Excuse me while I play a little tune...
A day after his 9 Monthiversary, Brady began crawling!! On Tuesday, he made his first awkward movement forward--in an attempt to get to the dog! Unfortunately for Bella, Brady was successful...and grabbed a clump of her hair. We think it's best to keep Brady away from the doggies until he's learned what "nice" means! But at least Bella was enticing enough to get him moving!
Practicing his new skills
Since yesterday, he's improved so much! It's crazy what a difference a day can make! He's much more agile today, and I can tell he feels more confident, too. It's still not the most graceful movement, but it gets him from place to place and that's all he cares about! He's working up a good sweat and an even better appetite.
Let's eat!
I had a video all lined up for ya, but of course, technology is not cooperating. I'll post it later this week so you can all watch Sir Brady in action!
The fact that the number 1 is visible on the age graphic at the top of this post makes me want to cry! I can't believe that my baby has now been in our world for the same amount of time I was pregnant with him. What's really unfair is that I felt like my pregnancy lasted F.O.R.E.V.E.R., but the time with Brady is just flying by! Why does time speed up when we want it to slow down?!
The past month hasn't brought about too many physical changes (still NO TEETH!!, no forward crawling, etc.), but I can tell Brady is more aware of what's going on around him. He's recognizing certain words like his own name, doggie, daddy, and bottle. He's also talking non-stop--he has a lot to say! His favorite word is still Mama, but we're working on Dada; it's just a matter of getting his tongue out of the way to pronounce the "D." Brady is also pretty alert in terms of what's going on around him. For example, when he's at Grandma and Pap Scalzott's, he watches the train go by from the window. When we're at our house and he can hear it from a distance, he recognizes the train whistle and lunges for the window if it's nearby. He's also pretty music savvy; he stops what he's doing if he hears the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme song :-)
Even though he's not yet conquered crawling, he refuses to be still! He'll sit long enough to devour a bottle, but the nanosecond he's done, he's reaching, moving, battling to be off of my lap. In fact, sometimes he's so adamant about it that he projectile vomits...all over me. That's actually how we began our morning today! Anyway, Brady is adept at moving backward; he crept the entire length of the living room, but he still gets frustrated when trying to move forward. He's on his hands and knees (sometimes he puts himself into a V position like below), but just can't figure out how to move.
It's usually at this point that he rolls himself onto his back and throws a major fit. Thankfully, he's easily distracted and amused, so the fit ends fairly quickly and he moves on to more entertaining things, like his own hand...
Brady's menu has expanded a bit, too. He had his first bites of dry pasta, Cheerios, and real mashed banana. He's starting feeding the Cheerios to himself, which is a feat to say the least! It takes him four or five tries to pick it up in between his pointer finger and thumb and then successfully put it in his mouth. Normally, his chubby hand swipes up a few cereal bits at a time and then they get stuck in his palm. He doesn't understand how to get the Cheerios from his grasp to his mouth so they fall onto the floor at the delight of the waiting dogs.
Oh, and he's over his cold. We were so fortunate in that his first lasted-longer-than-a-day illness was as mild as it was. He was more inconvenienced than anything else with the sneezing and coughing. He hates to have his mouth wiped, let alone his nose wiped 30 times a day! But he was a trooper, and we got through it without having to see the pediatrician. I really surprise myself because I'm a spaz about many things in life, but somehow, I maintain calm with this little guy. Must be God's way of allowing us to be parents!
Aside from all that fun stuff, not much else is new. I'm finishing up my last grad class of the year, and Zach is busy with baseball. We've booked our first family vacation; we're going to South Carolina with Grammy and Pappy Barone in June. I'm very excited, but also nervous about the trillions of things that could go wrong: Brady doesn't do well with the driving, Brady gets sunburn, Brady hates the beach, etc. It's also going to be weird having such great responsibility on vacation, but so far any change that Brady has brought has been wonderful, and I'm sure South Carolina will be no different.
Easter has come and gone and Brady did very well! Our travels took us all over the place, totaling about 4 hours in the car, but the driving allowed him to take his naps on as regular a schedule as we could manage. Plus, it was nice to spend some quality time with Uncle Derek!
Much to my great amusement, when we got to Nonna and Nonno's, Brady peed all over Zach :-) At first, there was a small puddle on their hardwood, and then we all realized where the puddle had come from! We threw Brady's pants and Zach's shirt into the wash, and Brady was totally happy being pants-less, and Zach looked quite dapper in a white T-shirt courtesy of Nonno!!
Brady was the lucky recipient of several Easter baskets and very thoughtful gifts. He loved opening everything up--mostly to play with wrapping paper or basket grass, but still :-) Mommy loved taking lots of pictures while he played with his new stuff!
After Easter there was a stretch of gorgeous weather, so Brady and I had a photo shoot outside. He was such a team player! I dressed him in his new Pirates garb (here's hoping they're at least 500 this season...), and we played outside for about an hour. I hope you enjoy the pictures--some of them are now among my favorites!
Just this past weekend, we hit the road to Fairfax, VA for Zach's friend's wedding. The drive went very well and Brady is a fabulous road-tripper! We timed our departure to coincide with his morning nap, and we got halfway there before having to stop and feed him. We had the same good luck on the way home, but the "during" part of the trip could have been better...
As I was getting Brady ready for bed on Friday night, he started coughing a bit. I noticed that his nose was running, too, but he didn't feel warm, so I wasn't too concerned. That night, though, he woke up several different times and I finally just brought him into our GIANT king bed with us. That seemed to help him a bit, but I sure didn't sleep much! My husband, on the other hand, could have been sharing the bed with a cheetah and wouldn't have known the difference. Saturday morning, Brady's cold was in full force. He gave us a hard time drinking his bottle and eating his breakfast, and he was fussy no matter what we did. We took him to the local mall and strolled him around and he enjoyed that for a while, but even after a half an hour or so, he had had enough of that, too. He took a decent nap before we headed to the church, but we knew it was bad timing because the ceremony was slated to begin around his regular afternoon snooze. In true Brady form, he alerted everyone in a mile radius to the fact that he was exhausted. I ended up having to take him out of the chapel (after receiving one too many disdainful looks from the bride's mother...), and so we watched the rest of the ceremony from out in the hall. However, once out there (and after he had wiggled out of his socks AND pants!), the wedding planner came zooming out of the chapel, threw open a door to another room, and in her most polite southern twang said, "Ya'll are gonna hafta go in here, kay?" Brady and I opted to just go outside at that point!
The reception proved interesting seeing as how the bridal party didn't join us until a little after 7 pm, 2 hours after the ballroom opened for the party. While waiting, though, we got to catch up with some good friends, including Brady's Godfather Nevada. It would have been great to have gotten some pictures of the two together, but Brady's photo opps were few and far between this weekend! While hanging out at the reception, we discovered that Brady enjoys fresh, whole strawberries! He gummed them up and really liked it! That also kept him quiet for about a half an hour. God bless the strawberry! Unfortunately, once the reception was under way, it was way past Brady's bedtime so we headed back upstairs to the room. Not a big deal; Mommy got some school work done, baby went to bed on time, and Daddy partied it up until the wee hours of the morning. I drove the whole way home while the boys slept in the back seat! That's okay, though, because my former Principal's wedding is this coming weekend and I told Zach I plan to get even. I talk a big talk, but I'll probably be asleep by 10 pm!
I called the pediatrician this afternoon and they said they could see Brady tomorrow morning, so I'm going to see how he's holding up and if he's still congested and coughing, we're making a special trip to the doctor. Let's cross our fingers that he wakes up as perfect as he normally is!!
Excuse me while I play a little tune...
Let's eat!
