The adventures of a Thirteen Month old Boy

So, it was my birthday on Tuesday. John baked my very favorite cake:

We went out to dinner and everyone was well behaved. It was a good night. We came back from dinner and had cake after William went to bed. All in all it was a nice day with lots of well wishes arriving over the phone and in the mail.


Here is a picture of us last year and a comparison from this year. Last year: tired and sore. This year: still tired after chasing a little boy all day and sore from a 3 mile run this afternoon. But happy. Very happy.

One month old baby Thirteen month old baby

Although this looks like a cute picture, he is trying pretty hard to get away. There is work to be done.

Smile!

Babbling away. I'm working hard this week to get recordings of him saying some of his words. Maybe John will have time to help me post them this weekend. And maybe the birthday party video? We'll see what we can do.

Our climbing adventures continue. William figured out how to get on his push toy to ride it and how to push it forwards/backwards with his feet yesterday. However, he is not so good at figured out how to lift his leg over the body of the toy to end up facing the steering wheel. Wouldn't be such a big deal except he is MAD about not being able to reach the buttons that make noise when he is facing backwards. See above: Happy! I figured out how to climb on this thing! A short moment later he lost it because he couldn't reach the buttons that play music. I am absolutely certain I took several pictures of him riding the toy the correct direction, but can't seem to find them in the 56768765416576876854653 pictures we have of our kid on this computer. Seriously.


I am pleased to report that we have also conquered the scaling of the Coffee Table in the living room. I'm taking the next few days to see if we can't get this out of his system before I go ahead and remove this piece of furniture from the living room.

Here we go climbing again wearing one of my favorite shirts. More pictures of that will be below. Every time he manages to pull himself up onto either the couch or the coffee table, he spends a full ten seconds just like this. Resting from the extreme effort of pulling his entire weight up and over his cute round tummy to the top of whatever mountain he is climbing.


And...the new shirt. Mr. Mischief indeed. Do you remember those books from when you were little? I do...and this shirt totally fits us. John (who is a freak) claims he doesn't remember these books at all from his childhood. Someone better call, email or comment to let me know I'm not the only one who remembers these characters.

Mr. Mischief doing what he does best...

Looking for more trouble

More Mischief to be had over here...


This looks like something interesting (PS this is the assigned "camera" booger sucker, not "kid" assigned. I guess if you want to know more about why our camera has boogers you should ask John.)

Even Mischief makers need to take a break to rest...and plan.


If you asked me this week what William's favorite toy is, I would have to tell you the 5 pound bag of potatoes in our pantry. Even though he is not at all interested in eating them in any form (fried, baked, mashed, etc), he still loves his potatoes. He loves to tote them around one by one (shown above) or by the whole bag full. Earlier this week we had to hurry up and eat some potatoes because the bag was too heavy for him and he was quite upset about not being able to lift it by himself. He hides them in various places and rolls them around on the ground. Luckily, they are a pretty sturdy type food (as opposed to an egg) so I try to let him explore and play. However, it is a fear of mine that one will roll under the couch/steps/desk/furniture and we will not realize it until it starts to smell. Ewww.


Here, he has taken them all out of their bag and put them on a different shelf in the pantry. After this activity, he selected two of them to run around the house with.


Moving the potatoes around. And it appears that he is singing to them as well.


Running with Potatoes...harder than it looks


Smiling, happy, potato boy.

Happy Birthday to Me

A Weekend of Firsts

Here is a picture of what we learned yesterday:

Can you figure out what it is?

Give up? William learned to climb up on the couch by himself! I'm not sure how excited the adults in the house are about this development, but he sure thinks he is hot stuff.

This one is a tough one! Here is what we learned today:

I found him like this when I got him up from his (no sleeping occurred as he was so busy) nap.

Did you figure it out? He can take his own pants off! Again, I'm not sure how excited I am about this new skill, but he sure thinks he is hot stuff. Another new skill is demonstrated in the above picture: lifting his foot off the ground while sitting. He thinks it is very funny to plunk it back down on the ground loudly and say "Boom!"

William and Daddy

We've noticed a lot more mimicking recently and whatever reverse mimicking is called. In this picture, he is hoping to make John open his mouth so he can poke around in there. So, William opens his mouth nice and wide so John will get the hint. You can see John loves this special game.

Right before I took this picture, they were playing the "Stick out your tongue" game with each other. Very cute.

William's version of the victory dance on the successful summit of Mt Couch. Enough to make your heart stop. Please note: I was standing just outside of the frame of the picture and grabbed him as soon as the picture was taken. I'm going to have my hands full this week I think.

Such a ham! Tada! I did it!

What has been going on?

Yesterday there was a lunar eclipse. I wasn't feeling super great (thanks William) so I missed the details. Something about last eclipse...northern hemisphere....2010. Ask John if you're still interested.

Turns out it is actually more exciting to watch lunar eclipses on TV because of the speeding up time capabilities. I went out for a few minutes last night (clutching my gut) to admire the view. John was the photographer while I lay on the couch trying to summon up the energy to move to the bedroom.

Tonight I was feeling better, so I resumed my photographer role. The cabinet doors are complete (as is the crown molding)! The installation of the doors required the mallet hammer held here by Daddy's favorite assistant.

Hey! I want to HIT something with this besides my foot! I was impressed that he didn't have any trouble holding it. In this picture he had just finished swinging it and was reaching down to pick it back up again.

"Here! Let me help you with that one!" William and I finally had to go to another room and shut the door for John to get any work done. This boy is adamant about being in the middle of EVERYTHING.

The finished result! I think the doors look great! Great job John!

Cutting of the Curls

The curls have been cut. My heart has been broken. We took William to the Hairy Elephant today for his first haircut. He got to sit in a chair shaped like a Jeep while the stylist cut his hair. John came with to document the event so I could carefully study the haircutting process. It is possible I will attempt to cut his hair myself at some point in time. It is also possible I will never cut his hair again. Don't be fooled by the pictures of my outer calmness. I was holding it together for the baby.

A before picture

The cutting of the hairs

After the haircut: where is my baby? Who is this big boy?

More after pictures

Our first haircut certificate with the lock of hair and picture included.


I'm so sad. Off to cry...

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!