For the past two days, it has felt like spring. Temperatures up in the 40's and 50's, beautiful sunshine, that fresh smell of wet earth outside. I'm not sure I'll be able to stand it if it snows again. Winter seemed to start earlier this time around, and I'm ready for it to be over!
John is ready too. He has loved going outside the past couple days, walking around on the spongy grass and getting up-close looks at leaves and bushes. It is going to be so much fun bringing him out this summer and seeing him explore. I have a feeling we'll be spending lots of time outdoors! I remember last summer how he loved looking out the window at the trees and the green. Today he wanted Joe to lift him up so he could point to things outside.
We are getting into the time of the year where I am looking back to a year ago and remembering the things that happened. It doesn't seem like it has been that long. But I suppose I'll be saying that for the rest of my life. Today was the same kind of day as the day I went into labor: gray, damp. I think John's birthday was sunny, but I don't know; my labor room didn't have a window, all I saw of the outside that day was a glimpse as we went down the hall to surgery. I hope this year we have sunshine.
Birthday party planning is in full swing. I am all worries, wanting everything to be just right, not that he'll remember it. Creating a "theme", getting some party favors and such. I made the invitations myself and they came out pretty well if I may say so. Slightly nervous about my first attempt at birthday cake decorating. Not that I'm going for anything that looks fancy or professional. But people will see it so it would be nice if it doesn't look like John decorated it himself. ;) My mom always made our birthday cakes, from scratch, so I feel in a way as though it's my motherly duty to bake my son a cake. A duty I am happy to have, I might add. I'm not a terrible baker, so I'm not worried about it tasting bad -- I just hope it looks okay.
We went to the Fisher Price Factory Store yesterday to buy John's birthday present. A corn popper. We let him try it out in the aisle and he seemed intrigued. We opted not to get the version that "counts" every time it pops. I don't see why they feel the need to force "learning" down babies' throats at every turn. He's not going to learn his numbers from a counting corn popper, any more than he's going to learn Spanish from our Exersaucer (which enunciates so poorly that after 7 months of use I still don't know what the Spanish word for "duck" is. Ponto? Paco?). Anyway, we figured spring-loaded, ball-popping action will be fascinating enough on its own. As we got to the checkout, I noticed a display of the Little People Nativity from last Christmas. One of the kids on the box is from our playgroup.
John continues to amaze. He pretty much walks all over our apartment on his own. Not so much outside our place, usually he is holding our hands -- whether that is due to him being cautious or us being overprotective in unfamiliar territory, it's hard to say. Probably a bit of both. His lurching little zombie walk, arms out in front of him for balance, big smile on his face... I could just eat him up. He loves to be chased (and it is so hilarious when he RUNS! I can't get over it.). Yesterday I was chasing him around on my hands and knees, and then he got up and came to me; I think he was chasing me, and "got" me. Too cute.
Tonight at bath time, Joe was getting him stripped while I ran the water. John was so eager to get in the tub that he lifted his little foot all the way up to the edge and tried to step up.
Last night I noticed that he was taking a cup and covering up other toys with it. Object permanence anyone? Today he showed us that he knows how to put the tugboat captain in his proper place on the boat, and to put the ball on top of his stacking cups. He "mailed" his plastic letters in the plastic mailbox. I wonder what else he can do that I don't realize yet. He likes to drop things on the floor or in the sink when I'm changing him. We've sort of started working on putting toys away at the end of the night. John can drop blocks in the bucket, but then he takes them out again, so it's slow-going. :)
I've been teaching him to "give kisses" and he seems to be starting to do it; at least, he puts his open mouth up to my cheek and drools all over me, but it's really cute so I don't mind. Funny how you let things slide when it's your own kid. I remember holding other people's babies in years past, and having them slobber all over my cheeks and thinking it was incredibly disgusting, while their mothers clucked, "Aww, how sweet, he's giving you kisses!" Hehe. :)
John seems to think it's hilarious to be taller than me. Often I'll just lay down on the floor while he's playing, and then he wants to stand over me, pull my hair, pat my face, laugh and smile. He'll put his face right down on mine, either giving a "kiss" or just resting there. Today he head-banged right into my cheekbone, so if I look beat up, you know why.
If you've seen the most recent videos, you've seen John feeding himself with a spoon. It is a messy process, and I hate having to clean up afterward. It's tempting just to keep feeding him myself, which is at least a little neater. But he has to learn sometime, so I am trying to make sure he has the opportunity. You can see how much he likes it. I'm not sure how much actually gets into his tummy. We're also working on drinking from a cup. He can pick up his own sippy cup and drink from it which is pretty cool. Our sippy cups are not "no-spill" because I don't put the valves into the spouts. Little psychosis on my part I guess, I have to do everything different from what "everyone else" does. (One of my books recommended not using sippy cups because children don't actually learn to sip, rather it's just another form of suckling, and you still have to teach them to "sip" later. So that's where I got the idea.) He can also sip from a regular cup (I always hold it for him for now, since I have a feeling he will just up-end it if I let him grab it himself). He finishes my juice every morning at breakfast. He's also gotten his first tastes of cow's milk in the past week. He only gets a very small amount to drink from the cup, mainly just for practice now, and is still nursing plenty throughout the day. I'm in no hurry to wean.
I left our camera at my parents' when John and I went out to visit a couple of weeks ago. So unfortunately, there won't be any new pictures or videos to post for a while. I told John he's not allowed to do anything cute until we get back out there. (He hasn't listened.) It won't be too long though -- we're heading back next weekend to spend the first half of spring break with my Grandma while my parents go to Hawaii. (Hawaii. Sigh.)
I printed a bunch of pictures from November and December to add to our photo albums. Once I get them in, John's album will be full, and he's not even a year old yet. I'm realizing that I'm going to have to adapt better to this new digital age; instead of a few rolls of film, we're getting hundreds of digital pictures. Even when I don't print them all out, I still end up with enough 4x6's to fill albums faster than I ever did before. I'm thinking I might need to look into digital scrapbooking, print several photos to a page and stick them in the book that way, instead of making all these individual prints. I'll miss being able to take the pictures out to frame or show people, but on the other hand, I have the digital copy which I can email or print if I want to, so I don't think you really lose anything. The real trick will be to find some way of doing the scrapbook pages with as little effort as possible. I like scrapbooking and put together a nice one for myself from high school, but I just can't keep up with it -- it takes me way too long to do a page. Of course this was with paper and cutting and pasting, etc... digital should be a little easier and faster... but I can still see myself getting sucked into it, and I don't want to. It's more important to me that my kids' photos/scrapbooks get DONE, than that they be works of art. I guess that's just a realization and acceptance of my own limitations.
Besides, I'd rather be knitting. :) I finished my first baby blanket last month, a smallish one but just the right size to lay over a newborn or tuck into a car seat (or, later, for a toddler to drag around). I think it came out pretty well; wasn't sure at first because the nature of the knitting loom had it looking a little warped after the initial bind-off. But after a few days the shape squared out a bit better, and my mom said she thought it looked nice enough to give away (I didn't want to give away something that looked super-pathetic), so I wrapped it up and sent it off to my second cousin's baby shower. I did take a picture first, but again, the camera is not here. So y'all have to wait to see it. Now I'm working on a baby sweater, so we'll see how that comes out. I've got the front and back done, working on the sleeves now, and then I have to assemble it and hope it doesn't look like complete crap. Lots of new babies coming this year, and I'd love to be able to give hand-made gifts. It is a special feeling, being able to create things!
I made a sock last week. That was really cool. I'm also learning how to do different colors and patterns, so it will be fun to design and make John's Christmas stocking later this year (after the baby gift rush!). I need to make John a new hat too. He's still wearing the first one I made, but it's pretty sad and pathetic-looking. I've gotten a lot better.
Well, I guess that's the news on John, and me. What's Joe up to? Busy, as always. :) Last week his physics students swept the bridge-building competition for the second straight year, which is awesome. The winter athletics season has finally ended, so now Joe is done with coaching for the year, and we get to see him in the afternoons. Spring break is coming up next week, and I hope we'll all get to relax and spend some quality family time together. He has been pretty stressed in this long stretch from Christmas to now, but I think he is finally getting some breathing room. Yesterday afternoon we ran a couple of errands and then just took a long leisurely drive, went out to eat -- and then came back for his evening duties. Until now that would have been unheard of for a Thursday. I for one am glad to have him around for those things again. :)
Anyhow, I've spent 2 hours writing this insanely long ramble, which is two hours I could have spent knitting the sleeves to the sweater I'm working on. This is why I don't blog very often; it takes too long to do it right. But on the other hand, I want to make sure I get certain things written down, just so a year from now, or two, I can come back and glimpse the way things are right now, before we spring too far into the future.