Happenings are Happening

I am busy all the time cause I have this squishy thing that needs constant attention, sometimes even when he's sleeping.  But it's not a real kind of busy.  Or, rather, not the kind of busy I was used to before I lost my job and popped out a Sammy.  But not this week.  This week is a good old fashioned busy.  

Today Sam and I ventured out into the world to attend Babies with Books at the Library one town over.  (Our library doesn't do children's programs because our community is so wee.)  Babies with Books was 10 kinds of awesome!  30 minutes of babies staring at babies, singing little songs, reading board books, parachute play time for the walking babies, bubble blowing, and more!  Sam loved it.  He was mesmerized.  He made friends with the two little girls sitting closest to us.  He smiled and watched with huge eyes and didn't make a single peep of noise because he was too busy having his mind blown.  Then he was so worn out from that 30 minutes of group play that he passed out the second his car seat clicked into place.  Car wasn't even started yet.  I guess I know what we'll be doing on Monday mornings from now on.

The rest of this week continues the busy since I have family in town from Illinois.  So for 3 days we are going to cram as much baby visit time as we can down their throats.  Hell, Morgan is even taking a day off work so he can show off his lumpkin to my family.  That, my friends, is the cute.

Then Saturday is a "Family Day" with Morgan's friends.  This means all the boys and girls of Windsor will be gathering for a little BBQ and lakeside play time.  Which means Sam will be introduced to swimming.  Not sure how that's going to go.  He enjoys his baths now, but that's warm water.  Not sure how he's going to feel about the biggest bathtub of cold water he has ever seen + fish.  I'll let you know.  Hopefully with pictures.

And all of this on top of this past weekend when I was solo parenting due to Morgan camping with the boys!  Translation - I'm tired.  Tired, but happy to be busy.

Sweet Baby Lumpkin

5 Months & Something Helpful

Yup, almost half a year old!  Lets hop right to it.

Stuffs He Do
Eats 5.5 ounces every 3-4 hours
Eats baby food mixed with rice cereal once a day, hates peas
Sleeps like a champ just like before
Has discovered we have cats, realllllllly likes the cats
Toes have found their way to mouth
Loves tummy time now
Is trying to figure out how to get his legs up under himself
Will push against something with his feet to scoot around
Gas.  Farts.  Man sized farts.
Everything goes into his mouth

He continues to be a good and happy boy.  Pretending that his legs are cannons and jerking them back while yelling "BOOM!" is a source of great pleasure for him.  We could do this for hours and he would squeal with laughter and pure squirmy baby joy.  The only thing he loves more than gun play is his daddy.  Yes, the world revolves around daddy.

Now for the "Something Helpful".  Today was our initial assessment with the MD Infants and Toddlers program.  They came to our house to observe Sam and determine how severe his Torticollis is.  Torticollis is essentially tight neck muscles.  The muscles on the left side of Sam's neck are very tight, causing him to not like to look to the right and to hold his head at a slight angle when upright.  It has also caused some flattening to the back of his head on the left side.  Sam's case is minor, but it's still something that needs to be addressed.  So from now on a physical therapist will be coming to our house twice a month to track his progress and show me exercises to do with him which will help correct his issues.  And this is all free.  It's not even done through health insurance.  It's just a free service.  Awesome.

According to them he is trending along the 6 month mark for social skills and 4 months for physical development due to his Torticollis.  They gave me my homework assignment of new things to do with Sam which all make total sense and I can't believe I didn't think of a few of them on my own.  Duh.  But then I guess that's what they're there for.

So here we are, truckin' along and going strong!  And of course, here's his 5 month owl photos!

"I must cover my shame!"

Photos of my Squishy

"Mom, you're so weird"

"Got your nose!  Pull down your shirt!  Haha!"

"Whoa.  Grandpa has some long hair!"

"I hate peas."

"Momma gave me mohawk!"

"honk-shu,  honk-shu"

"This mine.  My squish.  Mine."

This Means Something

Look at that goofy child.  This picture cracks me up.  Ugh.  It kills me how much I love him.

Now take a look at that little hippo shirt.  It's from Gymboree.  It's the first piece of baby clothing that I ever bought.  I was shopping with a friend after we had met for dinner and stumbled upon this adorable little hippo onesie on a clearance rack.  I had to have it.  It was only a few dollars.  It HAD to be mine.  "What if you have a girl?" my friend asked.  It didn't matter.  If I had a girl she would proudly wear an orange hippo shirt cause HELLO cute hippo shirt!  So I bought it thinking that in no time I would be pregnant and before you know it my baby would be wearing it.  I bought this little orange hippo onesie in 2009.  Which means today I has a happy!

Wordless Wednesday, almost

(It's Wednesday, right?  I've lost track)

At MIL's apartment, senior photo of hubby on wall, same expression, cracks me up

Tummy time encouragement means books

Daddy working from home, teaching baby about spreadsheets

Happy 4th of July!

My grandmother, Sam's Gg-ma, has a great garden surrounding her house.  In this garden are stepping stones made by the family.  On her 70th birthday in 2000 we all got together and made these stones.  One stone for every child, child of that child, spouse of those children, and children of those children and their spouses.  Lots of stones.

A couple weekends ago we made Sam's garden stone to give to Gg-ma on her 82nd birthday.  He liked the squish factor of the cement, but other than that was confused as to why he was naked and being smooshed into cold wet crud.

Today we gave her the stone at the Independence Day BBQ.  She was thrilled!  Loved it!  Found a place for the newest stone immediately.  Has already started planning how she is going to rearrange all of the stones into new family groupings in the various garden plots across her property.  But for now Sam's stone is lovingly placed next to mine.

Now to get on the ball and make one for her from Morgan.  Before she has to rearrange all her gardens again.  Mehe.

We Survived!

Friday night a news flash popped up on the tv warning that a severe thunderstorm was headed our way.  We looked at the weather radar channel then shrugged it off and went to bed.  10:30pm that night one of the most impressive storms I have ever seen rolled through.  Thankfully, Sam slept right through it.  But it wasn't long till we lost power.  In the middle of a heat wave we lost power.  I didn't care much because it was night time and figured it would be back up within an hour or so like usual.  Morgan, the air conditioning slave, set into immediate panic mode.

Turns out Morgan was right.  Two days, y'all.  Two days without power.  If you want to get exact about it, 46 1/2 hours without power.  No ac, no fans, nothing.  Not even a slight breeze was provided by mother nature once the storms had left that night.  Just hot, stagnant air.

Saturday we spent all day hanging out at the mall soaking up the ac and searching out power outlets to charge our cell phones.  Sam was such a good and patient little baby.  We considered getting a hotel room for the night, but quickly discovered they were all booked solid.  So we headed home to sleep for the night thinking with the windows open the cooler night air would cool off the house and it would be fine.  WRONG.  No breeze, remember.  No breeze means no movement of air from outside to inside.  Ugh.  What a miserable night.  It was so hot Sam didn't even want to eat.

Sunday, not wanting to walk endless laps around a mall again, we headed to Hagerstown and crashed at my mom's house.  She wasn't home.  We broke into her house (I forgot my keys) and spent all day there waiting for word to be released saying our power was back on.  At 8pm we gave up on that plan and I sent Morgan to our house to collect a few things we needed if we were going to be spending the night at my mom's.  While he was at our house the power popped back on and he could hear the neighbors screaming with happiness.  I would have been screaming too had I been there.  We still spent the night at my mom's, but packed things up and left first thing the next morning to happily return to our now air conditioned house.

But we survived what they are already calling "Storm 2012" on the news stations here.  It was uncomfortable, but at least we have our power back, thousands are still waiting.

Playing footsie at Grandma's house.

Washing off the stink of our Storm 2012 adventure.