A very hot, tired little dragon.

Happy to get out of the stroller and sit on the ground for a minute, but wishing he was home in his bed.

Look! I had a spirit on me. Can you photoshop spirits out of pictures? Because other than that, it's a cute shot of our happy little family.

Taking the opportunity to get a photo with a boy and his gourds.

Andrea, Henry, Paxton, Shannon, Carmen and Harper!

Let Sleeping Dragons Lie

We had such a fun first Halloween with Paxton!

Having him around makes everything more fun. I was never a fan of Halloween before, but now I wish they made it a three-day event. We couldn't fit in everything I wanted to do with him in one day. And then there's the fact that I had three costumes for him and they all deserved equal time. It's just a wonder that I didn't pull a virtual Weekend at Bernie's, dragging around a sleeping baby to the festivities I desperately wanted him to experience, even if he won't remember it in two days' time.

This morning, I took him to the San Marcos library for story time. He donned his spider costume for that, only because it was freaking hot outside and I thought that might be the least likely to cause him to pass out from heatstroke. The woman who does the Friday stories in San Marcos is adorable. She should have her own children's show. She did a great story about a woman who fears nothing being greeted on her path by a series of scary items. The good part about the story was that she acted it out with said items--a pair of shoes "clomp-clomping", a pair of pants "wiggle-wiggling", a hat "nod-nodding", etc. Paxton loved that! Now that he's able to crawl, it takes a pretty entertaining story to keep him glued to his seat. Granted, he only made it about halfway through before he was trying to hit the road, but that's still pretty impressive. His little friends at storytime, Austin and Hank, were dressed as a basketball player (who HATED his sweatbands) and an astronaut (who HATED his g-suit) respectively. I, of course, left my camera in the car, so you'll just have to take my word on how adorable they all were.

I thought we could come home and get a nap in before the night's festivities. I wanted to believe that yesterday's adamant opposition to napping was a fluke. Nope. He's 100% anti-napping. Unless, that is, the lull of the car becomes too much to resist. While driving home, he fell asleep with string cheese in his mouth. It looked like a little cigar. He was O.U.T.! Even cheese couldn't keep him awake. However, before we got home, he was up. It was after 1 already, so I decided to keep him up to eat lunch. That might have been a mistake. He ate, crawled, played and then screamed bloody murder when I put him to bed for a nap. As far as I know, he didn't nap at all. He's sometimes happy just sitting in his crib, talking to himself for a while. I don't go get him until the screaming ensues.

I think we were both exhausted when the evening's festivities rolled around. I got him all dolled up in his dragon costume, and off we went. We met up with my friend, Andrea, and her hubby Alberto, and son Henry just as we arrived on the square and they were leaving. They were so adorable--Andrea dressed as a jailbird, Alberto as a sheriff and Henry as a bag of money! That is some planning! I don't think I've ever been so coordinated in my life. I love it! At the same time, we ran into another mommy friend of mine, Carmen, with her hubby Phil and their son, Harper, who they dressed as Charlie Brown. It was so fun to see everyone!

We walked through the downtown area, where the shops all stayed open late to give candy to trick-or-treating children. When we arrived, we immediately saw The Great Pumpkin, complete with horsedrawn carriage. We missed the opportunity for a photo op, mainly because I was a little shell-shocked at what I was seeing and simply pressed forward. I ran into some friends I've not seen in a while, and relished the chance to show off my little dragon. He was in a zombie state, though. His cheeks were red (probably from the discomfort of being shoved into a giant polyester stuffed animal on an uncommonly hot October evening--damn global warming) and his eyes were glazed from the naps he thought he could skip earlier in the day. Smiling was not high on his list of priorities. He preferred to just stare benignly at the bizarre sights parading before him. A grown man in a diaper and bonnet. A devil who was admiring him in a way that made me uncomfortable. A zillion girls dressed as High School Musical characters. You know, standard Halloween fodder that surely blows a baby's mind.

Rather than taking candy, we gave it out. Chris had a vat of it left over from a work event and neither of us could fit another ounce into our already tight jeans, so we tried to give it away. People are strangely suspicious of a roaming candy dispenser. The only time I had any real luck is when I was talking to my friend Ulee in front of her store, and the kids mistakenly thought I was the shop owner. They weren't shy to help themselves then, thank goodness.

We were going to go to the fire station for another community event after that, but Paxton was exhausted, as were we, so we just made a brief stop at my mom's house to show off her grandson all decked out for the holiday. She swooned, of course. He fell asleep while I nursed him, but when my mom wanted to rock him and sing to him, he was too entertained to go back to sleep. Since he was suddenly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (well, scaly-tailed, since he was in the dragon costume), we got out his favorite "toy" at my mom's house, her bongo drum. He loves drums. And he's a natural. Last week, he would pound on the drum and intermittently make percussion noises with his mouth and hand. It was what we used to refer to as an "Indian" sound, but that is surely a politically incorrect faux pas nowadays. Anyway, he's a musical genius. Of course.

We drove home with him dozing in the carseat. We wanted to drive down the street that we discovered last year is the hub of Halloween in our town. This year did not disappoint. There were hundreds and hundreds of people. The homeowners go all out and it just makes me love my community more and more. I can't wait until Paxton is old enough to enjoy all of these fun experiences!

One last thing--when we were turning onto our street, I saw a sign by the road. I thought, "oooh, garage sale in our neighborhood!", but no, the sign said "Candy" with an arrow pointing ahead. I told Chris that we had to see which house had the sign posted, since our neighborhood is a vertiable ghost town on Halloween, and not in a good way. We found one more sign, urging us on toward candy, and arrived at a house that was all decked out for the day, complete with skeletons crawling out of a graveyard under a strobe light. It was so fun! If Paxton was even remotely alert, I would have forced him to go inside to thank the neighbors for going all out, but he was out like a light, so we went home.

Chris has a gig tonight and they don't even play until something like 3 a.m. It's an afterhours party and I hate it. He hates it, too. It's 11:35 and this is late for me. Paxton wakes up at 7, and I like to get 8 hours of sleep if it's at all possible. Clearly that won't be the case for either Chris or I tonight. I just pray that Chris makes it home safely. I told him to get a hotel if he's too tired. Poor thing. He worked all day today. I know that he'd rather get a root canal than do this gig, but I guess that's part of being in a band. Boo.

Happy Halloween, witches and warlocks.

Waving in his pumpkin garb.

A gourd in baby jail.

This picture is cuter without my toes in it. :)

This is what he does every time he sees a camera. Such a cheesy grin.

One spider Chris isn't scared of.

The cutest picture ever. I love the look on his face!!

Showing how fun laughing is!

We voted.

Drinking from the straw!

King Paxton, the great Pharoah of Wimberley.

All decked out for the Fall Festival at Sarah's church in Denton.

Getting his face painted for the very first time!

His first carnival game--picking a duck from the duck pond. That was always my favorite when I was a kid.

At the kids' area in the Dallas Museum of Art, playing with his daddy.

Leaps and Bounds

Paxton has decided that the whole house is worthy of exploration.

He used to be content with the living room. It had everything he wanted--couches to stand against, remote controls to lick, toys scattered upon the carpet, and usually a mommy with milk to spare. Now the living room is dull, dull, dull. He makes rounds throughout the kitchen, dining room and living room like he's doing laps. I see the floor lamp sway and know just where he is. Mostly my ears follow the SLAP, SLAP, SLAP sound of his hands beating a trial in front of him and I know he's fine. It's when he gets quiet that I jump up from my seat to see what trouble he's gotten himself into. Just now I stood up to see him happily gumming the dogs' rawhide chew. It's beef-basted. My little vegetarian is straying from the pack.


I'm exhausted by the end of each day. Paxton doesn't need a lot of interactive play time. He's very happy entertaining himself, which is nice. If only his idea of entertainment didn't include crawling toward everything that's a terrible danger to his safety. Our house is fairly baby-proofed. The only thing we really can't control is the residual effect of having five cats, two dogs and a bird as family members. Pet hair on his clothes is a fact of life. Bird poop on his knees shouldn't be. Ick. He loves the bird and Bartok encourages him like a wicked witch. "Come closer, my little pretty, come closer!". Cleaning the floor is one of the things I hate most in the world, but I have no choice now. If I don't want to lose my child in a tumbleweed of fur, I have to vacuum often.

I just looked up (since it was too quiet suddenly) and Paxton had gotten his diaper box out of the cabinet and was pulling the wet wipes, one by one, from the dispenser. It is second in joy-giving only to chewing on the teething tablets pill container.

This weekend, Chris, Pax and I went to Dallas for the King Tut exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art. We stayed at Sarah's guest house in Sanger and it was heaven. Most of the house is carpeted with this lush, beautiful carpet. The furniture mainly consisted of an over-stuffed couch, loveseat and ottoman. The layout of the house was blissfully open. Paxton was in heaven. I want to go live in that house until Paxton is school-age. She even has grass in her yard. And sidewalks in the neighborhood. When we walked the dogs and Paxton last night, we almost got plowed down by a middle-aged man in a convertible on the one-land road we're forced to traverse.

New things our boy wonder is doing since the last post:

• He has mastered drinking from a straw. My mom is amazing. She teaches him things that I never would have thought of. She's currently trying to teach him to pick things up with his fingers in a pincher motion, using just his finger and thumb. The straw thing just blows my mind. He looks like such a grown-up when he leans in and takes a little sip from his cup. So cute!
• He stood unassisted on Sunday for the first time. He is great at standing and loves to do it, but he has always had to have the assistance of the couch or the dining room chair or Momm'ys shins. On Sunday evening, he just used his own muscle strength to stand in the middle of the room. Chris was in a zone, so he just watched calmly, while I looked up and saw the feat and dove toward him to catch him when he inevitably fell back and smacked his head on the t.v. console. He didn't fall quite so dramatically, but my sudden motion did cause him to fold to the floor.
• He has really mastered the 'screaming-at-the-top-of-his-lungs' technique of letting us know he's not ready to go to sleep. Chris feels that by momentarily ignoring this, we're scarring him for life, leading him to believe that he's been abandoned. I tend to tune it out and feel certain that he's going to realize that we're not falling for his wiley ways and just lay down for a restful sleep. I think the compromise we've reached is that we'll let him scream for no more than 15 minutes before we go in and check on him, letting him know that we still adore him.
• Thankfully, he also has discovered the joy in frequent laughter. He loves to laugh. He catches a glimpse of himself in the backseat mirror and just chuckles merrily. He also likes to share whatever he has. He takes a bite of his mum-mum and then holds it out to the bird or me or his reflection to enjoy a bite, as well. It's very sweet.
• On the flip side of the sharing coin, he also is angry as all get out when someone takes something from him. This is a new phase I'm not particularly enjoying. At the library, if a big kid takes a toy from him, he grabs it back ferociously, complete with angry growls. When I take a dangerous item from him, he shrieks and looks like he wants to deck me.
• He had a taste of all sorts of taboo foods this weekend. At a Mexican restaurant on Friday, he made a grab for a plate of beans and rice when I wasn't looking. He shoved fistfuls of beans and rice into his mouth. He loved it. Then on Saturday, he crawled over to me when I was eating a slice of pizza. I sort of jokingly let him nibble on the crust. Seeing my example, my brother-in-law, Craig, let him have a couple bites of his own crust. And to top it off, in the car on Sunday, I was sitting next to him, feeding him banana when he reached over to my lap and snagged a french fry, quickly shoving it into his mouth. The look of bliss he had matched my own every time I eat fries. I think it's hereditary. I realize that this menu doesn't reflect well on my own eating habits. But this was roadtrip food. I swear.

He's napping now and the cold weather is making me sleepy, too. I'm going to close before my eyes beat me to the punch. Until next time...

He's Going to Need Therapy, and It's All My Fault

This is Twisted, But...

This is from a website called yearbookyourself.com, which is hilarious. You upload a picture of your (or your innocent baby's) face and you see yourself as a boy or a girl in a yearbook picture every year from something like 1950 to present-day. This is Paxton, drooly chin, two teeth and all, as a girl in 1990. I know it's weird, but it cracked us up. Go yearbookyourself, too. You won't regret it!!

Some Pics Courtesy of Jessica!

Jelly is constantly licking Paxton's face, much to our dismay and irritation.
Look at that wispy, blonde hair!
Jessica and Paxton, who is either thinking, or wants quiet.
Enjoying a messy lunch.

I sure do love those baby blues.

Just a Weekly Update!

Paxton didn't sleep well last night. I didn't think much of it, since his sleep cycle is constantly fluctuating lately, particularly because he's got a cold, and some new teeth coming in. However, it appears that what was interrupting his sleep last night was more feline in nature. Franklin somehow got locked in the nursery with Pax. Even I can't sleep a whole night with Franklin in the room with me. He cleans himself constantly, jingling that damn bell on his collar to the point of insanity. Then he gets the sudden urge to cuddle, standing on my back, making pleading meows for affection. I thought I heard a meow over the monitor from Paxton's room last night, but I assumed it was a cat outside his door, or even outside mine. We have five cats. I hear meows everywhere. Even the bird does a convincing cat impression.

When I went in to get Paxton this morning, Franklin came running out. Paxton looked tired and his hair at the front of his head has the consistency of feathers. I can only assume that Franklin gave him a little tongue bath in the night. His eyebrow was also a little askew. Franklin likes to mother creatures. I'm sure he was thrilled to have a baby of his own for a whole night. Paxton, however, looked exhausted. Poor little guy. He's upstairs napping now. He didn't even try to fight me when I laid him down for his nap. He's probably thanking God right now for some alone time.

On another note entirely, I joined bookmooch.com about six months ago, when I heard that it was a good place to swap books that you no longer wanted. I have a box of books in the garage that I've been holding onto, because I can't bring myself to sell them for pennies to Half-Price Books. I always pass on books I've read to my mom, but I eventually get them back. Rarely do I read a book good enough to keep. I'm already overloaded with many bookshelves of books that I still need to read. Anyway, at bookmooch, you can just list the ISBN of the books you have and other people who are interested will request what they want. You send them to them via media mail, and you can request other books you want. There's a whole point system. I've gotten some really fun books through this. Recently, I requested three baby food cookbooks. Only one of them is remotely current and useful. The other two are O.L.D.! These days, you're highly discouraged from giving your baby honey or nuts in their first year. In these cookbooks, those things make up a good portion of the recipes. I'm sure I'll be relisting them on bookmooch soon.

Anyway, I went on an organic shopping spree at HEB this weekend, and got all sorts of delicious produce for the little man. I've been cooking two things every other day, because it's so time consuming that doing it daily would make me lose all my love for it. The first day, I made him spinach and pears. The second meal was carmelized onions, carrots and apples. Then two days ago I made him green beans and pears. And I was most excited to try to make my own teething biscuits! That was an ordeal. It took more than three hours to get them hard enough and then they essentially just crumbled like a crouton. I froze them, and he's been enjoying them in their frozen state, but I'm still a little disappointed. I'm going to try another recipe today that I found online. He's at the stage now where he's interested in finger foods. A teething biscuit, some Baby Mum-Mums (rice rusks), a banana and some Cheerios and he's in hog heaven for an hour.

My mom is teaching him how to drink from a straw. It amazes me the things that Chris and Mom are able to teach him. I guess I teach him things, too, but it's more incredible and jarring to see him know something completely new that I had no hand in teaching him. I gave him his bath the other night. That's the task Chris usually handles, but Chris was stuck in traffic and wouldn't be home in time. So, I was trying to be as fun as Chris is (there's no chance of that, really) and grabbing toys to show Paxton. He grabbed a little rubber whale from my hand and squeezed it and held it under the water. Then he pulled it up and opened his mouth as if to drink the water that would surely come squirting out. He's not even ten months old!! I'm astonished. And my mom has taught him to do everything from pull himself up to a sitting position when he was only a few months old to pull himself up to stand only recently.

He has had that cold all week, so we haven't been able to go to any story time or playtimes. I miss them. This is the first week in a long time that we didn't at least do one of those things. But he needs his rest and I don't want him to spread his germs to any of the other babies. He's almost all better, but still not 100%. I did take him to Bible Study this week, because Chris had band practice on Tuesday. I brought his Pack and Play for him to occupy himself in. That would have worked, except that he's become so good at getting around that he just kept pulling himself to standing, then letting go with both hands and balancing precariously while he gave various women a goofy grin before he fell down. He did that over and over and over. It was hard for me to concentrate on the video, because I wanted to laugh so hard. Finally, he got a little crabby (it was well after his bedtime), so I took him to the big carpeted area where he could crawl around. I'm sorry to report that we played fetch for the remainder of the evening. I would throw my pen and he would take off after it. Then he would grab it and hand it back to me, waiting for me to throw it again. It was hilarious. And my friends used to get offended when I compared children to pets. I was right all along. I just knew it.

Baby Kneival

Paxton is becoming more and more curious now that he's mobile. For a while, he was content to stick to the rug in the living room. Now, he crawls to whatever catches his eye. He particularly enjoys the dog food bowls. Luckily, every time he's reached them, they've already been empty, but I'm aware that the day he has his first bite of dog food is not far off.

He did finally slam his fingers in the drawers. We put some Safety First magnetic locks on them, so he can't open them any longer and he's frustrated beyond comprehension. Rather than beating a dead horse by continuing to try to open them, he's moved on to opening and closing the bathroom door, opening his dresser cabinet, and getting into his trash can. Babyproofing could be big business. We had to rig a gate to fit our spiral staircase. Chris did an amazing job getting it to work, but, at the advice of a baby book, I had him put it two steps up, so Paxton could learn to get up and down the stairs without getting high enough to hurt himself too badly. The problem with that is since it's a spiral staircase, the angle at which it opens two steps up is one that doesn't allow for much space for a person of substance to squeeze through. Try fitting a woman with a baby through that gate. It's a task, let me tell you.

I also made a BIG mommy mistake last weekend. It was in the midst of the stressful in-law visiting weekend. I took him to his bedroom to change him and laid him on the changing table, which is something I haven't done in months and months. I turned my back for one second to straighten a picture frame that had fallen and I heard THUD!!! I turned around to see Paxton laying flat on his back on the floor next to the changing table. He was silent for a minute and then let loose with a blood-curdling scream. He was okay after a minute of cuddles and nursing. It took me a little longer. I was sobbing.

Oh, since I'm confessing my mothering sins, here's one more: I was in his room, hanging up his clean laundry while he played with his toys on the floor. I was going in and out to get other clothes and when I went out one time, he started to cry a little. I hollered that I would be right back and then rushed back in to reassure him. Turns out that he had crawled to the door and was sitting right behind it. I smacked him with the door in my hurry to get back to him. He sprawled onto his stomach, bawling. I couldn't get in to comfort him, because his little body was blocking my entrance. I finally pushed the door gently, thus making his body slide enough to let me through. Oh, the heartache. I felt like the worse mother in the world. I should release him into the wild. Surely wolves would do a better job than me.

I love my little boy SO much. It defies words. I hate that I ever hurt him, even accidentally. I've been so comforted by my friends who are moms who have been good enough to share their own experiences. I'm able to laugh at theirs and they can laugh at mine, but I'm starting to see that getting him past these dangerous toddler years intact is going to be more of a chore than I ever imagined. He's a dare devil and I'm a bit out-of-shape. That's not a great combination. But we'll both do our best to make it through with minimal scarring.

What Makes the Boys Come A Runnin'

I couldn't figure out how to get Paxton to crawl to me. No puzzle, block, ball or toy of any kind was catching his interest. Then I remembered that I have instant access to the thing he loves most of all--milk.

HELP!

This is Paxton's signature crawl. It's like when a supermodel stomps down the runway. I. LOVE. IT.

His fingers are in his mouth a lot lately, just like that. I keep thinking he's cutting a molar, but I don't feel anything yet.
Here Paxton is holding a conference with his ape and his lion.
Paxton does this when we ask him to show up a "cheesy smile".
Happy as a clam.

Leaps and Bounds

Just last week, I talked about how many new things Paxton is doing now. Well, he's topped himself. He now is really adept at pulling himself into a standing position. He pulls up on the couch or in his crib. He really likes climbing up using the drawers of his dresser. He's so close to slamming his fingers in those drawers. I hope Chris and his dad can put the safety latches on them this weekend. Luckily, Paxton bounces back quickly from little falls. He was screaming the other night when he was supposed to be napping. I went in to check on him, and he was standing in the crib with a bloody lip. He was fine once I picked him up, but my heart ached for him. This morning, I noticed two little bruises on either side of his forehead. I assume it's from falling in his crib.

I have been feeding him some new things lately. I think he's ready for a wider assortment of finger foods. He's obsessed now with his Baby Mum-Mums. This weekend, we let him eat bites of a banana. He's had banana before, but usually on a spoon. This time he got to eat it like corn on a cob. It was very cute. Last night, at dinner with the Bible Study ladies, he finished his dinner before mine arrived, so I was desperate to keep his hands occupied. Going against my health kick with the majority of his food, I gave him a tortilla chip for each hand. He was in hog heaven. He kept going from hand to hand, taking little bites from each. And today, at playgroup, I let him munch on a strawberry. I got distracted for a minute and he ended up shoving the whole thing in his mouth. I had to dig it out. He likes to shove as much food as he can in his mouth. He must be descended from a chipmunk. The cheeks would suggest it.

Just yesterday, he started doing a clicking thing with his mouth. It's the same noise that you'd picture a smarmy director making while pointing his finger at someone. We go back and forth between us, clicking at each other. I feel like we're some sort of tribal family. Last week, all he would say was "mama". This week all he'll say is "dada". He gets stuck on his favorite sounds of each week.

I guess instead of writing about my little man, I should go play with him. He's been sitting in the high chair, dining on teething biscuits while I take this time to brag about him. Time for some one-on-one goodness.

Paxton all bundled up on a cold Sunday morning, camping.
Paxton and Tracy were being silly and happy.
Shannon and Pax. We both got a little too much sun.
A sleepy Chris and his baby boy.
At dinner with my Bible Study ladies, Kathy entertained Paxton by drawing a face on her hand. He was more entertained by the camera.