Friday, July 24, 2009

Father-son bonding



This picture melts my heart. It is so amazing to watch Mikey and William together. W was being super fussy the night I took this picture. He can always be calmed by playing the guitar or piano with his daddy. He went from a red-eyed squirmy baby to this bright-eyed, delightful little guy in an instant.

It was just about bedtime, so he quickly turned back into a little fussbudget when the music stopped.



I am so glad I got that sweet picture of my guys. I will treasure it.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Life Lesson by William

William wanted me to let you know that dreams really do come true.

He spent eight long months pining for those jungle animals. They taunted him by circling overhead, dancing and twirling about while he swung helplessly below. A few weeks ago, his dream became reality.

Twirl. Grab. Hold. Motor click-click-click-click. V-I-C-T-O-R-Y!

Friday, July 10, 2009

A busy boy

William is quite the busy fella these days! He is all over the place and getting into everything. He's not really crawling - more like scooting/rolling until he gets where he wants to go. He does sometimes crawl backward, and he seems very proud of himself when he does that.

He seems to have a love affair with all cords/chargers/straps he can get his little hands on. When we move, we are definitely going to be strategic about where and how things are plugged in.

I read somewhere that you shouldn't overwhelm babies by giving them too many toys to play with at once, so I always picked a few toys to hand William at any one time. The other day, I changed my strategy and put his small toybox in front of him to see what he would do. He loved it! He dug through the box, turned it over, picked through everything and just in general made a mess. I found it fascinating to see him picking and choosing what to play with and when. It made him seem much older to me for some reason.

Two days ago, I noticed that his gums looked funny on top. Then I stuck my finger in - his top two teeth have broken through the gums! I absolutely adore his sweet gummy smile, but something tells me I am going to absolutely adore his toothy grin just the same. This makes four teeth at just over eight months old. I'm not sure what's normal, but it seems like a lot to me.

William has been enjoying a lot of new foods. I try to offer him a couple of new things every week. You are supposed to spread it out so you can offer a food to them a few times and watch for an allergic reaction. So far, he has had oatmeal/cereal, plain yogurt, avocado, sweet potatoes, bananas, pears, applesauce, carrots, green beans, zucchini, pumpkin, prunes, blueberries, peaches, and egg yolks (had his first of those today). He has also tried Cheerios and a couple of other similar snacks for babies. This kid LOVES to eat. The only food he has ever disliked is sweet potatoes. He gagged the first few times we fed it to him. Other than that, he has had no reaction to new foods. I wonder if he is hiding his reactions because he knows I will start snapping pictures at mealtimes if he makes funny faces. Smart guy.

My little man has been such a trooper this week. We have been running around town meeting with our loan officer, getting two different inspections done, meeting with our Realtor (aka Grams!), and driving to Mikey's office so he can sign and fax paperwork. All that kept us busy Monday-Thursday. Today, we had nothing specific on the agenda. I have actually enjoyed being out and about, so I invented some things to entertain us. We returned a movie, donated formula we got from the hospital, and strolled around Target (didn't buy a thing!). William loves to get out and is usually well-behaved, so I enjoy taking him around as my little sidekick.

As a reward for reading all that (or at least scrolling through it):























I don't care if their mouths are cleaner than ours...

...this is still gross, although quite funny. Buster lures us into a false sense of security by licking William's hands and then goes in for the French kiss.







Best buds

Friday, July 03, 2009

Home Sweet Soon-to-be-Home



Yes folks, the time has come. Mikey, William and I are moving to the burbs. I'm not sure who's most likely to cry on moving day between the three of us. I'd put Mikey and me ahead of William! We love the urban lifestyle and our little bungalow, but we are beyond excited to create a new home for our family. It doesn't hurt that we found a fabulous house in a lovely neighborhood. I can really see this as a place our kid(s) remember fondly as the house they grew up in.

We have always known that this day would come, but we kind of waited for the right house to find us. I figured we would be out of the Heights by the end of '09, but our house had other plans for us. What's funny is that we wouldn't have found it without Mikey reading a thread on an Aggie forum. Someone posted about the house next door to them going up for sale, and Mikey looked at it on har.com (pretty much the best website ever). We weren't the right fit for that house, but he started looking at other houses nearby. We found one we thought would be perfect. And then we went and looked at it. Yuck, I hated it. But just a few days later, we came upon the house that we now have a contract on. Of course we have to get through the whole loan/inspections/closing process, but assuming all goes well, we will be moving in mid-August. The perfect time to move in Houston! Lovely weather that time of year.