Feeling like a mom

Most days I still feel way too young to be almost 30 and way too immature to have a child. But then days come along that remind me I'm not 22 anymore. Last week I went up to Texas A&M for the day to recruit for my company and was called ma'am a lot. And my younger co-worker and I did not get carded when ordering wine at the college restaurant. Quite depressing.

On Sunday I took Collin with me on a weekly grocery store run. I try to avoid HEB on Sundays if at all possible, as it is a madhouse. Of course he fell asleep in the car on the way to the store and I'm normally not one to wake a sleeping baby, so I loaded his infant carrier in one of these carts:
And while he slept through most of the grocery shopping, I felt like such a mom. That cart was a beast! I could not maneuver it at all and kept running into shelves and the occasional person. I expected to be forgiven for taking up so much room in the crowded aisles and passageways when the shoppers checked out my angelic baby, but I'm pretty sure most people just thought I was a bad parent for bringing a sleeping child to the extremely crowded grocery store.

Who's the fairest of them all

Collin discovered himself in the mirror this week and it was hilarious to see how giddy he became. He was shaking with excitement over this new understanding.
He would move his arms and legs and grin from ear to ear as his twin in the glass copied his movements -

Then he had a conversation with his new friend -

We're having great fun watching him make connections. Collin makes the smallest things come alive with magical excitement, and we are thrilled to be witnesses of all these tiny developments.

Where did my little boy go?

When we were dropping Collin off in the church nursery this weekend, they told us to hand over our big boy. I wanted to correct the nursery volunteer that he's a little boy still, but as we walked off we realized he's now one of the big kids in his class. When did that happen? How did he go from being the brand new two-month old that slept the whole time to being the tall six-month old developing his own personality in what feels like a blink of an eye?

Collin's clown/puppy dog feet, as they have been lovingly referred to, are sometimes the catalyst for going up a size in clothes. When his poor toes are curled up to fit in his sleepers, it's time to get this child some clothes that fit. When I came home with 12-month pajamas, they looked enormous and I was sure Collin would be swimming in them. I was almost in tears at how quickly he's growing when they fit him perfectly -
Love from Dad with the beautiful image of Cinque Terre in the background -

Along with some tall genes from his dad, Collin's great eating habits keep him growing like a weed. It surprises me all the things we can get him to eat. This week he's been scarfing down bowls of cottage cheese, pears, and egg yolk - yum!

Collin will be burning off those food calories, as we expect him to be crawling soon. He's been pushing himself around the living room, sliding on the wood floor in his pj's. As soon as he gets those legs in gear, there will be no stopping him . . . and no resting on the job for his parents!

TGIF

It's been a week I'd like to whine about, but instead I'm trying to give thanks in all circumstances (1 Thes 5:8). So here are some things we are praising God for this week:

• A few less calories on Friday night - I was all geared up to try Sprinkles cupcakes, but it closed at 7pm. Why does a dessert place close before dessert time? But I certainly did not need the 4+ cupcakes I would have bought and devoured over the weekend.
• Sick days at my company - at former places of employment, all time off - sick or vacation - was grouped together, so I would drag myself to the office feeling terrible to preserve the precious vacation days. But my company now does not count sick days so I was able to sleep much of the day Tuesday and feel significantly better that evening.
• Pink eye medicine & our great nanny -by the time I got home from work, I could not tell which of Collin's eyes had been red and full of gunk that morning.
• Our healthy boy - the pink eye run was the first time he's needed to go to the pediatrician for anything other than scheduled check-ups.
• The silly things Bruno does - when he's barking at a reflection on the ceiling from Collin's exersaucer, it helps me forgive him for rolling in poop in our front yard & then rubbing up against Fergie so they both need baths.
• Facetime on the new iPhones - so that when I'm ending a conversation with Cas with "see you tomorrow" and he notifies me that he'll be out of town for business another night, that at least we can see each other electronically.
• Collin is thankful that we're dressing him in 9 month clothes and he can finally wear the cute dog outfit from our cousins Trish & Craig, Kirk & Kyle -

• And I'm thankful for all our generous friends and family who have passed down clothes to him, like this outfit he sported to church on Sunday from his great Uncle Juan & family -

How great it would be if my mindset was one of gratefulness, rather than complaining about minor inconveniences, since I have so much to be thankful for in my life!

Kale in the nose

All my family has responded with "poor Collin" when we tell them of the latest food on his menu - kale. I felt a little sorry for him too just smelling it cooking. But we mixed it with peaches or kiwi to disguise the flavor and remind Collin of kale's great nutritional benefits when he's making gagging expressions. (Really we just sit there smiling, making "mmm" sounds while we shovel the green mixture into his open & waiting mouth.)

Some kale on the lip -
This is what happens when Collin is able to free a hand from the normally restraining high chair tray - he puts his hand in his mouth & smears his food EVERYWHERE - up his nose, in his hair, in his ear, etc -
Our next food milestone has been a failure so far - finger foods. And who can blame Collin for preferring to spread the cottage cheese pieces all over his tray rather than put forth the effort to pinch the small morsels and bring them to his mouth. Oh no, our smart . . . or spoiled boy would much prefer to have others spoon feed him during mealtime.

Is this a first time parent paranoid action - cutting the Cheerio's in half? Well I'm a scaredy cat and did not want to use my first aid choking techniques, so I chopped the already tiny bits into smaller pieces.

Collin didn't seem to mind, gumming whatever we put in his mouth -

Our little baller

I'm so far from street smart, I had to check with Cas to see if "baller" was an appropriate term to use for Collin in photos with a basketball, but he assured me it was fine.

Cas seems to go a little crazy in Babies 'R Us. On his second trip to the store - of which his shopping list had one item being diapers - he came back with several new unnecessary things and one I acquiesced on - Collin's first basketball. Collin wants to like it, since it has a rattle inside, but since he can't quite get it to fit in his mouth, it's not his current favorite toy. However, he was okay posing with it. With the Michael Jordan tongue out -

My friend Amber said Collin has puppy dog feet - big feet he has yet to grow into -

I'm always a little sad when he moves up a size in clothes. He grows so quickly and sometimes I'm boxing up clothes he's hardly worn. This was the case for this shirt:

Poor guy, it was way too small, but we bought it for him at the San Diego zoo when I was pregnant with him, and so I had to stuff him in it at least once before it was boxed away. He gave the sleeping polar bear a thumbs up.

When we went to San Diego, we hadn't yet told anyone that Collin was a boy. My mom was sure we were having a boy and was starting to tick me off with her confidence. So we took this picture:

And then we could not have planned it better. At my grandma's 85th birthday dinner, I was flipping through the pictures on my camera to show my mom and her mom our trip. I had completely forgotten about the "fake them out" pictures, so when I came to them, I did not have to act surprised. It worked - for the next week until we revealed Collin's gender, my mom really doubted some of the blue clothes she had bought him!

Mom of the Year - first 6 months

My cousin Trish will jokingly award herself "Mom of the Year" when something funny happens with her kids - something that at the time is the opposite of a "mother of the year" occasion, but is funny in retrospect.

Since our blog always focuses on how lovely things are in our life, here are some not-so-perfect memories - my top 3 "mom of the first 6 months" moments -

3. Making a game of rolling off the couch.

2. Collin eating his stroller cards -
Grammy Lesa bought him these cards that have different fabric for Collin to rub (like fake wool on the opposite side of the sheep card). They are supposed to attach to a stroller, but Cas attached them to Collin's arm. We were walking around the house talking, and though I was holding Collin, I wasn't paying attention to what he was doing . . . which was taking a chunk out of the stroller card.

1. My worst mom moment so far - and this is like call CPS horrific - happened on a super fussy day in the first few months. Unable to settle him down and at the end of my rope, I went for the Ergo baby carrier. After a minute, he always settles down in it. But this time, as I lifted Collin up to put him in it, I hit his head on the fan. And not just a stationary fan blade, which would have been bad enough, but the spinning ceiling fan in his room. It was terrible. Collin though did settle down snuggled up against me in the carrier soon after the incident, and now I always look up before I lift him into the air.

On a girl/boy note, I went to this women business thing at work and an executive told a story about a basketball coach that had coached the men & women's teams. He said the biggest difference was that after the game in the locker room, if he said "you played terribly" all of the men would think he was referring to someone other than themselves, while all of the women thought he was talking directly to them. When I was telling Cas about the stroller cards and how I might do a parenting bloopers post, he swore he had no stories to add. Could this be true or does he just have a male-biased, selective memory?