Yodeling

Over the past couple of days Baby G has been practicing new sounds. Right now they sound like yodeling to me. Tonight it sounded very familiar and then I remembered where I'd heard it before. From his favorite movie:

January is Over?

How did that happen? I still have things I want to finish before January is over. Not fair! I just put Baby G down for a nap and sat down to get some things accomplished and realized that it is already February. I never got Baby G's 13 month update done, and after going through the last month of blog posts I realized that I also never posted anything about his One Year birthday party. So, following are some of his birthday pictures (from over a month ago...geez):

Star Wars Birthday Boy


Baby G Padawan


Baby G's birthday party was Star Wars themed. He picked that theme out himself. We took him to Party City and walked the birthday aisle and showed him each theme; he went crazy over Darth Vader, so Star Wars it was.

If it has Cheerios...


Baby G did not understand the cake thing. He stared at it, until we put Cheerios on it, then he got it. "Oh! You want me to eat it! Okay!"

Birthday Gifts


He got lots of gifts and had tons of fun.

Christmas Sickies

I finally have a day off; no work, no school. I get to spend it trying not to move as much as possible with a one year old (Thank you Seaseme Street). I am sick. It started with a sore throat on Christmas Eve and then went into full head cold. Wednesday morning I woke up in a pool of snot with snot still running from my nose like water. Today, it's moved into my chest. I haven't had my coffee yet because I'm trying to drink lots of water and juice. So now I have a headache too. Hopefully it will be mostly gone by tomorrow when I go back to work.

Christmas was nice. Baby G woke up around 6:30 am. We opened gifts shortly after and then laid around all day. I was sick and fell asleep on the couch in the mid afternoon and after I woke-up I offered to make dinner. Aaron is usually the cook so I figured, even tough I was sick, I'd give him the night off from cooking. We had roasted chicken breasts with yams, stuffing, and peas. I'll post some pictures later when I have the camera back. For now, I'm going back to doing nothing....

Merry Christmas!

A Special Gift

Last year, in the wee hours of the morning on December 17, 2006 I went into labor. It was the day after my birthday. I knew that he would be coming soon and I thought I had worked out with him to wait until at least the 18th so that his big sister could be there when he was born. But he had other plans. The night of my birthday the nesting instinct hit hard and I had to have the apartment spotless. I was exhausted, but could not stop cleaning until everything was perfect. I even shined the mirrors. Around 9pm that night I declared the apartment perfect and went to bed. I couldn't sleep and decided to play on the computer for awhile. Aaron was supposed to be leaving around 7am to pick up Sara. I wanted Sara to be with me when her little brother was born. I wanted her to be a part of the experience. Around 5am I started feeling little cramping pains. I felt like maybe I was going into labor. I started timing the pains and they were definitely coming at a set time apart, but they didn't hurt, they were just like a little nudge to tell me something was going on. I told myself I was imagining it because I was worried about going into labor while Aaron was gone. He was suppose to leave at 7am and he would have been gone for 8 hours. At 6am I got back into bed. I hadn't really had any sleep yet, but my mind was racing and I just couldn't sleep. For the tenth time I told myself I was just panicking because Aaron was going to be leaving soon. Just before 6:30am my water broke, the doctor was called and we were on our way to the hospital to bring our son into the world. At 3:39pm on December 17th Baby G was born.



As a December baby myself I have always had to experience the "birthday/Christmas" gift all in one. Sometimes I was resentful because my sister's birthday is in August and she always got the separate gifts. I got over it as I got older and now it doesn't bother me so much.... All this to say that Baby G is the best Birthday/ Christmas gift I have ever received. He is such a happy baby. He has brought me so much joy, and I just can not believe how gosh darn lucky I am to have this beautiful, happy person in my life.



His first birthday is on Monday. I'm so busy right now I wanted to get this up while I had some free time. Tomorrow night, on my birthday, we will be having a party for him. For now here is a special slide show I put together celebrating his first year with us.

Thanksgiving, Late 11 Months, and Black Friday

Trying to get 3 posts in one here.
I'm late, yet again, getting Baby G's monthly post up. He's a little over 11 months now.

In just about 3 weeks and he'll be a whole year old. We've been really bad lately with getting pictures of him. I'm enjoying my time with him so much I just don't even think about grabbing the camera. He's developing into such a happy, sweet little boy. He's been walking for almost a month now. He's gone from a quick thrusting forward of his body to get where he wants to go before falling to running through the house waving his hands in the air and screaming "nah nah" which I think means no, which is something we've been having to say a lot lately. New foods this past month have included pasta, beef, and tofu.

Thanksgiving was fun. We went to my sister's early in the morning and had a huge breakfast, watched some movies; the blob (1958) and Hot Fuzz, had Hot Buttered Rum, and ate a huge, delicious Thanksgiving dinner. My daughter was able to make it for dinner before she had to jet off to another function.


Can you believe those are both my kids?

And my daughter and sister got crazee:


After dinner, Aaron, myself and one of my nieces played D&D. My niece had never played before and Aaron really wanted to teach her how to play. That was a blast. My character had an intelligence of 8 and a charisma of 14, I played up the Paris Hilton fighting goblins a little too well.

Today is Black Friday. Black as in retail stores going positive in cash flow for the year today, or for me and my fellow retail workers, Black as in a deep dark black hole of pain and agony. This time of year I would love to be able to remember the nice customers, the ones who are thankful for your help, the one's who understand that they like everyone else must wait their turn for help, that know that the person behind the customer service desk is human and can only handle so many questions at once, and that no matter how much you yell at me that you need something "right now" it's not going to make it happen; try ordering your gift early next year. I'd love to remember those nice people, but very few of them exist. I'm off to deal with the other people here shortly. I just keep repeating to myself "It's only a month...."

10 Months

This is about two weeks late, but wanted to get it up before the end of this month. Baby G has grown extraordinarily over the past month in every way.
He's gained another pound and a another inch or two in height. He's learned to imitate and can clap and hold conversations.


He still loves his time at the park, what baby wouldn't. The swing is his favorite.



The big thing this past month is his new ability to walk by himself.



Just another month and a half and he'll be celebrating his first birthday. Time goes by so quickly.

Baby G is Walking!

Baby G decided to start walking on his own today. I don't have the video uploaded yet, but as soon as I do, you can bet I'll be posting it. I'm so happy, and excited, and a little sorry to see the "baby" start to go away.

So Much

Lots going on now. Tuesday my new class started; Creative Writing. I've always wanted to take a creative writing class, I could sure use the help in learning to write better, and I needed to take some electives to finish up my degree, so I decided to finally take the plunge. It should be interesting and I hope that I will be able to share some writing here.

I joined a book club. JennyH., Princess of Quite a Lot, started a book club after she participated in the book meme. We are reading A Confederacy of Dunces, which is by the way, quite funny so far. She's calling for more people to join...head on over and check it out.

I'm working on a completely new look for my blog. I'm tired of the clutter and need something new. So keep your eye here for something new soon. I've got my other blog, Nancy Kay Creations to work on as well. I need to post more projects over there and give it a new look as well.

Baby G (who's full name I almost typed out, eeek.I don't know why I won't use his full name. I'd love to share it as its a very cool name with an interesting story behind it. Maybe one day.) turned 10 months yesterday. I don't have pictures loaded yet, so I'll get to that post later.

Right now, I need to get working on all this stuff I have to do....

Moo, Baa, La La La

A few days ago Baby G started really using his sounds; Ma, ba, ra, and combinations of the three. A couple days ago I picked up a couple more books for him. One of them is Sandra Boynton's Moo, Baa, La La La. He liked the book immediately. Last night before bed I picked it up to read to him. I showed him the cover and read the title to him "Moo, Baa, La La La!" He giggled, so I did it again and he went into a full belly laugh.
This morning after his first nap, he was a little bit cranky and I just said "Moo, Baa, La La La!" He laughed and laughed, so I did it again, and agian he laughed and laughed. It's just the cutest thing, at least to his MaMa. I grabbed my cell phone and got a video of it to send to his Daddy at work. I figured, why not post it here too. Baby laughs always make me feel good. Enjoy.

9 Months

Another month has almost passed since I last posted. Baby G turned 9 months last week.



He's been growing so fast. He's 24lbs. and 29 and 1/2 inches tall; in the 90th percentile. He has two teeth now and is starting to take baby steps. He's gotten pretty good at standing up on his own.

Now that he's a little older he's enjoying time at the park. He loves the swing.



Yesterday, Aaron wanted to take him to the park, but realized that he no longer had any hats that fit. It's still really sunny here, and hot. So he stopped by the store on his way. Everyone is out of summer clearance items so he had to choose something else. He had a choice between the Spiderman stocking cap and the Skull and Cross-Bones.



I think he picked well.

8 Months and Ranting

I'm a few days late with this post. I guess that's better than last month where I missed almost the whole month. I've been feeling really overwhelmed - I just can't seem to get it together. I keep trying out different ways of organizing my time, and nothing seems to be working. Aaron and I get absolutely no time together unless I skip homework, which hasn't been good for my grades. How do people do it? I know there are other people out there that are working full-time, raising kids and going to school. Am I being to hard on myself thinking that everyone else is doing it better than me? I continue to plug away at my responsibilities everyday hoping not to crack in the process and also hoping that everything will be worth it in the end. On to the fun stuff....



This little guy is growing so fast. In my last post I mentioned his tooth coming through, well it tricked us. It decided not to show up after all. But yesterday? Yesterday it finally cut through. He has a very sharp little tooth poking through his gums now and the tooth next to it is looking like it wants to join its neighbor.
Baby G isn't walking yet, but his cruising ability is growing. He can get pretty much anywhere in the apartment that he wants to now, so we've got the living room sectioned off and barricaded so he doesn't wander where he isn't supposed to be if we turn our head for a second. He is fast.



He is eating 3 meals a day now. We started him on just lunch when he first started solids, due to our scheduling that worked out best. Then when we added another meal a day, we added dinner. Now, he's ready for three meals a day so we added breakfast last week. He is enjoying the new food options; he had oatmeal, yogurt and peaches for breakfast today. We have yet to get him started on meat. We tried egg yolk (hard boiled) a couple weeks ago and that did not go over well, so we'll try again soon. The other big change for him was finally moving to the big people bath tub. We tried transferring him to the big bath tub a while ago, but he was just too scared so we kept giving him baths in the little tub. Baths in a baby tub with a baby that weighs at least 22lbs. are difficult to say the least. He seems okay in the big bathtub now, he doesn't cry now and he likes to play with his toys there. I think that's it for now. I'll be back when I can. I have a post I wanted to put up soon about books so hopefully I can get that up very soon. Baby G is napping now so I must try to get some homework done.

6 Months

Baby G is 6 months old today. He's growing so quickly! This past couple of weeks he has been practicing his crawling, and he's getting better at it, but still not quite there. He's got his leg movements down, but still hasn't figured out how to move his arms forward yet. The rolling over is now not a problem for him; we wondered if he would ever roll over, now he won't stop. He's gotten really good at getting himself around the living room. He's also waking up in the middle of the night on his hands and knees.



Baby G is a bundle of energy. Most of the time he is so happy, but sometimes lately he has become quite the whiner. The poor thing has a tooth coming through and he is fussy a lot.

He's made tons of progress with solids. He's now eating avocados, pears, sweet potatoes, sweet peas, carrots, peaches, apples, and bananas. Tomorrow he'll try prunes. That should be fun. He's gone from regularly drinking 40oz. of formula a day to about 30. With that change and the constant exercise he should start thinning out soon. The boy is huge, 22lbs. and has moved out of his infant car seat and into the big boy convertible car seat. I wish I had more pictures to post, but we've all been so busy that most of our free time is spent trying to catch up on sleep.

We'll he's whining right now, so I need to go play with him...and I've got to go to work...ugh.

5 Months

Baby G is 5 months old today! Time is flying and he is growing so fast!



He's eating solid food now. So far he eats rice cereal, barley cereal, avocado, banana, and carrots, yum.

He giggles a lot. He still screams all. the. time.

He has finally started to roll over from his tummy to back.

He loves his feet.



Daycare is still somewhat of an issue. Most places we've called have not called back or are full, or do not have a schedule that meets our crazy retail scheduling needs. He spends Wednesdays with a friend and her baby. He loves babies! He is very social and just loves to interact with others. He can also sit by himself and play quietly for a short period of time, which is great when Mommy needs to get homework done.

Baby G is still so precious and full of joy. I feel so blessed to have such a happy baby!

I Haven't Fallen Off the Face of the Earth...Yet

Ya, I've been super busy. This week I've been working odd shifts and I'm supposed to be writing a strategic analysis for class. For my team project due next week, I have to do a SWOTt.

Baby G is making huge leaps in his development. He is now sitting up on his own, and can look around at his environment while keeping his balance.


He's also eating solid food now. So far just the rice cereal. He didn't take well to the oatmeal.


We have lucked out in the short term for child care. We have a friend who's between jobs who will be watching him until she finds a new job. Aaron starts back to work on Tuesday.

I miss my blog and my wonderful readers and new friends terribly. I hope I can get in here more often. I also miss doing a craft post every week. Once things get situated, I hope to get back into all of this. Thank you for visiting and for your patience.

4 Months

Baby G is 4 months old today.



He's been working hard this past month. He's trying to pick up everything he sees.



He loves standing up and walking around the apartment with us.



He goes out a lot. He loves going on car trips.
Mostly he goes to the store or Post Office with Dad, or visits Mom in the Bookstore, but he's also been to Japan Town in San Francisco and he's been to the park.




He's been eager to use his hands to hold everything he can get them on.



Recently he started holding his bottle by himself. We don't let him do it too often, otherwise he'd never get any food.





Today he had his 4 month check-up and received another set of shots. We also got the okay from the pediatrician to start solids. We will probably start him on them tonight.
He's learning and growing so fast. This morning he started to sit up on his own, and has recently been trying really hard to get his feet into his mouth. Mommy and Daddy are super proud.

What to Say?

I wanted to post something today, but really don't have much to say.
I just took a nice, long, hot bubble bath and started reading Eragon. I know, I'm way behind on the popular reading, there's just so much good stuff out there. The book is okay. As much as it's been hyped I was expecting more, but I'm only a couple chapters in so far, so we'll see.

Baby G is asleep on my chest. He's been fussy all day. Aaron is in the kitchen making carrot cake, and Back to the Future is playing in the background. As much as I complain you would think I'm really unhappy. In reality I think I have it pretty good.

I Survived

I made it through my first day back at work. No crazy customers, and even the scammers were easy to deal with. I was bored out of my mind though and realized half-way through the day that I am wasting 40 hours a week of my life working for a pittance to make others richer. It's a sucky realization to make when you can't figure out how to fix the problem. There's got to be a better way, but what is it? I'm also sore all over. My feet are screaming. I've been sitting in front of a computer for the past 3 months and I just spent eight straight hours on my feet, ouch.

In other news: Baby G is in full teething mode. We can see a pearly white popping through. Lots of spitting up, tons of drool, lots of chewing, and so much crying. We've been giving him frozen washcloths to chew on, but I caved and spent some money on a couple teethers. Whatever will help him feel better, the poor thing.

My Head is About to Explode!

I wish I had audio to go along with this picture. The screaming....Oh, Lord, the screaming! Screaming when he's happy, screaming when he's frustrated, screaming when he's bored, screaming because he doesn't want to take a nap, screaming because he exists. Just 4 more hours and relief will be here. Hopefully my head will still be intact.

The Sweet Mix

[Tried to post this earlier today; trying again.I've had to add the links rather than than embed the video]

Last night I was playing some music and playing with Baby G. Little Willy by The Sweet came on and Baby G LOVED it; we had such fun singing and dancing to it. I could not have been happier. I love 70's glam rock (even the bubble gum stuff)and The Sweet is one of my favorite bands. (I love that Baby G is willing to go along with listening to 70's music with me, when everyone else thinks I'm just weird.) So I went hunting around YouTube to see if I could find anything on The Sweet and found this mix.
Enjoy!

Part 1

Part 2