We've discovered some of Gage's dislikes....

Gage is a pretty happy, easygoing baby. We've discovered in the last week or so though, that when he doesn't like something, he is VOCAL about it.

Example 1:

Gage meets a sweet, small dog:

Example 2:
We take Gage to lunch at a hibachi grill. At the beginning of your meal, they put a lighter up to the grill which produces a huge ball of fire. He FREAKED out. The cook felt bad!

Example 3:
Funny voices. In the evening, Gage can sometimes have his grumpy times. Les always does funny voices with Gage, but if it's between the hours of 6-7 pm, he may not get the same response from Gage, as opposed to earlier that day.
I decided to be silly and talk funny to Gage tonight. Here's what I got:

Example 4:
The vacuum cleaner. Gage was happily playing on the floor and I decided to take the opportunity to do a little vacuuming. I turned the vacuum on and Gage lost it...and it was the silent cry, too! You know, the one where their eyes are closed, their face is blood red and their mouth is wide open screaming that silent scream! It's horrible! I picked him up and calmed him down. I decided to hold him and vacuum at the same time, hopefully showing him it was nothing to be afraid of, but no...the same thing happened. Then I felt horrible and decided the floors didn't need to be vacuumed. Poor baby!

I hate to see him get so upset over all those things, but you can't help to giggle! One day he'll realize that none of these things are scary! Except maybe big dogs. I'm still afraid of most dogs, so I won't force him to get over that fear!

Working Mom

I've been back at work since January, so I've had a good 4.5 months trying to balance everything... and it's tough!

It's so hard to leave this face...

Add cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, and other household stuff to my full-time job and that takes up the majority of my time. Some of that stuff is neglected so I can spend time with my little man. And then I have a fabulous husband who I would like to spend time with, but time is limited. Did I mention he started a business? You can imagine how time-consuming that is!

So....balance. What can be neglected so I can have time for the truly important things. Will Gage suffer if my floors aren't perfect? Or if our meals aren't 5 star quality? No. Do I want to be able to do it all and put too much pressure on myself to do it? Absolutely.

And then there is some guilt for not being there for my baby 24/7, especially when I want to be.

My friend, Haley sent me an email when I started work, reminding me of Proverbs 31 and how this "wife of noble character," senses the worth of her work and her family values her. It's obvious that she's busy from sunrise to sunset. I'm praying that God continues to give me the strength to do all that needs to be done, and to give me discernment on how to use the time He's blessed me with so it may glorify Him.

I'd covet your prayers as well.

On a lighter note, Gage is totally sitting up by himself now. He is growing up too fast!

Our friends, the Irelands, invited us over for dinner this past weekend. It gave our sweet babies time to play with each other!

When Gage was born, Micah had been in the NICU for 4 weeks. Now, he's doing awesome and Gage is going to have so much fun growing up with him!

First Mother's Day!

Les got home on Friday and brought home The King's Speech for us to watch. We loved it.

Saturday, Les grilled us a wonderful dinner!

And got me the cutest cookie cake!

We went to church on Sunday and then met our friends Justin and Adriane and their sweet baby, Micah, at Chuy's!

Gage stats:

Gage is about 6.5 months old. I can't believe it. He's starting to "tripod" and can roll from his back to stomach, but doesn't do it on a regular basis. We just moved him to a 4-hour schedule. He's eating about 7 ounces right now at each feeding, plus 2 ounces of oatmeal or baby food before his night feeding. He's a picky eater right now, and gets constipated a lot...we are still trying to figure that out. He only takes naps 40 minutes at a time, but I have learned that not all babies are the same, and that's OK.
We went to the doctor last week and he weighed 16.6 lbs!