New milestones

Now that Eddie is feeling better, he seems to have learned all sorts of new tricks overnight! It really is crazy how many new things he showed us last night and this morning.....when I called my mom to tell her about one thing, she guessed something else that he did and I said "oh, that too, but he also did this. and this. oh! and this!" the list now includes:

Pulling up to standing, using the couch. Can I get a big uh - oh on this one? Now all he wants to do is pull up on everything....earlier this evening he tried to use Saddie's collar - Frank was sitting with him and didn't even notice (boys....) until I walked in and Saddie looked at me like "moooommm"...she wasn't really thrilled with it, but let him do it anyway. She got some major love from me on that one, to which Jack walked over to Eddie, let him grab on, then ran to me to get some love too. Ha...at least the dogs have figured out that being patient with the baby = love from momma.
Using his baby sign language!! This was the most exciting development for me. I have been using the sign for "milk" since he was about 2 months old and yesterday I noticed him doing something weird with his hands...as I watched more through out the day, it finally hit me at night - it was the sign for milk! A little messy, but it was there, and it is what he wanted. We also have been teaching him the sign for "eat" when we do solids, but he hasn't started that one yet. Since he at least seems to be retaining the information, I added "more" into the mix. We'll see. My theory on the whole thing is that doing the sign takes an extra couple seconds out of the day, and if it works, great! if not, no biggie.
Walking with assistance. Um, another uh - oh, please. He loves to stand, but a couple days ago (with the help of Nanna - we'll blame her) he started taking steps. Now, whenever he stands, he immediately takes steps. Crawling if for wussies, apparently.
Wussies or not, he is trying to crawl. He will push up all the way on his hands and try to get up to his knees. He definitely has the leg motion down, he just needs to push up all of the way. He is regularly going from back to belly, and can also go from sitting up to on his belly smoothly. While I'm still skeptical that it is around the corner, he may surprise me.
Not sure if this should really count or not, but he is really starting to play repeating games and what not. His new favorite game is to close his toy laptop whenever I open it, so we open and close his little laptop alllllll day long. Thankfully his laptop does a ton of different things, because sometimes it will say "open" "closed" (in english and spanish) and it also plays a variety of songs, including the ABC's. If it did the same thing every time, I think I would go batty. He will also roll his ball back and fourth with Frank, but not with me....the little stinker.
While I am pretty sure he is teething, the symptoms seem to have been going on forever - so I'm not sure if it is teething or not. I can hope that it will be over soon! After Eddie kicked the sick we got little glimpses of our happy baby back and now the teething symptoms seem to hit full force...so we'll see. We're going to get back into our normal routine of classes and socializing, so hopefully he's just got some cabin fever and misses playing with his friends!

-maggie

Spring?

The difference a couple days makes....

{Friday}

{this morning}

spring? I think you're confused. Eddie, on the other hand? After a week of being sick he is finally himself again. He also has a new favorite toy....a whisk.

I think he is going to be a chef - if he is mad, any kitchen utensil makes him immediately happy. At least we've got him figured out!

-maggie

Y3W

As I mentioned in the last post, Eddie has been sick since Monday. He has wanted to snuggle all day and all night, something that Saddie took advantage of. I was holding Eddie on my lap and he was fussing -since Saddie has realized that she makes Eddie stop crying, so she was pacing next to my chair. When I finally let her jump up (ever so gently - this dog is so smart) she snuggled into me and Eddie snuggled into her. He put his little head down on her with his arms wrapped around her - it was the sweetest thing. Anyway...this round started with just the sniffles and a cough for a couple days, and then on Wednesday his low grade fever in the morning turned into a 103.0 fever at night. We piggybacked some Motrin and Tylenol to get his fever down, and tried our best to keep him drinking whatever we could (pedialite is GROSS, by the way) - but we did stop short of our on-call pedi's recommendation to give him flat Coke. Now, I love Coke - I have a rather sick addiction to soda, but I refuse to give that to my baby. I had a hard enough time giving him pedialite and gatorade. Frank and I have seemed to dodge the bug so far, I am feeling it a little today. While Eddie coughed almost to the point of vomiting last night, I told him I would take the sick for him if it made him better...so maybe my wish worked! I honestly don't care if I feel like I've gotten run over by a truck - as long as my baby doesn't have to feel it anymore. Not to mention mommies can take DayQuil! :)

I do have a lot of posting that I'd like to get to (mainly my FOR BROOKE! post), so hopefully Eddie will get better soon so I can keep up - so far he refuses to sleep without me holding him, and is sleeping most of the day, so I have been glued to the couch and honestly, I have never felt more lazy in my life. So while you're sending the flowers some good vibes, send them to Eddie too!

-maggie

Flower Friday - the day the music died

Today was a disaster. While I was (quickly) trying to get a couple pictures of the newest seedling to come up....

This happened.....

I knocked the other planting box off of the table. Now, I usually prevent this by pushing the table against the wall and window so I can't push it off while I move it around to take pictures....but nooooo, the one time I forget. Not to mention Eddie is sick, so while I'm trying to clean up the mess and save my littlest babies, he is screaming in his high chair. He's all "WOMAN! What are you doing? Stop playing in the dirt and pay attention to meeeeeeeeeeeeee *cough cough* Hellooooooooooo - mooooooooooooooommmmmmmm what are you doing?" and you want to know what is going through my head? "grumble, grumble (expletive) (expletive), grumble, grumble - stupid me (expletive)". Cute, right? Now, do you notice how the dirt is right by that heat vent? Well, guess what happens next....the heat turns on. FOR REAL. Dirt is flying everywhere. But by God, I was saving my little seedlings. So I picked each one out of the dirt pile and did my best at replanting them in the pots. Not an easy task, especially when you have a baby screaming at you. How did it turn out...well, um...not so good. They look a little rough.

Poor little guys. The worst part? I thought the fallen box was doing the best out of the two. That's what I get for picking favorites. Basically, I have no idea what to do now. I suppose just some good old fashioned TLC and positive vibes....I gave them some water, blew some kisses and wished them strength.....keep your hopes up!

-maggie

Doodles

one year ago today, I was walking around Disneyworld with my mom, on a trip that seriously tested our relationship. (my pregnancy hormones didn't help either) we just came off of the little mermaid ride (show?) and i peaked at my blackberry to see that a blogger that i followed gave birth to her twins (the doodles - noah and talia) at 23 weeks. schmoodle (bustedbabymaker.blogspot.com) was a fellow chicago nestie....i read her blog when i was trying to get pregnant, cheered when their ivf worked, aw'd at the ultrasound pictures and felt proud when she got the courage to overcome her many fears. and one year ago today, i sat in the middle of disneyworld and cried for a woman i have never met and only talked to via the internet. i cried the rest of the day and would cry throughout the rest of the trip. my heart broke into a million pieces and still does when i think about that day. i can't even imagine the strength it is taking her to get through the day....especially since she is pregnant again (toodle). big hugs to schmoodle. big, big hugs.

Y3W

This week, Eddie has been a really strange mix of Independence and klingy. He suddenly wants to feed himself....and while I'm not quite ready to clean up the messes that will entail, we compromise with this mesh feeder. I just throw a cube of food in there (last night was butternut squash) and let him go to town. He loves it! I also think it helps him work on his coordination, because he really focuses when trying to get it into his mouth....he touches it to his nose and then drags it to his mouth, which means squash all over his face! It's okay though, because he also likes to share, as you can see if the last picture. His new favorite game is giving me his paci (as in, putting it in my mouth) so I hold it with my teeth on the hard plastic part - he cracks up. We do it all day long...I'm sure people see this and think I'm crazy, but what can I say? I'm a sucker for baby laughs. And I'm teaching him to share! Haha. We are still working on the crawling and he has taken leaps and bounds this week. He really likes to try to crawl to jack, so I guess my theory on them not liking eachother is bust....at least on Eddie's end. I think it will suddenly happen one day, to the shock of me and Frank....the poor kid already spends most of his tummy time with his pants tucked into his diaper, so he can get some traction on the wood floors, because he hates doing his tummy time on the rug. I'm in for a doozy, here. His other new favorite activity is trying to pull himself up on everything - including Saddie. Poor dog. He is used to me giving him a little help when he goes from sitting to standing, so he is currently trying to pull himself up on his ball drop thing and looking at it like, 'come on! gimme some help, monkey!' Did I tell you about the stomping? He stomps all. the. time. This makes diaper changes especially difficult. And it also makes standing difficult, when you try to stand and stop at the same time. Eddie already takes after me, apparently...wanting everything at once :)

-maggie

Flower Friday

I didn't kill them yet! Yay!!! I would even venture to say that I'm doing pretty well at this whole thing! This shot is from Wednesday, when the big brown things suddenly opened up, like something out of Alien....

I thought that was cool....until this morning, when I woke up to this....

Isn't that awesome? I'm so happy we decided to do this. It is so exciting each day to see what they're doing, how big they have gotten and so fourth. These big brown ones seem to be the fastest growers...you can kind of see the other ones in the background, just hanging out. I'm sure they will have their own FF post soon! (ps - I am no photograper. I take the shots how I like them...the top one is at night, the bottom one is this morning. I don't want to take the time editing them, so I'm just leaving them how they are!)

-maggie