What I miss

Our baby is only 7 months old and there are things I already miss about when he was a new baby. He isn't even grown up yet and I find myself yearning for the days when he was smaller. Here are the things I miss:

1. Snuggle time in the morning. Some days we would spend close to an hour laying in bed and staring at each other and giggling. Or one of us would shut their eyes for a few moments while the other happily chewed on his hand. Or urped on his daddy's pillow. We still spend a few minutes snuggling in bed, but it sure is different. Now: If one hand isn't down the back of his diaper to anchor him to the bed, he is falling off the bed. He crawls up and over, down and around. He pulls himself up on the headboard and chews on it. He attempts to pull down the Egyptian blanket hanging over the bed. He drools on the sheets and whacks me in the face when I try to snuggle him closer (and giggles while doing it). He pulls himself up on my hips and then bites me. And he urps on his daddy's pillow (shh...don't tell John)

2. Feeding time. Now he has teeth. Then, he didn't. Enough said.

3. Kisses. William started giving kisses when he was about 4 months old. They were few and far between, but very sweet. They are more frequent now, but again those teeth make us brace ourselves for the worst every time he leans in close for a smooch.

4. Entertainment. Before, William was content to look at our faces or kick and wave his arms at toys suspended above him. I could go to the bathroom and come back and find him in the same place. Or take him in the bathroom with me and know exactly where he would be when I got out of the shower. Now, it is anyones guess. I sprint through getting dressed everyday (what? get up earlier? No way!) and pray he doesn't pull up on the toilet or tip over the trash can and try to eat the contents before I can find my way back to him. Makes normal things like going to the bathroom and eating a little lunch seem like the 50 yard dash.


Things I am loving about right now:
1. William is always happy to see me. But, now he has the mobility to get to me. It is so sweet to watch him chugging across the floor giggling (good heavens, when is he NOT giggling?) towards me to be picked up. And how can you not love the pudgy arms waving over his head indicating he wants to be picked up?

2. I can see how proud he is of himself. Early on, things happened by accident to William. One day he was minding his own business, looking at toys when all of a sudden he had rolled over to his back. Now, when he pulls up, crawls, or does something for the first time on purpose, I can see the pride on his face. There is nothing like it.

3. We are finally reading books to someone besides ourselves! We wanted to include reading into our bedtime routine with William. We have been reading a few books every night for several months. Just in the last few weeks, he has started actually watching and listening during story time. So sweet as he intently looks at the pictures and sighs when the story is over.


4. Eating. I am finally not the sole source of William's nutrition. This is sad occasion as well as a relief off my shoulders. Sad because he isn't a baby anymore and a relief that my body is almost entirely mine again after more than a year of pregnancy and food production. Nothing is cuter than his baby bird like open mouth waiting for another bite. Or how he bangs on his tray and shouts when I'm not scooping it in fast enough.

Pictures Catch Up

Well, I owe you some pictures from this weekend and of some other stuff. Earlier in August, my parents, grandparents and aunt/uncle all met up in Chicago to go to a Cubs game (that's baseball for all of you who didn't know). TA is a huge (HUGE) Cubs fan. He grew up in southern Illinois and remembers going to Cubs games with his family. The last time he attended a Cubs game was in 1934! It was really something special for him to go back with everyone. Here is a picture of them in Chicago at the game. Go Cubs!

Picture is titled by my dad "5 Cubs Shirts". I notice it isn't called "5 Cubs Fans"....


Lakeside Trail hike on Sunday morning

Lovely lake view on Sunday morning hike

Big bird (what kind? I don't know) in our backyard!


Here is what John did on Monday

John's project on Monday

What I did on Monday. I have to admit, my project sure is prettier. It is ribbons tied to a box for William to play with to work on his fine motor skills. His interest: zero.

My other project on Monday: emptying the bottom 2 shelves of all of our bookshelves.

P.S.What? You wanted pictures of the baby? Sorry! Try again tomorrow!

A Labor of Love

Happy Labor day! We have had a very nice weekend just hanging around the house with the exception of today.

Today really felt like a work day, even with John home. William woke up early crying and when I went to pick him up, he was HOT. We scrambled around trying to take his temperature (YOU try to get a temperature on a wiggly boy when the thermometer takes just over a minute) and get him to nurse. Our best guess is that his temperature was between 101-103 degrees. Too hot with everything else going on. I've been keeping a closer eye than usual on his as he just hasn't been himself for the last 3-4 days. He is more irritable about everything. Sleeping, baths, dressing, and diaper changes are now all a supreme effort. Eating in particular has become harder and harder with him refusing to open his mouth and alternately crying through entire feedings for the last few days. But without more to go on, we weren't running off to the doctor's office quite yet. Today was just the topper to a long week which brought us to standing outside the urgent care door this morning before they opened. The verdict: hard to say. His fever was much lower and there wasn't any sign of ear infection or other sickness. The doctor told us to push the fluids (tell me, how do I do that with a kid who cries at the sight of his cup and isn't all the interested in nursing?) and bring him back if the fever gets higher or something else pops up. William continued to be very crabby for the rest of today, hovering over the all out melt down mood. And still refusing almost all solids. Kind of put the kink in my plans to maybe attend an air show, take a family walk or pull out his swimming pool. Although I'm sure I will feel sorry for him later, I'm just glad he is sleeping for right now. It has been a very long day.

Luckily, we had a very enjoyable holiday weekend otherwise. Saturday we ran a few errands and John started working on a bookshelf/cabinet thing for the TV alcove upstairs. On Sunday, we got up and hiked at Cuivre River State park with Liz and Jeff. It was a gorgeous day and great company! William snoozed and looked around from his backpack perch for most of the hike. Unfortunately it was enough of a nap that he was not at all interested in napping when we came home and he really needed to. In the evening we were invited to Margarita Fest 2007 at my coworkers house. It was really nice to see everyone again AND we came home with 2 new pairs of shoes for William. Mary has the BEST party favors! The highlight of the evening was when William was getting sleepy, we handed him off to Jeff. William leaned into Jeff's chest, sighed and then snuggled closer. His eyelids drooped. We all smiled....and then Jeff screeched (screamed? yelled? he made a whole lot of noise anyway). At first he thought that he had been stung by some sort of wasp/bee/insect and then discovered that it was William giving him a little bite! William was quite upset and startled by all the noise, never mind that he started it!

I'll upload some pictures from our hiking adventure tomorrow. I'm off to bed - it has been a long day!

Happy Birthday to YOU!

William got down into almost his birthday suit tonight to wish a few people a happy birthday: Grandpa Heidt and Uncle Joe! We hope you both had great days!

PS Okay, okay...I didn't take his clothes off for the picture. I was just too lazy to put clothes back on him for the 12345687th time today.

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Parents as Teachers visit today went well. Our teacher was impressed that William crawled on over to her bucket of toys and then pulled himself up. And then let go for a few seconds (our little daredevil!). As expected, he is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay ahead on his gross motor skills and on track with everything else. She gave us some great suggestions to help us work with him on his fine motor skills and his babbling. She stressed he is NOT behind in these areas - he is just choosing to focus his time and energy on the gross motor stuff. Even if we try to work with him on some fine motor stuff, she predicts he will not be super interested and will attempt to go back to working on his walking skills. We'll see.

Late breaking news is I bought several bananas at the grocery store today to start William on. I mashed one up for him this afternoon. He wasn't crazy about it at first. We tried it again later in the day and he gobbled it right up. I'm wondering if the mashed fruit softened as the day went on and made it easier to eat? We'll have to try it again sometime soon!

Everybody now: " HAM ON A BUN!"

That's right! Sing it to this song! Oh yeah! We started the ham tonight with William. How could we not sing one of Grandpa's favorite songs? Ham on a Bun! It is a little boring, but he did a good job with the ham. No good faces or anything! We also tried a few real green beans on his tray tonight. I was surprised with how well he did. He picked it right up and put it in his mouth. THEN he made a funny face. But, he kept working at it until he finally dropped the bean inside the highchair.

Here we are with some ham...not too sure

Yummy and messy face!

Hey! Do you guys have these things on the side of your head? William has figured out he has EARS! Weeeeee!


Holding onto his green bean

Eating the green bean. His first funny face!

William helping me with laundry

William and Daddy hanging out


Oh! I have permission to post pictures of William's youngest cousins! Aren't they cute?

7 months, 6 teeth

Today, William is 7 months old and we discovered his sixth tooth coming in. No wonder he is such great company. We learned this morning that skipping a nap in order to go to church is probably not a good idea. Will have to come up with a new plan to accomplish this for now as he was exceptionally crabby for the rest of the day. We did our traditional photo shoot with the little stinker this morning. It took 2 of us to get even these medium quality shots. Definately not happy with them, but he would just NOT hold still. That is the name of the game lately. Constant motion. He has been fully crawling with the belly up for about 3 weeks now and is just getting faster and faster. We have master the sit down for the most part and when we are not crawling we are sitting down! Standing up! Sitting down! And trying to stand up while holding the pointiest/largest toy available. Once upright with said toy, we then shake it and shake it some more while laughing like a lunatic. John and I are tired. Tired of running after him (please note: we are not tired OF him, just tired from running after him).

A great place to stand! Hanging onto my ROCKING chair!


Most of the photo shoot, William was doing this: crawling away.

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Other news:

On Thursday I dragged the leaky pool out for a dip as it was nice and cool out for us (only 92 degrees! Almost jacket weather!). William was working hard on that new tooth and didn't really seem to notice he was in the water. Oh well. He was darn cute!

This is my teething look. Bottom lip sucked in. One hundred percent accurate as to predicting a new tooth so far.

Bathing beauty. In an effort to "help" him enjoy swimming, I put him on his back. Still chewing.

On Friday, we introduced beef. William ate it up, even though smelled horrible (yuck).

After beef. Also ate sweet potatoes. Honest, they aren't all on his face!

Finally, Saturday we made some important discoveries when we tried to eat out at our favorite restaurant. William WILL still take a bottle. William LOVES bread from the steakhouse. And, William does like to socialize (aka: Stare) at the people around him for extended periods of time. Stay tuned! Up next: Turkey!

Chicken Little

Several orders of business to take care of tonight. First, the things that were Ooooo-worthy today. Pulling my shirt top down in public, reading/ripping a magazine I haven't read, opening a cabinet door by himself and leaning into the air coming out of the air conditioning vent. I'm not sure what the criteria is for an Ooooooo, but I am sure enjoying how cute they are!

After Oooo-ing when the cabinet was opened, William enjoyed emptying the cabinet and "skating"around the kitchen floor with my cake pans.

Tonight, we introduced chicken. William ate it even though it smelled horrible. I was so proud!

Yummy Chicken!


We've also started these toast stick things. I think William likes them, but they are REALLY messy. He has only had this one in his hand for 5 seconds!


Is the face due to the chicken? I don't think so...

I love how the cereal provide the perfect glue to adhere crumbs to his face until he is 40....

Last item on my list. A friend of mine has e mailed me to let me know that as a twin, she HATED being referred to as "The Twins". As if she wasn't a whole person/individual on her own. After looking into the matter further by reading material for parents with multiples, I have found she is correct. Parents of multiples /multiples themselves do NOT like being called "The [insert multipleness]". My ignorance= blog foot in mouth. My apologies. From here on out, I will not refer to any child based upon their multipleness first. I will strive to make them their own individual. Thank you E. for making me aware of my mistake. Let us hope others can learn from me! (or at least laugh at my lack of knowledge).