Don't forget about this Valentine...

Hi Friends! It's Brandon here! Happy late Valentine's Day. Gosh, I love that holiday. Not only is it a day all about loving me, but it falls on the 14th! The 14th is the best day of each month because I was born on the 14th. This Valentine's Day I turned 7 months old!

Here I am with Mommy after church. Do you like my bib and my high tops?

Check out the valentine I sent to some of my family:

Cute, huh? Did you notice how I am the ONLY one in the pictures? That's because I am the most important valentine. That's right. It's all about me!
Get this: mom and dad thought they could have a special dinner on Valentine's Day - without me. Can you believe it? They wanted to eat all by themselves in the dining room with sparkly candles while I slept upstairs in my boring, dark room. Well I wasn't going to have it! I figured there must be some mistake. Maybe their dinner took too long to cook, so they thought they should put me to bed first. I mean, why wouldn't they want to eat with me? I eat real food! I just had some pureed peas and rice cereal a little while ago.
Mom and dad tried for over an hour to get me to sleep while I cried and cried (I usually just go right to sleep with minimal to no complaining every other night). Finally they got the message that this little valentine was not going to miss the party.

Just look at my face! Can you believe I was screaming 2 minutes before this? Ha! I have these people wrapped around my fat little fingers. I played happily in the exersaucer while they ate. (Side note: the exersaucer is on loan from mom's friend Tracy, and I love it! Mom mentions every day that she doesn't know what she'd do without it now that I can roll around and get into stuff like the TV cords when she needs to leave the room for a minute.)

I don't know why mom and dad think they can have special dinners without me. Maybe you remember Mom's birthday back when I was only 3 weeks old. I wasn't going to miss out on those festivities either! Here I am being fed in dad's lap while they ate. It worked out just fine for everyone as far as I'm concerned.

Okay, back to me. After dinner last night they again attempted to put me to bed - even giving me more milk, which I declined. Nope, I was not going to miss one minute of this day. It was fall asleep in someone's arms or listen to me scream. What would you choose? So, I got to sleep in mom's arms while they watched an episode of Lost (they are watching the first season for the first time).
What a great Valentines Day! I got to be a part of the whole thing because it is all about me all of the time, but especially on Valentine's Day!

Aren't I the cutest? Check out my 2 new teeth!

Dum Ditty Dum Dum Dum

Brandon loves books, but not all books. He'll definitely let you know if he's into the book you are reading him or not. If he is bored with my current selection, he will try to close the book and/or grab the book and chew on it, and he'll often make his loud squawking noises while I try to get through it. But if he is interested in a certain book, he will kick his legs and move his arms excitedly, be very quiet, and actually help me turn the pages. I'll stop reading at the end of the page and hold the next page up a little, and he'll gently turn it over and wait for me to keep reading. It's pretty cute.

There is no book he loves more than "Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb."

This book has a really great rhyme to it - almost like a chant or a song. (Which means my dad would hate it, by the way. Since childhood he has been terrified by Dr. Seuss books and anything resembling it in creatures or rhyming.) It has bright colors and lots of monkeys drumming on drums. A line frequented in the book is "Dum ditty dum ditty dum dum dum," hence the name of this post. Brandon seems to like monkeys as he almost always laughs when I make monkey noises, and he has a monkey toy that is one of his favorites.

Brandon also loves to drum on his drum. Here is a video of my little monkey drumming on his drum. (Sorry for the mommy commentary...I am always annoyed by what I say when I make these videos.)

Top 10 at 6 Months

Our little one is 6 months old! A whole half of a year!

We thought it would be fun to periodically record the top 10 things we love about Brandon or just interesting things about him at his different ages.

So here is our Top 10 list for our 6 month old:

1. One fail-proof way to get him to smile is to start saying "Pat-a-Cake."

2. He laughs at our silly faces and noises especially when we make surprised noises, monkey noises, and snorting noises.

3. When he laughs, he often puts a hand in his mouth.

4. Brandon has 2 common noises that he makes. One is a low noise that sounds like a baby tiger (I love the looks I get from people when he does this from his covered car seat in stores - they must be thinking, "what does she have in there?") The other noise is a shrill, high pitch squeal or singing kind of noise. He does that one especially when he's bored, and it does hurt your ears.

5. Brandon loves to turn the pages of board books back and forth. He loves being read to, but only if there is lots of page turning. He loses interest if there are too many words on one page.

6. He kicks his legs so quickly in an alternating fashion, especially when he's excited.

7. He loves to have his diaper changed all of the time except in the middle of the night. You would think he was dying by the noises he makes when we try to change his diaper at night, especially if we try to change it before feeding him.

8. When he's holding a toy that interests him, he looks at it intensely and rotates it very slowly in his hands, analyzing it from every angle and taking a little taste of it every now and then.

9. He sleeps on his side. He has done this since he was about 3 months old.

10. Brandon is very strong and always wants to stand. He also has solid abs because he lifts his head and legs off of the floor when lying on his back as if he's doing a Pilates position.

Here are some more recent pictures:

Our Winter Wonderland

Well, it's in the 40's here in Olathe today, but it feels like it is about 60. Usually I'm freezing in 40 degree temps, but now I feel like I can go out without a coat (which I did earlier today). It's been extremely cold here recently, as in the high was around 0 for several days. That was the high meaning that the low was well below 0. I know you are thinking that I've lived in Detroit and St. Louis before, but we never had temperatures and windchills this low during my 3 winters in Michigan. And I'm a southern girl at my core. I grew up with subtropical weather, and that is what my body expects.

Luckily I didn't have too many reasons to go outside on those frigid days, which was nice in some ways, but sad in others because we never really got to get out and play in the snow! Somehow building a snowman when it is negative 5 isn't really satisfying. I'll just drink some hot tea and gaze out the window, thank you very much. Kansas City has gotten about 2 feet of snow since Christmas Eve, and it hasn't started melting until this week. That means at least half of the good parking spaces at the grocery store are out of commission due to being filled with snow banks. At least they will probably melt most of the way before the next snow comes. In Michigan, there would be snow piles in parking lots as tall as 2 story buildings.

Here are some pictures around our house in the snow:

See that shovel? Krzysztof had some really good bonding time with that little tool in the past couple of weeks.

Here is our deck. I was lucky that the snow didn't just collapse into the house when I opened the door. As you can see, the snow went right up to the seats of our chairs.

Here's another deck picture. Yes, yes I know we shouldn't still have our herb pots outside. I know they will probably not come back to life and the pots might crack. Hey, at least we didn't leave our baby outside.

Grilling is something we like to do year round, but I'm not about to shovel a path to my grill. I'll just bake my chicken.

Here's our little snow baby! This snow suit is huge on him, but I bet he wasn't cold. Actually, this was taken today when it was 40 out, so I'm pretty sure he was hot. I just had to get some pictures of him outside before the snow melts.


A great smile, but eyes closed...oh well!

More Christmas Pictures

These pictures were on my parents camera. I received them after making my last posting, so they didn't make it on that one!

Here is our silly, laughing boy! Brandon laughs so much more frequently now. He even laughs at my silly faces and noises instead of always needing to be tickled in order to bring on a laugh. I read in a book about motherhood recently that your baby's laugh is like a drug - you'll do almost anything to get it, and you just want more and more of it. How true! It is the best sound I've ever heard.

Here's Brandon at his Mimi and Papa's house. He loved watching the fire. This little rocking chair was my dad's when he was a baby, so my sister and I spent a lot of time in it too.This is my parents dog, Biscuit. Note that Biscuit is in the rocking chair. A lot of effort (mostly by my dad) went into making sure Biscuit knew that this baby was not replacing her. By the look on her face, I'm not sure she's buying it. I guess my dad thought Biscuit deserved a picture in the chair too. I didn't even see him take this picture. They call Biscuit my little sister, and she definitely thinks she is a person because she is treated like one. For instance, my parents give her their leftover filet mignon - actually they make sure they cook a little extra so she can have some. When I'm home, I always try to get them to save the extra steak for KZ, but the dog usually wins out. Biscuit wasn't too interested in Brandon. She downright ignored the fact that he was there for the first few days. Towards the end of our time there she would wag her tail slightly and give him a little sniff, but that's about it. Brandon wasn't too interested in her either, so it all worked out. It will get really interesting next year when he knows about dogs and wants to touch her and play with her.
Here is Brandon (and Biscuit) with his cousin Drew. Drew is my sister's 17-year-old son.

Another cute rocking chair picture.

And here's another picture with Biscuit. Doesn't she look happy to be there? :-)

Welcome to the world of Real Food

The day after Christmas we had our family Christmas brunch. It wasn't on Christmas morning because all of our family couldn't be there that morning, so we opened presents and then had brunch on the 26th. We thought this was the perfect time to introduce Brandon to his first taste of real food! Not that Breast milk isn't "real food," as it is supposed to be about the most perfect food you can have, but you know what I mean. I had planned to wait until 6 months to introduce solids, but he met all the criteria in all the books for solid food readiness, and he has been showing intense interest in food for several weeks. He looks at us with awe as we eat and smiles as the food goes in our mouth. He tries to grab at the food on our plate. He smacks his lips and makes munching motions with his mouth as we eat. If that's not a kid who wants some food, I don't know what is! So, at 5 1/2 months, we gave him this first taste of solids - rice cereal. Here is a video of his first few bites. It is 2 minutes long with a lot of commentary from the 10 family members gathered around him, so I understand if you want to just skip it and view the pictures below, but the video is pretty cute...

Well, I can't seem to get the video to load. I guess the file is too big. Oh well! Enjoy the pictures anyway...

Why is everyone looking at me like that?

I'm a little concerned about this stuff, mom. Where's the breakfast casserole you got to eat?

Is it over yet?

Ok, that wasn't so bad! I'll try it again tomorrow!

Here is avocado boy! He got to eat avocado for his 2nd food. This was taken New Years day in Charleston at his aunt Kiki and uncle Andy's house.

Brandon is now onto his 3rd food - bananas, which is definitely his favorite so far.

First Christmas

It's almost been a whole month since we've updated the world on the Z family happenings! Somehow the holidays always seem to be more busy than relaxing...

I flew down to Hilton Head Island on December 15th with Brandon to help my mom after her surgery. Yes, that means I flew by myself with an infant. Despite my anxieties, everything went relatively smoothly, mostly because the flights were not full, and I had a whole row to myself on both legs of the flight. There was one small issue called a diaper blowout while the plane was in line to take off, so I couldn't get up to do anything about it. A few loads of laundry later (mine and his), we are no worse for the wear.

KZ flew down on the 20th to join us. Because we were not at our Kansas home for so much of the holiday season, we decided not to get a tree. We both love having a live tree and enjoy decorating it, so it was a little sad around our house. In order to have some sparkling lights, we decided to decorate a Christmas lamp.

Festive, huh?

We were in South Carolina until January 2nd, but we surprisingly took very few pictures. We didn't realize until we got back that we didn't get many pictures of our family members holding Brandon. I guess we were too caught up with enjoying him and seeing our family enjoying playing with him. Brandon loved meeting his aunt Kiki, uncle Andy, cousin Drew, great-uncle Tim, mom's cousin Devin, and many other family and friends. And he, of course, loved spending lots of time with his Mimi, Papa, Babcia, and Dziadzia.

Here is Brandon on Christmas Eve in the cute shirt mom's friend Shelley gave him!

Our mischievous little elf!

The "wrapping" elf. :-)

Brandon and his Daddy on KZ's birthday, December 22nd. Those little figurines on the cake have been on his birthday cake ever since he was little. I wonder what traditions we'll start for Brandon on his birthdays. (side note: do you think my husband likes superheros? Check out the guy behind the tree on the cake and KZ's shirt)

Here we are on a walk on Pinkney Island with KZ's dad. Brandon is sleeping in the Ergo baby carrier.

Here's Brandon with his Papa. Papa makes cool hats, huh?

This is on the bluff behind Valerie's parent's house. Brandon is (again) sleeping in the Ergo. We can't keep him awake on walks when he's in that thing!

The flights back home were a little more eventful and difficult than on the way there, even though there were 2 of us to handle the baby! We were held on the runway for a long time at the beginning and end of the first flight, and Brandon didn't sleep at all, so he became overtired. He fell asleep the minute we put him in the stroller in the airport, mostly because we were walking very very fast, so he was getting a nice bumpy ride. We had less than 30 minutes to change concourses and get to our gate in Atlanta. Why is it that you only ever have to change concourses when you are running late!? We made the flight (and our luggage did too amazingly), but Brandon had a hard time getting back to sleep on the plane, so he fussed most of the time.

We finally made it to Kansas City only to find that it was 8 degrees and snowing. Wait...it gets worse. KZ had parked in the uncovered economy lot. Kansas City had already gotten about a foot of snow under what was currently falling. And I hadn't yet put an ice scraper in my car for this year. After about 45 minutes and a few broken CD cases, KZ picked Brandon and I up at the baggage claim area and we made it home by 1:30 am (which seemed to be 2:30 am for us coming from the Eastern time zone). I didn't realize how easy I had it on my flights down to SC. Maybe I won't be flying with the baby any time again soon.

So now we are back home and trying to re-condition our son to realize that someone does not have to be paying attention to him 100% of the day! And we are on to another baby adventure called "solid food" as you'll see on another posting!