Walkin

Happy birthday to me!  Callum took his first steps today!  What a cutie to give me such a precious birthday present.  :)

Callum the crawler

Crawling!

Aaand he's crawling!  I'm in trouble.

Everett is 2 years and 10 months, Callum is 7 months and 5 days

Avocado

I gave in a little early.  I told Callum, who was begging and begging, that he could try some food as soon as he doubled his birth weight and learned to sit.  Well, he's pretty heavy and he's been working on sitting.  He managed to keep himself upright for a good span and threw an absolute fit while we were eating, trying to grab our plates and food, so I gave in.  I scooped out some avocado, pureed it, thinned it, and we tried it out.  He liked it.  Not love, not hate, just like.  You can see it was a whole family affair and Everett really got a kick out of it...which Callum loved.

Here's Everett during a trip to the visitor center:

And here's what I have to do with Callum when he's being needy:

and what usually ends up happening:

Oh, and the meal plan!

Dinners for August 1-7

Monday, August 1 – birthday dinner with Grandma

Tuesday, August 2 – veggie tart

Wednesday, August 3 – Trinidad chicken, brown rice, asparagus

Thursday, August 4 – North African vegetable stew with poached eggs

Friday, August 5 – lemon/orange fish, potatoes, veggie

Saturday, August 6 –  Red pepper goat cheese frittata

Sunday, August 7 – block party potluck

Abstract Concepts

My boy is kind of a genius.  It's really an amazing thing to watch him learn and make connections.  Lately, he has been obsessed with colors and asking "cuh-lore?" about anything he sees.  Yesterday, I realized he's actually absorbing some of it.  It was windy and rainy, so the bay was muddy looking and I commented as we drove by, "oh, our lake is brown today."   Normally, Everett would respond by saying "lake!" because he recognizes that word.  Well, yesterday, he responded, "cuh-lore!"  With big eyes, I said, "yes, you are right.  Brown is a color."  Another fun instance yesterday: Everett's favorite place to go out to eat is the Black Cat coffee shop (they have a fun little kid area with toys and books).  Whenever we go down the street it is on, he says "black cat black cat!"  Well, we had dinner with "kuh-muh" and "kuh-pa" yesterday and Everett spotted furby, the black and white fuzzball of a cat.  Instead of squealing, "kitty!" he said, "black cat!"  Brian asked if he really understood that Furby was a black cat and I said that I assumed so.  He repeated it several times after that too.  Like I said, genius.

In other news, we have a leaking window.  You might say, "now Beth, I thought you had gorgeous, brand new Pella windows throughout your house and that's one of the reasons you decided to buy it?" and you, my friend, would be right.  However, there are four teeny tiny windows up in our ginormous, uninsulated attic and one of them has some issues.  So there is water on an inner wall of our attic.  This preoccupies every thought in husband's head and he has been watching youtube videos, researching ladders, and buying a new window since last night (well, and working and making himself doctor and optometrist appointments....what can I say?   I have to make appointments for two and a half other people, I can't handle him too!)  So yeah.  We're going to have an interesting weekend of trying to install a new window that is a different size from the current one (it was in stock now, and not in two weeks).

Trees and Toddler Beds

 As you may notice, I am not doing any garage posts because Brian was going to do them.  I'm sure he'll get on that right away.  I will, however, give you the tree update.  We have a very large silver maple in our front yard that was starting to make us a little uneasy with how much it was overhanging the house and a three-trunked white birch in the back that was directly in the way of our garage plans.  After many phone calls, discussions, and debates, we decided on a company to do it (because they were a whole lot cheaper than the other guy we liked) and they came out today and trimmed up our trees.  Both Brian and I nearly had a heart attack as he was trimming the maple because we kept seeing these big, beautiful limbs falling to the ground.  It does look very nice now though and we'll get used to it.  I didn't take any before shots of the maple, but here are two from when we were looking at buying the house:

and here's some afters:

And the birch I did take before AND afters.  Before:

After:

I know the birch is a little odd looking, but we had to have him take quite a few limbs off that would otherwise hang over the garage and take out an entire trunk that was totally dead and diseased on top.

In other news of the day, I switched Everett's crib over to the toddler bed set up.  As soon as I took down the front panel, he hopped in and snuggled with his blankets and pillow.  That confirmed to me that he was ready for the switch.  I put him up for a nap and checked on him a bit later to find this:

Hooray!  Here's hoping tonight goes just as well.  In other Everett news, he now has two canines on top, if fiercely independent, throws some outstanding temper tantrums, says quite a few words, gives kisses, and is in the process of weaning!  He's now down to nursing only when he wakes up in the morning and we have no plans to stop that unless it starts hurting from lack of milk.  He's such a big boy!!!

13 months old!

Everett is 13 months old today! Here's a brief update on him.

Everett can:
walk, run, feed himself with a spoon, use a sippy cup on his own, play a recorder and kazoo, chase and run away from people and animals, pet the dog, stack blocks, make cars vroom, point to things he wants, show me pretty things, bring me things when I ask

Everett can say (they don't all actually sound like this, but I know it's what he means!):
moo, baa, dada, kitty, ball, hi, vroom, bark, oooh!

Everett has:
12 teeth!, a fantastic smile and laugh, a sense of humor, a love for pretty things, skis, too many toys, not enough long sleeved onesies

Everett loves:
running to see daddy when he gets home from work, kitties and dogs, spinning, swinging, jumping, and dancing, chasing and tickling, finding things and giving them to me, reading books, waving bye bye out the window when people leave, brushing his teeth and hair

Everett does not like:
getting into his carseat, sitting on his potty for more than 5 seconds, when someone ignores him, baby dolls, diaper changes

Brian lost the baby this morning...

...but then I found him. Brian was so nice this morning and got up, brought Ev to me for nursing, and then took him away to diaper and dress him so I could sleep in. Well, about 15 minutes later, Brian comes yelling upstairs, "I lost Everett!" which of course made me fly out of bed, saying "WHAT?!?" Apparently Brian was downstairs doing a few dishes from last night and Everett disappeared. Riiight. He was about to head back downstairs, calling Ev's name and I heard a squawk from the bathroom. Everett had crawled up the stairs, went into the bathroom, shut the door behind him, and was playing with the toilet bruch. Which made me make this face: 8|
We've eased up on gating off the stairs a bit because he has now figured out how to scoot himself backwards down the stairs on his tummy (finally!), but he still needs eyes on him all the time.
Ev also went in to the doctor this Friday and got his first H1N1 shot. You should have seen the look he gave the nurse afterward. Hoo-wee. I'm just glad she got that look instead of me!
Oh, and we're now up to five teeth!
Anyway! Here are some pictures from last week and a new video on the monster walking.

This is his new "fake cry" face.Looking at his buddy, Emma

Full of leaves!

Cuddling with mama

"Really, mama? Leaves?"

The walker.

Some More Playinjg in Pajamas

Just doing his regular evening playtime:


Waving to you!

Catch up

We went camping in Copper Harbor this past weekend. Note to all: do not attempt camping with the wiggliest 9 month old on the planet. I got kicked in the face. A lot.

We were there for Brian to do this:While there, Everett decided he could do this:
And did so some more this evening with my newest garage sale find

CRAWLING!!!

Everett crawled tonight! He saw his new croc shoe on the floor and went after it. Apparently he didn't feel like dragging his belly to it, so he just stayed up on hands and knees and moved! YAY! We were ridiculously overjoyed and clapped and yelled!

Here are some pictures.
My sick sick baby last week during his high fever. He was watching a little bit of Sesame Street.
and crying at me.
Here he is tonight before his bath (yes, I am one of those evil moms who takes bare butt pictures!).A crawling fiend! Tomorrow should be interesting...
In the tub with his new cow-fish

Getting into the swing of things

I know I have been a terrible blogger lately and I promise I will get back to my normal, talking about myself and my fascinating life, schedule soon. Things are finally starting to calm down (after the Everett room paint spill fiasco that I still don't like talking about), and I'm trying to get us back into a routine. I know you all have been sorely missing your Everett detailed updates, so I'll try and catch you up.

Everett has been sleeping through the night beautifully (except for the past three nights when he has woken around 2 am) and it is amazing how much sleeping for 8 hours straight can make you feel a million times better. He is still sleeping in his playpen since we don't want to assemble his crib just to take it down and assemble it in his new room next week (when the new carpeting is installed).

He now has 2 teeth!!! I still haven't managed to get them in a picture because they're still little and his smile doesn't show them, but believe you me, they are there. It used to be kind of cute when he would grab your finger and put it in his mouth. Not anymore. Ouch. Ev is using newfound teeth to do things besides cause pain in my finger (and luckily not other body parts!). He has just recently started using his teeth to bite his rice crackers. It's pretty darn cute. He absolutely loves these crackers called Baby Mum Mums (made in China, but what can you do?) and will fall into utter silence when you give him one - also works with the first chunk or two of tofu. Yes, I did just say tofu. The child loves to smush it into his mouth. He's not entirely a vegetarian though, as he did eat some tiny pieces of chicken the other day.

Everett can now scoot a bit but we're not sure he does it entirely on purpose. If you set him down in one spot, he will fall forward onto his face/stomach (not as hard as he used to), roll to the sides, turn to face different directions, and generally end up 6 feet from where he started. He can also support his weight on hands and knees but then just flops down. I am not looking forward to this whole mobility thing. That means closing the kitchen door to the basement all the time and purchasing at least two baby gates for the stairs. Oh well!

Ev is still a giant baby and getting bigger by the day. I have no idea when, if ever, he will slow down....maybe aroundf 18? : )

And a minor cat update too (just for Britt!): Mabel has become Saint Mabel and is thriving living in a big house. She can disappear to hide in a million and one locations when she doesn't want to be found, but still loves lounging on the couch and getting belly rubs. She has also become much more friendly with others. In our apartment, she would run and hide whenever someone came over. Now she comes to check it out and plops on the couch for some snuggles. Needless to say, she is now the ideal cat. OLIVIA, on the other hand (caps for emphasis and yelling), has been a beast. She is back to her scratching on our boxspring at 4:30 a.m. habit, pulling on carpet, puking all over, and just being a general nuisance. I think she has her feelings hurt that she is most definitely no longer the center of attention at all times and is acting out because of it. We're going to borrow some "don't scratch" and "do scratch" sprays from ... hmm....I was going to say "the Hammond house," but that doesn't quite work anymore....from G&G H's house....and see how those work. Olivia did get to explore outside for a while the other day but hissed and snapped at us when we tried to get her back in, so she won't be going back out anytime soon (besides that I'm worried something will startle her or she'll get some courage and find her way into the street).

Well, I have made myself a GIANT list of things to do today, so I'd better get started before Ev wakes up (he's taken to sleeping later and later recently). Now I just have to decide....breakfast? shower? dinner prep? Hmmm....

An Everett Update

I realized it's been a while since I've given y'all the milestones update on Ev.  So here goes as much as I can remember.

The weekend of April 25-26: Feet were discovered.  He had been examining them for a few days and looking a bit startled when they moved.  Over this weekend, he realized that he could control them and they promptly ended up in his mouth.  He now loves grabbing his feet (especially when they are bare) and pulling on them, eating them, drooling on them, etc.

The next week [on vacation]: Being able to grab feet suddenly made it much easier to control the rest of his body.  While he still hasn't quite figured out rolling front to back or moving on his tummy, he did manage to move a bit.  I would lie him down on the floor with his head pointing one direction, turn around, look back, and his head was facing the opposite direction.  It's the beginning of independent movement and it's scary!   :)  Just kidding, it's very exciting, but we're kind of hoping he holds off on the mobility a bit until we move and only have to childproof one house.

   Also during the vacation week, auntie Christy was nice enough to teach mister baby man how to blow raspberries.  He now spits, razzes, and makes farty noises ALL THE TIME.  This also results in his nuk flying across any and every room we are in when he decides it is a good time to razz.  (We used the nuk as a crutch over vacation and now have to work on not using it during the day again....)

And just today: Ev figured out how to hold and use his own pacifier.  Eek!  It takes a while and he ends up with it backwards, sideways, and upside down before he gets it it the right way, but he can do it.  This also goes along with.....TEETHING!  Yes, the dreaded time has befallen us.  Ev was miserable this evening, chewing (and drooling) on everything he could get near his mouth.  You have to feel even worse for the poor babe because he tries so hard to be happy.  In between whines and cries, he smiles at you.  Poor thing.  We finally gave him some tylenol and he fell asleep (only about 2 hours past normal bedtime).

Still working on: 

Sitting - Everett can sit on his own, but for very short periods of time.  He does pretty well with the boppy behind him, but inevitably finds something interesting on the floor in front of him and faceplants.

Rolling front to back - Yeah...he just doesn't like being on his tummy, so....

Moving - I have a feeling this one is coming soon.  I don't know if it will be creeping, rolling, or some other method, but he's going to start moving.

Expanding the palate - Ev has now dined on acorn and butternut squashes, avocado, pears, rice cereal, sweet potatoes, and barley.  After some more work with sweet potatoes and barley, we will be moving on to bananas, green beans, peas, and oatmeal.

Phew!  This boy is growing (huge!) and learning so fast, my head is spinning.  He's going to be a genius athlete who runs the world....at least I think so.  :)