Thursday, May 12, 2016

Maverick: 8 Month Update


Mother's Day hangover is a very real thing...I woke up on Monday morning after 10 hours of glorious sleep and literally felt like I was drunk. It's like my body doesn't know how to handle that much sleep anymore...I spent most of the morning wandering around the house, sitting and staring into my coffee cup, and giggling about nothing while Jamie and Josh looked at me and asked, "Ummm are you ok?"

Mother's Day. It was a totally new experience this year now that I have a real baby boy who calls me Maamaamaamaa. Josh kept asking what I wanted and I said I wanted to NOT talk about Boersma Lawn Care the whole day, I wanted him to ignore his phone, and I wanted to go to the movie Mother's Day...I got exactly what I asked for! It was such a fun day and an excuse for us to sneak in an extra date to the Cafe on Sunday to cap off the weekend. We ended up talking a little business (but it was strictly about 'Boersma Rentals')...and we started planning our vacation to Galena in October! 

But enough about Maverick's parents...this is supposed to be his eight month update! He IS the reason I celebrated Mother's Day yesterday, after all.


BabyMav (said like one word, our favorite nickname this month) is still in 3-6 month clothes (starting to fit into some 6-9), size two diapers, and has most of the same likes and dislikes as last month...although they're starting to be articulated a little more strongly with each passing day. Every once in a while we get a little glimpse of some serious attitude that is NOT going to be pleasant to deal with in a couple months. My mom melts every time Maverick whine-cries and I barely hear the that anymore. Owie cries I hear, sad/scared cries I hear...everything else gets ignored if mom has chores to do because 'independent play' for at least a half hour has started to be a 'requirement' during 'wake-times.' ;)

That was an annoying sentence for me to write. But it's true.

I love our schedule right now. It's exactly the same as last month but we've gotten better at it. At some point in the past couple weeks Maverick naturally started shifting to an earlier morning and an earlier bedtime (that I'm surprisingly enjoying!). He's up between 8 and 8:30 every morning and in bed by 8:30 every night. Looking toward the summer, I think this schedule will work well with our mandatory pool time and the earlier bedtime gives Josh and I a little bit more of a 'night' together...though sometimes that means Josh misses out on Maverick-time altogether. :( 

Maverick is just such a fantastic napper. Two, two-hour naps are solid almost every day we are at home in our usual groove. If we're gone somewhere I can still usually count on hour and a half, though he's still always a wild card if I try and get him to nap at Nana's.

Speaking of naps...I discovered last weekend that they keep a pack'n'play in the bathroom in Maverick's classroom at church...this. is. a. game changer. I usually throw our schedule out the window on Sunday's and that makes an already busy day a lot harder/longer. I don't need to put the pressure of a schedule on the sweet church nursery ladies, but NOW I can just instruct them to toss him in the pack'n'play, ignore the 10 minutes of crying, and he should be *out* for the whole service. PERFECT! Last Sunday when we came to pick him up they met me at the door saying, "It worked! He's been in there napping the whole time!" I was thrilled. Another unexpected Mother's Day present from my sweet little boy.

I think the biggest change this month came when Maverick finally became sturdy enough to sit up all by himself. It took a couple days of me sitting with him when he was playing to 'catch' him when he got too excited, but now he sits up like a big man and plays with his toys all the time. I think this means I can finally get rid of our play mat now that he's never laying under it. HORRAY! He loves sitting up in his stroller and looking at puppies, kitties, cars, and other little people we walk by. I've noticed he gets bored of toys more too...I rotate things every couple of days and make sure he doesn't get overwhelmed with too many things surrounding him to play with. He seems happier with just two or three things at a time. Or a whole bucket of Legos to play with.


Maverick doesn't throw a fit quite as much anymore when he gets put down, which I'm attributing to how much better he is at playing. Laying and trying to play just wasn't cutting it anymore last month, so that's been good. He has gotten pretty vocal about me leaving a room. If I'm around the kitchen/dining room/living room he's content to sit in his bouncer or play, but if it's getting close to nap time and I shut the door to go to the bathroom or go into the hallway/bedrooms and he can't SEE me anymore...he loses his mind about it.

As for sleeping, this month we're averaging about 3-4 good nights and 3-4 bad nights per week. I haven't been able to find a correlation between his days and nights that might fix the problem. Naps during the day can be either amazing or terrible...and our night can go either way. There's just no rhyme or reason to it! The other night he was suuuuuper distracted by his daddy while he was eating before bed, and I was convinced he hardly ate anything...he slept until 6am! On the nights I try offering a couple extra ounces of milk and he chugs it I think, "Ok...this is the night he will crank out 12 hours...I have a good feeling." And he will be up at 1:30. He's eating some food 2-3 times a day and there are days he eats a lot and days he doesn't eat as much...and our nights don't seem to have a correlation based on that either. So I'm just riding it out. He's still pretty easy and great...so on the nights that have been extra rough I allow myself an extra cup of coffee in the morning and an afternoon in front of the TV instead of staying busy doing stuff. I've done everything 'by the book' and he has ZERO bad habits...so I've done what I can. It's whatever.

Maverick is doing a mixture of BabyLed and Traditional weaning now. After he had so much fun playing with food there for a few months, I decided it was time to get some extra calories in him during the day...since...you know he's tiny. He probably eats 5-8 ounces of baby food per day and gets to play with fruit or avocado or cheese at some point during his day. And as you can see...he hasn't exactly 'bulked' up even after all the extra food. So that's just whatever too. He's still breastfed 5-6 times a day and that's where he's supposed to be getting his nutrients anyway.

We've really killed it with the play dates this week. On Monday we went swimming with Baby Gabby and her mom at a hotel pool...Tuesday was Titus 2 Play Group at church...Wednesday we had a Chic-Fil-A breakfast date with the Becker's...and today we went swimming again with Beckett Hoben and his mommy! Tomorrow we're spending the day with Nana before we pick Uncle Winston up from the airport, so it's been an eventful week for sure. I've even stayed totally on top of Josh's invoicing and voicemails...probably why this post is 12 days late. :)



A few 'new' funny things about Mav...he thinks it's funny to 'wrestle.' Sometimes he'll reach out and grab my arm when I'm changing his diaper and I rock him around and he loves it. I throw couch pillows at him and he wrestles those too. He does this thing Jamie and I have named 'Scuttling' which is a combination of scrunch-cuddling. It's when he gets so excited about whoever is holding him that he tightens/scrunches/pinches/smiles/cuddles right up to your shoulder. It's one of my new favorite things. We also play a miniture-version of airplane with him on our legs. This month Maverick has gotten a lot better about falling asleep in the car and then continuing his nap in his crib once we've unloaded. YAYAY!

We still have a big talker. His squeals, squeaks, and screams remind us of a taradactyl...so sometimes we call him a Baby Taradactyl because it can get reeeeally high-pitched. He has figured out how to blow bubbles, make a few boy noises, and use his fingers to make noise with his lips. He pays special attention to his toys and moves things around in his hands a lot better. He grabs anything and everything to put in his mouth (mail, clothes, tags, leaves). Mostly he just slaps and kicks all his toys.

Josh and I are planning our trip to Galena this fall and Maverick is excited about spending FOUR DAYS with G'ma and G'pa doing fun fall Manson things. Three nights and four days...this is a test-run to see if they can handle when we take a longer, tropical vacation at some point in the future.

That's what was up with our little man this month. I cant believe we're halfway to month NINE! Time for pictures with Libby, the pool to open, and all kinds of fun stuff on our summer bucket list!

MmB

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