Oh the things one talks about after having a child

The past few days have been a little...messy around here. Maverick has had quite the umm...errr...runs as you might say. And the hard part is not knowing exactly why. Mav has had loose stool before, but never for this long (about 2 days without change).

He hasn't had anything new to eat, so my first suspicion about food causing his diarrhea is sort of out the window. Then I thought he may have caught some sort of stomach bug, but he has never had a fever or any other symptoms. He's actually been in a pretty great mood, not really fussy.

So I'm a bit puzzled. The only other odd thing is that it currently takes him FOREVER to finish a bottle. Normally he has that thing empty in a couple shakes of a lamb's tail. But now he is all wiggly, squirmy, and even chews on the nipple more than sucking.

My last hypothesis is that he has teething diarrhea. But the actual existence of this phenomenon depends on what doctor you ask. Some say teething can cause diarrhea due to the excess saliva. Some say the two are totally unrelated.

All I know is that I have a Maverick that looks like this by the end of the night, and by morning he's gone through at least one crib sheet and a couple onesies.




Second night in a row that he falls totally asleep before getting him into his pajamas. I can change his clothes and diaper, and he still doesn't wake up!

Are there teeth in our immediate future?

Maverick is 7 months old!

What is Maverick up to these days?





-I am wearing a size 2-3 diaper
-I wear size 6-9 months clothes (more toward the 9 month, ha!)
-I haven't been officially measured, but I'm probably around 19 lbs and 28 inches tall.
-I am trying more solid foods and my favorites are butternut squash, sweet potatoes, yogurt, and any fruit. (of course)
-Haven't quite figured out the whole "grab and put in mouth" thing for food, we're still working on that...but I do like to grab toys and put them in my mouth. And I'm really good at picking up small rocks and twigs.





-My favorite things to do during the day: play with aluminum foil, play with cups that have straws, splash water in my bowl, press the buttons on my remote control, calculator, and mom's cell phone. I also really like to look in the mirror, and I still LOVE burying my face into blankets.
-When music plays, I dance to it!
-When I'm sitting I love to rock back and forth. I've learned to catch myself when I fall backwards, but still crash pretty hard when I fall forwards.
-I've kept myself on the same schedule for 4 months now. I sleep about 10 hours straight through the night, and take a couple 1 to 2 hour naps during the day.





-Even though I'm a long way from walking, I love to "practice walking" when mom holds my arms and I take a step or two.
-I make lots of noises now, and my favorite is blowing raspberries until I'm covered in spit, ha ha! I love it when my dad moves his finger over my mouth to make me say funny things.
-No official teeth yet, but you can see the outlines of my two bottom teeth ready to make their appearance soon.
-I'm still working on crawling, and I actually end up pushing myself backwards instead of forwards, ha ha!

I love my dog, but...

Our dog Belle is the awesomest dog ever. However, there isn't quite enough words to describe the amount of hair she sheds when summer arrives. It drives me crazy! I vacuum at least once, if not twice a day...and even then it still is everywhere. But it's worth it, as she is the awesomest dog ever.

I took this picture tonight after I brushed her. Keep in mind, I brush her a couple times a week right now to keep up with her coat blowing. Oi.

There are no words to describe the amount of hair she is shedding right now!



It's a good thing she is the cutest dog ever. :)

Father's Day Fun

On Sunday we celebrated Father's day with my side of the family at Sonic. Here in St. Louis there is a deal that whenever one of our Cardinals hits a home run, the Sonic Blast (like a concrete, or blizzard) is only $1.00!! (not that we wanted to take my dad on a cheap date, ha ha!)

Maverick gave his Grandpa his very own card, traced his hand in it and everything! I love this picture! :)





Maverick drooling over Grandma's shake.



As you might remember, Mav has an obsession with cups and straws. So when my dad ordered the Route 66 size strawberry lemonade, Maverick couldn't let the giant cup (as big as him!) out of his sight!




I think this is a good shot of what I think Mav will look like when he is like 6 or 7 years old...


On the way to Sonic I was so glad I had my camera. Way back in high school a project in my science class fueled my love for weather, and began my love of photography. It was a cloud spotting project in which we had to photograph different types of clouds and record various info. The weather geek that I am, I went WAY overboard on the project. My teacher kept it as an example, ha! I'm such a nerd. Anyways--this is a textbook perfect shot of a beautiful mature super cell thunderstorm. Perfect flanking line to the southwest corner and overshooting top. It's been a while since I chased storms...I miss it!

My Gerber Baby

Robbie and I don't do the "fru fru" clothes much...but he was just too irresistably cute not to take any pictures in this outfit.

What'd ya think, the next Gerber baby? :)

Dads are the Bestest!

So, I have the best dad ever. Ever! I remember as a little girl always getting so excited when my dad would walk through the front door when he got home from work. Shortly after he got home we all sat down for dinner at the table and I'm sure I gabbed my head off at the dinner table about what we my sister and I were up to that day. My poor dad had to live in a house of 4 women!



I remember this boat ride pretty vividly even though this was like 20 years ago! I was so scared I had to chew on my life jacket (which defeats the purpose of the jacket I suppose, ha ha!) It was nice to have my dad hold on to me!

I've always looked up to my dad and have always wanted to live a life that honored him and my mom. I still think he is the bestest and smartest guy out there. Seriously, there is nothing my dad can't do! Well...I still have him beat in the fishing department, ha ha!



We took the picture at an angle to make the fish look bigger. Had to cheer him up somehow, as I caught like 4 or 5 more fish than he did. :)

I really am blessed with the most awesome parents. They've given me the best example of how I can be a mommy to Maverick.




This is also an awesome day because it is Robbie's first Father's Day!!! Maverick helped me make Robbie's gift, which was a plaster impression of Mav's foot. Robbie is the most awesome dad. (okay, I know I said that about my dad...so they are tied!)



Robbie greeted Mav into the world first. This is moments after the nurses gave the okay for him to come over and see Maverick (Mav had some breathing problems at first). The nurse told Robbie, "Touch his chest and you'll feel how hard his heart is beating." So just as Robbie reached out to touch Mav's chest, Maverick reached up and grabbed Robbie's finger--and Maverick's heart rate went down. :)



It is weird for me to say something like "Robbie is so great with diaper changes and bath time" because it makes it sound like a job. He loves being a daddy and sharing his life with Maverick.







It is so much fun to watch Robbie live life with our son. :)

Hey!

"Hey! Good Morning!"
This is the face Mav makes when he wakes up in the morning.
Seriously. He is this happy.
Doesn't he realize it's early?!



Maverick is still working on the whole crawling thing. He gets up on his hands and knees and either starts rocking back and forth (only when there is music playing though), or he gets SO frustrated that he can't coordinate his knees with his arms he flops on to his belly. Although--if he is half resting on a Boppy pillow, he can crawl over that!



The other day he did another first, while on his tummy he pivoted on his belly to reach a toy.


So what does one pack in a diaper bag? Food, diapers, extra clothes, toys, and a calculator. Yep, a calculator. Maverick LOVES to press buttons. He loves his giant calculator. And if the giant calculator isn't available he loves remote controls and cell phones. Sheesh, LOL! (notice that a remote control is one of his crawling incentives in the above pictures)

(Sorry this pic is a bit blurry, but that smile is too cute!)



These last 2 pics were taken the other day when it struck me how grown up Mav looked sitting there in his high chair. It's crazy how in just 6 short months he has gone from an itty bitty helpless creature to sitting on his own, almost feeding himself, and a personality to boot. (And yes, those are ultrasound photos still hanging on our bulletin board from last year, ha ha! Those are his 22 week shots)

Another First: The Zoo!

For Maverick's first trip to the zoo, we went this past Memorial Day weekend to the STL Zoo. I think everyone and their 3rd cousin decided to go because it was PACKED! It took us 45 minutes to go from the highway to the zoo entrance, and it should only take like 3 minutes.

The trip wasn't a long one, as it was pretty hot & humid outside. Just enough to see a few animals and take Mav into the indoor exhibits. We had fun holding him up to the aquariums and tanks to see the reptiles and fish. He really couldn't see anything from the stroller anyways.



Our zoo is the BEST! I've been to zoos in other cities, and we are so fortunate to have a world class zoo that is also free. Yep--absolutely free! Well, there are some paid exhibits, but it's still cheap. For example, one really awesome exhibit is the Stingrays (and horseshoe crabs) pool. It costs $3 to sit and pet the stingrays for as long as you'd like. Sometimes you get lucky and happen to be there when it's feeding time. They don't schedule their feedings because they don't want the rays to lose interest in approaching peoples' hands.

Waiting in line to pet the rays. :)



I tried leaning Maverick over and putting his hand in the water. But he started crying--I got so excited when a stingray came over that I squished his innards on that concrete pool trying to get his arm deep enough. So he just watched after that. Ha!



This is Maverick in his safari outfit. He did really awesome the entire time. I don't know if he is just at that magical age, or what but Maverick isn't a fussy kid at all. Very easy going and easily entertained. He gets that from his mother.



They boys trying to figure out where to go next.



Just as we were about to leave, a lady said she would take our picture because it was Mav's first trip to the zoo. A lovely family photo--we're all hot and sweaty, ha ha! And someone pointed out that it looks like that little girl on the sign behind us is picking through my hair.



Maverick playing leap frog.



Ever feel like someone is watching you? Dun-dun. Dun-dun. Dun-dun.

Agh, finally!

Okay, this is just a shout out. I've been trying to update the blog for a few days but have been hitting some road blocks. I'm gonna share some pics from Mav's first trip to the zoo amongst other fun going-ons of the household in the next day or so. (Not that there is any huge rush of people reading this, ha ha! I think like 3 people read this...and it's all family...but that's okay!!!)

Everytime (like right now) I have the time to sit and write, it's usually late at night. I sit at the computer while Robbie watches tv. However, we've recently subscribed to Netflix (LOVE IT!) and now all we watch is tv and movies through Netflix which is streamed via our wi-fi. Sooooo, when I'm trying to upload photos it either takes for.ev.er. or doesn't even upload them at all AND it disrupts the Netflix connection. So I'm gonna try to catch up tomorrow afternoon while Robbie is at work. :)

Also, Blogger has been down for a bit. Something about system maintenance or whatever. I was happy to see that I could at least throw this little blurb out there.

p.s. I've been really trying to jog for about 30 minutes a day. I'm tired of clothes not fitting and still looking preggo!!! Hopefully the hard work will pay off. I'm feeling the burn!