November 5, 2009
don’t fall asleep with Erin around…..(or when you’re supposed to be playing with the baby)
My friends who have grown children say my sigh at the end really sums up parenthood…
Will and Erin trying to entertain themselves, Eli too entranced by the tv to really notice…
November 1, 2009
Well, we made it through a year! Eli had a lovely little party Thursday night and got lots of good books and presents. He also tore into a cupcake (video coming) and was a doll all night long. He handled a lot of new people really well and really only cried when we accidentally slid him into the oven door (NOT MY FAULT. I’m not naming names but it rhymes with candy) when we were changing him on the kitchen floor. In any case, he was more angry than hurt and cupcakes heal all wounds and insults. Will was also great during the whole party and I received several compliments on how great he was with Eli and how he was a real pleasure to have at the party. I realize I had nothing to do with the boy’s upbringing so y’all did a good job! We ended up having about 10 people which would have been too big for our apartment so June was nice enough to offer her condo for it.
Unfortunately, he also got his first real cold for his birthday. He started having a dry cough a few days ago but yesterday it developed into a pretty nasty one and today the head congestion started. We had a one year check up at the pediatrician anyway on Friday and his ears and chest looked good then. I’m crossing my fingers that this just passes without ear involvement. His mood has really been in the toilet the last few days and it’s obvious he feels terrible. The cough wakes him up quite a bit so he’s tired and also some of the coughs sound really painful which wake him up and scares him. I’ve let go of my no-going-in-at-night rule and I’ve gone in there a few times when his coughing has gotten bad to help him calm down. I feel terrible for him. Apparently Cough Medicine + Toddler = Instant Death because everything says I can’t give him any at all. So I’ve coated him in a thick layer of Baby Rub (I told him it was made of babies and he started crying if that gives you any indication of his non-joking mood) and we also got a eucalyptus-y liquid to put in his vaporizer in his room. The poor kid and his room smell like a menthol bomb went off. We left Sharron a message inquiring as to her comfort at sitting a sick kid tomorrow. None of us have had any cold symptoms at all so it seems to be restricted to just him. So I don’t know, I might end up with a few involuntary days off.
His check up went great. He was a flirt with the nurses as usual and quite the charmer with the doctor. He measured yet again at the 95% of everything. He was 32 inches long and 28 lb 10 oz. I can’t remember his head size but I do have the sheet in his baby book (well, it’s in the box with his baby book which is still wrapped in plastic. At least I have it all together). He got some more vaccinations but they said if he has any fever or anything from it that it shouldn’t happen for 7-10 days after. That’d probably be right around the time he’s getting rid of this cold. Awesome!
My running is going well. I did end up running 8 miles on the treadmill (bad weather, improper running clothing) but it was hard. It was hard and it hurt and hurt a lot afterward. After that I pretty much decided my entire running career will consist of maybe a half marathon once a year or so. I just physically don’t think a full would be a good idea for me. I ran 5 a few days later and did another 8 yesterday at Green Lake. It was a LOT LOT easier and the recovery has been tons better but I still just don’t think my body was made to take a full.
Everything else is going reasonably well. For reasons unknown to us, Will’s grades have taken a sort of gentle nosedive so I’m really hoping he can buckle down and pull it out. He doesn’t seem that worried about it which is a little concerning. He’s going to be auditioning for the Cascades in the next few weeks and if his grades aren’t headed up I don’t know if that will happen. I sure would hate it for him.
Eli is sort of walking. He can go 5-6 steps at a time before he sits down. He’s definitely better at standing and even ate a whole turkey dog while standing in the kitchen today. I think crawling is easier for him so it continues to be his preferred method of locomotion but walking is definitely exciting to him. He can walk throughout the apartment by just tapping the wall or furniture for balance with his hand. He’s pretty fast! His habit of Getting Into Things is reaching nightmare (for me) proportions. He’s a 32 inch tornado that wanders throughout the apartment, just pulling things out of their places only to fling them about and move on to the next thing to throw/dislodge/try to eat. Our living room is an unbelievable wreck after about 20 minutes of Eli after he wakes up. It’s pretty amazing.
Here’s the video of Eli and his birthday cupcake. Pretty cute stuff, even if I am really now uncomfortably aware of my goofy laugh now. I need to work on that.
October 24, 2009
It’s been an odd week. Wednesday I forgot my phone at the gym and someone stole it. I am virtually certain I left it sitting on the treadmill and it has never been turned in and it’s never turned up anywhere else. For an iPhone owner, this felt akin to losing a limb for the first day. So we went to the mall yesterday and got the new iPhone–the 3GS. It’s pretty nice although I wasn’t really all that happy over the necessity of a new phone. The big advantage is that it takes video and pretty nice video at that! I can post directly to YouTube which sort of makes the Flip camcorder useless. Now the Flip has so many steps compared to my iPhone(plug it into computer, download off flip, publish to web). I am amazed that something makes the Flip look like a lot of unnecessary work.
We went to the mall and I had to show my ID to have the phone set up. That’s the last I saw of my ID. I lost it. I have no idea where it is, we’ve talked to every store we went into, left our contact info with mall security–nada. The timing was terrible since last night June came to babysit for our night out and Andy was playing a show at a bar. I have never seen his band play and we haven’t had a night out in some time so we were looking forward to it. Needless to say, I stayed home and watched a horror movie with June since I couldn’t get in anywhere without ID.
Despite my determination, Eli isn’t walking yet. He can stand unsupported for quite a while and will take half steps from a stand before he goes to a crawl but that’s about it. He likes pushing his little truck around quite a lot now and he walks behind it. He’s all about holding fingers and walking around. It’s getting harder in situations where we can’t just put him down and let him tear about. We went to Will’s annual band competition in Everett today. Eli had to sit in his car seat the whole way there (about 30 mins) then had to be held because we were in bleachers. I did record and post Will’s band performance but you can hear Eli voicing his displeasure at being restrained. It’s worth mentioning that the video is from my iPhone. Pretty nice, huh?
I’m going to schedule Eli to get checked out by a dentist here soon. We’ve got a bit of a birthday party for him next Thursday, several friends from work are coming. It’s really only going to be an hour or two of after work drinks and snacks at June’s house (she has more room and kindly offered to have it there) and it’s really more of a celebration for ME! (I made it through a year!) since Eli will need to go to bed about 7:30. It’s a good opportunity for pictures and I’m going to need some support around my baby turning one. It’s just all gone so, so fast.
He’s cutting another molar and bottom incisor. For those keeping score, that’s four up top (all in the middle) and four on bottom in the middle (although really only the middle two are very obvious so far) and a bottom molar on either side. We’ve got him down to mostly only one bottle a day (bedtime bottle, see previous entry, he will be at least 9 before I give it up) and he’s thinning out some although he still has the delicious rubber band wrists. He has his 1 year checkup on Friday the 30th.
Will’s band placed 14/15 but Will warned me they wouldn’t do well as they are focusing on another competition in a month rather than this one. He’s also going to audition for Cascades Drum and Bugle Corps in November. It looks like an amazing experience if he gets in.
My running is going okay, finding time to run the longer runs with Andy’s work schedule is challenging. I have about a month before the race and I’m supposed to run 8 miles tomorrow. Hopefully I can sucker June into taking Eli for two hours so I can get it done. My hip has been mostly fine although when I run outside it takes a while to warm up now that it’s cooler again. I don’t know what it is, running just seems harder since I hurt my hip and it’s not really even that my hip hurts, it’s like 5 weeks off added to the paranoia of hurting myself again is mentally making it harder. One of those things I need to work through I guess.
I’m going to put up pictures and whatnot tomorrow. I’ll link to Will’s video.
October 15, 2009
If determination has anything to do with it, I’ll have him walking in the next week. He is making more effort to balance himself and he really enjoys being walked around while holding someone’s finger or using his walker. He made the first little wee step to striking out on his own tonight. Will was in the recliner and Eli was standing next to it and I was sitting on the floor a few feet in front of Will. Eli let go of the recliner while standing and took one step to turn to me then looked like he was debating a full out walk but then crumpled and crawled the rest of the way. I am going to guess that everyone knows what I’m talking about when I say you could see he was thinking about trying to walk to me.
Along with the independence the challenges grow as well. When he was wee I could put him in his car seat on the floor in the bathroom while I showered (at the risk of hate, I never really understood why new moms say they can’t shower. Eli was always pretty chill sitting in his car seat but now I realize I have a mellow kid). When he was too big for the car seat, some toys on the floor in the bathroom worked fine to entertain him long enough for a shower. The last few weeks, he enjoys watching the shower run and will mostly just stand outside the tub and squeal while I shower and really the only thing I have to do is play peek-a-boo behind the shower curtain throughout my shower. Today, he took it to a new level. He’s gotten a new skill the last two weeks I like to refer to as Getting Into Things. A few days ago he broke a bottle of sea salts into the bathtub. Today while I was showering he managed to toddle around and throw (1) a hairbrush (2) a pen and (3) 2 towels into the tub while I was showering. He knows how to swat the toilet paper roll to make it unroll so I took that off. Then he figured out how to take the tube that holds the roll off and split it into its separate pieces so now it seems that there will be no TP on rolls for the foreseeable future.
He is downright indignant over not being allowed access to the fridge. Anytime he hears the fridge or the dishwasher open, he will crawl as fast as he can to them so that he can pull as many things out of them as humanly possible before he gets carted away or the baby gate goes up. I’ve taken to feeding him in his high chair in the kitchen when I need to straighten up because then (1) he’s restrained and (2) he doesn’t care about Getting Into Things because he’s eating. It works pretty well.
He’s down to two bottles a day, one when he wakes up and one before bedtime. Admittedly, the one when he wakes up is only on days he goes to Sharron’s because a bottle is a little quicker than an actual breakfast and that allows me a little more sleep and Sharron gives him breakfast when he gets over there. The one before bedtime really isn’t even that needed but I like it. It’s the one guaranteed time he’ll relax and (sort of) let me hug on him and I’m not in any rush to lose that. He sleeps on his own, he has no binky, I feel like I don’t need to be in any rush to break him of a bedtime bottle. The morning one can go but I’m keeping the bedtime bottle until he’s nine, at least!
Andy’s on the next two weekends so I’ve got a lot of things to do. We missed Gymboree last week because Auna (teacher) was sick so I’m looking forward to that tomorrow.
October 12, 2009
Playing with the walker:
Swinging:
Fun in the bath:
October 12, 2009
Oh, Eli is close! So close to walking. Although he’s been able to hold your hands and walk along for a few weeks now, it’s really only the last few days he’s started showing real interest in it. He’ll grab his walker and practice walking behind it and he wants to hold your fingers and practice walking, it’s big fun for him. It doesn’t seem to be affecting his sleep just yet as all the other milestones have but I suspect the day he finally nails walking he’ll stay up complaining half the night, walking back and forth across his crib.
Mike and I went and hiked Mt. Si last Saturday and then came back and watched the LSU game with Andy and Will. The hike was great and it was perfect weather for it, very cold and breezy. Since you basically walk uphill for Si, (3700 ft elevation gain in about 4 miles), it’s a bit of a workout. To have a nice cold breeze hitting you for most of it is pretty sweet. My running has been going well, my hip is doing better every time I run. I don’t know if I’ll be up to speed enough to run the whole 13 by the time the half comes around. I’m trying to take things really slowly with it since it still takes a while for the hip to loosen up when I run. I figure at this point I’ll be able to run at least 10 miles of it. Seeing as how in April of this year I ran NO miles, I’ve decided to be very proud of myself if I do at least 10.
Will’s grades aren’t as great as they were, I guess it’s hard to maintain for a long period of time. I hope he gets back on track. He and I have a little tradition of watching the Biggest Loser on Tuesdays and having him banned from television really interferes with that.
I’m pretty brain dead tonight, sorry everyone. I’ve put up a few new pictures and some videos. Pretty cute stuff, enjoy!
October 5, 2009
We finally got him his first real pair of shoes. We had to go a size up from what he wears in length to accommodate his fat feet. These were the only brand in the shoe store that fit the chub feet because they are stitched on the outside. Here’s a picture of the ones we got him:
October 4, 2009
Has it already been a week? My, where does the time go. It’s been a busy week, Andy was on all nights so Will, Eli, and I were left to our own devices. We had a good week. June sat for us Friday night and Andy and I got a date night. We went to see the Andrew Wyeth exhibit at SAM and ate at Cafe Campagne. Both were great. Mike came over Saturday and watched the LSU game with us and WOW was that a game! Today we watched some of the Seahawks game, then went for a run and to the park, then came home and watched the Saints game. What a good weekend for Louisiana football! I did manage to get the birthday invitations ordered today. I am thinking we will probably just have 7 or 8 people over since the apartment is small but I ordered a few extra invites to send to family because they are pretty cute.
Eli has another incisor that has cut and there appears to be another molar making ready to come out but it hasn’t given us any trouble YET. He’s still not digging so much on walking and although he can go a little ways on his walker, you really have to prop him there and encourage him to do it. He can do the sign for “light” and will do the sign and point at the light if you ask where it is. He will push books across the room to you that he wants you to read and can get objects if you ask for them. He’s learning how far whining will (and will NOT) get him when he wants something. He knows what “no” means even though most of the time it just means he will stop and look at you while he is obviously debating whether or not to do it anyway. He brings all of his stuffed animals to you so you can “kiss” them and he wants to hand most of his toys to you so you can hand them right back to him.
He’s eating most of his food in regular meals and down to only three real bottles a day. He finally figured out sippy cups so he gets those full of milk with meals to make up for the decreasing bottles. He got a sippy cup the other day with his meal that was half apple juice and half water and he basically shot it. I think I might hold off on juice until after he’s eaten his food from now on. The last few days his meals have been toast and eggs or oatmeal for breakfast and then for lunches and dinners he’s had a mix up of sliced hot dog, ham cubes, turkey meatballs, peas, green beans, butternut squash, broccoli, cauliflower, or carrots. For “dessert” he’s had sliced pears, apples, or yogurt. Starting next week we’re going to try to make our dinners earlier so he can eat with us since that will enable us to just feed him whatever we eat and not have to throw together little meals for him. The last few days he tended to eat during football games so we’d pull his high chair in the room with us and he’d just eat and eat and eat.
We’ve toured two daycares now and the first we really liked and the second one was okay. The second will have openings when we need (February) so we will likely put him there if nothing has opened at the first yet but only until the first has openings. The second one seemed nice enough but it seemed like a daycare that was run by people who just really like little kids rather than something that had actual structure and intention to it. The first was not just a babysitter but a place that really worked to give the kids a variety of experiences and was very educational in addition to being fun. The second just had a feel of being a really nice babysitter. Sharron has been gracious enough to keep Eli until February so we can avoid the swine flu winter and I am very thankful for that.
Andy’s on another week of nights this week and this coming weekend Mike and I are hiking Mt. Si. The running is going well, I did 5.5 miles today so I’m almost where I need to be training-wise for the half. It’s a little hard to figure out where exactly I’m supposed to be with my long break so I feel like I probably overdid it a little today. Will did give me a picture from homecoming and since I have no scanner I’m going to take a picture of it and post that.
Have a good week!
September 27, 2009
*yawn* I hope everyone has had a good weekend. We surely have. We had one day of super productivity, one day of sloth, and one day of a fair amount of productivity. All in all, not a bad use of time. Andy is on 4 nights this week then off for a three day weekend then another string of 4 nights next week so Will and I are doing a fair amount of flying solo.
This weekend we managed to get Eli’s dresser painted and get the carpets cleaned with a rented Rug Doctor. I baked some pumpkin bread with cranberries and walnuts and also some muffins of the same mixture and topped them with cream cheese frosting (yum). I ran about 5 miles today and walked about another mile by taking a route that I thought was going to be a 4 mile loop but ended up being waaaaay longer. My cardiovascular system seems to have bounced back quite nicely as I was never really out of breath for it but my legs weren’t very thrilled by mile 5. I’m happy to report that the hip is mildly tweaky but really not a concern at all. It feels good. Andy and Will hit the gym today and went on a short run themselves. Eli has just been a general nut and that seems to be the case for an 11 month old. He was cracking himself up by holding a glass over his mouth and blowing b’s into it. He also cracks up at hiding behind things, opening and closing doors, pulling all the clothes out of drawers (grr), and music.
Will had the homecoming football game Friday night (they lost, not a surprise, I don’t remember the last time his school won) and the dance last night. He wouldn’t let me take a picture but they don’t dress up nearly as much as we did in my day (and with that statement, I’m going to go find my Geritol and catch an early bird dinner at Denny’s). He said that he and Ivy were going to get pictures and he said he would give me one. Andy had band practice last night so I got a nice quiet evening once Eli went to sleep. He seems to have another incisor coming in on the bottom left but it doesn’t seem to be bothering him in the least. All teething/cranky/diarrhea issues seem to have resolved and we’re back to the status quo of having one seriously delightful baby.
My computer seems like it wants to die so I need to do something about that soon. It freezes quite a lot and I have to restart it quite often. I should probably take it in, I’m sure it could use a tune up and maybe that will help. I put a new video up and also new pictures. Eli turns one in about a month! I can’t believe it. We’re going to have a little party here, not really many people at all and mostly a party for us (ME, I made it through A YEAR) on his birthday which is a work night for most. Really, my main concern is just to get the invitations done since I never got around to doing birth announcements and I still feel a little guilty about that.
I’m going to zone out and watch the PBS show about the National Parks (Denny’s, here I come). Andy is a dear and is cooking dinner tonight since he’ll be gone the next four. Have a great Monday!
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