1st Cubs game

Cole went to his first regular season Cubs game last night when they played the Diamondbacks. I think he was more interested in all the lights, colors and sounds than the actual game, but I suppose that's to be expected when your only 6 months old. He also seemed to enjoy muching on his ticket. He did not like it when the Diamondbacks scored and burst into tears when they did, but I think tha twas mostly because of all the cheering and loud music from those Dbacks fans. But overall, I think he had a fun time hanging out with John, Uncle Steven and me.

If you build it, he will come...

John is officially done with his baseball stadium tour. He wasn't quite able to finish it last year before Cole was born, ending with only Shea Stadium left. Unfortunately, they tore down Shea Stadium, but John went to New York this weekend to see Citi Field, the new home of the Mets. Since he was already in NY, he also went to see the new Yankee Stadium and from what I understand, it was quite impressive. It's nice for me that he is finally done and won't be galavanting across the country anymore to visit these stadiums...that is until they build another new ballpark somewhere. And finally, we will be able to take a vacation that doesn't revolve around going to see a baseball game. In the last three years, I personally have been to games in DC, San Francisco, Anaheim and San Diego. Now I just pray that John won't want to take Cole on his own stadium tour when he gets older!

Bed Head

And to think that there are people that style their hair like this on purpose....

6 months already!

I can't believe that Cole is 6 months old today! Everyone always said how quickly babies grow up and it is so true. Now that Cole has discovered the fun crunchy sound of paper, he wasn't overly cooperative with his sign.

It's almost here!

7th inning stretch time!

Tomorrow is the official start to the Cubs season, which John and Cole are very excited about. Last weekend we went to our last spring training game of the season with our friend Shane and his girlfriend. Cole spent more time smiling and flirting with the teenage girls sitting behind us than watching the game. He is definitely a little ladies man!

What a day!

Yesterday we drove out to Glendale, on the west side of the valley. The main purpose of the trip was due to the fact that Ron Santo was going to be there signing autographs. Ron seemed like a really nice guy and even asked how old Cole was. Since John was making us go all the way out there, his consolation was to eat dinner at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville, where we got to put a parakeet mask on poor little Cole! Apparently Cole was not impressed with Margaritaville because he eventually fell asleep in John's arms after dinner. After that, we visited this hunting/fishing/outdoors store called Cabela's. Everyone made a big deal out of it when it first opened, so we thought we would check it out. It was quite interesting. They had an aquarium full of fish like trout and salmon. In the middle of the store, they had a giant mountain with all these stuffed dead animals. Even though I'm not really into stuff like that, it was pretty interesting. We even found a coon skin cap to put on Cole. He was quite the tropper yesterday!

Night time

We have had our ups and downs with Cole's sleeping over the past few months. He had been sleeping pretty good when I went back to work, getting up once or twice a night to nurse really quickly and then right back to sleep. Then the 4-5 wakings per night started; this went on for several weeks. Eventually we discovered that the poor guy had a double ear infection. Once we started treating that, he started sleeping good again, only getting up once sometimes twice during the night. Well, that changed again this week because he seems to be teething, so he is only sleeping for 3-4 hour stretches at a time, sometimes only 2 if the teeth are really bothering him.

However, I know this might sound crazy, but one of my favorite times to spend with Cole is actually in the middle of the night. Now, I certainly wish he was a better sleeper, but sometimes I just love those moments. There is something about sitting in his dark and quiet room while everyone else (John, Leroy, Ryno and Sammy) are all fast asleep and it is just me and my little guy. He will nurse for about 10-15 minutes and just doze off in my arms. Then I will put him at my shoulder to try to burp him, even though he rarely needs to burp in the middle of the night, but I just love to snuggle with him for a few minutes before I put him back in his crib. Just listening to and feeling his little body breathe is so amazing. I know that as he gets older and actually starts sleeping through the night I am really going to miss those times. However, I am sure that I will appreciate having more sleep at that time, but for now, those moments are usually worth it.