Back to normal - almost

Things have finally settled down at the Hancock house again. Neil slept in his own bed on Sunday night and has continued with that since. He doesn't go to bed anywhere near 8:00 anymore, but he is still sleeping through the night. I can't decide if I want to fight the issue with him now and get him back to the 8:00 bedtime or let it be as it is (around 9 or 9:30) for awhile. It isn't bothering me now, but I really liked having the nighttime hours to myself!

I got my hair cut today! I wanted a summer style and I definitely got that. It's short - but I think I'm going to like it. We'll see after I style it myself in the morning - I can never get it to look the way it did when I left the salon!

Thanks to Lindsay, I just made Neil the best food! I didn't think to do this, but Lindsay suggested mixing apples and bananas together. He ate more in one sitting than he's eaten in DAYS. It was hilarious. I couldn't get the food in fast enough for him. I'm going to research more recipes on the Internet and Neil's doctor suggested a baby food cookbook. I'll let you know how it goes.

Neil is cutting a tooth AND can sit up on his own

Can you believe it?! Now I know why he's been a little fussy over the last two days - and when I say a little fussy, I mean that he hasn't slept for two days and has basically thrown a fit for 24 hours straight if he's not being held. Most of you know that I am against having Neil in the bed with me and Rodney - needless to say, Neil has slept in the bed with us the last two nights. Now that we have baby orajel hopefully life will change, but I'm not making any bets at this point.

Yesterday, Shane took us out on his boat to a fun sandbar near Johns Island. We had a great time! Both times we got on the boat, Neil fell asleep instantly. You wouldn't know it unless I told you, but Neil is asleep in these pictures. Funny huh? He actually didn't mind the sunglasses or the hat and didn't get burned at all! Rodney was too funny about lathering Neil up with sunscreen - usually that is me, but he was really protective of him yesterday - and for good reason of course. He'd fry like bacon in the sun with no sunscreen!

Matt Ellis (aka Rowdy) and his son Griffin were with us as well - isn't he SO cute?!

And this is Shane - Neil says thanks for taking us on your boat. We had a GREAT time!

Now Neil is sitting up on his own - he definitely still falls over after about 30 seconds or so, but he is so damn cute sitting up. Rodney just put him on the carpet upstairs this afternoon and he sat up like he'd been doing it all along. LOVE it! Next is crawling - I don't think I'm ready for that yet. He's growing up way too fast. A tooth and sitting up in one day - TOO MUCH! I have the best video of him sitting up, but something is wrong with the blog or my camera because it's not letting me upload the video. I'll figure out the issue this week so I can start posting the videos again, promise!

Oh, and for those of you that are wondering, YES I'm still making all Neil's food fresh. So far, he's eaten squash, zucchini, green beans, bananas, apples, cantaloupe and watermelon. He really disliked zucchini - I mean he was gagging and spitting it out. It was so funny! We'll have to try that one again in a few weeks.

We went for Neil's 6 month check up last Thursday and he is doing really well. He's now 18 lbs. 13 oz. and 27 inches long. His weight, height and head circumference are all in the 75 percentile. So, he's not as big as everyone thinks he is! We do have to go to an ENT to check out the spot on his tongue that has been there since birth. The doctor doesn't think it's anything, but would rather have it checked out now than wait.

So, we've had a big weekend! And kickball playoffs are this week - our team was undeafeated in the regular season. Hopefully we'll keep out title of "Charleston Kickball Champions!"

Peace

We may have a future hippy on our hands.

Hilton Head - Johnson/Benton wedding

Sorry everyone - my camera has been broken since last weekend so I haven't been updating the blog. I finally broke down this weekend while we were in Hilton Head for Davy and Julie's wedding and bought another one. Davy and Julie got married last night on the 18th green at Harbour Town in the SeaPines resort. It was absolutely beautiful! We had such a great time - thanks Mickie for keeping all the children while we went out on the town all weekend.

Since Rodney and Brandon were both in the wedding, Crystal and I got to ride in the limo with the bridal party to the reception - got some great pictures of the newly married couple!!

Rodney was a hit on the dance floor with his shades on! For those of you that know me really well - you'll appreciate the fact that I got up and gave a toast to the bride and groom - it was the "welcome to the Citadel wives club" toast that was passed down from Mike and Mary's wedding last weekend. We've had a hell of a time the last two weekends - don't know what we are going to do without going to a wedding this weekend! I threw in two random pictures here from dinner on Friday night and a cute picture of Neil and Julie (the bride!).

We went to the pool today and I put Neil in the pool for the second time - the water was still cold, but he liked it MUCH better this time. I took a video with the new camera, but it won't let me upload it here - not good. And how about that last picture - Neil will love me for that one later in life! Ha ha.

Jumping jack

Neil is the funniest kid I've ever seen - he just laughs and bounces around in the jumping jack thing. He entertains himself pretty well in it - in this video he doesn't talk very much, but he usually is pretty talkative while he's in there.

Not many naps for Neil anymore - he is such an active child! Once he starts crawling I'm really going to be in trouble. Take a look at this video - I think crawling is in our very near future. Every morning when I go to wake him up, he's moved himself all the way to the corner of the crib and is basically talking into the monitor, "Come and get me mom!"

This is another quick video - I have to do short ones or they take FOREVER to load on the page.

Real food for Neil

I decided on Friday to start Neil on some real food - not baby food, but real food. Everyone says I'm full of it, but I am going to try and make Neil's baby food fresh. Instead of buying jars of baby food, I'm making my own - so far I've done squash, bananas and apples. He LOVES it! It has been so funny to watch him with the new textures and flavors. I promise I'll get a video tomorrow.

The camera has been in Monck's Corner since last weekend when I left it at Crystal's graduation party. We put Neil in the pool for the first time - he HATED the cold water, but was good with the luke warm hot tub. The video's are terrible, but thought I'd share them anyway.

Here are a few still pics from the day too. Robbie and Neil and Jen and Neil - we had such a good time! Thanks to Liza for his CUTE swim trunks - LOVE them.

Growth spurt

That is the only explanation for the way Neil has been acting the last two days. Not that he's been bad, just more fussy than usual. So, I think he must either be getting a tooth or going through a growth spurt. Either way, I hope it ends soon! I've probably had about 10 hours of sleep over the last two or three nights. I know this is more than some people get, but I had gotten used to feeding Neil at 10:30 then I would be in the bed by 11:30 and sleep till 6:00 or 6:30. That is almost 7 hours of sleep and it was WONDERFUL. It definitely hasn't been like that the last two days.

With that being said, I started Neil on rice cereal on Monday night. I tried to actually have him eat from a spoon - yeah, that was funny! I wish I had my camera because I would have taken pictures, but we left it at Brandon and Crystal's house over the weekend. I'm really missing it and have to go up there to get it ASAP. Neil didn't do well with the spoon, so I just put some in his bottle and gave it to him that way. He didn't fuss too much about it - didn't really seem to notice.

Since the rice cereal really hasn't helped with his waking up at night, I am going to go and get some baby food from the grocery store tonight and try that. I will have to borrow a camera from someone in order to catch his first few tastes on camera! Should have an interesting posts for tonight or tomorrow morning!!