Baby Physics 101

1. The fullness of the diaper is directly proportional to the speed in which you need to get out of the door
2. Blowouts only happen when the baby is wearing white, has just had a bath, or is about to go to bed
3. The smaller the baby, the more of the bed they take up
4. The projectile distance of newborn spit-up is directly proportional to the soreness of your arms
5. A baby adds 3x the amount of dirty laundry to the household
6. The amount of Cheerios on the floor increases exponentially with the age of the baby
7. The number of times a baby pees on your bed sharply increases from midnight to 5am
8. The busier the day, the fussier the baby
9. The cost of the toy is indirectly proportional to the baby's interest in it
10. The cost of the clothes is directly proportional to the number of blowouts that will occur in it
11. The number of tantrums increases the hour before dad comes home (the same hour you're making dinner), then drops to 0 the second he walks in the door
12. The biggest smiles come when the mom is most frustrated &/or tired
13. The length of feeding the baby always increases as the time to leave the house decreases
14. The hour before bedtime is not 60 minutes long
15. The love for the baby grows exponentially every. single. day.

Shhhelfie

6 Months Old; 12 Months Tall

Well.

Milo's half a year old and I'm still freaking out. That was the fastest 6 months of my entire life. Previously, the fastest 6 months had been January - June 2010, the last 6 months of high school, but I was so looking forward to the end of that 6 months.

He's officially cleared the 20 lbs mark and shot up another inch (28 inches). I had to go get a few more pairs of 9-12 month size leggings this week since his 6-9 month pants had become Capris. We have a ton of jeans for him, but if he wears the size that gives him the length he needs, then the waist is too big and they just fall off. I'm not entirely unfamiliar with this problem since that defines my 5-15 year old life. #leggingsforlyfe.

He's rolling around all over place these days. It takes him .093 seconds to flip onto his stomach when I lay him down on the floor. He's figuring out how to rock back up on his knees, and he loves when I help him do wheelbarrows. Milo's figured out that his socks taste fantastic, that rice cereal tastes un-fantastic, and that avocados are his jam (or guacamole. hahaha... Sorry that was lame). He's sitting up much better these days and loves to be tossed in the air, even if my arms aren't a fan of that.

We've been battling separation anxiety over here the last two weeks; he always wants us to be in seeing distance. Milo is getting more curious about his outside world. The other day he stared at his blanket from great-grandma Rowley for a solid 10 minutes, just looking at the patterns on the fabric. He's beginning to reach out and grab objects too. He tried grabbing my tongue last week but soon became frustrated with that exercise. We just found out last night that he can hold his bottle now too, though I'm kaboshing that one since my only snuggle time with him is when I feed him. He's still sleeping through the night really well, but he's sleeping less during the day. We're still trying to figure out his nap patterns. It seems like he needs at least 4 hours of sleep in the day to be a happy baby. Otherwise we're all in trouble.

It's been great being a mom. Much less stressful and overwhelming and all-consuming than I thought, though yes, I still have those feelings occasionally, and that's ok too.

Happy Milo

Sit-up Milo

Separation Anxiety Milo

Sock-eating Milo

Laughing Milo

Somewhat-crawling Milo

Church Milo (insert heart-eye emoji here CUZ THAT GINGHAM TIE IS EVERYTHING)

Bottle-feeding Milo.
If you can't tell, he's looking at the bottle like "...the heck is this contraption?"

Now - in response to my good friend Danica's recent post - she tagged me to share 7 facts that ya'll may not know about me. Since I know my mom and mother-in-law are most likely the only ones reading, I'll have to be clever with these facts as they know me so well:

1. From a young age I mastered the art of "out of sight, out of mind". Yes, my room is spotless, but don't look under the bed!
2. I've taken hundreds of those "Are you an Introvert or an Extrovert" tests and each time I'm told something different. Apparently I'm 50/50 introvert and extrovert. Kyle's the same way. It can make things difficult when one of us is feeling particularly extroverted and the other is not. It can make things awesome when we're both feeling particularly extroverted or introverted.
3. I try very hard to not offend people - sometimes to a fault. Many times social media drives me nuts because it seems like people are more concerned with having an opinion rather than having any knowledge. I don't care if you've seen American Sniper or choose not to because of the rating. I don't care if you love doTerra or not, are Republican or Democratic, support net-neutrality or not, had a medicated or non-medicated birth.... just don't be rude about your opinion. AND STOP FIGHTING OVER FACEBOOK.
4. I have to gear myself up for hours to wear bright lipstick.
5. I tend to go to extremes. One day I'm 100% on board with being a super granola, yogi zen master who eats açaí berries and has dreads. The next day I'm set to be an extreme marathon runner who's up at 5 am everyday running 20 miles and actually cares about how fast my mile times are.
6. Gifs are the greatest thing to happen to the Internet since the Internet began.
7.  I do not understand or care to learn how to use Twitter. I had one for a few months but I got so confused and cared so little that I deleted it.

I'm supposed to tag 7 other bloggers to share 7 facts... but I honestly don't know 7 other regular bloggers; I am incredibly un-cool like that. Instead I'll tag my Aunt Nancy since she's awesome and I think her facts would be interesting :)

Happy Saturday folks!

A Solidly Random Post

I've started this post oh, possibly 18 times.

I have approximately about 194,872 things on my mind. Things I've wanted to share, things I've wanted to rant about, things I've wanted to discuss. Mostly, yes, about Milo cuz #momlife and all that. But first...

HOLIDAYS:

Thanksgiving we flew up to Washington to see my side of the family. Milo's first flight and he was a champ both ways!

Got his wings on the way there! And laughing on the way back (below). Like, really?

Also, no idea why it's flipped here... I'm not even gonna bother figuring that out.

It was the first time my aunts, uncles, and grandparents had seen Milo and he was spoiled so hard. We were up for about 10 days and it was wonderful to relax. I thought it was interesting once married how you suddenly became privy to details you normally wouldn't be... that magnifies a LOT once you become a parent! But I'm so grateful for the relationships that I have with my family.

Now here are some super high quality phone pictures!

Proof of being spoiled!!

Neither are sure what to make of the other...

My cousin Daniel with Milo

Milo and Ila (Daniel's youngest sister), born 2.5 weeks apart. Originally ok....

...then Milo got jealous of Ila's mad tummy skills

4 generations!

Got my haircut! Woot, woot!

Where I wound up finding my kid 99.9% of the time. He never falls asleep in my arms, so I don't know how this happened. Grandma powers, man.

He also slept like this and it was adorable

Grandma and Grandpa Rowley with Milo

Milo wasn't too sure at first about Grandpa

Milo's best Blue Steel attempt

Our 3rd anniversary came and went! We finally tried out Red Iguana up in Salt Lake and it was awesome. The mirachi band came out to perform and Kyle got a bit teary-eyed from the memories they brought. My heart is still a puddle on the ground there.
Christmas we stayed in Utah with the Tuft's. A white Christmas morning came (I WAS THE FIRST ONE UP AGAIN 6 AM WHERE YOU AT) and Santa had delivered his presents, but pirates had stolen them because there weren't any true-believers anymore!

After solving a riddle, we followed the map to four different secret locations. We had found two locations before we Skyped with Spencer (Kyle's brother in Honduras) and Nicole (my sister in Italy). Both are six months into their missions and are doing well :) We ate breakfast/lunch (if it's breakfast at 1pm, is it still breakfast??) then found the two other secret locations. It was a lot of fun and Milo slept through most of it. With most of the family in town we played games, hung out, and played volleyball at the church where I quickly realized that I am sorely out of shape and I SHOULD NOT BE JUMPING. Fortunately we didn't take any pictures of that.

Brian led our quest dressed as a Frosty/Rudolph hybrid ;)

Milo being 10,000% done with holiday cheer

Spencer!

Nicole!

New Year's Eve we had some friends over for games that night. It was a bit last minute, but it was still a lot of fun. Because we're now old, married, and have kids, we ended the party around 11. Kyle and I drank Martinelli's in our pj's and rang in the New Year debating the ethics of the recent Star Trek episode we'd watched. So yeah, it was basically like every other night.

My New Year's resolutions have mostly taken a backseat for 2015. To be perfectly honest... I don't really set resolutions. I have this horrible thing where I don't make goals if I think I'm not gonna reach them, so I save myself the horror of actually failing them. Last year I wanted to cook dinner every single day. Three days in we went to Slab, so obviously that was a good goal. This year I have decided to "just get it on the table". Regardless of how messy my kitchen is, how fancy the food is, how Martha Stewart/Pinteresty the table is, or even how healthy it is. Low expectations are something I can deal with ;) So far, so good. I gave myself 1-2 days off where I don't have to make dinner and that's been realistic for me.



Other things:

Milo will be 6 months old in a few weeks and I'm so stunned it almost hurts. At our last check-up our pediatrician mentioned that we could start introducing him to solids and I just looked him like he'd smacked the side of my head. At first I thought he was just pushing solids prematurely, so I looked up the most "pro-nursing" opinion I could find: even La Leche League agrees that solids can be introduced between 4-6 months. For some reason I'd resigned myself to exclusively nurse Milo until he was a year old? No idea where I got that one. Apparently I was being more granola than the Granolas. I was basically oats.

Mostly just interested in the spoon right now

Anyway. All that to begin the typical mom rant: THIS IS GOING TOO FAST PLEASE PLEASE SLOW DOWN.

When Milo was about 20 hours old, I finally had a chance to sit on our couch and just look at him. Really, really look at him. My heart hadn't gone all Grinch yet (grown 2 sizes, too big), and I was hypersensitive of any sign of post-partum depression, so I decided that if I just looked at him, then maybe I'd get that swelling, life-altering, heart-stopping swoosh of love for this baby. So I sat and I held him, and I looked. I examined every single crease of his old man forehead. The tiny flakes of newborn skin that were just starting to fall off, the nearly invisible strands of eyebrows. The peachfuzz. The veins on his head, the soft, soft fingernails, the closed lips - MY LIPS?! His monstrous palms. Every single detail. Everyone had said it goes so fast so I wanted to do my due diligence and try and appreciate the moments that I had, though at the time, I didn't really understand why. It sure wasn't going fast then. I was actually pretty freaking sore and more tired than I'd ever been. But I wanted some time to freeze-frame this one second of my tiny, tiny baby.

And did that love come? Holy sweet moly. Yes it did.

In that one hour of holding and looking at this baby boy, my life completely altered in every single cliché way. There is nothing I can say to describe the feeling - nothing that hasn't already been said. I am a mom - Milo's mom - and I am at peace about that. It wasn't a swoosh, it wasn't an expansion of the heart, a chain connecting to a new anchor, or anything like that. It was the knowledge that I've held this baby boy before. In another life, another time, another place. I had known him for a lot longer than the 20 hours he'd been on this earth. It was the sweetest reunion I've yet experienced and it's one of my most favorite memories to date.

Fall Pictures and Our 3 Month Old

This past weekend we finally had a chance to go up the canyon and check out the changing leaves. Fall in Utah has got to be the prettiest thing I've ever seen. And I'm from the prettiest state in the US, so I feel qualified to make that statement ;) 

Liz came home from her mission this week! For her birthday, her parents flew her down to Utah to surprise our other ex-roommate for her wedding. Carly was so shocked to see her and it was awesome.

Milo is almost three months old and it's freaking me out. He's officially out of all the 3 month old clothes, and into the 6-9 month outfits. He's a whopping 17 lbs, 26 inches; meaning he's doubled his weight and grown 5 inches in 3 months. I don't think I ever realized how intense of a growth spurt babies go through! Either that or Milo is just an anomaly. He's out of the size 1 diapers, which kinda sucks cuz I had anticipated he'd be wearing those for quite a lot longer (anyone want some packages of diapers?!)  Milo loves sucking on the back of his hand, but it still surprises him to find it at the end of his arm. He's starting to drool up a storm, which is kinda cute in a way that only babies can pull off. He falls asleep in seconds when he's in the car; we're trying to figure out if we need a new car seat since his feet are almost starting to hang out of it!

Milo laughed for the first time 3 weeks ago and it lit up my whole world. Since then he's laughed a few more times but I've missed them all. He's super smiley for like, 20 minutes a day. The rest of the time he just stares intensely at everything going on around him, or he's sleeping. And he's sleeping a lot right now. He started sleeping through the night fairly early on, about 8 hours a night, but within the last week it's been closer to 10 or 11. I'm assuming that means a growth spurt is coming on again and I have very mixed feelings about that.

We had been bathing him with a baby bath on top of our kitchen table (we don't have a bathtub), but last week he discovered splashing. Needless to say, we're now bathing him with the baby bathtub on the floor of our shower. He loves his bath. It's my "go-to" whenever he starts falling asleep a bit early in the evening. Today I propped Milo up in front of our floor mirror to see how he'd react. It was the funniest thing to watch the range of emotions play out on his face! He went from surprised to scared, to wary, to flirty, to smiley, and then completely uninterested. He recognizes me and his daddy as soon as we walk into the room and he loves to be held.

I think before I had Milo that I thought my world would be dramatically different once kids entered the picture, like going from black to white, but that's not been my experience. It's felt more like an expansion of life rather than a complete change. I still have my routines, the laundry still needs washing (even if there is a bit more), I still don't love to cook, we still watch Star Trek in the evening, I still have time to put on makeup if I want too, and we still like to be together. We just have a new buddy to take along with us :)

 That smirk. Like, really??

Momma Bear Love

Growing up, my mom frequently used the term "momma bear" in referring to her love for us. For a long time I had no idea what she was talking about but over time it began to make sense. Mom explained that being a mom taps into some primal, almost feral, instinct. I'm learning that this momma bear love is intense.

It's equal parts debilitating and enabling.
It's crippling and healing.
It is tender and passionate.
It's gentle and fierce.
It's dormant and active.
It's illuminating and blinding.
It is exhausting and rejuvenating.
It is calming and chaotic.
It's familiar and foreign.
It is heartbreaking and "heartmending"

It is the greatest love I've known.