7 Months

What a month this has been!

Seven Months Old

It started with daddy's first trip away and Colin's first major illness and ER visit (Croup).  The croup resolved and Colin's better, but we haven't fully recuperated from his sleep setback.  Colin is up at least once a night.

This month Colin also got his first teeth!  I've been trying to photograph them, but it's not easy!

Teeth!

We were also back to Vegas to visit Grandma & Grandpa and Colin's first boating adventure.  Colin is proving himself to be quite the water baby.  He loves splashing around in the water.

Another big milestone this month was significantly increased mobility!  Colin wants to be on the move non-stop.  Crawling, standing, pulling, climbing... even in his sleep he's all over the crib!  His latest move is holding onto the sofa and pulling himself along it to reach a goal (usually a cell phone.)

Colin got to play with friends this month.

And he had several 'big boy' moments.  Like sitting in his first restaurant high chair and his first ride in the grocery store cart!

Don't grow up too fast, my little man!  

Traveling with the baby

Traveling with baby isn't easy.  Colin has a LOT of stuff.  I had lots and lots of lists in an attempt to not forget anything critical.  I even had a 'master' list of all of my lists to make sure I didn't forget one.

Seriously... lists.

Look at all that stuff!  AND we remembered the baby.

Middle of Nowhere

Puppy got stuck on the ground. Bummer.

Driving across the Mojave Desert with a baby is a bit unnerving.  As we pulled out of Barstow I though, "I hope he's alright until Baker..." because there is pretty much nowhere to stop in between.  Luckily, he did fine, much better than last time.  On the way home he slept almost the entire time!  

During our trip, Colin decided to try some driving for himself!

One thing is certain, this boy is going to keep me on my toes!

Father's Day

We are so lucky.  We have the greatest daddy.  I knew Gavin would be a great dad, but he still amazes me with his love, compassion and involvement.  We spent this special father's day in Vegas. 

Hey look dad, two cards!

Helping Dad with his present

Grandpa and his special hand/foot mug

Just like my dad, down to my crazy hair!

Thank you to our daddy.  Thank you for all of the daddies.  It's a full load taking care of babies and mommies! The last half year has been filled with so many moments of Gavin knowing exactly when and how to help me.  The first few days home from the hospital, when I was still figuring out how to feed the baby, he feed me and made sure I always had water within reach.  I never have to ask him to take care of the baby and if I need a break, he knows before I do and he's there before I realize it.  

We love you daddy!

He's on a Boat!

Colin had his fist boat outing on Lake Mead!

Colin liked it!  So far he's loved almost everything associated with the water.  We only spent a few hours out, but by the end he was exhausted! Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for a fun first boat adventure!

Back up your stuff!!!

We had a hard drive failure.

Today we determined it's unrecoverable.

I'm usually pretty decent about backing my stuff up.  But some of my routine tasks got a bit behind in the hectic world of living with an infant, sadly this was one of them.

I am crazy about my pictures though and almost all of my picture of Colin are safe.  So this is a reminder.  BACK UP YOUR STUFF!!

In the hectic task of recovering/recreating as much as we can, I found lots of fun old pictures and things.  Like this picture of my husband, which reminded me of a post I'd always meant to write:

Gavin hard at work.

Gavin and I took several semester's of ceramics at our local community college together.  It was so much fun.  We would laugh and talk and spend hours at the wheel creating.  Before our wedding, we decided it would be so much fun to make our center pieces.  We wanted to cluster small vases together and decided it would make a meaningful favor for our guests.

Center pieces

In the end, we made almost 200 vases together.  It was such a fun time, hanging out, making a mess and making memories.

Vases in Progress

On the wheel

In the end, not all of them were perfect, and I'm sure there are more lovely center pieces you could purchase, but it was so special for us.  Plus, our florist did a fantastic job with my less than thorough instructions of "Put some flowers in these vases we made."

It's also really cool when we see them pop up in our friends and family homes.

This picture (stolen and used completely without permission, sorry Nathalie!) made me smile.

 

 

In conclusion, back up your stuff.  If you have a super simple and reliable method of backup, please let me know!!

 

 

Brag, Beat, Variance

WSOP time is upon us once again and in honor:

Brag: I have a wonderful baby boy and hugely supportive awesomely involved husband.  Beat: My husband is in Vegas playing the WSOP while said baby is suffering his first major illness.  Variance: I've swallowed my parenting pride and learned it's okay vital to ask for help.

Apologies to the poker community if I messed that up. :)

As is summarized above, we had an unfortunate first this week: Colin's first ER visit.  He started seeming unwell mid last week, but Friday night he woke up wheezing and having difficulty breathing.  After calming him down and calling the doctor, we were on our way to the ER.

Colin finally asleep at the ER

 Colin has Croup.  Apparently it's somewhat common, but terrifying.  My pediatrician told me it's the only thing he's ever taken his children to the ER for.  The ER visit was awful, but I can't imagine it could be anything but at 2 am on a Friday night.  It took four hours and of course there was an extremely intoxicated patient in the waiting room.  The past two nights have been hell.  In the middle of the croup, Colin cut his first two teeth.  And while it might be related to teething, he may be starting a growth spurt judging by his sudden increase in milk demand.  Talk about the perfect storm.

It's been the hardest few days we've had since those first difficult days in NICU.  I'm incredibly grateful my mom was here to help me, I don't know how I would have done it alone.  I'm also very lucky that when I thought about what would happen if I were alone, a long list of people I could call for help came to mind.  Parenting is hard, maybe even impossible alone.  I'm so grateful I have so many people around me to help.

Baby is currently napping and I'm hoping he's feeling better soon.  Daddy is due home after his current tournament.