Biophilliac Mommy: Crawling into warmer weather

Here is everything that has been going on for the last couple of weeks. As you soon will see, baby Meo is on the move now, so I have been working on this update whenever I get a few minutes to myself...which isn't very often.

Beach Play Date with my Brother

Friday, May 18th, I had a play-date with my brother, my nephew Bryce and my mom. We all went out to eat at Saco House of Pizza, which makes the best pizza ever, then hit the beach. We went to Bay View, and it was gorgeous! This was Mattimeo's first time going to a sandy beach and it was so cute to see him touch the sand for the first time. He kept kicking his little feet back and forth, enjoying the feel of sand against his chubby baby heals and toes. And the ocean was mesmerizing! Most of the time he couldn't take his eyes off of the impressive surf. The water was pretty cold, but he didn't mind putting his feet in the water. Bryce thought it was all very exciting too and kept wanting to reach out and touch the water and sit it in it. After playing by the surf for a bit, both of our boys got sleepy from all the good food and stimulation, and needed their afternoon naps. So I snuggled Meo into the ERGObaby and wrapped up his legs with my moms sweatshirt because they were getting pretty chilly. Brian didn't have anyway to carry sleepy Bryce besides his arms, and he ended up carrying him, completely snoozed, for about half a mile. I was impressed with his strength. Like he said, "when my baby needs to do something, somehow I can just do it". Your really do learn things you never knew you were capable of doing. Thanks for a great day family!

Pizza time!

Meo and I (9 months)

Brian and Bryce (18 months)

First time in the sand (9 months)

Mema and Meo

Mema and Bryce

Holding a sleeping Bryce

Tired baby

Tired toddler

First Drive-In Movie of the Season

Robbie and I really wanted to see the new Avengers movie, and thought it would be fun to go to the drive-in since it just opened up for the season and we had so much fun going when Meo was a newborn. We were a little concerned about driving nearly an hour to get to the theater in the evening since as a rule we don't drive after 6:30 pm. But little Meo did great, and he was a lot of fun at the drive-in. We were there really early, and spent like an hour sitting out on a blanket in front of the car trying to keep Meo from eating sand and picking up cigarette butts. There was a ton of kids there, and they all started playing Frisbee and soccer in the field in front of us, and eventually that got Meo's attention and he was content to sit and watch them until the movie started.

The beginning of the movie was a little challenging. Meo was getting tired, but he was too stimulated by the new surroundings to sleep. So I would nurse him, but he kept sitting up and going after various flashy lights in the car. Three times he turned off the sound so we couldn't hear what was going on in the movie. Once, he honked the horn. He also kicked the popcorn bowl and knocked popcorn all over the floor. Eventually we got a little frustrated because he wouldn't go to sleep and was getting increasingly cranky. So we tried putting him in his car seat. At first he was upset and shouting "DA DA DA DA!" in protest. We felt bad, and thought if we turned the car on he might calm down. But we couldn't figure out how to have the car running without the headlights going on. But within 2 minutes, he was silent and had passed out into a deep sleep. He slept for the rest of the movie. We didn't stay for the second movie, and Meo stayed asleep for the ride home. That was pretty awesome!

Henry's First Birthday Party

My dear friend Kasia's sweet baby boy, Henry, turned 1 on May 20th! To celebrate this special day, Robbie and I drove to New Hampshire for his birthday party on the lake. It was a small gathering with one of Kasia's best friends, her mom, and her sister's family and it was a lot of fun. We played with the boys in the water, ate lots of delicious food, played in the sand with buckets of water to make mud, had some special birthday cake, and gave Henry his birthday presents. It was a really great day, and certainly worth the 2 hour drive there.

Meo and the Birthday Boy

Henry, his cousin Braden and Kasia

Opening the Dr. Suess books we gave him

Playing in the lake

Meo and I playing in the lake

Henry's Birthday Cake

Kasia and I with our boys

Meo and I in the water

I have two embarrassing stories to share about that day. The first is, all I have for a bathing suit is my little leopard print bikini from Victoria Secret that I wore pre-pregnancy and baby. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to bring it. I put it in the car and was horrified as to how it fit. First of all, my nursing/mama breasts are a bit larger and I was busting out of my little top. Second of all, despite all my walking and running, I still have 10 pounds to lose and my belly is not so tone. Third of all, I was in desperate need of a shave. I should have thought of that before I left. So I ended up going in the water with a nursing top on over my bathing suit, and with a towel wrapped around my waist until the very last moment. I really, REALLY need to get a new bathing suit if I am going to be able to enjoy the water at all this summer.

My second embarrassing story was while changing Meo out of his swim diaper. I had no idea that he had pooped, but Robbie knew and told me at the very last minute as I already started to pull his diaper off. I was not prepared. I didn't even have a changing pad underneath him because I thought it would just be a swift change. But poop got EVERYWHERE. It was nasty. We ran out of wipes and I had to run to the lake, unshaven legs momentarily forgotten, with a poop covered baby to plop him in the water to clean him up. The water was cold, and he was upset for a second, but he got over it pretty quick. Robbie was so embarrassed by us and our poop mess that he couldn't even look at us. Oh brother. Good thing one of us doesn't get embarrassed easily.

The rest of the day was lovely though. I wish we lived closer so we could see Kasia and Henry more often; I miss them!

Mattimeo learned how to crawl...for REAL! And learned how to sit, and stand, and CRUISE...

The day we came back from Henry's birthday party, Robbie and I were attempting to play a board game on a blanket on the lawn when Meo started to crawl! Up to that point, he had just been scooting around on his belly, propelling himself forward with his kicky legs and digging elbows. But we looked over, and there he was crawling towards the game board! I had been a little bit worried that he wasn't going to ever crawl properly. I know it's not a big deal, but I was really hoping he would figure it out. So I was so happy and relieved to see him up on all fours, moving with opposite knee and arm to crawl towards us. Yay Meo!!

It didn't take long for him to drop the scooting all together and become a master crawler. Within two days, he suddenly became able to go from lying on his back, roll onto his belly, back up onto his knees and sit down, then lean forward and touch down with his palms to begin crawling. It happened so quickly...he has been amazing to behold.

He already new how to pull himself to standing, but over the last couple of weeks, he has been doing it nonstop. And just this week, he started cruising. The first time he started cruising, he was standing on the bed using the bed rail for support and proceeded to cruise on over to where I keep my books on the bureau only to knock them all over. Now, he wants to knock them off all the time. Sometimes, he is such a pest!

Finally, while I was visiting my friend Leah last Friday (May 25th), Meo stood up all by himself! He was using my legs to push himself up to stand. He had his legs fairly wide apart, not unlike a sumo wrestler, and then he pushed himself up tall WITHOUT HOLDING ON, and stood all by himself for a few seconds! I was shocked and smiling all giddy like, which in turn made him giggle with me. He was so pleased! He ended up doing it twice that day, I was so amazed. He hasn't done it since, but he has been so persistent we pulling himself up everywhere and cruising that I am convinced he'll be walking before he's one.

Luckily, we have created lots of places that are safe for him to crawl/cruise around to play. His favorite thing to do currently is crawl over to his bookcase and pull out all of his board books one at a time and flip through them. He makes a complete mess, but is adorable and learning in the process. I love this baby...he melts my heart.

Kennebunk Library and Beach Play Date

Last week, one of our Mommy friends, Erin, picked us up and brought us to Kennebunk so we could have a play date with a bunch of other mom's and babies. We went to the Kennebunk library first for story time, which happened to be cat themed. It was great, the librarian read a bunch of cat books, sang lots of songs, and even had cute cat puppets. The babies and children were really captivated! After that walk along the Kennebunk Beach. It was really overcast, and by the end it was raining (got back to the car just in time) but it ended up still being a really nice walk. We looked at all the nice houses and pretended which ones we were going to move into. We let the babies play in the sand and check out the water. It was fun and relaxing, and nice to see everyone again.

Joanna and Olivia

Neve and Carter

Meo, Carter and Connor

Seaweed!

Erin and Conor

Carter

I don't think Carter is thrilled about Neve's butt in his face

Yoga Baby!

The other day, I was doing a little bit of morning yoga. As I was in downward facing dog, I did a quick scan to see where my baby boy was to find to my surprise that he was on the mat right next to me trying to copy me! He was on his two feet with his hands pushing him off the ground trying to stick his but up and giggling! I was thrilled; this was one of the coolest things I've seen him do! After that, I was doing utanasana (forward bend) with a bolster) and Meo popped right up beside me and did it too. He is so adorable, and I am excited at how our yoga together is evolving. Aw, my little yogi!

Downward facing dog

So happy!

Utanasana

Sushi and Dress Shopping

I had a couple of weddings to go to, and all my dresses were packed up (we don't have a closet so I never bothered to unpack them), and most of them probably wouldn't be very flattering at this point anyways, so I needs to go buy some more dresses. Shopping for clothes by myself with Meo would be extremely challenging, so I asked my mom if she would come with me. Plus, I am incredibly indecisive and not always confident about how I look in clothing so it was nice to have a second opinion. I ended up finding both of my dresses at H&M for a really good price. Both weddings were outside. The first one, Meo was invited to so I chose a dress with buttons down the front so it would be easy to discretely nurse him throughout the day. It was blue with little white hearts, and I got a cream colored cardigan to wear over it as well as a cute hat to protect my head from the sun. I got Robbie a nice white shirt and vest to wear as an early father's day present...I always thought he would look mighty fine in a vest and I was excited to have an excuse to buy one for him. For Meo, I got a little white button up short and a little lad's hat. I think we all matched well.
The second wedding Meo wasn't invited to, so I went with a black and white halter top that had a little bit of fluff under the skirt so that it would be fun to twirl around and dance with. I got Robbie a nice gray button up shirt. You can see photos in the wedding section of this post.

Dress Print

After all that shopping, Mom and I were famished so we went to the food court and ordered some sushi and Arby's cheese fries. I let Meo have some of my maki rolls and he loved them! I had cucumber avocado rolls and sweet potato rolls. He of course loved the veggies, but also even ate the rice and seaweed. What was even more surprising was he enjoyed the raw ginger! Maybe his taste buds aren't completely developed yet, or maybe he just likes spicy things, I don't know! But it was cool to watch him munch on ginger. Thanks for spending the day with us Mom!

Trying sushi!

Meeting Grace

I have a friend, Leah, who I've known since high school. We don't see each other very much, but it's always nice when we do. The funny thing about me and Leah is that we seem to be living parallel lives. Without meaning too, we got married on the same exact day: June 9, 2007! And then we ended up getting pregnant around the same time, her just a couple months earlier than me. Her beautiful daughter, Grace, just turned one year old on May 20th. The last time I had seen Leah, we ran into each other at a Bayside Bowl in Portland, but happily pregnant and bowling. We had been trying to get together after our babies were both born so that we could meet each other's little loves, but it had been tricky with Leah working and me not always having a car to use. But we finally did it last week, and it was so cool to meet little Grace and catch up with Leah. Grace looks a lot like her Papa, Tim, but definitely has traces of her mommy in her too. I think it was a little weird for us to see each other with babies at first; my, how things have changed since or single, math team and field hockey days. But here we are, happy and in love with blossoming little families. Leah has a beautiful house and a super sweet dog, Violet. It was so great to see them and I hope that we will start seeing each other more often so that our little ones can grow up to be friends like their parents.

Leah with Grace (12 months) and Mattimeo (9 months)

Weekend of Weddings!

This weekend was unbelievably busy, but lots of fun nonetheless. On Saturday, we had a wedding on Robbie's side of the family, Melissa and Tyler, up in Winthrop. This was a two hour drive north, and we had Robbie's mom and dad come with us in our car (they kindly drove so Robbie and I could relax with Meo in the back seat). Meo was great on the way up, not a peep! It was a completely gorgeous day, and the wedding was right on a lake. We got there really early, so enjoyed a picnic and playing by the lake beforehand. During the ceremony, which was at 3 pm, I was hoping Meo would take a nap so I wore him in the ERGObaby. I ended up standing up with him off to the side rocking back and forth, but he never fell asleep. He was quiet though, so that was good. The wedding was sweet with lots of stories shared about their fun past together. After dinner, we only stayed long enough so Robbie and I could have one dance together because we didn't want Meo to be too fussy on the car ride back. Unfortunately, he still ended up crying almost all the way home. Robbie's dad was a trooper though and was able to drive safely despite the screeching in the back seat! Even though all the driving in one day was tough on Meo, I'm glad we went and got to see Robbie's family; we don't get to see them very often.

Mommy and Meo

Daddy and Meo

A stick!

Grandpa and Meo

Meo and Auntie Jess

with the ladies

Robbie's immediate family

Robinsons

Snoozing in the car

With Granpa

Robbie's mom

Nursing Meo

Lunch time

A beaver!

Beaver!

Getting sleepy

Technology

Walking down to the ceremony

Just before the ceremony

Jess and her boyfriend, Ben

Peeking

Melissa and her father, Conrad

Walking down the aisle

Ceremony

During the ceremony

Kathy and her newborn, James!

Kathy laughing with a sleeping James

Cousins

Jerry and his granddaughters

who's that handsome man?

Meeting Cheryl

Meo and Robbie's cousin Cheryl!

Jess and Ben

Cheryl and Mike

Meo meeting Melissa!

Not everyone gets to be held in the brides arms!

First dance

On Sunday, we woke up early to prepare for our 4 hour drive to go to Connecticut for my cousin Chris and Audrey's wedding. We have never had Meo in the car for that long at once, and were nervous for how things would go. My mom came with us...since Meo wasn't invited to the wedding, and he is not at a point where we are comfortable leaving him overnight with anyone, she agreed to come with us and hang out with Meo during the wedding so we could still go. Dad and Sue got us all a suite in the hotel so that mom was able to stay with us and share a bed with my sister. I am so grateful for my mom for going all the way there with us. I know that being in the car is hard on her body, and that it was probably a very tiring weekend, but Robbie and I had such a wonderful time at the wedding and we are so grateful to her. On the way there, Meo was great. He slept the first two hours, then played quietly in the back seat with his toys and books for the second two hours. Once we got there and got ready, I was a little heartbroken to leave Meo behind. He was crawling after me crying and I felt like I was deserting him. But my mom assured me that right after we left she scooped him up and put him in the mirror where he started laughing. They had a lot of fun together. My mom took him for a walk to some of the nearby stores until she decided it was too hot for him. She got him to take a nap in his stroller, which is incredible to me. He woke up hungry and ate a whole pouch of organic baby food and almost an entire bottle of milk (we gave my mom the wrong bottle nipple, so she couldn't fit it on the bottle and ended up getting him to drink out of his cup with a straw!). Then my mom was able to put him in the ERGObaby (her first time doing so) and walk with him to TGI Friday's. We gave her some money to get dinner, and her and Meo had a nice little date together where Meo ate all sorts of stuff including carrots, black beans and mac and cheese. After dinner they went to check out the swimming pool where Meo was content watching the little kids play, and even put his little toes and and splashed around. My mom said a couple little girls came over and asked about his diapers so my mom gave them the low-down on cloth diapers...so cute. Eventually he got tired and my mom put him in the stroller and ran around the hotel with him to get him to sleep. When we got back from the wedding around 9:45, she was walking around outside with Meo sound asleep in his stroller. It was so sweet. My mom is amazing; she is so good with Meo and I am so thankful she watched him and that they had so much fun together. Here are some pictures she sent me throughout the evening:

First nap

After nap snack

Mema got Meo in the carrier all by herself!

Looking over the menu

Restaurant date with Mema

At the pool with Mema

Splash!

Getting tired

The wedding itself was amazing. It was held at Wickham Park, which is a beautiful garden on top of a hill overlooking the Hartford skyline. It was a gorgeous day. The ceremony was really hot, but afterwards a breeze picked up making the reception perfect temperature wise. Despite the incessant heat, I loved the ceremony. They did a really sweet thing of tying their hands in a knot with a ribbon as they made promises to each other. Their vows were also beautiful, and Robbie and I couldn't help but be reminded about our own wedding day almost 5 years ago. Everything in the reception was beautiful...the flowers, the decorations, the atmosphere, etc. The food was delicious too. Chris is a vegetarian, so there was plenty of wonderful food options for Robbie and I. And the dancing was fantastic. In a way, I was happy that Meo was with my mom; it was nice to be able to let lose and have some fun with my man. I even allowed myself to have a couple drinks: a vodka cranberry and then my very first cosmopolitan. Cosmopolitans, turns out, are DELICIOUS. And I got a little tipsy which made that dancing that much more fun. Such a great evening.

Robbie and I

Aunt Louise and Timmy

Tying the knot

Ceremony

My sister, Samantha

My parents and Sam

Dad and Sue

My hair

Generations of weddings

Robbie and my sister

At our table

Aunt Louise with Tom and Timmy

I love the ribbon

delicious appetizers!

Cousins!

Hampsons on cell phones

Sister of the Groom and a groomsman

Newly weds

Caption this ;)

Sam

Robbie and Timmy

My parents

Caroline and Aunt Patrice

Dinner and a cosmopolitan

Cosmopolitan

Here, I must insert a brief story. After my cosmopolitan, Robbie thought it would be a good idea to quite Gandolf in the Fellowship of the Rings and ask Chris, "Is it secret, is it safe?" in regards to the ring. After telling me to do this, Robbie left to go to the bar. Of course, that's when Chris and Audrey came to visit our table. I asked Chris, "Is it secret, is it safe?" He just looked at me quizically. I think I repeated myself three times, before he finally said, "I have no idea what your are talking about". So I explained it to him and was shocked when he admitted he never read the Lord of the Rings or watched the movie. Holy Cow! I then started to convince him to listen to the audio book on the way to there honeymoon....yeah I was a little drunk.

"Is it secret, is it safe?"

You left!

Cousins: Nicole and Caroline

Sisters (a little tipsy)

Sisters

Sisters: Sue and Aunt Anne

Monday morning, we left after having breakfast all together. Once again, Meo was fantastic in the car. We were all pretty exhausted after our big weekend of weddings, and enjoyed some nice relaxing time at home. Congratulations Melissa and Tyler, and Chris and Audrey, and thank you including us in your special day!