Crazy Socks & Writer's Block

Aaron has learned to sort of feed himself with a spoon, but he still refuses to hold his own bottle. Except when he's finished with the bottle. Then he absolutely wants to hold it and play with it. I've been told not to hold it for him and make him hold it himself, but he just won't. He's a stubborn boy and honestly, he's not going to be drinking bottles for his whole life. If he doesn't want to hold them right now, that's okay.  Now, I really do wish that he would hold it when we were at the grocery store and he was hungry so I started feeding him while he was sitting in the cart, but then when we were checking out they had to take the cart so I had to hold him in my arms while standing, while feeding him. Then they loaded the groceries in his seat so I had to carry his little heavy self to the car like that, using my chin to hold his bottle in place haha! But I really love those moments of feeding him. It's one of the only times he'll snug...

After a lot of going back and forth, I decided to take a break from therapy for now. It was a really hard decision to make, but I feel like I have a lot of tools now that I didn't have before, and I was starting to run out of things to talk about. Life is always going to be hard. There are always going to be things to work through and overcome. But right now I want to practice using all of the skills that I've learned. I also had many reassurances that I can come back whenever I need to which is a relief.  I want to remember that right now I have come so far from where I was back in January. Things were so bleak back then and I was so angry and overwhelmed. Although it's painful to remember, I want to remember that there were so many days I would just cry and cry and so many nights of tears too. And now it's not like that. Life is SO much better. I am feeling more confident. I don't know what life is going to throw at me, but I know I can get through it. It mig...

My brother gave me this stuffed sloth three days before Aaron was born. Yeah, I was turning 25 but I still love stuffed animals. I still sleep with it every night :)  Well now Aaron has noticed that it exists and wants to play with it every morning. He's so stinking sweet with the sloth, which he has called Kiki twice. The only reason we can think of him naming her that is that he's trying to say kiss? Who knows. It's now named Kiki.  He's so gentle and will give her the cutest little smile with his eyes closed. And then he'll kiss her so gently and my heart just melts.  He recently discovered that she has a nose though and tries to chew on it so Kiki might have to go missing for a bit. We've tried to get him to play with safer stuffed animals but he only wants Kiki. 

These waffle blocks were my favorite as a kid. Thankfully my mom saved them and now Aaron gets to play with them too. The best part is not only are these the same blocks, but we live in the same apartment complex that I lived in as a kid too. Man, life is weird. He kept trying to take his shirt off, so we got a few quick pictures of his cute little belly. 

This last year has been one of a lot of growth and change. I'm still figuring out who I am, but with all these changes, some things have really helped.  First off, the book Good Moms Have Scary Thoughts.  It was short, sweet, had lots of pictures, and little activities to help think through sticky situations.  This book blew me away and made me feel like someone looked straight into my brain and all the scary thoughts that had popped up in those first few months. It was SO reassuring to see it there on the paper from someone I didn't know, and to have things I could do to help. I can't recommend this book enough, it is amazing. It really helped to show Sammy this book as well so he knew that I wasn't some oddity. He is a visual learner and it really helps him to read things instead of hearing them from me. Give this book to every new mom you know!  First, We Make the Beast Beautiful is SO good.  I've read a lot of books about anxiety, and this o...

My mom taught Aaron when he was little to slowly bring his forehead to hers and it's seriously the cutest thing ever. For awhile she was the only one he'd do it with. But now he LOVES to do it with his daddy. He'll just be playing on the ground and crawl near him and do it real quick.  He did it one other time with a boy at story time, but otherwise he's pretty choosy with who he does heads with. I love these two boys and their love for each other. 

Aaron is getting more obsessed with his pacifiers lately. He likes to crawl around with them and have multiple with him now. One morning I found him like this with all of them. And then I found him like this in the morning when he woke up. We heard him chatting in bed on the baby monitor and watched him playing with them, banging them together and sliding them against the crib rails. He loves those things and it melts my heart.  Sammy and Aaron went to the park one day and lost his panda while they were out. He called it a lost cause but as soon as I heard, I made us all go back to the park and find it. That Wubbanub is special to me because we got it for him after we got out of the hospital. Before that moment, I'd had a hard time really connecting with Aaron. I felt like he really didn't care if I was holding him or not and that I didn't know how to comfort him. I still felt that way in the hospital, but after getting through his first swallow study together, ...

Aaron learned to go up the stairs, and has now found a whole new world upstairs. He found the dog bed. The railings up there are great for practicing to stand.  Remi wasn't sure about him in her bed.  It's much more fun to tip the blocks over upstairs.  We have to close the doors because the whole time he tries to pull out the carbon monoxide monitor. I let him do it once thinking that it would go off and scare him and make him not want to, but it didn't. He kept pulling my moms fingers off individually and it was the cutest.  He loves opening and closing the cabinet doors and pulling out an alarm clock inside.  He just climbs over me to one side, turns around, and does it again. I love it.  And of course, he has the door stopper. They are his absolute favorite. He will crawl from room to room at home and play with them, always pulling them out of the wall.  He started chasing Remi upstairs and it was so funny to ...

After watching season 3 of Stranger Things, we really wanted to go to a fair and play old fashioned fair games. When we saw one was nearby, we attempted to go. It was in the first weekend of August and I was so nervous about the heat. Thankfully it was only 87 that day instead of 97 like it'd been all week previous. As we walked into the fair I immediately saw a kid throwing up in the bushes. So that was fun haha.  We got ourself some street tacos and fries, but honestly they weren't the best. There was this awesome girl band playing under the shade and Aaron and I settled in there while Sammy got some drinks. Aaron started clapping his hands over his ears and crying because the band was too loud. I was sad because their drummer was awesome and I wanted to listen, but we had to move. The only other picnic tables were in the sun. We ate our lunch there and then Aaron needed a bottle. I was getting worried about him because he was acting sluggish in the heat, but we didn...

We took Aaron to see some butterflies. He was very interested in them. I wore him expecting there to be tons and tons of people, but it actually wasn't that bad. He was happy to have his aunt and grandma with him. There were so many butterflies you had to be careful everywhere you stepped because they were drinking dew from the cement. It's crazy to think how little those little droplets must be! There was one area where the butterflies were the size of birds and almost landed on our heads. We got out of that area pretty quickly.  They also had fish and other bugs. Aaron loved looking at the fish.  And at grandma.  This was the face he made when he was watching the butterflies. I love his little confused expression.  One of his friends went to the pavilion and had a postcard and Aaron always tries to steal it from her. So I got him two postcards. He picked them out himself. He got one of a purple butterfly and one of a ladybug. It wa...

Aaron has started raising his arms all the time and we said yay once, and now he wants us to do it all the time. He even got mad at story time because the other mom's weren't saying it to him. It's so stinking cute and I love it.  He's also started giving us a thumbs up. 

We tried to take Aaron to get his hair cut, but it didn't happen. I expected him to sit on my lap but the stylist told us that in her experience baby's do much better when they're sitting on their dad's laps. I'd believe it. He is definitely more comfortable being grumpy with me haha!  Once the buzzer turned on, Aaron kept turning his head to look at it. We put on Baby Shark for him to try and distract him but he is way too smart. He watched the show then kept ducking his head to the side to stay away from the buzzers. We were able to get his ears done and a little bit of the rat tail he had going on the back of his neck.