Lookit my han'some boy

My girlfriend is a recent transplant to NJ. She is a professional photographer, and asked if A would be her model to get some shots for her website. Of course, I said sure!

Check out her blog for the preview!

Way back.... today

I will probably once again forget about Way back Whensday, and since I'm thinking of it now, here ya go.

IT just so happens that I took a monthly picture a year ago tomorrow. I guess A was 8 weeks old at the time, so here it is... He wasn't such a happy camper!

6 unspectacular things about me.

I was tagged by Rachel, a M.O.M. (Mom of Multiples) extraordinare. She blogs about her life with twins A's age, a step son, and a daughter on the way here

Here are the rules:

The rules:
1. Link the person who tagged you.
2. Mention the rules on your blog.
3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.
4. Tag 6 following bloggers by linking them.
5. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged.




Hmm. 6 unspectcular things you say. Let's see if I can fill the list.

1. I am afraid of thunder and lightning. I dunno if afraid is really the best word to use here, but I definitely don't like them. I wouldn't say I fear for my life or anything like that, but I would much prefer if I never had to experience one. I've never hidden under the bed with the dog or cats (err, at least not since I was 7), but have always kinda wanted to.

2. My two big toes take after each of my parents. This is hard to explain, but my left big toe look just like my dad's, and my right big toe looks just like my moms. How's that for unspectacular?

3. I love, love, love roller coasters. Actually, any ride really. I'm a little afraid of KingdaKa and haven't actually been to Great Adventure since it opened, but would go on it if it's there the next time I am. I love a lot of the rides that others are afraid of--the spinny one where you go up the walls, the dropping one, etc. I won't, however, go on any of those super daring rides you have to pay for (like that catapult thing). Not only am I cheap, but I think they might just be a little too extreme.

4. Learning to surf is on my bucket list. I have always wanted to do it, and never got the chance. I think we're going to have to make a trip to Hawaii so I can learn (where better, right?).

5. Sort of related, learning to SCUBA dive is on my list of things to do in my 30s. Another thing I've always wanted to do, but it's much easier to learn here in NJ.

6. I think it's been a year since my last manicure or pedicure. I'm not sure how I've survived this long, and especially how I've survived a whole summer, but I've done it. Thank God for beach sand, which has really helped keep things under control.

OK, so who to tag. I think:
Susie
Lauren
Erica
Amy
and
Jackie

The verdict

Since I have no bulletin boards, filing cabinets, or materials yet, my visit to school didn't take nearly as long as I anticipated. So I got back to daycare a little before 11 this morning.

I went in and watched him through the window. He was playing with some toys, all the while carrying around his "Grammi blanket." I went in, and he started to cry as soon as I caught his eye. Awww, poor guy.

His teacher exclaimed, "He's barely cried at all!" Other than the times I was there, he only cried once--when another kid started to cry. She said he did really well, enjoyed his breakfast, and did great all around. He didn't, however, take his morning nap, despite his teacher's trying to get him down. As you might imagine, the second we got into the car, A was down for the count (so much so that he didn't wake until he was halfway out of the car).

A's teacher asked if I'd be bringing him back in during the week, and I said I wasn't sure since he did so well, maybe we didn't need the extra time. She agreed that he did so well that maybe it won't be a problem at all. I'm a little concerned, however, with how he will do there ALL DAY. I'm not completely sure if I'll be able to leave him there all day for a trial, but I think he'll do fine. he really seemed ot be enjoying himself while he was there, and as long as she can get him to take a nap, it will certainly be fine.

I never thought it would be me.

I expected to get a little emotional upon dropping A for daycare the first time. I didn't, however, expect to CRY--not just tear up, but honest to goodness cry--the night before. I'm not concerned about him. I know that he will be fine, they will take good care of him, and he'll have lots of fun (and probably learn stuff I never could have taught him at home). I'm concerned about ME having to leave him.

So I dropped him off this morning for a dry run. Getting up at 5:30 was tough. I ended up ahead of schedule, and was able to unload the dishwasher. WOOHOO. A started to stir early (probably because of my unloading the dishwasher), so waking him up wasn't that big a deal.

When we got to the daycare, he did seem a little bit out of it, but he did sit on the floor at my feet. I kissed him goodbye, and he was ok (he's used to Mommy kisses ALL the time), but started crying and followed me out the door when I left. I then cried again as I walked to my car.

I have the ability to call up and check on him, but don't have the direct number to do so with me. I'll have to remember to get that when I pick him up.

Mitten

When A was born right after Mitten had her accident, I knew the two were linked (I figured that her bringing him out--to life--and him saving hers, it was only logical). But I cannot believe how these two are together. He is just fascinated by her--headbutts her, pets her, goes up to her when she is in the window, plays with her while she is eating.... And more amazing is that she tolerates it! She isn't afraid of him and even lets him (briefly) touch her paws. When she is on the bed, he loves to crawl right over to her.

We are so lucky to have such a good girl and such a good boy!

New Slideshow

Ok, I've set up a new slideshow on photobucket. I've only added a few pictures from A's first few days in the hopes of trying things out. I plan to set up just a year 2 slideshow, which you can find at photobucket.com/A's name. (that would be his real name, with no caps or spaces, first and last).

Feel free to give me feedback about whether it's any good or not!

Picture People

We went to Picture People in the hopes of getting some pictures of the three kids. We did get a few, but overall, I was disappointed with the photographer. I also put A in for some shots, and only got EIGHT from which to choose.

For some unknown reason, A was not an especially happy camper. We had a return of the Radio Flyer, although this is a bike type thing instead of a car.

I'm so thrilled to have gotten a wearing of this outfit. It's 9 month size and clearly fallish, but it was enormous on him in the spring. YAY for my little peanut.







Man, wouldn't that have been perfect had he been looking? What an expression!

FU, Shutterfly.

Our shutterfly gallery has disappeared. All 1000 or so pictures--gone. I still have them on my computer, but they are nowhere to be found online, since I deleted from my shutterfly account as I uploaded to the gallery.

I'm in the process of looking for a new site, and am currently trying out flickr. More info coming soon.

Drinkin' milky from the bottle,not thinkin' bought tomorrow...

So, we've struggled with the whole milk thing. We've discovered that he will drink whole milk, with no breast milk added, as long as it's from the bottle. (Usually, that is).

We were pretty sure we were done with bottles, and the pediatrician advised us to start weaning from the bottle to a cup, but it's more important to get him drinking the milk, I guess.

HA.. snort.. HA!

I found this fun little time waster at It Was Funny in my Head (I know the feeling). So, I uploaded a picture of myself, and it put me back, back, WAY back, in time to various "high school yearbook" photos.

1962

1968 (I like this one)


The year of my birth:


The year of my own high school graduation (looks straight off of 90210!):



And, since I am after all, an equal opportunity embarrasser:



(looks kinda like the guy from Big Bang Theory, no?)

Best toy ever

The new best toy ever in our house? The dishwasher. Yep, that's right. When the child sees the door to it open, he comes... umm... the running version of crawling... over to stand up with his hands on the door. Other favorite activities include climbing onto the door. LOVELY.

I am also sort of in the process of reorganizing the kitchen. Since the cabinet next to the oven has become his favorite cabinet, I put some plastic containers in it. Smart person that I sometimes can be, I only put a few containers and lids, so the mess isn't huge, but he just loves that he has his own cabinet. It has also kept him out of some of the other cabinets...for now.

Kisses

Prom Date has been blowing kisses for some time, and I was a little bummed that A still has no interest. Yesterday, however, I discovered he was giving me kisses--real ones! Oh my goodness, my heart is melting just thinking about it, it's that very sweet. They're almost always on the mouth and thankfully, aren't open mouthed sloppy ones.
SMOOCHIES!

First haircut

We took A to get his mop cleaned up. We had to bribe him with chocolate chip cookies, terrible parents we are... But it worked, so I guess I just need to remember to bring snacks for next time. At first, we tried to put him in the chair by himself,

but there was NO having THAT! Then he sat in M's lap, and things were ok.


He looks SO grown up and SOOO different. But he looks adorable!

6:15

A typically wakes around 7. Today, 6:15 came the wake up call. I'm not sure if his cry was incorporated into my dream or if it was just coincidence... but at least it was one of those smooth wake ups.

I suspect when we return to work, he'll wake up earlier than we would like...but if it's earlier than his typical wake time, I think I'm not going to be happy.

This from the former early bird.

Oh, and he's not allowed to be this cranky either.

Milk.

For as much as this child loved his first taste of ice cream, he doesn't seem much interested in cow's milk. It has been a struggle. On Saturday, we gave him his sippy as we drove to the wedding, and he drank quite a bit of it--straight whole milk. Since then, he makes this face as if we're giving him skunk spray every time he tastes.

He does drink it if it's mixed with breast milk, but I discovered today that it has to be a 1:1 ratio or he won't take it.

I tried mixing with formula since our reserve of milk is extra low. No dice (and, I might add, in an attempt to show him how good it is that even Mommy drinks it, I discovered how really bad formula tastes).

I tried denying other liquids, which just made for a cranky kid who still wouldn't drink milk.

So, joy of joys, I'm back to the fun of pumping in order to get this kid to drink milk.

I'm wondering if the trick that got me to drink milk (ahem, Quik Bunny, anyone?) is appropriate here? Can't hurt, right???

Thin hair must be a dominant gene.

A's hair has become a mop. He definitely got mom's thin hair, but also dad's curls. Clearly, thin hair is a dominant gene, since I got it despite my mom having thick hair and my son got it despite his dad having thick hair (hey, hopefully he'll get Grandpa's fullness as he ages?).

His hair seems to have exploded in the past few weeks. Today, it's not so bad, but he got a bath last night so it's manageable. Before his bath, however, what a mess.

We're thinking of taking him for a haircut later today....

The head butt, part 2.

The head butt for which A has become famous seems to have developed a purpose. In addition to trying to break my nose, this has become his way to ask for kisses. He'll lean his head toward us and when we kiss his forehead, he does it again and again.

Adorable.

Way Back When-sday

February 26, 2007

Feb 25, 2008

Picture update

I don't have time to upload here right now, but I'll get to it eventually!

You can see all kinds of stuff on the shutterfly page...

A's first name, A's last name (no caps or spaces or comma).shutterfly.com

Books

Here's a meme... I'm not completely sure what a meme is, but it was fun so I did it.

Here's how it works:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline (or mark in a different color) the books you LOVE - mine are in blue
4) Books in yellow are those that I have in my bookshelf right now and have been meaning to read for years.
5) Reprint this list in your blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 and force books upon them ;-)


The premise of this exercise is that the National Endowment for the Arts apparently believes that the average American has only read 6 books from the list below.



1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
BLECH. I couldn't get into the first film so didn't waste my time reading the books.

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
I'm up to book 6.

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible
I've read parts, but definitely not the whole thing.

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Started it, but never got around to reading anymore.

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Started it, but it was so dull....

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
I've read one book; does that count?

34 Emma - Jane Austen
I've started this one about 5 times.

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis

Why is this here and not just part of number 33?

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
I started and was so very very bored, I just don't know why it's so many people's favorite book.

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
UGH.

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
I've started this one and have heard such raves of it, I do hope to one day finish it.

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
I've seen it three times on Broadway; does that count for something?

WAHOO; 29 books.

First wedding

On Saturday, we took A to his first wedding. We went straight to the reception so he could get a nap in as close as possible.

He was so well behaved, it was unreal. As it got closer to and then past bedtime, he really would only stay with Mommy or Daddy, but he didn't fuss, didn't cry, and came out and danced with Mommy.

Lots of people who were sitting at tables near ours came up to us and told us that they couldn't believe how well behaved he was.

Pictures coming soon!

Birthday Stuff: Pictures

I've finally gotten around to uploading our pictures of the party, the presents, and the playing with the presents. Rather than share them with the whole blogging world, send me an email or leave a comment if you want to see 'em... or I'll get around to uploading to the shutterfly page probably tomorrow.
:-D

Ps--hope you like the new header. Thanks to Rachel for the site info!