6 Months...

It seems like I just did David Scott's update for 5 months old.  And here we are a month later and he's now 6 months old.  Geez.  Excuse me, Father Time.  Could you please slow things down for us just a bit?  Thanks...

At 6 months old, David Scott, you are:

• Easily rolling over from belly to back and have been for a while.  We've even walked in on you several times after taking a nap or first thing in the morning, and you surprise us with your precious, smiling  face instead of your backside.  Yes, you still sleep on your belly at home.  You are thisclose (literally) to rolling over from your back to your belly.
• cutting TWO teeth!  I can't remember if I've already noted the appearance of the second tooth, but they're both on the bottom and boy are they sharp!  Speaking of...
• almost completely on formula (only two of the 5 daily feedings remain non-formula).  My research indicates that you shouldn't stop nursing cold turkey for a number of reasons. And for me, I really love that special time where it's only you and me and no one else can participate in our little world.  However, I know that it will soon be time for us to include others more and I'm sure Daddy is looking forward to that time as well.  
• handily holding bottles by yourself.  This past weekend as I was preparing one for you, you saw what I was doing and started going a little nuts.  It was almost like a little pirhana seeing food for the first time.  And don't try to take the bottle away once you've gotten started on it.  Boy do you get upset if we try to do that.  It's the first I've seen of your Rainwater temper.  Since you don't have too much of my looks, I like to take credit for your fantastic disposition and personality.  Although we rarely see it, your temper, though, could go either way.
• 17 or 18 pounds in weight.  You go to the doctor for shots (agh!) on Friday, so we'll get the official stats for height and weight then.
• eating baby food at dinnertime each night.  So far you've tried carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, bananas, peas, and you're just starting apples.  You've loved everything except the squash...and I don't blame you.
• very social.  You are happy to let most anybody hold you and you can bat those big, blue eyes like nobody's business.  I think you got your charm from Daddy too, since Mama isn't as flirtacious as those Rainwater boys can be.
• about to be wearing Size 3 diapers.  We're trying to finish off the Size 2s so we can move up.  Because daycare provides your diapers during the day, I buy a box and you literally outgrow them before we've used them all.  I should just pass them on but Daddy wants us to get our money's worth!
• SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!!!  For the most part, anyway.  You may wake up crying out for your paci, but we can put it back in your mouth and we're good to go until it's actually time to get up.  You've been going to bed about 9pm and will wake up around 6am.  It is wonderful!
• pulling up on our hands all the time.  This is in addition to you still jumping all the time.  And when I say all the time, I mean that you literally try to jump while you're sitting in your car seat.  That's how much you love to jump.  You don't want to stop to sit, to eat, and sometimes, even when you're sleepy, you still want to jump.  You're like a little frog.

It's funny to think about what we did before we had you in our lives.  I think we must have been so empty inside and not even knew it until you came along.  We love you so much!

Love,
Mama and Daddy

This was what DS was doing right before we got his official 6-month pic (above).

This is what the messy boy looks like mid-meal.  I think this was rice ceral one day this past weekend.  Also, check out the drool.

Bathtime!  This soapy boy loves his nightly bath.

DroolMaster 6000 at  his finest.  This was in our backyard this past weekend.

We ate out twice on Saturday -- for lunch, we ate Olive Garden where David Scott tried a lemon for the first time.  He was underwhelmed.

And our second meal out was Saturday night at Casa Maria, a local Mexican restaurant.  DS is more interested in a kid nearby than he is stopping for long enough to pose for a pic.

Being a Mother

Dear David Scott,

Thank you for a wonderful first Mother's Day.   When I picked you up from daycare on Friday, imagine my surprise at finding a gift from you.  With very little assistance from your "teachers," you gave me a handmade card which you'd scribbled on -- I'm sure you meaned for it to say, "Mama, you're the greatest and I love you!" (with perfect grammar and punctuation) -- and a framed poem with your painted handprints on it.  I shed a few tears reading the sweet poem that I'm sure you came up with and typed all on your own -- who knew you could type?!?  I told Daddy that you'd raised the bar so high on Friday that I hoped he'd prepared sufficiently for Sunday.  He sheepishly admitted on Saturday that he had not prepared and that I wasn't even getting a card due to his lack of planning.  I knew that he was joking (or at least that he better be joking!), and he was.  I got the sweetest card which I'm sure you helped pick out along with a gift card (love those) so I can go pick out something I want.  I'll probably use it to buy you more clothes, even though I desparately need work shirts and a few other things.  For the most part, I haven't bought myself too much over the past year b/c I knew I was having you and didn't want to buy anything that I wouldn't be able to wear for a while.  But nowadays, all of my extra spending money goes towards stuff for you.  But that's what moms do.  They make sacrifices.  And most of the time they don't think twice about it. 

When we were growing up, I know your Gran wore the same pair of tennis shoes for about a decade.  The same could be said for a pair of her blue jeans and a couple of work outfits.  We always thought she just wasn't stylish.  Little did we know that she was spending all of her money on us so that we could have new tennis shoes each year, or cool trapper keepers, or funky-colored windbreakers, or braces...twice...for all three of us.  We didn't realize these sacrifices until we got older.  I don't think she would've wanted it any other way.  Just like I don't want you to be aware of all of the sacrifices that are made on your behalf until you have to make those same sacrifices for your own children. 

This fashionable frock was worn by my mother when I was just a babe.  She gave it to me at my baby shower and now I wear it when feeding DS his baby food since he's so messy.

For me, being a mother isn't just about the sacrifices you make with your body, time, or money, although there are BIG sacrifices to be made on all three of those fronts.  Being a mother is selflessly giving everything you have all of the time, and even when you're completely exhausted, giving a little bit more so that your child remains happy, healthy, and thriving.  Being a mother is giving up a meal because your child wants to play or needs to be held or you just run out of time b/c there aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done.  Being a mother is making sure you get the proper amounts of nutrients to ensure proper growth, and freaking out b/c you don't know which brand or what kind of baby food to get -- organic or regular?  Jar or homemade?  For the record, it's Earth's Best organic in a jar.  Being a mother is staying at work even though you are miserable with an allergy attack and can't see through your watery eyes and don't want to take more cold medicine than you have to b/c it will dry up your milk supply (even though we're in the process of weaning you right now), just in case I need that sick day down the line to use for you.  Being a mother is everything.  It is omnicient -- all knowing.  It is omnipresent -- everywhere.  Being a mother is a paradigm of opposites:  rewarding, hard, fun, exhausting, but overall, it's the best thing that's ever happened in my life. 

You, David Scott, make it so easy being your mother.  One of the many highlights of my day is picking you up at daycare and seeing your smile when you realize I'm there.  I also love seeing your sleepy face first thing in the morning.  I love that you follow me with your eyes and even crane your neck to see me sometimes.  I love watching you learn new things.  I love how you reach for the spoon when we're trying to feed you your baby food.  I love your laugh.  I love your recently-discovered shrill squeal.  I love your belly.  I love your eczema.  Well, not really, but you get the point -- there is nothing about you that I don't love.  Not even your stinky Anders feet.  (In your defense, I think that smell comes from the sandals I make you wear all the time; but there IS a heredity-thing with stinky feet on your Bud-Bud's side of the family, so I'm not fully blaming the sandals just yet.)  I hope that being your mother is always going to be this easy, but I know that there will be times when you try my patience, lose my trust, and go against my wishes.  I can only hope that those times are few and far between and trust that the good will greatly outweigh the challenging times, and I know they will...because I'm your mom.  And I say so.

Love,
Mama

P.S.  You are such a dream child and I look forward to many future Mother's Days with you. 

DC...The Recap

Ok, so the play-by-play of our trip to DC was very worthwhile.  As I was recalling all of our touristy stops to my coworkers on Monday, I started losing my memory of where all we went and when we went there.  I'll blame that on two things -- One being the fact that we jam packed so much into the day and a half we really had to see everything, and Two being the fact that David Scott kept me up All. Night. Long on Sunday night cutting tooth #2.  Seriously, he didn't sleep for more than a couple hours at a time, which means that I didn't sleep for more than a couple hours at a time.  Talk about exhausted.  As a side note, he's been a complete angel and has even been sleeping through the night ever since.  Fingers crossed that it continues.  Anyhoo, back to my point of the fact that I'm glad I documented our trip as we were seeing everything as it will serve as a great memory for Scotty and I for years to come.  So, if you've never been to our nation's capital, I would highly suggest that you go. Whether or not you're a history buff (we surely aren't), I think you'll leave with a greater appreciation for our country, how it was formed, and the people who helped make a difference both past and present.  So here's my rundown of things to keep in mind for when we go back -- or to save you a little time when you go...in no particular order:

• Don't do the shuttle bus from the airport to your hotel.  Complete waste of time and money.  Just take a cab.
• Wear comfortable shoes that will allow you to walk miles and miles without getting a foot cramp.  Better yet, go buy a pair of those tennis shoes that tone your tush and kill two birds with one stone.
• Don't take an infant or small child the first time you go. 
• Also, I will not go back if I am nursing.  Having to run back to the hotel to pump mid-day is such a disruption only to have your supply get messed up anyway...but that's a whole other story.
• Make sure you check out your hotel beforehand.  You want to stay in an area that is easily accessible to most of the sights.  The fact that there's not a homeless shelter nearby would also be an extra star on my rating scale.
• Don't try to squeeze everything into two days.  We will definitely stay at least 3 days next time we go just to ensure that we have enough time to do/see everything on our list and not be totally-and-completely-fall-asleep-in-your-clothes exhausted.  That did not happen, but you get the point.
• We were told beforehand to buy a metrocard to ride the bus around town.  Personally, I'm glad we didn't b/c that would've been one more thing to try and fit in our schedule -- when the bus ran.  But for some people, it might be a very handy thing.  We walked EVERYWHERE and only took a cab when we were too exhausted to walk another step or when we were going from one end of the area to the other.
• Do the hop-on-hop-off double decker bus tour.  Boo and I did this when we went to NYC a few years back and it was fab.  Scotty and I didn't do it in DC, but it sure would've been nice to sit down between each stop on our agenda.
• Everything seems to be a little more expensive than things are here.  Be sure to take enough cash or risk trying to find an ATM near the hotel...which either had someone sleeping on the ground in the lobby area or has a homeless shelter nearby.  (You may think I harp on that little detail way too much.  But let me tell you, it freaked me out.)
• The service was nothing like it is in the South.  It wasn't as pleasant.  It wasn't as fast.  Overall, it just wasn't as good.  I don't know if it's b/c most of us who live here grew up in the South and have good home training, or what, but I was not at all impressed with the people in the service industry up there.
• Keep a map (and a compass!) with you at all times.  The layout of that city can make no sense at times, and the cabbies aren't guaranteed to know where you want to go.
• Fanny packs make a little more sense -- sorry for making fun of you, Mama, back in the 80's (and 90's), when we went on various vacations and you insisted on sporting the fanny pack.  An utter embarrassment at the time, I can see how it would serve a purpose.  That being said, I still will never wear one myself, I'm just saying that I understand the logic after carrying my purse with me on Friday; on Saturday, I carried only the bare necessities...in my pockets.
• Don't use the courtesy check-in outside the airport.  Complete waste of time and money as well.

And now, a few more pics:

At the Capitol Building on the "Lucky Stone."

Standing outside the Capitol.

Outside the hotel before our fantastic Friday night meal.

Scotty standing by the NJ part of the WWII Memorial -- this was for his Papaw.

Wearing our super cool 3D glasses before the IMAX movie.

Pointing to the person whom I believe I am related who bravely fought (and died) in Vietnam.