The Little Man Has Made it Half a Year! Go Us!

My little Luke is 6 months old today. He celebrated by learning to speed crawl. He was pretty quick before, but he went ahead and picked up the pace today. And he desperately wanted to lick the toilet. It's shiny, what can I say? I would put him at the wall of our bedroom and then run into the bathroom to try and get something done before he caught up to me. Normally I can get toothpaste on the brush and start brushing before he makes it to me, but he was right on my heels today. To save time I simultaneously washed my face and brushed my teeth, which means that I ended up washing my face with Colgate and brushing my teeth with Lancome. It didn't taste as bad as you might think.


I miss the days when I could rely on the exersaucer or swing or bouncer to entertain my child. I finally had to just strap him into the car seat and put him at the front door so he could watch the trees outside. That one still works.


Then we went to his 6 month appointment with Dr. V. His height is still in the 90th percentile but his weight is in the 50th percentile. He's svelte. And super strong. In the exam room I was leaning him over a toy that was essentially a wooden block with some beads on it and he was lifting it up. I swear his rippling muscles would have torn open his clothes, had he been wearing any clothes. Then he proceeded to do bear walks (hands and feet) across the examination table. He has pushed himself up to that position before but has never been able to move. I keep telling him that he is a baby, but I think he forgets.

Now he's sleeping off the Tylenol and stress from all the shots. The good thing is that this was the last appointment where he receives more than two vaccines at a time. Thank goodness. I got my flu shot yesterday and feeling the pinch of the shot and the resulting soreness and thinking about putting my baby through this again and with FOUR SHOTS has stressed me out. Matt explained that the flu shot goes into mostly muscle while Luke's shots go into mostly fat, so it doesn't hurt him as much. And I'm reminded of my friend's newborn who got whooping cough and ended up in the hospital. And so I blow in his face to distract him while the nurse gives him the shots and sing I him little songs to calm him down when the shots are over. And I try not to cry along with him. I think I'm going to go join Luke and sleep off the stress from all his shots now.

Happy six months of being in the world, Little Man Johnson. We love you more than you can know.

Luke is Mobile

About a week ago Luke decided that the scooting period was over and it was time to crawl. We have fantastic video of him alternating between crawling and laughing hysterically at the fact he was crawling. It was one of my favorite things ever to watch. We'll try to get it posted this week because you really do have to see it.

I can't believe how quickly he went from Beginning Crawler to Advanced Crawling Machine. That kid can book it when he wants something, like my cup of water, the remote control, shoes, and anything shiny, all of which he wants to put in his mouth. He also went through this fantastic phase where he wanted to put his thumb on everything. No joke. Here are pictures.

He would crawl around and every time he felt something new, he put his thumb on it. Auntie Mary spent a good 20 minutes walking him around Aunt Toni's house letting him put his thumb on all of her assorted treasures. (While that was happening I was sitting quietly on the couch. Just sitting. Not crawling after Luke, or doing the dishes or laundry, or straightening anything, or even reading a magazine. Just sitting. It was heavenly. Oh wait, I was doing laundry. But not actively at that particular time. So, still, heavenly.) That phase ended abruptly and I miss it. It made me laugh. The best part is that apparently Matt also had a thumb fetish when he was a kid. Weird, right? There's a nod to the Nature vs. Nurture theory.

The biggest changes due to this whole crawling thing include the following: The once-a-week vacuuming and twice-a-week Swiffering that I was getting away with are no longer going to cut it, I have rug burns on my knees (and really, there is no need to make a joke here. Sorry honey.), Luke is finally taking naps again due to wearing himself out with all this crawling (hallelujah!!), he now wakes up crying and crawls around his crib until I release him from his captivity, Luke is now eating 2-3 meals a day because the bottle alone just isn't cutting it anymore (his tummy was growling when he got up this morning!), everything in our house has been lifted up three feet, and finally, Matt and I can't watch any of our shows in the evening while Luke is awake because you cannot watch TV and a crawling baby at the same time. Poor TiVo is about to burst. Even the Office Wedding had to wait. If you needed proof of how much we love our child, there it is.

That's all for now. Here are some recent pics including our visit from Grandma and Grandpa and assorted other shenanigans of late.

Cheers to the Working Moms

So, here's what I don't get. Between keeping the house clean, the kid alive AND happy, and everyone fed, who has time to blog? And I only have one kid. And I don't have an outside job. And I have a very helpful husband. You ladies, and you know who you are, I salute you.

Weekend at Nonni's

OK, so it wasn't the weekend. Semantics.

I wrote that line when I started this blog on 9/16. Today is 9/29. Luke started teething and stopped sleeping and started crying and stopped smiling for a while. I think the worst is over, but we'll see what comes next! So I didn't have the time/energy/proper attitude to write anything. Sorry for the delay. Grandma Jeannie and Papa Jim are coming on Wednesday, so there should be more updates the next couple of weeks.

Now, back to the quickest trip to Sacramento I have ever taken. Luke and I flew (yup, we sure did!) there on Monday morning and flew back home on Tuesday night. It was just a test run to try out the whole "flying with infant" thing and test how we would both do without daddy for a night. The flight there was fantastic. Luke is usually really happy in the morning, so I thought it would be a good time for us to head out. He sucked on a bottle during takeoff and landing and didn't have any ear issues the whole time. He slept a little and we played a lot of peek-a-boo. He was the toast of the plane.

He decided not to nap all day; I chalked it up to excitement over seeing Nonni (I mean, who wouldn't be excited!). We spent the evening with the Sheehan family and were very excited to see my step-sister Ashlynn and meet her boyfriend, Nick. Pictures to follow. However, that night proved to be a difficult one. Luke slept (so I slept) in 20 minute increments. Then 2 hour increments after 2 am. Teething had begun. The next day was filled with a couple of grumpy Johnsons and a scream-filled flight back to Sacramento. I was so stressed when I got off the plane that I almost cried when I saw Matt. This did not make me super confidant about our October trip to Sacramento. But I will be armed with teething gel and tablets and baby Tylenol and mesh bags for ice cubes.

All will be well, I'm sure. I'm all about the power of positive thinking these days. Here are some pics.

Luke and Uncle Mattie playing with an App that makes farm animal noises. Luke wanted to eat the phone.


Kenzie wanted to read to Luke, but he kept touching the book.


So she read it to him from very far away.

But they love each other!

Two little sweet faces.

Rice, Rice Baby or One Step Closer to Cheese Fries

We couldn't decide on a title. Thank you husband for both little gems.

Luke is about to be 21 weeks. Is that crazy to anyone else? I know everyone said that time would fly after Luke joined our family in person, and I try to enjoy each day for the new and mostly fun things that come, but wow. He is one week away from the 5 month mark. ("Wait," you say. "I thought he was 21 weeks? Isn't that over 5 months?" No. Those of us who think of 4 week months are wrong. You don't have any reason to really notice that until you start counting how pregnant you are or how old your baby is.)

Luke had an appointment with his pediatrician Dr. V at the end of August and he said it was time to introduce rice cereal. I had planned on waiting a little longer because of a bunch of articles I read about infants and food and blah blah blah, but when the Dr. gives you the go ahead for something fun like this, it's hard to say no. So we waited until the following weekend and gave it a try. It was kind of a letdown. He didn't make that big of a mess and really he just kept spitting it out and looking at me like I was crazy for putting this stuff in his mouth. But the next day was a little better and the third day was great. He started opening his mouth for the spoon and actually got a little bit down. But there was a lot of spit up. A LOT. Like, enough for me to call the Dr. thinking he might be having a bad reaction to it. And I hadn't called the Dr. for any reason up to that point, so you know I was concerned. He assured me that all was fine and to just keep trying. I wasn't feeling it, but gave it a try anyway. For the next three days Luke cried when I tried to feed him. He fussed and tried to escape and wanted nothing to do with the food. The last thing I wanted was for eating to be a stressful situation, and that's exactly what I was creating.

I decided to trust my instincts that were telling me that Luke wasn't ready for solids yet, so we went back to the bottle for a week. Then yesterday Luke was watching Matt eat a bowl of cereal and he opened his mouth when Matt would take a bite. If that's not my child telling me he is ready for real food, I don't know what is! So we gave it a second try this morning and it was fantastic! He opened his mouth when he saw the spoon and ate the whole bowl of cereal! And he was excited about it, which was the best part. Here are some of the favorite pictures from this morning.

Biased, shimiased. Man, that's a cute kid.

A Beautiful Memory

This is kind of amazing! It is a picture of the newspaper that ran my mom and dad's wedding announcement on February 6, 1969. If you click on the picture you can see a close-up. What a beautiful bride and handsome groom. My brother looks so much like my dad, it reminds me of Matt and Luke! While the marriage may not have lasted a lifetime, it did bring my brother and I into this world, and eventually Luke and Mackenzie. What a wonderful result! Thank you mom and dad for finding one another!

Just Sittin' Here, Being a Bad Mommy

This morning Luke happily swung in his swing as I sat down with a cup of coffee to watch a little "Good Morning America". Soon enough though, he turned himself sideways to try and see the TV. I made sure he wasn't going to tip over and thought for sure he was going to fall asleep any second, so I wasn't really concerned about the TV watching. However after 5 minutes of craning and awakeness I thought I'd better put on something a little kid friendly. Goodbye GMA, hello Harold and the Purple Crayon.

This caused him to not only twist in his seat to see the TV, but now he started to cry because he didn't have a good view. We've been up since 5:15am and have already eaten and walked and played on the floor and practiced crawling...and momma's tired. So in the hope of having 22 minutes of peace and quiet I just turned the swing to face the TV.

I am wracked with guilt, however, I just might finish a hot beverage today.