Baldwin Family Blog: May 2013

9 Months Old

At 9 months old, Jonah is starting to be a busy boy! He has mastered the art of rolling, but can't figure out the whole crawling thing yet. He doesn't need to...he can get anywhere he needs to go by rolling. His new trick is doing push-ups. It's so funny...he just stays suspended in the air on his hands and toes for a few seconds before falling back to the ground. A boy's gotta build up his muscles, you know!

One of Jonah's favorite things to do is play with his feet. It seems that overnight his hair has grown an inch...it is SO adorable and curly! People are starting to comment already that he needs a haircut, but I say NO WAY! I'm holding out to have his first haircut done at Disney in December. Daddy says he will have a ponytail by then, but I don't care! It would be very special and memorable to have his hair cut during his first trip to Disney World. Jonah is also becoming a Momma's Boy and is starting to cry when I walk away from him...he knows where the milk is! I still attempt to give him water or juice in a sippy cup, but he really doesn't drink it. We are starting to try tiny little pieces of real food, which he seems to chew up pretty well. As far as his sleeping patterns, well...he doesn't really have any! He wakes up one or two times every night wanting to eat. I'm just so exhausted that I put him in bed with me and feed him. I keep saying that I'm going to get him on a better schedule, but life is just so busy that I haven't done it yet. Especially knowing that summer is here and things are going to be so crazy, I figured I would just wait until everything calms down a little and we are back home with a somewhat normal schedule. The closer Jonah gets to a year old, the sadder I get about him being our last baby. I don't want it to end! At the same time, it is definitely a lot of work with three young ones. When he was born, I said I would 100% sure that I didn't want any more, but it may have dropped to 95% by now! =0) He's such a bundle of joy...maybe he needs a baby brother?! If only I didn't have to go through 9 months of torture, gain 60 lbs, and go through a major surgery to make that happen...he may just have to learn to play Barbies and baby dolls with his big sisters!

Jonah is very good about taking pictures. It's almost like he poses and smiles already for the camera. =0) He's learning early that Mommy will just keep taking pictures until he cooperates, so he might as well just do it!

"Look, Mom! I can do the splits!"

Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures!

A kid can only be good in the car for so long...then out come the Tootsie Pops! This was Jonah's first experience with a sucker and he LIKED it! It made everything better (and sticky) in the car for a few minutes anyway...until we took it away! =0) He's getting pretty good at having fits when he doesn't get his way!

Our drive home from St. Louis was really stressful. Madison was sick and trying not to throw up the whole time, Jonah was very fussy, and there was bad weather brewing all around us. God definitely had his hand on us. We were ahead of the storms and made it home safely before the rain and hail started. I don't know if I have ever been more happy to sleep in my own bed!

This is not a smile on his face...he was letting me know about it.

A Few Fun Rides

We were able to ride a few things at Six Flags, at least. Right when we got there, before the rain started, we rode the carousel and the little train ride. Those were the only two things that Madi rode, because she just felt awful. After the rain let up and they opened the rides back up, Mackenzie got to ride 3 or 4 things before we left. She wasn't happy at all when we told her we had to leave. I basically bribed her and told her if she wouldn't cry and have a fit about it, we would take her into the gift shop and let her pick something. I know...bad of me, but I was desperate for as little drama as possible! I wish so badly things would have been different and Madison would have felt better. There were some really cute rides that I know she would have loved. We will definitely have to come back someday!

Of course Mackenzie made a new friend!

I'm so glad Madison felt like riding the carousel!

There's that smile that I love!

About 2 minutes after this, the rain came!

This was too funny...all of these teenage boys rode this little boat ride with Mackenzie & Brian. I'm not sure who liked it more...Mackenzie or the big boys! They all had a great time. Poor Brian...he was planning to ride some big rides with the teenagers, but wasn't able to because Madison was sick and we had to leave. Technically, because of this one, he did do one ride with them though! =0)

This was the point at which I said it's time to go. It was like 90* outside and extremely humid after all that rain, and Madison was cuddled up in her blanket, shivering like crazy. It made me so sad.

The humidity was so bad that Jonah's hair was just in ringlets.

Last ride of the day:

Feelin' A Little Looney!

The highlight of our trip to Six Flags was most definitely running into Bugs Bunny, Tweety, Tasmanian Devil, Foghorn Leghorn, and Sylvester! We don't ever watch Looney Tunes, so these characters aren't very familiar to our kids, but they loved them anyway. Especially Tweety...she was the favorite, for sure! We just happened to walk up on them when there weren't many people around and thanks to Ana French, we were able to take a picture with all of them at the same time. How fun! Madison was feeling really bad at this point, but she was trying to tough it out. I'm so glad we at least got to do this at Six Flags! It made me really excited and ready for our trip to Disney in December.

I don't blame them...Tweety is pretty cute!

The Boys...

I absolutely love how Jonah's arm is resting on Bugs Bunny's shoulder!

Jonah loved the characters! I realized later that I had dressed him in a Mickey Mouse shirt...wrong characters for this day, but oh well!

The girls kept saying they wanted to take a picture with "the dog"...I finally figured out that meant Taz! I watched Looney Tunes all of the time as a kid, but it just doesn't come on anymore like it used to.

Six Flags: Rain, Rain, Go AWAY!

Shortly after we arrived at Six Flags, the rain came down...and not just a little bit...it poured BUCKETS and BUCKETS of rain! We managed to make it under a little awning, but we were still outside in the rain and thunder. We kept thinking surely it would let up, but it poured and thundered very loudly for a solid 45 minutes to an hour. Mackenzie is very frightened by thunder, so this was especially upsetting to her. We ate lots of snacks, played games on my phone, played "I Spy" and the alphabet game, and made a tent with the stroller and Madison's blanket. I was trying very hard to keep everyone happy and preoccupied, and praying that the rain and thunder would stop soon! Mixed with the fact that Madison was sick, this was definitely not what we had in mind for our fun trip to Six Flags. However, we still made memories that we won't soon forget! The teenagers got there right about the time that the rain let up. We were able to see some characters and let Mack ride a few rides before leaving, because Madison was just too sick to stay. Maybe we can make another trip to Six Flags soon....but I will definitely be checking the rain forecast first!