Bloody Noses and Mother's Day

Well, Oakes was in his first fight. With a TV cart. And I'm pretty sure the TV cart won this one. Needless to say, he put up a good fight and our little Oakes was back at his furniture surfing the next day.

On a happier note, I had my first official Mother's Day! Last year, we went to Early Girl downtown with Jay and Kelly and Evan and I bought a stroller for Oakes for our Mother's Day gift. So this year I wanted to do brunch downtown again and was hoping for a good day with my boys. We ended up at Laughing Seed and then went to Lowe's to buy some flowers for me to plant. It was truly a perfect Mother's Day! And we even had a visit from Krystle and Debbie!

Next on Oakes' list of tricks? Well, let's say that his sleeping habits have improved tremendously. He still likes to stand and drop his paci on the floor then cry until we rescue him, but overall, it's really not bad. Last night was terrible though, and with all of the hand-eating he's been doing and the tooth buds coming in on his lower gums, we're really really really hoping the bad night was due to teething. I guess we'll see... :)

There goes our wonderful sleeper!

For the past month or so, Oakes has been a phenomenal sleeper. He's been going to bed sometime between 6 and 7pm with hardly a peep, and sleeping until 6am in the morning. He would only wake once or twice for either his paci to be inserted again, or because he's scooted himself into a corner. Bliss, when you think about the alternative! :)

However, our beautiful, amazing, strong boy has decided that crawling just isn't enough. For the past few days, he's only interested in crawling from point A to point B, and point B always involves a way for him to pull himself up to a standing position. He's even been surfing the edges of his pack and play, practicing the crab walk. What does this have to do with sleeping? Everything.

Now that he's realized he can pull himself up on almost anything, he's decided that when he's put in his crib, it's more for standing practice than for sleeping. So, we lay him down around 6:30 and make trip after trip into his room to rescue him from his standing position, in which he's not so sure of himself to get out of it just yet. We do this for about 40 minutes. Then I practically hold him pinned to the mattress so he realizes it's sleep time, not play time and he falls asleep. And guess what? At 5:15am, he's at it again! Joy!

So now our little booger is super sleepy and so are mom and dad - but he's moving and Mom and Dad are thrilled! :)

In other news...

He's been experimenting with more food and loving all of it! Yay! So far he's tried: avocado, sweet potato, butternut squash, carrots, peas, bananas, and pears. I'm going to buy some juice this weekend (he's been drinking his formula and also a sippy cup of water after meals) and we also have some mangoes that we're going to try out this weekend as well. I know this is the ultimate accomplishment for Evan; he's always said he wants his children to be good eaters and willing to try all foods and I think knowing how I used to be so picky, he was a bit scared they might take after mom! Good thing this was another gene Oakes got from Dad!

We had a playdate last weekend with 3 other babies. Eli (our friend from previous playdates) was there as well as Ava (we're going to her 1-year-old party this Saturday) and Myles (he's 10 months old and an incredibly active boy!). We had a good time, although Oakes was very clingy for most of it. It's quite funny to watch 4 babies of different ages interact. Oakes is so far behind the others age-wise and developmentally that he seems to be pretty laid back about his toys being taken, etc. But I have a feeling that when he's 9, 10, or 12 months old that this will change quickly! I'm very excited though, as I feel like we've now got a fun little group of moms and kids who want to get together and let the kids (and moms!) hangout.

This weekend is exciting - we have Ava's birthday party; Popi is stopping through on his way to Tennessee; and Krystle and Ms. Debbie are stopping in for a quick visit. Plus... it's Mother's Day!!!! Evan and Oakes are taking me out for brunch and I'm clueless beyond that (though I've definitely dropped some not-so-subtle hints!!!)