Outshined!

Grizzly has always attracted a lot of attention. His size, his extra furry coat and his overt freindliness catch a lot of strangers' eyes. We can walk down the street and little old ladies will come out of the house, dishtowel over their shoulder, and great Griz by name, completely ignoring his human accompaniement. And it used to be, where ever I would go, Grizzly would go, including to several stores. Now when we go out, my constant companion is, of course, Brayden. And normally, Brayden usually attracts a lot of attention; with one minor exception. Whenever Griz is with us. On walks, at Big R, where ever-Grizzly steals the show! Half of the time, no one even notices there is a baby in the stroller! Grizzly laps up the attetnion like a water starved camel and Jeremiah and I entertain Brayden off to the side while Grizzly entertains everyone else. This happens all of the time!

Other than being outshined by the dog, Brayden has had several huge days. He rolls over and over and over and can't seem to stop himself. Occasionally he forgets that he can roll back and will throw a fit until we help the little guy out. Whenever we check on him during a nap, we always find him on his tummy. We've started to get giggles out of him (no belly laughs yet, but YAY! Mommy and Daddy are funny!), and we expect himto be on hands and knees any time. That little butt is almost always in the air when he is on his tummy. And we have to be quick to keep him contained to the blankie.

Lastly, Brayden attended his first Air Force Retirement ceremony (Lt. Colonel Laurie Moore) and a promotion ceremony (to full bird colonel) for our favorite boss Colonel (s.) Dionne. He mostly slept and flirted with the girls, but when he started screeching happy noises it was time to head out. Brayden, Grizzly and I head out on Thursday, so I don't have any pictures to post this time (busy, busy) and I expect they will be scarce for a while, but I will get them up whenever I can.

BF Questions

Brayden is 4 months old and "still" breastfeeding. We have had a lot of questions lately about why we are going to breastfeed our baby "so long" (our goal is six months), even though I am back to work and it is kind of annoying to pump and wash parts and find a private plug in and all of the worries that accompany pumping. I admit, I have forgotten my pump parts several times and had to run home-good thing we live so close. Well, there are a bunch of reasons to stop, but there are a lot of reasons to continue. The most important one to us is that there have been 22 major recalls on formula (after it has already been distributed); the only recalls on breast milk are when Brayden himself throws it up, and those are not in any way, shape or form deadly. And we would like our baby to be as well prepared as possible for anything that might come his way and a more mature digestive system (even if it is only six months old) is one of the best ways to help that happen.

Here are a few other reasons, and the research that supports all of those reasons:

http://www.promom.org/101/index.html

Even if you aren't super interested, check it out. You might be surpised.

I certianly was.

Here are some cute pictures:

Inch Worm Eats Cereal...

...and meets Gamma and Pappa!

We had a wirlwind of a week, so we will start from the begining. Brayden turned himself into an inch worm on the floor whenever he was on his tummy. We had been laughing at the little butt he keeps sticking up in the air, but we were a little surprised when he dug his toes into the blanket and then pushed his chest and shoulders forward...just like a little inchworm, over and over and over. It was very cute.

Later in the week, we moved onto another adventure: cereal!

It took a couple of tries, but he is really good at opening his mouth and asking for more! And mostly he keeps it in his mouth (unless Gammah is watching and then he seems to ham it up)...which brings us to Gamma and Pappa's visit!

We kept saying we need to take pictures, we need to take pictures,

but of course we didn't take that many. If I can get more from George and Karen,

I will post those too.

We also had our going away party with the HAWC staff (sad!).

Here are a few pictures from that:

And lastly, here is Brayden's first waltz with Gamma, ON VIDEO!

Sweet Home...Minnesota!

...Lord, we're coming home to you!

That is right, we are MOVING!!! I got the job at Buffalo Hospital! Brayden and Grizzly become official Minnesota residents on June 5th.

We are so excited.

Actually, we are excited about quite a bit!

Saturday Brayden really found his voice, and it turns out-he is a BIG talker! We spent my first mother's day giggleing over his new found joy and apple cinnamon pancakes. And on Monday, Daddy's birthday, Mr. Brayden spent some time sitting up, all by himself. Of course my favorite is that he started to snuggle down into my arms tonight-he will smile and giggle and then turn his head into my chest and snuggle up as close as he can (aaawww!!) before he looks to Daddy for another funny face.

And on Friday, our little guy will meet his Gamma and Pappa! What a week!

Things have really been coming together around the move. Bailey, the mustang, has been a worry, but I am getting help administering her vaccinations myself and we are picking up her cherry red, 1975, 2 horse trailer on Sunday. Now we just need to get her feet trimmed, the house sold and a transfer for Jeremiah (which shouldn't be too hard as he was employee of the month in March-his second month there!). We are so EXCITED!

blessed

As I check on Brayden one last time tonight, and have to fight to tear my eyes away from his beautiful little face, and make my way to my warm bed, stepping over our large black breathing bear rug to snuggle up to my sweet wonderful husband, I just think how incredibly lucky I am. Even if our house never sells, if we never move, if life just stays just like it is right now, I couldn't possibly ever ask for more. And I had to write it down before I get caught up in the heartburn of selling and interviewing and references and forget again. I am so blessed and I really do feel like "His favorite".

And now we even have a doctor in the family. Congratualtions Dr. Earp!

Are you kidding me?

Today, as Brayden went down for his peaceful little nap, mommy decided to get a little peace herself and do some yoga. Five minutes into the session, the phone rings and it is the realtor. "Would you mind if the house was shown in an hour? I know you guys want a two hour notice, but they are in the neighborhood..." As I surveyed my surroundings I said "okay, but I gotta go then!" and took off like a tornado through the house. We have it down to a system now and we work from one end of the house to the other. Aren't you supposed to be able to let your house go when you have a baby for crying out loud? That is exactly what I was thinking as I was frantically tearing through the house, fluffing and folding, vaccumming and dusting, wiping windows of nose smears and wondering if the potential buyers will notice the litter box that I wasn't going to clean.

Brayden slept through most of my running and ramming around the house and woke up about 15 minutes before Griz and us two humans had to be out the door. Thank God for that mobile that keeps him happy! I loaded him up into his car seat and gently as I could, locked him in place, threw the leash in, called Grizzly, loaded him up and backed out the driveway with two seconds to spare. As I pulled over to the side of the road to catch my breath and figure out what to do with my carload, I realized Brayden was talking to Grizzly in the back. It was very cute. And almost redeemed Grizzly for the rest of his behavior. I decided Bailey needed to be fed, so as long as we were in the car, that is what we would do.

We drove out to the barn, splashing through huge puddles of melting snow (we just had no less than 17 inches of snow-happy birthday to me!). The barn area was really sloppy and Grizzly gives the horses a really hard time, so I decided he had to stay in the car. Well, if Grizzly was staying, Brayden wasn't. I picked Brayden out of his seat, wrapped his cute little self up in a blanket and opened the back door to lock Grizzly's leash in so he couldn't jump around the car. Then I left Brayden's car door open and we crossed the few muddy feet to the barn. I unlocked the barn and turned around just in time to see my 110 pound black ball of fur step into the baby's car seat and start to whine to be let out. As red filled up my field of vision, I clenched my teeth (not wanting to yell with the baby in my arms) and quietly threatend his life if he didn't get back into his part of the Xterra. I am not sure how he heard me, but he stopped whinning and got out of the teeny tiny little car seat and back into his own, much larger section of the car.

When Brayden and I were done throwing hay (Bailey was not impressed Brayden), we tearfully loaded back into the car and I checked the time...to the unmistakable sound of a diaper over filling. We had 10 minutes left before we could go back to the house. Now Brayden was really crying (who likes to sit in poop?) and Grizzly was trying to lick us as I sat in the back seat contemplating my options. We were going back to the house. I got Brayden quieted down and locked into his seat and then I put the car in gear and rolled out while I lectured my two and a half year old dog on being a good boy. Actually, I asked him why, just once, couldn't he just behave? He turned around and laid down so I couldn't see him anymore.

We passed by the house and no one was there, so we went back and pulled into the garage. Grizzly went out and I brought Brayden in, dropping my muddy, muck covered pants at the door. I grabbed clean pants and began changing the blow out on the baby, just as I heard a knock on the door. I thought: no way, you must be kidding me. Knowing that if I didn't answer the door the realtor and potential buyer would just use the lock box and open the door, I drug my half naked baby to the door and opened it. The realtor said "oh, you beat us here...we took some extra time at the last house, but we are here now." After a long pause I said "We can leave again if you want" in a tightly controlled voice (we had already been gone for an hour after rushing to get out with a 45 minute notice). The realtor looked at the potential buyer and he thankfully didn't care that we were there. As I headed off to clothe my child I told them to make themselves at home and then rushed out to calm Grizz, who was now completely nuts at the two strange men in the house, and no Jeremiah to protect me and the baby. When they finally left, they stood outside in the street (they never came out to the back yard...I wonder why?) for what seemed like an eternity, oblivious to me standing behind the curtians shaking my fist at them.

Gee, I wonder if we will get an offer?

Here are some pictures from this week (when things were much calmer).