40 weeks of Fabulous!

Dear Baby Monster,

40 weeks old this week! Wow! Can you believe we made it this far??? I would have wrote sooner, but as you may already know, we have not had much sleep this week. So what's up with that Kiddo?? Were you to upset about the finale of LOST to sleep too? We were doing (sort of) good for a while...then the (Godforsaken) dramatic downturn. Ugh. Sleeping in the crib seems to be a thing of the past these days. You gave it a good few weeks - and Mommy gave it her all to keep you in the "baby cage", but lately you just are not having it! Oh well, we tried, back to the drawing board, back to the Mommy, the sleep hostage.

I must say the all - new "mobile Monster" is quite the handful! I do love how you can keep your self (somewhat) occupied these days, but you went from barely getting on your hands and knees to getting across the room in no time! You are into everything now. To my dismay I turned around yesterday only to find you now able to pull up on the furniture and stand on your own - and then this morning was the worst: You finally discovered the wonderful world of the staircase on your own! Ugh! Thank goodness you cannot get up them yet!      Y E T! Nothing is safe anymore! I think there is  a magnetic attraction between you and electrical outlets, the stairs and the dogs' water bowls. I don't know what it is  - but none can have a good outcome. Even with all my research into baby food, organics, and what makes the best diet for you, who would of thought your first meat (ugh..) would be Prada's Meaty Bones??? It was only a matter of time I guess....At least your teeth will be clean - if you ever get them!

Well the sign language has not caught on yet. No teeth have come in yet. But I'll be darned if you don't say "DADA" like a champ all day long! Sigh! Oh Baby Monster you're killing me here!! We had your 9 month check up last week and the Dr. says you're right on target. I asked him about your lack of sleep, to which he replied, "oh...that sucks". I am sure he meant that in a purely scientific and medical way. I couldn't have figured out on my own that my 9 month old NOT sleeping more than 4 hours a night "sucks". Good thing he wasted 12 years on medical school for that.

In other news, Memorial Day is upon us, the official start of summer is here. Uh oh. Next week we are supposed to break into the triple digit temps. Hopefully we will keep the trend going as one of the coolest years to date (in Vegas, at least!)

You came up with a new trick this week. You learned that if you drop the Cheerios one by one on hte floor the dogs will hang out next to you and eat them up! Personally I love when you feed me the Cheerios but Prada really loves this game! HE is not too keen on watermelon though - but you are! Maybe Mommy will come up with a big watermelon cake for your 1st Birthday! I bet you would like that - only if you could eat it off the floor of course. 

Last weekend Uncle Ronnie, Daddy, you and Me had a great time hanging out at the VEnetian while Mommy tried out for Wheel of Fortune. Last Night we got the good word that we made it to the final auditions in June! HOORAY!!! Hopefully we could put a cool $100,000 in the bank and save it for a rainy day! Keep your fingers crossed! Hopefully you are my good luck charm(er)!

Well kiddo as I type this you are sitting under the kitchen table stacking up the hundreds of Cheerios you have dropped and hanging out with your buddy Super Why (you're also chewing on my flip flop, but we will forget that I hope). As  content as you are, I can smell you all the way up here. Time for the dreaded diapee change....if only I had the extra 3 sets of hands to make it an easy one!

I love you Sir Monster I

Love, Mommy

9 Months of Monster!

Dear I,
Happy 9 months of life baby Monster Boy! Today you are officially 39 weeks old, which means you have been "out" as long as you were "in"! So I guess starting tomorrow, this life on the outside will be an old hat to you - you're such a big boy now! Now if we could just master the sleeping thing....
I have to tell you, the month of May has brought about so many changes in you! All of a sudden you are a pro sitter, crawler, pincher, and one heck of a tantrum thrower (we will be working on the latter two in a hurry!). Everyday you have a new trick  - and a new test - for me!

For the past four nights I have been testing the waters out and putting you to sleep in the 'crib'. It has become nearly impossible to lay you down on the bed anymore without the fear of you crawling off. So far you have adjusted to the Babybox naptime  rather well, but we are 1 for 4 in sleeping thru the night on your own.    When I say "on your own" it should be noted that I mean "you lay in the crib while mommy hovers over the top holding your hands so you think I am actually lying in the crib next to you". It is an interesting sight to see and one hell of an upper body workout. It just takes FOREVER to get you to fall asleep "on your own". Once I lay you down, you toss and turn and cry for nearly 90 minutes each night. You are so tired  you can barely sit up with out toppling over ( I must admit, I laugh every time you do that), but you just will not fall asleep without (one hell of) a fight! I will keep trying I suppose. It is either this way or one night Mommy is going to end up in the crib with you!
Your appetite has also increased over the past few weeks. You are a Cheerios champ these days, but watermelon still takes the cake! Even when you see it in the grocery store your face lights up and you get all excited. It is absolutely adorable - even if it means the entire kitchen get covered in watermelon stickiness!

Something new this week has been your crazy aversion to the car and the car seat. I can tell you now kiddo, this is not going to work out in your favor. For some reason every time I put you in the car lately you FREAK OUT!! I am not sure why, but I am hoping this goes away quickly  - it makes for a LONG car ride wherever we go, and the hotter it gets the more miserable those tantrums are going to get! Maybe you are just upset that Zorro has to sit in the back of the car and not next to you? Hmmm...

Well Sir-9-month-old-monster, it is getting close to your wake up time. I can almost feel your shrilly scream coming on. Sometimes I like to humor myself and think that I will just check on you and you will be playing peacefully in your crib waiting for me to come and get you.  A mommy can dream can't she?
Happy 9 months of life on the outside kiddo! I love you very much.
Love Mommy

Happy Mother's day!

Dear I,

Happy Mother's day to me! Whew!!! It took me 32 years to figure out how much work goes into getting a Mother's day card! This year more than any, I can appreciate how much work your Noni and Grandma have put in to getting me and your daddy to where we are today! THANK YOU doesnt even seem to be nearly enough for them! Mommy is just working on 9 months of Mommyhood...they are working on 40 years of hard work! Even though we cant thank them enough, this year we can appreciate them more than we EVER could have imagined! We love you Moms....(and Noni & Grandma)!
Motherhood is a funny thing. It is a lifelong commitment and a thankless job. You can never prepare enough for it. No one gets a perfect score and the mistakes often make the greatest teachers. No one can really appreciate all the work a mother does until they have children of their own and by then many many (hopefully) years have passed. The sleepless nights, the school lunches, the waiting up late all gets taken for granted until you experience it for yourself - then a simple "thank you" doesn't even begin to touch the tip of the surface on how much your mother has put into you. As Mothers we are expected to raise our children the best  ways we know how...and after a few short years into it we have to let you go into the world on their own and see how we (as moms) did.  We know from the day the doctor places you in our hands for the first time that someday (soon) we will have to let you go.  But we gladly do it anyway. A thankless job indeed. But the most satisfying, challenging, inspiring, and courageous job any woman can take on. So Happy Mother's day to all us who enlisted....and many more to follow.
 In other news, the past 2 weeks we have seen you change by leaps and bounds! You can now sit up all by yourself and are in the early stages of crawling - or as you do - some weird kind of sit-and-spin-thing across the floor. Either way you can cover the entire room in minutes. By the time you get from one end to the other you look like a doggie with all their hair all over you! It is definitely time to start baby proofing! No more rawhide on the floor these days! Im sure you don't need that until your teeth come in!
You also have mastered babbling - although I will fight til the death that there is a HUGE difference between "dadadada" and "Dadda". Until you look at Daddy and say "Dadda" I refuse to accept "Dadda" as your first word! Come on kid, give me somethin here! Especially on Mother's day!!! You run me down ragged, I lovingly let you bite, scratch, and pinch me nightly, and now you are going to say Dadda first??? Nope...I wont have it!

We have also been working on our sign language skills but so far everything translates into Mommy acting silly....or more Cheerios getting thrown on the floor. Either way you and the dogs are happy with it! I am still not sure when you are going to comprehend "NO". No matter how I say it you still think it is the funniest thing - and I have a feeling that is going to drive Mommy nuts VERY quickly.
If ever I thought getting you to sleep was tough before, the new sitting up and 'crawling' actions have put that to shame! Even getting a diaper on you is a challenge these days! You are all over the place. I have a feeling I am in for a wild ride with you as a toddler!

We got back from our nice weekend in Colorado late last night. We had a great time and got to spend some time with Aunt Sue in Boulder. You really liked her and seeing the horses and Little Bogey! She was sure impressed by how big and active you are! Everything was really nice, until the plane ride back - of course! I dont know how you know we are heading back to Vegas, But you sure put up a mile high fight! At least Daddy and Uncle Ronnie got to share in on the embarrassing torture of your inconsolable screaming! But once you fell asleep you were O-U-T! Thank God!
Well Kiddo, I have a feeling this naptime is not going to be very long so I best get going. Thank you and Daddy again for my Fabulous First Mother's day! I loved my Mommy Day crossword puzzle! I look forward to MANY MANY more!
Thank you again to my wonderful mommy! I love you very much and can only hope I am a fraction of the mom you are! Now I finally can appreciate why we had so many calendars hanging! :)
I love you Baby Monster!
Love, Mommy

Hey Soul Mister!

Dear I,

Baby darling, there is a little secret Mommy is going to let you in on now while you are young, and I want you to learn it quick. Someday Daddy can better explain it to you, but for now you only need to know that only ONE of us gets to be PMS'y at a time. And when it is MOMMY'S turn you have ABSOLUTELY NO CHANCE of winning!!! Although everyone else rather your whining instead of Mommy's, I'm sure!

Hoy Vey kiddo!!! Are you trying to kill me this week??!!! What's the deal? And it is ONLY Tuesday!!! Let's just pretend I don't mind that you go to sleep at 8PM and wake up at 11:30PM Screaming your bloody head off as if there was a crocodile attack in your bed. Let's pretend I actually like my face pinched all day long (the scars are conversation pieces). I will even go so far as to pretend I like to clean up your food from the ENTIRE kitchen rather than actually get ONE spoonful in your mouth...DO we really need to shower me with all of these in the same week??? Never mind EACH day of this week???
All I am going to say Sir is that you are DAMN lucky you are such a cutie....or Bam Zoom To the Moon you'd go!! (hmm... Maybe I will go!!!)

Aside from a thus far week of sleepless hell, screaming, and our newest hobby of pinching mommy's face til it bleeds, not much new here to report! We have taken Long Distance baby-rearing to YouTube! So now all of our long distance loves can see just how "cute" you are each day! I will break them all in with the cute and cuddley videos....then I will throw in the REAL ISAAC videos of the meltdowns and Tantrums! We will reel the family in slowly, then unleash the Sir I fury!
The warm weather has finally rolled in. The only good thing about that is WATERMELON SEASON!!!  You must have known I only craved watermelon when I was pregnant. You can go to town on a piece of watermelon Little Man! It is absolutely adorable to watch! One bite and your mouth and eyes fill up with water! You love it! I love it! Now we just have to get the dogs to love it so they can lick it up off the floor!

We are getting ready for a little weekend trip to Colorado this weekend. Should be fun. Uncle Ronnie is coming too, so he will get to see you in action on a plane! Thank Goodness this is a short flight! We will be spending our First Mother's Day in the Centennial State...Or as Daddy calls it, the Greatest Place on Earth!
Well....either a rhinoceros is upstairs or you just awoke from you mini nap...somehow I dont think I am lucky enough to go upstairs and see a rhino in the hallway....Someday Kiddo!!! Someday you are going to love to sleep - and I can't wait to wake you up when you do!!
I love you little Monster!
Love, Mommy