Gary went home with the Mozart bust I picked up at our local thrift store.Friday, January 16, 2009
This gorilla etched in glass got passed around more than I understand. Three people claimed it over the course of the party. Joan got to take it home with her. Lucky girl.
Because it's Paxton's blog, we needed at least one picture of him, right? Thank God he doesn't care about flattering angles yet.
McKenna and Stewart's daughter, Ceilidh, takes 45-minutes to warm up, but once she does, she's a shining light.
Bob really wanted the gorilla. I don't know why, but he did.
Janey got two gigantic ornament balls. Classy!Sicky
After successfully dodging the illnesses that have been making their way around our play group, Paxton finally succumbed to what I hope is just a nagging cold. On Tuesday, he was adorably clingy in the morning and then slept for three hours during his normally much more abbreviated nap. When he awoke, I took his temperature and it was 103.0. Being selfish for adult time, I still took him to our playdate at Andrea's at 3. I warned the other moms that he was feeling under-the-weather, and kept him safely away from all the other children. At exactly the time that he is starting to be interested in the other babies, I was corraling him away from interacting with them. We stayed to our side of the room and all looked at Paxton with pity as we stumbled around with glassy eyes like a baby zombie. He was, as always, a good sport, and I took him home after an hour or so.
At the pediatrician's instruction, I rotated Children's Tylenol and Children's Motrin to help bring his fever down, but wasn't altogether successful. I think by Day Two of the first illness of '09, his fever was only down to 102.6. Knowing that my sweet boy is not the kind of child to sleep off a sickness, I opted to not cancel the lunch plans we'd made with our friends, The Clyburns on Wednesday. Paxton was a bit sensitive, and quick to shed a tear, but overall on excellent behavior at the cafe we dined at. He had Cristi practicing her discipling skills as he, one-by-one, dropped everything she offered him to the floor. Cristi began to pile up the toys she was no longer offering him. He has no concept that his little gravitational experiment could be viewed as naughty. No, he just loves to have any excuse to say "uh-oh" and watch the adults tend to his every need.
The nights were not as bad as I feared. The first night, he was up every hour or so, but was able to comfort himself back to sleep all but two times. It was heartbreaking to hear his little cough over the baby monitor. The second night, I needed to tend to him only once. However, he did awaken with the creepiest crusty nose I've ever witnessed. I cleaned him up as best I could before we rushed out to our CPR class.
That may have been a mistake. Even for a healthy toddler, sitting and listening to an instructor talk for two hours is a feat of gigantic proportions. Paxton was bored out of his head. He was the only toddler there. My two friends brought their babies, but they are barely crawling at this point, and so, able to be contained much more easily than a 13-month-old boy who is eager to show off his wobbly walking to anyone who will watch. He snooped in the EMS cabinets, finding the cleaning products. He opened and closed their kitchen drawers. He laughed when the instructor did mouth-to-mouth with the teaching dummy. He banged on closed doors. He generally just did whatever he could to entertain himself while I tried to absorb even half of what I was supposed to be learning. We cut out just before the end of the class when he began to cry with exhaustion and frustration. If we stayed a moment longer, I fear I would have joined him.
I strongly recommend all parents taking a CPR class and I hope to attend another on a day when Chris can go with me and my mom can watch Paxton. The information was wonderful and I feel much more confident about handling an emergency should it arise.
Despite washing my hands like an obsessive-compulsive, I was unable to avoid catching Paxton's bug. I did my own stumbling around today, with a low-grade fever, chapped lips, headache and runny nose. Thankfully, this was a day off work for Chris, so he was able to tend to Paxton while I had fever dreams in our bed. I'm coming to the conclusion that Paxton and I are essentially one person in these early years. If he gets sick, I get sick. I change his diaper, feed him, nurse him, pick his nose, kiss his cheeks, wipe drool off his chin and transfer it to my clothes. I stand no chance of dodging these germs. What's his is mine and vice versa, I'm sure. I'm pretty sure this is the beginning of a long line of sickness in this house. Break out the Vitamin C. We're gonna need it.
I slacked on the pictures this week, so I am posting shots from last Sunday's Tacky Party at my mom's house. This is a yearly event where the guests bring tacky gifts that are exchanged in a white elephant scenario. It incites great riots of laughter. We are all sure that the gift we brought is the wittiest, most clever, most tacky item on all the earth. We are all so pleased with ourselves, and rightfully so. The pictures tell it all.
At the pediatrician's instruction, I rotated Children's Tylenol and Children's Motrin to help bring his fever down, but wasn't altogether successful. I think by Day Two of the first illness of '09, his fever was only down to 102.6. Knowing that my sweet boy is not the kind of child to sleep off a sickness, I opted to not cancel the lunch plans we'd made with our friends, The Clyburns on Wednesday. Paxton was a bit sensitive, and quick to shed a tear, but overall on excellent behavior at the cafe we dined at. He had Cristi practicing her discipling skills as he, one-by-one, dropped everything she offered him to the floor. Cristi began to pile up the toys she was no longer offering him. He has no concept that his little gravitational experiment could be viewed as naughty. No, he just loves to have any excuse to say "uh-oh" and watch the adults tend to his every need.
The nights were not as bad as I feared. The first night, he was up every hour or so, but was able to comfort himself back to sleep all but two times. It was heartbreaking to hear his little cough over the baby monitor. The second night, I needed to tend to him only once. However, he did awaken with the creepiest crusty nose I've ever witnessed. I cleaned him up as best I could before we rushed out to our CPR class.
That may have been a mistake. Even for a healthy toddler, sitting and listening to an instructor talk for two hours is a feat of gigantic proportions. Paxton was bored out of his head. He was the only toddler there. My two friends brought their babies, but they are barely crawling at this point, and so, able to be contained much more easily than a 13-month-old boy who is eager to show off his wobbly walking to anyone who will watch. He snooped in the EMS cabinets, finding the cleaning products. He opened and closed their kitchen drawers. He laughed when the instructor did mouth-to-mouth with the teaching dummy. He banged on closed doors. He generally just did whatever he could to entertain himself while I tried to absorb even half of what I was supposed to be learning. We cut out just before the end of the class when he began to cry with exhaustion and frustration. If we stayed a moment longer, I fear I would have joined him.
I strongly recommend all parents taking a CPR class and I hope to attend another on a day when Chris can go with me and my mom can watch Paxton. The information was wonderful and I feel much more confident about handling an emergency should it arise.
Despite washing my hands like an obsessive-compulsive, I was unable to avoid catching Paxton's bug. I did my own stumbling around today, with a low-grade fever, chapped lips, headache and runny nose. Thankfully, this was a day off work for Chris, so he was able to tend to Paxton while I had fever dreams in our bed. I'm coming to the conclusion that Paxton and I are essentially one person in these early years. If he gets sick, I get sick. I change his diaper, feed him, nurse him, pick his nose, kiss his cheeks, wipe drool off his chin and transfer it to my clothes. I stand no chance of dodging these germs. What's his is mine and vice versa, I'm sure. I'm pretty sure this is the beginning of a long line of sickness in this house. Break out the Vitamin C. We're gonna need it.
I slacked on the pictures this week, so I am posting shots from last Sunday's Tacky Party at my mom's house. This is a yearly event where the guests bring tacky gifts that are exchanged in a white elephant scenario. It incites great riots of laughter. We are all sure that the gift we brought is the wittiest, most clever, most tacky item on all the earth. We are all so pleased with ourselves, and rightfully so. The pictures tell it all.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
We woke Paxton up at midnight, so he could ring in the new year with us. I wanted us to replicate our New Year's Eve shots from last year. Scroll down to see the difference a year makes.
We were having camera problems, so we didn't get shots of the ball dropping. But second only to the ball dropping to represent New Year's, is Ryan Seacrest and the Jonas Brothers.
Ringing in 2008 with our 12-day-old baby.
Our very own Rockin' New Year's Eve.Bragging Again
It's one of those mornings where everything seems overwhelming, and instead of tackling it one at a time, I just want to hide from it all and pray it goes away. I'm in the guest bedroom, blogging and watching LA Ink. The baby is upstairs napping, but the puppy is barking, begging for a walk. Soma just got tossed outside, because she was meowing under my feet for breakfast. And oh, the house is A MESS. Paxton was playing, and picking up little inards from toys the dogs shredded, or bits of Christmas tree. I may be imagining it, but I swear he looked at me with judgment.
I'll get to all that in a few minutes. First, I want to write about the new goings-on of my little boy.
He is not quite 13 months now. He tries to say words constantly. Chris and I can tell what he's trying to say, but I'm fairly sure that no one else could decipher his toddler speech. He tries to say "Bartok", our bird's name. He tries to say "stocking", which hangs still in the stairwell. He tries to say "clock", what Chris entertains him with when we're all lounging in bed. He says "Lula" pretty well, although sometimes it comes out as "Lola" or "Lala". That's our puppy. Whenever Paxton hears barking, he shouts "Lala!" to scold the dog. He still says "cat", although the "C" is a hard sound for him to make, so it comes out more like "dat". He sometimes surprises us by calling Chris "Dad" or me "Mom". He tries to say "truck".
He shows me all the time that he's always watching and studying what's going on around him. If he gets ahold of my cell phone, he immediately puts it up to his cheek and has a baby conversation into it. His end goes something like this--"gluck gluck? aww. guk". If he finds a hat, he puts it up to the top of his head. When he grabs a wipe, he pushes it down to his diaper, acting as if he's cleaning himself.
My mom and I went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button on Sunday, and Chris stayed home with Paxton. When I got home, we went for our nightly family walk, and Chris told me that Paxton had been walking more that afternoon. He went to a concert that evening, and Paxton and I played for the hour before bedtime. Suddenly, my little crawler was walking everywhere. He looked like a little drunk with a limp while he did it, but he moseyed from the living room to the dining room like he'd been doing it all his life. He would look back at me with a wicked grin, as if he knew he would shock and impress me. The next day, he barely took a dozen steps all day. Of course, that could be because the house is an obstacle course. Even a skilled walker would have trouble navigating our living room right now.
On Thursday, Chris and I took Paxton on a drive out to Pedernales Falls State Park, where my mom was camping to ring in the New Year. I was driving, so Chris happily entertained Paxton in his newly-front-facing carseat. When I drive alone with Paxton, he almost always naps. When Chris is with me, the whole trip consists of playtime. I always feel like I'm mom to two when that happens. I keep telling Chris to turn around and let Paxton rest, but in minutes, he's twisted in his seat again, afraid that Paxton is bored and needs entertainment. On this particular trip, Chris was trying to teach Paxton to play the plastic recorder that I gave all the kids as favors at his birthday party. Pax was humming into it like he learned to do with a kazoo. I instructed him to blow into it instead, blowing into the air to demonstrate. Within seconds, he was making music with his recorder. Chris encouraged him with applause, and he kept it up for a long time. We have no idea if other 12-month-old babies can make music with a recorder, so we're convinced once again that our little fellah is a musical genius.
I suppose I should go tend to the needs of all my other responsibilities. The animals have become suspiciously quiet. God only knows what I may find when this door opens.
I'll get to all that in a few minutes. First, I want to write about the new goings-on of my little boy.
He is not quite 13 months now. He tries to say words constantly. Chris and I can tell what he's trying to say, but I'm fairly sure that no one else could decipher his toddler speech. He tries to say "Bartok", our bird's name. He tries to say "stocking", which hangs still in the stairwell. He tries to say "clock", what Chris entertains him with when we're all lounging in bed. He says "Lula" pretty well, although sometimes it comes out as "Lola" or "Lala". That's our puppy. Whenever Paxton hears barking, he shouts "Lala!" to scold the dog. He still says "cat", although the "C" is a hard sound for him to make, so it comes out more like "dat". He sometimes surprises us by calling Chris "Dad" or me "Mom". He tries to say "truck".
He shows me all the time that he's always watching and studying what's going on around him. If he gets ahold of my cell phone, he immediately puts it up to his cheek and has a baby conversation into it. His end goes something like this--"gluck gluck? aww. guk". If he finds a hat, he puts it up to the top of his head. When he grabs a wipe, he pushes it down to his diaper, acting as if he's cleaning himself.
My mom and I went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button on Sunday, and Chris stayed home with Paxton. When I got home, we went for our nightly family walk, and Chris told me that Paxton had been walking more that afternoon. He went to a concert that evening, and Paxton and I played for the hour before bedtime. Suddenly, my little crawler was walking everywhere. He looked like a little drunk with a limp while he did it, but he moseyed from the living room to the dining room like he'd been doing it all his life. He would look back at me with a wicked grin, as if he knew he would shock and impress me. The next day, he barely took a dozen steps all day. Of course, that could be because the house is an obstacle course. Even a skilled walker would have trouble navigating our living room right now.
On Thursday, Chris and I took Paxton on a drive out to Pedernales Falls State Park, where my mom was camping to ring in the New Year. I was driving, so Chris happily entertained Paxton in his newly-front-facing carseat. When I drive alone with Paxton, he almost always naps. When Chris is with me, the whole trip consists of playtime. I always feel like I'm mom to two when that happens. I keep telling Chris to turn around and let Paxton rest, but in minutes, he's twisted in his seat again, afraid that Paxton is bored and needs entertainment. On this particular trip, Chris was trying to teach Paxton to play the plastic recorder that I gave all the kids as favors at his birthday party. Pax was humming into it like he learned to do with a kazoo. I instructed him to blow into it instead, blowing into the air to demonstrate. Within seconds, he was making music with his recorder. Chris encouraged him with applause, and he kept it up for a long time. We have no idea if other 12-month-old babies can make music with a recorder, so we're convinced once again that our little fellah is a musical genius.
I suppose I should go tend to the needs of all my other responsibilities. The animals have become suspiciously quiet. God only knows what I may find when this door opens.
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