Boys Rule

Patience

Patience is not a virtue that 7 month old babies have while waiting for their food. For that matter, it's not a virtue I have either, just ask Scott.

Captain Adorable

Mobile

Even though Rocco is seven months old, he still is transfixed by his mobile. He loves watching the whales move in a circle to the tune of 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star".

Daddy's Hat

I can't get over how similar he looks to Scott when he's wearing his daddy's hat.

Squish

Baby faces are so squishy!

Crabby

"What do you mean there's no more milk?!"

What's Up?

Rocco thinks hanging upside down is the funniest thing ever.

All Stacked Up

Rocco has a new toy he'd like to show off. He doesn't grasp the concept of stacking the rings yet, but he has mastered knocking them off and then chewing on them.

I Want to Hold Your Hand

One day your hands will be bigger than mine, but I hope I'll never forget how it felt to have your tiny hand pressed up against just the palm of mine.

Super Rocco

Rocco loves flying through the air superman-style! His bib makes a great cape ;)

Rubber Ducky

Rocco loves, loves, loves his new ducky bathtub! Thanks Misty for letting us borrow it!

Eyes

I think this is officially Rocco's permanent eye color. Now someone tell me what it is! LOL!

Guest Bedroom

Rocco helped get the guest bedroom ready for the Whitesides arrival tomorrow - he had to make sure the bed was comfortable ;)

Splish Splash

Hoodie towels are the best.

7 Months Old!

In the past month Rocco has had a LOT of 'firsts'! He:
- had his first taste of solids! So far he likes bananas, green beans, and sweet potatoes.
- went to Disney World for the first time!
- went to the playground for the first time! He really enjoyed swinging and hanging on the monkey bars.
- went to the beach and swam in a pool for the first time! He LOVED it!

The thing Scott and I are most excited is that in the past month Rocco is FINALLY sleeping through the night consistently! This unfortunately did not happen naturally, we had to do a bit of sleep training to get this miracle to occur. It was rough at first but it was completely worth it. We're all much happier now that we are all getting sleep! Just look how happy he looks in his 7 month photo:

Mommy's Little....

You're So Vain...

Rocco has recently become very fascinated with mirrors. He waves, smiles, and talks to his reflection. It's really funny!

Preppy

Baby girls may have cute bows and dresses, but baby boys have the best preppy clothes! Scott has the same shirt in his size I think ;)

Mommy's Biggest Fan

Last year on Mother's Day, when I was still pregnant, Scott bought me the onesie Rocco is wearing in this photo. At the time, I couldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams that in just a year I would have such a handsome baby boy in my arms wearing it! I'm his biggest fan!

First Day at the Beach/Swimming in the Pool

To celebrate Mother's Day with Scott's mother, we went to his parents' beach condo in New Smyrna Beach. After lathering Rocco up in sunscreen, we hit the pool! To Rocco, the pool was just one really big bathtub - and he LOVES taking baths! So initially he was having the time of his life.

But after all the excitement wore off, he started getting tired. So we took him back upstairs for a nice nap in the air-conditioned condo, enjoyed some lunch, and then we headed back out to the beach.

I was completely convinced that Rocco wasn't going to enjoy the beach as much as he did the pool. Between the colder water, the wet sand, the sound of the crashing waves, and all the seaweed that was unfortunately floating around - I was bracing myself for a complete melt down. Instead, shockingly, he really liked it! He especially liked the feeling of the wet sand.

Hopefully next time we go, there won't be so much seaweed and the wind won't be so strong, causing the waves to be really rough. I was too nervous to let him play for very long in the very shallow end of the surf. Besides, the seaweed was really grossing me out! :-P

Reflections

Rocco thoroughly enjoyed his first trip to the beach. He liked digging his fingers into the sand and checking out his reflection. He also went swimming for the first time at the pool - more photos of that coming soon!

Tuckered Out

Today Scott and Rocco took the day off and had a nice mid-morning nap together. Once they woke up, Scott went out and brought back home lunch. To keep Rocco occupied while we ate, Scott put him in his rock n' play along with his favorite toy, Gio. I guess Rocco wasn't done napping though. Playing with Gio for just a couple of minutes was enough to tucker him out, and he fell back asleep with Gio still firmly gripped in his hand.

Board Books

Rocco loves to hold onto his books and "read" them! However, we quickly learned that we can only give him the cardboard page books as he can rip off paper pages in .2 seconds.

Morning Playtime

When Rocco wakes up these days, he is full of energy. So we let him hang out in the exersaucer while we get ready and to give us time to get more awake! LOL!

Shopping Cart

Tonight Rocco took a spin in the child seat part of a shopping cart for the first time. We of course are the kind of parents who waste our money on a padded shopping cart cover, and of course that cover has whales on it. :)

He liked being able to look around and kicking his feet, but he wasn't a big fan of staying seated upright. He kept slumping over and then getting upset about it. Hopefully he will get the hang of it soon so he can enjoy many more shopping trips to Target!

Shit People Don't Tell You When You're Pregnant

Earlier I posted a video about stupid shit people say to pregnant women. But now I want to talk about shit people DON'T SAY to you when you're pregnant or thinking about becoming pregnant. It seems that certain topics are taboo when you are a parent. Anything that even hints about problems or difficulties about having a child is not allowed. So here are some of my personal parenting truths, after only six months of being in the trenches:

- You might not be blissfully happy and in love with your child right away. There. I said it. For me, this was not due to anything being implicitly wrong with Rocco. He was, and still is, generally a happy baby. I however, was not happy. Postpartum hormones can be a bitch, and mine were all over the place. To be fair, to some degree I think some of my unhappiness was related to the traumatic ICU experience I went through shortly after Rocco's birth. Some of it also probably had to do with the ridiculous amounts of drama that happened after we came home from the hospital. But the vast majority of my unhappiness was due to hormonal changes I had no control over. In the end, drugs really were the only thing that made it better; thank you makers of Zoloft. I luckily only had to take it for two months and I have been feeling blissfully happy and in love with Rocco ever since. Well, for the most part. Which leads me to:

- Motherhood does not give you the super human power of limitless patience. At some point, you are going to lose your shit. I clearly remember when I personally hit my low point. I was not yet taking my aforementioned happy pills, I was beyond sleep deprived, Rocco was crying for some undetermined reason, and I may or may not have yelled "Just shut up!" at him from across the room. Scott was there to witness this Mother-of-the-Year moment and immediately gave me an unnecessary guilt trip for yelling at our helpless newborn son. I say unnecessary because while Motherhood does not give you limitless patience, it does give you limitless guilt for any parenting transgressions. Rocco if you're reading this (at some point in the future since you obviously cannot read at the age of 6 months), I'm sorry.

- As a parent, you will immediately find yourself comparing your child and your own parenting abilities to everyone else and you will worry that you don't stack up. You might think I am about to say some crap about how all babies will develop on their own time so don't compare them yadda, yadda, yadda. But really? Your kid might actually be slow to do things and other people might actually be better at this parenting thing than you. Luckily, they don't hand out gold medals for cloth diapering or sleeping through the night.

- You will miss your old life, or at least parts of it. You won't necessarily regret having a child (I don't anyways), but it an inescapable fact that life is much easier when you don't have to care for a tiny, helpless human being. Babies are a complete time and money suck. Good thing they are also cute.

- If you have a pet, and love love love your pet, when you have a child you will now only love, maybe even only like, your pet. Pre-Rocco, Scott and I would feel guilty leaving Casey (our cat) for just the weekend, nevermind going on two-week-long international trips. We would talk about him while on vacation, wondering how he was doing. We took the time to email Scott's family (our pet sitters) to see if Casey was doing ok. We brought a photo of him along with us on every trip. A little over the top perhaps, considering we were in Italy, Australia, Egypt, etc and thinking about our cat, but he was our baby! When I was pregnant, Scott and I would have serious talks about how we had to make sure that we still gave Casey affection once the baby came home. We decided that whoever was not holding the baby should be giving attention to Casey to make sure he still felt loved and cared for. For the record, that did not happen. Casey luckily still gets some attention from me while I work from home and Rocco is at daycare, but I'm not nearly as attentive as I used to be. I feel a little guilty, but now I just view him as a cat, as harsh as that sounds.

- You will miss your child when they are sleeping. Yes, I know that sounds insane. When they are finally (finally!) sleeping, all you will want to do some nights is to go into their room and cuddle and play with them. That's how much you will love them - you will honest-to-god miss them while they are sleeping. I bet you don't feel that way about your spouse (no offense Scott)! If you could bottle the pure happiness you get from having a child, you'd be rich. In the meantime, people just have another child ;)

Overall I love being a mother. More specifically, I love being Rocco's mother. I love that little boy more than words can describe. I love seeing how much of an amazing father Scott truly is. Our family now feels more complete. But, having a baby is not all roses and sunshine and I'm not afraid to admit it.

Baby Einstein

Rocco is completely entranced by the Baby Einstein - Mozart video on YouTube (he doesn't care for the other ones). If he is having a particularly fussy day, we let him watch it for a couple of minutes. I don't think it's going to make him a genius or anything, but it does make him (temporarily) happy.

Don't believe me? Here's a video I took a couple days ago showing the magical calming powers of Baby Einstein:

...We All Fall Down!

No one said learning how to sit was easy. Learning how to fall down gracefully is even harder!

Highchair

Today Scott finally had the time to build Rocco's highchair. It's so much easier to feed him now compared to when he was in the Bumbo. Rocco seems to be more comfortable too.

Big Guy

Rocco really is a "Big Guy" - he's finally sitting up unassisted! Granted, not for too long - he gets tired and/or bored and then falls over. But hey, it's progress!

Bubble Bath

Today we decided to try giving Rocco his first a bath in the kitchen sink. We couldn't resist adding some bubbles and trying to give him a mohawk but it looks more like a shark fin I think.

Swing, Swing, Swing on a Summer Day

Rocco enjoyed his very first time on the baby swings. He smiled from ear to ear and kicked his little legs so fast as if he was running - it made me laugh. We'll have to make special trips to this other park just so he can swing some more.

Bath Toys

Rocco is finally starting to sit better on his own, so tonight we decided to give him some bath toys to play with in our guest bath tub (while we wait until the next time we see Misty so we can borrow her ducky bath tub - thanks Sis!). Of course Scott still kept his hands on him at all times because a porcelain bath tub is not a very forgiving surface to smack your head on.

Rocco was absolutely thrilled with his new toys - I think they will make a regular appearance at bath time!