Bradley's 5 Months!

Mr Bradley is 5 months! My how time flies! He's getting to be such a big boy! I took these pictures on his 5 Month Old Birthday. He's so funny, I think he's getting used to my little photo shoots :) This top picture is my favorite - but I had no idea how hard he was sucking on his arm! After I took this picture, I picked him up and he had this huge hickey on his arm! It lasted a long time and now I am very paranoid - when I see him sucking on his arm, I make sure he doesn't have a high power suction going on :) He's so funny :) He loves his feet now, he can't quite get his feet to his mouth but he sure tries, he pulls and pulls and opens his mouth to get ready to suck on them but they don't quite make it! Look at the concentration (and the hickey on his left arm)! Sweet baby boy!

Mother's Day

I had an absolutely wonderful first Mother's Day. It has to be one of my favorite new holiday's because being a mother is the most rewarding, important thing I have ever done in my life. I am so very blessed, I don't know what I did to deserve such a wonderful little boy and husband and family. I thank God every day for all the countless blessings in my life. I pray that I can be the best mother I can be, and I have a wonderful example to follow in my Mother. I am so blessed to be able to see my Mom and talk to her every day. I am so very close to her and love spending time with her. I appreciate her now more than ever and I strive to be as giving, caring, and loving as my Mom has always been. I love you Mommy!

Thank you Kevin for a wonderful day, all the wonderful gifts - and of course the best gift of all - Mr Bradley!! :)

Peek-A-Boo

Bradley has discovered Peek-A-Boo. If we sit him up on the couch or lay him down on his blanket and put his burp rag close to him it doesn't take long for him to grab ahold and get it over his face - and then drop it there, leave it and wait for someone to notice. A couple weeks ago we were playing games in the basement and we look over and Mr Bradley had the rag over his face and was just kicking and giggling to himself in anticipation - not knowing who was going to all the sudden appear and when :) It is very funny! He somehow thinks it's much more entertaining when he puts it there himself and surprises us.

Proud Parents

We sure love our little boy!! We could kiss him and cuddle him all day long! I love how he can reach out to us now and he'll hold your face when you go to kiss him. He sure is a little angel! We love you Mr Bradley, more than you'll ever know! :)

Naps

So it was about 3 weeks ago that I mastered the nap! Finally! Before this point anytime Bradley would fall asleep in the afternoon I would hold him, and sit on the couch, not wanting to move and wake him up - and truthfully, just not wanting to put him down because I love cuddling with him. But it did get to the point where I guess I needed to actually do stuff around the house. Mr Bradley still needs to be swaddled at night otherwise he'll wake himself up with his flailing arms. For some reason I thought that we shouldn't swaddle him during the day because I didn't want him to get confused between nap time and going to bed for all night. But after talking to our doctor about it, she said swaddling him during the day for naps is fine - sleeping is sleeping she said. So we started swaddling him for his naps - once in the morning with Kevin for a couple hours and once in the afternoon with me for a couple hours.
So we have our routine going where I'll feed him, bring him upstairs, close the curtains, turn on the fan, swaddle him, walk him around for a couple minutes, put him down in his bassinet, and he's out. Of course at first it was more like 20 minutes of walking :) but now that he knows the routine it really takes no time at all for him to fall asleep. I can tell when this started because that's when I was actually able to start posting on here :)

I get so excited for him to wake up so I can hang out with him again! I love how happy he is after a nice long nap, here are some pictures of me waking him up, first I unswaddled him and he stayed in the cutest position forever :)

then opened his eyes, stretched and smiled!

Just makes my day!

Puppy Love

The puppies have adjusted very well to having Mr Bradley around. Snickers isn't too interested in Bradley, he sniffs his car seat and toys a lot and when we bring them inside he'll go up and say hi right away but then it's like he'll completely forget Bradley's there.
Carmel on the other hand loves Mr Bradley! He'll stare at him all the time and any chance he gets he'll go up and get as close as possible to him - which makes sense because that's what he does to us too. He is such a big moose and clumsy but he is the most gentle, sweet puppy. He'll go up to Mr Bradley so slowly and carefully and he'll start licking about a foot away and just keep inching closer to see if we'll actually let him give Bradley a kiss :) We tried to get a picture of him giving Bradley a kiss here but then Snickers came up and then Carmel just wanted to kiss Snickers :)
The cats have had a harder time than the dogs - they are feeling more invaded in their space. The one thing that keeps me from having Mr Bradley sleep in our bed with us sometimes is my refusal to hurt the kitties feelings even more. The bed is theirs. Angel sleeps at my feet and Buffy still sleeps under the covers, curled up next to me - I think the one thing she's very happy with since I had Bradley is my big belly being gone and there's more room for her under there again :)

Babysitting

After much build-up and much discussion Mammy babysat Bradley for the first time on April 27th. She had been nervous about watching him when he was so small because she hadn't been around babies since Drew was little and that has been almost 6 years ago now. We had talked about maybe going to a movie several times but it never worked out - the timing of the movie didn't work with his feeding schedule or Mom just didn't feel confident that day :) But on the 27th we decided to have softball practice for the first time this year and she said she would try so Kevin and I could both go. Well what would you know - Mr Bradley decided that he didn't want to take any naps that day :) as if that wasn't bad enough, I think he was feeling a little under the weather :( So Mammy came over, I discussed all the different things she could try in case he started crying, and we left. Half an hour later I called to check in and my poor, tired, sick boy was crying - and my poor, feeling helpless and flustered Mommy was sad :( I came home and relieved my Mommy and I felt so bad because she felt bad. I spent the next week reassuring her that he didn't feel well and he was sleepy and of course he LOVES his Mammy! So the next sunday - we tried again! And for several hours Mr Bradley hung out in Mammy's arms - as happy as can be!! Success! (By the way - first time was a little hard on me too but the second time was better :) )