Moran Family Adventures: musings of a boy mom

About a month ago I noticed something strange happening on the roof of JB's mouth right behind one of his front teeth. It looked like something was growing there....fears of horrible things growing in my baby's mouth spiraled around my head. It's so hard to keep those panic ridden thoughts out of a parent's mind! Everything is reason for alarm because we want nothing but a healthy and happy baby and will do whatever it takes to make sure that's the case! Dr. Google can be your best friend or your worst nightmare. I've learned to keep Dr. Google searches to a minimum and just let the professionals tell me what's up with my kid. We saw our PCM and he couldn't quite figure out what it was so he gave is a referral for a pediatric dentist down at the Navy Medical Center in Portsmouth. Aside from not having to worry about medical care for my family, another wonderful thing about being in the military is we aren't restricted to just our branch of serv...

Snack Time  One of our go to meals is a good ole reliable fruit smoothie. Jellybean LOVES them. They're quick to make, filling, and healthy. Its also way I can sneak in some whole milk into my anti-whole milk drinking baby's diet. We keep big bags of frozen fruit from Costco on hand, we ALWAYS have milk, throw in some honey and greek yogurt, swish it all around in a Ninja for about a minute, and you've got yourself one very happy Jellybean (and mom & dad too).  I love that smile so much and that dimple.... :)  Post smoothie happiness.  That's his smile of the camera face. Gotta love those squinty asian eyes.  Banana, frozen mango, frozen pineapple  throw in some strawberry chobani, milk, honey  watching me put everything in the Ninja  patiently waiting for his snack These are my favorite cups for Jellybean. We have them with a straw or a sippy cup version. They're colorful, cheap, and easy to r...

Nursing & Pumping Again  I can't believe I'm going to be a BTDT or a STM in just a few short months. Those that follow mom blogs and group chats online know what those two acronyms mean. Basically, I no longer get to claim first time mom status since I'll be all experienced and everything...... I don't know about this whole all experienced thing. I still feel like I'm making things up as I go along and it won't be any different the second time around since I doubt Tater Tot and Jellybean will be mirror images of each other.  Anyway, while I'm excited for that newborn smell, that super tiny scrunched up body, and all those firsts all over again, there is honestly one thing that I'm dreading. Being a slave to my boobs. Yes, I admit it, I hate pumping. Breastfeeding? No big deal. I love nursing my babies because I know that I am arming them with a lifetime of protection. When I was expressing my drudge to Matt, he said we should experiment and see...

Watch Me Grow!  I saw this idea on Pinterest when I was going baby pin crazy with Jellybean. Take a picture of your kiddo every month, spruce it up with a teddy bear or something to reference their growth and BAM, you've captured their growth in a cute and easy way. Some people use the same outfit or color onesie, some make chalkboard signs with specific traits for that month (I'm sorry but I just don't have time for that kind of detail, but I wish I did!), some use cards with time hacks on them....the possibilities are endless. I had a friend who made specific onesies with her kiddo's name on them and the month he was in. I chose to keep it simple. A onesie, didn't matter what color, a teddy bear from my friend Brittany, and a simple sticker. Every month I took my Jellybean, plopped him on the rocking chair (courtesy of my friends Nicolle and Danele), and snapped away. If I were really meticulous, I would have noted how far away I was from Jellybean and taken the...

My Full Blown Toddler  15 months already? I feel like we were JUST celebrating his 12 month birthday. I try to do this monthly traits post every 3-4 months so I can capture his habits that I don't dedicate a specific blogpost to. I really hope all this effort now pays off years later when I look back and reminisce about my sweet boys. There are times now that I look at him and I'm amazed at how fast he has grown. I feel like he's getting longer by the day. Shorts that were more like crop pants on him last month actually look like shorts this month. His weight gain has steadied a bit and he hovers right around 25lbs but he sure is growing longer and longer! I look at his legs in pictures and I'm amazed that they no longer just stick out to the very edge of the seat on the stroller. While I've written about and taken a billion pictures between now and 29 March 2014, I am still baffled by the amount of growing he was able to do right before my very eyes. I have no ...

I need to start documenting my Jellybean-isms. Things that I think are unique to my kid....but what do I know, he's my first kid. So let's change that to things he does regularly, and they're mostly things that make me laugh. As he gets older and these isms change into new ones, I want to be able to come on here and see that I was at least able to document some of the silly things my boy liked to do at certain stages of his life. I already wrote about my sock monster adventures. In those pictures, he had his legs crossed. He ALWAYS has his legs crossed! And it's always the same leg over the other.

We've done things a little better this time around in the naming department. For Jellybean, his name came around literally a few weeks before he was born. Tater Tot's name has been decided 2 months before the due date, so that's pretty good for us!  My only real rules for narrowing down names were, they had to be "normal" find on a magnet when we're traveling type names. Mostly because I never found my name ANYWHERE. I actually had a role in naming my youngest sister, and unlike me and my middle sister, she has a find your name on a magnet type of name. Michelle. Yes, I chose the name after a Full House character, what can I say, I was 8. I also didn't want anything too trendy or unisex. I wanted strong masculine names for my boys, but not anything that was on a Top 10 chart. Simple right?  Charles Richard Moran  For Jellybean, we were able to narrow down the list to about 5 after all the vetoes.  1. Charles 2. Max 3. Vincent 4. William  5. I c...