The Perfect Storm: Day 4

As a family, we were going to head down to visit some friends in Battle Creek, so in the morning we decided to make some cookies to take with us as a thank you for having us over. My husband and I had just started them when Little B woke up, so we halted the process and went up to get the smiley little man. He was delighted to see the mixer out when we came downstairs and immediately asked for it to go "fast", zooming his hand from right to left to illustrate his point.

After the cookies went in the oven and the little man finished breakfast, he and Daddy went into the living room to have some silly fun.

He even tried to put the yellow one on his head himself!

Square glasses are always fun!

Soon it was time to read a story ... Sometimes I Like To Curl Up in a Ball is a current favorite. (Thanks, Aunt Christine!)

Soon it was time for lunch! Aren't my guys handsome?

Once lunch was all done and the diaper was changed, we headed out. Baylor took his nap in the car and awoke about two minutes from our friends' house. Good timing, little guy!

Both he and Liam, his little friend, had just woken up from their naps so they were both a little quiet when we got there. Baylor holed up in Liam's Thomas the Train chair until he was ready to venture out.

And Liam nursed a sippy cup of milk in the recliner, willing himself awake.

Soon enough, they were off and running. They played nicely enough, as much together as two 18 month-olds can.

Liam even shared his blocks with Baylor!

But mostly they just played near each other.

Liam is quite the physical little man. He runs, jumps, and seems to have no fear, quite the contrast to my quiet, curious, somewhat tentative son. So it's no surprise that, after having climbed out of his crib a number of times, little Liam is now in a big boy bed!

After a delicious dinner and a nice, though chilly, walk around the block, we headed home, stopping for a Shamrock Shake on the way. We had a really nice time with our friends ... makes me wish they lived closer!

The Perfect Storm: Day 3

Day 3 was all about activity ... and whew, was I tired by the end of it!

We decided to start things off with some self-portraits.

"Geez, Mom!"

Ah, now that's more like it!

Then there was a little work to be done at the tool bench. Those nails just aren't going to take themselves out, you know?

Smile break!

Oh, and there was mischief galore! Must get up on the office chair! (Note: both feet are off the floor ... he's getting close!)

Then he took a break to play a little music, making himself at home all wedged in by his couch.

Upon realizing the coasters had been put back on the side table, he decided to put them back in their proper place.

"Riiiiight abooooout, here!"

Then it was time to sit and chat with Elmo and Owl. And for a kid who doesn't like having blankets on his lap he sure was determined to unfold this one.

He got slightly frustrated when he couldn't get himself up on the chair with Elmo in his hand.

It was also laundry day, so we headed off to the laundry room to get things switched around.

We moved the towels over to the dryer but realized we didn't have anything to put in the washing machine, so we headed upstairs to collect the sheets.

While I stripped the bed, Baylor inventoried our hangers.

He was pretty excited to come across the rare "blue" hanger and carried it around with him the entire time we were upstairs.

He went to inventory my purses, but when he went for my fancy green beaded one I put the kibosh on that.

Then we worked on our descending skills ... not too shabby, little man!

We got the sheets going, and by then it was time for lunch. Baylor got apples and cheese and a slice of bread, as well as his usual pureed vegetables. He topped it off with a nice full glass of milk. And then looked at me and proclaimed, "pu-ple plate". Needless to say, I beamed.

Finally it was nap time, but sadly he only slept for about an hour and fifteen minutes. In spite of the relatively short nap (lately he's been going for 2+ hour naps), he seemed bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when he awoke.

Lately he has taken to orally dismantling the beautiful blanket my mom made for him. Some mornings I find him chewing on pieces of yarn he has deftly pulled from his blankie. *sigh* At least he loves it.

"Nigh-nigh."

Ha, ha! Just kidding. It was time for a good hug for Mr. Bear, though.

While the little man was sleeping, the sheets finished in the wash, so we mosied on over to Mommy and Daddy's room to make the bed. He recovered his trusty blue hanger and worked on turning on my side of the electric mattress pad, one of his favorite master bedroom activities.

Also while he was sleeping, I brought a couple tubs of infant clothes up from the basement so I can start putting the unisex stuff in Paco's drawers. For Baylor, though, these were new things to climb on.

"I've got it, Mom, don't worry!"

I felt a little better after I unstacked them. He just looked so cute there, swinging his legs about.

And then he stood up.

After that, the tubs were quickly moved up to the nursery for unpacking at a later date.

Bryson soon got home and while I worked on dinner, he and Baylor worked on the alphabet.

Baylor just loves the trumpets in this one particular Raffi song ("Robin in the Rain"), so Bryson got out his Skatelites CD and played a little trumpet music for our little man. And the little man thought that was pretty cool.

We had cowboy casserole for dinner, which while delicious turned out to be a messy endeavor for Baylor. Sooooo, he spent the rest of the night sans pants.

When he first started teething, he had a penchant for using books as teethers. Hippos Go Berserk was one of the victims at that time, and Baylor finally figured out that his saliva had weakened the binding ... enough to be torn anyway. So off went one of his favorite books to Mommy's Book Binding Service. It's amazing what a little packing tape can do!

He inspected my handiwork and deemed it sufficient, and then had us read the story to him several times before bed.

All in all, it was a good but exhausting day. I swear, the farther along I get in this pregnancy the more energy he gets and the more he can get into. I won't lie, I felt like a bad mom all day, telling him no excessively (and very sternly) and generally failing at keeping him out of trouble (at one point he tumbled off one of our chairs head first, then got up to try it again). But we'll get the hang of it and find a way to better communicate so the "nos" become less frequent, and try to keep as much exploration in our day as possible. Hopefully someday soon.

Compression Hose ... Really? REALLY?!

For the last two weeks, I have been dutifully wearing maternity compression hose from the minute I get out of the shower to the minute I put on my pajamas at night. They are tight, they are warm, and they are exceedingly difficult to put on while pregnant (an irony that seems to be lost on my doctor).

Yesterday, in the compression hose area of my life, was miserable; I had somehow managed to get the left leg on really twisted and couldn't for the life of me fix it. I even got a second chance to put them on because I had to take them off for my doctor's appointment, and the left leg was still horribly corkscrewed - especially around the thigh area.

I went to put them on today and held them up so I could take a good look at them and try to figure out what in the world was going on. Much to my dismay, I looked at the left leg and found it to be backward. Yes, the left leg of my compression hose - my new pair, only a week old - had pulled an Exorcist-style move and turned itself completely around. Which probably means the other pair hadn't been sewn incorrectly. Apparently, after a week of continuous wear, one of the legs will just decide to freak out and face the other direction in protest.

Surprisingly, however, they went on really well today; so well, in fact, that I'm dreading having to use the bathroom for fear that they will get all messed up in the the up and down of the process. I have no idea what I did differently to make them feel better today; maybe it was just the complete hopelessness of getting them on correctly that helped out. Who knows?

Anyone ever have this happen with either normal nylons or compression hose? Anyone know how to fix it? Anyone? Anyone?

The Perfect Storm: Day 2

Little B started off day two of The Perfect Storm pretty happily. He got to have bananas for part of his breakfast, always a favorite.


And he got to bring butterfly to my doctor's appointment. Sadly, butterfly fell on the bathroom floor while we were there and now has to (somehow) be sterilized. Ugh.

He was a very good boy for my visit. He read books and generally kept himself busy. When my OB played the baby's heartbeat, Baylor looked around the room trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. Then when she took it off my belly, he said, "Off ... on?" Too cute!

After a quick stop at McD's for a shamrock shake (hey, I only gained two pounds since last visit), we went home and played for a little while. Finally, Baylor got hungry and we had lunch at the counter together.

He just loves sitting in his hippo chair!

He then went down for a nap that was, in my opinion, way too short - only about an hour or so. But, such is life.

After his nap, we took advantage of the warmer weather and went for a short walk. Our end goal was to pick up my in-laws' mail and paper, but we had a lot of fun along the way.

As it turns out, spring has started to ... well, spring!

Gorgeous day, huh? It was a bit brisk, but not too shabby for the beginning of March.

We walked until the sidewalk became bathed in sunlight; then, for some reason, Baylor stopped dead in his tracks and turned around. It may have had something to do with our neighbor's dog being outside and Baylor just loving dogs right now.

So he stared at the dog a bit. (Eventually he was brazen enough to go right up to Simon, the dog, and smile at him. Don't worry, I was right there as was Simon's owner, and he is used to small kids.)

Then we walked down to get the mail and paper, and my poor kiddo was pretty confused as to why we weren't hanging out and seeing Grandma and Grandpa. He banged on their door and tried to open it to no avail.

In all honesty, had he been wearing all black he would've looked like a little cat burglar. It was quite adorable.

He found a newspaper indicator marker on the ground and used it to scrape at the snow. It was a weird moment, but he thought it was hilarious!

Then, though we had accomplished our mission, he decided to go back to the front door and try to get in again. "Step!"

Isn't he the cutest?! (Yes, I know I am biased ...)

I was finally able to pry him away from their house, and we made our way home.

Once we got inside, his nose started running a bit and he seemed a bit tired.

And silly.

Just look at those rosy cheeks! His face and hands were so cold, but he didn't really seem to mind it much.

Yeah, he was a little tired from our walk.

But he perked right back up after a while and wore his Wee Wedgits as bracelets.

He kept making this face ... I think his nose was bothering him a little.

Today, his favorite number was zero. Can you tell?

"Peekaboo, Mom!"

He was interested in reading a book, so he took down his copy of "The New Baby" by Mercer Mayer ... then he said, "new baby". So I had to take a picture of the moment. (Now if only he knew there was an actual new baby coming.)

After a wonderful afternoon of hugs and laughter and all sorts of fun, I think it was expecting a lot that dinner would go smoothly. Little B didn't want to eat anything, particularly if he had to feed himself, so it was a frustrating event and our only real hiccup of the day.

I think it took him about twenty minutes to eat a bowl of applesauce, his favorite food. Whoa.

After dinner, he played in the living room by himself while I cleaned up the dishes. I heard a little grunting here and there, so I decided to go check it out. And I found him just listening to Raffi ... in a chair. He's really getting good at climbing, to say the least.

Then he climbed into his yellow bucket to play with his cups on the hearth. He even did a little mixed media work with his cups and his blocks!

Other cute things from today that I wasn't able to photograph:

Baylor asked for and sat through two whole readings of Horton Hears a Who! He loved the part when JoJo yells out, "Yopp!" So much so, in fact, that when I asked him, "What do we say?" he said, "Yopp!" instead of "Please."

He pointed out light and dark while we were eating dinner, as I didn't have the lights on in the dining room behind us.

He had me read The Digging-est Dog about four times today; I think he is truly enthralled by dogs at the present time. When we saw Simon, Baylor actually tried to enter their house to play with him!

He hugged me spontaneously a lot today. I have no idea why, but I'm not complaining.