Weekly Update 11.29.09

Ah, the week in review. Random baby shots used as filler, as usual.


Well, Monday through Wednesday night were a blur of things with house-cleaning and decorating and baking, and then packing thrown in for good measure.



Thursday was Turkey Day. Much eating and family and bonfire-y goodness.

Friday Ms. Northstrom and I headed out for a day of shopping in Wichita. We had a lazy breakfast at Jimmie’s diner, then hit up the Nifty Nut House, Target, and Bradley Fair. Our usual haunts.

Nifty Nut House has THE BEST nuts. I used to be partial to Nuts on Clark in Chicago but they do not hold a candle to the Nifty Nut House, folks. So we went bonkers in there this year, lots of roasted nuts and candies and dried fruits and my absolute favorite: the Amaretto and Grand Marnier chocolate pecans. To Die For OMG. I think I could use a quick break from all this strenuous typing to have a few, now that I think about it.

Friday night we headed back to Lawrence, and did a quick final pick-up of the house and unpacked the car. I also was determined to have a well decorated house for Peter’s baby portraits the next day, and that included actual wrapped presents under the tree, so guess what Nemmie was doing until 1am. Yeah. Scott thought I was insane but THEY LOOKED GREAT UNDER THE TREE SO BITE ME.

Saturday I got my hair cut, with the brilliant idea that it would kill two birds with one stone – I suck at styling my own hair, and my stylist gives the best blow-out and curl. Smart move, right? I’d have good hair for the portrait session! Except my stylist was booked, and the girl doing my hair who he promised styles just the same as he does? In actuality she does NOT, indeed, style hair as he does. She flat-ironed me. Flat. Iron. Flat Nemmie hair flat flat flat glued-to-my-head grossness. And then she ratted the back so it foofed up, like I had some sort of unfortunate Bump-It accident in the back. So it turns out that I had to go home and do my own hair anyway. Boo.

The Solars got to the house for picture time that afternoon, Peter smiled until he could smile no more, and then was given a few cookies for all his hard work. Really. We gave our 5-month-old cookies. I mean, I basically made him out of cornflakes and Starburst anyway when I was pregnant, so we figured he’d be fine. We saw no ill effects. And now, the blog-stalking commences, until they post those suckers.

Then there was the game. Oh, that game, a heart breaker. We gave it up to Misery at the end. Blah. The rest of the day was a wash. I finished decorating Peter’s room, as evidenced in the photos below:

The garland will be left on all night, as there is some sort of Poltergeist living in Peter’s room. We have had 3 nightlights burn out up there in the 3 months that he’s been sleeping in his room. Last week, his Mobi Tyke light that we’ve been using as a nightlight died, too. Yay.

Sunday was the usual, grocery shopping and laundry and getting ready for the week ahead. I made a bunch of baby food and froze it as well, a poached-chicken-steamed-veggie-rice concoction. Our dear boy is finally off the jarred and eating the chunky homemade like a champ, thank goodness. I am going to have fun making his food, I have a feeling. We have a baby food cookbook to break in, after all.

So yeah. I think that about covers things? Next week is busy. I love the holidays but oof, they will suck the life out of you. Hang in there all our dear readers, we will get through all the stress together :)

Gobble 'Til You Wobble

The title comes from a sign on Arnita's door as you enter for the holiday. Appropriate, I think :)


Our Thanksgiving holiday was spent with the Mueller side of the family (Haury to be more precise), as usual, so rather than blah-blah-blah all over you again, we’ll let the pictures do the talking*. Enjoy.


* Yes that is me being lazy. But it’s easy when I’ve got lots to do, and ya’ll just want to see pictures anyway. So deal. Smooches.


The guys deciding where to sit.

Baby Peter in about half his get up (missing his velvet blazer and newsboy cap, bummer).

Sitting down to the meal.

I am so happy to have a picture of Eric with some sort of expression on his face. Perhaps not a smile, but it's something ;)

Shocking but true: Peter charmed the girls into playing with him.

Yay, bonfire time! Once it gets dark, they have a big bonfire on their property and everyone roasts hot dogs and marshmallows. It is awesome.

The bonfire in all its glory.

Duncan roasting a hot dog.

Then we headed to Scott's parents' house to turn in for the evening. I gave (a starving) Peter his spoon to occupy him while I got his dinner ready, but apparently that was The Most Insensitive Thing Ever, judging from his reaction.

The next morning was Black Friday shopping time! Here's me and Nik before we headed out:

Peter stayed at his grandparents' house and played the morning/afternoon away.

And then we headed home Friday night. Lots of fun as usual though :)

Weekly Update 11.22.09

Monday: Go beer go!

Tuesday: Nothing to see here...

Wednesday: ...

Thursday: Scott and Nemmie to the dentist. No Cavities. Wooo Hooo!

Friday: Off to Pittsburg we go to celebrate a friends 40th tonight and (Aunt) Tinnie's birthday on Saturday.

Saturday:

Mahni and Peter, back together again.

One of these "kids" is 28.

Sunday: Back home.

Playing with toys.

Practicing sitting.

Needs more practice...

23 Weeks: A Weird Number to Pick, I Know, But Work With Me Here

How? How?? I realize I have been asking myself this question every single month since he was 4 weeks old, and yet it still stuns me when again we’re looking another new, larger number in the face. I mean really? That squirmy, chirping little babe is how old now? For real?


So.


Five months, and yeah blah blah mouthycakes I’ve been blathering about him nonstop for several months now, but he’s changed sooooo much in the past few weeks (hell the last few days), so I think we’re all due another Official Peter Robot Check In.

He’s not much of a pacifier baby, I keep forgetting to tell you. He will only take one when he is overly tired AND ALSO not feeling well. If you attempt to offer him one under any other circumstances, he’ll give you a look of disgust and spit it out immediately. Remember his beloved Cheryl the pacifier duck? Well, they are still friends and play together, but that’s as far as it goes. The romance is definitely over.

Which is fine, because he has many other loves these days. He loves to take all his naps in our bed (he naps twice as long when in our bed. It’s the down pillow top and high thread count, right?). His absolute most favorite toy is his beloved slotted spoon, if you give it to him in any situation he’s sure to quiet down and play intently for awhile. He loves to be nekkid. He loves his plush puppy that sleeps in his crib (he curls right up to it at night). He loves to scratch his daddy’s beard, and to sit out on the deck in his rocking horse, and to help me in the kitchen. He just loves! Everything! He approaches things in life with the most charming little attitude, I wish I could bottle that stuff up.

Oh man, he loooooves to eat – the kid is downright demanding at mealtime, scarfing down food as fast as you can shovel it in his mouth. And don’t dawdle; he doesn’t stand for any of that nonsense. He is very equal opportunity and will chow down a vast array of foods – peas, green beans, squash, carrots, sweet potatoes, all fruits, oatmeal and cereal… he enjoys them all. The only issue we have? He has gone anti-homemade. Bring on the cruddy jarred stuff, and keep it coming. Goodness, not like I’m going to complain about Easy + Cheap, but really? Really? Like, can you embarrass your foodie parents any more, my son? He’s a simple kind of guy, I suppose. Don’t think I’m going to stop pushing the quality stuff, though.



Not to say he’s all smiles and rainbows constantly, there are a few things that make him upset. He cries when he is hungry, and is grouchy when he gets tired, and anytime his mother is out of his field of vision all hell breaks loose. It is nothing short of a TRAGEDY. I hear him start up as soon as I turn around, maybe to just run grab something off the counter in the next room, and I usually return to the room to find poor Peter, his usually-happy face crumpled, eyes full of tears and mouth open in a wail and OH MY GOSH, but really? Talk about separation anxiety. So most days you’ll find him on my hip or playing within close vicinity, and for now I enjoy it, because soon enough they’ll come a day where he won’t want to have anything to do with me.



He’s still not very mobile. He rolls around, for sure. Crawling, however? He will kick and push and soon enough he is squawking angrily, then back to rolling. I am beginning to think we might skip past crawling all together. He’s not quite sitting yet; he loves to pull up to a standing position but is not interested in sitting. If you can actually get him to bend to a sitting position, he does a good job of holding himself up - hilariously enough, by grabbing his pant legs and holding on for dear life. It’s a sight to be seen for sure.

Oh my gosh! And he sleeeeeeeeps! Not all night, but close enough for me. For 5 months I went to bed each night wondering if he was going to make it a few hours, or if I’d be woken up to his crying in the next half hour. He’d get up several times from there, so that we were all zombies by 6am. And then, suddenly one night, he only got up once. And has pretty much kept that up ever since. It is the most amazing thing in the world, I tell you. He even keeps himself busy up in his room when he wakes up in the mornings, talking to himself and banging around in his crib. It’s pretty crazy to hear him up there chilling by himself.

On the vocal front: he has discovered a plethora of new sounds in the past week. He talks quickly sometimes, making these funny “blurbity blah blue-blue-baaaaah” noises. It’s like he’s performing scat jazz. His newest noise is his attempt at making the “pfffft” noise (you know, that raspberry-blowing sound). He screws up his face and tenses and with supreme concentration, all that works and what comes out is: spit. That’s it, just spit. Which was soooo funny at first, we kept demonstrating the “pffft” to make him spit at us. And we’d laugh, and laugh, and laugh. Only now, he spits on the exersaucer and on his lap and on your lap and on the rug and pretty much wherever he is… We’re over the spitting thing now. Hopefully he moves on quickly.

And I can’t hit “publish” until I talk about Peter’s laugh. Not really a laugh, but more of a deep breath and an open-mouthed squeal while his head pitches back, all over in about one second. No giggles, no body-shaking chuckles. Just a lightning-quick flash of pure happiness that he reserves for only his nearest and dearest. And that’s fine by me.



And for the record – it is going by so quickly that it hurts. Stop getting so big, my little one. Mom just wants a few more minutes of cuddle time.

Weekly Update 11.15.09

Does last week Sunday count as part of this update? I am going to count it, darn it. Well - last week Sunday was the season finale of Mad Men, and while I probably sound like a gigantic goon I want everyone to know that it. was. awesome. AWESOME. This show, it is so smart and so well written and I just adore it. It is set in the early 1960s, and the sets and wardrobe are just spot-on as well. I highly recommend it if you don't already watch it! So yeah, that was our Sunday night. With a nice cheese and meat tray, and some of Scott's home brew. Ah, lovely. Maybe our Sunday meal will become a regular thing on the blog...





Friday of this week saw the official kick off to basketball season in this town. WOOHOO! Peter was ready with his Mario shirt and his beloved Jayhawk. A new toy favorite, and it plays the KU Fight Song when pressed; we bought it for him months before he was born. When I was pregnant, we used to press the button to play the fight song for the baby, smooshing it against my stomach. I like to think that it sunk into his unconscious a wee bit :)

Um, and it goes without saying that we squashed the opposing team. KU is #1 in all (and I mean every single one) of the polls. And for a reason, we have a stellar team this year. It is going to be a fun season, my friends.

The weekend, now that was busy. We had another weekend to ourselves, which meant frantically trying to winterize the house as well as take care of a million other chores. We have had a super-mild fall so far, temps in the 70s or at the lowest, in the mid-60s. Sunny or cloudy, doesn't matter. And then on Friday a cold front came in, and our highs were much cooler (think high 40s/low 50s) with rain on Sunday, like ick. With the rain part anyway (obviously, with the Wisconsin genes, the cold is not some terrible threat to me).

Anyhoo.

Saturday Scott and I both got out in the yard. Scott got a lot of raking and one-last-mowing done, and cleaned up brush piles and such and stored things away for the winter. I got all my container gardens emptied, cleaned, and stored for the winter as well. Peter, meanwhile, happily played in the exersaucer (that I had smartly dragged out onto the back deck). That is, until he spotted his rocking horse, and then he would moan and look at it pitifully, and then at me, and then back at the horse, until I finally gave in and moved him to the rocking horse.

At which point, he was all smiles again and happily singing to himself (well, as much as a 5-month-old sings, which is just random babbling/squawking in a sing-song voice). Man, it does not make much to make the little dude happy. Thankfully.

That afternoon we both worked inside the house, cleaning and pulling Christmas stuff out of the attic (don't ask), packing up things to add to the attic pile. Including the dismantling of the baby swing. Now, that old girl was put out to pasture a few months ago (one day, Peter went from pure love and I-can't-sleep-any-other-way to OH-MY-GOD-GET-ME-OUT-OF-THIS-THING-I'M-BURNNNNNING! about it), yet we are just now getting up to getting it out of his room.

Also there was grocery shopping, deep-cleaning of closets and cabinets, and all your everyday baby stuff in-between, feedings and playing and bath and bedtime... Let's just say that I pretty much fell into bed last night. It was a busy, tiring, but satisfying day. We got tons done.

Sunday the baby was up at 5:30am, so we were all up at 5:30am... Busy again - Scott brewed a beer and also bottled a beer. That took up most of the day. I did laundry, picked up, went through the attic, and did some shopping - got 3 Christmas presents, a birthday present, and some things for Peter from Santa. Oh, man, but I think the boy will be spoiled this year. Just a hunch.

And really, truly, I haven't done a decent update on the boy. I need to do that, probably will be a separate post. He's growing so much, and so quickly! It is amazing to me that I seriously, honestly just had this kid and already he's almost 6 months old. He eats with gusto! He plays, he gives this impish grin before he does something silly, he has an emotional attachment to a spoon... It is just so much, so soon. Next thing you know he'll be walking and talking and doing all sorts of grown-up things. Man.

So, signing off for the week. Will give you a baby update soonish, and then probably on to next week (when we travel to Pittsburg). Toodles.