Thanks!

Thanks to Trish who came for a quick visit this weekend. She helped with the baby so much: she played with him one morning when he woke up a little too early for us, fed and bathed him, helped put up the baby gates and then, as the piece de resistance, babysat him on Sunday. For the second time in as many weeks we have gone to the movies, one of our favorite pre-baby activities. I'm resolved that we will go out at least once a month...however, we might have to convince her to come down more often for that! Zeke gives his grandma two thumbs up.

(By the way, we went to see Children of Men. I really recommend it. The movie is about a dystopic world where there are no more children. Great art direction and editing, and some really powerful scenes. I had to come home and give Zeke a big hug first thing!)

Zeke's New Tricks

The munchkin is still getting over his cold. He is much much better, but for the second week we have skipped almost all contact with the outside world. I think his yucky nose would get us some negative reviews from the playgroup and Little Gym. He and I both miss other people. Still, he keeps busy.

Up until now, Zeke's main source of entertainment is to leave an entropic trail of disorder throughout the house. Everything must be taken from where it belongs and tossed somewhere else. Boxes must be overturned, puzzles tossed, trashcans knocked over, low tables cleared, and drawers emptied. (Oh, and pet bowls of food and water must be upset. Another milestone: Zeke had his first taste of catfood this month. At ten months, no longer a vegetarian.)

This week, however, he has a new game. He not only takes things out, he puts things in other things. I can't say, however, that he puts things "back" because they always go someplace new. So, new on the menu, the bottle of lotion went into the toybox and then in Aaron's shoe and today blocks went into the empty tissue box. He had occasionally done similar before, but now it is with great intentionality. What was really fun about this game today is that I would say, "Zeke, put the block in the box" and point at the block and the box and he would actually stop upsetting whatever he was upsetting to play with me. I'm not saying he was following directions, but I do think we were communicating.

We actually communicate a lot these days. He has a particular set of sounds that he uses when he sees the cats and the dog, for example. He also says "mama" and "dada". I don't necessarily think he could give you a definition of either, but I think he has a sense that we will come running if he is saying one of these. It doesn't always happen and I might be making this up, but sometimes it seems that when he is upset and with me that he cries for "dada" and that when he is with Aaron and upset he cries "mama". Trish and I are both convinced that he is talking, so what more objective judgement do you need?

Actually, I thought all the way back in mid-December that Zeke was talking, but it didn't seem to last very long. One day as he was waving goodbye, one of his playmate's mom said "Oh, he says bye-bye!" and it sure did sound like that. Then I noticed the next few days that it did truly sound like he said "bye-bye" (or at least "buh-buh") at the right moments. For example, we wave bye-bye to the bath every night before I dump the water out of the tub (really, I don't know how these rituals and routines start up). When he waved, he said "buh-buh". Then, when one of his toys turns off, it says "bye-bye". He responded in kind it seemed twice. Then we put him on the phone with Trish and he said it again. I could not believe it. So, why didn't I write about this in the blog immediately? Well, it just didn't seem to take. Now he sometimes says it, but sometimes he says "duh-duh" or "ra-ra" when waving. Haven't quite decided how I want to put this one in the records.

Zeke plays lots of games these days, in addition to the block-into-box game. Here are some of the favorites: feeding the dog, dropping things from the high chair, dropping things from the carseat so that they cannot be retrieved easily, breaking nightlights in the nursery, dropping things from the top of the stairs, closing doors, pulling the cords on the blinds, opening drawers, opening cabinets, pulling cords out of wall sockets.

As a result of all these fun and games, we have been childproofing. We have stocked up on outlet plugs and cabinet locks. And, as you can see, Sprout Daddy did a great job putting up baby gates at the top and bottom of the staircase. There's one less thing to worry about.

Another New Trick (46 weeks, 2 days)

The New Baby

Made you look! No, this isn't about a sibling for Sprout (a "Sprig", if you will). This is about my ongoing journey to figure out what I am and what I do besides the motherhood gig and the promise of a very big work project for me.

I love our arrangement right now. I am very lucky. Warning -- I am about to brag. Both Aaron and I are home all the time. I generally do baby duty all day, but can count on Aaron to take care of the baby when I need him to. For example, he might cover breakfast duty if I want to go back to sleep after taking care of the baby from 5 to 8 AM just like today. (Yes, the baby's sleep is really off while he has this cold.) Sometimes, the three of us will go out during the day to run errands or eat lunch. Our finances haven't been hit too hard, and I generally get positive responses to my being at home. (Recently, however, a friend who shall remain nameless asked how bored I was.)

Probably the thing that has been most difficult in the transition was that I expected to have more time when I left my job. I expected I would keep the house much cleaner, cook all the time and maybe even take on some projects or hobbies. As I often write here, I was entirely wrong. It gets me very frustrated sometimes. I don't have more time. I am very glad when I have time to eat lunch and go to the bathroom by myself -- things they almost always let me do at my former job. I am able to do a lot more around the house, of course, but I am not yet Supermom. For example, I want to let all of you know that I do not appreciate those of you who so conscientiously sent delightful Christmas cards and holiday letters with great pictures of your children, rubbing it in my face that buying cards doesn't matter if you don't send them out.

What has been great -- I mean, FANTASTIC -- is I just don't have the same pressure on me that I did before when I was working. I wouldn't say I am on vacation now, but it is a holiday from work stress. I had told everyone that I was going to do some freelance work and even printed up little business cards, but had not actively pursued or done any work since sometime the end of October. This week, though, I got a lot of news on the work front and most of it has me anxious once again, but in a positive way. First, through the recommendation of a former contractor and friend, I've been accepted to review grant proposals to a national foundation in DC. It's just a few days work at the end of February, but it's something I would have thought out of my league before and it will be good experience. Zeke will come, too, with Aaron as nanny. (I told you, we have a great flexible arrangement.) Now we begin the obsessing about whether to travel with a car seat, what to pack, et cetera. Coincidentally, my father and stepmom will be in DC at the same time visiting my stepsister who lives there, so we will have a family reunion. Let me know any good travel tips you might have when taking infants on planes to big cities.

Second, I've been asked to be a writer for a website and provide weekly localized content. The website is designed to help families up and out of poverty by providing them the most powerful tools on the internet that will help them find jobs and childcare, file taxes, connect with local resources, become homeowners and learn about health. I thought it would be a much lighter sort of job, but they have asked me to be only the fourth writer they have and the only one in a local market (they have 30 some similar websites in other markets). My job would be to cover some community events and issues, do some opinion pieces, and profile families and community groups. They want me to write at least four stories a month, all from home, and for an hourly rate with expenses. It is a nearly perfect opportunity and has me utterly terrified. I would finally be a writer, not just someone who writes as part of my job or as a late night mommy blogger. I'm still working out some important details with them, but am already working on my first story. They have agreed to be flexible with me as we figure out how much I can take on and as they figure out exactly what they need.

So, I think I'm slowly moving from the realm of SAHM (stay at home mom) to WAHM (work at home mom). No guarantees, but keep your fingers crossed for me that I figure out a way to make this baby work.

Flashback Friday Photo (45 weeks, 4 days)

One of the projects that we (that is, Sprout Daddy) has taken on recently is the organization of the thousands of photos we have on my computer. Many of these photos you haven't seen, so I might try and catch you up on some of the best occasionally. These are photos of Zeke from last month with one of his absolute favorite toys, a LeapFrog learning table. I wouldn't have thought to buy it for him, but we got it as a hand-me-down and it would have been a tragedy to have missed all this happiness. It is amazing what absolute joy you can get from some flashing lights and molded plastic. I think he is going through withdrawal this week actually, as the batteries have rundown and we have yet to replace them.

We have to run some old photos as Zeke is not very photogenic this week. Yes, hard to believe, hard to admit, but completely true. Zeke has his second cold ever and it is so much worse than the first one. It started out with him being a little cranky, a little unhappy when I left him with others (he was not crazy about about me leaving him at the childcare center at the Y and also cried when a friend babysat him on Saturday), and lots of erratic sleeping. By Tuesday he was a snot spigot. We missed our neighborhood playgroup, Little Gym and some other outings, because I didn't want him to be the Typhoid Mary of the under a year set. I didn't think it could get worse, but it did. I can't describe it, though, because it is not appropriate to record for all the world the multihued colors and viscosity of your child's snot. Poor, poor baby.

What's also terrible is that I have been blaming him for the cold I had last week and it appears I might have been wrong. In general, I've been feeling really run down for the past two months and perpetually teetering on the edge of ick. I feel like he passes all the germs he's encounter and passes them onto me. I've heard actually that part of the magic of breastfeeding is that babies transmit germs while nursing via their saliva to their mothers who then quickly turnaround to produce the right antibodies, but again, I'm trying not to be too graphic in this post. We actually know a number of other babies and moms who have been sick (and I don't breastfeed any of them) so I am trying to guess who got us sick and who we got sick. I'm wanting to feel more cautious and keep him in a plastic bubble, but I'm sure that would only be entertaining for a short bit and not very helpful. After all, I can't protect him from everything.

Once Bitten

Zeke now has all four of his front teeth and they are doozies. Look at how big they are! The good news is that his sleeping really has gotten so much better now that he isn't teething -- I don't even think I properly understood how much teething was bothering him. He has completely stopped pulling on his ears, something he has been doing for months. He now enjoys crunching all sorts of new finger foods, though Cheerios remain by far the favorite. The downside to these teeth is that they are new and he has to try them out on everything. So, this week, the following things ended up getting bitten: his crib and all other nursery furniture, the bathtub (terrible sound), the Ikea receipt I needed for a return, cups, my chin and my arm. He also grinds those teeth together. Finally, he has bitten me while nursing. It wasn't terrible and wasn't malicious, however. He was getting sleepy and I think he forgot what he was doing. I know plenty of people that have stopped nursing once their babes got teeth, but I think we will continue on for awhile.The gums on the bottom look really bumpy, but I hope maybe we will get to have a little vacation from teething.

Mover and Shaker (44 weeks, 4 days)

Yes, two weeks without a post...I know, I know. But really the baby does keep me busy. When he is awake, he is moving. When he is moving, he is leaving a path of destruction in his wake. As I wrote before, he pulls up on everything, cruises, carries things around and pulls himself along. It was as if, all at once, we needed everything babyproofed.

I had largely figured he had gotten so efficient at what he was doing that he might not be much interested in crawling and might skip this milestone. To be honest, I was very slightly anxious, because some experts feel it is important that children learn how to crawl as a foundation for learning physical coordination and some even believe pre-literacy skills. (The basic idea is for this is that crawling helps children learn to coordinate left/right movement, so they have a future foundation for being able to scan left to right in reading. As I write this, of course, that sounds silly and I guess that is why not everyone agrees. Point is, that it is a skill my baby wasn't learning.) On the other hand, Mr. Baby has been doing everything in his own time: rolling, sitting, moving, teeth. I assume he will hit all of the right milestones at the right time for him.

Well, just after hitting the ten month mark (sigh), Zeke started hands and knees crawling. However, he would only crawl when dressed in nothing but his diaper. No clothes, crawling. Clothes -- BAM! -- army crawling. I resigned myself to him forever cleaning the hardwoods with his cute little clothes.

But, of course, just when I get comfortable with something, it changes. Yesterday he decided he wants to crawl full-time, so that is what he does now! Maybe it was his wanting to be faster in chasing the pets or that he got to watch other babies crawling this week at playgroup and Little Gym. Maybe it was all the time he spends trying to go up the stairs. Maybe he was just ready. Here are some photos of him moving around yesterday. (Make sure to look at the last one...such a look of determination!)

It just runs in the family

Now I think Sprout is some cute stuff, but his cousin Zach is pretty darn cute, too. Here are some photos of him. One of the cute things about him is how he smiles for the camera. Zach -- like on our last visit -- was so excited to play with the baby and even Uncle Aaron! Zeke and Zach will be great friends growing up.

The Pajama Game

For Christmas, Zeke and Zach got matching striped penguin pj's from their "Nana", my grandmother. (I don't think that she is much into being called "Great Grandma" so "Nana Nobi" it is.) We took dozens of pictures, but I'm not sure that we have any where both the babies are looking at the camera, both of them were just too busy! I couldn't pick my favorite, so here are three of them.

Some other Christmas photos (42 weeks, 4 days)

Here are some more photos from Zeke's first Christmas at my grandmother and sister Dawn's house, in no particular order.

Yay! Christmas Eve dinner! On Christmas Eve, we grazed for hours. My grandmother (and her sous chef/my brother in law Tony) spent hours making about a dozen different hors d'oeuvres and a few friends came over to visit and to make sure we didn't eat all of the food ourselves. While Zeke was excited to sit at the hors d'oeuvres table, he only got to eat baby food.

Both Zeke and Zach got great wooden puzzles as gifts. Zeke -- only being a baby -- gets that the puzzle pieces come off the base, but he doesn't get that they go back. Zeke is delighted to spend hours doing what you see him doing here, taking pieces from the puzzle and dropping them on the floor.

During our stay, we played tourists for a day and went to Tarpon Springs, home of the world famous Sponge Docks. (Haven't heard of them, though they are world famous? Tarpon Springs was once home to a thriving sponging industry led by one of the largest Greek immigrant communities in America. When I spent a summer in Greece and I told people I met that I lived in Tarpon Springs, everyone knew where that was and many told me they had family there). Zeke got to eat lunch at a Greek restaurant and be subjected to dozens of tourist shops with classically themed names like the "Agora". We didn't take a lot of photos, but I liked this one of us together.

Zach got this totally cool pop-up tent from Trish. He was kind enough to invite Zeke in. I want one, too!

We got Zeke the wooden Radio Flyer Town and Country wagon -- a completely classic toy. I had to get it for Zach knowing how much he would enjoy it. I also had to get it after seeing it because I knew Zeke was too little for it this year and someone had to get it. Both Zach and Zeke enjoyed it Christmas Day in the living room...

...and then around the neighborhood. You can't see this in the photo, but Zeke is holding onto an entirely age inappropriate firetruck (probably just a little too small for a baby) that Zach got for Christmas. Zeke loved it and Zach let him hold it for most of the inaugural ride in the Radio Flyer. Zach was very good at sharing his toys, though I think they were both confused about whose toys were whose after they were all unwrapped.

This is the behind the scenes photo of "Santa's Workshop". While the Radio Flyer wagon was easy to put together and Tony probably could have put it together in 3 minutes, Dawn, Tony and I worked on it together in the garage on Christmas Eve. We all wanted to play. It was fun!

Zeke took a moment on the last day to wave to his daddy who was loading the car for the return trip home. I think this is Aaron's favorite photo from the trip.

It's amazing what Zeke gets into now that he can move around so much, including popping up behind a window. What a silly monkey!

2007 Holiday Gift Guide (42 weeks, 1 day)

Again, we had a terrific holiday and received generous and thoughtful gifts. Zeke did pretty well for himself as well. I think we also did a good job with some of the gifts we gave. (However, I can't talk about one of my favorites because I still have one left to give....)

The prize for awesome personalized gifts, though, completely goes to my sister. They were so good that I know you are going to want to remember them for next Christmas for your loved ones.

First, for me, she gave me a novel way to keep my favorite Sprout photo -- though raising a dilemma of choosing a favorite. (Please forgive the morning shots of me. I tell myself that I am a lot cuter than I appear in the morning.)

Can you see what she has done? She gave me a mirrored compact that has a photo of Zeke!

But the piece de resistance was the gift she gave to Aaron. Just check out when his expression when he opened his gift!


And what caused this expression? The queen of cool gifts got him personalized soda! You may be familiar with Jones Soda -- they make soda in both common and unusual flavors that is sold in stylish bottles with arty photos. In my family, Aaron is known for being a fan of soda and making ice cream floats with different flavors. So, Dawn got Aaron a dozen bottles of rootbeer a la Zeke and Zach. Seriously, if Christmas were a competition -- instead of a special season to give and to give thanks -- Dawn would win hands down.

Regular updates (42 weeks)

Zeke has been so "bzzy" recently (as it says on the romper). It is simply astounding to see how much he is learning everyday. You really can see him do something new each day and it can be hard to keep up with. Here are some of his new tricks/traits:

* Zeke can sit down from standing. It is something he is still working on and, some of the time as he gets ready to sit, you can see that he is just hoping for the best, presumably landing on his behind and not on face.

* He has also started to sit up from lying down....he's still working on this, but I'm pretty impressed the few times I've seen it.

* Three of Zeke's four front teeth have broken through, two on top and one on the bottom. The fourth one isn't far behind. For the record, the first one was on the bottom.

* Zeke displays a lot of attachment to me. It is mostly charming and it makes me feel needed and loved by him. It is difficult to get much detailed feedback from a baby, so a nuzzle and outstretched arms can mean a lot. It can border on clingy sometimes, but I hear that it's probably a stage.

* Zeke loves to "talk" when in the right mood. He tries so hard to talk with children, especially! I think he spent all of our meal at an Indian restaurant this week trying to get the attention of the toddler sitting by us. How? By laughing and fake coughing. It is largely effective and he really practiced this with Zach last week. He also seems to "take turns" when "talking" with adults. We really need to be videotaping more of this!