New things

Things Jack has mastered in the last week:

1. Getting into a standing position without holding on to anything.
2. Opening the cabinets in the kitchen.
3. Opening the drawers in the kitchen.
4. Opening the cabinets in the bathroom.
5. Dragging toilet paper down the hall.
6. Grabbing and shredding Kleenex that I am trying to wipe his nose with.
7. Chewing his food, but leaving whole the select pieces he does not want to swallow.
8. Taking those pieces carefully out of his mouth, and throwing them on the floor.
9. Arching his back and screaming when you do something he does not like.
10. Sleeping in his crib until the somewhat manageable hour of 7 a.m.
11. Grinding his new top tooth against his bottom teeth.
12. Drinking milk from a sippy cup, then letting it all dribble out onto his shirt.
13. Drinking watered-down juice from a sippy cup, and not losing a drop.
14. Eating actual pieces of bread by taking bites, rather than Mommy cutting it in pieces.
15. Snuggling.

He's been busy.

Happy Birthday to me

See the timestamp? 3 freaking a.m.? Yes, that's accurate.

And no, I have not been out all night and am now posting drunk.

Oh hell no. I wish.

I am WORKING.

Happy 33rd birthday Amy, sign on to your computer at 3 a.m. and wait for us to tell you to look at all your pages on the site and make sure they migrated.

Who's feeling the love right now? Who is it? I CAN'T HEAR YOU.

New way of thinking

Before I had Jack, I insisted my child would be neat. His toys and baby stuff would coordinate with our decor. There would be wooden toys and none of that plastic crap. He would take one toy out and play with it and then put it away before selecting another toy.

I was smug in my knowledge that my baby would play quietly and laugh and babble at appropriate sound levels.

He would stroke the cats nicely and curl up next to them to cuddle.

You parents see where I am going with this one. You non-parents are thinking that's about how you picture life with your children-to-be.

Ahhh, the naivety of it all.

Every night when I walk around the living room picking up a day's worth of toys, I think about my "one toy in, one toy out" rule and stifle the urge to laugh hysterically.

Jack starts the morning in the toy area near the TV. It used to be a toy basket, but the wood started breaking off the basket and because I think he has enough roughage in his diet, I don't let him eat the shards. This pisses him off. But oh well, I am the mother, and I say so.

Anyway, he starts pulling the toys out of the pile. Slowly, but surely, by the time his first nap of the day rolls around two hours later, there are several circles of toys radiating outward from the pile.

His routine is pretty similar each day. First, he spills the blocks out of their container. Then he grabs his star ring stacker and unstacks the stars. Next he finds Nemo, and chews his little fin. Then he usually plays with a truck or two and then moves on to his musical table.

We also have a little book corner filled with his favorite books, some of them get more love than others. But he likes to scatter them around where he is sitting and turn a few pages of each one.



The toy obstacle course usually keeps the cats at bay. But when they come out for the morning, Jack now screeches at them in delight. He gets himself worked up when he sees them, bouncing and laughing, and then waits until they are about two feet away before he screams. Then he feels the need to "pet" them. Which really means he grabs a hunk of cat and comes away with a fistful of hair.

And as for my visions of polite use of his inside-voice, those are also funny to look back on now. No matter what Jack is doing, it's accompanied by a running dialogue. He gurgles. He babbles. He whines. He yells. He points at me and yells "AHHHHHHHH." He says "Ne, ne, ne" when he doesn't like what we're doing.

Usually at about the decibel level of a jet engine.

But I don't even notice the mess of toys anymore -- he's just exploring his world. I don't see it as torturing the cats -- he's trying to show how excited he is to see them. I don't hear his yelling -- he's just providing a soundtrack to my day.

Having a baby was better than I ever imagined, but having a little boy is beyond my wildest dreams. And when he crawls out of the bathroom, screeching with delight, pulling the toilet paper off the roll and down the hall with him, I can only laugh.

The nose knows

Recent things I have learned in Mommy 101:

If your child has a cold, he will need his nose suctioned out, but he will scream and try to get away from you if you try to do it. Even though he can't properly breathe without your assistance.

Same child will happily walk around with snotty crust on his face, while you beg him to please just let you wipe his face already. PLEASE? Just once?

If you try to suction said child's nose at 4 a.m. so he can nurse and breathe at the same time, he will scream hysterically. And kick you. In the face.

The neighbors will probably love you.

Or not.

If you try to distract your child by giving him his own Kleenex to hold, he will shred it into teeny-tiny pieces. And then try to eat them. And clamp his mouth shut and toddle away from you when you try to remove the shreds from his mouth.

You think you have the upper hand, what with this being his 400th cold of the year, but you will lose the battle of the baby snot. It will not easily come out when you try to suction it, but the minute you put the aspirator away, it will leak down his face in a river of snot.

You will have no qualms about wiping your child's snot on your own jeans when you run out of Kleenex.

But you will be grossed out when he sticks the aspirator in his mouth while playing with it.

First date

Jack and I had a playdate today. With someone I had not previously known BC (before children). That only took the better part of a year.

We hung out with a cool mom and her little boy, who is two months older than Jack.

We played it coy for a few months during Kindermusik, chatting here and there, real casual. I didn't want to come off as desperate or anything. A few weeks ago, I made the first move, asking if they might want to get together some time.

We exchanged info and set up something casual, but had to reschedule a couple of times. Clearly, we both had commitment issues. Finally, we settled on today.

I was a little nervous. You never know -- you hit it off at first, but what if there's an awkward baby fight over the cow from the farm set? Or maybe the other kid starts wailing on Jack and I have to encourage my son to go all Tony Soprano on him?

I am happy to report we had an excellent time. The boys played well together and even had matching sniffles -- so no need to feel like we exposed anyone to the ebola we might have running through our house again.

The mom and I hit it off and had lots to talk about. We had such a grand time, we're going to meet up next week again at an open gym thingy at a local baby play center.

I wasn't sure about the protocol of a playdate, however. Do you go empty-handed? Do you bring flowers? How about a bottle of wine? It was 11 a.m. you say? On my lunch hour? OK, perhaps not so much the wine. I thought about bringing some baby snacks, but then that seemed weird. Hi, here's some Cheerios! And sippy cups for everyone!

Next time, we'll have to set something up for Happy Hour. Jack says he prefers a drink in his hand to break the ice with new friends.

Milk moustache

Hi.

Remember me? I used to blog here pretty regularly.

Then I got all slacker-ish and lazy and no one wanted to read my blog anymore.

But take heart dear readers! I feel a period of reconnectedness coming on. Yes, that is a word. I just made it up.

But I have been busy parenting and working and watching "American Idol" for the first time. As part of that whole "parenting" thing, I discovered Jack is no longer suffering from a dairy intolerance.

Earlier this week, Josh thought we should try giving Jack a little whole milk. He hadn't had a rash in weeks and we wanted to see if he would be able to drink milk after he turns one next month.

If he couldn't handle the dairy, Josh thought it would be a good idea to keep nursing him. Now I am all for extended breastfeeding, if works for your family. But for us, I had planned to wean Jack directly to cow's milk at one year.

But with a dairy-intolerant little boy, my plan could be in jeopardy. Some people had suggested soy milk, but I just didn't think it had enough fat in it. And the babies, they need the fat. The mommies, not so much. But bring it on for brain development in the kid.

There was also a suggestion of toddler formula. But the whole point of weaning to cow's milk was to bypass formula all together. My original goal was to breastfeed for a full year and not use any formula. And so far, for 11.5 months, he's not had a drop of formula. I feel pretty good about that. But again, not anti-formula. If it works for your family, awesome.

So I took a little organic milk and gave it to Jack in a sippy cup. He guzzled it down and seemed to enjoy it. I started small -- with about 2 ounces -- and he drank it over a period of an hour or two.

Next day, same thing. Yesterday, he had a little more.

I have been checking his legs, where the eczema usually begins its crawl up his body, and we're in the clear so far.

Which makes Mommy very happy.

So for all of you who are NOT here to read about my boobs, you'll only have another month of posts about them to sit through. And really, who's not excited about the prospect of that?

Riding the waves

We survived our trip to Disney. I enjoyed it, Josh enjoyed it, Jack enjoyed waving at people nonstop.

He was a little young to appreciate it, but since Josh had a conference there, we really couldn't pass up the chance to visit Mickey Mouse. I can't wait to take him back when he actually knows who all the characters are and can run around willy nilly from one ride to the next.

Despite his small stature, he did go on the Dumbo ride, and seemed to really enjoy it. Well, he enjoyed waving to all the people as we went around.



We took him on "It's a Small World," where he enjoyed waving at all the little characters.

He met Pooh, and in addition to giving him an unsolicited kiss, he waved at him.



Tooling around the grounds in his stroller, he couldn't help but wave at all the kids we passed. He waved at characters, at people, at ducks, at statues, at himself.

His waving did help us out when it came to convincing people to take pictures. Inevitably, someone would pause to wave back and we could ask them to snap a quick shot of the three of us. Hence, the family portrait in front of Cinderella's Castle.



When we took the Monorail over to Epcot, he waved at the people in the car with us. At lunch, he willed a man at the next table to wave at him with the sheer power of his cuteness. He just waved and waved and smiled and smiled until the man finally looked over at him.

I asked Josh how I was going to handle future rejection by girls on his behalf if I get teary when people ignore his waving and he keeps trying to get their attention with persistance?

But this kid, he's a charmer. I doubt there will be woman alive who will be able to resist him.

Where am I again?

We're in the Land of the Mouse for the next four days.

God help us.

We might come out of this vowing to never return. We've never been to a kid-centric locale before. I scared it's going to be all snot and screaming and tantrums. And that's just from the adults.

Wish us luck.

I hope Jack likes Mickey Mouse ears.

Eleven months

Dear Jack,

Little boy, you are 11 months old today! And while these monthly letters always focus on the past month, let me just take a moment to point out that you will be a year old in a month. ONE YEAR OLD. Did someone fast-forward the last six months? Because they have flown by.



This last month has been your craziest yet. You've accomplished so much and been so many places, it's hard to know where to start.

Of course, we'll start with the big one. This month you learned how to walk. When we were on vacation in Lake Tahoe, I put you down on the floor and all of a sudden, the past five months of walking holding our hands and along the furniture all came together and you took your first steps on your own. We were so proud of you and the family was there to witness it and everyone clapped and yelled for you. You looked so proud of yourself and loved being the center of attention.



You kept practicing and now you can walk about eight feet on your own, when you really concentrate on it. For the most part, you take several steps from person to person and when you feel really daring, you will let go of the couch or table and toddle on over to another toy or person. You fall really gracefully, though, plopping down on your butt or putting your arms out to stop yourself.

The walking was preceded by the emergence of your very first tooth earlier in the month. Finally! You were biting and drooling, your cheeks were bright red and you were so fussy I took you to the doctor, thinking you had another ear infection. But you were sent on your merry way and the next week, the bottom right tooth cut through.

Last week, your second bottom tooth made its appearance, with as much drool and biting, but a little less fuss. That's not to say you weren't fussy. Oh but no. But this was just slightly less shrill and whiny.

Your love of waving hello and goodbye has continued unabated. It's especially funny now because you will people to see you and wave back. You'll wave at random strangers in airports and restaurants and keep waving until they acknowledge your adorableness with a smile or a wave of their own. And once they do, you laugh and smile as if to say "Ha, my cuteness wins every time." It's impossible to resist your chubby little fist opening and closing. You also enjoy waving during mealtime, so we often have to stop and put the spoon down so we can wave back, and you've also snuck a few in while breastfeeding. My favorite, though, was a few days ago when you were waving in your sleep, with your hand tucked up near your chin while I was rocking you.



Your sleep has vastly improved this month. While we were on vacation, we enforced the Cry It Out policy once again and after one night, where you woke four times, you were back to sleeping 12 hours overnight with a brief feeding around 5 a.m. And that makes everyone in our house happy. You are more pleasant to be around when you get more sleep, and you take better naps when you are rested. Your naps are generally around an hour twice a day now, which allows everyone to catch his or her breath for a little while each day.

We're trying to transition you off baby food and it's been slow going. You love the stage 2 pureed foods, and want nothing to do with the chunkier stage 3 offerings. But we're gradually getting you to eat a little more people food. You can eat a cut-up turkey sandwich now, and actually seem to enjoy it, and you inhale the chicken noodle soup we get for you at a neighborhood organic food store. You definitely want to eat whatever we are eating now, though, as evidenced by your begging and crying whenever we sit down and eat with you in the room. It's still easy to trick you, though, by putting your cheerios on our plate and feeding them to you.



Your play has really changed this last month as well. You now like to roll trucks and cars back and forth and crawl along while pushing them. You also got a few push-toys for Christmas and Hanukkah that you like to tool around the house with. Your new favorite thing to do is empty the toybox of all the toys, leaving them all within two feet of the toybox. It's a wonder you can even move around in the piles you create.

You also have an amazing memory now. You will root around the toybox until you find just the item you are looking for, throwing things out until you find the object of your desire. Sometimes, it can be as small as a purple linky. And when you find what you're looking for, you turn it over, inspecting it, before placing it your mouth. Apparently, all toys taste different and you must be preparing for your eventual role as "toy taste-tester."

For the last few months, you have done the cutest thing and I need to mention it before I forget. When you get excited about something, you will wave your arms up and down super fast and either laugh or do this crazy inhalation noise that sounds like you are sucking the life out of something. It's hilarious and I crack up every time.

This month we dragged you all over creation for the holidays and vacation. We spent parts of Dec. 23-26 in five different houses and we logged 13 hours of driving. But you were a trooper and when we left for Lake Tahoe on the 27th, you acted like a seasoned traveler. You were well-behaved on the plane and didn’t miss a beat exploring a new house and new surroundings. We could have done without the 5 a.m. wakeups due to the time change, but you did sleep through the night while we were there, so we can’t complain too much. You saw snow for the first time, but you weren’t too excited about going out in your sled or hanging out in the snow. You did, however, seem to enjoy a gondola ride to the top of the mountain.



You are such a happy baby, and I have so much fun just hanging out with you now. I also love watching you and Daddy play together. Just the other day I could hear peals of laughter coming from the living room and I looked in to see Daddy rolling around on the ground with you, and you trying to run him over with your push toy. You also have a game you play with Daddy when he's wearing a baseball hat. When you see the hat on him, you book over to where he is and grab it off his head. Then you chew it and try to get it back on his head. You could play this game for hours -- it never gets old -- and is always accompanied by Daddy saying "Oh no! You got Daddy's hat!" and then you squeal and laugh.

But it's not all loud and rough and tumble play with my little boy. You love to look at books now, and will sit quietly while we turn the pages, or you'll "read" them by yourself, turning the books over and over and opening to random pages. Just this morning, you took every book in your toybox out (there were 17, I counted) and spread them out on the floor. At some point during the day, you had looked at every one of them. But your favorite, by far, are the ones with real pictures of babies and people in them. You also love a picture book you got for Christmas with photos of our whole family -- Mommy, Daddy, Grandmas, Grandpas, Aunts and Uncles -- and you inside. There are lots of kisses given to the pictures and you are fascinated by the images of yourself.

The only downside of all this independence and learning is that you can't be bothered to stop what you are doing for the lowly diaper change. And since there's so much to look at and do, you try to roll off the changing table or squirm your way out from under our hands. Diaper changes had become a rather unpleasant fight with you for a few weeks, coinciding nicely with our holiday travels. There's nothing like changing a kicking and screaming baby in an airplane bathroom. Or in a crowded airport bathroom, where the single women are giving Mommy looks of death and the other mommies are saying a silent thanks that they have outgrown this stage.



But even with the Diaper Changing Olympics, I would have to say that of your last 11 months, this one had to be my favorite. You learned so much and changed so much. It was also your first Christmas and Hanukkah and everyone from both sides of the extended families loved celebrating with you. I can honestly say I have never experienced the joy of Christmas until I had you in my life. Watching you eat the wrapping paper and bows was hilarious and seeing you come downstairs with Daddy on Christmas morning to open presents in front of our tree made our family feel complete. We took pictures of it, but I won't need a camera to remember you coming down and seeing the presents under the tree. And while you will look back at those pictures someday, our first Christmas as a family is a memory I will always hold close to my heart.

Love,
Mommy