The Spencer Adventure: 7 month old Mason

Man with Micah I was so good at writing a monthly update on here, but I have had the hardest time doing that for mason. Life is nuts!! Having two kids has thrown us for a serious loop. It doesn't help that Mason has been a very hands on and not easy baby.

For the first six months of his life he got up every two hours at night and rarely slept longer then 30 minutes during the day. And putting him to sleep included swaddling, paci, and then lots of bouncing, walking, running, dancing, squats.. I'm not even kidding, I have done all of those things trying to get him to sleep. So putting him to bed was exhausting and I had to do it like seven times a day because he was always tired cause he never slept!! It was a vicious cycle. The poor little guy was always sad. When he wasn't sleeping or nursing he was usually crying. So Mason was a 24/7 very demanding job, but then theres also a Micah to take care of and a house to try and clean (haha let's be honest, its never clean)

Now I don't want you to get me wrong, having mason in our family has been the best! We love him to pieces and we feel so complete having him in our family. I wouldn't trade him for anything and I would do it all over!! I love that little guy to death. They say you love the people you serve the most, and I serve him a lot haha I'm not trying to complain I just want to write all this down so that I can remember and bug him about it when he gets older ;)

So after six months of that craziness.. He got even worse. The crying basically never stopped, he was up every 1 1/2 hours at night, I basically just held him all night and never slept. It was bad! I was having a physical and emotional break down. We were all miserable. I was off of dairy, and soy, trying to get all the way off gluten, and I didn't eat chocolate, tomatoes, broccoli, basically anything that you have ever heard of effecting a baby I was trying not to eat. But there's only so long I could live like that!!

So after about a month of trying to figure out what was wrong (we tried medicine, chiropracter, going gluten free, supplementing with formula, all kinds of things.) We decided to just put him on pure formula for at least 24 hours and see how he did. He was a lot happier that day on formula, but I wanted a dramatic sign that I should be done breastfeeding, so I started nursing him again and he was MISERABLE! Gassy, spitting up, wouldn't sleep, so so fussy, all I could do was hold him. And thats when I decided that I was done! No more nursing for me! So we put him on formula and ever since then he has just gotten better and better. He is happier during the day, he sleep SO much better at night. Putting him to sleep is soo much easier and he take long naps during the day! And I have been so much happier without all of the eating restrictions.

So basically formula saved us. I really wanted to nurse till he was at least a year. But you know what? Our sanity and happiness is more important. Life is still crazy, but I'm sleeping so much more and I feel like a human again!! I can actually work out without just dying from lack of sleep. I can eat whatever I want and not worry about it. And I can leave Mason with other people and get a break every now and then!! Being tied to him every two hours day and night for six months was wearing on me for sure.

So now that all of that update is out of the way we can get to the fun stuff!!

Mason is crawling!! It's so weird to have him mobile. I'll put him down and walk away and then when I look at him again he is somewhere new and it still surprises me haha

He tries to follow me all over and it's so fun. He loves being able to get around. Mason is the busiest baby I've ever seen and he was always unhappy with not being able to move. So being able to crawl is awesome.

Mason crawling has been a huge adjustment for Micah. He was get around and get all of Micah's toys and its been rough. We have been working on sharing 24/7 over here. Micah is starting to get a little better so maybe there is hope haha

But Mason just LOVES Micah. So when Micah isn't bugging Mason, Mason is bugging Micah haha they want to play together soooo bad, but it's a learning curve for sure.

Mason loves to wave. Especially at daddy! It's so cute. He also growls ALL the time. It's the cutest thing ever. He literally wakes up and starts growling haha it's the best.

Mason is full of smiles, and he's ticklish!

Now enjoy some pictures :)

The last little while Mason has been falling asleep on my lap!! Such a difference from how we used to have to put him to sleep..

crawling is tiring!

I've been giving him sink baths lately and he pretty much just tries to climb out the whole time.. It's scary haha

Mason is obsessed with the laptop! If he is anywhere near there is no way you can look at your laptop in peace haha he always crawls over and attacks it

He is always trying to crawl on top of Micah haha

watcha doin mom??

Eating is Masons favorite! He LOVES solids, but they usually get him constipated and give him tummy aches. So it's been hard to find things that he can eat.