Our Little Toddler

Well I have a one year old now. A little toddler. He took his first steps on Memorial Day. We were at the old house and unfortunately I was in the other room cleaning the refrigerator when it happened. But hopefully I will see him take a few more steps soon! We have a video baby monitor and in the mornings we spy on him when he is just waking up and he practices standing up without falling. He is eating mostly table food now and is trying new foods every day. He is sleeping through the night for the most part. He usually wakes up once, but Adam is able to get him back to sleep. His one year old check up was yesterday. For the first time Harrison was fighting the nurse when she did the normal routine. He was stripped naked on the scale screaming his head off saying "Mama, Mama!" desperately stretching his arms out to me wondering why I wasn't saving him from the mean lady trying to weigh him. She finally gave up, he was so wiggly. So I guess we will never know how much Harrison weighed at 1! We are guessing he is still around 21 lbs (we just went for an ear infection 3 weeks ago). He is 29.5" tall. Thats in the 20% - 50%, where he has been all along. His eighth tooth just broke through and she said by the looks of his swollen gums, the first year molars were about to come in also. She said his vocabulary was that of an 18 - 24 month old. I have lost track of all of his words at this point. But "vaccuum", which his Meemers taught him, is his new favorite!

And of course since the last blog, he had multiple birthday celebrations! His Meemers and Poppers came over Thursday night (his actual birthday) and Harrison "opened" up his presents from us, them, and Hayley and Logan. Kim (aka Meemers) brought over a little cake for him, but he tried to chunk it directly on the floor. His big present from us was his wagon. He have taken several walks with it and he absolutely loves it. On Friday we celebrated with his Granna, Grandpa, and Uncle Matthew. More presents! And then Saturday was the big birthday celebration with all the friends and family. He still didn't take an interest in the cake unfortunately! He loved being around all the people and playing with the other kids. By cake and present time, he was exhausted and pretty much falling asleep with his eyes open. It was a great party and we were so glad to be able to celebrate it in a big way!

Last day with my 11 month old

Harrison is currently boycotting naptime. He didn't take one until 5:15 yesterday afternoon. I have a feeling that is his plan for today too. I am currently hiking him around the house in the backpack, stopping by the bar every few minutes to type this. He is grabbing my ponytail and cracking up laughing, not sleepy at all.

The biggest news of the day is that our couch came this morning. After a long 2 month wait! Harrison will miss all the space he had to whiz around in his walker. But now we can cuddle up on the couch and read books. Its super comfortable and Harrison has just been burying his head in the pillows. The shutters for his playroom are coming today too. Its starting to feel like a home and not a hotel!

This is my last blog entry before I have a one year old!!! Sniff, sniff....

Birthday Birthday!

Harrison said "birthday" all day long yesterday. I attached a video today from when I was trying to capture it because I knew no one would believe me! Other new words are: mine (everything is "mine"), bite (which he requests when we are holding a cookie), wow (which he says when he is excited) and Adam taught him faucet. I might be missing some. He really is talking up a storm! He is still sleeping through the night for the most part. He slept until 5:30 this morning and then snuggled back up to me after nursing and went back to sleep for another 2 1/2 hours. He had some of our tortilla soup last night and Adam keeps giving him little bites of cookie. (I tell him not to but he keeps doing it!) He still seems to hate milk but I looked up some ideas on the internet on how to ease them into the cow's milk. I was sitting on the floor today and he climbed up on me and let go and just stood there for at least 10 or 15 seconds. I got really excited and thought he was going to walk! Other than that, we are just continuing to get ready for the 3 days of birthday celebrations!

Beautfiul sleep....

We reached a milestone this weekend. Harrison actually slept through the night! I think I figured out an end to the madness. We didn't do the traditional "cry it out" method because it didn't work for us when we tried several months ago. Harrison screamed bloody murder for hours and we decided that route was not for us. So this time I laid in bed the whole time and let him cry in my arms. It lasted 2 1/2 hours but it was crying, not out of control screaming. And when he woke up the next morning, he still loved us and was happy. So that gave me hope! We keep encouraging to try table food and last night he eagerly ate refried beans, bites of tortilla, and the chicken filling to our enchiladas. I think that extra bit of fat in his diet helped because he slept from 10 pm - 5am. Then Adam got him back to sleep til 7. Once he starts drinking cow's milk, I think that will be the ticket to solid sleeping. I tried giving him cow's milk earlier this week and he made a terrible face and through the cup across the room but I will keep trying.

We had a beautiful sunset last night so we ate dinner on the balcony. Harrison loves it out there! He has been taking baths in the big bathtub too. I thought this was an adorable picture

Time to Party!

I have been so busy this week getting ready for Harrison's birthday party! With all my talking of the "party", Harrison started saying Party! He also learned the word Button when he was playing with my belly button the other day. It looks like he is going to be a climber like his daddy because he climbed right up on top of his table and chairs yesterday. I keep hearing horror stories of Adam climbing up on top of the fridge and jumping off when he was little! He also holds his sippy cup up to his puppet and makes a "gulp gulp gulp" noise. Its hilarious. Who knew a baby could have such a funny sense of humor?

Mother's Day weekend

Harrison had a busy Mother's Day weekend. We had his "Meemers and Poppers" over for dinner Saturday night. They gave him some early birthday presents. His big present was a table and chairs which he LOVES to push around the house. I think its going to teach him to walk! Sunday we had lunch with his great-grandmother Meme and that whole side of the family at EZ's and then spent some time at her house. We also played in the baby pool for the first time and played in the sandbox again (this time he didn't eat near as much sand!) Adam and Harrison surprised me with beautiful white roses and pink peonies, a big bouquet from the big guy and a little one from the little guy. This was definitely my most favorite Mother's Day yet!

Harrison is now standing very well on his own and even does it at our request. He also is doing a little better with feeding himself. He had some pasta for lunch and a few green beans the other night. He isn't showing as much interest as I would have hoped with table food, but I think its just taking him some time to warm up to the idea. In the meantime, I spend a lot of my time cleaning up the mess underneath the high chair since he loves to deposit the food I give him onto the floor!

Oh, also when we ask him what sound a dinosaur makes, he roars now (so cute)!

Yummy Sandbox

We have 3 more words to add to the list! Pot, Pizza, and Door. He is a little parrot. When we read his book about dinosaurs, he always points to specific dinosaurs and says "mama" so I am not sure what to think about that.

We got him a sandbox that is on the basement patio. It was supposed to be a birthday present, but I don't know if we can count it as that since we gave it to him like 3 weeks early. He likes it ok so far. The first time we put him in it he removed the sand from the box tiny little handful by tiny little handful. The second time, he insisted upon trying to put handfuls of sand into his mouth. I would move his hand each time but he was able to get some in his mouth. And he kept saying yummmmm. So after a few minutes of this back and forth, I had to take him out. He had a ring of wet sand around his mouth. I guess we will try again this weekend! Maybe we will air up the baby pool (also a "birthday gift"). Its certainly hot enough for it! Blazing hot already outside.

I have been getting him to sleep for naptime lately by walking him around the house in the backpack. Its killing my back, but it works! Thats what ibuprofen is for I guess!

My first official Mother's Day is this Sunday! Harrison and Adam already gave me a gift certificate for a day at the spa. (I begged for them to give me my gift early of course!) It may be awhile until I can use it, but I can't wait! Thank you to my favorite guys! :)

My Little Heartbreaker

We went to our neighbor's Cinco de Mayo party this evening. There are SO many little girls in our neighborhood and they all wanted to love on Harrison. Harrison hugged each and every one of them. I had to post these adorable pix immediately!

More words!

He was barely saying words a few weeks ago and now his "official" vocabulary is up to 17 words! And I am only counting words that I know he actually knows the meanings of. Like he is looking at the thing as he is saying the word. Or signing it, or answering a question. They are:

Yuck
Milk
Mama
Dada
Kitty
Uh-oh
Yes (or yeah)
No
Bird (or birdie)
pop
bubble
I do
I can do it
Ball
Bear (he says it so cute!)

He also can understand so many more. When I mention eat in a sentence, he does the baby sign for it. When we read "Mr. Brown can Moo" and get to the "knock, knock" part, he knocks on the page as soon as we turn to it. He also roars and growls to the parts of books where a lion or bear or dinosaur is growling as soon as we turn to that page. I think all of this talking is going to make the 1st birthday a little easier for me because I see all the exciting things we have to look forward to!

I have been sneezing my head off this morning and can't breathe with a killer headache. I think its allergies. Harrison also just did a triple sneeze. Maybe we just have to adjust to all these trees we now live next to! Hopefully thats all it is and not a cold or sinus infection.

Mama armed with Lysol

Last week I suspected that Harrison was developing an ear infection. Its so hard to tell the difference between teething and an ear infection so I was hoping it was teething. But after a few restless nights, a low grade fever, and ear tugging, I decided we better brave the dr's office of flu germs and get the visit over with. Whether its human, swine, or bird, I don't want my baby to have it!!! (I first tried to score the antibiotics over the phone but the dr wasn't really into the idea - worth a try!). So we took their first appointment Friday morning. I stashed a full size bottle of Lysol in the diaper bag (for emergencies only). Adam went in to check in for us and to Adam's annoyance, Harrison and I lingered outside in the fresh air and listened to La Bamba and Footloose, which for no explainable reason, was blasting from a radio next door. I just tried to play it off like we were enjoying the fresh air but I was really just being a total germophobe. Finally Adam came to the door, impatiently tapping his foot, so I took a deep breath and power walked as fast as I could through the waiting room into the exam room. He weighed in at 20 lbs, 7 oz and after checking him out, the dr decided that it was probably the beginning of an ear infection and prescribed amoxicillan (aka the bubble gum medicine) to be on the safe side. He has been on it for 2 days now, so I expect him to be 100% by tomorrow!

Adam and I had some errands to run yesterday (and we snuck in a delicious lunch at North) so instead of dragging Harrison along, we took him to his favorite place in the whole world, his Meemers and Poppers house. Other than that, we had a very low key weekend. Harrison is telling us new words everyday! "No", "Birdie" (he loves to bird watch), and "Ball". We sat outside yesterday morning and saw a little bunny rabbit hopping around. Harrison got a big kick out of that! Oh he also stood up today for several seconds. He is finally allowing us to put shoes on him (the rubber kind) so I think those will have him walking in no time!