January 15, 2012 ~ Grandma Got Run Over By Billy

If you read the post for Saturday you'll see that Daddy and I went to the game today. It was a big deal. Baltimore is a football town and it's rare that a play-off game is at home. It was a special day and the first real date Daddy and I have been on since Billy was born. We've been to dinner a few times and a few big events (weddings and such) but this was planned by us for us.

Grandma agreed weeks ago to watch Billy during play-offs. There was no way we weren't going.

I went to Grandma's last night to grab some winter clothes and prep her for a full day with Billy under foot. It's a monumental task to take on a toddler for a full day if you're not used to watching kids. Billy is especially active for a toddler, according to his daycare ladies. He runs circles around everyone.

When Grandma got here this morning I walked her through meals, gates, activities. It's a lot. Fortunately for Grandma, Billy has been extra tired and is prone to taking 3-4 hour naps when he is. I figured she'd get to watch most of the game before he woke up and then she would be able to half watch the rest of the game while she chased him around.

In a perfect world, we would have left at 11 while she was feeding him Second Breakfast. Then he would have played for an hour to an hour and then had lunch. Shortly after lunch he would have gone done for a 3-4 hour nap, so somewhere around 1-4pm. Perfect for a 1pm kick-off time. Then he would have gotten up and had a snack, followed by a bath. Then we would get home and it would have been a fabulous day for us and a fairly easy day for Grandma. We don't live in a perfect world.

We managed to get out of the house shortly after 11, but I didn't have Billy in his high chair eating Second Breakfast on the way out. He apparently refused to eat for her. She put him down for his nap but he only slept for 45 minutes. Then she tried to feed him again but he apparently wasn't hungry. Somehow, however, he managed to get Grandma to give him cheese and crackers- his favorite snack. He had no problems eating that. Grandma also went to feed him lunch, but she was so frazzled chasing him from one end of the house to the other that she couldn't find it in the fridge. It turned out she got confused with me telling her where his lunch was and me telling her where HER lunch was in the fridge. Lucky for Grandma, Great Aunt Sheila stopped over to help. Between the two of them they were so frazzled with a toddler running circles around them that they couldn't figure out how to get the gate installed, or how to turn off my ipod, which Billy had navigated off of the main screen. He snuck more snacks from Sheila and managed to steal her coke and try some- a feat never accomplished before. He's not allowed anything with caffeine, since the drug is dangerous for little ones and soda is very unhealthy for kids under a certain age. But he ran them ragged. They were very happy when we got home.

After Grandma left I figured out what was going on. I had gotten him dressed in a super cute sweater that I thought Sheila would like. It has a puppy on it. Now, I cooked the den up nice and warm for Grandma because she is always cold, and it was very cold here today. He was too hot. Therefore, because he was overheated, he didn't want to eat. Grandma said he was super thirsty all day long. He wasn't feeling good because he was hot, so he was drinking to hydrate. Also, because he was too hot, he couldn't sleep. I stripped the sweater off of him and he woofed down 2.5 times his normal dinner portion and ran around like a very happy toddler. He went to sleep, no problem.

I can't blame Grandma. These are the things that a mother might notice, but if you're not with the kid every day you don't see where the trouble is. And if you are cold yourself you probably wouldn't think that a little guy could be super warm. But my little man twice walked outside barefoot today and had to be dragged back in the house. It was so cold that the ice in my soda at the game never melted, so that my coke I bought at 12 was chilly and not watered down 4 hours later. Yeah, that cold.

But, no worries. After a few minutes he was back to his old antics. He was spinning in circles, pushing his cars around and singing. He even learned how to moonwalk! Yes, he moonwalked several times and was so impressed with himself. He also discovered that a napping Daddy is an awesome play toy. Daddy should never nap in Billy's reach. He might get attack hugged a few (ten) times.

Look, Ma! I put two binkies in Daddy's glass!

Novermber 25, 2011 ~ Give Me an "M"

I would have posted some pictures from today, but I'm having an issue on the big computer. "M" isn't working. It's hard to write a Mommy blog without an "M". It's even harder to talk about cousin MoMo meeting Billy for the first time if I can't type "M". Cousin oo cae to eet Billy for the first tie today... yeah, no.

Billy has a new phrase that he just started using. Clearly, the progression from "Nein!" is to "oh, nein!" He uses it when he drops something. It's really cute, but I promise I'm not teaching him German. We have been listening to some German opera, but I haven't heard "nein" in the lyrics (not that I have a clue what they are saying). We did watch Raiders of the Lost Ark today, but the German he heard in that movie can't account for using "nein" over the past week.

He also has a new motion that he just started today. You know how you wipe your hands together when you're done with a task? That. Only, he seems to think it's a dance move. He presses the button on a musical toy, starts to wiggle and wipes his hands. It's really funny.

Speaking of dancing... for the first time today Billy danced on command. He loves the music Evil Airplane plays and I had it singing. So, I said, "Billy, can you dance? Can you show Mommy that you can dance?" He started to wiggle and turn around. I also noticed that he's picking up ballet (from me). He tried to do a pirouette today and I saw him trying to point his toes with his arms in Second. So funny. He gets his little toys singing and starts to dance. At one point today he had his arms over his head and was spinning around. Maybe I should sign him up for a ballet class... nah!

This afternoon Billy got to meet my cousin MoMo for the first time. She LOVES babies. I've been trying to get her to meet him since he was born, but she lives out of town and keeps a tight schedule. So, now that he's 14 months old, she finally got to meet him. He was very shy at first, but soon warmed up to all of her all-over-smooches. If only she lived in town I would usurp her for a babysitter. They were fast friends. Billy cried when she left- no really. He waved byebye and after she and her Mom drove away he cried. Poor little guy.

Sign Billy up for the Ravens roster. We have an inflatable football, and since the weather was so nice today, we took it out into the court. I would throw the ball to him. Then he would pick it up, and at my request he would run away from me. I would chase him and "tackle" him, meaning that I would scoop him up in a Mommy embrace with lots of kisses- almost like being tackled! Sometimes I would let him get away and then I would tell him that he scored a touchdown. He thought this was a ton of fun. Billy 14. Mommy 0. Well, I might have let him win...this time. He is only one, after all.

November 20, 2011 ~ Touchdowns and Baked Beans

Billy has discovered that toys with strings can be pulled behind him. This is new an exciting. He has three pull toys, but his current favorite is a lamb on wheels from my cousin.



Here is Billy pulling his lamb. You might notice the Wii remote on the floor. Billy decided that, since it comes with a string, it must be a pull toy. After a few tries it was not as fun as the lamb, so he pulled the lamb in circles around the Wiimote.

Since it was morning I was drinking my coffee. He watched me carefully as I stirred my mug. He thought this was highly interesting. So he tried to sneak the spoon from me and stir my coffee for me when I wasn't looking. Best way to resolve this situation?

He spent twenty minutes stirring his own mug. Is that an original Care Bears mug you might be asking? Yes, it's from my youth. He loves it. He even put his binky in the mug and carried the mug around with him.

When it came time for lunch he still wanted to have the mug and spoon with him. So, I let him keep them in his hand. The result?

I'm not sure how he managed this, but I eventually had to untangle the spoon and binky for him.

After naptime it was time to watch the Ravens game. Billy had on his purple and so did I. He doesn't freak out anymore when I cheer, which is good. I think he's just learned that Mommy is silly when it comes to football. Daddy isn't a big fan, so he's usually not watching the game. When the Ravens got a touchdown I did the arms up move in celebration. A few moments later the Ravens had the ball again and had a really good play. I clapped and cheered. Billy threw his arms in the air into the "touchdown" pose and looked at me, "now?" It was too cute to tell him there wasn't a score.

After watching some football Billy wanted to go help Daddy.

Billy is helping Daddy rake the leaves, although in the photo it looks like he's directing Daddy to the leaves. Billy got tired of it quick. He fell and rolled a little down the hill. He didn't like that one bit. He didn't cry, but he didn't want to go down the hill anymore.

For dinner Billy got to try a new food. Baked beans! Not only that, but I made baked bean casserole. He was super excited about it and refused to eat anything else he thought it was so good. Lucky for him, there's plenty left over.

After Billy went to bed I was going through an old box and I found something. A little silver cup. A baby cup. The man it belonged to was born in 1855. Unfortunately, his old daughter died young so I guess that's how his cup ended up with my family line. Last summer Billy and I stood on his grave. We were out looking for family records in cemeteries. I don't have a morbid cemetery thing, I just think sometimes the best records are the ones written in stone. I've been working on the family tree. I wonder how this man would feel that a baby cousin born 160 years after him could use his little cup? Maybe someday some distant posterity will find Billy's little silver cup. What will they think?