Brooke and Brooks

We were lucky enough to travel to California last weekend to meet up with family and friends. First, I got to spend some time with my dear friend, Lexi, and her baby girl, Brooke. Talk about confusion...trying to have a conversation mentioning Brooke and Brooks, and Brooke's and Brooks'...too much! Brooke is absolutely adorable, and looks a lot like her mommy. The kids didn't really play much, but us mommies sure had a nice time catching up.

Just some fun in the sun

Back when it was warm outside (last week) we spent lots of time outside. Brooks loved playing with the grass. He is so happy outside...just like his daddy. I also put a baseball hat on him for the first time. It's a little too big, but it was only a dollar. I was surprised that Brooks kept it on. Every once in a while he would look up and notice something on his head, but he pretty much just left it on his head. He is becoming such a ham for the camera - maybe that's because we are always taking pictures.

A New Noise

Brooks learned a new noise the other day...



He crawled around all day making this sound. It was cracking me up!

A BIG WEEK

I know I usually give an update each month on Brooks' "birthday", but this time I just couldn't wait. Brooks is exactly 7 1/2 months old, and it has been a big week for him. On Saturday, he finally made sense of the whole "crawling" thing. He was rocking back and forth on his knees and then picked his hand up and moved it forward...and then the other hand...and then he was crawling. And now, all he wants to do is crawl. It's hard to change a diaper on a baby that is trying to get away. On top of that excitement...my baby is FINALLY getting his first tooth. I just happened to feel around in his mouth the other day, and his gums felt a little different. I checked it out (which is nearly impossible to look into a baby's mouth) and sure enough - I could see a little bud trying real hard to poke through the gums. No wonder he has been fussing and drooling so much. All of a sudden, my little baby isn't such a little baby anymore.

I just can't get enough

This last one makes me laugh...his hair was going crazy because of the static, and he's had this obsession today about sticking out his tongue.

Fun Food

Brooks enjoys sucking on wagon wheels, but he has been taking too big of a bite lately. So the other night I decided to break them apart into smaller pieces and put them on the table for him to grab. He loves this! He grabs the pieces with his tiny little fingers and tries to make it to his mouth. Some times he'll get distracted by the other pieces on the table, so he ends up dropping one piece just to grab another. And when he gets a piece in his mouth he actually does a really good job "chewing" it. It's totally cute! Tonight we went out to eat ($1 mini margaritas and Mexican food), and I brought some wagon wheels to break apart and give to Brooks to chew on so he wouldn't get bored. He gobbled up 3 wagon wheels and would've eaten more if I had brought any more. As soon as one was in his mouth, he was grabbing for another piece. He was getting a little greedy! When our food got there I thought it would be nice to share some of my black beans with Brooks. I put a pile of the beans in front of him, and he loved grabbing them and shoving them into his mouth. (And for those of you thinking that I put food down on a dirty restaurant table, I will have you know that I totally washed it down first.) So, Brooks pretty much ate the entire time that we were at the restaurant. It was amazing! Some times I look at his belly and wonder how anything else will fit in there.
[For those of you who are wondering what the heck a wagon wheel is, I added a picture as a visual aid.]

He Definitely has his Moments

I was reading my friend's blog the other day, and she mentioned that you always see pictures of smiling babies. This kind of leads others to think that babies are always happy, or pictures of smiling babies are easy to get. Let me quote my friend, "Babies DO cry, they DO get sick, and they DO get mad sometimes it is what they do and that is why they are called babies. So don't be fooled by all the happy babies and think that every baby is just blissful 100% of the time because it is just not true. The smiles just make it all worthwhile kinda like it is GOD's way of reassuring us that these are His priceless gifts." I couldn't have said it any better, which is why I used her quote (thanks Jen).
Brooks is actually a pretty happy baby. I know I don't have my own to compare, but I see other babies, and it seems to be that Brooks could be labeled 'a happy baby'. He's pretty chill and relaxed, and rarely fusses. Lately he's learned to throw little tantrums when things don't go his way. Usually these happen when I take something away from him (cell phone, remote, water bottle, or something else that doesn't really belong to him). I try to replace the item with something that he'll enjoy, but some times it's too late and he is too upset to realize that the item has been replaced. At home it's easy to just let him throw his fit and then come back to him. He throws he head back and arms up in the air and just screams! It's a funny site (at home), but out in public it is embarrassing. Now, he's really own done it once in public. We were at a restaurant the other day and Chad was letting him suck on a cucumber. Well, he loved it. When it became a chocking hazard, it was taken away...and then came the tantrum. Chad took him outside with his paci to calm him down.
The point being that Brooks has many faces, and he definitely has his moments. He was fussing in his highchair the other day to get out, or something, I'm not really sure why he was fussing. So, I thought I'd get the camera to prove my point that no baby is perfect. The funny thing is that once I got the camera out to take the picture, he stopped. I'd turn around and he'd fuss, then I'd spin around to take the picture and he'd be fine again. Ironic. But I did catch him in a fit. You can see from the pictures how it progressed.