On the Move!

Drake is officially crawling! He started really getting the hang of it over the weekend and is now officially getting where he wants to go. It's still slow and he still gets frustrated sometimes but he's doing awesome!

This has been a really fun milestone because we've been able to see the progression from pushing up with upside down hands to using his head for leverage to actually getting his knees under him. 

It's not going to be long before we're chasing him around the house. Days? Maybe a week? We're in for it!

Daycare!

I think this blog is going to be making a come back! Optimistically two times a week...realistically once a week. This is because Drake started daycare this week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It was a decision that Derrick and I just made last week and everything fell in to place quicker than we expected but I think it's going to be really good for him and very good for me.

As I've been "cutting back" in my business my listing business has picked way up. It's great and it's work I can more easily do on my own schedule but it means I had a few nights last week where I was with Drake from 6 AM to 5 PM then in the car and at appointments from 5-9:30/10. They were long days and I was tired. Along with that I haven't had a haircut since before Drake was born and I haven't had any personal time in a very long time. It's not at all for Derrick's lack of trying to offer it to me but, with feeding issues and our generally busy lives, it's just how it's worked out. Derrick was the one who suggested daycare and by the end of the night I had talked myself into it.

We toured a place last Friday that could get him started mid-July but we both walked away from it not feeling great about it. It has great reviews online and is probably a great option for some but my biggest goal was to find a place where Drake would get some social interaction with kids but still some quality time and attention from the teacher. This place felt a bit like Drake would be lost in the crowd.

On Monday we toured another one and Derrick and I both walked away with very positive feelings and we had him enrolled by the end of the day. They just happened to have a part-time opening, unusual for the infant room, and we loved the teacher and bright atmosphere of the school. The teacher/kid ratio was right in line with what we wanted and it just felt right. They were able to start him right away and Derrick and I decided it wasn't going to get any easier so we went for it.

Monday night was hard. I was getting his things together and my anxiety was high. My biggest fear was he was going to feel abandoned. He is very attached to me and I hated the idea of him seeing me walk away and leave him there. Tuesday morning at drop-off was also pretty hard but I think the teacher is used to seeing teary eyed moms and she was great. Even better, Drake got right to playing and there were no tears when I left. I called throughout the day and his teacher said he did great. When Derrick and I picked him up Tuesday afternoon the teacher had Drake and his new friend both on her lap playing away. It was very sweet and confirmed it was the right decision.

So now, I have two whole days a week to run errands, meet with clients, get work done, and cut my hair! My list was so long on Thursday I still didn't get it done and I imagine that's how it'll look every Tuesday/Thursday. It's amazing how much more efficient I am now that I'm a mom though!

I have a lot to catch up on here on the blog. Drake is trying to crawl, starting solids, sleeping through the night, playing peek-a-boo and just overall doing so well! Hopefully I can get back into a routine here and pick back up with his updates!

Cinco de Marcey x 6!

Warning: guest post follows. Read at your own risk.

As today marks the 6th anniversary of Cinco de Marcey, I've decided try to pick a single post which exemplifies / highlights each year of our marriage.

Year 1:
The start of a tradition:
http://marceymadness.blogspot.com/2012/12/christmas-card.html
Who knew how much this would take off? I give Laurie a hard time about this every year, but I guess I'm glad she makes me keep doing it.

Year 2:
Not sure if this falls in year 2 or in year 3, but I'm going to claim it as Year 2.
http://marceymadness.blogspot.com/2014/05/tahoe-anniversary.html
I feel like this trip shaped what our future vacations have been / will be. I don't think either of us knew how much we would love hiking, exploring, getting lost together - we hope that Drake likes it too, because he's going to get dragged into it whether he likes it or not.

Year 3:
The post that launched 1000 ships (or at least 1000 house projects)
http://marceymadness.blogspot.com/2014/09/we-bought-house.html
I don't think that I had the typical home buying process - my 30 under 30 wife put in countless hours (mostly without my knowledge) to track down the perfect home for us. All I had to do was say I was ready and *poof* I was a home owner.

Year 4:
Not a trip, but a truly an experience.
http://marceymadness.blogspot.com/2015/12/call-us-coach.html
Not that we needed any more activities to take up, but once we started coaching these guys, we just couldn't give it up. The time and effort involved is no small feat, but every year we just keep coming back because of how great these young men are.

Year 5:
Lots of fun to be had in this year, but the Hawaii trip was truly amazing.
http://marceymadness.blogspot.com/2017/04/magical-maui.html
Knowing what was coming in Year 6 made the timing of this one all the more important. There is no one else I'd rather hike or kayak or just lounge by the pool with.

Year 6:
This one is pretty easy:
http://marceymadness.blogspot.com/2017/10/introducing-drake-raymond-marcey.html
This guy has truly changed our world for the best and we are so lucky to have him. I'm so proud of the mother that Laurie has become and love every day of our crazy life together.


Honorable Mention:
http://marceymadness.blogspot.com/2012/11/wolfpack-jack.html
http://marceymadness.blogspot.com/2016/05/4-year-anniversary-trip.html
http://marceymadness.blogspot.com/2014/11/thirty-years-of-love.html
http://marceymadness.blogspot.com/2015/04/easter-birthday-day.html

Thanks to my wonderful, beautiful wife for 6 amazing years. I love you so much and couldn't imagine my life without you.

Almost 6 Months

Six months seems like a HUGE mile stone! How is it that I haven't been pregnant for almost half a year?? And now we have this baby that is sitting up, starting solids, and bubbling over with personality. It's crazy!!

Good- Drake has started reaching for me and I love it! When I hold my hands out to pick him up he'll put his arms up in the air which is so cute and if someone else is holding him and he wants to come to me he'll lean towards me with his arms out. It usually includes an open mouth kiss with a simultaneous hair pull so we're working on being gentle :)

Good Again- Drake went swinging for the first time last weekend and I think it was a success! He was a little unsure at first but then seemed to like it. At least until the faceplant at the end...

Bad- Ooo, I've got two doozies.  Our fridge broke last week. We were giving Drake a bath and this loud rattling was coming from the fridge. I thought it was a weed wacker outside but when we opened the freezer all of our ice was melted and the fridge temperature wasn't very cold anymore. I went into complete panic mode when I realized that all of my frozen breastmilk was completely thawed out and separated. I sprinted it to a neighbor's freezer but we don't know yet if it's salvageable. The fact that a pound of meat was completely thawed out makes me think it had been broken for at least 24 hours. I just had to dump 40 ounces a few weeks ago because of my lipase issue and had just finished pumping to reload my stash when this happened. I feel like I cannot catch a break on the breastfeeding front. Please send good vibes that the milk is still good!

Second Bad- Unsolicited comments from strangers. I've had two women in the past two weeks tell me that I need to tend to Drake. One when I was going through a drive through and he was crying in the backseat and one when I was dropping things off a Goodwill and he wasn't even crying. Both instances made me feel like trash but mostly made me want to have a good retort to put them in their place. I would die for this kid and would never do anything that I thought was unsafe for him. The fact that total strangers feel like they can judge me and make a comment about the 3 seconds of our life they see really infuriates me. If anyone has a good one-liner for me I'm all ears!

Funny- Drake is working so hard to crawl and he's making some serious progress! I wouldn't be surprised if we have a mover in the next month. He is pushing himself up and doing shoulder rolls to wiggle around. The funny part is the way he uses his hands. Just look at the picture below.

It hurts me just looking at it but it's also very cute and funny. Derrick has weird, flexible joints so Drake may have inherited it as well. He'll need to sort that out if he wants to get anywhere fast.

Drake is 3 days away from 6 months old and has his 6 month check-up on Monday so I'll come back to post his stats.

Drake's First Flight

Oooo, it's been a while since I've been on here. I feel like I was doing pretty well posting at least once a week and then spring hit, frisbee amped up, work got busy, and Drake got busier. There are not enough hours in the day!

Last weekend we flew up to Boston to visit our dear friends Travis and Claire and their sweet little girl Makenna. She is only 6 weeks older than Drake and it's been awesome having a close friend in the same baby age bracket. We miss them so much and don't get to see them nearly enough so we try to make the most of our time while we're up together.

This was Drake's first flight and we weren't sure how it was going to go. We had to wake him up early for our flight and knew that napping on the go was going to be tough. He was a champion. He nursed throughout the flight, played with his new car we brought for him, and fell asleep in my lap for the second half.

I ordered him a car that he had never seen before so it would hopefully hold his attention during the flight. It worked pretty well as a distraction for about 20 minutes or so although he did fling it into the aisle during take off and it proceeded to roll off down the aisle. You could see the other passengers leaning forward to grab it and then being too late and watching it roll by. It was pretty funny.

Once we landed, we rented a minivan so we would all be able to fit together and Drake passed out on our hour drive to their house. 

It was so good to see them and Makenna is so big and active! She's pretty much crawling...it's an army crawl but she gets where she wants to go. She's eating solids and sitting up like a champ. It's fun to see her and know Drake is not far behind those milestones.

On our first full day there we went to this entertainment mecca! It had just about everything including an escape room! We called ahead and told them we'd have babies in tow so they set the room aside for us to do on our own. You can always count on Breakout for a good escape room.

We also went candlepin bowling and visited the arcade. The babies were fascinated by the lights and screens and the bowling was perfect because we had our own comfy little area to hang out in. We could nurse, eat, and take our time. 

Travis won Drake a ball in one of those claw machines at the arcade and it was a huge hit. (PS- Travis went 3 for 3 on those claw machines...I didn't think they were possible!!) Drake is learning to play catch and thought it was hilarious if the ball hit him in the face. We have the best video of him cracking up over it. 

The biggest issue of the weekend was sleep. This was our first big trip and his first time in a while being in a pack-n-play. He didn't nap well and the pack-n-play is pretty small for him now. We ended up having to drive around for an hour one day just to get a decent nap in and he also slept on me for a nap which he hasn't done in a long time.

Makenna has the best bedhead!

One of our favorite activities of the weekend was swimming! They have a Goldfish swim school close by and you can bring your kids for a free-swim hour. It's affordable and the facilities are really nice. They had changing areas, extra diapers, blow dryers. Everything you would need to come for a swim in the middle of the day. It was Drake's first time swimming and I about died when I saw him in his suit.

Makenna is a little fish and was kicking and splashing all over the place. Drake was a bit more hesitant so we spent some time on the steps learning to splash. Once he got the hang of it he loved that part.

We have a series of these pictures and they are hilarious. Poolside chats. How long do you think they'll let us recreate this shot?

Overall this trip was so fun and it was so good to see Travis, Claire, and Makenna. Drake did super well on the plane and really was as good as we could have asked for given the change in routine.  Sleeping was a struggle but he settled back into routine fairly quickly once we got home. Traveling with a kid is no joke though! Derrick and I were exhausted when we got home!

22 Weeks with Drake!

Is 22 weeks right? That seems wild!

Good- The past three nights Drake has slept until 4:30 or later on the first go around! I'm hesitant to even type that in case I jinx it for tonight. Before now he's been consistently waking up around 2:00 or 3:00 and crying it out off and on until we go in after 4:30. I think we've also turned a corner in figuring out his naps, at least the timing of them, so I'm sure that helps. It's so nice to be able to get up just once at night, feed him, then put him back down for a couple hours. 

Good- Hugs and kisses. He gives the best greetings to Derrick and I! When Derrick gets home from work we meet him at the garage. As soon as he hears Derricks voice he breaks into a huge grin and always goes straight to him for some hang out time.  If I've been gone for a while or if he has just woken up and Derrick goes up to get him from nap, when he sees me he gets a huge smile on his face then reaches out for my face with a wide open mouth and presses his face to mine. It is the actual best thing ever <3

Bad- **fingers crossed we're turning a corner.. I'm writing this an hour and 10 minutes into his current nap so this doesn't apply today **but for the past week he was giving us 15 minute naps. 15 minutes! It was nuts. I think we've figured out that if we keep him up just a little bit longer (about 2 hours at a time) and if I put him down on his side so that he rolls to his belly for nap, he sleeps longer. We're supposed to put him on his back but once he wakes up, about 15 minutes in, and he's on his back he's just up. If he's on his belly he falls asleep hard. I think we can all agree naps are good for everybody so the 15 minute naps were a struggle but I'm feeling better about things now!

Funny- I captured this video of him laughing and it was SO cute! If I "boo" him I can usually at least get a smile but usually a giggle. I was changing him later that day and he was not happy about it so I pulled out this video of him laughing and he stopped fussing and started laughing at himself. So cute!

In other random catch-up we've had a lot going on including an away tournament to Charlotte, family in town, a lawn make-over courtesy of Dad and Jay, and some house updates. I want to get back to posting some house updates so I'll try to post about the yard later this week. We're also going to be converting the office to a playroom and the craft room to a office/craft room. I "started" it weeks ago and have made zero progress. If he can consistently do these hour long naps I might actually get somewhere, we shall see!

A few more pics, just because I know that's what you're all here for :)

5 months old!

He wants to crawl SO bad! It won't be long. We've already started baby proofing.

Uncle Jay comes bearing the best gifts. Drake loves crinkle books!