Take life as it comes

If you are a mother, you probably know what this means:

The dreaded double ear infection.

We went to the doctor and he looked at his ears and said this was why he's been a little sick lately. Brayden got a cold about a month ago and it never really went away. The ear infection was the cause. 

He finished the amoxicillin treatment yesterday and is doing SOOOO much better. I started sleep training just before we went to the doctor and it was HORRIBLE! 2-3 hours every night before he would fall asleep. Roy was on a business trip at the time so I had to endure the screams alone. The day after we started the medicine, he got better and it cut down to 45 minutes, then 30. Now we are to the point where he no longer dreads his crib and will cry or babble for 5 minutes and then he's out. The book I read was Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. I hated it at first. I hate parenting books in general. They are all the same:

         100 pages of "...which I will teach you in this book"

         3 pages (if you make it this far) of "here's what you should do"

It is so frustrating! (not to mention you'll pay $20 for those 3 useful pages). I did make it through to the "here's what you should do" part and I started doing it and it didn't work as the magical one night solution described in the book but it did work eventually. It helped me and it helped Brayden. He is much happier now that he has a set nap/bedtime schedule and I feel much more in control of our days.

 I have my happy boy back. :)

Gotta love those Abigail kisses!!
For a while now, our favorite way to pass the time during the day has been going for walks. If the weather is good, we will go for several walks a day. Then, we had a really rainy day a few days back...

 and I was at a total loss for what to do all day. Then I remembered a pin I found on Pinterest and decided to try it.
I found a whole bunch of random of things I had lying around the house with different textures:

•  several different pieces of fabric (minky, silky, seamed, crinkly) - I used pinking shears to keep the edges from fraying since I took these pictures. 
• a wooden spoon
• plastic spoon
• metal spoon
• sponge
• cardboard

The sponge and the cardboard are his favorites, by far. I put it all in a box we keep as decoration in the front room. This thing will keep him entertained for at least 30 minutes. In 6-month-old time, that's forever! It works best with him sitting up so I stay with him and play because he can't quite sit alone yet. It is really fun to watch him discover and learn. This is definitely something we will use a lot. And I think I will keep adding as I find new things he likes.

When he got bored of that, he enjoyed watching the rain for a little while...

and chewing on the blinds....shhhhh don't tell Daddy!

Of course the next day was beautiful and sunny and Saturday so we spent almost the whole day outside with Daddy.

We found a baby robin that must have fallen out of the nest and Tank took it upon himself to be its guard dog. We put the tomato cage over it so Tank wouldn't get too close. It eventually hopped away to get away from him though. 

 We just had a lot of fun hanging outside in the shade.

And trying to grab Tank's tail apparently...Brayden has only recently discovered the dogs and now reaches out to touch them when they come close. They're not sure how they feel about it but I think they'll get used to it.

Playing with Daddy is always a lot of fun.

I read somewhere on pinterest that putting stones painted to look like strawberries in your strawberry patch will trick birds into thinking your strawberries are stones and will leave them alone. Well, we have already had problems with birds eating our unripe strawberries so I thought I'd give it a try. I followed this tutorial and they turned out pretty nice.

Before:

 After:

Why yes, my strawberry patch is amazing! Thank you for noticing! You see that HUGE section in the back - that was ONE FREE plant from IFA just last year! We are amazed at how well it has done. I'm hoping the others do as well and this space is filled up soon.

Isn't he just adorable?

One last thing: Brayden has learned a new trick. I couldn't get the video on my camera to work but this series of pictures will give you the idea....

Just look at him go!! He can't go forward but he'll go around in circles for days. :) He's growing so fast!! He'll be crawling in no time...I don't know what I'll do then!