Happy Birthday, Baby!

(Careful, buddy, that's HOT!)

The baby turned ONE YEAR OLD on Friday, October 23rd.... where in the world did that year go?!? (No, seriously!)

Things That Have Not Changed In A Year:

• still is completely and spellbinding-ly adorable (love those dimples!)
• still has no teeth
• still is a sometimes snuggler (even in the hospital, he liked some snuggles, but not all the time... and he's that way to this day)
• still screams like a banshee

We didn't celebrate his b-day on the actual day (Dad was out of town); we waited until Monday night when we could have Uncle & Aunt & Cousin over for pancake dinner & cupcakes. The baby was a little mystified by all the attention, but it didn't seem to phase him. And once he realized that the concoction on his tray was edible... well he just dug right in!

Bath Time Buddies

Ever since he has graduated to the "big boy bath", the baby loves to take baths.

Well, mostly. If the bath water starts, he gets really excited, and thinks the bath is for him. Even when his brother is all ready in the tub.

And if we try to let the five year old bathe alone, the baby just shrieks until we give in. Which means I probably shouldn't attempt bath time at the end of a day, since by that time I will do just about anything if it ensures I don't have to listen to whining in any form. So again, tonight, I let the baby invade his brother's bath.

I used to think that nothing would ever be as cute as my "bathing beauties" from when the girlies were little... but it turns out, "bath time buddies" are just as, if not more, cute than the girls were! (Shhh--don't tell them!) Or maybe it's not that they're "cuter", but simply that the 5-year-old has the best giggle in the family. *sigh* LOVE that giggle, and love those boys!

Not s'bright*

*Me, not the baby.

So there were a couple of missteps leading up to this picture, where he is guzzling water laced with a little apple juice.

Do you notice the mushy crumb in the corner? That is leftover from a donut--I was feeding him pieces of it. (Probably not sheer genius to give donut pieces to a baby... Misstep #1. Or maybe that should be Misstep 1B, and 1A should be purchasing the donuts.)

Misstep #2: Walking away from the baby in order to get cups of milk and water for the kids, while he was still demanding more food. Yes, I realize that counting donuts as "food" is a stretch. No, my own kids were not drinking the milk (I wish!); that was the neighbor kids.

Misstep #3: Ignoring the baby for two minutes while chatting with the kids about skim milk versus "regular" milk. (Even though skim IS regular at our house. Go figure. "Skim" milk... but donuts?!? Really? Really.)

Misstep #4: Thinking, "Oh, he's in his high chair. I only fed him little crumbs. He's fine."

Suddenly, the unmistakable sound of a baby choking. I rush over, remembering that I'd been in process of feeding him small (really small!) pieces of donut. There seem to be a lot more crumbs on the high chair than I remember. His eyes are watering, and I'm trying to pry open his jaws (mental flashback to last Thursday and the playdough scraping incident) to get out the donut, while wondering how he could choke on such a small piece. I'm also looking at the table, to see where the other half of the donut is. (We're not talking mini-donut, either.) Not on the table. Glance at counter. Not there. Finally get his jaws pried open, and pull out a soggy 1/2 donut.

Yeah, I had left it on his high chair tray! An entire half of a donut! What the...?! Quickly give sippy cup to baby, and he gulps it like it's Happy Hour.

Anyway, it's like I said: not s'bright.

Who Knew?

Who knew that:

• Having NINE kinds of cold cereal and THREE kinds of oatmeal constitutes "nothing to eat" to kids ages 9, 8 & 5?
• Having no less than a dozen clean shirts folded in a drawer means "there are no shirts to wear" (followed by a bit o' whining) to an eight year old?
• It can be more important to a nine-year-old girl to have buns put in her hair before school than to have her lunch made?
• It could take a kindergartner FIVE (agonizing?) minutes to choose which shorts to wear? (Clearly, I need to implement something like THIS for all the kiddos... well, maybe minus the baby. He still wears whatever.)
• A 5-year-old will yell for help with toothpaste right in the middle of doing the 9-year-old's hair buns? And (the kicker), not do it himself even though he CAN?!?
• A mere 45 minutes into the day, a mom will "lose it" over such trivial things?

And then...

• A 5-year-old boy will want to fix mom's mood, and stare earnestly up her face and solemnly say, "Mom... I love you"

*sigh* That really did fix just about everything. Except that I still don't know what we're going to eat for breakfast tomorrow morning....

Trying to Be a "Half-Full" Kind of Gal

So I like to think of myself as a fairly positive person. Not ALL the time (just ask my husband or my sisters!), but in my mind I am someone who views the glass as half-full, and not half-empty. Or at least, someone who's satisfied to just have the glass. Whatever.

Anyway, this past Sunday afternoon, a headache started, and intensified until I went to bed (at an unreasonable hour). I didn't bother to "take" anything for it, since (1), medicine usually doesn't even dull the edge, let alone actually help, and (2) I figured sleep would help.

Sleep did not help. At all. By the time I woke up around 7:00 a.m. to feed the baby, I felt like the side of my head had been bashed in. The entire right side of my face hurt; the right side of my head throbbed.

As I was trying to fall back asleep (yes--my husband took the baby, and I ultimately stayed in bed until after 9:00... Thanks, Babe!), I was feeling sorry for myself and agonizing over the side of my head.... And suddenly I started smiling, because I had an entire side of my face and head that DIDN'T hurt, and I wasn't even focusing on that! The whole glass half-empty/full thought came to me, and I was bummed to realize that here I was, literally with a "good" half and a "bad" half... and I had spent the past 20 minutes only thinking about the latter. So as I tried to go back to sleep, I concentrated on how GOOD the left side of my head/face felt, and while it was no panacea, it was nice to re-focus on something that was working.

The headache, by the way, didn't subside until much later in the day... But the whole experience DID make me wonder how many blessings I miss out on noticing (i.e. the health on ONE side of my face!:-)) because I'm too busy worrying about what isn't my ideal. Rats. I'm not as positive as I thought.

Or maybe I should just be grateful that sometimes I'm positive, at all!

Those Bells Are Getting Louder

Last week, I thought I heard bells. Not just "a" bell, but several. Turns out that when you leave your baby free to roam the house (well, sort of... basically just two rooms), there is a good chance he will find the bells you have unsuccessfully hidden in your room. And then he may dump out the box and start playing with them. Or he may not. Depends on the kid. But if you are particularly on the ball for a scant portion of every week, and that portion happens to coincide with the end of his "bells" discovery... you just might capture it with your camera. And feel compelled to share. Yes, I am finally caving, and starting a blog specifically so I can post this video. (I assume there have been lesser reasons to start a blog, but none come to mind.)

So yes, those bells ARE getting louder.

(If only we had some kind of missile!)