10 months (a day late)

happy 10 months old my big boy! yesterday. i can't even handle how fast you're growing up. mentally. physically, you're still the size of a 6 month old, so that part doesn't astonish me as much as the cognitive part. you are so damn smart, sometimes i am just baffled on how you would be able to do something at your age. or maybe it's more at your size, and the age part is completely normal. whatever it is, you are smart. you are funny. you are the sweetest thing ever. you give the tightest hugs, especially when you are feeling shy in front of someone you don't know. you KNOW your Zsa Zsa, Memaw, and Nana Leslie. you know your baby friends and their mamas. you know your music teacher Annie and all the little toddlers in the class. and most importantly, you know your parents. and that is the best feeling anyone could feel. 

your papa and i were just talking about how strong you are. and if there was a baby arm wrestling competition, you'd probably win. sometimes you are stronger than me. you push off me when you don't want to be held, and i can hardly hold on. you twist and turn and wiggle until you are loose and fee to roam the grounds with your dog. you love your dog. you share your puffy snacks with her in your walker. you eat one, then you give her one. its a sweet gesture and all, but we don't give our dog table food. 

food is always the highlight of your day. you love your food. and you seem to never get full. i usually stop feeding you when your belly is ready to explode. you pretty much eat all finger foods, not many purees anymore. you've got the pincer grasp down now. along with pointing. you point at everybody and everything. you even point at our noses and eyeballs, and then hook it with your nail, which hurts like crazy. everything you do to us these days pretty much physically hurts us. you nip. you grip our skin with your nails. you slam your head in to ours, which hurts us more than you i think, and you slap in the face. it's all a fun game to you. 

you are a champ in your walker. you can cut corners, reverse, and pivot all with your little tippy toes. you can climb out of it if you really want something in front of you. you run into cabinets and open all the drawers and pull just about everything out you can get your hands on. today you learned to ope and take out each individual baby wipe out of the package and to taste test each one. good thing they're honest. 

lately you have been able to stand without holding on to anything for a good 20 seconds. you can even squat down and pick something up too. we saw you even stand up from sitting. just once though. you squat all the time from sitting. you are so close. you do a cool move where you kneel on the knee and put your other food on the group. we call it the 'captain morgan' pose. 

i think my most favorite thing you do is dance. you wiggle your upper torso and just grin as wide as your little cheeks and mouth will let you. or if you are on all four, you wiggle the entire back and butt in this spiral motion. this happens anytime you hear music. or even if you don't. you still dance. it's just too much. so is your laugh. it's contagious. when you laugh, my laugh is always followed by it. i can always make you laugh by tickling 
your feet, or by blowing on them. 

i can't wait to see you grow into this amazing dude i think you're becoming. they say that babies temperaments in the beginning say a lot of what they will be like when they are older. and so far. you have been such a joy. obviously we both have our moments. like when you are tired, or teething, or hungry. but we have had a nice teething break this past month. it's been quite nice. much love to you baby b. 

love mama

truckee

happy birthday dada!

happy happy birthday to the best dad/friend/bf there is out there. these two and me are so lucky to have you in our lives. thank you for taking time off and for such a great mini family vacay to mendocino this week. it was a nice treat to have you home. we love you dada! 

love, mama, B, Zoe, and Elliot. 

Nine (a day early)

OMG nine months old?? holy smokes big boy. i am a day early because i leave for LA tomorrow morning and won't have time to do this. the 9 month check up isn't until next tuesday, so i have no idea on any of his vitals. but i assure you, he's still small. i do feel like he's grown because he can walk around in his walker now. which is kinda cool, but kinda sucks. i'll be doing dishes and he will come slamming into my ankles at full speed. pretty hilarious actually, but it hurts. like everything else he does to you. and if you're not watching him carefully, he will be in the kitchen opening drawers. those are not baby proofed yet. we will get on that. he's figured out how to open things. this has been fun. (more baby proofing to do). he likes to stand and pull out every single diaper and wipe off the stand. he likes to sit in boxes and be pushed around. -box car racer- he is not walking yet, but getting to standing is becoming a piece of cake for him. i still wonder if he will walk before 12 months. i just wanted to wish a happy 9 month birthday to best cutest boy in the world before i left on my trip. and i hope, no i know B and dada will be ok without me. (not sure w/ out my boob though)wish i could just leave those behind. haha. this is the longest i've left him..but he's so used to being away from me for 11 plus hours at work, so i think we'll be ok. i will be drinking for like the first time too since before my pregnancy. (minus that one glass of champagne in Tahoe 5 months back) i am excited to get away for a girls weekend of fun! jon says i deserve it and not to worry and to have fun. and to relax for once. will miss these boys tremendously. 

i love..

i love your smile. especially when you are looking straight at me with our noses touching. i love the laugh that comes out of that smile. you make me laugh more and more everyday. your laugh makes up for a hard bad day with you. i love how intrigued you are with what i'm doing. have it be opening mail, eating, writing a grocery list or on my phone. your eye balls follow me with such concern, then always followed by a big grin. i love how you collapse your whole head and body back and stare at the skylight/ceiling/walls when i carry you up the stairs. i love how you prefer to sit in a big pile of books while i read to you, gnawing on each and everyone. i love your excitement for toy cars, or anything on wheels. i love that you are not scared of water, and in fact would prefer to always be touching it in some way. have it be in the bath, or the faucet, or Zoe's water bowl, or drinking it with a straw. i love that your Vitamin D is still the best thing you've ever tasted and everyday you get excited for it. i love how you can't sit still EVER, so when you do for a split moment, it is the most calming second ever. i love that after i feed you at night before bed, you twist to the side, climb on top of me and actually lay flat on me give me the biggest squeeze ever and rest your head sideways while sucking your thumb. this is the newest thing you do and i absolutely ADORE it. you don't fall asleep breastfeeding anymore, but you know when bedtime is because you nuzzle up. i rock you in the chair and sing to you, or shhhhh you. then i stand up and sway you until your entire body just collapses. no stiff bone in the body. i lay you down in your crib and tickle your back until you close your eyes and are still. now why can't naps be like this?! i love coming down stairs to see what position you are in. usually its this sprawled out face down star fish. when it's cold, you are curled up with butt in the air. i just wanted to share a few things i love about you. there are a million more things i love about you, but these are the ones that are fresh in my mind. i love you baby boy. 

kitkitdizze

we did a little photo shoot with gary a couple weeks back out at his place on the ridge. here is a little unedited sneak peak of what's to come. photo by the talented Simon Weller. the two portraits of gary were done with this amazing huge film camera simon had. 

music together

today we started our first mama and baby music class. we are doing it with our friend kazumi and her little girl kaede. the class was super fun and filled with lots of other sweet mama's and kiddos. (even twins!) we were of course late for our first class because someone decided to sleep in on this particular day, but it all worked out. bronson of course, was the center of attention. literally. he crawled to the middle of the room and sat there the whole class just smiling and laughing at everyone. a mommy at the end of the class said he was stealing everyone's hearts the whole time. we played lots of fun instruments: rattle eggs, drums, wooden clappers, rain sticks, and scarfs. ooohhhh scarfs. bronson loved these!!

there are all ages in this class. most about between 1-2 years old. a couple infants, like almost new borns. and a couple that looked to be bronsons age, but were maybe younger (but bigger than b) because they were sitting but not crawling around...like i'm sure they would have been if they knew how. everyone was surprised to see bronson crawling around, until i told them his age. then they just seemed shocked at how small he was. yes guys, i know, he's tiny. like me. 

today i also noticed a white new tooth coming in. it's on the bottom left right by his bottom two teeth. which is a bit out of order. i just think he's just going for it and going to sprout all of them this next couple months. hey, at least we're getting it out of the way now. right?! jon thinks he see's one on the top too, right by the two front teeth. no wonder he's not sleeping through the night anymore. he does this thing that sends chills through my body. he grinds his top and bottom teeth together constantly. it drives me nuts and gives me goosebumps. i absolutely hate it!! 

all in all, i do believe this music and me class was a huge success. he seemed to enjoy himself and others company thoroughly! now lets hope we can make it on time next time.