Little Swimmer

Tonight Mr. Mister went swimming for the first time! We recently joined the YMCA (where they offer free childcare, which I am very excited about). They have a warm water kids pool, so we put on the little blue swimmy diaper and brought him in. He didn't seem to love it or hate it...he was mostly non-expressive but did smile a couple times. We stayed in the water for about 10 minutes, which was about a third of the time we spent getting ready and getting dressed again afterwards.

A funny side note: When we went to the Y on Sunday to register for our membership, the women at the front desk LOVED Mr. Mister. Of course they delighted in his chubby cheeks and he put on a show for them, flashing his smile more than once. So tonight the same women were working and when they saw us walk through the door, they got so excited and said, "Mr. Mister is back! We were just talking about him yesterday." Then one said to her friend, "You have to see this baby. He's the happiest baby and he has the biggest cheeks you've ever seen!" The kicker is that they turned to me and said, "And what was your name again?" I laughed and gladly accepted my new identity as Mr. Mister's mom.

Soothing

Mr. Mister loves this rainforest soother he has on his crib. I don't blame him...the noises it plays are so peaceful that I often think about getting one for our room. Anyway, to make it play, you just push that cute little parrot on the bottom right. So the other day I was in the bathroom adjacent to Mr. Mister's room while he was waking up from his nap. All of a sudden I heard a click and heard the music start playing. He had reached up and turned it on! I'm sure he was just playing with it and happened to push hard enough to turn it on, but needless to say, I was shocked!

What a Life

A list of upcoming events on my calendar is on my homepage and I laughed as I saw it today. Here are some of the highlights: a massage Saturday, the musical Wicked on Sunday, spinning class on Tuesday night, and a trip to the aquarium next week (all gifts from different people!). With that schedule it looks like I'm living the high life! But before I could feel guilty for so many fun activities, I remembered what isn't listed on my calendar: the dozens of diapers I'll change, the hours I'll spend feeding, the sore muscles I'll have from carrying a twenty pound baby.....the smiles, the laughs, the coos, and the cute little hugs and kisses he's starting to give me. And I'll take all of these things over the longest list of activities I could do.

Another Milestone

Mr. Mister officially sat up by himself yesterday! Well more like he stayed sitting on his own after we sat him up. It was very exciting. Today I spent a lot of time with him sitting up and playing with his toys. I still put pillows around him because when he gets distracted and turns to hear a sound or see something, he usually topples over. But as long as he is focused, he can sit up for a while. I'll post pictures soon.

mmmmmm......

I got this recipe from someone else's blog...oatmeal that cooks overnight in the crockpot so it's hot and ready in the morning. I made it last night for breakfast this morning and it was delicious. I thought I'd pass it on. I doubled it to feed 4 and we had just a little bit extra.

Reality

Mr. Mister makes it very easy to be a mom and to enjoy being a mom. He smiles and laughs all day and he's very content most of the time. But I had a reality check on Friday when he screamed the entire hour we were in Kroger. He got tired of being in his car seat and he let me know. I took him out and held him, pushing the cart with one hand. But since he's 20 pounds and shopping carts don't have the best steering, that didn't last long. So I resigned to listening to him scream for the next hour. Thankfully, it was 11:00am on a Friday so it wasn't crowded, but I did feel like that mom who gets the not-so-subtle looks when her child won't stop crying. Unfortunately, there's no rationalizing with a baby and when the cart is half full already and you have company coming that day so you need groceries, there's no turning back.

The other reality check this weekend was Saturday and Sunday morning. We had stayed up until 1:30am both Friday and Saturday nights, talking with our friends who were in town visiting for the weekend. In the past when I would stay up that late, I would just sleep in a little later the next morning. But babies don't care how late you stayed up the night before. Mr. Mister still wanted to eat at 4am and since he went to sleep at 7:30 the night before, he was wide eyed and ready to go in the morning. And that's life with a baby.

Lady?

I was out running today and I passed these little kids playing in their front yard. One of them yelled, "Run, lady, run!" While I appreciated the encouragement and it was cute, I couldn't help but think, "Lady?! Am I old enough to be called lady??"

By the way, if you run (or walk or ride your bike) and ever try to track your mileage, you have to check out this website. You can map your exact route to find out how far it is. It is a lot less time consuming than driving your route to find your mileage and it is a lot more accurate.

Very Professional

Mark's sister's birthday is the day before mine. For her birthday present, he wanted to print this picture he took last spring of her daughter playing soccer. So he ordered it to be printed at the Walmart near her house. I had visited him at work for lunch that day and as we were eating, his phone rang. It was the Walmart photo center calling. Here's the conversation:

Walmart: Hi. This is Walmart calling about the picture you ordered to be printed. Did you take this picture?

Mark: Yes.

Walmart: How did you make it look like this?

Mark: Well, there's this program called Picassa, it's free to use through Google, and you can make simple edits on your pictures, etc. etc. etc. as he goes on to explain the whole process.

Walmart (interrupting his lengthly explanation): Okay, that's all I need to know. We just wanted to make sure you really took it. It looks very professional.

What a compliment! I had to take this opportunity to brag about his great photograhy skills to you all :)

My Birthday

Wednesday, the 9th, was my birthday. I really like my birthday. Growing up, my best friend and I would celebrate our birthday eves, our birthdays, and the day after our birthdays. Why not get as much celebration out of it as possible?

This year was the best one I can remember for a while. Mark was working from home, which he does every once in a while. So not only did I get to spend my birthday with him, but he also took care of Mr. Mister so I could sleep in, go for a run outside on the beautiful sunny day, and best of all, spend 2 hours at Starbucks by myself! I hadn't realized how much I missed alone time. Curling up with a latte (which was free because I knew the girl working and she wanted to treat me for my birthday!) on the comfy chair with my ipod and journal was so wonderful. I just soaked up that time by myself and had some very refreshing and renewing time with the Lord.

After that, Mark and I got carry out from Bravo's Italian restaurant...also free because we had a gift card. We ate it at home and then our also free babysitters arrived (thanks, Karen and Nick!) so we could go to our also free movie (thanks, Amy!). We saw The Great Debators, which was excellent. I highly recommend it.

The birthday fun didn't end there. Last night, we celebrated with my family at Lemon Grass for some Thai food, followed by ice cream at Aglamesis. It was a very fun night and a great end to the three day celebration of my birthday!

A Love/Hate Relationship

I have a love/hate relationship with rice cereal. I quickly realized the love part when Mr. Mister began sleeping until 6am without waking up to eat. Today, though, I realized the other side of the relationship when I changed his diaper and found his first solid foods poop: much thicker and way stinkier. And this is only rice cereal...I'm sure I'm in for much worse when we begin those fruits and vegetables. There's your pleasant thought for the day :)

PS

By the way...I still think that Mr. Mister rolled over one of the first few nights we brought him home from the hospital. I swear I put him on my bed on his back, turned around for a second and came back to him laying on his belly. No one believes me, and the fact that it was at 3am does bring my alertness into question, but I'm standing by my claim.

He Rolled Over!!

So there we were, having tummy time as usual, encouraging Mr. Mister to pick his head up and look at us...when all of a sudden, he rolled over!! I've been helping him roll over all week and he picked the perfect moment to do it on his own...Mark was home and we were both watching. AND I had the video camera on! I had just pressed record when he did it. After a little celebrating, we put him back on his tummy and he did it again. We pressed our luck with trying a third time, but he was worn out by then and just cried. Now he's taking a nap to recover from all of his hard work.

Big Boy Marcos

Mr. Mister had his 4 month check up this week. He is still healthy and is right on track with his development. He weighs 18 pounds 14 ounces (97th percentile), is 25 inches long (75th percentile), and his head is 45 cm (98th percentile). So he is still a big baby with a big head and I wouldn't have it any other way! He's beautiful. And his smile and laugh continue to melt my heart every day. Mark and I were talking the other night about how Mr. Mister gives us the most joy and fulfillment possible this side of eternity.

He is becoming even more of a big boy every day. He loves standing in his ExerSaucer, he hangs out in the Johnny Jump Up (even though he hasn't figured out the jumping part yet), he's sitting alone for a couple seconds at a time, raising his head up when he's on his tummy, and putting everything in his mouth. But the biggest news is that he started eating cereal yesterday!! I almost cried...it was such a big moment and I was so proud of him.

So here are some pictures of all of his big boy things. (And some that are just cute!)

Christmas

I'm back after ten days of crazy Christmas activity. My brother and his family (wife and two boys) arrived from Colorado the Saturday before Christmas and stayed for an entire week, which was so much fun. I had been eagerly anticipating their arrival for many reasons: they are fun people to hang out with, I love having our family all together, their two boys are adorable, and they hadn't met Mr. Mister yet. So this would be the first time all four grandsons (ages 4 months, 10 months, 11 months, and 2 1/2 years) would be together. Their week here proved to be as fun as I had hoped and as crazy as I had expected. We spent nearly the entire week at my parents' house, the central meeting place for the fourteen of us (spouses, fiancés, and children included). We had many long and delicious dinners around their dining room table, shared several bottles of great wine, ventured out to the zoo and the Playhouse in the Park, and spent hours talking, laughing, and reminiscing. It is crazy that three of us have babies and the fourth will be married in May. It just doesn't seem that long ago that we moved to this house, not at all excited to be in a new city and away from our friends in Chicago. Fifteen years later, here we are, all in new places with new people in our lives, and a house full of memories. Hopefully there will be many more memories to come.

A definite highlight was Christmas morning when we managed to have all four grandkids awake and fed at the same time in order to open presents. Mr. Mister got an exersaucer, his next step to being a big boy. He can stand in it, which he loves, and it gives me a break from holding him, which I will love once our days alone at home return (tomorrow).

Another highlight was the weekend visit from Mark's whole family this past weekend. His parents, his sister, and her family arrived Friday night and stayed until Sunday afternoon. It was great to spend time with them and our house held 7 people much more comfortably than I expected. We made a cornhole set for his parents for Christmas. Mark constructed the boards and I sewed the bean bags with my mom. It was such a fun gift to give and will hopefully spread the joy of cornhole to western Pennsylvania.

As for Mark, Mr. Mister, and me, we kept Christmas simple this year. We were forced to do so financially but found it to be so refreshing, as simplicity typically tends to be. I hope that that can carry over to 2008...that we could continue to live simply in a world that promotes the opposite.

Okay, well our other New Year's resolution is to go to bed at 10:00 on weeknights, so I have 10 minutes to be in bed. We can't break the resolution on the first day of the year! So happy New Year. I'll be back again soon with some thoughts on 2008.