7 Month Update/Snow Day Family Fun

Hello there! I am attempting to be better about these posts. Sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm just so busy!! Last week we had a snowpacolypse were snowed so we were at MiMi and Paw Paw's to have some fun/hangout time with them which was glorious! Here's our 7 Month Update:

Weight: Not definite on this but he's around 19.5 lbs according to our scales. Big boy!
Height: I'm not even going to pretend like I attempted to get this. Sorry, Mase!

Sleep: He has been doing MUCH better in this category (knock on wood). We are liking our new bedtime routine that consists of reading books about an hour before bedtime in the living room, bath, play time, and then tossing putting him to bed with his pacifier and bear. Sometimes he will wake up in the middle of the night but we have been letting him cry it out and within 3 - 10 minutes he's back to sleep.

Feeding: I seriously cannot keep enough food in this kid. He eats all.the.time. He usually has a bottle in the morning when he first wakes up around 7:30 - 8:00 am, cereal around 9:00 am, lunch around 1:30 pm, snack time in the afternoon, dinner at 6:30 pm and a nighttime 4 ounces of formula right before bed. He may or may not have an morning or afternoon 6 ounces of formula. Lunch and dinner consist of a big jar of veggies or fruit mixed with cereal since the jar alone will not fill him up. Seriously, it's like he's starving all the time!

Firsts this month: We are finally crawling!! It's more of an army crawl but, hey, it works! Pulling up on the ottoman or couches, running/galloping in his walker. He has tried a bunch of new vegetables and fruits which he seems to like. I guess dislocating his shoulder counts as a first and hopefully last for Mommy and Mason. A bunch more I just can't think of them.

Developments: I always feel like this should be with firsts for some reason!We are cutting a third tooth at the moment. And along with that tooth comes the attitude/tantrums/diva meltdowns/crankiness. Every day is a new day for him - especially if we're going outside. It always amazes me that he just looks around like it's the first time seeing a swing or a fan. They say at this point he's starting to really pay attention and focus on details. He is now sitting up by himself for long periods of time. Home boy is on the go constantly now! We have trouble getting him motivated to get there, but once we find said motivation, he is OFF! We are in serious trouble when he starts walking! They also say that he is starting to "categorize" things. So he is starting to know the difference between a dog and a horse - unless he's looking at my parent's neighbors dog, Pinto, (a Newfoundland) which I'm pretty sure we confused the crap out of Mase since Pinto could technically fit in the "horse" category - and a spotted cat is not a cow. He's now able to pick up on the meaning of some words. Our favorite one lately has been "no." They also say that he can "really exaggerate his moods" right now. I definitely know that he is well-developed in this stage.

Likes: baths; sweet potatoes; winter squash; Mommy's phone that he can't play with; anything that we say "no" to; crawling; clapping on someone's hand; standing; squealing; having noises repeated back to him; peek-a-boo; I know there's more I just can't think of any right now. I do know that his new favorite thing is to "wave" at someone. He does this all.the.time. Like yesterday, he was pitching a temper tantrum in his high chair with his head thrown back looking at the ceiling and his arm up in the air like he was waving to the ceiling all while screaming. Kid can multitask if nothing else. It would've been cute if he hadn't been so cranky all.day.long.

Dislikes: teething. I'm pretty sure Mommy and Daddy despise this one too! He doesn't like reading books either. It is torture at storytime almost every night because he does not want to look at the book or he wants to move around and not sit still. Everything in the room can be off and nobody will be talking and he just can't stand it. He wants to crawl or move around or sometimes he just screams. This makes me so sad because I LOVE reading! I mean, my husband has to put me on a book allowance so I don't spend all of our money on purchasing books. Why Mason, why?! Needless to say Mommy wins the nightly battle because we are NOT giving up story time!

What I'm thankful for: Ms. Dawn. Serious baby-whisperer/baby saint. She is always giving us helpful tips for us to try with Mase. I am a true believer that if it wasn't for her baby tips, we would be down 1 parent due to insanity. And that is no joke! It is also so nice knowing that your child is safe and happy while you are working. And if Mase could talk, he would probably say he likes her over us any day, ha!

He LOVES playing with Ms. Dawn! 

I also need to give a big shout out to the parents/grandparents. We seriously have the greatest parents ever. They are always so willing to help us out when we need it. Whether it's watching Mason to give us a break, taking us out to dinner, supporting us, giving us advice even if we don't want to hear it, helping us fix up our house, or just helping us in general. We couldn't have kept our sanity without their assistance. We love you Mi Mi, Grandma Debbie, Paw Paw & Pop Pops!

What I'm looking forward to: We have SO much coming up! A big weekend getaway with the Kellers this weekend at the cabin that I am so excited about! Then next weekend I am help planning a baby shower for one of my besties. The next weekend I'm in Texas to party like I'm not a mother for my other besties bachelorette party - WOOT WOOT!! And then the NEXT weekend my godbrother, Jason, is getting married to one of the best ladies I've ever met, Becca!Then I get to be certified for yoga, another bach party in Florida, a wedding in Texas, another baby shower for cousin Christie, a HUGE Easter Egg Hunt at work, and then another wedding! SO MUCH ROOM FOR ACTIVITIES AND I CAN'T WAIT!!! I have a feeling I'm going to go over my allowance... Sorry, Joshy!!

Here is what we've been up to since we last met:

This is what happens when parents get bored

As most of you know, we had a TON of snow for Charlotte last week. Here are a couple of pics that I took from that:

He wasn't real sure of this "snow" stuff

Joshy will kill me when he finds out I posted this, but it was too hilarious not to! Someone (not mentioning any names... *cough cough Joshy*!) thought it would be a good idea to take a running start and dive onto a sled head first and then sled down the hill. I KNEW it was a bad idea and even said "I really need to record this" right before ^ this happened. AND IT WAS SO FUNNY!!! I was in a little bit of trouble because I was laughing too hard to ask if he was okay. But really, what made him think this was a good idea?!?! I am kicking myself for not recording it! 

We wanted to build a snowman so we left Mase on his sled  to supervise us! 

"Put it over there Paw Paw"

Someone got bored

Trying to help us build a snowman!

Family Pic - Take 1 - a certain freckle-faced-big-butt was in the way! Get outta the way Dundee Elizabeth!! 

Why am I always the one that gets taken out??

A little Mommy & Mase sledding!

MiMi & Mase snuggles - MiMi is so funny!

Temper!!

And then he's fine.... 

Well friends, I am off here. I hope everyone has a great day! I'll report back next week ;-)

Worst Mother of the Year

This morning started off great. I was having my first FULL class at work so we were heading out early so I could make sure there was plenty of time to finish setting up for my program. I was actually early in dropping off Mase at Ms. Dawns. How could this day go wrong???

Since I was so early, I stayed to talk to Ms. Dawn for a few minutes. This was where I went wrong. I should have just gone straight to work. Instead, I had to feel confident that nothing was going to happen and the day would run smoothly. WRONG. While I was talking to Dawn, I was rolling Mase over and over again in my arms. As I was rolling him over, I saw that his arm was about to get stuck behind his back. But before I could get his arm, he finished rolling over. During said "rollover" I heard a POP. As soon as I heard it I knew what had happened. I grabbed him up to face me and that's when it was confirmed. I dislocated his arm. When he was rolling, that pop was his arm coming out of his socket. His arm was now laying limp against his side. I tried to see if he could move it and he started screaming in pain. He couldn't move it at all. It was limp. Seriously, FREAKING OUT!! Ms. Dawn has actually seen this happen several times in the past with other children so she confirmed that it was definitely out of the socket. STILL FREAKING OUT!!! The normal thing would be to call the doctors, right? Well, of course! The only problem with that is I had left my phone at work the previous night. I quickly looked up the phone number online, called the doctor's office from Ms. Dawns phone, and got an appointment for an hour later. Meanwhile, M is crying and looking freaked out because he couldn't move his arm. I'm pretty sure that I wasn't helping at all because while I wasn't crying, I was on the verge of losing it at any moment.

Per the nurse's instructions, we got M settled with a bottle and tried keeping him comfortable. While he was eating, I decided to run back to work (about 5 minutes away) to call my boss and let Josh know what was going on. I'm glad that Josh didn't answer when I got there because I would have lost it at that point. When I got off the phone I noticed I had a couple of missed texts from Ms. Dawn. She said that he was fine! While having his bottle, she kind of put pressure on his arm and then set him down on the ground. He then rolled over and we're assuming popped it back in himself during that rollover because the next thing we knew he was up in the crawling position attempting to crawl. After calling and talking to Dawn and confirming that his arm was back to normal I called the nurse back. At this point there's nothing they can do if he's perfectly fine so it was pointless to keep my appointment. The nurse was like, "do you think you were overreacting?" No you idiot, his arm was dangling at his freaking side!! I told her that it was definitely dangling at his side and he was in pain when we tried to move it. She said that this type of injury is actually very common in infants and if his arm currently seems normal that means he must have popped it back in when rolling over. Who still feels like the worst mother in the world??? ME!!

Up until this point, I had only heard of one person that this has happened to. Their situation happened because they pulled the child up by the arms and it popped out. That's why you're never supposed to swing them by their arms or pull them up by the arms when they're infants. It did make me feel better that it is a very common injury but not so much that it didn't scare the crap out of me and I felt like the worst mother in the universe.

When I finally got in touch with Josh and filled him in, want to know his first reaction? Here is how our convo went:
Josh: "I have a serious question.... Which arm was it?" <-- (hinting at left or right. He's been obsessed with M being a lefty because we all know that lefty's make more $$$)
Me: "You're going to be mad..."
Josh: "Da#n it babe!"

Really??? It was my father's first reaction too, he just knew better than to ask that question!


Luckily, the rest of the day was a success. I had to give Mase extra snuggles to make him feel better. The next day we went to visit my newest nephew, Craft Robinson Baum or Squishy as I call him. Coming in hot at 9 lbs 5 ounces and 22 inches long. Home boy was HUGE! I was SO excited that we got to play with him. Here are some pics from our short time in Raleigh:

The next few are from Stephanie Aldridge Photography, if you are in the Raleigh area and you need photos, she is AWESOME!!

We didn't want to stay too long in Raleigh because we know that they were going to have tons of visitors so after spending some time up there we headed back down to stay the weekend in Hickory with Joshy's parents. Saturday morning Deb and I went to pick up Mase some new jeans since he has grown out of all his other ones. Here's a couple of pics from our day:

Snuggles with the birthday boy. He will never admit it openly, but Joshy loves it when his little guy falls asleep on him! 

Mase with cousin Mackenzie 

Saturday was Joshy's bday so we decided to go out with some friends to celebrate. We love our little guy to pieces but we also like some adult time as well! Here are a couple of pics from our night out with Jenny G, Tom, Erica, and Bekah: 

 

Joshy with Beky & Jenny

LOVE my Erica!

The next morning we got up to visit a little while longer before meeting up for lunch with Aunt Beky, Aunt Jenny, & Uncle Tom: 

Mase with Aunt Beky

We had a BLAST this weekend! Even though we got off to a rough start, it ended up being great. Here are some other things that have been going on lately:

Ready for our snow day!

This was Mase helping Mommy pack. Which really meant that he was pulling down my entire closet!

"Hey Mommy!"

"Share the covers, Daddy!"

Ready for my snow day!! 

I hope everyone has a fun and safe snow day!! We'll be back soon with the 7 Month Update!