Things I Understand Now...

Things I Understand as a Mom...

• Why so many moms have short hair, there’s no time for styling…I’m not cutting mine, but I still sport a ponytail 99.9% of the time.
  
• When I’m at Target in my running pants, I don’t look like a runner...but my baby ALWAYS looks cute :)
  
• I truly understand that “mother bear” feeling – the stranger at the store can look at my baby, but is touching really necessary???
  
• My baby can be wrapped into any conversation. For example, “You’re tired today? Me too, Finley’s sleep-noises woke me up three times last night!” OR “Your coworker is expecting? I just had a baby too.” OR “You finished a good book? I used to read for fun, these days I’m lucky if I can read a whole magazine.” You get the idea – doesn’t matter the topic, I guarantee I can make it be about Finley.
  
• A little spit-up isn’t worth changing my shirt for; perfume and a wipe cover it.

We had a pretty low-key week, at the bottom you’ll see I’m stretching things to make a worthy post….

On Monday Finley got his last bottle of breastmilk, he’s 100% on formula now. I felt sad giving him the last of it; I really wanted him to have breastmilk a bit longer, BUT, the extra time we have together makes up for it in a HUGE way. I do not miss pumping for one single second!

Finley is getting to be such a big boy – he’s really filling out, he doesn’t look like a scrawny newborn anymore. He moved into size two diapers this week. Check out his chicken legs at one-month and a recent bath picture...his nuk used to take up half his face too!
Heidi started her job this week, Grandma offered to watch Spencer last week, and he’ll start school (Kindercare) Tuesday. Earlier in the week, we got together with the ladies for coffee and breakfast.
Dressing Finley is so much fun! He looks adorable in fall clothes, what a cutie!
Finley and I got together with Tab, we celebrated an early birthday for her. She'll be 15 on October 28th; it's hard to believe Tab and I met when she was 5 years old. She is counting the days until she can drive!
Friday night Patrick was gone, so the grandparents took us out to dinner.
On Saturday we attended Karen & Pat’s annual Chili / Pie Contest Party. Our friends host an annual fall party; every family brings a pot of chili or an apple pie. The crockpots get lined up outside (think long tables, extension cords and power strips), everyone gets a small bowl and spoon, then you walk down the line taste-testing. It’s a fun night with a bonfire, drinks, full bellies and catching up. Most of the evening Finley snuggled up in the Bjorn and slept. I was sooo careful trying not to spill while I was taste-testing, but when I looked down at him after the pie table, he was looking up at me with crumbs on his face too – oops, guess I was a messy eater!
Twins? Ummmm…no! Brothers? Not possible! You wouldn’t believe the number of people that ask if Spencer and Finley are brothers or even twins!? If they are twins, then Finley is Danny Devito and Spencer is Arnold Schwarzenegger…circa the 1988 movie Twins.

What else did Finley do this week? What else did Finley do this week? Hmmmm….here comes the stretching part…

Finley practiced holding toys, even getting them towards his mouth. I don’t think it was intentional, he attempted to get his hands in his mouth and the toy got in the way.
There are more and more smiles – he even talks back a little. It’s cute now; when he’s 14 I may have a different opinion! (sorry about the side-ways picture)
If Finley could talk, I’m sure he’d say tummy time sucks – although this week he didn’t start screaming quite as fast…we’ll take this small step!

More Bumbo time!
Finley loves his playmat; he’s batting at toys and I even caught him grabbing at them!