Quick Story

Today I was putting on William's shirt for the day. He has the biggest noggin around, so it takes some work to get it over his head. I got his head into the hole for the shirt and down around his ears when he reached up with both hands and pushed the shirt off of his head. Then looked at me and grinned like he is the smartest kid ever. Which he is. Of course. Except for that thing where he can't figure out how to sit down. Maybe not the smartest kid...

Pull up Oatmeal Boy

William has mastered the pull up skill with speed and not so many bumps on his head as you would imagine (although, we are due for a big one...we have 6 month pictures scheduled for Wednesday). The last few days, nap time has become a yell-a-thon struggle. William lays down and fusses for a short period of time. It gets quiet and I lay back and think "...ahhh, now I am going to [insert selfish activity here]."

I am not getting my pedicure, eating my bon bons OR even taking a nap because no less than thirty seconds after I decide on my particular choice of self indulgence, the screaming commences. Prior to this week, I have been timing the crying/yelling and trying to get William to sooth himself back to sleep. It had been working pretty well up until Sunday with minimal fussing. However, now the fussing indicates that he is UP!!! and cannot (or will not) figure out how to get back down again. I swear we have done hundreds of repetitions the past few days and knowing how to sit down apparently is not a transferable skill to different environments. Hopefully in the next few days, he'll pick it up and we'll be good.

Unhappy boy before a nap...yes I am a terrible parent. I took the pictures (or two) and then picked him up.

Happy standing up after a nap


More proof that naps are a good thing

Today we started William on oatmeal. I can't figure out this whole food thing. Everything I read is different so I give up. Some stuff says to do the different cereals first, some information says to wait until the first fruits and vegetables are done. Well, we are almost out of the rice cereal and happen to have a big box of the oatmeal cereal. So, today is the day! He had a little trouble keeping it in his mouth (too runny?), but enjoyed it very much otherwise. Tonight also started our church Vacation Bible School which I have volunteered to help with. I am teaching the 4-6 graders. They are a little young...but lots of fun. I am totally exhausted after running around after them for two hours this evening. When I signed up, the director thought we might have 6-10 kids in my group. No problem for someone used to the 25- 35 kid range. Turns out there were 16 tonight and only 3 of them are girls. And they are all friends....and their name tags all fell off after the first twenty minutes. Should be a fun week! I'm glad I'm able to help out.

The first bite...hmmm..


OOoooooo-atmeal!

New favorite trick? Using his top and bottom teeth to bite down on the spoon


2 kitties and the kid. Run while you can kitties!

PS So excited! Grandpa Heidt might be coming this weekend to help with the drywall! Weehee!

Peachy Cousin Christine

Its been awhile. I'm sore from hitting the running track at the Y for the first time in...well, a long time. My back up title for this post is "The Jiggler", which is the perfect word for how the excess on my body felt while I huffed and puffed around the track. No great records were broken for time or distance, but it feels good to be back at it (sort of good/mostly sore).

Meanwhile, we began peaches on Thursday with William. He made a little face at first, but then gobbled the rest of them up. William had sweet potatoes at the same time and I have to say it was hard keeping track of what was what in the bowl.

Thursday evening, my cousin Christine arrived on her way to Ohio from Colorado. I can't believe I haven't seen her since John and I got married more than five years ago! I wasn't expecting her to be able to see William as she and her boyfriend, Tom, arrived right at William's bedtime. Fifteen minutes before she pulled up, he was heading towards meltdown mode. Yet, as soon as she walked in the door, he was all smiles! He turned on the charm and convinced me it would be okay for him to stay up a little later than usual. I even hoped he would sleep in a little in the morning after being up so late (nope on the sleeping in). Here are the two of them (Tom is in the background) having a good time a good HOUR after William's bedtime.

Sadly, they left early this morning before the two of us were up. They were stopping by the arch before hitting the road back to Ohio. M@pquest claims it is only 6 hours between us. I'm not sure I believe that - Christine promises to verify this for us today as they drive (You hear that Chrissie? You owe me an e mail with the details). We look forward to spending a little more time with the two of them (Christine and Tom) at the upcoming wedding this fall for her sister, Beth.

The last picture is what William has been spending all his free time working on: pulling himself up. In his crib at bedtime, in baby jail, on the kitchen floor, on my lap, you name it and he is trying to pull himself upright. Here he is in baby jail, working on pulling himself upright.

Stand up and Say Goodbye!

This morning, we said good bye to the Grandparents McGarry as they went back to Rochester. Never fear, cousin Christine will arrive tomorrow for a short visit on her way back to Ohio. Yesterday we put in the longest day of drywall work ever and managed to get the family room, part of the play room and part of the bathroom drywalled. Wow! It went really well with the three/four of us working together. We didn't even get to the office or the sitting room. We anticipate a huge slow down in work progress now that our team has been reduced to two!

Family room


The partially done bathroom

John reports that tonight while I was out, William pulled himself from sitting to standing on his baby "jail". He was very proud of himself. I asked him to show me his new trick when I came home, but he wasn't feeling up to it I guess! Maybe I'll get to see it tomorrow.

Lastly, we have heard from all family members in the Minneapolis area after the bridge collapse this evening. We are thankful everyone is okay.

Basement, Big Firsts, Babies

Grandpa and William have fun after a hard day of work!

We continue to work on the basement. John and Grandpa Kevin have spent all day downstairs working with the exception of a lunch break. We have all of the ceiling drywalled with the exception of a closet. The bedroom is completely done as well. We are so happy to be moving forward with this project we started almost a year ago. The Grandparents McGarry will be here for one more day to help us make a dent in our drywalling and John has tomorrow off as well to work. Some vacation, huh?

The last piece of drywall on the ceiling in the family room

The last piece of drywall to go up in the bedroom


The first bathroom drywall pieces go up

In William's world, we found his 3rd tooth poked through yesterday and the 4th tooth today. The new teeth are the two upper front teeth. If you put your fingers in William's mouth, he'll be happy to show you how new and sharp they are. It even looks like he bit his tongue for the first time by the looks of the big red mark across it. Here are some picture - please ignore the chunks of rice cereal in his nose.

All of William's teeth


The new ones!

Even though he is getting teeth, it doesn't mean we are slowing things down on the solid food front. Today we introduced our first fruit : Bananas. William ate them without any problems and even said "Mmmmmm..." after one of his bites.

The first bananas

The first bites. He sure loves Diet Coke!

Bananas about bananas!

Another big first for William happened today. William successfully pushed himself up to sitting from his tummy without any help at all! He is a picture of him after he did it for the first time. Doesn't look like anything special, but it is to us! After that first time, he did it again 6-7 more times throughout the day! What a big boy!

Sitting up by myself if pretty neat!

And last, here is a picture of William's newest cousins! Alexander is on the left and Elena is on the right. Aren't they beautiful? We think so!

Babies, Beans, Basement

Wow! We have been busy! Hold on, I have a lot to tell you! The biggest and most important news first: William has new cousins! William would like to welcome Alexander Richard and Elena Marie! They were born today just before 5pm. John was able to talk with Mike and got a great report! Both mom and babies are doing well. Alexander was 5 lbs. 3 ozs and Elena was 6 lbs. 3 ozs. I'm sure pictures will follow shortly (as well as corrections if I made any mistakes). I will post pictures as soon as I have permission from the parents! William can't wait to meet them and start making trouble together. CONGRATULATIONS Aunt Tien and Uncle Mike! Welcome Alexander and Elena!

It's all downhill from here folks. That was the most exciting part of the post, and now it is over. Feel free to skim to the rest of the post for the highlights. I haven't posted much in the last few days for a good reason. We have been running around here the last few days trying to spruce the place up for some very important people to come and visit! On Saturday, Great Grandma and Grandpa McGarry came with Don and Lola to visit our house for the first time! All the way from North Dakota! We enjoyed their visit very much. We didn't take any pictures (not sure why?), but we had a great time seeing everyone. Then, we went with everyone to have lunch with cousin (not really my cousin, but we'll call here that because it is less complicated) Jaime at her house! We have been living in the same town as Jaime for almost 5 years now and haven't ever gotten together. We had wonderful raviolis with everyone for lunch. It was great to see everyone together and visit!

Saturday afternoon, we were joined by Mr Kaushik to assist John with moving our monumental pile of drywall from the garage to the basement in prepration for the visit of the Grandparents McGarry. They carried lots and lots of drywall. Mr Kaushik arrived at 4pm and didn't leave until almost 9pm. That was a LOT of drywall! THANK YOU for your help!!! I think we would still be moving drywall if it wasn't for his help.

The finished piles of drywall. There are piles behind them, in front of them and some behind the other piles as well!

While John was moving drywall, I fed William his last step one vegetable :green beans. After our last doctor appointment, I got the feeling we needed to step up the introduction of our veggies to move on the fruits. I was dreading the reaction to green beans after our experience with peas. All my worry was for nothing! William ate them up without even making a face! The pictures didn't turn out so great because I was trying to feed him AND take the pictures at the same time. Baby food and cameras are not a good combination, so I had to be careful with the camera and careful to hit his mouth! I sure am a talented woman! Next week we can finally start introducing some fruits - should be exciting (oh NO! I can't believe I just wrote that. Look at what our lives have become...the main event we are looking forward to next week is watching our son experience his first taste of a mashed up, strained banana. We wouldn't have it any other way - and I really am excited!)

Before: All clean and impatiently waiting


The green beans

One of the first bites

Q: Green bean reaction or camera reaction? A: Camera


After cereal, green beans and sweet potatoes. I had the sweet potatoes waiting in the wings in case we had a horrible green beans reaction.

And we continue on! Saturday night, the Grandparents McGarry arrived for a visit. They came mostly to see William and also to help us hang the 48979754654654651 pieces of drywall in our basement. Oh yeah, and to see us (the parents also). We played a cutthroat game of Phase 10 upon their arrival and admired the piles of drywall in the basement. Today, we spent the day drywalling (is that a verb? Someone help me!) in the basement. John and Grandpa Kevin did most of the physical work and Grandma watched William and helped out too. I mostly got in the way and stubbed my toes. Here are some early pictures of the progress we made today.

The first sheet of drywall

Mudd supervises the measuring and cutting of the drywall

Grandma Kim feeds William his morning cereal (and sweet potatoes). Yes, he is also playing with a can of Diet Coke. Don't ask, it's a long, boring story.


More drywall being hung



Grandpa and Grandma also brought William a SANDBOX! from Aunt Kaye! How fun!

William, AKA "Wild Bill", hangs out with Grandpa Kevin before dinner tonight. Wild Bill loves his grandpa (and grandma), especially his glasses! Can you believe we went out for dinner and they are back in the basement working again?

Happy Half Birthday!

Dear William,

It is hard to believe you have been here with us for half of a year. You have gone from being a helpless baby who could barely lift its head up to a fearless crawler. You needed help to do everything when you first came home - you still need help, but you are learning how to get around and entertain yourself. You have grown a lot in six months. You came into this world at 8 pounds 4 ounces and today you were almost 21 pounds. When you were born, you measured 21 inches long and now you are 28.5 inches long. We can't believe how many clothes you have outgrown. The clothes marked "6 Months" have been packed away for a long time. You are now wearing clothes marked for 12-18 Months. When you were tiny, you could only drink milk. Now you are eating cereal and lots of different kinds of vegetables. We'll see if you still like those in another few years.

Every day you practice and get stronger (and more determined to get what you want). We are so proud of all the new things you are learning. In the last week you decided you are very strong. You have just started pulling yourself up from your tummy onto things around the house. You are starting to crawl with your belly off of the ground - it is only a few steps before you get tired and go back to belly crawling, but it is amazing to see the progress you are making. We tried to take some pictures of you today and it was hard work. Most of the pictures are of you crawling out of the frame and investigating the world around you.

You are teaching us things too. One of the things we are learning is how to keep the multicolored baby food out of your nose. You are learning to eat the food, we are learning to feed it to you. As you have become stronger and faster, we are learning about keeping you safe from yourself. You think you can fly or at least bounce off of every surface. This last week, you learned that you have private parts during a VERY poopy diaper. We have learned that it is a good idea to keep the hands out of the way when there is poop involved.

You have made so many changes in our lives. You have given us new names : Mama and Dada (although you haven't used them out loud) and we are working hard to fill those shoes for you. Your giggles are infectious and make us laugh too. Your singing wakes us up in the morning - I can't remember the last time you woke up crying. We still are working on how to eat together as a family without plates flying off the table and how to get things done around the house. Every day is a new opportunity to learn together.

We both still have a lot to learn. We are hoping if we wrote something down today, we would be able to remember how precious you are today. Exactly as you are today. Here are some of the pictures we took together today. You weren't very cooperative, but you still make our hearts melt.

Happy 6 Months! We love you,

Mom and Dad