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):

Lots of new things happening this week with Max! Saturday, we both had an appointment with Dr. Jim Bob and the office happened to be having some classes and a garage sale, and that meant we got to see Dr. Cindy and Harper, too! I was so excited to be able to see them again, she's been so busy with births we haven't had a chance to get together since May. Harper and Max were excited to see each other, and there was much grabbing and growling that went on between them. Harper would grab Max's shirt and babble to him and Max would growl back. These boys and their growling! Max had his first little temper tantrum that I've seen: Harper was sitting in the floor playing with a little plastic basket and so I set Max in the floor so they could play together, since now Max is old enough to notice other babies and be interested in playing. Max tried to take the basket, so Vicki, the LFWC receptionist, gave him a couple of plastic bowling pins to play with. Harper took his bowling pin, so Max took the basket. Then Harper took the basket back from Max, and he screamed and started crying! I thought he had somehow been pinched or hurt, because that's what it sounded like to me, but Cindy was laughing and saying "welcome to the temper tantrum stage". Oh no! I thought my sweet boy would always be gentle and loving, but it turns out he can get mad just like anyone else. I was not expecting that at all!

Yesterday I took Max to the State Fair with Lauren and her new boyfriend, David, and Max had been napping on the way to her house. He had just woken up when David got in the back seat next to him, and so Max was just staring at him in that groggy just-woke-up way for about 10 minutes as we drove to Dallas. All of a sudden I heard him start crying pathetically...his first bout with stranger anxiety! I guess he couldn't see me and so he was just freaking out a little. We stopped, I nursed him (it was worse I'm sure, because he was hungry too), and Lauren got in the back seat with him and he was fine after that. Again, not expected...in fact the other day I was just telling someone that Max had never met a stranger. I guess he has now! Poor baby!

It was really hot out there, they said it would be about 94 or so but it was easily 100. I'm glad I took the stroller, because I don't think either Max or I would have been comfortable in the Moby or Dr. Cindy's mei tai she let me borrow. The food was good, as usual, I had roasted corn, a jalapeno cheese corny dog, Green Goblins, aguas frescas, and a deep fried peanut butter cup macaroon that was to die for! I did not touch the deep fried butter though...I can't believe they actually had that this year. Yuck!

Max is also just so close to crawling, not going backwards so much and scooting forward a little bit. I guess he's wanting to practice as much as possible because the last couple of nights he's been a hard sell on sleep, wanting instead to roll and play and practice crawling, and finding new positions to nurse. Night before last I didn't get him down until 10, and tonight not until 9:15. His new game is to get on his hands and knees and launch himself at my breasts with his mouth wide open. It's all I can do not to laugh! If he's not doing that he's grabbing my nipple and trying to use that to pull himself to them. He also will lie on his stomach and nurse that way. On the other hand, once he's asleep he's sleeping much more soundly, and I don't have to be as careful getting out of bed. That's a relief, and he's also able to fall back asleep by himself more often if he wakes up a little. He'll wake up a little and cough or sneeze, often roll onto his stomach and go back to sleep instead of fussing to nurse more.

Speaking of coughing, he had a bit of a snotty nose and cough last week, and ever since then he's doing this fake cough that he thinks is hilarious!

In other news, John went for his sleep study last night. I'd been telling him for the longest time that he's got sleep apnea. For the last several years, some nights I'd wake up and he'd be snoring and stop breathing for a few seconds. So after he's been so fatigued lately he was ready to get some help, and especially after a couple of weeks ago with a hypertension scare. He came home this morning and said the lady told him he slept fine! Ugh. He had used some Afrin last night before he left and so now he's thinking it's probably just a result of allergies/sinus problems. I hope it's that easy, but dang! That test wasn't cheap! The doctor will look at the reports and let him know something soon. We'll see. I just want him to get better rest and be able to breathe well; I don't care what is causing it, as long as we can fix it.

Last but not least, I am going to start a 21-day purification program through Jim Bob's office. Dr. Cindy has been blogging about it here, and she's got me motivated to do it and get healthy for me and Max, too! I'll try to blog about it as I go along. But for now, I'm going to relax before bed. Good night!