8 months

It's true. The ButterBean turned 8 months yesterday. I shall celebrate by listing my 8 most favorite things about my sweetie pumpkin boy! I'll give you four today and four tomorrow.

1. His cheeks : they drip off his face

2. His hair: not only because it is my color, but because it grow so fast, when the wind blows he looks crazy, there are about nine long scraggle hairs in back that for some reason I haven't cut

Then...

...and now

3. His tongue: I've written before about how goofy his tongue is. He can flip it upside down by twisting it sideways, he loves to let it hang out, he makes spitty noises with it. And one of his latest tricks is to suck up his upper lip with it and smack his lips. You get something like this:

Flipping his tongue around

4. His growl: My baby doesn't talk so much as growl. To say hello, it sounds more like "hhhaahhh!". He makes a lot of noise.  When he's just chilling out and having a chat, he makes lots of grunts, and "ggnnnhhh" sounds. There are plenty of "dadadada", "yayaya", and a few "ma"s thrown into the mix. 

4 more reasons to love this guy tomorrow!

The Post-Anesthesia Post

I'm going to start an ongoing post of all of the things I want to do when I have time. AKA- The Post-Anesthesia Post. Everyday I think of something that I'd like to do, but don't have the time and/or money to do it right now. I don't want to forget about all of these great ideas, so I'll keep track here on the blog. It's a bit of a bucket list, I suppose.
Today's idea:
Write a children's book
I have the characters in my head already and have ideas for illustrations. I can't draw, but I like the style of Shirley. 

 I have a fondness for old kids books because the illustration is so different than books today. My favorite out of my collection is Captain Kitty, illustrated by Elizabeth Webbe.


 
The illustrations are adorable and the poem is sweet: 
"Oh Captain Kitty, where have you been? 
I've been sailing the ocean blue

And Tabby came as my first mate

And Pearly and Mew were the crew!"

I used to have the whole book memorized.Thanks Ma for reading me this wonderful book! Butterbean better get ready, because he's going to hear this one a lot!

One of my favorite illustrations from the book

Remembering

About a year ago I saw this image

 

My Butterbean

I knew you were going to be adorable!

Bad Sleeping Habits...and a tooth

 First things first - ButterBean officially has his first tooth! Yeeaaahhh! There won't be a picture of the cute little toothie because whenever he opens his mouth, his ridiculous tongue is hanging out.

I've already chronicled how the ButterBean despises sleeping. Nap time is getting better, but he still needs coaxing, a bottle, and snuggles to go down for a nap. He used to be a pretty good night time sleeper, with one or two whimpers requiring a pacifier reinsertion. Now, we have a problem. It could be the teeth, but I think it's genetics. I shall explain:

I had to bring the sleep-deprived babe to my mother-in-law's house today for a couple hours. I had some 'splaining to do because my sweet boy has two big bruises on his forehead!! I don't want any rumors going around that I'm a bad mama, so I filled her in on our bad night. ButterBean went to bed as usual - reluctantly. Then at 1am he was up screaming. Little bottle, little snuggle, back to bed. Unfortunately, the stinker wasn't so keen on being put in the crib. We've talked about letting him "cry it out", so we tried it.

not. good

There was thrashing, screaming, and gnashing of tooth. And apparently smashing of heads into the crib rails!

We gave in and brought him in our bed so we could get some sleep. Of course, he went to sleep fine when snuggled between us.

In the morning when I woke up, there was my boy with two bruises on his head. Guilt!!

Anyway, after I explained Bean's forehead, my mother-in-law told me how my dear hubby, Gatsby, behaved at about this age. Apparently, Gatsby threw such fits and jumped around in his crib so much when he was supposed to be sleeping, that he broke the mattress (this is why I say it is genetics). Their solution was to let him cry it out in a pack-n-play. It worked. Sooo, a pack-n-play may be in our near future. But tonight, around 1am, there will be a baby in my bed.

Away from home for a night

One of the more difficult parts of anesthesia school is the call shifts. A call shift is either 16 or 24 hours and it can either be a complete snoozer or up all night exhausted. When the shifts are quiet it's great for studying because it's too hard to study at home!

Tonight I am on a 16 hour call shift and hoping for a little shut eye - so far it's been a good shift.

But, then I miss my little guy!

Kind of looks like he has a toupee - time for another hair cut

I don't think I can prove it, but I'm pretty sure that this might be the cutest child ever (especially when he is in his owl shirt! Why are owls so cute? I don't know, they just are!)!!! Every day I just can't believe how stinkin' cute he gets.

Newest accomplishment: The Army Crawl

Back to the Grind

It was a nice run...but like all good things, it had to come to an end! I had a month or so with hardly any classes and mostly clinical time. It was great because I could come home and not feel pressured to study, write a paper, or put together a presentation. No longer! I'm now going back to all free moments being dedicated to my old friends Nagelhout, Stoelting, Barrash, and Miller (all riveting authors of anesthesia textbooks!). 15 more months. Hmmm, I shouldn't have said that- it's depressing really.

Here is another depressing story. Depressing for my taste buds, but otherwise rather funny. I wrote earlier how I was waiting for my sad little tomato plant to grow an actual deliscious tomato. Well, it accomplished growing tomatoes, but failed to make them delicious. I now have a counter full a beautiful green tomatoes!

Just some of my tomato collection

I made some green tomato bread with a few of them and I'm letting some of them ripen. I've considered fried green tomatoes or salsa, but haven't gotten around to it. Tomato growing: FAIL!

This break has given me quality time with a certain squirmy SEVEN month old! He's seven months already! He's pretty goofy. I've tried to catch some pictures and video of him acting silly (shaking his head violently, buzzing his lips, sucking in his lips so he looks like an old man) but I never catch it. My camera has an orange light that glows before a picture is taken so I end up with pictures like this:

In ButterBean's defense - he did have a runny nose and wasn't in the mood for a photoshoot. The day after, he was feeling a little better and I got some good photos.

Classic: he is always twisting around and wants to see whatever is behind him

What's that? Oh, just some old anesthesia textbook calling my name.

Scoot Scoot Boogie

 I love this age!!! ButterBean is able to sit up and play with toys to amuse himself, is very interactive, and not mobile enough to get into much trouble - but mobile enough to be entertaining. 

ButterBean's Modes of Transport

1. The Classic Roll

Other than being carried, this is his fastest mode. Sometimes Gatsby and I will place him in the middle of our bed and lie on either end and ButterBean will just roll back and forth between us. The roll is nice, but usually he ends on his stomach, which segues into either (a) getting frustrated and crying while smooshing his face in the carpet, or (b) the Lazy Susan

2. The Lazy Susan

This move doesn't really get him any where, but it does help him to reach more toys. After he flips to his stomach, he uses his arms and legs to turn himself around in a circle. Entertaining, but not very effective transportation.  

3. Scoot Scoot Boogie

Definitely the most entertaining to me! When ButterBean is on his back he can scoot just about anywhere. He pushes himself backwards with his legs and he's off! Scoot scoot scoot. On a wooden floor, like at my parents',  he can cover a lot of ground fast. While I'm changing his diaper he just starts scooting away! The downfall of this method is that he can't see where he is going and can easily bonk his head on things. The first time I watched him do this, he scooted himself under a living room chair, which he found quite fun and jabbered at the underside for a while before I pulled him out by his feet.

"Oh don't mind me! I'm just scooting along!"

 4. Drive

Who needs crawling when you can drive? Haha! Just kidding!

I'm sure he'll start crawling soon and I'll be chasing him all over, so I'm going to enjoy these wonderful stages of his life when he is not quite so mobile!