At Least He's Not Texting...

Many mornings I wake up to the sound of phone conversations through Joey's monitor. Here is a quick clip (that I've had for a while and promised to put up a loooong time ago) of Joey talking to his uncle Rob ("Baba"). We had just gotten back from visiting Rob in L.A.



He has frequent phone conversations with Dada, Ziggy, Uncle Rob ("Baba"), and Nonnie and Papa. I think the imitation is hysterical, although I am not entirely sure where he sees it because I am rarely on my phone (anyone that calls me can attest to the fact that I NEVER answer my phone!) and Matt is usually in his studio @ work when he is on the phone. Either way I love to watch him talk on the phone. He is so serious about it and will go on sometimes even when we come in, as if he is in the middle of a real conversation that can't be interrupted!

Many Marvelous Months of Matthew

I have officially been rebuked, begged, cajoled, ordered and pleaded with to write a post about our little Matthew. So of course, I will write at the sensible time of 1 week before he is 6 months old. I guess you have time when you have time right?

The pictures I'm attaching are all old too, but I'll try to download some new ones soon! Here are a few pictures of him enjoying his aunt Jessie and Daddy (as Daddy enjoys his beer).

At almost 6 months our little guy is:

*starting to get a little more average in size. He wears 6-9 or 6-12 mo. sleepers. 3-6 mo pants and 6-9 mo shirts. I think I remember from his 4 month appointment that he was about 69% for weight and 50-something% for height? I remember his head though.... 93%percentile. whew. Big-headed boys!

*rolling over from his stomach to his back but not back to stomach yet.

*working on sitting up. He is constantly trying to escape his swing and bouncy chair lifting up in a sit-up and then falling back crookedly. He seems to really want to get going!

*Sleeping predictably! (while Joey was a great sleeper it wasn't always at set times but Matthew is very predictable. Bed at 8 or so, eat at 10:30 or 11 (I wake him) eat at around 6 a.m. sleep until 10:00 or so. So bed from 8-10 waking to eat twice. I don't mind it. Sometimes if his morning feeding is late enough (after 6:30) I'll go straight to the gym or just get up.

*LOVING his brother. Matthew smiles just hearing the sound of Joey talking from another room. He loves when Joey gets right in his face and does all the baby talking and baby noises.

*a pacifier baby! He likes to have his pacifier and can be kept happy for up to an hour after waking before eating by being held and having a pacifier.

*napping 3 times a day

*a talker and a yeller! Especially in the morning he makes these loud loud yelling sounds kind of a cross between a crow and a laugh...which sometimes make him laugh.

*still swaddled! I'm not really sure what to do about that. He just sleeps so well still. I have to swaddle him in 2 blankets to keep him in but he depends on that pacifier so much (and will sometimes keep it in all night) that if his hands were free to rip it out, I think he'd keep himself awake. I know I have to wean him off the swaddle eventually, but it's not going to be before Christmas! :-)

*Still in our guest room! His crib is ready and waiting in Joey's room, but as long as he has that 6:00 feeding I just don't think I can put them in together. Joey doesn't wake up until 8 or 8:30 and I can't imagine Matthew waking him at 6... he'd NEVER go back to sleep.

*Still just nursing, but looking forward to starting on some rice cereal next week! Also still totally gummy-no sign of teeth yet.

*Almost bald! He has a teeny bit more hair than he did when he was born, but he's pretty much still a baldy.

*The most joyful baby EVER!

Matthew can easily make Matt or I smile in an instant. He is so happy, always so joyful. He smiles at anyone he can see and is so easy-going and sweet. He'll smile when he's starving or when his diaper is dirty. He'll smile and laugh when Matt or Joey or I laugh about something. We don't even have to be looking at him or near him. He truly loves just to be able to see us and hear us and I am constantly encouraged by his joyful spirit!

The rest of these pictures are seriously a few months old...but enjoy and I'll try to put up more soon!

Wordless Wednesday

Not Me Monday!

It's been so long since I've even participated in a Not Me Monday, because I am very nearly perfect, and haven't had anything that I thought worth mentioning :-) and definitely NOT because I always "write" the 'not-me's' in my head and never bother to write them somewhere where I can find them come Monday. 

Because I am nearly perfect, I am definitely not writing this so late Monday evening that no one will even read it until Tuesday.  I am blogging late because I had to put all of my kiddos to bed at small-child-appropriate-times, with a nutritious dinner in their bellies.  It's late enough here that all of my children, of COURSE, are definitely in bed, and none are finishing up said dinner.  no WAY!

If I did have a pokey eater finishing dinner I definitely wouldn't have used a piece of Halloween candy to "help" him get his food down.  Now what kind of lesson would that be teaching, honestly!

Probably the same kind of lesson you'd be teaching if you didn't give him your full attention and instead decided to blog.  Probably.

My 2 year old is in his p.j.s ready for bed and that of course, would be because, being the responsible parent that I am, I have prepared him to sleep and NOT because he wore his pj's all day today.  I would never let my child do that!  *gasp*  If I were going to let him stay in pj's all day, I wouldn't bother taking off the bottoms to put overalls on for a trip to the store and then putting the pajama bottoms back on for naptime.  If I were so LAZY, as to leave him in pajamas then I wouldn't change those old pajamas into new pajamas just before bedtime so he wouldn't have to sleep in the same thing that he wore all day (and slept in the night before).  If that was icky enough to bother me, then I definitely wouldn't let him wear pajamas all day in the first place.  I'm glad we straightened that out!

Since it is 7:55 p.m. here I am NOT drinking caffeinated coffee.  Because that would be RIDICULOUS.  I'm not drinking it because I nagged my husband yesterday to make more coffee and told him that he hadn't made enough and then when he very graciously DID make more today, completely slack off on my end of the drinking.  

Ok, that's about it.  Me and my highly caffeinated self are going to be folding about 13 loads of laundry tonight and then maybe the magic laundry elves will come and put it away for me.  :-)

Here's hoping...

Funny? Perhaps...

Our Beast.  

I've stopped our growth graph (obviously-if you ever looked), but we did weigh Ziggy a few days ago and he was a whopping 75 lbs.  Wow. 

We really love him.  Joey really loves him.  Definitely like a brother though, he asks to say goodnight to Ziggy when it's convenient or will play with him when there are no better options, but mostly tells him "no" and does not want to share his toys with him.  :-) 

Mocha really loves him.  They are definitely still best friends, as strange as that is.  

Ziggy at times though is slightly exasperating.  He is like a vacuum cleaner when we walk him, even if it is after a meal.  He eats ANYTHING in his path, edible or not.  You really can't do anything else when you walk him because you have to watch the ground SO carefully.  We've seen him eat, rocks, paper, napkins, letters, sticks, grass, poop, boxes, any kind of toy, chair and table legs, towels, pillows, potted plants, not potted plants, rugs, cat food, our baby gates, and laundry. 

Today he ate a book of matches on our kitchen table, knocked Matt's coffee all over our ottoman and floor, and ate someone else's letter.  I was sorting through some mail and left a small pile of "Not at this address" on the floor and he ate one.  Silly me for thinking that I could set a non-edible piece of paper on our floor for a few minutes.  I guess "non-edible" is a matter of opinion.  

I don't actually know what the letter was or who it was for anymore.  It was too chewed.  I feel bad, but I can't think of anything I could actually do about it. 

We've upped his food but might have to do it again.  Right now he eats 3 cups of food for breakfast and 2 for dinner and we are thinking that we'll add lunch back in.  At one point we were giving him rawhides (which he can eat like popcorn) to relieve the urge to chew but he could go through like 4 or 5 a day!  Which is bad.  I know that now.  It took a day with so much gas that I almost blogged about it, before I decided that dog-farting us into oblivion was probably not a good blog.  Imagine your worst my friends....

So lots of rawhides=hard to digest=lots of gas

I have more morsels of important life information for you all... keep coming back....

So we got him some BIG BIG chewey, not- edible, not- swallowable, and not- destructible rubber chewing things to rotate.  One of them is a tire.  Seriously.  He seems to be doing well with them but more hungry now.  Maybe he was getting a meal's worth of rawhide and that's the issue.  

Either way, that's our doggie update.  I had to blog/write about it in some way.  Can you call a friend to vent about your dog?  You know when you are out with your little kids and someone looks at you and says something like "Wow, looks like you've got your hands full...." whenever someone says that, a picture of Ziggy flashes into my head.  If they only knew!  Gosh, we love him.  All of us love him.  I LOVE HIM, but BOY is he a handful!

I'm enjoying the smell of a nice candle now.  I think I'll let it burn the rest of the night because I have no more matches, since someone ate them all.  

Photo Dump: Berkeley Kite Festival

I'm so far behind in blogging. Here's a recap of our Mid-September through now:

Joey turns 2, celebrate as family

Joey has birthday party, lotsa food

Matt runs 1/2 marathon, does GREAT!!

All 4 Oakland Beardsleys visit Uncle Rob in L.A. Do not see Brangelina :-(

Come home, Matt works ALOT

Host Baby shower for good friends, Matt finishes summer/fall wedding shooting, yea!!

Matt works more, lots of school, lots of business. Keep same netflix videos for 2 months and have no time to watch them.

Matt's parents come for visit. Eat, Drink, Be Merry, Get Spoiled. :-)

Baptize Matthew at Christ Church. love him!

Matt's parents depart, Matt's sister visits....

Matt's sister leaves to visit brother in L.A.

Go Trick or Treating with friends in Concord. Joey begs, signs "more" and is generally cute and gets ridiculous amount of candy. Mom and Dad select pieces that are no good for toddlers. Interestingly we find that more pieces are appropriate for Mommies and Daddies than Joeys. Mmmm.

(and now we are at today: Matt plays guitar at church, Membership class tonight, Jessie returns to our house tomorrow and 12-week 1/2 marathon schedule starts. GYM.)

There's been more I know, but it would be hard to insert it all. Just next to every line picture: *sweep floor, grocery shop, wash laundry, sweep floor, change diapers, sweep floor, fold laundry, wash diapers, sweep floor, walk giant dog/horse* I'm not even going to act like, clean bathrooms, dust or put away laundry is on that list ;-)

So here's an old photo dump from shortly after Matthew was born. Matt really enjoys kites and kite flying so we headed out to Berkeley for the annual kite flying festival. It was full of pretty cool demos, real competitive teams and gigantic kites. It was VERY windy, which made it seem kind of cold, but all-in-all it was pretty cool!

I wish I had better pictures because there were hundreds of kites, but most of them were pretty high up and like I said, it was REALLY windy.