Baby Gap ad?

Remember when we had Brady's 3 month photo shoot (waaaay back in mid November!)? Well I didn't even get a chance to post photos from it! And I should have gotten around to it because he looked like a little model.  He's still got that "I love to laugh but I ain't sharing my smiles with your camera!" attitude, but boy is he expressive! Check out a few of our favorites of our little model! 

*note: he's not quite sitting up by himself yet, this is just a tiny bit of camera magic :) 

Our little elf :)

He's an angry elf! hah

Devil elf :)

Picture perfect baby

"I don't like that flash!"

Flying baby!

Hmm, what's next?

Oh, I'm too cute.

A couple of weeks after the shoot though, a funny thing happened.  My agent sent out an email looking for babies for a Gerber baby ad and needed babies ages 3 months and up of talent that was already registered with the agency.  The perfect opportunity! I could send in a couple of these pics to my agents (who mostly get digital camera snapshots from babies because shooting headshots for babies is a silly waste of money) and they'd eat him up! For sure we'd at least get called to the audition (which would consist of some photos, for it was a print ad, not a commercial -- though I'm not quite sure what they do in a baby commercial audition anyways ... turn on the camera and stare at them oohing and aahing?).

I had always thought I'd be totally okay with putting my (super duper adorable) baby in print ads because, well it pays a lot (hey! someone needs to pay for college, might as well be Gerber!), and he's too young to know he's sort of being exploited, and there are rules so they can't throw your baby under hot lights for a long time anyways ... but I don't know.  Once it was there, starring me in the face, I looked at my little fussy boy (his non existent teeth are starting to be an issue) and I thought, no, not this week. I could not phantom taking my sweet innocent boy to an audition where I would be stressed out trying to get him to not cry for those specific 3 minutes of the day when I knew all he wanted to do was to be home playing on the floor with his toys, drooling out a river on his shirt, and chomping on teethers.  So, we didn't respond.  No baby star here. At least right now. I don't know if I'll always be able to say no, (he's so darn handsome!) and I still don't know quite how I feel about it ... is it exploitation? Is posting pictures of him here or on fb the same thing without a huge paycheck and awesome pictures to save forever? I'm not sure how I feel.  I guess time will tell and we shall see.  But for now, only me and my friends get to enjoy this little bundle of handsomeness.  And he's still being a booger and laughing laughing laughing in person and then giving the camera the stink eye so if you want to see him in his utmost cuteness, please do come visit.  Because he seriously has Scott and me smiling and laughing all day!! :)

Baby's 1st Holidays!

Holiday Update ... Better late that Never?? hehehaha. Well here ya go! ... Brady's 1st Thanksgiving and Christmas!

Did you all have a good turkey day?? (Or do you remember your turkey day??) We did! Scott and I cooked again, as we've been doing the last 3 years.  We actually really enjoy it, we may not have a lot of room, but we have a lot of love (and a big island that holds lots of yummy food).  It was just 5 of us (mom, dad, and Uncle Scott came over) and Brady so this year I decided that instead of making enough sides for each person to have 2 of their own, we would just make a couple (which for a Minneci/O'Connell meal means like 6) and the delicious turkey and homemade apple pie for dessert (with a Christmas movie of course!).  Brady did not get turkey sooo it may not be fair to say he "experienced" his 1st Thanksgiving, but he looked cute and hung out with us anyways so here's some pics to remember the 1st!

Christmas was a little more fun (duh!) We took Brady downtown (his first ride on the el! -- he was amazing, sat in my momma's lap the whole time looking around and then falling asleep! haha) to see Santa at Macys (he was soo good, he even laughed on Santas lap and had no intention of being down sitting there!), went to the Zoo Lights (thank you kind warm Christmas weather), and attended Christmas's on the 23rd (at the O'Connells), the 24th (with the Morans), and the 25th (at the Minnecis).  We even took Brady out to midnight mass where he slept through the first half like a little Christmas angel and when he woke up just smiled and stayed quiet during the second half (a little Christmas miracle.)  Santa (and gramma) brought him waaay too many toys and we now host a small toy store in our condo, but all in all, it was a perfect 1st Christmas and my heart couldn't be any happier. :)

Posing as an elf

Happy Santa

My Christmas babies :)

1st Picture with Santa!!

Going to see Santa

1st El ride ... City boy!

After seeing Santa ... all smiles :)

Zoo Lights

Christmas Eve :)

Opening Santa's presents!!

....all by himself...

hmmm,what's next?

Christmas morning with Grampa :)

1st Christmas :) 

 

 

I hope your holidays were filled with as much fun and love! :)
Merry Belated Christmas and Happy Belated Thanksgiving! ;)
Can't wait to share all the incredible ways Brady is changing through the new year ...

A whole new year ....

One of my many New Year's resolutions, is to not forget about my blog.  Not because my life is *oh so important* to be sharing with you ;) but because I need to force myself to write down the little things so I remember them as time is slipping away rapidly.

My little nuttypoo is 1 week away from 5 months old! Can you believe it!? I simply cannot.  He's just the most awesome and I shall share some holiday pictures soon. Promise. (new years promise! those are real!)

So the other day we rang in 2012. How old does that make me feel? 12 years since the millennium! And it's not like I don't even remember 2000 -- I was almost out of high school already at that point.  Feeling old.

I hate New Years Eve.  Did you know that about me? I have since I was much younger.  (Not like super kid little because then it was fun -- you get to stay up till midnight and eat junk food!)  But at least since I was a teenager, I have hated New Years Eve.  First off, I am not now, nor I have ever been a big fan of "change".  I'm just not good at it.  I find comfort in the way things are and get anxiety about change -- really rather it's good or bad change, I just get major anxiety with it.  And changing into a whole new year, well that's a lot of unknown change. The worst kind.  Then there's all the expectations that come along with the New Year.  There's expectations to have "super fun and cool plans" on New Years Eve, there's expectations for the big moment at midnight, and there's expectations for the new year ahead.  It all gives me a lot of anxiety.  For many years (call me a dork if you must) I have been craving for the New Years when I had the perfect excuse to curl up on the couch and do nothing on New Years Eve. No anxiety, no expectations.  But there is never a good excuse to do that without feeling like a dork.  Until you have kids.  Then it is *totally* acceptable (esp. in my thwarted mind) to stay home on the couch while your babe sleeps peacefully.  So I am actually extremely happy to say that this year, I *finally* got the New Years Eve I have been secretly craaaaving for the last oh 14 years or so ... I snuggled on the couch with my husband and watched a movie while our baby boy slept peacefully away, rang in the New Year's with a kiss (and only a hint of new year expectation anxiety-- I mean this very well could have been the last New Year we ever have if the Mayans are to believed ... ) and was cuddled up warm in my bed by 1am. 

Finally, perfection.  Couldn't ask for anything more. :)

Happy 2012 friends! Hope it found you happy and healthy and stays that way all the way through ....

Guess what Brady did today!?

 .... surprised us all and rolled over from his tum tum to his back!

We were in the middle of his 3 month/Christmas photo shoot (omgosh wait till you see the pics!!) and he was hanging out on his tummy while Scott, I, and our photographer were trying to get his attention and ... plop! ... over he went! Pretty sure he was the most surprised out of all of us because his eyes jumped and he started crying (also maybe because he chose to roll over on the hardest floor haha!).  Unfortunately, it was not caught on film (so close!), but we were totally impressed none-the-less.  As we talked of our amazement, and glee that Scott and I both got to see it, why the little cutie did it again! He almost went for 3 times but we were really trying to get some pictures taken before the inevitable baby meltdown (and the floor was hard) so Scott stopped him!! Look at my boy, growing up so fast!

He was *such* a trooper during his photo shoot today! We got tons of great pix since he was so amazeballs on tummy time during the shoot lasting for a while and holding that head up high (until we tried to get some nekkid baby butt pictures, he's not the biggest fan of going commando).  He's also not so much a fan of the big flashing light when the picture is taken, as I'm sure we'll see in some of these pictures as the "after the flash face" showed up often.  But seriously, what a freaking rockstar today! Can't wait to share the pics with you all ... Maizy even smiled for our family shot! :)

Growing up ...

Our little man is getting so old, so fast.

In the past couple of weeks, he's making so many more advancements everyday.  It's probably my most favorite thing to watch the development day by day.  One day, you can hold a rattle in front of him for 5 minutes and he shows no interest, the very next day he reaches for it and picks it up himself and then the next day when he picks it up, he shakes it.  His favorite toys to grab at the moment are a couple rattles and of course, his Sophie Giraffe -- the most popular little rubber teething giraffe for babies I think.

Speaking of ... we think the babe might be teething! Can you believe it!? He's just 3 months! He's been super duper drooley and now, the fussiness is starting.  Sophie is going right in his mouth and he's seriously trying forcefully to gnaw her ears off! So we froze the handful of teething rings we have and in the last couple of days, we've stuck them in his mouth when he starts fussing ... and he sucks and sucks.  Teeth are a-forming methinks ... and last night we were *so* lucky to start dealing with the "up all night teething baby."  Brady is a champion sleeper.  He goes about 10-11 hours everynight and if I could figure out a way to get to bed at the same time as him (like Scott always manages to do), well I'd just be a perky happy girl all the time (but alas, dishes and laundry need to be done and facebook needs to be checked!).  So I don't.  But when I don't get to bed until 1am and then Brady decides he doesn't want to sleep ... well Mommy is not thrilled. Most specially because I was such a caffeine free rockstar when I was pregnant that now if I have a grande latte (which I NEED somedays) I get a monster headache.  Doesn't seem fair, does it? Story of my life.
 
So wish us luck in the teething stage.  We have a whole lotta teeth and that's a whole lotta sleepless nights ... good thing Scott doesn't work too much in the winter! Haha.  Which is also a good thing because Brady is on the very brink of rolling over all by himself from his back to his tummy! He gets on his side and lays there, sometimes gearing up all his energy for one big push and gets everything but that last arm over before he gets frustrated and gives up.  Yesterday, I helped just a tiny bit by letting him hold my one finger and pulling ever so slightly and he did get all the way over, with me and Scott watching, and was quite amazed with himself! I can't wait till he can do it on his own just to see his look of accomplishment (not because I want him to be mobile, oh no!).  I get so nervous we're going to miss such a little baby milestone that I don't want him lying on his back when I'm not around haha.  Easier said than done as he's most content on his playmat talking to his animal friends.  Yesterday, I had him on his blanket in his room and went to brush my teeth.  I was watching him on our monitor (seriously, I love our video monitor!) and he was almost there and I had a mouth full of toothpaste foam! But luckily I made it back in time to see him give up.

As far as tummy time and talking go, well he's getting better at both of those too! During tummy time, he's finally giving into it for a little bit and holding his head up nice and high realizing he can see more when he does it. :) I put him on tummy time for a few minutes in music class the other day while we were waiting to start and him and this other little boy, who's the same age, are the youngest and a couple of babies are like a month older than him and he was doing so good the other parents were like "how long will he stay like that before he has a meltdown" and I was like "oh only like 5 minutes" and they were all like "really!? Ours will only stay for like 30 seconds!" What a proud momma (yea like I have anything to do with how strong he is, clearly didn't get it from me!) I was! But I am very competitive so this was a win in my book! (If you're on my team, you will win, trust me. Ask Scott.)

October 20th --10.5 weeks old! (look at that rattle grip!)

November 9, 2011 -- 13.5 weeks old!

And if you talk to him, why he will talk right back to you and have a little baby conversation! So much fun! The kid also cannot sit still.  Well he can "sit" still, but all day long, no matter what he's doing, his head is going back and forth and back and forth and his eyes are darting all around, he's always trying to take in e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.  He's very rarely just sitting chilled out. His eyes are always wide trying to see and take in something new -- love this kid!

Oh! And sidenote -- the "Today" show was at the Wizarding World the other day and Brady was glued to the tv during bottle time -- he SO wants to go! How many more years until he can ride The Forbidden Journey!? ;)

"Bang, bang, you're dead!" ...

... "No, Avada Kedavra, you're dead!"

Recently, Scott and I were having a discussion about toy guns and whether or not I'm going to let Brady play with them, like most little boys (and girls really) do at some point.  One political point I stand pretty strongly on is gun control.  I believe guns don't safe lives, guns kill and with better gun control, well, perhaps we wouldn't have so many children shot at school every year! I am not telling you this to open up a big political discussion on gun control -- I believe there should be stronger gun laws, some believe everyone should have a gun in their house -- and we could duke it out to the death (ha) but at the end of the day we're probably still going to believe what we currently believe and that's fine.  I'm sure we could find enough evidence to support and discredit both sides of this issue -- but I digress. Again.  

The point of the story is Scott knows that I do not like guns and he asked if I was going to freak out if Brady had a toy gun someday.  I know "shooting" is not something I want to encourage when he's playing with his little friends.  After personal deliberation, I decided that water guns are acceptable, nerf guns are tolerated, wooden, novelty guns are allowed, but for shelf display, and other toy guns (the ones that look and act more like real guns) are prohibited.  Scott shrugged and agreed for the time being ... and then started laughing.  When I asked him what was so funny he told me, "We're going to have the geek on the playground.  Some little kid is gonna shoot his "finger formed gun" at Brady screaming "bang, bang you're dead" and Brady is going to whip out his "finger wand" and come back with "I stopped the bullet with my magic.  Avada Kedavra, you're dead." 

And for the record, I will not be able to ground Brady for using the killing curse in play because magic and wizardry will always be encouraged in my household. :)

BOO! Happy (belated) Halloween!

Do you know how much baby costumes are?! They are not cheap.  Unless you buy them a week or two before Halloween and they're on sale and that is because it is slim pickings at that point.  And that is the point we were at.

I decided a couple of months ago, when Pottery Barn Kids released their super cute Halloween costumes, that Brady was going to be a little teddy bear.  The costume was super cute and waaay cheaper than the super expensive Hungry Caterpillar costume or the *amazeballs* Dumbo costume I found online (actually, they didn't have the Dumbo costume in Brady's size but next year -- look out!).  But I procrastinated -- though with good reason! How would I know what size to order Brady two months in advance! I mean seriously, this kid is getting bigger by the millisecond! (At his last dr. appt at 2.5 months -- he weighed in at 13 lbs. 14 oz. and 25 in! cripers!) And around the time I decided on a size, I was thrown in the hospital sans internet or credit cards so said costume never got ordered and by the time I got home and my mind back on costumes, it was sadly sold out!

Fearing the worst (what kind of mother doesn't dress her baby up on his 1st halloween!? You don't get these moments back people!!), I dragged my boys out to BuyBuy Baby, the last place we had seen a plethora of baby costumes (honestly, finding a "baby" size costume is NOT easy.  A TON of costumes start at 12 months, under that, it becomes a challenge).  And not only did they have a small variety left, they were on sale! Holla! Because all the haters are like "Why would you spend so much money on something your baby is going to wear one day?" (Note:  see 3 sentences ago!) And I would argue the fact that Brady wore his costume more times than he has worn a significant number of his little baby clothes -- a fine fact to remember next year when I consider buying the terribly expensive, yet terribly awesome Dumbo costume.  True story:  We only do baby laundry because the hamper is overflowing, not because we are even *close* to running out of clothes.  Last time I did laundry, the onesie drawer was still so full it was hard to close! Before the dirty clothes got cleaned and put back away ... oh but I digress.

Soo we had choices! What to be what to be! After a quick deliberation, we settled on a .... baby tiger!!

Look at that tummy!! It was too cute! We both loved it! And I'm happy to report: no tears in our tiger costume -- Brademan couldn't care less that we were dressing him up! I think he actually enjoyed it! And he wore it for *5* days!! The weekend before Halloween was another wonderfully fall weathered day, so we dressed the boy up, packed up our pumpkins and headed over to my parents to use their decorated yard as the setting for our Halloween pictures! Brademan was a super trooper, and Maizy even got in on the fun!

Look at that happy tiger!! Next up, Halloween weekend!! Friday night we took Brady to a halloween party at a friends, dressed as lions (me), tigers (Brade), and bears (Scott).  Genius.  (We were planning on going as Tigger, Pooh, and Eeyore BUT my Eeyore ears are sadly M-I-S-S-I-N-G!! Travesty, but I know they're around someplace...)  Brady was such a fun guy at the party and stayed up late and never even got fussy! Such a party animal!

On Saturday and Sunday, as we are living in baby central over here, there were *4* fests/parades in neighborhoods within walking distance from our condo -- so we checked out two, one each day! Saturday we headed up to Lincoln Square for trick or treating fun with our little tiger -- it's about time *I* get some candy!! My mom used to buy our Halloween candy off of us when we kids so I've never had a bag of endless candy to enjoy! IT'S MY TURN! YEAAA!!  Sadly, though, Brady slept through the entire fest in his stroller Saturday and Scott said we couldn't trick or treat with him if he was sleeping! GRRR. No candy for me.

Thankfully, we had 2 more days to try this thing! Sunday, we walked Brady down to Roscoe Village with my parents for their massive kid Halloween Parade.  Seriously, there were only about a million children there! I mean I'm not even exaggerating that much.  Sooo many kids! And a plethora of CHILDREN in SCREAM masks that bleed BLOOD with a push of a button!!! People, sensor your children a bit!! These bloody ghost face kids could not have been older than 10 or 11!! Scarrrrrrry.  And not appropriate in the least! Seriously.

Brady was more into it today and we got to trick or treat a little, though we tired fast as the lines outside the stores were immense!  Here's Brady's 1st trick or treat though (with a little help from Daddy!)

 And afterwards! Yay Brady!

 And a shot of the parade so you can see just how many children were there ... this was on the way back so they lost a TON of kids to the trick or treating!

It went on for blocks! No lie. I'm amazed.

Now, finally, we made it to Halloween!! Brady got dressed in his warm tigey outfit one last time and went to visit his whole family! First stop -- Gramma and Grampa Minneci's where he trick or treated to the neighbors! Well, it's so easy to do so, they all stand on their porches with huge buckets of candy because that neighborhood is ridic when it comes to trick or treaters!  Then it was off to Grandma and Grandpa Moran's to trick or treat! And finally, with a pumpkin full of candy, he headed home and retired the tiger costume.  I already washed it and packed it in the "too small or out of season" clothes box.  1st official holiday -- over. Tears.

Wearing his Halloween outfit from Gramma while waiting to trick or treat!

Just out trick or treatin! (look at how he held onto his bag haha! knows his momma is after his candy!)

Hope your Halloween was memorable and fun too! :)

What happened to the blogger!?!?

.... well, she became a mommy, fell madly in loooove with her little munchkin (and her little family), realized she only had a few fleeting nice weather days left to do all the fun outside things with a baby, spent a couple of days in the hospital, did more fun things, dealt with a computer hard drive crash (and being the smartest girl in town, hadn't backed up in 5 years sooo much time was spent trying to find the last five years of her life on the internet), spent a couple of days in the hospital with the hubby ... and here we are.  It's November 9th -- and too cold to go play outside, so it's time to catch up the blog! Thanks to my tedious work late into the nights the last couple weeks, I have been able to recover (well ok, re-transfer, they were luckily still in my camera!) all of the pictures of the babe and have re-sorted them by dates, so I think I can catch the blog up on alll of the fun things we've been up to! (Spoiler alert: this post maaay get lengthy!)

Brady was <gulp> 3 months old yesterday!!

Nov. 8 -- Brady, 3 months old!!

Can't believe it! I was just telling Scott the other day, half of me can NOT believe he's already a quarter of a year old, but the other half of me feels like he's been here forever! :)

I also can't believe how much we've done with Brady in the last 3 months!  I was just talking to a friend the other day about having kids and I said "well we knew we wanted to have a baby in the summer" and she interrupted and was like "wait, why?"  Now, let me just clarify, I in no way wanted to do that because I think it's "better" than having a kid at any other time or that my way is the "right" way but only because hello! This is Chicago and I wanted to have a couple of days to enjoy with my baby walking outside and going places before the looooong winter arrived.  In a perfect world, I would have liked to have the baby at the very end of May/beginning of June so that we could really take advantage and enjoy the "summer" buuuuut to do that I would have had to conceive him in Sept. (biology lesson!) and as I was in Miami with my two besties last September (um, girls can you believe it's been over a year since we were wizards!? Let's go back! ;)) and not my husband, that just wasn't going to work! Actually, for those who care and who may be planning in the future, I actually think August is the saddest month to have a baby because you get to spend the least amount of time with your child before they have to go to school -- I'm secretly hoping that in the next couple of years the school systems change the cut off date to August 1st so that I HAVE to keep Brady back a year and get to spend extra lovey time with my baby!

Anywhooooo, we left off at the end of September.  Brady had gone to his 1st Cubs game, had started to hold his head up all by himself (!!), and I had mastitis, again. But I would not let another infection slow me down (probably one of the reasons I couldn't seem to just get healthy, but I had trouble sacrificing my precious time with my baby for boring rest time, didn't I do enough of that this summer!?)! So we pressed on ...

First up -- October! What a month! We started it out awesomely!! Brady got to meet his Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Urbin for the 1st time!

Yea, he wasn't so happy to wake up and take pictures ... and he was desperately hungry poor kid!  Great Grandma, who is super sweet, but getting super old ;), asked if he was a boy or girl and when I said boy, she told me, "It's a boy?! But he's soo pretty!"  Haha, can't blame her, he is! And in her defense, she turned to me about an hour later during lunch and thanked me for the beautiful announcement that was hanging in her room! (See, she knew he was a boy hehe)

After lunch with the fam, we decided to take advantage of a nice fall day (and a free zoo pass from the library!) and headed over to Brookfield Zoo for Brady's 1st visit to the zoo!! :)

Seriously, how big does he look?! Not even 2 months yet!

 Though Brady has some difficulty staying awake for the whole trip, specifically during the awesome Great Bear Wilderness ...

...he did enjoy the giraffes! One of mommy's favorite zoo dwellers (and Brookfield has an amazing amount of giraffes! It's like being on a safari ... giraffes are in safaris, right?)

He was definitely looking at them! Good animals to see again on our next zoo trip! And just for fun, here's my favorite pic, clearly not Brady's, of mommy and Brady just hanging out in the joey pouch!

Ohhh yeaaaa ... good day at the zoo!!  The next day, we hit up one of Mommy's favorite fall fests --- Long Grove Apple Fest!! Apple cider donuts, hot apple cider, brown bag apple pies ... yum yum yum!! And it was a *beautiful* day!

Brady just chillaxin in his stroller waiting for Apples!

And then we randomly found the Wizard of Oz characters -- so we put Brady in the movie! ha!

It was also during this first weekend in October when Brady began playing with his toys a little more on his own! In his bouncer, he learned that if he hits his animals, they move! And he was thrilled with this discovery!

Sooo we were all having a grand ol' time ... we were enjoying our time as a family, Brady was discovering new things, I was still nursing exclusively with the 2 month mark days away .... and then, of course, drama.  I got super sick, ended up in the ER, and 8 hours later, ended up in the hospital with no discharge date in sight! For the record, I think if you are trying to keep a new mom from developing post partum depression, you can start with not taking said mom away from her baby for days! But that is what they did! For a couple of days, I stayed in the hospital while they ran tests, Scott stayed with me like a good hubby, and Brady got a crash course in sleeping at Gramma and Grampa's AND being formula fed! Yea, remember my earlier post about the guilt of not nursing and how I was secretly hoping for a "good" reason not to nurse that I had no control over so I wouldn't feel so guilty .. yea, well be careful what you wish for! Being unexpectedly and quickly thrown into the hospital leaves you no time to plan.  I had only a few breastmilk bags frozen in the freezer, not nearly enough to get Brady 5-6 bottles a day for the next 3 days sooo he quickly got switched to formula! Luckily, he did awesomely! Because then the doctors decided I had c-diff, a highly contagious bacterial infection of the colon that apparently I got from the mastitis antibiotics I had been taking.  Ironically, this is also treated with antibiotics and on these, I could not nurse Brady.  So they told me to "pump and dump" for the next 10 days as often as I would nurse. Ha. Yea right.  One doctor actually told me to set an alarm, in the hospital, and wake myself up in the middle of the night to pump.  And then throw it away.  So I'm away from my baby and I can't even get some sleep out of it! Soo not happening.  The *only* "upside to being kept away from your 2 month old is that you get some long stretches of sleep that don't end in someone screaming for you to help them!  And the stupid ER nurses had already left me to sit in the waiting room (and thus, away from my breast pump) for over 8 hours so I was already way off my breastfeeding schedule!  Long story short, I pumped a little (not pumping would cause my ducts to get clogged up basically promising me yet another case of mastitis), but once I was released from the hospital and feeling better, I wanted to make up for those days that I lost with Brady so we were out a lot and like I was going to stop at the pumpkin patch to find a place to pump! Excuse me, pump AND DUMP! I couldn't even keep the milk! Yea, so by the time I was off my antibiotics, Brady had little interest in breast milk and I had very little left to give him.  Flash forward to right now, I haven't pumped in a couple of weeks (I just cleaned my pump and packed it away the other night actually, tear.) and I'm pretty sure I'm out of milk ... BUT my boobs are back to a non-playboy model size and my shirts fit again! Whoohoo!  I do feel a little guilty, but after all the trouble breastfeeding caused this time around, I believe it's better for us all that I stopped.  I did do it almost exclusively (minus maybe 2 bottles) for a few days short of 2 months and that was longer than I originally thought I'd last so I'll chock it up as a success ... and work harder with the next one! :) It was either Brady got breast milk for a few more months or a healthy momma to hang out with ... and well, I think the right choice was made! :)

I got out of the hospital (after some begging and crying!) on Brady's two month birthday!! They tried to keep me and I was like "um, no" and apparently they "can't keep you against your wishes" so I was free! :) And Brady was *thrilled* to see Mommy!! He looked so much bigger, it was ridiculous what 2.5 days away does! 

Brady -- Oct. 8th -- 2 months old!! (Can you tell Mom was in the hospital and thus, Daddy and Gramma picked out his clothes? It pains me to see him in "random" unmatched pieces of clothing.)

Yay! Mommy's home!!

The weekend Mommy got home from the hospital was a simply amazingly gorgeous weekend weather wise -- and we couldn't go out and enjoy it because of the "recovery."  UGH! I was soo upset.  And then the universe listened and Scott got a couple of days off during the (still warm and sunny) week (ah, who needs a paycheck right?).  We started with a trip on up to the pumpkin patch! It was a beautiful, not at all fall (I could've used more sweatshirt weather), sunny day and the patch was nice and empty -- which left us tons of opportunity for pictures! Here's just a couple ...

Brady's 1st Pumpkin!!

Haha our "wee" one ...

He's SO big!

These make me laugh!

Brady was really into the pumpkin patch! (And by really into, I mean he was awake the whole time!) :) It was so fun to take him someplace that I remember going so often during my childhood! I'm sure if I search enough I can find pics of me by all of the same cutouts I took pics of Brady with! And he picked out (with a little help from Daddy) his very first pumpkin!

The next day, we continued the fun with a trip to the Shedd Aquarium with our cousins from California!! John and Tegan got to finally meet Brady and it may have been my favorite thing how much they loved him! Breaks my heart that they won't grow up together like me and their mommy did! But always good to spend some time together when we can! Brady was awake all of the time at the Shedd too and even spent time watching the fishies swim! Can't wait to take him back when he's old enough to really care! :)

John sharing his penguin friends with Brady!

Watching the fishies!

The fun didn't stop there!! We had a jammed back weekend to get through still! Brady got to attend his 1st wedding -- cousins Jene and Jason at the beautiful Starved Rock on a perfect fall Saturday!  He was only there on request of the bride, I wouldn't just bring my baby to a wedding haha.  The wedding was lovely and Brady was such an angel the whole time -- really quiet, not fussy, and mostly awake! We are so glad we brought him ... not just because it's so fun to dress him up either! ;)

And a bonus picture from the rest of the weekend, Brady hanging with his cousin Kyle!

Aren't they cuties! Well ... this takes us to mid October and Brady at 2.5 months!! See how quickly the days go by!? And it was time for Mom to start going back to work!  It was also time to start Music Class! We started going to the Boogin' Babies class at Musical Magic, this adorable little music and dance studio in Roscoe Village! It is seriously soo hard to find a music class that starts under 6 months and I was super happy to come across these! We sing songs and each song has a puppet or prop that goes along with it and Brady seems to be loving them! He giggles (yes, he giggles now!) and smiles along with the songs and is very interested in the other babies! I'm a major believer that you should start them nice and early with simple things like singing and being around other children ... and it provides some wonderful mommy/Brady bonding time! 

Just as we were getting into our routine and over our bad luck, it struck again! (I guess when you have a perfect baby, you can have good luck and good health too!)  My trusty little mac decided to have a fatal error taking all of my memories with it! We trucked down to the mac store and I prayed and my prayers were not answered.  Harddrive, for no good reason, decided it was done working.  I had all of my pictures from the last 10 years, over 2300 (mostly illegally downloaded) songs, and all of my documents from forever on the computer and now it was gone.  I cried and desperately called data recovery companies who nonchalantly quoted me $1000-$2000 fees for recovering my data.  Scott rubbed my back and said "You know we're not paying that right" and I shed a few more tears.  And then I wiped my eyes and moved on. Got a new hard drive, thanked facebook for storing a plethora of my pictures, dug out some old discs containing all my college papers and pictures, and started to rebuild my computer.  Luckily, a couple of years ago Scott decided we should just buy new memory cards when our current ones were full and keep the cards in our safe box so I had most of the last couple of years on camera cards.  Our wedding and honeymoon and professional pictures were all on discs.  After much searching and weeding through, it looks like I'm just going to loose most of 2008 (whatever wasn't on facebook anyways).  Which sadly, is a lot of pictures from when Maizy was a puppy! :( Not all of them of course, the best were on the internet, but for every picture published, I had 10 more taken. Sadness! You'd think the first thing I'd do is go out and buy an external harddrive (the one I have for work doesn't work on my mac! grrr) but I have yet to do that ... remember to hit me next time you see me! (I swear, its on the "must do" list this weekend!!) And thanks to the amazingly awesome app senuti, for a mere $20, I downloaded the program and it transferred ALL of my 2297 songs off of my iphone and back onto my computer! Take that apple and your copyright laws!!!  My computer is *almost* back to close to what it looked like!

Annnnd, just as I got over that fiasco, Scott decided to add a little drama of his own and landed himself in the hospital for 3 days (oh yea, pretty sure our medical bills are going to bury us this year!) :(.  He chose to go to Swedish Covenant and I'm telling you, if you get a choice, choose Northwestern.  While both ER's sucked, Northwestern still felt much more like a hotel, while Swedish (albeit he was in the old building) felt like county.  It was scary, not gonna lie. Brady and I set up camp by my parents for a few days because on Halloween (it's getting it's own post, it's coming I promise) I decided we should watch Scream 4, which of course means I'm seeing the Ghost Face everywhere now and staying alone in the condo would have led to many more sleepless nights.  And it worked out fine, because I spent most of the days with Scott at the hospital and only got home in time to give Brade his last bottle of the night and send him off to bed.  (Scott doesn't have his final test results yet but they think he caught c-diff from me and for the record, is home and feeling much better now!)  He got home just in time to celebrate Brady's 3 month birthday with us and we are hoping and praying the worst is behind us. (Praying hard because most nurses seem to agree that if we both had c-diff, it's only a matter of time before little Brademan gets it!)

Soooo as you can see, blogging got pushed to the background -- but here it is -- Brady's 3rd month! (Halloween recap is forthcoming, this was long enough!)  He currently loves to play in his Aquarium playmat, sleep in his big boy bed (all night!), grabs and holds his toys, smiles and giggles, and is getting stronger everyday.  It's so amazing to watch his development right in front of our your eyes!

Now if the Moran's could just stay healthy, we'd be in good shape! :P