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.