I have a lot of catching up to do!

I'm horrible at keeping up with this stuff, it's just that Max is keeping me so busy these days it's hard to find time to do the things that I need to do, much less the things I want to do, and then blog. So here's what's been going on, in a nutshell:

Max is now 9 months old. Holy smokes! This past month he's been working on mastering crawling, which he's virtually rocket propelled these days. He's been pulling up on furniture, my pants legs, the walls, and pretty much anything else that will stay still long enough. (Look out, Basil!) He has started trying to stand up just from the floor, where he ends up on his hands and feet. I hate it when he does it on the ceramic tile, just makes me nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

We are also getting acquainted with bumps and bruises around here. He's 1) fallen off the bed 2) bonked his face on the a) windowsill, b) end table, c) hearth. He's got a scratch on his nose which I can only assume came from his little talons.

He's got the pincer-grip thing down pat. I got him some organic O-shaped cereal, and he goes to town on it. He loves the stuff and can't shove it in his face fast enough sometimes!

Max is also working on the next set of teeth, this week they've really disturbed his sleeping (mostly during the day, thank goodness!). I can't tell where they're going to come in next.

And, he was Yoda for Halloween! Of course, we didn't take him trick-or-treating, but it was still fun to dress him up. John and I followed suit with our own Star Wars getups.

As far as talking, he is fully babbling now. No mamas yet, still all about da-da, ca (cat), ga-ga, and the new one which I love: laddle-laddle.

Hmmm, I guess that's pretty much it, so here's a run down of some of the pictures from the last month!

Day at the park:

First shot at spaghetti!

I'm coming to get you, Mama!

Fun times, these days!

8 months old!

I can't believe my sweet little one is eight months old already. He is growing so fast! Incidentally, I wasn't keeping up with him in the milk production arena and I was miserable on the cleanse, so I only made it to day 10. I really wish I could have finished but I wasn't able to get enough calories in for various reasons, so I think I'll do it once he's done nursing. I am happier eating real food.

Speaking of real food, here is the Maxter eating his dinner tonight. It was bananas, rice cake and oh horror of horrors! Peanut butter. He likes it. And check out the better pic of his teeth!

Also I wanted to post a picture of me as a baby so you could see that he looks like me too! Love it!

Do they look alike?

John as a baby.

Max at 7.5 months:

What do YOU think?

Here's a picture of Max's teeth! Not great, but he doesn't show them for the cameras, so we'll be happy with what we got:Flu season is completely insane this year. I overheard one woman talking to one of my clerks this week about how she thought it was so much worse this year. I agree, but the next thing she said completely floored me. First of all, let me mention that this woman was wearing an Obama t-shirt...which makes the things that came out of her mouth next hilarious to me. She said she thought this was something that the government was putting out there...you know, like all that syphilis. She was seriously comparing the swine flu (ahem, excuse me..H1N1 influenza) to Tuskegee! I mean, really? That one had me going for hours! The things I hear people say. Yes, Tuskegee was reprehensible and unforgivable. Definitely not laughing at that, just the comparison.

The last couple of days I have really been wanting to go off the cleanse and just eat whatever. My milk supply is suffering and I have been craving FOOD! Not really sweets, though, so that's a plus. Except I have eaten a lot of dates lately. Man, they are good! Okay, so I guess I have been. Anyway, except the dates, I've been doing well. I think my milk supply has suffered because I'm not pumping for as long at work as I used to...no time. Sometimes I can't pump as often and when I do, I'm so wound up that it's hard to get decent letdowns. It's really frustrating, since I am scrambling to keep up with Max. I have no extra milk in the freezer, and so I'm having to pump all day today to get enough for work tomorrow and the next day. Also, I'm not drinking enough water and I don't think I'm eating enough. Again, at work...there is just no time. I'm often struggling to keep up because it's so crazy lately and then when I pump I get behind, so most of my day is spent struggling just to keep my head above water. Max is so worth it, though.

This morning I scrambled 2 eggs with some spinach in olive oil, butter, salt and pepper because I was starving and it's cold outside and inside and I just couldn't drink a smoothie. Probably too many eggs to be cleanse-friendly, but it was yummy!

The house hasn't seen any new visitors lately, I am told that the construction people are still interested but they haven't been back either. I hope this house sells soon, I really want to be able to save some money like we said we would, but we can't as long as we're living here and I'm part time. November would have been when I go back full time but I'm not planning to. So I really really hope it works out soon.

So, Max is completely down with the crawling and pulling up. He still hasn't pulled up on any furniture though. And he is almost 8 months old, I can't believe it! I got him a new potty the other day because I think it will help him go, since he always goes sitting down or standing in the ExerSaucer...it's a Baby Bjorn Little Potty. He can sit unassisted on this one and his feet touch the floor, so I think it will help. So far so good, except that it slides on the tile floor really easily, so I can't leave him unattended (not that I would). I'm going to have to figure out some sort of grippy to put on the bottom of it so it stays put.

Things are happening quickly around here...

Everything but the cleanse, that is. And the house selling. And flu season. Oh well, maybe the only thing that's moving quickly is Max's development. He hasn't even gotten crawling down completely and he's starting to pull up! He'll crawl over toward me and try to pull up in my lap and I'll hold my hands out for him. He grabs my fingers and stands up with no assistance from me. He's sitting up from lying down very well, too. Naturally, with all these developments he's not really all that interested in pottying. I can sit him on the potty for 5 minutes and he won't go, but as soon as I put him down in his diaper and he starts crawling, he goes. He did manage to get a little poop in the potty this morning, but that was all, and then he went the rest in his diaper. I'm still persevering, though. I know it will pass.

Today is day 7 on the cleanse. One week down, 2 more to go, and I am so sick of vegetables today. Especially raw ones. So I made a stew today. It's perfect stew weather outside, 60ish degrees and overcast, and I know I can eat a TON of stew. So I just put about 3/4 pound of meat in it, with vegetable broth, onion, garlic cabbage, green beans, tomatoes, and carrots. I didn't put in potatoes because I don't want to have to pick them out. It was really good; I've already had 3 bowls and I know it's really good for me with it being mainly veggies. (I do miss the cornbread, though!) The past couple of days I've not had so much raw veggies, I've been roasting them so Max can have some too. Roasted asparagus is really good...I was surprised by that and ended up eating the whole bunch by myself (except I gave 2 to Max). Roasted broccoli, not so much. Maybe it's because I had made myself nearly sick eating the yummy squash apple soup I made yesterday. I've really been enjoying the smoothies so I try to put spinach in there as much as possible. I wish they weren't bothering Max though. Still thinking about how I can fix that, I don't know how the cleanse will be as effective without that SP Complete. It seems to be the main component. He seems to feel pretty good, although now I think his semi-snotty nose is probably due to the milk protein and probably the mucus in his poops.

I finished season 2 of The Office and started season 3 (on hulu.com) and it's getting really good. I'm glad I made it through the first season, but I honestly don't know how that show made it past. It was really quite painful to watch.

I got a couple of packages from amazon.com today, I bought Max a placemat that suction cups to the table (boy, how we need that!) and a little wooden hippo pull toy:
http://www.amazon.com/Melissa-Doug-Deluxe-Happy-Hippo/dp/B000GZCCQE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=baby-products&qid=1254951503&sr=8-1

I'm going to try to wait until Christmas to give it to him, but I'll probably end up not making it.

I'm going to try to post some pictures soon, I need to get some ones of him showing off his teeth, but those are hard to come by!

Day 5-Morning

The last couple of days have been not as easy as the first 2 as far as cravings, but I knew that was coming. Yesterday I made a curried okra stew from Cindy's recipe but after all the curried lentils from the first couple of days, I'm kind of sick of curry. I think I'll freeze it for later and lay off curry for a while. I'm hoping today I'll be better able to resist eating bad stuff as I'm not at work. Yesterday those sour gummy bats I gave Lauren were staring at me and tempting me all day! I did prevail, however, even though I didn't drink as much water or eat as much vegetables as I had hoped.

Max has been getting some dry skin on his legs, I thought it was carpet irritation from his attempts at crawling, but it's not only on his knees...it's also on his face. So I'm thinking it's due to the whey protein in the SP Complete that I'm using in my smoothies. If it keeps getting worse I may have to do something about that. I'm kinda bummed because I had a couple of samples that I tried before I bought all the supplements and it didn't bother him, so I thought he was over it. I guess it takes a while for it to start bothering him. As long as it's just kinda dry and not an actual rash I'll keep trucking with the cleanse. Also, he's been having more poop lately...and of course I haven't been able to catch most. Last night he filled 2 diapers in rapid succession, but he didn't want to go on the potty right before that as usual. This morning he woke up at 4:30 and after unsuccessfully trying to get him back to sleep I just got up with him and took him to potty. He peed but no poop. After bringing him into the living room for a while to play, wham-o. Another one. I think this also may be due to the milk protein because it has more of a watery component than normal. Sorry if that's TMI, but I get to give TMI on my blog if I want to. :) Before, he had been going just once a day usually, and that was much easier to manage.

See said crawling here:


He's still doing well with his eating, although he hasn't been wanting to eat as much since his teeth have started bothering him again. He did have some mashed potatoes this weekend with his PawPaw and some applesauce at his MamMaw's...he loved both, of course! He would grab the loaded spoon and help guide it into his mouth.

Last night was sweet potatoes, one of his favorite foods, but he was more interested in blowing raspberries (one of his favorite activities):

Day 2

Yesterday wasn't too bad, I started to get a little headache but it was nothing like the first and it went away fairly quickly. I munched at work all day on green beans, cucumbers, and bell pepper with the marinara dipping sauce I had made on Wednesday. I never had time to prepare anything for lunch so I ended up eating 2 boiled eggs and a little orange. After work I had to go to the dentist and then Mom and I were going to Palestine so I didn't really get to eat until we got to her house. I had packed 2 grocery bags of produce and food since I know that Palestine probably doesn't have much in the way of organic stuff. I popped a spaghetti squash in the oven as soon as we got here, and then my nephew brought over meatloaf, mashed potatoes and a banana pudding my sister had made...ugh! It smelled so good! I whipped up a smoothie while waiting on my spaghetti squash and when I finally got to eat that, it was so good, with the tomato sauce on it.

Max got to eat some mashed potatoes with his PawPaw and he loved them! It was the first time he'd really been given something on a spoon, aside from when his daddy gave him a couple of bites of potato salad and baked beans. He was helping PawPaw put the spoon in his mouth...it was so cute!

Today is the 2nd annual Dogwood Marching Classic or something like that...my niece and nephew are in the Palestine High School band and they march at 8, but they're helping out all day, so I'm going with my sister and brother-in-law to watch. Of course Max is coming, too! I need to get in the kitchen and make some food to take that is cleanse-friendly. I'll probably bake some eggplant, pack some salad and the other half of my spaghetti squash. This time I think I'll just put roasted garlic, salt and pepper on it. And I'll have to take my snacking veggies and some fruit...looks like another full grocery bag today!

Well, it's about time for Max's morning nap so I'm headed to go do that.