9 Months Old

I'll post this a day early instead of a day late, since there is no "29th" in February to truly be Will's 9 month date.

This month Will has:

• Started talking even more! Just this weekend he strung together "mama" a bunch of times. I love that, of course! He seems to use it in context, but that's probably because Mama is rarely out of context in his world!
• Started standing without the assistance of a person, furniture or toy. Last week it was just for 1 or 2 seconds. This weekend, it was for longer and longer. He can also get into the standing position without pulling up on anything. This is just one step closer to walking, which has us very excited and very nervous!
• Turned everything in reach as a walker toy - if it scoots across the floor, he's pushing it.
• Gotten his 3rd and almost 4th tooth. He apparently keeps forgetting he has teeth, because twice yesterday he starting crying after biting his own fingers!
• Started eating more "real" foods like yogurt, cottage cheese and graham crackers.
• Been sleeping really well. He's typically very easy to get to sleep at night, and if we're lucky, we get to wake him up in the morning. Every few nights, he decides that 4 a.m. is a great time to switch from his crib into our bed, but we hope that doesn't become too routine. He sleeps great in bed with us, but we're pretty restless with him there.
• Been having a great time playing in the bathtub. I finally took down the shower doors and replaced them with a curtain, so now he has access to the entire bathtub instead of the half I could previously reach. He spends most of his bath standing up and sitting back down as he moves his toys on and off the tub ledge. He's just starting to splash. But, he's rarely sitting long enough to do that. Oh, and he loves watching the tub fill and drain.

Cheers!

Will sported a new shirt today: his Cheers Baby shirt from Grandma and Grandpa's New England cruise last summer. We had a fun today today just all hanging out together. (So much fun, that I temporarily forgot about my first nasty headache since I don't remember when. . .it started Friday morning at work and keeps reappearing. Luckily now that I'm done nursing, I can take more powerful pain relievers than the Tylenol that was my only alternative for the past 18 months.) I had a haircut while the guys ran errands. Then they picked me up for brunch. After filling our stomachs, we tried to empty our wallets on a new kitchen table, but couldn't find anything. We had a good time looking though. About 5 minutes from our house is a Crate & Barrel distribution center with an outlet store attached. We keep going by hoping we'll find the perfect (enough) table there one of these days. The close-out inventory constantly changes, so we just keep swinging by.

Will continues to enjoy helping us with household chores. He's always been a big fan of riding in the Baby Bjorn during vacuuming, but now he's also showing great interest in unloading the dishwasher and folding the laundry! He also enjoyed using the laundry basket as a push toy. It was really funny to watch. He was really snuggly today, too, which was fun. He's also seeming to (start to) get over the "NO! MOMMY! DON'T LEAVE ME!" phase. Now he just crawls to the next room to find me if he wants. There aren't the total hysterics of the last few weeks.

I'm gonna get you, Momma!

(Zoom in if you want to see tooth #3 - bottom, Will's right. This is hysterical laughter, not hysterical tears. . . )

Foodie Stuff

I've had some great food recently and wanted to document it for posterity! :-)

Crabs: Joe's Stone Crab and Shaw's Crab House

From Joe's website: "Fresh stone crabs are found in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. They are hand harvested, one claw at a time, and thrown back to the sea. Joe Weiss, and his wife Jennie, discovered this unknown delicacy in the early 1920s, and soon after, began serving them in their restaurant in South Miami Beach. Now, the familiar "crack-crack-crack" can be heard here in Chicago and Las Vegas, as we treat you to the finest stone crabs in the world."

Ok, now that I've read that harvested and throw back thing it sounds really gross, but I will tell you that these stone crab claws are very tasty. They're served cold with a mustard sauce. I've had them twice this month - both at work event meals.

Bay Scallops: Shaw's Crab House

"Bay scallops – The smallest of all the scallops, bay scallops are not as plentiful as some of the other varieties, thus carrying a somewhat heftier price tag. Harvested as far south as North Carolina and up to the coast of Maine, bay scallops are sometimes referred to as Nantucket scallops. When you purchase a pound of this variety, you may get as many as 90 scallops. This sweet, tiny scallop is often used for casseroles, stews, and stir-fry, largely because of its manageable size." These were the special entree when I went to lunch at Shaw's last week. Oh my, they were sweet and delicious! I'm not a huge scallops fan usually - in fact, sea scallops was all I knew about. But the waitress talked these up, and she was not wrong. They were about the size of marbles and served sauteed in a garlic butter along with seafood rice. Yum!

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes: Pancake Cafe

We may have found a new great brunch place today. This local, family owned restaurant has a similar menu to Richard Walker's in Schaumburg (see July blog post about the baked apple pancake), but is 45 minutes closer and much less crowded. Ironically, we ran into our next door neighbors there. They said they go a lot and really love it. Jason had a pretty traditional omelette platter, but I had a special: cinnamon roll pancakes. They were delicious, and well, they tasted just like cinnamon rolls in pancake form! I asked the waitress how they did it (because they looked just like pancakes drizzled in cinnamon roll icing). She said it's just their buttermilk pancake batter with a chopped up cinnamon roll mixed in. Well, that sounds easy enough! Maybe I'll try that at home.

Asiago Breakfast Sandwich: Panera

Here's one you can all try! I know, it's just an expensive Egg McMuffin, but it's worth the occassional $3.99 splurge for the tasty bacon, egg, cheese and an asiago cheese bagel fresh from Panera's panini press.

Dark Cherry Mocha: Starbucks

Last week I saw this on the chalkboard when ordering a regular latte. It said, "Try the new Dark Cherry Mocha! You know you want to!" Why, yes, I do! It's on the menu for Monday morning. :-)

Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy birthday Dad! I was going to do a series of Grandpa pictures, but well, I only found 2 pictures! I guess we just take pictures of the baby -- not Grandpa holding the baby! (I had some specific ones in mind, so they must have been on your camera and not mine.)

Here's from your first meeting. Will isn't trying to be rude by snoozing right through the big event. He's obviously just exhausted from the big adventure to get there! You know, the one where is Momma hasn't slept in 10 days and can barely walk, but is dragging his big carseat and stroller around in the swampy June heat?!



And then more swampy heat in July - new state, bigger baby.



Finally a nice, cool, October day. A picture of you with your little baby, Maggie!

Not Normal Monday

Remember on my Sunday evening post how I was hoping for a Monday where we could all get back to our normal schedule? I must have jinxed it! I woke up at 4 a.m. on Monday morning with the same stomach bug that was ailing Jason starting on Friday night! Boo! I had to stay home from work yesterday (not easy to do this time of year. . . ) and half rest-half work. Thankfully, Jason is feeling better, and Will seems to be back to his normal routine. I'm back at work today and feeling mostly better.

On Thursday when I dropped Will off at daycare (you know, an hour before he got sent home. . .), I told his teacher to start having him sample the school lunch veggies. Yesterday he had a "few bites" of mashed potatoes and green beans in addition to his Gerber fruit. He's always so exhausted at the end of the day that he falls asleep on the way home from daycare (see picture) and we have to wake him up for a quick dinner. So we don't have a lot of time to experiment with eating during the week. Therefore, I think he's a little behind schedule on eating "real foods" and self-feeding. I must say that he LOVES the expensive organic baby yogurt that I bought him! :-) That's been our biggest foray out of Gerber or homemade pureed veggies.

A fourth tooth snuck in on the bottom while awaiting tooth #3 on the top. It's pretty hard to see the new top tooth coming in, but this new bottom tooth is easy to spot while he's smiling and laughing.

This picture is from a week or two ago, but he happens to be wearing this exact outfit again today. It's my current favorite. Jason must like it too, because he picked it today.

Weekend Update

The weekend flew by. Jason and Will hung out together a lot. They spent Thursday and Friday nursing their sick stomachs. Will seems to be doing better, but Jason's still under the weather. I stayed home with them yesterday, but had to work at the office all day today. I'm hoping we can get back to normal tomorrow! Well, as normal as it can as we try to figure out how to get through our first tax season as a family instead of a couple.

We did chores, and cleaned up around the house.

We broke the exersaucer down into its race track version for a new toy.

Rush Limbaugh The Musical

Rush Limbaugh! The Musical takes us back to Rush’s humble beginnings and follows his ascent to conservative dominance buoyed by characters like Ann Coulter, Karl Rove, and Donald Rumsfeld despite confrontations with Hillary Clinton and Barney Frank. The score for the show will feature a pastiche of Broadway musicals such as Spring Awakening, Wicked, and Rent. You can call it “Dispirit of the Radio.”

Last Wednesday, I had a client event at Second City where I saw this show. I don't want to give too much away, but it was really, really funny! I've never seen his show (just clips on shows I do watch like The Colbert Report and The Daily Show, or the infamous Michael J. Fox "faking it" story), but it was pretty easy to follow along. My favorite part was a song where they ran together a bunch of his quotes, such as learning what he needs to know about women from his cat.

Before the show, we had dinner across the street at Dinotto's on my brother's recommendation. I had a fabulous appetizer salad of arugula, beets, and goat cheese, in addition to my tasty pasta entree.

[Lauren, I considered calling this post "For Lauren" since I know you'd like to hear about my three days worth of snacks, lunches, dinners and activities, as I was working out at a client site this week, but I don't have enough time to tell you about the Mardi Gras lunch on Tuesday, lunch out on Wednesday, and lunch in on Thursday. :-) ]

Teething and . . . .

Will is home from school again! Jason got "the call" an hour after I dropped him off yesterday, and is home with him again this morning. He threw up his cereal after breakfast at daycare. He had thrown up his morning bottle (on me) at home, but we thought he just hadn't burped well enough and then was playing too hard. It wasn't preceded by anything that made us think he was distressed.

He does have his first top tooth coming in. I can feel it but not see it. Not sure if that has anything to do with the vomiting. Likely not. He may just have a stomach bug. He has been able to keep down small bottles, but he after spending 20 minutes eating a nice, big dinner for me, he threw it up (on me) about 5 minutes later without warning.

He slept great last night, so let's hope his tummy is feeling better, too!

A Picture for My Mom

Tomorrow is my Mom's birthday, so I figured she'd like to see a picture of her favorite boys. This is Will helping Ryan with a big project on Sunday evening.

Love This Kid!

Sorry, no picture access on this computer, but had to post a few awesome things about Will's recent activities that have left me smiling (and well-rested):

• Will waved at Jason this morning. We were all playing before leaving the house, and Jason waved a silly wave at him. Then a big right baby arm waved back! We were so excited! He did it a few more times, but not really on command. He "clapped" this weekend. The arms and hands made the motions but the palms didn't touch to make noise.
• Will's new trick is to hand us things. So, of course, I think he's brilliant when I say, "Give Mommy the (fill in the blank)" with my hand out, and he hands it to me!
• When I got home from work tonight, Will and Jason were playing and giggling. (I drove to a client's offices, so they didn't have to pick me up at the train.) When Will saw me he didn't start hysterically crying (his normal reaction these days)! Instead, Jason sat him down and he crawled super fast to me and pulled up on my legs so I could pick him up. And then he smiled his giant smile at me and giggled some more. He pretty much kept up the smiling and laughing all through dinner and bathtime. And he didn't even breakdown after his bath when I was putting his pajamas on (seriously, a huge victory).
• And then he went to bed! He's actually so exhausted most days that he naps after we get home, wakes for dinner and a little playtime, and then is sacked out asleep in bed within an hour of waking from the nap. Makes bath night few and far between!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Will wishes you a Very Happy Valentine's Day! Mickey the Monkey helping Will read through his cards from school on Friday night
Mickey and Will enjoying a laugh on Saturday morning.

Will taking Big Frog for a ride on Saturday afternoon

Thanks to Grandma Joni and Grandpa Roger for Mickey and Grandma Hilary and Grandpa Ed for Big Frog. And thanks to Mitchell and Maverick for sending a card! Will has lots of material for his Baby's 1st Valentine's scrapbook page. . .whenever I get that assembled! :-)

In case you can't see Will's onesie, it's a worm crawling out of an apple and the word is Wiggle. When I saw it, I had to get it! I always call Will my Wiggle Worm.

Dr. Will Makes a House Call

We loaded up the family for a quick road trip to Jason's parents' house in Indiana. Will's Grandpa Ed is recuperating from knee replacement surgery, and we were pretty sure that the doctor ordered some 8-month old's hugs to help his healing. Will enjoyed a game of Socks on his way there.

After being up visiting with us and watching Will play, Ed had to return to bed to stretch his leg in the continuous motion machine. Will was checking all the cords and the controller box to make sure it was working just right.
We had never been to the farm this late in the winter, and I got this beautiful picture as we were leaving:

Will also had a great time playing with the dogs. Rachel came along to play with Buddy and Molly. Will made Buddy very happy by giving him a doggy massage. Almost as happy as he's making Rachel this very moment by feeding her his graham crackers!

Three Bump Day

Jason just coined this phrase as we were discussing Will's adventure filled day from yesterday. An active baby is bound to get a few bruises, I guess.

Bumps 1 and 2 were at Grandma Hilary and Grandpa Ed's house while he was using their couch as a jungle gym. Daddy caught him as he was diving over the arm, past the end table, and onto the ground. Will got two small bumps from the end table (above his right eye and ear), but he was intercepted airborne and didn't hit the ground. Will was pretty upset for a few moments, but I think he was scared about the flight more than the coffee table hit.

Bump 3 was just pulling a hard plastic toy off the fireplace hearth while losing his balance and having the plastic part smack him between the eyes. Small toy; small bump.

This picture seemed appropriate for this post. It's from Monday when he was wearing his Colts blue and looking sad. It was supposed to be his Super Bowl win celebration outfit, but we didn't have any black and gold, so he wore it even though the Colts got beat up.

Illinois Earthquake

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/02/quake-like-tremors-reported-in-western-suburbs.html

Here's a link to an article that says an earthquake was felt in our suburb at 4 a.m. The epicenter was approximately 30 miles northwest of us. I don't remember anything unusual around then (or even know if I was awakened, since I try not to look at the clock when I get up in the middle of the night). In fact, the first I heard of it was from my co-worker when I got to work. I did, however, hear and see the lights from the snow plow up and down my street several times.

Walking the Dog (Toy)

Cool! A speed bump!

Hey, move it, lady! I'm in a big rush!

Finally made it through all that traffic!

I didn't see a No Parking sign, did you?

I'll just leave my wheels there while I play awhile.

Walking with Toys

While I was out running errands this morning (including a fun trip to Old Navy to buy Will some cute clothes - including the outfit below - with my Christmas giftcard), Jason got out and assembled Will's new Tonka "Scoot-n-Scoop 3-in-1" toy. We bought it at an after Christmas sale but have been waiting to get it out. Now that he's been all over the house with his dog walker toy, we got out the truck version! As you can see, he LOVES it! :-)

Excuse the mess in the background. Saturday mornings are for fun and games instead of house cleaning! I shot a video on Friday night of Will walking behind his other push toy all through the family room and living room, but I guess I don't have a still photo. I'll try to upload the video next week; it's pretty adorable.

Happy Friday!

We're looking forward to the weekend! Will wants to learn how to eat solid foods and walk. I'd like a nap and some shopping time. Jason would like to take down the outdoor Christmas lights finally. (Well, he didn't actually say that. . . )

Here's Will with his first use of the mesh food bag. He's sampling canned peaches. My friend Nikki gave us one of these before he was born; she sent us all sorts of awesome "must haves" that she discovered as a new mom the year prior. I had almost forgotten about it until I read another friend's blog where her daughter was using it. I think he liked it. We've only used it once though, because he slept through dinner last night! Oops! Hopefully he'll catch up on the sleep this weekend.

8 Months Old

We're almost a week late with these pictures, but here we are at 8 months old before bed last night. Mr. Will's pictures are very reflective of the past month: smiles, laughs, and moving all over the place!

Updates for this month:

• Just tonight Will walked behind his walker toy (what are these called??); he's been cruising along the furniture for a few weeks; and has been standing to play for a month.
• Will has discovered his "voice" these past few weeks and is laughing and babbling all the time. Jason is coaching him on saying dada. Rachel is his greatest source of laughter.
• He still pulls my hair; only now he does it harder. And now he has begun scratching my nose. I'm looking to put an end to that behavior!
• He's eating more and chunkier foods. He's been eating my homemade pureed peas & carrots without gagging and gnawing on rice cakes and Gerber puffs.
• Sleeping is going pretty well: he's reliably going to bed around 7:45 (and we let him cry it out if he has to) and if we're lucky he'll sleep until 6 a.m. We aren't usually that lucky! ;-)

Vacationing With Kids

This was our first vacation with Will in tow. It was an interesting experience. Luckily, this was just meant to be a relaxing vacation without much to accomplish. Mission accomplished! :-)

A lazy lunch and cocktails on the beach? Check!

Oh, you were thinking beer instead of milk?

Lunch hasn't arrived yet? Then you have time to "hold" the sand!

We had great accomodations for vacationing with two couples and two kids: "Nana's Beach House." That's Aiden's Nana. They have a great setup with room for everyone AND they already had toys and beach stuff, so we didn't have to haul anything extra along from home! I was thankful for that, since I was already hauling one medium suitcase, a backpack/diaper bag, stroller, car seat and baby by myself for the trip out. Whew! Did I mention that Jason treated me to a spa day?! Ha ha.

Travel High Chair

Will got to use his new travel high chair on our vacation. It's a handy little fabric contraption that attaches over the back of a standard chair and has buckles and straps to fasten the baby to it. In this picture, he is sitting in a booster seat for height. If the chair back is short enough, the baby can sit directly on the seat.

http://www.amazon.com/My-Little-Seat-Travel-Months/dp/B002AKLSMW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=baby-products&qid=1265130863&sr=8-1

The fabric folds up into its own carrying case that is about the size of a diaper. Very convenient! It's recommended for trips where you don't have access to a high chair (in our case: the beach condo and the bowling alley in Wisconsin), or if you just want them to be up close the table like here.

The Pool! The Beach! The Other Beach!

After a great week vacationing (well, and being sick) at home with Grandma, Will and I flew to Fort Myers for a long weekend at the beach. We met up with Jason who was already in Florida for business, and our very good friends Keith, Desiree and Aiden from Kansas City. Will got to have his first and second swims ever at the condo pool in Naples! He has always loved the bath, so we had high hopes for the pool. We weren't disappointed! Luckily, the weather was mild and the water was heated for the old people! :-)

The first beach day, my sinus infection was really bad, so the Shields family stayed home while the K, D, and A enjoyed a gorgeous day and dolphin sightings. We did venture out on day 2, but it was windy and not as warm. Will and I stayed under the umbrella and played for most of the time. Although Jason took him on a nice long walk up the beach for people and bird watching.

On Sunday we drove to Captiva Island where we rented a beach cottage for one night. This was literally right out our back door! We actually had a water view out the front door (and across a few streets) as well! The day was overcast and cool, but it was great. Jason devised a fabulous surprise day at the spa for the ladies! I was treated to an hour long massage and a pedicure and Desiree got a spa mani/pedi while he and Will explored the island with Keith and Aiden. Wow, wow, wow, what a treat! LOVE that guy!

Fort Myers is a great destination when flying alone with an infant due to the high grandma ratio on board! :-) We flew Southwest on the way out, and all of their people were awesome every step of the way. Our return trip on Airtran wasn't anything special except that we had Jason with us this time, which was nice. He had never flown with Will before today. Will was an excellent traveler and received many compliments and smiles and waves on both legs of the trip.