Ketchup

Hi guys. It's me River. Mom says I better hurry up and tell you about being eight months, because before you know it, I'll be nine months. I gave her this look to say, I KNOW, but I don't think she understood, because she just pointed to her nose and said Mama's nose.

Anyway... this is the only picture of me on my eight month birthday. Pretty sweet right. I love football... Go Chiefs, Mizzou, Utah State and Wyoming! This picture was taken at my Grandma's house in Wyoming. It was hard for me to remember where I was, because I spent this whole month traveling.

See... I wasn't lying!

Wow... These pics are all over the place. Someone needs to teach my mom to make a collage already. I am really good on planes, as long as I get to nurse on take off and landings. It also helps to have a whole row of seats to just mom and me. That happened on two of our five plane rides.
Sometimes I even sleep on the plane. I have to cover my face, because the lights are so bright. This is something I won't do on road trips. I can't sleep in a car seat anymore, so I just get really tired, fussy and loud. Thankfully, only the last part of this trip involved a car.

We went to Texas, New Mexico, Missouri, Colorado and Wyoming. New Mexico was fun, because I got to roll with some big kids. Mom's friend Becca has four. I'm a little sweet on Hannah, but I don't want to say anything until I can crawl. I'm still working on my moves, but one day soon...

This is me at my Mom's favorite restaurant in Kansas City. It's named Andres. Can you believe she put me on the floor? The nerve. Well I made the most of it and kept biting her leg. That's why she calls me one-toothed vampire baby. I bite her when I give kisses too. She's either a big sissy, or my one tooth is pretty sharp, because I sure hear her squeal a lot.

I'm a little naughty, but I am mostly sweet as can be. I make friends wherever I go. This is Abigail. Her mom Heidi was worried she might not want to share, but no one has been able to resist my smile yet. Well... Mom sometimes... but I'm mostly winning that battle. For proof... see the picture below.

No sugar till I'm one... Pah Leeze! Thanks Pops and Nomee. I knew you would be on my side. Rocky Road from Baskin Robbins, no better way to start my sugar addiction.

Time for bed? Yeah right mom. It's time to party!

Nomee showed me a piano that was just my size. I loved it. Music always makes me think of my dad and by this point on the trip, I was really missing him. I'm glad he was making a movie, but three weeks is like 10% of my entire life. I felt better after playing the blues with Nomee.

My mom's cousin Jason has chickens, but he lives in the inner city... Crazy. I got to meet my second cousins Titus and Asher, but the picture won't load. We really hit it off. I also got to meet their Great Dane Truly and she's truly a crazy pup still, so Pops had to hold her.

Then off to Margaret's in Colorado where I got to take a bath in a copper bathtub. You can't tell from my expression, but it was heaven.

It was so shiny, I had a water twin. He was fun to play with, but I kept bonking my head every time I tried to touch him. By the way, do you know what you clean a copper tub with? Ketchup. Hence the name of the post. I bet you thought it was because I was catching you up on the trip. I would never be so obvious.

The tub was heaven, but my bed... aka this box... was not. I was okay with it, until my mom hung a sign on it that said free kittens.

Then to Wyoming, where my dad drove up and met us. Reunited at last.

No offense to mom, but dad gives the best rides.

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Some eight month stats off the top of my head at this late hour.

I weigh about 20 pounds. I hate meat pureed baby food. I love pickles. I still like my bjourn more than my stroller, but mom doesn't know how much longer she's going to last. I push things away I don't want, I know how to protest and I love dropping things and looking for them over and over again. I am getting a little more cautious about who I get passed too. No offense, I just really love my mom and dad. I love being outside and it will always calm me down. I would be a tv junkie if my mom let me, but that's always been the case. I love animals, especially Noodle and I can't figure out why he runs every time I go for his tail. I still only have the one tooth, but I've had a few bouts of teething and it's no fun. I usually add a few wake-ups at night and need to be nursed to sleep and sometimes I run a temperature. I say dad, dada, daddy and one time my mom could have sworn I said, "I'm gonna tell my dadeeeeee!!!" When I try and say mom, I say bob. It keeps her on her toes. And on that note... Bobs the word.

Mission Accomplished

I mentioned in a previous post that River cut his first tooth on his seven month birthday. This picture may not look like much, but it took me 19 days of solid shooting to get a photo of that darn tooth. The funny thing is, he smiles huge all the time, but somehow knows when I'm specifically trying to photograph the tooth. Then it's mouth clamped shut and screaming fits if I persist. The battle between me versus mouth was epic, but in the end I was victorious and yes mom... I do want a trophy.

Miss Us?

I'll update on the trip later, but for now, I want to sneak in a quick anniversary post while I still have a good forty minutes left to celebrate it. Yes, that's right folks, it has been four years since Bear and I said I do and nine years since I tackled him on the opening day of football season and kissed him first. (It's in print, so it's irrefutable.) My mom told me we should take a picture together every anniversary, so we can scroll through them and see how we've changed over the years. She probably meant for me to have someone else take it, but that's what she gets for not being specific.... a lot of hand held extreme close-ups.



The traditional gift for the fourth anniversary is fruit. We aren't usually the plan ahead big gift givers, so we declared River as our gift to each other, since he is the fruit of our loins.

Did I just say loins on my blog?

Oh and here's some grapes on our eternity donuts, for those of you who don't think loin fruit counts. Okay, what was worse, loin fruit or eternity donuts???

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Seriously though... I love you Robert Bear.

The Other Kitty

Meet Kiss Kiss.


He is the other kitty in our lives. Noodle didn't take too well to him at first. I'm not joking. He nervously army crawled over to him, got face to face and then Kiss Kiss must have moved or something, because our brave Noodle jumped about ten feet in the air and ran under the bed. I digress... Although Noodle and Kiss Kiss got off to a rough start, River LOVES Kiss Kiss.

River loves Kiss Kiss so much, he will actually roll over if you put Kiss Kiss just out of reach. Yes, I use my babes toys as bait.

Together again.... Thanks Great Aunt Camille for my Kiss Kiss.

No Kiss Kiss in the last photo, just a heart breaker! Sweet Dreams All.

Ouch!

To vaccinate, or not to vaccinate, that is the question.

Or more like my eternal dilemma. A nurse at one of my appointments encouraged me to do a little research when I told her we weren't vaccinating at this point. I love that it is assumed the people who aren't all aboard the vaccination bandwagon haven't done any research. The facts are these, I have research leaking out of my eyeballs and I still don't know the right answer. I think that's because there is no right or wrong answer. Both sides make good cases. Both sides contain fear inducing statistics. I think you have to trust your instincts and just because your instincts tell you it is right/wrong to vaccinate your child, doesn't mean that someone else is wrong if they choose to do the opposite. Maybe that child is around more situations where they would come into contact with disease. Maybe that child has an unknown allergy to some of the fun stuff they mix in the vaccines.
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Heavenly Father gave us insight in to our particular children and we will receive promptings and answers for them. (Sometimes I wish they were hand written.) I know the government looks at vaccinations for the good of the community and thinks of the number of vaccine related injuries as acceptable in keeping the whole safe. However, River is my priority. I care about his good and I don't feel selfish for thinking like that. I hope every parent does.
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Enough with my soap box. There has been a rather big outbreak of pertussis and despite our decision to not vaccinate at this time, we were both getting the feeling we needed to get River the DTaP. We are about to do a lot of traveling and he will be more exposed than when at home. I felt sick to my stomach researching the ingredients of the vaccine and the many reported reactions to it, but when we prayed to see if River would be okay, we felt peaceful. We decided to go through with it and within 24 hours of receiving the shot, River had labored breathing, a chest cough, a fever, throat swelling and sores in the back of his mouth.
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Scary. I take my never been sick, healthy baby boy in to the doctor's and I come out with a hot mess. I was angry at first and completely doubting myself and my decision. Having a few day behind me now, I can say I think we did the right thing. We were prompted to have River receive this vaccine at this time and although he had a reaction, who is to say he might have been exposed to something much worse had we not. As much as I hate it, we can't know everything. We have to make the best decisions we can, trust in them and move on. The back and forth limbo is hell.


If you've managed to read this far (attention span is a hard thing to come by these days... a result of vaccinating?... who knows) I want you to know River is one tough cookie. The nurse said, "Prepare to hear him cry louder than he ever has." and then gave him the shot. He just turned to me, scrunched up his face and gave one loud UGHHH and then started sucking his thumb. Within 30 seconds he was smiling.


Anyway, one week later and he is doing much better. Everything is gone, except for a bit of a cough lingering. Ironic, since we did it to protect him from Pertussis (whooping cough). I am also recovering and am wondering when they are going to make a Mother's Guilt vaccine.