46 Weeks

What! 46 weeks! It’s true, my little man is 46 weeks old. Sigh.

Sorry this is a late post, but it’s been a busy week around here. Today I turned in my final paper for my summer class, thus wrapping up my VERY FIRST GRADUATE LEVEL CLASS EVER. (A round of applause would not be terribly out of place here.) Mitchell is cutting another tooth (I think, or I hope, otherwise I might have to face the hard truth that my son is not perfect and has bad/fussy days), so writing the paper has been taking up quite a lot of time. I’ve also been experimenting with designing t-shirts for him in my other spare time (read: 11:00 pm)….so yeah. The blog has taken a backstage for now. Sorry, all.

Notice the new design? With Mitchell’s first birthday quickly approaching, I figured he was getting a bit old for the other one. Speaking of birthday, notice the new tab up top: Birthday Party Details! Invitations should be arriving via snail mail shortly.

So, what’s going on with Mitchell this week? LOTS. I already mentioned the teething. That’s pretty prevalent (parents, you know what I’m talking about). He’s also obsessed with putting things back this week. Like, putting the rings back on the pole or whatever it is, putting blocks back,  putting cups back together, putting the balls back in the basket, etc. This is a habit I am totally encouraging. I clap and say “hooray!” every time. Mitchell looks at me like I’m crazy. Know what habit I’m still NOT encouraging? Walking. He’s getting to be quite the pro at standing by himself. It doesn’t even phase him anymore. He used to notice he was standing by himself and slowly lower himself to the floor, but now he’s just like, “Whatever, I got this.” He only needs to hold on with one hand to walk, even when that one hand is connected to Kingsley’s tail and Kingsley is specifically trying to maneuver himself away from Mitchell. Which is HILARIOUS, by the way. I keep trying to get a video, but it happens too fast.

Oh yeah. Balls. We are a house overrun by balls right now, and I don’t mean testosterone, I mean toy balls. They happen to be Mitchell’s favorite, and I haven’t gained any semblance of self-control yet, so he has a ton of them. I found a daycare going out of business and bought a bunch of ball pit balls from them, then found more at a garage sale (the lady was VERY happy to get rid of them…literally shoved them into my arms). Anyway, Mitchell’s thrilled with them. I have them in a laundry basket, so at various points throughout the day he just goes and tips the basket over and finds the purple or green ones, I’m guessing because there are only a few of them in there. Then he carries them around to see what they’ll fit into. He tries stacking them on the ring stacker, putting them in the cars, with the blocks, in his nesting cups, etc. It’s hilarious.

SO MANY PICTURES this week. We went to the zoo, and whenever I give Justin the camera, he just sets it to take a burst of pictures, so instead of one snapshot I get 40. Then I have to try to whittle them down, but I can’t just destroy the ones that don’t get picked! We must’ve picked the absolutely best time to go to the zoo, though, because all of the animals were so close! I’ve never been so close to the hippo. I could hear her breathing. In her defense, it turns out those were exasperated sighs, because her son is “becoming a man” according to the zookeeper and so they’ve been separated. Awkward! I did learn that the last three hippos at the Topeka zoo have been conceived while the mother was on birth control. Just a handy piece of trivia for you. Moral of the story: hippo birth control isn’t very effective.

Also, Mitchell’s still obsessed with selfies, so there are plenty of those. If I’m good and sneaky, I can get one picture of him before he sees the camera and runs for it.

So much noise!

So it begins…

My son is weird

My son is a very odd child. During snack time today, both dogs got locked up because they were pushing him around the room in his high chair in their excitement to get fed. Well, even without the dogs, he decided that the floor was the best spot for his pieces of bread. So I let him down and put the high chair tray on the floor so I could have somewhere to put the pieces of bread. Mitchell took the tray, flipped it over, and proceeded to put all the pieces of bread on the upside down tray, dividing them almost equally between the two halves, and very intentionally so. He then began eating them from the tray.

I’ve seen those little mats you can buy to put under the high chair, but honestly, the distance he gets makes me think those mats would be useless. Needless to say, we don’t need one if those mats anyway, because food rarely even hits the ground in our house (cue Twister quote: “It never hit the ground!”) thanks to two starving dogs.

45 Weeks

Little Mister is 45 weeks old!

Unfortunately, he’s also teething very badly right now, so he’s an unhappy 45 weeks old. This was the best picture I could get. He kept wanting to play with the closet door handle behind him. I remember many, many people telling me that the first teeth were the worst and all the others were small potatoes in comparison. They lied. They lied a lot. These teeth are awful. Just so awful.

Mitchell is learning about blocks this week. I read something about how great blocks were for development, so I got out his blocks and he’s been playing with them a lot. It’s amazing watching him learn. He’s been figuring out which blocks stack, then which blocks can go in the cups, and which cups nest together, etc. Seriously amazing watching him learn. Of course, the minute the camera comes out, he just wants to take selfies, so it’s hard to get on camera, but I tried.

Oh yeah. My kid already likes to take selfies. He’s figured out that immediately after the camera snaps, the image pops up on the camera, and he LOVES it. He sits there staring at the camera until it snaps, then wants to see the image right away and he just giggles looking at it. I’m really wondering, with all the digital cameras and phones and such, are we going to have a seriously narcissistic generation on our hands? They’re going to grow up with thousands of pictures taken of them of every mundane thing possible, so are pictures even going to be special to them? The thoughts that keep me entertained throughout the day…

He’s developing his facial expressions more, and it’s funny when I recognize them. He has a little half-smile smirk that’s just adorable. He wears it almost constantly. He also has a little “I did something wrong to get attention and I know it but you’re here so why don’t you just give me attention anyway” smile that probably comes DIRECTLY from his aunt Kelsey. The attitude behind it certainly does, anyway. He pulls it out quite often lately, too. It’s proven impossible to get on camera just yet, though, so I’ll just describe it: his usual smile is very wide-mouthed, but this smile is teeth bared, nose and eyes scrunched up. It also closely resembles his Aunt Teri’s trademarked Bitter Beer Face from when she was a baby (don’t worry, she wasn’t actually scrunching up from beer, it was an ad campaign from I think Coors that she just happened to copy).

I’m working on first birthday party plans. It’s time consuming because I can only work on it for a few minutes before I start having a panic attack at the thought of him turning a whole year old. Then I have to stop, go cradle him like a little baby until he gets mad (I can already hear it: “Gah, Mom, get off! I’m trying to play!”), look at some baby pictures, and then I can sometimes go back to work on it. But don’t worry, the party is going to be legen – wait for it – DARY. As legendary as a one year old’s party can be, anyway.

So many pictures! So many selfies! And showing how he helps Mommy vacuum. Every. Single. Time. He has to push the canister part around for me. Even if I want to go one way and he wants to go a different way. It’s best to let him lead, though, because otherwise he turns the vacuum off, like “Oh yeah? If we don’t do it my way, WE DON’T DO IT AT ALL.” Have I mentioned he’s opinionated? He isn’t a Taurus, but I think he may have inherited my stubbornness.

Just Chillin’

Mitchell and I are spending the morning outside, just chillin’, waiting for the trash truck because it’s his favorite thing in the world.

Thank goodness for storm clouds making it tolerable outside!

Mitchell and the Carousel

I know it’s a terrible picture, but I didn’t exactly feel comfortable letting go of Mitchell to take a picture.

He loved it. He was so intent on watching everyone around him that I couldn’t tell at first if he liked it. His temper tantrum at being removed answered that question, though. Good thing that’s where his first birthday party will be held! He can ride it all he wants!

Kingsley’s Life Just Improved 145644%

44 Weeks

Hello, 44!

Holy cow. This is the last time Mitchell will be photographed with two of the same numbers. The next time it happens he’ll be over a year, and, c’mon, I have to stop some time. I feel like a picture of him with “532” in front of him might qualify me for the Overdone Award or something.

This post is fairly tardy, but this last week has been ridiculously busy. I’ve mostly been occupied with scratching. Everywhere. Because, true to form, this poison ivy spread all over. By Monday, when it was completely covering the majority of my chest, halfway down my stomach, patches on both arms, both legs, and spreading to my neck, I threw up the white flag and called the doctor. A few days of prednisone later and I’m feeling much better.

Mitchell and I went to story time at the library today. He didn’t enjoy the story so much because he had to sit still, but at the end when she dumped out that bucket of toys and he was allowed to run around with the big kids was, in his mind, THE BEST THING EVER. Hopefully after a few times of going, he’ll get the hang of sitting still for the story and songs.

He’s working on waving and clapping more. He CAN do them, he just DOESN’T do them on command. As with everything, he does them on his own terms. He did wave goodbye to the other babies, though, so I guess that’s a good sign.

A friend of mine is currently in the hospital in labor, and I had to face a very harsh reality: I’ve become one of those intrusive mothers. I remember when I was at the end of pregnancy with Mitchell, strangers in the store would ask me if I was dilated or effaced or something and I was just in shock. I’d cross my legs as if to protect my womb from their uncomfortable questions (partly because the answer always was, “No, nothing,” and I felt like a failure for not being able to provide an easy escape for my child). But this morning, bright and early, I found myself asking my friend via text if they’d given her the medicine to soften her cervix. As soon as I hit send, I wished for the unsend button. Alas, none exists, and I’m sure she laid in her hospital bed for a few minutes thinking, “Excuse me? The state of my cervix is between me and my doctor.” What is it about us women that makes us think that just because we’ve gone through the process, we need to know EVERY detail of another woman’s process? Are we subconsciously comparing ourselves? I don’t know. I just know that I really do need to duct tape my mouth shut while speaking to pregnant friends, because nobody needs to share those intimate details with me, and I’m sure it sounds very creepy when I ask.

So, uncreeping myself, here are pictures! Not a lot this week. He’s started running toward the camera when he sees it come out, so most pictures end up being a blurry outstretched hand with a big, drooly, smiling face behind.

10 Months

Baby Boy is TEN WHOLE MONTHS. DOUBLE DIGITS. I can’t handle it, so I’m not thinking about it.

 

He took his first totally intentional steps today. Up until now, he’s been just taking a step here or there without noticing it, but as soon as he notices he sits back down. But this time he was standing against me and totally stepped off and took three steps without falling. Then tried again. I think I’m going to have to resort to pushing him down pretty soon.

Aunt T is here for the weekend, so spoiling will surely begin soon. Because I’m going with he isn’t spoiled now.

He’s been making a hilarious face when the camera comes out. He throws his head back and laughs really hard. Except it kind of looks like he’s bracing himself for something.