendously, even though much packing did not get done, lots of laundry and lawn mowing did.

House hunting (with new fear of homelessness)
(sigh) found a good house, make a offer

Pre-term labor
Sister-in-Law, Laurie calls, she is having contractions every 10mins and wants to join our party (we are closer to the hospital), the contractions peter out after keeping her up most of the night (I say she grounds that boy).

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Sunday Sept. 27th

Vomiting

Stops!!!!!!!!!!!

Diarrhea

Still present, accounted for, and a pedialyte induced neon green color! (aren't you glad you read that)

Worms

Sunday night September 27th Jer and I scoop the baby up and rush him to the hospital because he is pooing hundreds of black ¾ inch long worms in his still flowing diarrhea. Crying, thinking how much I suck as a mother because now my kid has worms from eating a rotten leaf off the floor. Then, it comes to me, “could it be the seeds in the banana’s he has had all week to help curve the diarrhea, naw, Jeremy will you look that up on your phone” Insert stop at the store for a beverage. Jeremy hands me the phone and waaLa, it is written all over Google, I am officially a crazy paranoid idiot, my baby does not have worms, instead just a case of the banana’s or undigested banana seeds because of his fast flowing intestines. HA, you laugh now but would you have known? I giggled all the way home because not only do I feel stupid but I am not the only one, seems as though many parents have been perplexed by banana worms in the diaper. Hmmm I wonder how many of them had a child who ate a fungus covered leaf just days before the worms? Does that make me less stupid? Is less stupid proper English? Ok I am done.

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Monday Sept. 28th

New House Contract

Yay this house is awesome and the seller accepted the offer, and it is a better looking house then the lemon we were going to buy. see!!

Vomiting
Came back and dirtied my bed, AGAIN! Poor little guy, stupid leaf.

Diarrhea
Still HERE!

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Tuesday Sept. 29th

New House Inspection

Wow, 35pages, the guy is thorough and takes lots of pictures, 2 majorish issues, the rest is because the house was build in 1965 and codes change.

New house issues being addressed
More to come on this soon, I hope, 12 days until homelessness

Vomiting
I was prepared for it with his morning bottle in one hand and a huge bath towel in the other, squeezed my butt cheeks every time he coughed, just waiting for the title wave and tada, nothing but smiles.

Diarrhea
Still present but getting better.

A Tooth Emerges
That is 5 now and here is the placement. PS: I hate the toothfairy, oh wait that is me, right?

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Wednesday Sept. 30th

Vomiting
Ha, you thought it was Gage still, well you are wrong, I woke up vomiting, continued on the way into work (thank you Styrofoam cups on my floorboard). Then I had a realization, that Gage must have had a virus and the leaf was bad timing because I did not eat any leafs, sigh. This kid has made me a moron, or I was a closet moron and he just opened the door, I dunno, I feel too stupid to figure it out. If we knew he had a virus we would not have had my, about to drop my baby nephew Mace any second sister in law and family over for obvious reasons dealing mainly with their and the new babies health. Sigh, sorry guys, stupid leaf.

A Beautiful Baby is Born
Mace was born 9/30/09 at 9:45am weighing in at 8lbs 13oz and 21 1/2inches long. Here is a picture right after birth.

Mace: “What the heck just happened and who the heck are you?” (you can insert your own words, but my blog is rated G, remember)
He is a cutie and I hope to see him when I am virus free. Congratulations: Blake, Laurie, Audrey and Nolan. Welcome to the family Mace!!

A Love Affair
Get your mind out of the gutters: I *heart* Zofran (leftover nausea med from pregnancy), after all I am a mom and being sick is NOT allowed.

New House Issues

being addressed More to come on this soon, I hope, 12 days until homelessness
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Thursday Oct. 1st

A Love Affair Continues

I *heart* Zofran A LOT

A Flu Test
It was negative so no time off for me, pull up the big girl panties that say “Friday” and go to work.

Carpet Burns

(haha, bet you are in the gutter again, sorry my life is not THAT interesting)
I thought a stupid mosquito was biting the top of Gage’s feet for days, they just kept getting redder in different places, even on the tops of his toes, until last night when he showed me his new trick, it goes like this: Stand up and run as fast as you can in your walker, then sit down real quick, and make sure you drag the top of your feet on the carpet until you stop, wash, rinse, repeat! I told you, this kid has made me an idiot, SIGH!

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TODAY...

Vomiting

None, whew, so far, however I have my lover (Zofran) close.

Diarhea

Still not solid in diapers in my house, soon I hope!

Everything Else

Still stable as of Now! HW may be coming to an end!

EXHALE........

Jabba

Dear Jabba,

My girl, the only “daughter” in my life (until the boys get married), the only other women in my house, the greatest furbaby i could ever have, my protector, adorable 55lbs of wrinkles that graciously took a back seat when Gage was born and never rebelled one bit, girl, you are the best. Really!!!

As a puppy you were a “stand out”, over 20 wrinkles on you little tail, everyone loved you, strutting you unbalanced body around, snorting like a little piglet cause your pallet was so long it was suffocating you. After surgery to help you breath girl, I will admit, I did miss the snorting and wished I had taped it, but was happy you could breath and WOW, what energy you had then.

You are a bit neurotic when it comes to cutting your nails so I do have to drug you for your own sanity and heart heath, but look, you still snuggle after a bath, even with your sweater on, hyped up on doggy crack (I was not strangling you but merely helping to hold your head up)

As a teenager and adult you defiantly started to show you protective side and were not shy at voicing your will at strangers, even cars driving by. We tried to keep you socialized but you are you, and that is that.

Girl, we even shared a pillow with that pesky kitty friend of yours and daddy's!

However big girl, I got to tell ya, I am kind of, um well *looking down, jamming heel into the dirt*, JEALOUS!

Shamefully for several reasons I have the green eye of envy…..

(Not for the reason you are thinking....I have No urge to be able to clean my own bottom with my mouth! )

You get to lie around and sleep all day (yes girl I found out)

Your wrinkles look fantastic without moisturizer

Let’s face it; you get to walk around in the “buff”, ALL the time

You don’t have to take off any clothes to go potty

You get to potty where ever, when ever, you want (I am grateful that you hold it while I am working though)

Never once do you have to wonder if your hips or booty is too big

Get to chase the cat

You don’t have to cut your nails, clean your ears, or bath everyday (so yeah, I don’t either but we are talking about YOU here)

And most of all girl….my one and only time left, last chance ever, been working on for 9 months now, son’s first word is not mama, nor dada, he said.......

JABBA!
as he chased you in his walker, pfftt.. traitor!

T-n-TT

TwooFies & Tidbit Tugging

Twoof – For those of you that have never had a toothache or one pulled, that is what tooth sounds like when in you are in pain, add talking about more than one twoof and you get twoofies.

Gage is still cutting teeth at an awe inspiring rate; he gets about a week off in between each it seems. His fourth (top left) twoof has come through and its partner to the right is catching up on the action, I figure it will be partying with the rest of them with-in a week, poor baby. So if you take a: black n blue, swollen, bloody, separating to quickly, set of baby gums, Add one not so nice cold virus and what do you get?

Pain + Hurt + Ouch + runny nose + cough + fever = X

What is the value of X?

X= sleep deprived, over-stressed, slime covered mommy *(multiplied) by the power of more house buying/selling issues, structural engineer making a report on our home, and closing get pushed again + the addition of 5-6 new work projects = the biggest reason for the lack of posts over the last two weeks, along with a over-frazzled looking mother/wife/employee.

(you know you look bad when the local “deprived” dirty construction workers quit gawking as you walk by)

Twoof Update (yes I started this post earlier this week):
His cold is trying to get better, the twoof has broken through, the other is moving downward FAST, and the sleep vs. slime amounts have shifted in my favor on the curve. If I could get a picture in his mouth before he succeeded on getting the lense in his mouth, this is what it would look like....


OK now the TT or Tidbit Tugging

Let me set the stage: About 1.5 weeks ago as we left the shower (we plug it and make a 3inch bath/shower) Gage discovered that, “he’s a boy”, he saw a little turtle peaking from under the water and grabbed it as I was lifting him out, I had a giggle and we moved on to getting dried and dressed.

…………….Fast Forward 48 Hours……………

As soon as Dad put him in the shower with me, he remembered his turtle friend and snatched it, before I even sat him all the way down. People, I am not talking about touching it, but full hand grabbing and pulling. I found myself saying:

Honey those are your boy parts, don’t pull them off

Honey, your testicle sac is not suppose to come up that far!

No, it is NOT a necklace!

Gage, you are going to hurt yourself!

Son, Put the PePe down!

Please, LEAVE THE TURTLE ALONE!

Fine, pull it off, it is yours!

The rest of the bath went like this…..
-Pull turtle as hard as possible until it slips from between his little fingers
-See a toy
-Shake it
-Catch a glimpse of a turtle head peaking above water
-Drop toy
-Grab turtle and turtle nuts,
-Pull, until you lose them in the deep grey water (yes he can be a dirty boy)
-See a toy
-Shake it
-Catch a glimpse of the turtle head peaking above water
-Drop toy

-------------------*wash, rinse, repeat*-----------------------------

His poor turtle was so red.

However, from his angle and without knowledge of body parts or reptiles, he only see’s above the water and what he see’s does look interesting, plus it moves….


So I guess I “Get IT”, the positives is that it does help with Hand-Eye-Coordination. Wait until I tell his pediatrician how hard he has been practicing…

UPDATE: as of last night….
If you were thinking he would get bored with Turtle Hunting, well you are wrong, it is his favorite bath toy. What do I do, you ask? I spend the whole time trying not to laugh.

*wondering how long until he figures out that the turtle also plays in urine soaked cotton diapers at changing time, stay tuned*

SHARING

I wanted to share just a few silly tid bits of life, a little window into my personality.

The picture and subject of this post is the 2009 "the company I work for" Annual Golf Tournament Trophy. IF you read the plaque on the trophy, you might have seen where I boxed out the companies name (for crazy people purposes) and find the words "Bringing up the Rear", that 's right folks, DAL stands for DEAD A** LAST. This trophy is given to the team in last place out of usually about 22 teams of 4, and a bonus this year is that the trophy had a Jack a** bobble butt feature, truly amazing in my eyes.

The teams are pretty even when it comes to experience, each having a "A" player (really good, golfs more than the wife likes), the classic "D" player (lucky if you can hit the ball, forget directionality), and then two players in the middle of that spectrum. The first place team gets a prize and the last place gets the trophy, my team has always come placed middle of the road at the tournaments. Each year when the roster of the team groups goes out the first thing I look for is how bad our players are so I can gauge our trophy chances. This year I was syked, somehow there was an issue and our team had 3 girls and 1 guy, which means nothing, unless the girls are all "D" players and the rules say you have to use at least one drive from each person on the team. My eyes lit up and I danced around, "I am going to get my trophy".

The day of the tournament the guy on our team, I will call him W, sat with us and I said "SO who did you make angry, seeing how you got 3 "D" players on your team", "You must have drawn the short straw", "hey W, I really think we have a good chance at the DAL trophy this year", he laughed and said stuff about how he was sure we were better at golf then even we thought. hahahahah such a nice man.

All during the game as golf balls flew in all short of directions and never really far when they did actually go the right way, I kept saying "I think that trophy is ours", I was excited we sucked. W actually said "do you want us to throw the game so we can get the trophy", still very nice of him but I responded "NO, I want to EARN the trophy, I want to be the suckiest team because we suck, not cheated, I want to look at the trophy with pride that it was meant to be ours because our rotten golf team, not rotten morals", so try for real we did.

Towards the middle and end of the tournament (I had to leave 3 holes early) we seemed to get better and stayed 1 or 2 below par, I felt the trophy once again slipping away, couldn't help but wonder if we sucked enough. The thoughts of "hey we might win this" even came out of our "A" player W's mouth. As I left I truly felt that we would be far from a trophy last place "victory" and most likely just short of the first place prize, which is not as good as the last place prize in my book, but oh well, we thought we sucked enough in the beginning but beginners luck must have been on our side.

Insert leaving early and two day weekend......

The following Monday morning I went to W's office knowing he would know what place we ended up in, I nearly fell on the floor when I saw the DAL trophy, my trophy, the donkey, sitting perched so perfectly on his file cabinet. W was a newer employee of the company so I knew it was from this golf tournament and not any others, however it could belong to someone else. W turned around in his chair, I said "well", he pointed to the trophy and cracked a grin, I jumped up and down (mature I am not), finally after 5 years of wanting the DAL trophy it was mine, we earned it, fair in square, we did suck THAT BAD, and I love it.

Without further ado......I present for your viewing pleasure my teams 2009, well earned, happily received, DAL trophy.........


(sorry the picture was taken with my phone camera, and yes the butt does bobble)

Never an Equal

Or otherwise titled, doesn’t matter how many babies you pop out, once an infertile, always infertile (but I thought that may be to long).

Disclaimer: Let me start by saying (those who know me know this and either love or hate it), I am not a quiet person, I always speak my mind, some would say very blunt and with a need for more couth. I say that life is too short to sweeten everything up beyond the truth just to please everyone. I am not one to make things seem sweeter than they are. One of my quotes is “I don’t like my cake with icing because if the cake is good then you don’t need icing”. I never kept my loses/our babies a secret, I will openly talk about infertility and our battle, and when in the hall if people say “Hi, how are you/the kids” I don’t just say great and walk off, I answer them honestly. I have learned that most people don’t want to hear the truth unless it is good but that is not me, if you are brave enough to ask, then I should be brave enough to tell, and I am, so I do.


I am not referring to the overwhelming fear of losing babies that infertility brings upon those involved, but more like the battle to be seen as any other mother. Going through the pain of wanting what seems to come so easy to everyone else, the single teenager down the road, drug addict, or jobless women who always goes back to her always abusive and incarcerated baby daddy to become pregnant every 9 months, the local supermarket where no matter what direction you look in there are baby bellies everywhere, the “common women” who get pregnant when she wants to. The urge to get up to the same level as everyone else is a constant battle, you just want, strive, and fight to play on the same field, to be what is suppose to come so easy, a mom. A mom I am, but apparently never on the same playing field.


It seems as though I am forever labeled in many people’s eyes, I am not a mom without a label.

When people ask me how Gage/I am doing, I do not put icing on my answer, I give it like it is. Answers could be “great, such a joy, lovely, fantastic, moving all around, or the answers could be, “he is having a tough week, he is teething, he is not sleeping well right now, he is sick, I am tired, I am having a hard week because Gage is, etc….. When I give the truth and it is anything but positive, 80% of the time I get these responses….”well you WANTED a baby, isn’t this what YOU wanted, kids are tough you should have thought about that before you tried so hard, etc….
I do believe that people would never say that to a women who had 5 kids as easy as making pancakes, I do believe people would say “that sucks, sorry, hope you get some more sleep tonight, hope the kids/you feel better, etc…”. I know this people don’t mean ill harm by what they say; well at least I hope they don’t, but it still stings a bit.

So in conclusion apparently if you have to struggle in life you are not allowed to be tired, sick, frustrated, as other moms do. I am suppose to be rosy sunshine on 2 hours of interrupted sleep when my baby is teething, fussy, inconsolable, look great as I struggle through the work day, skip around with a grin ear to ear because I was finally able to have a baby, then drive home and be Susie homemaker spewing rainbows from my mouth as I spend time with my super fussy, overtired teething child, then dream of puppy dogs and lollipops why I get another two hours of interrupted sleep before starting the same process over again, because after all “I wanted a baby” and obviously because I had to struggle to have one I am not allowed to be anything but overjoyed 24 hours a day. After so long wanting to get on the same playing field as what seems like every other women in the world is on, I have come to realize I will never be on that field in everyone’s eyes but in my kids eyes I am not only on the field, I OWN it, and that is what is most important, the rest is just blahh.

Sorry about the rant, I just had to get that out, and just maybe one of those people who say stupid things to people who have struggled will read this and “get it”.

Gage's 7 & 8 Month Letter

(again a two month difference, beginning of month 6 (left) and month 8 (right), your face is changing from baby to little boy)

Gage,

WOW what an eventful two months young man, let’s highlight it, shall we:

What a ride young man, the last two months have been the busiest by far as it pertains to work, house buying/selling issues, and once again Daycare. You have also been busy in your new “tricks”, fine tuning skills, and firsts.

Month 7 began with spending lots of time getting accustomed to your new daycare schedule, the MDO (mother’s day out) program that was Tuesday – Thursday went pretty much like I thought, not much sleep but better environment and care. Then in the morning and on Monday and Friday you spend your days with M and her kids. Those days were my favorite and I think yours also, sleep was abundant, attention was great, and between these two months at M’s and MDO the most you were sick was a couple of days with the common cold.

On June 21st you were quite cranky to the point it was mysterious (you’ll see why so cranky below) so we figured that since you enjoy going ballistic in the bath and shower

that you might really dig the swimming pool, you were in awe of the water, and splashed the entire time, giggles we had not heard in days came back, you loved choking on the water when it splashed in your face (a bit weird son). No matter how much you choked you continued to splash and laugh, the hardest thing was holding onto your wet squirmy body mass and keep your head above water, I do believe just as your brothers are, you are going to be our third water bug.

Then your big/middle brother came down for 6 weeks and he just adores you, from my eyes you too look a lot alike, in Kollen’s words “Gage, you are husky, like me”.

The day Kollen got here June 24th, you cut your first tooth through (bottom front right), I knew you had been cranky and restless for a few days but I was still shocked when you grabbed my finger and bit me, after that you would not let me touch or even get close enough to take a picture of the new pearly white, I imagine it was sore, and that is when we learned you can clamp your mouth closed with as much ferocity as a Venus Fly Trap.

Kollen got here just in time to be at your Aunt Sarah’s wedding, where you made a grand appearance in your first tux at your fist wedding, a cute tux designed onesie because after all it was an outside wedding, the later part of June, in Texas, with record highs of 109’s.

The night before the wedding you went to what no other man was allowed, that’s right big boy, you were at your first (most likely last) baccalaureate party and demonstrated to all your angel side (ha, they have not seen you a few days previous while teething).

Even with a smaller than normal amount of sleep because you were partying hardy with us girls (watching movies) you still were very well behaved meeting all your relatives that traveled in and coping with the numerous amount of people, son I was proud.

The weekend after the wedding which happened to also be july 4th, we traveling back to M&Ps to have our annual family picture captured. We had the same photographer that took my maternity pics and your Aunt Sarah’s wedding came back and we are pleased that she took our family pictures. We did our immediate family first and I finally was able to see some of my complete family picture visions come together.

While doing the big family picture we always have kid drama and this year you added to the cast of characters, if you were not trying to bend in half to pull Mu’s hair then you were paying attention to your Cousin Nolan (who was also not paying attention), and not one bit interested in the photographer regardless of how much she shook your (favorite at the time) dragon toy, you would not even glance her way. I love the BIG family pics that contain drama and it makes me smile/giggle remembering the moment, so bravo to you and your cousins.

On July 9th you cut your second tooth (bottom front left), only two weeks after the first, you show-off. It was not as much as a surprise as the first because you went through the same 5 days of ick before it emerged; let’s just say the tooth fairy is not welcomed in our house anytime soon, unless she/he is going to start getting up with you every 30-45mins all night long for 5 days.

Some other firsts during month 7:

* Holding your toes, and you do it often.

*Trying carrots
*Getting your pacifier back into your mouth
*Pushing your upper body off the ground and moving backwards

Here are a couple of my favorite pics from your 7th month:

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MONTH 8

At the beginning of month 8 we had quite an adventure, an 11 hour trip to visit/meet your great grandparents in Alabama (more on that trip in another post). It was a hard 5 days in many ways but we were able to show you off to more family you have not yet met. The afternoon after we got to Alabama and were headed to the farm to meet up with the family we had to put you back in the seat you had not too long previous spent 11 hours in and son you had a first, yup, your first arms flailing, high pitch peeved off screech, baby tantrum, and son I completely understood, I did not want to get back in my seat either but I was working on 36 hours with no sleep at that moment and had no energy to throw myself on the ground and scream (but I did think about it).

Here is the big family picture.

and the reason for the trip, to meet your Great Grandma & PawPaw

After we returned from our adventure, it was time to say forget fruit, they all seem to upset your stomach and moved onto vegetables, you loved everything we gave you and then the spider monkey was born. I don’t know, maybe because your sensitive stomach caused you to be late starting consistent solids, baby jars are cool, anything tastes better than your hypoallergenic formula, or you just enjoyed watching me trying to catch flying baby food, whatever it was you transformed into a spider monkey on crack when you put you in your chair to eat. The first time your un-expecting mother put the bowl in arms reach and within milliseconds you, myself, and the floor was covered in pureed carrots, then it was the lightning fast hands that were determined that they could shovel faster than me, and if that was not enough, a nice raspberry zurbert thus spitting food in a spray like fashion after every bite, which should explain your spider monkey feeding status. Our ceiling still has sweet potatoes on it, yes son, they stain. I do wish we would have gotten the fiasco on tape because it was hilarious if you were not the one dodging the spray of food why trying to navigate the faster than lightning hands and after a week or so you figured out that sitting mostly still and controlling your grabby limbs equaled food faster, so all we have is memories of that week and most of me is very ok with that. You tried lots of different vegi's and sweet potatoes are your favorite with peas on the other side of the spectrum. From then to current your stomach is doing much better with digestion and you each 3 meals a day, 2 snacks, and even are able to consume apples with your cereal in the morning (instead of sweet potato oatmeal, yuck)

You had another set of shots in August, a new nurse was the morbid pain administer, and she was great. I will admit his normal nurse has like 35 years experience so when I saw this young new thang I was worried, she had all three shots done within 3 seconds, I picked you up right away and the crying stopped even before a tear formed, I was amazed and pleased. I looked at Gage, neither one of us with a tear in our eyes, and at that moment I realized we were both becoming big boys. Onto some stats, your weight has finally slowed a bit, you were gaining ½ pound a week since birth and even then you were a week early and still weighed 9lbs 1oz, so add that with two pounds a month after and it sums up your nicknames “thunder thighs, peanut butter, chunky monkey, etc ..”

Stats on 8/7/09 at 34weeks or beginning of month 8
Weight 23lbs 4ozs
Height 29 ¾ inches
Head 18 ¾ inches

Some firsts this month include but surely not limited to:

*Sitting up by yourself (once put in that position by someone and you can do it without the cushion, just mom is a scaredy cat)
*Your first house hunting adventures, just for reference, you are NOT a fan

*Your discovered our animals and squeal real loud when they come close (which does drive them away, or maybe it’s the hair pulling, hmmmmm)

*That brings us to a whole new level of hair pulling, with your quicker than most, spider monkey hands, which also lead to your first (maybe last) doll, to distract you from my hair I hoped this little doll with long tough yarn hair would do the trick, *sigh* you are not dumb and the fake hair does not seem to fullfill your hair obsession.

*Your first time laughing at me when I said NO real sternly to you after a consistant hair pulling session at 11pm one night (post to come soon)

*You ate your first mashed potatoes, and did so by yourself for the first time, at a very busy restaurant (which directly lead to your next first)

*You were stripped down to only a diaper in public, at the dinner table in a populated restaurant, before we took you out to the car. Made me wonder if “No Shirts, No Shoes, No Service” was intended for all patrons because if so, you broke rules for the first time and didn’t even shed a tear about it.

You have also learned some new things recently, some cute new tricks during month 8 are:

*You bounce on any and everything, excersaucer, walk, bouncer, hips, legs etc….We need to get you a horse soon because similar to gummy bears, I believe you are going to bounce to get to a destination instead of walk. You have strong legs because of all the bouncing….

Look at all that muscle, haha
*You are a rough houser and your daddy is happy to oblige, you like to wrestle, be thrown up, down, around, through etc….We do a shark game where I make the JAWS soundtrack noise, dah domp………..you smile,… dah domp……..you flip over,.. dah domp…..you try to crawl away, arms and legs flapping, face down on the bed, dah domp...dah domp..dah domp.dah domp, SQUEAL (even before I touch you), and then laugh when I get your side with a raspberry.

*Then you have a quiet side where you like to read the Bible to Daddy (exspecially turning the pages)

*And Lastly, one of my favorites, you wrinkle your nose when you are really happy and also do it when you are mad (Jeremy calls that the “I hate You” look) I have only caught a few almost pics of this wrinkle you do quite often because as soon as I get the camera you quit what you are doing and jump for it. (Here is a "almost wrinkle" picture)

Below are two of my favorite 8th month photos, I do enjoy the smiles but am a sucker for the

solemn almost sad photos, and most of all, your eyes are starting to shape out like mine (downdroop puppydoggish) and because nothing much except your jacked up pinky toes resemble me, I am tickled that I can see my eyes in yours. Pssst.... you big brother has then also.

Son, you are such a blessing, even in the darkest of teething sleepless nights. I am proud to be your mom and just love watching you grow and learn. I can not wait until one day you can look back and say “my mom technologically kept up my baby book on her blog”, ok so you are a boy and most likely won’t care, but I will.

Love, Mom

(sorry this turned into more of a book, then a letter, but you are changing to fast)

Stress, Splashing, Stealing, Swinging, Supersized Sibling

A TON OF STRESS!
As I stated before our not enough room for our family only a two bedroom house is under contract (still), the guy that is trying to buy it is having financing issues, closing keeps getting pushed back, add the whole school is starting (crap that came quickly) thing, piled with house hunting, working full time, trying to keep the house in showing condition (and failing), at work the OMG it is quarterly(all the VP’s and President of the company come to see how we are spending all those millions), Gage cutting 3 teeth at the same time, and right in the middle of that we got “sorry I can’t watch Gage anymore” babysitter situation, which lead to the “you got one week to find quality care” that usually has a 8 month waiting list or at one hot spot daycare I got the, “we might be able to fit him in when he is 4.

*SIGH* as you can see life has been easy squeezy, or maybe I am talking about my belly.

Well as I mentioned above Gage is running a teething marathon and thinks that pushing one tooth through at a time is for losers, two at a time is wimpy, so he wants to be original and go for three. Since Thursday he has made it real clear he is not happy about the chomper situation with added sleep deprivation even (we are talking waking every 45 mins deprivation). He has both front bottom and we all know what is coming next, the top ones right, so I have been applying oragel for the last five days to his terribly over swollen top gums. I only get one shot with the numbing gel until he locks his mouth like a 3 foot deep metal safe at the nations gold storage facility. A fan of oragel he is not! Last night while changing him I noticed a white spec on the lower right bottom next to the tooth he pushed through last, YOU GOT IT, he cut one through on the bottom left entirely out of popular order and previously unseen by me(drawing/picture below if you are a visual learner). I felt really bad I had not been putting gel on that area, but how was I suppose to know his teeth were NOT playing by the rules? Is this a sign of things to come?

A BUNCH OF SPLASHING.....

ON a happier note, we found out about a free splash park in our local area, we have lived here 10 years and am just now finding this place, WOW, I am usually up to date on free fun, I must be getting rusty. Gage was really cranky so we decided to get his mind off his gums and onto his favorite pleasure, water. He has no fear of splashing, drinking, showering down water. Weird, yuh a bit, but makes for cute pictures.

A TAD BIT OF STEALING......

SOME FUN SWINGING......

Look both our babes enjoying the baby swings or alternatively titled “Daimen’s girlfriend blackmail”…..

A VERY LOVED SUPERSIZED SIBLING......
Daimen came home from what seemed like months but was really 3 weeks with his dad. He came to the splash park and also enjoyed it. It is good to have him home again. He is my jolly green (but not) giant…..

Look at those "baby guns"