10 months

Dear North,

Although I'm glad to see January gone for the year, it's bittersweet to find myself on the morning of your ten month birthday and know you are one month closer to being a year old. Lately, I find myself rocking you in my arms before naps and bedtime because I know you won't let me cuddle with you this way for much longer. The realization that your time as a baby is waning is so evident to me in your achievements. I already see you more as a little boy now than my tiny baby.

You're right on the verge of walking. Maybe some would even say you are walking, just very badly. Our living room is often situated like an obstacle course made up of your toys. You cruise along the couch and pivot to the ottoman to make your way to your Jeep and over to the fireplace hearth. It's hard to get anything accomplished because I find myself constantly interrupted watching to see what you are doing. I love the concentration on your face as you will your foot to take that step away from the security of whatever you are holding. Even when you fall, you impress me with your resilience. Thank goodness for your well padded bottom.

Your favorite game is to crawl around and around the ottoman playing peek-a-boo with us.

You have developed some strange fears in the last few months: the hairdryer, the coffee grinder, girl babies, to name a few. Last month, you played hard to get when one of your girlfriends came over to visit.

Most days, you happily play independently, rummaging through your toy basket and eventually covering every square inch of living room with your colorful baubles. Your playmate is Mr. Foot, an orange large-footed stuffed Seussian character (not to be confused with Lamby, your sleepy time love) and you'll carry him with you from toy to toy.

Occasionally, you will take a break from play and help me with the internets or assist me in folding laundry. You even helped me put your toys away a few days ago. We may need to start discussing allowance soon.

A new personality has emerged in you in the last month, we call it Evil North. You've always happily jibber jabbered to yourself during play, but every now and then it takes on a dark tone. I haven't been able to catch it on video in all it's glory. But your voice gets very low and sinister like a witchdoctor, as you utter incantations and presumably cast spells on us. The video shows your range and ability to go from Evil North straight into Pterodactyl Boy without missing a beat. (The volume needs to be up to actually hear Evil North.)

Today, I noticed the tulip tips are starting to sprout from the ground. They are always my favorite indicator of spring being right around the corner. But this year, they are also counting down to the anniversary of the day you arrived. Even nature is preparing to celebrate that day for you.

Mighty

"His intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food. In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

January has been a sad month truth be told. I think we are all feeling it. There are devastating things happening to good people all around the world and closer to home to people I love dearly.

I like to believe it is human instinct to want to help anyone forced to deal with such loss and yet it is also common to feel powerless to help in any real tangible way. I always wish that I could take on the pain of that person to lesson their burden. If only pain was something you could pick up and carry around for someone to lighten their load.

Today, as I pushed the stroller full of North around the neighborhood, the wind kicked up along the road. It filled my ears with exhilarating swooshes and felt almost warm against my skin even though the sun was falling fast. During a few more furious gusts, gumballs were flying around like lottery balls, threatening to velcro themselves to our fuzzy heads as they fell to the ground. If Jake, our dog, had been with us, he would already have a handful sticking to him. Gumballs stick to him like he was a cotton ball with legs running through a cactus patch. But he was at home while we were forced to dodge the stroller through the puddles of gumballs now littering the road.

There is nothing like being immersed in the power of the nature to remind yourself that you are alive. The wind felt like a physical being that could be reined in and ridden through the sky if only I had brought a lasso. It felt both wild and familiar, like memories swooshing by. I like to think that energy I felt was the spirit of all of those who have met their physical earthly end. But that energy will always live on.

Rest in peace Willie "Bill" Henderson.

9 Months

Dear North,

You are a very busy guy these days. There are not enough minutes in the day for all that you'd like to get done. For sure, you are your father's son. Most of your days are spent moving furniture and vehicles around the living room. I'm not sure if you were a valet or a worked for a moving company in a past life, but I'm considering getting you a lower back support so you don't hurt yourself.

I have to take credit for your bizarre outfit in the following clip. I often tease your dad for the way I find you dressed, but this one is all me and I'm sorry. It could be worse though. I took a video of you the other day where you were totally naked except for a pair of blue and green flamed legwarmers and you were flash dancing all over the living room. So I would advise you to be nice to me, my dear son.

One of my favorite things right now is going to get you when you've woken up after a nap. From upstairs, I'll hear the sound of you babbling, "da da da da bido iyeeeeeeee!" and turning your musical aquarium off and on. When I go to retrieve you, you're normally standing holding onto the bars of your baby prison and looking up at me as if to say, "lemme outta here warden, I done my time. I been in here for 60 minutes. I'm a changed baby I tell ya!" Other times you seem to be numb to your lot in life and can be found banging your binkie along the bars of your crib and making up nonsense songs to anger the guards.

You are now eating finger foods almost exclusively: pizza, grilled cheese, sweet potatoes, pasta, ham, vegetables, chicken, muffins, and your favorite, cheerios. When things aren't going your way and crying ensues, a simple cheerio can often bring you out of your misery. I guess they are a well named food after all.

Another food that makes you LOSE YOUR MIND is yogurt. A couple of weeks ago, you would start squealing as soon as I pulled the yogurt container out of the fridge. That was the same time that you started begging at our feet for food like a little pauper. Our meals were spent avoiding eye contact with the three sets of doleful eyes of our begging mammals. I'm pretty sure Jake and Luna formed an alliance to off you at one point because they didn't appreciate the competition. But Jake has since decided he likes you now that he is your highchair cleaner upper. I'm afraid Luna is still plotting to steal your breath in your sleep though. I bet she would forgive all of your transgressions, even the tail grabbing incident, if you would share some of your yogurt with her.

But who am I kidding, we both know that's not going to happen.

Changing your diaper has been a challenge for some time, but recently, it has become a hilarious game to you. You cry as soon as I lay you down on the floor. But the millisecond that diaper is off, you flip yourself onto your belly and take off like roadrunner. If roadrunner was a naked giggling little boy anyway. You get about two feet away, sit up and look back at me to make sure I'm chasing you. Then you squeal/scream in delight and you're off once again. Rinse. Repeat. Yesterday, you made it into the kitchen, stopped and sat there with a silly grin on your face, but no giggles. Turns out, that's the face you make when you're peeing.

Out with a bang

Before my time runs out, I wanted to throw together some quick clips from the holidays.  I had intentions of writing a nice gushy letter detailing the many things I am thankful for, but instead the short guy picked up a cold over Christmas and my last week has been spent washing my hands raw.  Meanwhile, my poor boy has transformed into a 20 pound snail leaving a trail of snot in his wake.  I wish I could throw my whole living room in the dishwasher because cleaning everything manually feels so last century to me.  Between the snot plague and being part of the 10 % of the population that has actually had to work in the last week, time got away from me.  But I am not bitter.  No!  Really, I'm not.  The silver lining to a sick baby is a cuddly baby you see.  

Now on to the good stuff.  Happy New Year everyone!

Merry Christmas Easter Bunny!

Oatmeal Cranberry Raisin Spice Cookie

If you need a cheap, but thoughtful gift for someone on your Christmas list, these cookie gift jars are easy to make.  And everybody likes cookies right?  Well, except Nazis.  So if you have a Nazi on your Christmas list, you might want to stick with a swastika embroidered oven mitt.  But everyone else would probably love these oatmeal spice cookies

1 cup flour mixed with

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon baking soda and

1/2 teaspoon sale

2 cups old fashioned oats

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

3/4 cup raisin, cranberry, dried apple or the like

1/2 cup white sugar

Layer ingredients in order given in a one quart wide-mouth canning jar.  Gently press each layer before adding the next one.

Decorate jar and add this gift tag:

Oatmeal Cranberry Raisin Spice Cookie Mix

Empty jar of cookie mix into large mixing bowl and combine.  Add 1 1/4 stick melted butter, 1 egg and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.  Mix until blended.  For best results, chill for at least a half hour. Shape into balls.  Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until edges are slightly browned.  Cool a few minutes before removing from cookie sheet.  Makes about 3 dozen.

Nonessential baby items

A few months ago, Melissa left a comment wanting to get some information on what baby gear we regularly used and what sat around collecting dust. Sorry it took so long to get this written! But here is my take on it.

Disclaimer: What I'm about to share is intended only as helpful advice to new mothers based on my experience. I encourage any expecting mom to keep their baby purchases to a minimal level (especially in terms of clothing) to avoid wasting money. I also would buy as much of the baby gear secondhand as possible and return gifts that you do not think will be used for something more practical. And remember, going to the store is still possible after the baby is born!

Items that went to waste:

Multiple types of bottles & pacifiers---Maybe I would feel differently about this if I fed North formula from the get-go, but I only had 2 different bottles for him at birth. Dr. Brown's and some Playtex drop-in that was a free gift. We have only ever used 2 Dr. Brown's bottles that we wash after each use. As for pacifiers, he got a Soothies at the hospital and later on, I switched him to the MAM pacifier. There is no need to prepare for the what-ifs. But if you must, keep everything in the packaging and save the receipts so you can return it down the road if necessary.

Hooded towels---Sure they are adorable, but after a few months, they're just not big enough to use anymore. Buy 1 for cute infant pictures and save your money.

Dreft---I do love the smell of this stuff. But there are so many brands of truly baby friendly detergents out there that are better for baby's skin than Dreft, not to mention much cheaper.

Receiving blankets & burp clothes---We could have easily gotten by with a 6 pack each of receiving blankets and burp clothes. Unless you never plan on doing laundry again, there is no reason to have much more than that. We used the blankets we stole from the hospital mainly because the receiving blankets from the store always seem too small for the task (swaddling, shading baby in carseat, etc).  

Clothes---The most stressful thing to me is trying to get all the clothes on the baby before he outgrows them and they go to waste. We have found that we seem to rotate about 6-8 outfits on him unless we make a concerted effort to put other clothes on him. I feel very wasteful when I think about all the items he only wore once.

Baby wash and lotion---You really only need one of each to start out with and this stuff lasts forever. Seriously, North will be in his 40s before he uses up the stock pile of baby wash that was gifted to him.

Bumbo---Unless someone gives you one, I wouldn't buy one.  I mean, I like having ours, but it's an expensive piece of foam.  Maybe buy it used if you just have to have it.

Although it was not part of the question, here are some items that many moms now wished they would have registered for:

Safety items
Convertible car seat
6+ months clothing (if you live in predictable climate)
Toys
Exersaucer
Feeding items
Books