bodega bay weekend

it was a beautiful sunday at bodega bay! we went out there because william's college friend, darren, had a birthday get together with a small group of friends. darren & dorris are both architects and he was one of william's groomsmen at our wedding. on saturday it was overcast so it was a little dark when we arrived around 5pm. but sunday was a crisp sunny day. great way to get away from the inland heat. in the top picture, thomas has a very grumpy little face on. thomas never likes to take family pictures. never smiles when all three of us are in a picture. but he sure loved seeing the ocean (as you can see in the next two shots).

dorris rented a 5 bedroom vacation house just a short walk from the beach. the views from the windows were great and made us feel like we were thousands of miles away from work/home/boring job/school. it was so relaxing and just the break we needed to get our batteries recharged. we ate food the entire weekend. there was so much food!

besides william's college friends, 4 of darren & dorris' other friends were there. one couple had two kids so thomas was not the only baby. he had to share all the attention with their second child, about 3 months older than thomas. but he did very well - didn't mind sharing the adoration spotlight one bit! :)

dorris did notice that when thomas looks at men, he just studies their faces very intently. but when he looks at women, he smiles. he is such a little ladies man already. i am not sure how i am going to feel once he starts dating. that is going to be really hard. i am going to have to remind myself to be nice and not scare them away. well, i will have to treat it on a case by case basis. it depends on whether i like the little gal pal or not... :p

of course, what gathering of good college pals would be complete without the downing of much distilled spirits with and after dinner. william of course grabbed onto his wine glass as soon as he got there and didn't stop until about 10:30pm. after one shot of vodka with guava juice, he came down to our room and promptly passed out on the bed, curled up around thomas. he mumbled something about getting up to go join them again once i was asleep. whatever. he is getting old. i told him to go to sleep and just dream about sitting up there drinking the night away. :)

he did manage to get thomas into it though. a few weeks ago, thomas noticed sara clutching her daddy's beer and decided to investigate what the big deal was. he took several strong whiffs of beer and became very very happy from the fumes... he wouldn't let go for a long time...

mini william

who is this baby??? that's right this is william at a little over 1 year old. look how cute he was. :) and how scary... thomas looks just like him except for the mouth. that will be really wierd when our kids are older and it will be like a 15 year old mini-william walking around the house (only not so mini anymore). and then there will be the 50 year old william walking around the house. scary.... here's another one - lets us all see what william would look like if he gained weight and put some chubb on those cheeks :). as you can see, william and his sisters all look a lot like his mom.


--------------HUGS!!!---------------

this week has been miserably hot for all of us. hard to sleep at night, hard to get outside to do stuff during the day. william mentioned he met someone that had their a/c break on Friday. there are lots of people without power right now too. so i have been reminding myself to count my blessings and not complain about the heat. one thing that has made the hot days not so bad is that thomas gave me my first baby hug last saturday! a real, live, lunging toward me, arms wide open, uncoordinated arms closing around my neck HUG! it was fabulous and made me feel so great. :) so now i get about one hug a day. i can't wait until he knows how to give kisses.

odds and ends

for those of you who haven't noticed, william posts random pictures of thomas because he wants to see them at work. he likes to admire thomas from all smilie angles (as many dads do). i end up adding text later. :)

it has been so hot - i have had a really hard time sleeping these last couple weeks. as a new parent you all know how precious sleep is. it sucks! thomas sleeps from 9 to 6 and i am awake at 4am, twiddling my thumbs for 30 minutes sometimes longer, until my body will let me go back to sleep. this last week however, thomas has been waking up at 4am for no reason. i think it is because he is too warm and uncomfortable. i have let him cry it out in the past and he does go back to sleep but usually cries for 20-30 minutes. when i feed him, he is back asleep in 10 minutes. so many times i just feed him. i am too tired to listen to him cry for 20 minutes.

i was talking today with another mom about how limiting breastfeeding is. you have no life! (at least not your own) and when you do go out, that baby is tied to your boob. Thomas used to be so good about taking a bottle from william so i could stay out for 3-4 hours. then william went back to school. during finals in May, there was about 2 weeks where we didn't bottlefeed consistently because william was in class, studying, meeting classmates, earning extra points, etc. that week before his finals was the last time Thomas accepted the bottle. ever since then, the little trickster just refuses to feed from the bottle (even though it is the same milk). he feels that silicone and just starts chewing around. then when some dribbles out, he won't swallow - just lets it run out the corners of his mouth. when he realizes that the bottle is not being replaced by boob, he starts crying. and once he winds up, he can really get going. and he cries and cries and cries, until i give in and feed him. i am a wimp!

anyways, we started him on solids on july8th and he was more than ready. besides the rice cereal, he is eating peas, carrots, squash, pears, and potato.... pretty much anything pureed we put on a spoon and move towards his mouth. i have been adding new items every three days and so far, thomas has not had a bad reaction to anything. i have been lazy and jars are so easy so he has been eating all Earth's Best baby food. safeway has them on sale: 8 of the 4 oz size or 10 - 2.5 jars/$4 at least a couple times a month so that is the best time to stock up. another mom friend of mine has been badgering me to make my own food. the last time i told her i still haven't tried, she said, "oh catherine, i am just going to make you some so you can see how easy it is." but i threatened to retaliate with an elaborate thank you gift if she did that. regina also mentioned on her blog how easy it is to make. i guess i started with jars, so i am reluctant to pull out the blender. plus you gotta clean, peel (for some) and steam the veggies, you can't just pull them out of the ground and throw them into a blender/processor... more work!! don't want more work at this stage. so thomas will have to settle for jar food. at least it is only a little while. by the time they are 10-12 months, i figure he will want chunks of what we are eating (along with chicken nuggets, noodles, hotdogs, and juice boxes). seems like most toddlers are pretty picky eaters and tend to want to eat non-healthy options.
the BEST thing about starting solids? william can feed him again so i can leave the house for longer chunks of time. plus it is also really funny watching him open wide for that spoon :)

thomas discovers the jumper

we found a jumperoo on CL for about $50. i read they were safer than the door jumpers. thomas examined the toys for about 10 seconds before discovered that it was LOADS of fun to be able to move his feet. jump jump jump - silly giggly squeally FUN! get one for your babies!

whooooa!

finally some nice shots of mommy and thomas

william has a ton of pictures with thomas and i don't have many. this is mainly because william is always saying "hey grab the camera and get a shot of us right now!" for some reason i don't ask him the same thing. maybe he is always looking busy when a good camera moment occurs, or that i simply forget to ask... who knows why i don't ask as often.







last weekend, william finally got another set of shots of the two of us that was really sweet. just the two of us with our matching mouths. thomas has william's eyes and nose no doubt, but he has my lips! :)











look, he is winking at you!















and here is the ever popular mommy kissing baby on the cheek shot. but i couldn't help myself. babies are so kissably cute and their cheeks are so chubby you just want to eat them up. no wonder the old fairytale talks of a witch who eats little children and babies. they are so irresistible!






this is from another series of photos he took of thomas on his little helper seat. this was a lucky shot though. usually thomas is bent over almost in a U, trying to reach things on the floor around him. he gets really frustrated in the seat when he can't reach things. so he starts yelling out in loud grunts. aah! eeaaah!

this morning, he was in the seat and i heard him grunt a little. then he let out a little fart. then another little chain of farts.
these were hard won farts - it has to be hard getting them out when his butt is pushed down into that foamy seat. i am fairly certain he has not realized that tilting to one side facilitates passing. when i looked over, there he was, with a look of strained concentration on his little face. he was pooping! i went over, bent down to pick him up and phew!! his poops and farts are truly getting malodorous now that he has started eating solids. when he has no. 2's to change, i try to breath as little as possible and turn on the bathroom fan. luckily our changing table is in the bathroom. we are going to have to start using the diaper genie or champ soon. the age of sweet smelling diapers has faded and with it's passing comes a new and challenging age of odor.

diaper face-off

we've found that diapers are like clothes. the different brands all fit and are constructed a little different. you have to find the brand that has the right fit for your baby. we tried several different brands from left to right: huggies supreme, luvs, pampers and target brand. the kirkland signature diaper is a direct rip off of huggies supreme. given that thomas has a very economically minded daddy, and that you do go through a LOT of diapers daily, we considered price as well. the target diapers are 13.5 cents and pampers/luvs/huggies all run about 19-21 cents each. kirkland lands in the middle at 16 cents. this is for the 104-170 count cases.


we started with the target diaper. that seemed to work, but we had lots of problems with leaks at night. he would wet himself, wake up and start crying. so we tried pampers at night. that worked better but he still would have a leak once in a while. all the leaks would occur when he was lying down. we tried the luvs brand diaper next and that did the trick! so for rolly polly babies, luvs has a better fit. we haven't had any leaks since then. however, i discovered the kirkland huggies rip offs a week ago. they have this great stretchy waistband that allow you to get it snug, but still allow baby to move around. we are going to start trying it this week at night. if we get no leaks, then kirkland wins the diaper battle :)

i also did a face test with several different diaper wipes. pampers for sensitive skin is by far the gentlest wipe. huggies and kirkland tied for second and target came in last. i have to say, i was surprised when i rubbed the target wipes against my check - it is almost rough. definitely not something you want to be rubbing on babies bottoms.

the best diaper rash creams are boudreaux's butt paste and aquaphor ointment. the butt paste has the highest concentration of zinc oxide (16% per mommy Liz) and the aquphor ointment is a great alternative protective screen for their tender skin. it's primary ingredient is petroleum jelly. that actually got rid of thomas' diaper rash after 2 weeks of 24/7 zinc oxide cream application did not work. go petroleum jelly! go costco! :)

Thomas tries some rice cereal!

for about a week or maybe even close to two, thomas has been making these funny little chewing gestures with his mouth... like he is biting or chewing down on something with his little gummy jaws. i have been letting him taste things like banana, peas, cucumbers and apples but not actually eat any of it. well, last night, we found out that thomas was ready and more than willing to eat rice cereal. in fact, as you can see from the pics, he was demanding and trying to help william get the food faster to his mouth with his hands and his feet. he would use his hands to cup the little bowl and his feet to hold william's wrist in position. that is more coordinated than i ever thought he was! he also ate more than we expected. the first serving in the morning was about a teaspoon of rice cereal. he finished that up and was asking for more. but i was a little worried about the expansive properties of rice. i didn't want to overfeed and have him spit it back up. we tried again that evening after a half feeding (one side). i mixed up 1 tablespoon of cereal with about 2 tablespoons of formula (the box said 3-4 tablespoons of milk or formula but that seemed too watery. any advice?). amazingly, he finished the whole thing and was asking for more after that. of course he ended up with some on his bib and mouth... but a lot less than we both expected. he was really downing the stuff! i guess he was ready for the rice and we were slow to read his signals to us...

as you can see he has also had his second haircut. it was hard though - for some reason i love his little baby hair bangs. but i caught him rubbing at his brow that day. i think the longer pieces were actually starting to bother him so i decided that i should cut them back. it is harder to cut straight across that i expected especially when you have a moving wriggly target.