Nine Month Nolan

Well it's official, Nolan has now been outside of me for as long as he was inside of me. How is the time going so fast?!

Last week I read an article on motherhood and seriously cried some ugly tears. Poor Justin didn't even know what was going on because I had my phone out reading while we were watching a show. All of the sudden he looked over and I was bawling my eyes out haha. 

Anyway, the article was called "You Won't Remember, But I Will" and it was about a mother who was pregnant with her second baby and worried about how a sibling would affect her first child and how it would change their family dynamic. NOTE: I am NOT pregnant ☺ (read that again haha) but I also know that it won't be like this forever. What hit me the most about the article though, was the thought that Nolan won't remember this time at all. He won't remember how much we love him and how much he has changed our world for the better. Here are some snippets from the article that really struck me and gave me even more motivation to keep writing on this blog:

...You won’t remember how doted upon and spoiled you were; mommy and daddy’s first baby, [Grandma] and Grandpa’s first grandchild, the first to smile and crawl and walk as we cheered you on like maniacs and filled up our memory cards with 8 billion pictures of your towheaded, gummy-smiled self. You won’t remember that all the clothes and books and toys were yours first and that, for [many] months, you never had to share them with anyone at all...

...You won’t remember that you were the one who made me a mother, who gave me the most fulfilling, life-affirming job on the planet. That you literally changed my entire world the very moment you entered it, red-faced and wrinkly, gulping lungfuls of new air. That the second the nurse placed you on my chest, I loved you with a ferocity I could have never comprehended in a thousand previous lives before you...

...Thankfully, you also won’t remember the steep learning curve of new motherhood and all the times I royally screwed it up...Or all the many times I failed you in little ways - like prioritizing the wrong things over my precious time with you – ways that your lack of early memory will whitewash over, never to be remembered.

No, you won’t remember…and I know it’s just as well...You will never remember that you once had mommy and daddy all to yourself, that our attention was never split or compromised...You won’t remember anything of life before this moment when [a sibling] joined us in the world. It’s a clean slate, a new beginning…

But that’s why I’m here: because I will. I’ll remember it all – every precious second.

I’ll remember for us both.

- See more at: https://www.scarymommy.com/you-wont-remember-but-i-will/#sthash.eIp3jqaD.dpuf

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Some things that are new with Nolan lately:

• This week he drank from a glass! He saw Justin and I drinking so he climbed up on Justin and, mouth open and ready, he grabbed his glass and put it to his lips. It was pretty cute! Of course as soon as we got the camera out he wouldn't do it again, but this is our attempt to show you. 

• He can now pick things up and put them in his mouth! This is both exciting and terrifying. Now we have to really pay attention to everything he picks up and/or go fishing in his mouth every time we see him chewing and didn't see what it was he put in his mouth! But on the other hand it is fun to watch him learn to feed himself.
• He's started doing "fish lips." Whenever we try to put a bottle in his mouth that he doesn't want he'll purse his lips together and nothing is getting past them! He'll also do it other times just for fun and it's pretty cute.

• He stood up all by himself for as long as 3 or 4 seconds a couple different times this week! One night he was standing up and holding onto both of my hands. He let go of one and then a few seconds later he decided he didn't need to hold on anymore and let go of my other hand too! Crazy kid.
• Still no teeth. Earlier this week I could have sworn I felt something hard sticking out of his gums when he was crying one night. It was dark though so I couldn't really tell. I was so sure I'd see a tooth the next morning that I couldn't wait for him to wake up so I could check. But...nothing. We don't mind though because we love his gummy smile☺
• He's learned how to scream...loud. One night Justin was holding him and he just screeched right into his ear haha. 

• He still likes his Mr. Binks at night and, mercifully, he'll also take it sometimes when he's screeching and we need to quiet him down, like say, in church...during sacrament meeting.
• He loves clapping and it's the cutest thing ever!

• He officially knows his name and responds to it when we call him! This video is of him being a chatterbox and at the end he responds when I say his name ☺

• The things Nolan finds funny seem to change from day to day, but the one constant from the time he first laughed until now has been blankets. He loves them and laughs so hard whenever Justin twirls a blanket above his head! Here's Shelby and Carli having fun with him with a t-shirt/blanket.

• He loves his daddy!!