The Missouri Birthday

After our 1st birthday party in Minnesota, I was tired. We came home and had a lot of running around to do. Originally, I promised some friends that we would have 2 parties:1 in Minnesota and 1 in Missouri. That way everyone would be happy. However, after the first party, I just got tired thinking about a second party. It would require I clean our house and figure out invitations, etc. So, I kept hoping it would go away. There was a little bit of nagging guilt, but all in all, I was happy to forget my promises. Last weekend, we spent a lot of time with my coworkers. They reminded me about that party and I agreed that we could celebrate the following Sunday. That would be today. After a week of running around and furiously trying to clean our house and dealing with a kid with literally the runs, I am above exhausted. But, we had a great time.

First up: The Health.
-William's personality slowly returned at the end of the week. Thursday I kept getting glimpses of a happy boy before the crab would return. By Saturday the flow of poop had slowed and the flow of smiles was back on track. He has returned to his regularly scheduled naps and the TV is off again during the day as we don't need it to distract him. He developed a little runny nose this morning that I am hoping goes away quickly and quietly.

Second Item: The House
- It is possible the house has not ever been so clean. With a few exceptions, all areas were cleaned, dusted, vacuumed, etc. Including a large part of the basement. Amazing. I almost wanted to take pictures because it looks great. But, it still isn't perfect and I'm sure among you all out there is a better housekeeper than I. You'll just have to use your imagination.

Third Item: The party
-We got a cake, a candle and some refreshments. We sang, ate and had cake. William was on his cell phone for the entire party. Everyone was very understanding about his poor manners. An interesting side note: For the past few weeks, William has been saying the word "ahhh" and "Uummm" very distinctly. I keep waiting to figure out what he is talking about, but it can be like deciphering an unknown language: Swedish? German, perhaps? Today we were all sitting around and visiting when William said it again and some brilliant party guest (no idea who, if you were there, go ahead and take credit) said "That sounds like the end of his name "will-iUM". It sounds like he is saying his name." My goodness other people are brilliant as is my child. Over the next few days we'll be doing some investigating the possibilities. Very exciting stuff over here.

Before guests arrive: wearing the It's Fun to Be One! crown. And he actually left it on! For a long time!

It's Fun to be One....and have a cell phone! Thank goodness we don't have to pay for his minutes!

Unwrapping presents! This BIG one is from Liz, Laura and Jeff. When they brought this gift in and set it down, William walked up to it and touched the picture of the balloon and said "balloon!" I was so impressed! It is kind of a developmental leap to see something real and translate it into a picture (By the way, it does NOT sound like balloon, more like "bah-lo". I just know if means balloon because we've had a balloon around the house for a week and this is what he calls it).


The cake

Singing...William is confused, but still on the phone.

Our family! Turns out I cleaned like crazy, just not our sliding glass door.

Checking out his piece of cake

Look at that bite! A whole fist full of cake.

The final mess. He smelled like cake this evening still after being washed off several times.

We had a wonderful time - Thanks to everyone that came to our party!

Better

Just quick, I think we are on the other side of things. Poop was less, crying much less. Happiness was around in normal quantities for all of us. Life is much more fun with less poop.

Happy Valentine's Day! Warning: Lovliness not Ahead

I think I mentioned before that we were having rough week and we have been. I haven't been posting much because I haven't had anything really worthwhile to say except "Uggh". Poor William has had some poopy times as well. We are currently on day 7 of a viral stomach bug we picked up somewhere. I'll save most of the gory details for another time. Just know that on average I am dealing with 5-10 absolutely disgusting diapers per day. William SCREAMS and fights for his life during these diaper changes and has been very clingy and whiny in between. He isn't sleeping great and wakes up tired and very difficult to comfort, crying for about an hour inconsolably after every nap. For the past 6 days he has cried an average of about 6 hours a day total (previous crying= less than 30 minutes a day total). Because of the nature of the poo, laundry has become a full time job (use your imagination here). John is working a lot of overtime, which means I'm dealing with stuff mostly on my own during the day. It would be a huge understatement to say it has been a very rough week.

My Valentine's Day started at 5:35 am. William woke up screaming and crying. I left him for awhile to see if he would go back to sleep (he usually does) and I was pretty tired. I finally went to him after about 15 minutes to find he had a poopy diaper that had escaped his diaper, run down his legs and into his socks. Insert huge guilt here. I attempted to comfort him without actually touching him as there was poop everywhere and he smelled...terrible (Megan/Mom - remember that trip with Michael and the poop? It is worse smelling somehow). It became clear that the quickest and easiest way to deal with the mess was to put it all in the tub and try to scrub the human parts clean and leave the rest for later.

On a side note, William has decided he absolutely HATES bath time. He screams and cries the entire time in the tub while attempting all kinds of gymnastic tricks to climb out of the tub. If you aren't in the bathroom area, it seriously sounds like you are torturing him or abusing him in some way. We have tried a lot of things and asked for advice from many professionals (pediatrician, early childhood education specialist, my mother, other moms, etc). The ONLY way we've been able to do a partial bath in the last month is to fill buckets of water next to the tub, fill the tub with toys and let him play in the empty tub while we try to sneakily wash his parts. Unfortunately, there just isn't a way to wash his hair this way without getting water on his body. I haven't blogged much about it because we dread bath nights and keep hoping it will get better.

So, I knew it wasn't going to be popular to put him in the tub. So, at 6 am the crying/screaming turned into all out terrorized screaming. I did it as quickly as I could and scooped him out, leaving the bathroom smelling ...well, bad. [insert bad chocolate/valentine's joke here - I've been trying to come up with one all day with no success] We got dressed in new jamies and watched some Elmo and Sesame Street together.

The rest of the day was more of the same: pooping and cleaning up the poop and comforting a baby in between. Midday we took a trip to the doctor's office because of yet another yucky diaper with an interesting color:red. A gift for Valentine's day perhaps? The doctor confirmed it wasn't blood and sent a "sample" to a lab to be tested for something. The doctor also confirmed William appears to have a virus that should run its course within 7-10 days. ?!?!!WHAT?!?!?!?!?! I was not happy to hear there could 2-5 more days of this ahead.

Our valentine: Holding still and watching TV.

Distracted by the heart

Although I did a lot of grumbling about wanting a nap, I managed to pull off some chocolate covered strawberries.

Showing off his kicking. Video coming soon (John)

More kicking

William's dinner: alphabet soup

Daddy made us fondue! Our valentine's day tradition continues! It was very very very good!

Yet another skill to add to our repitoire! Climbing! Here he is standing on the hot chocolate mix to gain easier access to the cans on the second shelf. I guess it was my mistake for pushing them further back on the shelf after he dropped one on his foot. After I put the H.C. mix up higher, I caught him pulling the cooler out and standing on it. The gate at the top of the stairs was also climbed upon today. How long do you think we have before he attempts the crib?

PS It was kind of a crappy (literally) day for me, but John and I enjoyed our fondue and strawberries very much. We also both enjoyed some WINE as William hasn't nursed for 3 whole days now!

Polar Bear Plunge

Sorry this has taken so long to post. We've had a rough week. I'm not really sure what is wrong. William is just...unhappy. A lot unhappy. We're working on it and today we saw some improvement for the first time in a week. No worries, no fever, nothing else. Just a LOT of crabby.

On Saturday we went to see Jeff jump in the lake for the Polar Bear Plunge at Lake St Louis. It was a very nice day outside (58 degrees) although a little windy. Before we get to the pictures, I have to add the William did a great job! It was windy, loud and a LOT of kind of crazy people running around in a small area. John and I were on camera duty, so we had some help corralling him with. Turns out we didn't really need it as he was so overwhelmed by the noise, wind and crowd of people all he could do was stare. But, it was nice to know where he was.

Freezin' for a Reason!


Fire Rescue on call in case of emergency


Divers ready for an emergency. I thought this was a little crazy until I saw a woman run into the lake wearing a wedding dress with a train. She had a little trouble getting back out after the dress was all wet. So, I guess I can see why they are there.


Jeff, Mary and Steve waiting for the plunge to start

As part of the "Teachers Gone Wild" team, both Mary and Jeff jumped in with their WMS T Shirts on.


Jeff & Mary wore their WMS T Shirts as their costume. Some other groups went all out. Here is my favorite group: the Smurfs! From L-R: Handy, Hefty, Sleepy, and Cookie (? the chef guy?) Smurf

More smurfs! Smurfs rally: Gargamel, Smurfette, Papa Smurf

The pirates


Fred and Barney

Teachers Gone WILD! Getting ready to jump in!


The jump

Running out of the lake...


Last one out is: Jeff!

Hurry up!


All done! (or A' Da according to William)

Where does this one go in the baby book?

While I was vacuuming today, I looked over a saw William bump his blue ball with his foot. He giggled and then walked over and did it again. And again and again. I was so excited, I took some video, but you'll have to wait to see it until John it done with it (along with the birthday party pictures). By this evening, he was saying "Kick" (or the equivalent in baby gibberish) every time he did it. It appears he may have some athletic capability after all.


PS We had some one year pictures taken this week. Click here to see the proofs.

Polar Bear Plunge - Please Help "Uncle" Jeff!

We have this great, crazy friend named Jeff. He was wonderful (or crazy maybe?) enough to agree to go backpacking in the wilderness of Michigan away from all civilization with us when I was 3 months pregnant. Seriously, who agrees to that? I'm not even exaggerating either. There was probably two places on the island we camped on that had telephones and they were miles away from where we planned on being. And who has already agreed it would be awesome to spend his spring break backpacking with us again with a ONE year old baby (currently the backpacking trip is not working out, but hey! He still agreed to it). Crazy? We think so, but he has made a goal for himself. Jeff wants to raise $1000 for the Special Olympics by participating in the Polar Bear Plunge next weekend. We've decided to track his progress with the ticker in the top right side of the page. Please don't feel obligated to donate, we are just so proud of him and his goal! Although, it is a great cause and if you are feeling generous, by all means, help the guy out! We (the Heidt's) have agreed to be Jeff's official Photographer for the event next Saturday. We can't wait!

Jeff, Kelly (and William) sitting next to Lake Superior, watching the sun go down.

Jeff will even sit with us when John is wearing his camping hat...

Sorry, you'll have to turn your head for this one. Jeff didn't want me to carry the heavy stuff because of my "delicate condition". You can see here his pack weighed in at about 75 pounds. Mine = 45 pounds. John's = 65 pounds.


John and Jeff purifying water at Lane's Cove.


Jeff and John at sunset at Lane's Cove.


Jeff is a very clean person. Here he is cleaning out his tent.


Jeff holding William at 2 days old.

Jeff has also kept at us to keep on with one of our favorite pastimes: hiking. It is a lot more work with a baby, but it is still something we enjoy. Jeff keeps on calling us and inviting us to go out with them into the woods and we keep on saying yes. Enough mush. We sure do like Jeff...

And Today,

And the weather today? It snowed of course.