Shower Time

Last weekend I hosted my first ever baby shower, along with Shelley, Erin, and Ann for my friend Julie and Baby Henry. I thought everything looked great, and we had a great turn-out! Julie and I go way back. We were in each other's weddings and she threw my baby shower! We are all really excited to meet Baby Henry! I should have taken more pictures of the actual people that were there, but you know how it goes...

 

I couldn't believe it, but Z slept through almost the entire shower, then Nick snuck him downstairs to hang with him and Julie's husband. Here's a pic I stole from Julie of the Z man after the shower was over getting his groove on.

These Days

My fellow bloggers have noted what I am finding to be true which is that when you stop doing monthly posts, you feel that something is missing. So, in lieu of monthly posts, I'll start doing "These Days" posts, so I can document from time to time just what Z is up to "these days." They may or may not occur around monthly birthdays, because I like to keep things suspenseful.

He's almost 17 months old (insert shock and awe on the part of the mom, astounded at the passing of time). He babbles A LOT. In fact the other night, he must have been performing his rendition of "The Tonight Show" because all I heard in the monitor was babbling. But, what could I do? He wasn't crying, but he sure wasn't sleeping. Roll over, go back to sleep. I hope that isn't becoming a habit.

He is obsessed with a few things, some typical, some not so much

1. Books. He can say the word book, but it is more like a sound than a word (kindof like he leaves out the vowels, if that makes any sense at all). He loves books. He would sit in your lap and let you read to him all day and night if time and social norms would permit. The other day I went to pick him up from school, and all the kids were walking around the classroom, and he was sitting in the floor surrounded by books. His favorite right now is Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. He has become discerning in his book taste. He picks through the books until he finds the one he wants, then he brings it to you and crawls into your lap to have you read it to him.

2. Socks. "Ahck" in Z language. He loves socks, yours, his, it doesn't matter. The other day I went to get him out of bed after nap and he had one hanging out of his mouth, like a little dog. Whenever we are getting ready to go anywhere, I tell him to go get me some socks, and he opens his drawer and gets them out, hands them to me and crawls into my lap so I can put them on.

3. Outside. This is my new favorite word. He says it like this: "ow-siii," usually with a change in inflection in the "siii" part. This is no surprise, but the child loves walking around outside. It wears him out too, which we all like. It has become a bit of a problem though when we are loading up the car and he hears the garage door open, because he always wants to go out there, but has to get in the car instead. I can usually appease him with a pocket pack of kleenex, which he also likes, but not enough to make the list.

4. Fasteners/buckles of any kind. This obsession is fairly new and comes quite in handy at places like Kohl's (the ultimate source for school clothes and PJ's) because he is entertained in the cart for many minutes (how much more can you ask for with a toddler?).

5. TV. Well, this was inevitable. The child loves him some TV. We just got Nick Jr., and he loves pretty much any show on there, especially the ones that include singing and dancing, like Fresh Beat Band. I feel like Moose A. Moose is the fourth member of the family. He also watches TV at school, mostly Sesame Street, which he likes so much that he ignores me sometimes when I arrive to rescue pick him up. The horror.

 What would a post be without a few pics?

New Routine

Z is so lucky that he sees his Nuna and Jido regularly, every Tuesday to be exact. This Tuesday, he was extra lucky because his cousin Adam was in town. My mom was keeping him while my sis and bro-in-law took my niece to Disney World for her birthday. Little Adam loves my parents and Z had a run for his money for the attention.

Cousin Adam joined Z's normal bedtime routine. He even joined him in the tub. They actually played really well together. Boys, one day you'll probably be embarrassed of this bath picture, but right now, it is darn cute!

Valentine Bubble

I was quite excited for Z's party at school yesterday. I dressed him in his little red outfit, packed up his little valentines, and even brought the cookies for the party.

Then, this happened.

If you can't tell, he busted his bottom lip. I got a picture of him smiling, so it wouldn't look as bad.

Every time I see his school come up on my phone, I momentarily stop breathing. They've called for fever. They've called for vomiting. This time, an accident. To their credit, they usually start with "Z's fine." So, the conversation went like this:

"First of all, Z's fine" (okay, if he's fine then why are you calling me?)
"BUT... he had a little accident."

"Okay, what happened?" (hurry it up)

"He fell off the slide and his lip is cut. They are checking his teeth now." His TEETH, are you kidding me? Why don't you just shoot me? Who's checking his teeth, his dentist, oh wait that can't be because that's ME!

"I'm on my way."

By the time I got there, he really was fine, and his (6 and 1/2) teeth were fine too. I like to exaggerate elaborate for entertainment purposes.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Thank you so much Amanda for designing and printing these for us! We have used every last one between our friends and family and Z's school friends, and of course our blog friends! They've been a big hit!

15 Month Checkup

No, this post is not being entered weeks after the fact, we actually had our 15 month checkup appointment on Friday, when he was almost 16 and 1/2 months old. We have (finally) changed doctors, mainly because we don't live anywhere near my former doctor anymore, but also for other reasons like long wait times and hostile policies. Thinking I would be escaping said policies upon my exit from the practice, I was then confronted with yet another hostile policy of ________ pediatrics. And I quote, "Do you understand that once you leave our practice, you may never, even if you move back to the area, return as a patient under any circumstances?" "Oh okay," I reply, as if I believe that this is a completely reasonable policy, meanwhile trying to reconcile how any business could possibly operate under such a policy, and more importantly how any human can say such a thing to a person. Okay, so let me get this straight, if all other pediatric practices cease to exist at the same time for whatever reason that _______ pediatrics is able to withstand, and my child (God forbid) had some kind of emergency, you wouldn't take us back... No. K, got it. Of course, I didn't say that, and thankfully, Birmingham is large enough that I should never require reentry to their practice, but sheesh, talk about poor treatment. Needless to say, I was reassured that my exit was justified and necessary. For the record, my doctor was extremely sweet and we were a good fit, and she called me personally to say there were no hard feelings about the transfer.

So,  it took a little while to get all of that straightened out and to find a Friday appointment, but we made it, and so far, we like our new doc. We mostly like the fact we don't have to wait an hour or more (so far) just to see her. Now for the stats. Z weighted 22 pounds (25%) and was 32 inches long (90%). I was shocked by this one. Little man grew like 3 inches and has never been in the 90th percentile before! Then I quickly got my bubble burst when she told me that Z has his first ear infection. Every appointment after the first few, I would wait with bated breath as the doctor would check Z's ears. For a while he fussed a lot and kept a runny nose (still has that runny nose), so I figured it was inevitable. After a few appointments with a clean bill of ear health, I thought, okay, Z  must not really get ear infections. I've even said as much, but as it goes in life (and in children) once you think you've got it figured out, it all changes on you! So I was a little bummed, but also couldn't believe that he really hasn't shown any signs. My inner voice started wondering. Has this just started? Has he had it so long he's used to it? Maybe we would have caught it earlier if I had taken him to _______ Pediatrics on time. All guilty feelings aside, I felt for my baby. Then he got three shots and a finger stick, and both of our mornings were officially spoiled.

He was a good sport. We continued our usual Friday routine and went to the gym and lunch. He took a good nap and was good as new for dinner Friday night with our friends Julie and Lance at Whole Foods.

The rest of the weekend was fun and restful. Z started saying "outside" this weekend, which started as "ow-hi" then became "ow-si." He is obsessed with going outside! He went to the gym nursery again Saturday and Sunday, started taking a disgusting antibiotic and he got a haircut on Sunday, officially making it the weekend of forcing Z to do things he doesn't want to do. Isn't that what being a kid is all about?

Snow Day?

By all accounts, today should have been a snow day. All the signs were there, plenty of snow on the ground, countless tickers running on the tv, weathermen preempting all our favorite shows, but alas, school was in session.

Z didn't take the news so well.

All Grown Up

I am not sure when it happened, but my baby is becoming a big boy. Allow me to explain.

To me the above picture is self-explanatory. What? You don't see it?! He doesn't look like a grown-up here? Jerry Seinfeld? (Nick says his white tennis shoes make him look like Jerry). Oh well, I digress.

This grown-up-ness kindof hit me this weekend on several occasions. First, when we went to the mall sans stroller and he walked around with my dad

Rode on the escalator, practically by himself

And sat in these big boy chairs at Gymboree

Then, when I was feeding him yogurt and instead of the usual push my hand away turn his head whine notification that he was finished, he simply said "Ahh duhh," which translates in adult English to "all done."  To which I replied "excuse me, did you just communicate a desire (somewhat) clearly and directly to me?" And then, because I'm a ridiculous emotional mom, I had the very normal response of tearing up. Let me defend myself... Okay, yeah, there's really no defense there. I'll just leave it at this, I was really proud of my boy.

We have slowly but surely been progressing on the communication front for a while now. He understands a lot of what we say, like come on, let's go outside, take a bath, eat, read a book or whatever. Also he says a lot of words to communicate back like up, bath, bye bye, night night, book, water, etc.

Weekend with Grandparents

This past weekend, I had to take CE classes Friday and Saturday, and hubs had to be at work for half the day on Saturday, and we both went to his firm's annual after-holiday party Saturday night. So, needless to say, my parents got some major QT with Z! They went for walks, played outside, took naps, and ate a lot. Well, Z ate a lot because my mom insists on feeding him 24/7. They even took him out to Carrabba's on Saturday night. It was hard being away from him so much on the weekend, but we were comforted knowing he was in good hands.

When I got home on Saturday afternoon, this is what I saw.

Note: I cropped what they were "reading" out of this picture because it's definitely a Pottery Barn catalog we received in our mail that day.

I also got periodic updates from my mom, which sounded something like this:

Me: How's Z?

Mom: He's good, honey, I fed him some cheese, applesauce, a cereal bar, and some yogurt.

Me: Which meal was that?

Mom: Oh no, honey, that was just a snack, he also took a 3 hour nap and had 2 very healthy poops.

Me: Are we talking about an 89 year old man now?

He had a climb to give his Jido five.

I'm guessing he was "saying" something here. 

As seen in the previous post, there was some passing around of mom's sunglasses

Is this right?

I'll just have those

Sunday, it was just us again, and we had a very relaxing day. I spent the latter part of the afternoon jamming at Zumba for the second week in a row, then we settled in and watched the SAG awards. I love award season!

Style Watch

Being the girly-girl that I am, I {like to think} I know a lot more about girl's fashion than boy's. Having said that, I have been trying to hone Z's personal style lately. I buy a lot of his clothes but I also get a lot of gifts from family and friends. For example, his (20 year-old) uncle bought him these:

Okay, that's one way we could go with personal style. But he wears them well, don't you think?

We have also received some styles of a more "traditional" nature from some of my family. 

I think he really pulls this look off, myself.

Anybody who knows about style knows it's essential to have some awesome shades.

"Wassup Mom?"

And because I still shop at children's boutiques

Z's style cannot be defined by one characteristic or look. He is a versatile toddler man with many hats (and shades and shoes).