One Spoiled Momma

I am admitting it. I am one spoiled momma! This summer has been the most laid back, relaxing, schedule free summer I have ever had. Here is a glance at our care free daily life.
Harrison will usually wake up between 6 and 7,we have fruit and oatmeal for breakfast and start our day. If we are going to go outside and play, now is the time we do it! If not it gets way too hot! We play, read books, watch a little Disney Jr, I drink my coffee and enjoy the morning. Harrison will go down for his morning nap around 9:30. This is when I will do a little cleaning, dishes, laundry, but noting too strenuous ;). After nap we have lunch and play more, color, finger paint, occasionally splash in the water and then its time for afternoon nap (around 12:30). During afternoon nap time, I'm not going to lie, I do not do much :). I might start dinner if it is something that needs to be thawed or placed in the crock pot, fold a little laundry, sweep or put away dishes but I always manage to find time to watch a little HGTV, glance through Pinterest and occasionally, take a nap. Yes I said nap. The rest of the day is much the same. More playing, reading, park visiting, going for walks and family dinners. I'm not sure what I am going to do when August rolls around and I get a big dose of reality thrown at me. For now, I'm just enjoying spoiling my baby and being one spoiled momma! Oh how I LOVE summer!

Repurposing!

What do you do with a baby pool that your child refuses to swim in? Bring it in the house and fill it with plastic balls! Instant ball pit, hours of fun!

Listen to Your Baby

Parenting is hard work. There is no magic book you can read or special seminar you can attend that will let you in on all the secrets to this wonderfully rewarding job that the Lord has entrusted you with. I am not suggesting that there aren't plenty of helpful tips and pointers out there, because I know there are, but look closely at what I am saying. No one will ever be able to tell you how exactly your child needs to be parented. LISTEN TO YOUR BABY. I am sure this kind of a "duh" statement for some of you reading but it is something I had to come to realize through the first few months of Harrison's life. When you bring your sweet little newborn home everyone always has tons of advice to offer you ranging anywhere from how and where they should sleep to how often they should eat to what they should and should not wear, and the list goes on and on! The best piece of advice I can offer, LISTEN TO YOUR BABY. I promise you they will let you know what they need. When I first brought Harrison home I was instructed to only nurse him every 3 hours during the day and 4-5 hours during the night. Wrong. This baby was hungry. I tried to follow their instructions for about 2-3 days and that was about it. I could tell that he was hungry about every 2- 2 1/2 hours during the day and I didn't see the need to "push his feedings out" any longer than that. Many will argue that babies will learn to eat on a schedule and will eat more when they do eat because they realize they won't be eating for another however many hours. I just never saw the point in listening to him cry for 30 minutes because he was hungry simply because it was not "time" to eat yet. Now, as it is becoming time for Harrison to begin eating more table foods and less baby foods, I am still listening to what my baby wants. Am I following any chart or table that tells me what he "wants" at this age? No. I give him some of what we are eating along with his regular baby food and that's that. If we are having spaghetti, he has spaghetti. I we are having lasagna, roast, pancakes, eggs, muffins, rice, cooked vegetables and so on guess what- he has it too. If he does not "want" it, I promise you he makes it very clear :)
Another concept I have never been able to agree with is crying it out. I have rocked Harrison to sleep every nap and every night for the past 9 months up until the past few weeks. Why? Because I never felt that I was so busy or that my life was so important that I could not take that 30 minutes of time to sooth and comfort my baby at these times. I listened to what my baby needed and I am still listening to what he needs now. Recently he has not wanted to be rocked anymore while going to sleep. When I try to rock him, he squirms, twists, turns and wiggles all over the place. I can tell that he simply wants to lay down, so I lay him down. He will jabber and flip around for about 5 minutes and then he is asleep. It was that simple. I never fought him at bed time. There were never any all night cryings or weeks spent sleep training in our house. If he woke/wakes up during the night I go in, if I think he is hungry I fed/feed him, if I think he's cold I cover him back up and rock him. Do I loose 30 minutes of sleep, yes. Is it better than listening to him cry it out while he sits in his room alone in the dark getting more and more upset until he finally realizes that no one is coming and stops crying- yes.
I heard someone once say that babies in orphanages do not cry. Why? They have learned that no one is going to come when they do. How pitifully sad. My child, and all future children, will know that someone will always be there to comfort them. They will not feel alone and abandoned. Will I regret this decision? Will my children not develope good sleep habits? Will they need to be rocked at the age of 4? Who knows, who cares. Listen to your baby. In all aspects, not just these three. They are very aware of their needs, all we need to do is take a little time to figure out what it is they are needing.
That's my advice :)

Peek-A-Boo!

Harrison has a new favorite game!

He LOVES to play Peek-A-Boo! 

I've been playing with him for a while now but until the last week I was the one covering and uncovering our faces. Now, he totally has the hang of it! He will grab whatever is handy (blanket, t-shirt, table cloth) pull it up over his face and wait for you to say "Where's Harrison" before he will take it down. It's hilarious! I just love seeing how much he is learning and developing each day! It seems like every day holds a new skill, sound or word. This little boy sure is growing up fast!

Friday's Top 5

Here are the top 5 Mommy must haves at my house this month!
5) Amber necklace to help sooth Harrison's teething pain.

4) Wooden toys.

We LOVE the Imaginarium wooden toys. Right now, Harrison's favorite is the 5 sided activity center. It has gears to turn, beads to slide, insects to slide along the tracks and little circles to spin.
3) Blocks.

We have so many different sets of blocks in this house! There are wooden blocks, plastic Mega Blocks, fabric blocks, foam blocks, and Fisher Price Little People Blocks. Harrison loves to spread them out all over the house! I've been trying to get him to stack the blocks, but it's not happening! I'll stack a few and try to get him to add to the stack but he just takes the blocks off of the stack instead. Oh well, we will keep working on this skill ;)
2) Water toys.

We spend lots of time outside playing in Harrison's little pool and on his Splash Mat. What an awesome way to spend hot summer afternoons!
1) Baby Einsteins First Words Book

This book is full of fun colorful pictures to help your little one learn to identify objects. We work on the same two pictures on each page every day. Once I think he has these words down (which will be a while) I'll pick two new words to work on. Harrison loves this book! He crawls around in the floor dragging it with him and will sit and open and shut the book and just laugh! It's too sweet!

Shhhh!

We are making something for Daddy! Don't tell him :)

Teething Trials

Our little Harrison has been teething lately. As I mentioned in the 9 month update, it hasn't been easy.  In our house it has equated to a grumpy, leg clinging, occasional all out wailing, restless sleeping, needing to be held baby.
Overall, I just feel really bad for my little monkey. I have had toothaches before and I remember how painful they can be. I have been trying to find ways to help relieve his pain without giving too much medicine. I will give him some Tylenol about once a day maybe twice( if he is having a wailing moment around 3 am) but other than that, we have steered away from most medications. I asked our pediatrician about the Highlands teething tablets and Baby Orajel at our 6 month check up and again yesterday at our 9 month check up. He stressed the fact that Orajel is a local anesthetic and needed to be used sparingly and only on the specific spot where the tooth was coming in. He also informed me that the teething tablets are not approved by the FDA, although he had never had any patients have any side effects from using them.
I tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to Harrison, and not feeling comfortable using these products, we have avoided them all together.
That being said we have been on the search for alternative options to help relieve his teething pain.
Our biggest struggle has been that no matter what we give him to chew on; cold veggies, frozen berries, frozen waffles (his favorite right now), popsicles,teething rings, etc he looses interest fairly quickly. He will chew on whatever it is for maybe 5 minutes and then he is done.
The search for something to give him longer lasting relief led me to these

amber teething necklaces.

I had seen a few babies wearing these necklaces before so I took some time to read about them on the internet, ask fellow mommas their opinions and in the end decided that it would be worth a shot.

Harrison has been wearing his for a week today.

 I can't decide if it is helping yet or not. I think his overall mood has improved, but he still has some all-out-wailing moments and frequently has his little fingers in his mouth chomping away.
At least it's cute

(I thought this picture was way too funny not to include in this post!)

If any of you other mommas out there have found anything that works miracles for long lasting relief- feel free to let me in on the secret! We are willing to give just about anything a shot ;)

9 Months!

Oh, how he is changing!

1 Day old

1 Month Old

2 Months Old

3 Months Old

4 Months Old

5 Months Old

6 Months Old

7 Months Old

8 Months Old

9 Months Old

Whats new at 9?

In the past month Harrison's biggest accomplishment has been beginning and perfecting crawling!

He is all over the place now!

This is the most common view around the house now, Harrison's little behind cruising around :)

He loves being on the go!

He is still working on getting more teeth, which has not been an easy task for any of us.

We've tried just about all the teething tricks know to man! So far, what he seems to find the most relief/distraction from are.....

Popsicles

and frozen carrots ;)

He loves drinking from a straw! (I am almost positive he was doing this at 8 months and I just forgot to add it last time)

He is starting to eat more table foods.( I'm not sure what all he should be eating, but he usually gets a little bit of whatever we are having for dinner!) He loves to eat like a big boy, by using his hands to feed himself, and is getting more and more frustrated with Mommy trying to feed him with the spoon.

He says "Dada" "Mama" and "Nah"-I'm pretty sure this is him trying to say "No"!We are still working on "Hi" and "bye-bye".

He loves splashing in the water in his little pool

and playing with his toys.

He is pulling up to stand and taking a few steps while holding on to things now as well! 

He has grown, changed and learned so much since last month and

I am so excited to see all the new this next month will hold :)