Peter's One Year Portraits

I'm off for a business trip shortly so things are kinda busy, but wanted to do a quick post for those not hooked up to Facebook...

Peter's One-Year portrait teasers are up on our photographer's blog, and as usual they did a phenomenal job. Thanks so much Josh and Jenny: you do such a perfect job of capturing his personality.

Linky link is here. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday

Dear Peter,

Congratulations on your first year, my son. You are officially no longer a baby, but instead well on your way to manhood. So let me take this moment to share with you (to the best of my womanly ability), the Man Rules:

• Keep the safety on until you pull the trigger.
  


• At the ballpark, never start the wave. But never let it die, either.
  


• You can people watch, but don’t stare.
  


• Walk it off.
  


• Don’t linger in a doorway: it’s in or out. (Your father has yet to master this one.)
  


• Offer your date the seat with the better view in the restaurant.
  


• Never swing at the first pitch.
  


• Go barefoot. It toughens the feet.
  


• It’s not enough to be proud of your ancestry. Live up to it.
  


• And the pleats on a cummerbund face up.
  

There now, you’re all set. Your father can cover the few things I overlooked. And if you need anything else, please know I’m here for ya.

Much love,
Mamma

Peter, Year 1 from Emily Mueller on Vimeo.

PS: And you’re still my baby. Always.

Toddlerisms

Whether coworkers or my fellow book clubbers or clients or acquaintances of all times - people are asking how much longer until Doots turns a year old. "So close! Oh, but your baby is almost gone!" Then imagine them making Sad Face for me at the very idea of OMG NO LONGER A BABY WAAAAAAAH.


Pfffffft.


Ladies and gents: the baby, he disappeared a long time ago. The birthday may still be a week or so away, but that doesn't matter. We are well into Toddlerdom. My baby, he sat nicely and smiled up at me sweetly and babbled oh-so-softly. Yeah, this current child is not a baby.

My baby most certainly did not:

• Insist on taking his toothbrush into the bath, then repeatedly dip it into his bathwater and back into his mouth, sucking loudly and grinning widely. He knows that totally grosses me out.
  


• Signal that he was finished eating at his meals by throwing his plate and any remaining food on the floor.
  
  
• Enjoy pulling tissue paper out of the box. Like, in a doing-it-in-slow-mo-to-fully-savor-the-moment kind of way.


• Stand under the pantry and demand all the boxes of Rice A Roni. Then drag them all to his mat and ceremoniously shake every box while he dances.


• Walk around the house singing at the top of his lungs.


• Insist that he does all the sweeping whenever I'm cleaning the house.


• Freak out when we're in the car and are driving behind a huge ole' truck. Point! Point! Hooty noise! PointPointPoint!


• Decide that pushing a "baby" (stuffed monkey) in a doll stroller, all around the daycare living room, is the Best Time Ever. (Actually: he alternates between throwing it in front of the stroller, running it over with the stroller, and then picking it up by its ear and plopping it back into the stroller seat.)


• Have moments of what I like to refer to as "Fits of Thunder", epic temper tantrums of crying, tears, hands-over-mouth-in-horror, then throwing himself prone on the floor while moaning. And then in 2 seconds it's all over and he's off to a new adventure.


• Stand motionless at the door, watching his father mow the lawn in complete and utter awe.


• Require approximately 15 stuffed animals as well as his beloved blanket to be in his crib at all times.


• Come at me full-tilt, screaming all the way, and give me big sloppy kisses.


• Take pleasure in pulling off his socks at every opportunity, shoving them both in his mouth.


• Try to nonchalantly sneak into a free chair at the "preschooler" table at daycare, where the big kids have their lessons and coloring sessions.


• Yank on my skirt excitedly whenever he spies my cell phone, so I will play the "Funky" ringtone so he can jam out.


• Jump on our bed every chance he can get.


• Know when to work the "mama" and the "dada" calls in his favor - for snacks and lemonade and things out of reach and when tired or bummed out or can't find his blanket...


• Walk. Oh boy, well: at least, attempt to walk. Drunken zombie-style.

Drunken Zombie! from Emily Mueller on Vimeo.

Male Twirler Alert

Wow, kudos to Vimeo for taking TWENTY THREE HOURS to upload my 50-second video. Goodness. They must have been having an off day...

Anyhoo! It's been a day since my posting of the weekly update, so I thought I'd post Peter's baton-twirling routine separately. I mean, it's totally deserving of a separate post anyway for that intricate move he does where he twirls the duster between his legs.

Prepare to be amazed my friends.

Mr. Doots shows off his mad twirling skillz. from Emily Mueller on Vimeo.

The Duckie Tub

Way back last year, before the Doots Man was born, Scott and I (like any other couple soon to be blessed with the birth of a child) were out shopping for some baby-type items. While at Target, we came across the Infamous Duckie Tub.



Have you seen the Duckie Tub? It seems like every single person I know who has had a child in the past few years has the Duckie Tub. In a circle of KC friends, it is like a Rite of Passage for New Moms when they finally move their babies to the Duckie Tub.



So we bought the damn Duckie Tub.


Anyhoo: fast forward to like, now. I had shoved the Duckie Tub package to the back of the bathroom cabinets, forgot about it a bit. Then, it got warm. And I remembered, oh yeah! The Duckie Tub! You know what, I bet it would make a nice beginners pool for this summer! So, I blew the thing up (no small feat, my friends). I found a soft blanket to use underneath so we didn't get any holes in it. I set it up in a shady-yet-warm part of the yard, filled it with water, tossed in some toys. I got the boy child in his shark swim trunks, grabbed some baby sunblock, found a nice fluffy beach towel and his sunglasses and out we went into the beautiful sunny warm afternoon, to take a dip in his new "pool".


And here's the closest he would get to the thing:




At first, I thought to myself, "Okay. While he loves the bath, this is outside with like, Nature and Birds Screaming and Sun and it's cold, not warm, and it's just not what he was expecting" so we drained the "pool", then set it aside to dry and cleaned up the area and put all the "pool toys" in the house and yeah I'm a sucker, then I still let him have his cupcake while basking in the warm sun of a weekday late afternoon.

Fast forward to the next day, the Duckie Tub is hanging out in the dining room waiting for the Next Try At Pooltime, and Peter spies it. Um, and his eyes get big and around and he turns around and I am telling you, I've never seen anyone crawl away so fast. Then peek at it from around the corner. So I try to warm him up to it, we inch closer every few minutes and once we're near I pet the duckie and yeah - no. He's not cool with the duckie. I think it's the giant Head and Eyes and the Maniacal Quack it emits when you squeeze the beak.

So, yeah. He's officially Sort-Of-Afraid of Duckies. Which, I find a wee bit hysterical. And kinda sorta maybe make the duckie chase the Doots around the house every once in awhile. I think he likes it though. Or, uh, that's what I tell myself so I still sleep at night.

Anybody Need A Duckie Tub? from Emily Mueller on Vimeo.

The Official Nine Month Portraits

Our son at his finest - the very talented Sarah Maxey Photo has his 9-month photos up! And we looooove. Them. Love them love them love them. Thanks so much Sarah dear, I love especially the sideways-thumbsuck one you were able to capture.

Mr. Doots, with his favoite toys at his mother's favorite places. Perfect.

Check out more teasers here. Enjoy :)

On Pointing, Furniture Walking, and Really Bad Hair.

The boy child, he deserves an update. I haven't done one in awhile. He's growing. So big. Yes, I know you're shocked, but he's growing, it's true. Every day I about fall over because of some weird new little thing he does. Like stand up like a little grown man, hands clapsed together politely and a look of total "so tell me about your day" on his face. All that's missing is a Ralph Lauren turtleneck cashmere sweater and nice glass of merlot grasped in those hands. Well, and about 25 years or so. But I can see it!

Anyhoo.

Um, in this shot he's all his weird, weird mother.




Nice face!

Where was I again? Ah yes, the Doots. Bee-bop. Robot. In true fashion, he has a bajillion nicknames, and he turns to look when he hears any of them. That's my boy.




Peter points at things now. He points at mom and dad when asked (or not asked), at toys and the television and oven and wall and basically anything that gets in his way. Totally no discrimination. He just points and points and POINTPOINTPOINT! Go back through the last few posts and you'll see what I mean. It's at the point (POINT!) of being a wee bit unnerving.

He is independent, very much about exploring all of a sudden. One night he very strangely moved more than a foot away from me, then continued to do so, a foot at a time, stopping and sitting and turning to look at me at every new foot of space. After that, it was all over. I turn my head for just a moment to finish whatever I'm doing at that moment, and he's slipped away to find something new and exciting. Under the bed, in the corner of the living room near the window, scaling the buffet at the far end of the dining room.

There he goes, no holding him back any longer. He pulls things off shelves and he stares googly-eyed at the Outside World from windows and he tastes and feels and throws and does all sorts of experiments in our house. Time to baby-proof, for real this time, it's well overdue.

His hair. Can we discuss his hair? He finally started growing some, no more Homer Simpson-esque hairdos for this little man. The problem, though, is that while it filled in a bit, from there on out it has grown in wild tufts. All soft and downy baby hair, so it sticks out in random patches. It's hysterical but man. Those are some harsh cowlicks, my poor boy.

He loves his gear toys. And toy cars and trucks, such a boy. Also he's not content to play with any of these toys on the floor, but instead places them at the highest points he can reach on the coffee table, the tv stand, the ottoman and chairs. Then he laps the room, standing and holding on, rambling from table to stand to ottoman to chair, slowly but surely he gets around in a standing position. Somewhat. I think standing and walking may be a bit of a ways off for us.

He's a pig, we all know that. Observe the chocolate bunny massacre below. He also has no regard for the method in which he eats, and he's extra-drooly with these new teeth, so if you forget the bib you should expect to soak his clothing in Oxy-Clean afterwards. He's an absolute mess. In fact, pictures after this one are semi-nude thanks to the dirty shirt problem.

He's all about the reading lately. Not you reading to him, though (although he has a soft spot for The Very Hungry Caterpillar, every time we read it he is just enthralled and looks up at me and screams. And yeah. We pretty much read that one several times a day). Anyhoo. He would rather pretend he's reading on his own, so he regularly pulls out our magazines and gives them a good reading. Then page-ripping. Whatever, in his mind it's all the same.

Did I mention the pointing? Because it's like, everywhere. EVERYWHERE ALL THE TIME.

Also picture does not represent this point, but! So yesterday, I was folding clothes in the bedroom and Peter was zooming (aka pulling around on furniture) like a madman. Scott called me on my cell - he was running errands and had a question - and on a whim, I put Peter on the phone. I rarely do this, basically because my dear boy never realizes what in the hell is going on anyway, so why bother. But! This time was different! He smiled, and cooed, and his eyes got huge and he stared at the phone and pulled it to his chest and smiled and oh, wow. So I get Scott off the phone, and bend down to ask Peter if he talked to Da-Da (like, duh stupid question) and he looks at me, clear-eyed and smiling and says, "Da-Da! Da-Da!" while waving the phone.

And then, he never did it again. Not when prompted, or told, 'DA DA DA DA' all the live long day, or shoved in his father's face, just nothing. So it was actually Officially Nothing. But for a split second it was a giant something of nothing! That I, personally, will never forget. So there.

He loves to walk. Walk walk walk! Well, not actually walk, more like walks-with-toy-handicap. That's okay, I'll wait for the walking. I enjoy crawling and creeping on tippy-toes and sometimes even standing.

Oh yes, just one last thing - and his feet are pretty much way too big for his 0-12-month-size Johnny socks. That doesn't matter, I squeeze his fat feet in them anyway.

So there you go. And update. And about a thousand things that say: girl, he's barely a baby. Well on his way to toddlerhood. Be prepared. Get the gates up. Be ready to retire the burp rags. Start researching potty chairs.

And yet, and yet. And yet.

So much still my baby, thank goodness.

For at least a few more months, anyway.

Wut? I'm just playing. Stop looking.

I know I always post preshus, smiley photos of the little darling living in our house, but I can promise you - he can be naughty, and he's already sneaky about it.

As evidenced below.

Not. Fooling. Anyone. from Emily Mueller on Vimeo.

And PS: like capturing big foot on tape, that was. He knows to play nice and be sweet for cameras. Sneaky! Seriously! Oh we'll keep him anyway, what the heck.

C is for Cookie

It snowed. Like, all weekend. Man, what a winter for northeast Kansas, we usually never get this much... weather stuff.


Anyhoo, snow always means cookies, and cookies always mean Doots is a content little guy.

Cookie Monster from Emily Mueller on Vimeo.

PS: This video editing, there is a definite learning curve (like, HOURS OF LEARNING CURVE). My apologies now for the terrible editing butcher job. Next time, I'll get the cuttings and the music to somehow sorta match up. And won't unintentionally pop in 30 seconds of footage I was going to leave out because it was Totally Not Interesting (dudes, there was this awesome little portion where the cookies whipped around his head and he screamed and got all godzilla on them but I kinda accidentally left it out). Oh well, you get the general idea.

Nursery: Before and After

It occurred to me that I have not shown the Before and After of Peter's room before now. Yikes, I suck. Let me get right on that.


*~*~*~*~*


Before:
Well, it wasn't bad really. Your typical upstairs of a Cape Cod style home (my cousin Joy used to have a Cape Cod and said the upstairs of her house was, like, identical). Lots of 70-year-old wood paneling. A really bad carpet-squares job on the floor. Some 1970s hardware on the storage doors. Those really bad roll-up blinds on all the windows.

After:
We actually didn't do a ton to this room other than get it baby-ready. Scott loved the wood paneling, didn't want to part with it. So we scrubbed it down with Murphy's Oil Soap and I must admit - it was very shiny and pretty after that, didn't bother me as much. We also left the carpeting, at least for now. It's not the best carpeting job by any stretch, but we're not sure how we want to end up in here and being a kid room, it's just going to get ruined anyway.

I felt like the wood paneling narrowed down my options for a nursery a bit. Not a problem, really, I considered it more of a fun challenge. I thought I could go a few ways here: do the Ralph Lauren lodge kind of feel, although that's a little too grown-up for a baby. Or I could go really throw-back retro, but hmmm. I can't pull that off as well as some of my decorating-savvy peers.

I ended up going with a third option - modern. Lots of white furniture, a more Scandinavian feel to go with the wood and the dormers. Since we decided not to find out the sex of the baby, I went with a neutral orange palette in the room. We nicknamed the baby "robot" (as I am sure you are already aware), but I found that hard to use to decorate on a neutral theme.

Instead, I let the modern and woodsy feel take over and went with a bird theme. I found cute prints to frame off of Etsy. We bought a cheap rug at JCPenney, in a deep brown. The bed in the room got neutral almond-colored bedding. The hardware on the doors and cabinetry was switched out with brushed chrome in a more modern style. And the gross roll-up blinds were replaced with crisp Roman shades.

The crib bedding. I sewed it all myself; one last big project before I had a kid and no longer the free time to sew for fun. I decided on fabric from Joel Dewberry's Aviary line, in a nice neutral orange and brown color scheme. I sewed a baby quilt, the bumper, and pillows for the room. Then we just bought simple white sheets and crib skirting. It all worked out quite nicely!

The mobile: I grabbed a nice-looking branch from the yard, fallen from one of our many big ole trees back there. Then I sewed birds from a pattern, a whole slew of different colors, and used embroidery floss as "feet" to sew them to the branches. Scott used fishing line and some other fishing contraption to attach it to the ceiling so it would spin.



A close-up of the baby quilt. At the time I wasn't sure how much we'd use it, since you don't really put a kid to bed with a blanket, but man: we use it a ton. A TON. I love that thing.

We bought a dresser on sale and I switched out the boring white wood knobs for a polished chrome, then added a modern polished chrome lamp and vintage mirror I found at a flea market, then I took the extra material from the bedding and made a TON of pillows for the spare bed in the room. Voila!

Our uber-awesome Mission-style Dutalier glider and ottoman. Get TONS of use out of that puppy.

Peter's toy area. Lots of books, lots of toys. We keep more toys and some accessories of his (hats, shoes) in the fabric bins. The wall decal was another Etsy purchase.

And that's about it! These pictures were taken shortly before our baby made his appearance, so everything is nice and neat and totally not lived in yet. I need to take a few more recent pictures, but you get the general idea.

It's a great little room for a kid, and I can't wait to redecorate it when he gets older and needs a toddler room. Not like you're surprised, I'm sure. Nor will you be surprised that I hope Peter is up for a robot theme...

The Human Garbage Disposal

I am behind on updating, like EVERYTHING, I know (cut me some slack, I'm on my third night of working on laundry, plus grocery shopping and cleaning and whine moan complain, blah).

So for now I give you a simple list. Of food. That our son has decided to scarf down with utter and complete abandon. Thus far, this includes:

• Greens and veggies (although he's more partial to sweet, like peas, over green beans. Still eats any veg we throw at him)
• Fruits, with strawberries and pineapple being the most popular
• Baby Cheetos and Cherry Puffs, Wagon Wheels, Yogurt Melts, also those annoying Mum Mum things (aka: baby junk food, all of it)
• Chicken dishes of all kinds, also - beef, pork, venison, nilgai, and hot dog
• Steel cut oats and regular oatmeal
• Indian cuisine - he digs Korma, Tikka Masala, curries DUDES THIS IS SO TOTALLY MY CHILD
• Snow
• Pickles
• Lemony-goodness of any kind, be it in savory or sweet dishes
• Risotto
• Paper
• Black bean soup, wild rice soup, any sort of soup
• Salmon and cod
• Quinoa
• Blueberry pancakes
• Fage Greek yogurt
• Cookies. Cake. And apparently he inhaled his cupcake (enjoyed in honor of Kiri's birthday) at daycare at an alarming speed, like Miss Fanta was all , "and then I tried to take a picture, but he was just *so fast*, I couldn't get one...".
• Smoked fish hash
• Yarn strands yanked out of the bathroom rugs
• Gnocchi
• Assorted crackers leftover from nights of "cheese tray" dinners
• Goulash and other casserole type dishes
• Smoked chicken nachos
• Liver pate (however: while he loved it, it did not love him back)
• Floor lint
• Sorbet (and, ah, he may have had a few teeny bites of ice cream. Maybe)
• Cheese - feta, fontina, cheddar, Parm, you name it - as long as you can get it in his mouth
• Gift bows

... and who knows what else. I am enjoying his hearty appetite while I can. In the meantime, his beloved friend Potato Pete is happy to hear he has not yet ingested perogies.

He just kinda chews on them.

Weekly Update: 12.20.09

Off to look at Christmas lights...

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*



Hiya ho! Ho ho ho. Ho. Oh my gawd, I'm ready for Christmas to already just GET HERE so we can stop going crazy with all the rushing and blah blah blah all that crap. Blah. Ho ho ho.





Anyhoo.

Another busy week, yes I'm sure you're all surprised! I had our Book Club Christmas Get-Together, and was also feeling a wee bit under the weather, and was finishing cards and shopping (yes, I say this every week. And yes, I mean it every week. It is the Never-ending Gift of the Holiday Season). Got together with Ms Anna for our usual weekly workout, only we changed things up this week and did drinks at The Pig rather than a workout. Believe me, it was needed.

Weekend was spent... wait for it... finishing up cards and shopping (hee!), wrapping stuff, and playing with Peter. He earned all the loving affection from me he could ever want, ladies and gents, because guess what: the kid's got a tooth. Like, a real honest-to-god, in-the-flesh tooth.

So, in the past? He's had fussy episodes. He's drooled so much it was like a faucet. He's run a low-grade fever and had... tummy problems? That's the wording I was looking for. And all the little things you hear happen when a baby is teething. Only, he was never teething. This went on for weeks and finally I was like dude, I'm not falling for your attention-seeking Fake Outs any longer.

Fast forward several weeks, to this week. Peter is clingy and all-around moan-y in the evenings. He's drooling like a rabid hamster. He's chewing on the bottom of the furniture with relish. He's feverish and isn't sleeping well and is having stomach problems - and me? I totally spaced all of it. I chalked it up to a "phase", a cold, I don't know maybe he chewed on the potted fern and gave himself a stomach ache or something. Until Saturday morning when I was absolutely shocked to find that razor-sharp tooth when goofing around with him. Oof. So, we officially have teeth. Yay. Now I get to worry about biting.

On the renovation front, I am proud to say that Scott has installed house numbers back onto the house. When Scott and Tim worked on the front porch, rebuilding most of it, they neglected to re-install house numbers. This was not something that concerned either Scott or I, until we discovered hey whaddaya know - at certain moments? It is very important to have house numbers prominently displayed on your house (i.e. whenever anyone new came to visit, like professional photographers or family members or new friends or I don't know, ALL THE DELIVERY PEOPLE CARRYING IMPORTANT PACKAGES). So, anyway. We didn't want the boring-old numbers that everybody else bought from Lowes, and instead Scott found these super-modern brushed steel house numbers. That are set out from the wall rather than flush. And, surprisingly, they match up nicely with our 70-year-old home. Rock on!

Yeah. Even more interesting updates to come next week, I am not kidding. We've got the holidays! And I'm baking! Peter will wear a tie! It will blow all your minds. I may even tell you about the one time (today) when he took a nose dive out of our bed when completely away from adult supervision. Yup.

Advent blessings (as my Beah would say).

6 Months Old - The Slideshow

Weekly update to be posted soon, but first I need to acknowledge the hard-to-admit truth - Peter's One-Half birthday is today.

Six months already, really? Oof. And yet, I love what a sweet little baby he's grown to be. So darn cheerful, always smiling and giggling and cooing. It is such an over-used cliche, but - we really don't know what we'd do without that goofy, happy little man hanging around.

Today, in honor of this special day, Peter was rocking on his hands and knees, and then took a few tentative (shaky, falling-over) crawls across the floor. Oh, but I believe we are in for it, folks.

In honor of this momentous occasion, I give you: Peter through the months, from Day 1 to this evening.

Enjoy.

Peter's 6-Month Portraits

Josh and Jenny Solar (of Solar Photographers fame) were burning the midnight oil, and got teasers from Peter's 6-month portrait session on their blog already. Talk about dedicated!

Some of our favorites follow... Well, who am I kidding - we love 'em all, it was hard to pick which ones to post here! Head over to the Solar's blog to see more (clicky click here). Thanks a million Josh and Jenny, you captured our little robot perfectly :)