On Becoming a Mother

Oliver is fourteen months tomorrow! The first year goes fast and it would seem the second year is going to go even faster.  Probably the same with each subsequent year.  Why does time seem to speed up as you get older?  Regardless, this weekend Oliver spent quite a bit of time playing outside. Saturday he made such a mess of himself I had to get some pictures. I hesitated to post them as it shows I let him out in his PJs to play, but no one is pretending to be the world’s best mom here, so whatever. While you are judging me, remember that it was at least 70degrees out, so at least he was warm.

Waving at me, “Hey, Mama, like what I’ve done with myself here, with all the dirt and such?”

A nice close up of the mess

How cute is he peeking out from behind the tree with his little bucket?  Kills me!

He is mad at me in this one because I just asked him to some rock or stick or something out of his mouth.

Look at that face!! So dirty and still so stinkin cute.

These next two were just too perfect not to share.  He cracks us up all day with his various faces.

HA HA! Happy fourteen months, kiddo!

Oliver is oh so close to walking.  He has been cruising around the furniture, walls, whatever, for months and now he has started lifting his hands up and standing practicing his balance.  He will finally walk if we hold his hands…he wouldn’t do this forever. Also, he will finally push around the cart we got him to practice walking.  I am so sorry for the blur of this picture, but just look at the expression on his face!

I had to hide behind a wall to take the picture because as soon as he saw the camera…

Every. Single. Time. Drives me nuts.  I can take his picture when I have him hostage in some sort of restraining device.  Here are a couple so you can see what a big boy he is.

Blurry again, but a  classic Oliver expression.

He is turning into the funniest kid.  Totally expressive and always trying to get us to laugh, especially his dad.  His favorite things are pillows and blankets and he will throw himself into pillows over and over again giggling like crazy.  He loves to be chased and hates to be told he can’t do something.  We have reached a point where he will throw tantrums.  So far they are short and I am sympathetic because I know it must be frustrating to be physically removed from something you want to do or have something you want taken away.  I try to mitigate the circumstances so there are as few “disagreements” between us as possible.  I know this is only the beginning.

In other news, I am growing a sibling for Oliver. Yay!! I’ll be 11 weeks tomorrow and this trimester can not end fast enough! It is seriously kicking my butt.  My body is changing so much faster this time!  I can see Bob checking me out sometimes as we get ready for bed and although he would never say it, I can see the words across his forehead “just how big is she going to get this time??”  Ha ha. I fear ginormous.  We shall see.  Can’t believe I’m having another baby. So CRAZY!!!

The weather has FINALLY cooled down enough for us to play outside!  It was a rough summer here with over 100 degree temps almost every single day through mid September.  Very unusual.  Drought with super high temps is really no fun at all.  This part of Texas is actually quite green and not at all like the deserts of west Texas…for now.  Anyway, the heat has finally given way to 80 degree days that somehow feel like crisp fall days…at least for the first half of the day…and we get to spend lots of time outside playing with rocks, leaves, dirt and the such.  OK, so Oliver tries to eat all those things, but we’re working on it.

Look at that big squinty smile!!  My favorite!  He is so free with that big ole grin. Especially with the ladies.  ;)

Oliver is officially one.  An entire year old.  The thing about him turning one, seemingly overnight, is it just really highlighted how fast this whole journey will go. He will, in fact, turn two, three…eighteen before I know it.  While I have a certain sentimentality about all of that, it’s amazing to watch him grow as well as our family grow and change as he does.  When he was a little baby it was really me and him in so many ways.  I was always the one to feed and comfort him.  I rocked, nursed, wore and slept beside him almost 24 hours a day. Now, Bob bathes him and puts him to bed every night. We both play with him and read to him.  We have our own relationships with him and our relationship as a couple has deepened.  We have become a family in a much greater capacity than just the addition of a child.  It has been a wonderful year.

We had a party and I will get picks up. The ones I have aren’t very good. My sister-in-law was also taking pics, so I’ll see what she has.  However, here are a couple with his dad putting on his first pair of shoes from Aunt Emily and Uncle Sean. They are so cute and just big enough that I think they will fit him perfectly when he starts walking.

Oliver was not so sure about the shoes.  It’s been so hot here, he hasn’t had anything on his feet since he was, oh probably 5 months old.  Hopefully he doesn’t fully reject the concept of shoes when the time comes.  He’s old enough now that he just looks like he should have shoes on when he goes out.

I haven’t been blogging much because I’ve been working a lot but mainly it’s because I canNOT get a good picture of Oliver these days.  If he sees that I have the camera out, he giggles and comes charging towards me to get to the camera.  So all I have are pictures like this

or this

This is apparently very normal and all explained very clearly here in this post in the funniest parenting blog ever:

http://crappypictures.typepad.com/crappy-pictures/2011/09/smile-or-the-evolution-of-photos-of-my-child.html

So funny and so true. My pictures of Oliver follow this path EXACTLY. Which means we should be entering the “blurry” stage soon.  I can’t wait!

Congrats to Kelli Blount for winning the Nubius Giveaway!! If you haven’t had a chance, check out their website. Such a great company for products you can feel really good about!

Sooooo, the other day I have an OBGYN appointment and it’s early in the morning and I wake up late (because I was sleeping in Oliver’s room…), so it’s all crazy and a new location and horrible traffic, etc.  Just that kind of morning.  Then, as SOON as I pull in the parking lot, I look in the mirror and Oliver has emptied the ENTIRE contents of his stomach onto himself.   He has never puked like that before. I’ve never seen anything like it.  I look to the diaper bag and I have essentially nothing of use to me. No extra clothes and NO WIPES. UGH!!!  What to do? Such a mess!  I manage to get him somewhat cleaned up and undressed. I had a tank top on under my shirt, so I took my shirt off and wrapped it around Oliver. I was really grateful to live in Texas at that moment, so we were warm, if not a tad disgusting.  It was all fine, of course and my OB and favorite midwife were thrilled to see naked Oliver, but it was my first (and last?) experience of baby grossness coupled with complete unpreparedness.

Incidentally, I was at the OB to get all checked out and discuss baby number 2…because clearly I take such fantastic care of baby number 1 . Bob and I have decided to move forward with trying for a second child. Since Oliver was born we have gone back and forth and around and around about this, as anyone who has had the unfortunate experience of spending lots of time talking with me over the last year knows all too well.   So, we’ll see how all that goes.

To close this random post, here is a crappy, yet adorable picture from my phone.  You can see he is playing with the camera. I can hardly get any pictures of him these days! If he sees the camera, it’s all over. Look at his thighs!!!  I am so hopelessly in love with that child.

Nubius Organics! This is such a great company.  They have a huge selection of products for man, woman and child that are good for us and good for the earth.  They selection is always changing too, so you have check them out more than once.

The product I chose to review is this nifty thing, the New Wave Premium Bathtub Filter.

We have really terrible water down here especially in the summer. There is so much chlorine in it and the water is hard.  Coming from the northwest this is difficult for me to deal with and I really hated the idea of bathing Oliver in it.  I run his bath water through the ball, swish the ball a couple time in the tub and voila! the soap is sudsy and his skin is soft and smooth.  I have been taking him in the shower with me and I can tell the difference when he comes out of that water.  So, while clearly there is a larger issue at hand that the water I am bathing in is TRASH, at least my sweet child is bathing in good water.  The product keeps the water  chlorine free for a YEAR! Love it.

It’s likely we could all benefit from the removal of whatever chlorine is in our water, so you could probably use this in your shower or bath for your little ones or yourself, so you should enter to win!  Leave a comment about something you like about the Nubius Website for one entry and for a 2nd entry “like” Nubius on Facebook.

I’ll pick a winner Monday morning at random using this interesting gadget.

*UPDATE* I’m going to do the drawing Monday night because I realize Friday evening is a crappy time to do a giveaway.  Live and learn.

Good luck!

First, a confession…in the past when I have read blogs and the moms are all, “Oh my gosh, my baby is turning ONE SO SOON and I am freaking out!!!”, I have mocked them in my mind.  Yes I have.  Calm down ladies.  Seriously.  But now, here I am just four weeks out from my sweet baby boy being a  year old and while I will not be obsessing about this fact or  party planning for the next month (because my practicality usually does win out over my emotionality, though both characteristics are forces to be reckoned with) I have found myself a bit overwhelmed by the fact that he is turning ONE SO SOON.  A year is the end of babyhood.  It is the end of him being entirely dependent on me.  It is the beginning of him truly coming into his self and while, of course, you want that for your child, I am already nostalgic for the time that has passed already.

However, all that said, this month has been the absolute most fun!  Oliver’s personality has become more and more apparent.  The kid is a hoot.  He loves to make us laugh. He loves to play with us.  After his bath, when daddy unwraps the clean naked baby from his towel and sets him on the edge of the bed, Oliver giggles and takes off for the head of the bed and buries his head in the pillows.  He looks back, giggles, buries his head…TOO CUTE.  You can see the mischievousness in his eyes.

It’s getting exceedingly difficult to take pictures and video of Oliver as he is so interested in everything electronic.  As soon as I get out the camera, camcorder, phone, computer, whatever, he is racing towards it leaving behind whatever cute thing he was doing I wanted to capture.   So, I have gotten more pictures of him snoozing lately.

This month Oliver has been working hard on his fine motor development.  He has started stacking blocks instead of just knocking them down. Today he built a stack three high.  Yay Oliver!   When the block lands where he wants it, after much effort, he looks at me and is so tickled with himself.  He has learned to push teeny tiny buttons, put things into containers and boxes.  He stood up for the first time a few weeks ago and has been content to stand and then slowly put himself back down.  Just this morning he “cruised” for the first time taking a couple steps holding onto the couch.  He is not really a fan of walking while we hold his hands. He seems to prefer feeling really stable before he moves his feet.  He was just like that learning to crawl too.  So interesting. I love watching consistencies in his personality develop.

Oliver is a big fan of bath time.  He loves to watch the water go into the tub.

One of my favorite things he’s doing lately is crawling into my lap for a snuggle as we are playing.  We play for a while, then have a quick snuggle, play, snuggle.   As he gets sleepy at the end of the day he sits in my lap for longer periods and we move from blocks or whatever to books.  He seems to have favorite books now and is picky about which one we read.

Basically the last month rocked and while I do cherish each stage and kind of hate to see them pass, I can’t wait to see what’s next!

Check back in later this week as I’m doing my first product/company review and giveaway!!

he slept.

This is what my shower looks like when I am done these days:

That’s right. There is a wet naked baby in there.   Getting a shower for the first many months was not an issue.  Since he’s been getting mobile, things have gotten a tad more complicated.  I used to be able to have him in the bathroom with me and he would play and be contentedly, but now there is no keeping him out of the shower, so I don’t bother. He sits at my feet and plays with a toy or my shampoo bottles happy as a clam.

These are some of my favorite pictures ever of my sweet baby. So often I take pictures and they are super cute, but they just don’t quite look like Oliver in the flesh to me. These do. I love them.

There are those giant teeth!

Oh how I love that kid.

Baby Boy-

This last month has been the BEST for our little family.   Daddy and I have started working together to help you sleep better at night.  It has been going really well.  You stay in your crib all night and are no longer eating throughout the night.  You still wake a few times each night, but it is for less and less time AND you are learning to put yourself back to sleep.  The last few nights have been pretty amazing. We can see that there will, in fact, be a night when you sleep all the way through.

You are a crawling machine.  You get faster each day. I have certainly left you somewhere, turned around and seemingly you have vanished as you rushed towards something that caught your eye.  Black cords attached to expensive electronic things peak your interest more than most things.  Also, shoes…you love shoes. Unfortunately, you really like to chew on them?? Flip flops are your favorite.

Your appetite is exploding! In the last week you have had your first piece of pizza and your first grilled cheese sandwich.  These will likely be some of your favorite foods for all time. They were a huge hit.  I try to sneak avocado into anything I can.  You’ve not yet decided you love it, but it’s so good for you, I’m hoping you will get a taste for it.

You have SO MUCH personality.  You are sweet and snuggly. You love to smile at everyone you see.  You have the most adorable squinty smile and laugh.  Anyone who spends time with you is charmed immediately.  You bring joy into people’s lives, of course, your daddy and me most of all.

You like to choose your own books now for me to “read” to you. Really you just want to turn the pages super fast.  Instead of me reading you a story, I usually point to something on the page: blue goose, red hen, barnyard dog and you are ready for the next page. We read you stories at night before bed. When your daddy puts you to bed, I can hear him reading to you through the door.  I LOVE it. We just finished Where the Red Fern Grows.  I think you loved it as much as we did.

You have four teeth.  The picture below shows your bottom two and I need to take some updated ones to show the top chompers. They are HUGE!  You had a hard time getting them through. It was sad.  You aren’t really one for teethers, you just wanted your binkie ALL the time and you would suck on it so hard, sometimes I couldn’t get it out of your mouth.

We love you, sweet boy.  You’ll just have to have a baby of your own some day to ever be able to fathom how much.

With all the love in our hearts,

Mama and Daddy