A Walk in the Park

Playing In the Sand

Me Sometimes...

LOL. I did not take this. It came in one of those emails, but it made me laugh, so I wanted to share. :)

Happy 17 and 18 Month Birthdays!

Dear Ian,

I got a little behind on your letter writing, but I will try to do better in the future, I promise! We had so much fun together this summer. We went to the beach, the pool, the zoo, and the park. You learned to walk this summer, and you learned sign language. It's so cool that you know signs and can communicate with us now. You're still the puzzle master, and you can put together a 26 peice alphabet puzzle all by yourself (the box says ages 3+). You even can NAME some of the letters, like o, d, and z. I have no idea how you learned that, but one day you just busted out with it. I was really surprised. You like to push things around now, like the laundry basket, you wagon, and the stroller. You also learned to kick a ball. You've gotten very attached to your binky and blankie, and you always have to sleep with some stuffed animal; kitty, elephant, Nemo, bunny, or monkey. You can be so naughty sometimes, and you love to do things that you're not supposed to do. You're new favorite thing to do, that you're not supposed to do, is slide down the steps at the speed of light, laughing while I stand at the stop of the steps fearing for your life. You like to tease people, and you love to be silly. You are such a big boy. It's amazing.

Your favorite TV show is Jack's Big Music Show and Vinko the Dancing Bear. Your favorite toys are puzzles, play food, blocks/legos, and the tupperware/canned goods cabinet. Your favorite food is chicken nuggets. I have no idea how much you weigh or how long you are, but you wear a size 24 month bottom and a 2T top. You're feet grew 1.5 sizes over the summer and you wear a size 5.5 shoe!

I love you silly head. You're the best and I'm so proud of you.

Love always,
Mama

One Year Ago

Hiya!

Some of you might like to see a picture of me now and then (although I know you really only come for the cute kid). This is the "back to school night" picture.

Soy Pudding

Sorry, Don't Hate Me!

I've been the worst blogger ever lately. Here's why: I was asked to be the Interim Supervisor of Reading and Language Arts K-12 in my school district. This is my dream job. I literally got a call out of the blue two weeks ago, and my life has been spinning around since then. I start October 1. It's temporary, but I have no idea for how long. I have to leave the classroom, which is oddly bittersweet, since I really am liking my class this year. This is a super great oppourtunity for me, and I'm excited, but I'm also nervous. I don't want to mess it up, and I don't want to become married to my job. Ian is my number one priority, and I want to make sure that I get to spend enough time with him. Gotta love the mommy guilt.

In other news: Ian has a Titi Missy obsession. For some reason he has adopted a sign for Missy. The sign is to smack himself on the head. He's just going around smacking himself in the head all the time and saying "Bye-Bye". As in Titi Missy went bye bye and I want her back damn it! :) So Missy, you need to come over stat. :)

Don't buy Volkswagon. I've had three, because I'm oddly addicted to VW, and everyone I've ever owned has insane electrical problems. My newish (2005) Jetta just had to have the computer replaced, and while it was under warrenty, I was without a car for five days. They were nice enough to give me a loaner, an oddly shaped white Rabbit, which brought back memories of my youth (my parents had a light blue Rabbit).

Fun things Ian's doing: He learned how to say "bubble". He has a pig obsession and snorts every time he sees one. He's got seperation anxiety and screams everytime I leave. He's seriously addicted to Jack's Big Music Show and might be in love with Laurie Berkner. He learned the sign for eat, and uses it to ask for lots of food.

I promise to get the camera out and take lots of pictures. Hopefully we'll make it apple picking this weekend, so I should have some shots for you!

It's getting better all the time.

Lots and lots of great things to post about Ian.

He's doing LOTS of imitation now, starting to participate in little games (like patty cake), and some basic pretend play.

He has some new words/sounds including EIEIO, yuck, and somehow we figured out that "dacum" means pacifier, so I guess that can count as a word too! :) He's also got a new sign, eat.

He can kick a ball, and had a great time doing so all over Old Navy this weekend.

Yay Ian!

August 39, 2007

I'm in denial. It's not September, it's still August. These pictures prove it. You can't play in the hose in September. That's an August thing. :)

Staph infection clearing up well. Got Ian to eat soy yogurt by putting it in the Yo Baby container. Took the kid to buy shoes and found out his feet grew a SIZE AND A HALF over the summer. He now wears a size 5.5. Holy crap.

An Update...

The infection seems to be clearing up (yay!). I survived my first week at school. I'm go to bed. Say a prayer that Ian sleeps until 8 for me. :)

There's a Pox on Our House

Holy crap. Things around here have been a little nuts for the past 24 hours. Tuesday I went back to work. When we all got up Tuesday morning, I noticed that the funky red thing under Ian's arm had exploded into lots of funky red things and looked really gross and horrible. Since I now was faced with the dilema of the working mom, I dropped him off to the sitters and took him to the doctor at 4:30 when work was over. After an hour of waiting with a cranky baby who refused to nap, the doctor came in, took one look and said, oh. Never a good sign. She thought Ian either had a staph infection or herpes (ew or ew) and that we needed to start antibiotics ASAP. She swabbed it and sent us on our way. By now it was like 5:45, and I still hadn't walked in the door. We pull up at CVS and there are like 6 cars in the drive thru, and if you're ever been to the drive thru at CVS, 6 cars is like a 30 minute wait. So now I drag the cranky baby out of the car, and to the pharmacy desk. Cranky baby refuses to walk, and so I'm lugging a 28lb crying thing through the store. I'm so frazzled at this point that I spent like 5 minutes waiting in the PICK UP line. Thankfully, people like to talk to you when you have a baby, and a kind man pointed me in the correct direction of the DROP OFF line. We finally got out of there, and home, to make dinner, and get ready for bed. Sent Rob back out to pick up the meds, got the first dose in him and put him in the crib. I can't say if it's getting better yet or not, but if it's not looking better by tomorrow, we have to call the doctor back, because it could possibly be the antibiotic resistant strain of staph, and then the lord only knows what we'll have to do.

In an unrelated matter, I had to drop off some "samples" for Ian at Lab Corp this morning. I'd like to say that while I generally think the people at Lab Corp suck, there was a wonderful man there who totally made my day. I was all dressed up in my first day of school teacher-wear and standing at the window hold a bag of shit (literally). The kind man saw my ID badge, and said, it's your first day back isn't it? I said yes, and he took care of me right away. There are good people in the world.

Going dairy free has been interesting. I'm not as overwhelmed by it as I was before. We're finding things that he'll eat, but it is a lot more work for me. The recent hit was avacado mashed potates, which sounds gross, but apparently he liked. Tonight I made soy muffins, and dairy-free meatballs (no cheese, panko bread crumbs instead of regular). He also liked soy pancakes (sub soy milk in place of regular milk and bisquick). Shockingly I found out the cresent rolls don't have dairy in them, and he loves those. He also likes the soy pudding that we got him.

It's been a busy week here, and it's only Wednesday.

Macoroni and CHReese

Yes, you read that right, CHReese. We went to the allergist on Friday to try to find out why Ian's had disgusting diapers for 4 months now. The allergist thinks he may be allergic to milk, or soy, or both, or something else (yes, helpful). As is everything with Ian, he doesn't have the kind of allergy that shows up on a skin test, but has more of an intestinal allergy. So, we have to do a TOTAL elimination of dairy for 7-10 days, and if that doesn't help, soy is next. I am praying that we don't have to eliminate soy, because there is soy in everything. So, we went to Whole Foods to try and find some non-milk alternatives. We walked away with soy pudding, cereal bars, pop-tarts, waffles, and Macoroni and CHReese. It's dairy free mac and cheese. It's pretty funky, but Ian seems to like it, so I guess that makes it ok. I also found out that oddly enough, Dunkin Hines cake mix and some of their icing is dairy free, so I got to make the ubiquitous chocolate cupcakes for Labor Day. Of all the things that we've done and gone through with Ian, this was the one that literally almost set me over the edge. If you could have heard me on the phone with Missy on Saturday, you might have called the men in the white coats to take me away. I've since calmed down, but look for another freak-out fest if we have to remove soy. Stay tuned for the drama in 7-10 days. :)

Bye-Bye Summer

Today (Sunday) we celebrated the Labor Day weekend. Tomorrow will be too filled with my whining about not wanting to go back to work to enjoy such fesitivities. We went to my parents and hit the beach. It was pretty chilly, but Ian had a blast in the sand. After about 4 hours of digging and splashing, and an entire pitcher of sangria later, we went back to the house to eat. Delicous grill food filled our tummies, capped off by chocolate cupcakes! Yummy. Everyone had a great day and left full, tired, and mildly sunburned.

Rock Skipping

Puzzles with a Side of Mohawk

Father and Son

Grandmom's View

Playing at the Beach

Snuggle Time

It was kind of chilly at the beach, so we had to take snuggle breaks, much to Ian's dismay. He was getting so cold that he was shivering and his lips were blue, but he didn't let that stop him! :)