random thoughts and updates

sorry this is a long and rambly post. more to get pictures up for william to look at from work. also just to record stuff for blogging keepsake...

wheee! thomas riding a roller coaster on dad's shoulders.

look how tightly thomas is grabbing william's hair in both fists :)

thomas is about 9 and a half months old. a few funny things we have observed... his fourth tooth finally came in. he was fussy for about 4 days this time. definitely not his usual happy self. i also think he is starting to have a little separation anxiety. he has been unusually clingy lately and sometimes just wants me to hold him. he is still afraid of the dancing elmo doll we got from my mom. i turned it on for the first time in over a month and he crawled right into my arms and clung to me the whole time it was going. and he even turned away a few times as if to say "ah turn off the devil doll, it is burning my eyes!"

sara and tomas switched toys a few weeks ago - thomas is enjoying her toy very much. he's discovered that he can cram the giraffe's entire foot in his mouth. unfortunately i didn't get my camera out fast enough to capture that. i just got the guilty bird in the mouth look. but sara - we'll make sure it is throw in the washing machine before you get it back!

now that he has teeth, another thing that i started noticing is that his spit smells. you know, before teeth, they have such sweet smelling baby breath. just warm slightly moist air. now with food and teeth, sometimes, it smells a little like sour milk or rotten fruit. ha ha.... probably has to do with the last thing he ate. i try not to be too fussy about getting his spit on me. i figured that is just part of being a mom. but these last couple days, i noticed that by the end of the day, I smell like spit. just my whole self, smells like a spit ball. you know, they get spit on your clothes, arms and hands and since he likes to hold onto my neck, i get spit there too. he likes putting as much of his hands in his mouth and then putting that drool covered hand all over the back of my neck. it wasn't so bad when it didn't smell, but now it smells! so i spend the rest of the evening getting whiffs of his spit here and there. yucky!

we spent the day at Berkeley on Friday. as i mentioned below, we volunteered Thomas for participation in their locomotor study. it was actually really fun! we got to see how thomas did in the moving room (a room with moving walls to see how he responds to the movement), to an obstacle course that got progressively more difficult, and the visual cliff. we didn't think that they still did that one - it is the plexiglass on top of a 4 foot drop. they want to see when babies start to realize that there is a drop off and when they will hesitate as opposed to just charging ahead.
to our great surprise, thomas would not crawl off the "cliff" the first time we called to him. we really thought he would just crawl over to us with no regard for the fact that there was a drop, but he didn't. for 2 minutes, he just sat there staring at us and making his noise that he makes when he calls to us. by the 3rd time, he started crying a little and hesitantly stepped off and started towards us. but he was not crawling fast and was obviously distressed that he was crawling in mid air with nothing underneath him. it was so cute and so amazing, he wanted to get to us so badly, that he overcame his apprehension to crawl over. i just scooped him up into my arms and hugged him tight when he made it to the edge. babies are so smart - it has not ceased to amaze william and i.

-----------king size bed----------------

we got our bed! it is big and we love it. we all rolled around in it sunday morning hee hee... and thomas can lie with his head touching william and his feet touching me and we still have space to spare. can definitely fit at least two kids on there. we are ready! and andy - you are right, we are going to get so spoiled in this bed. i don't know how you fit into our full-size guest bed when you come to visit. we are going to have to upgrade that to a queen at least.

of course, i wanted to sleep in the bed the nght we got it, so i spent all saturday afternoon buying sheets for our new bed. i didn't want to wait for Overstock.com to mail it (even though they have some truly fabulous deals on there) so i went to TJ Maxx and Marshalls to see what i could find. the first thing i got was a king duvet cover and sheet set. 400 thread count and even made in italy! i bought 600 thread count sheets for our queen and i don't think the high thread count made them wear any better. maybe if i sat there and ironed them after each washing... but who the heck has time to do that! ha ha... anyways, i figure we are not that high brow. plus we can't feel the difference while we are sleeping in it so as long as it looks nice, that's all that matters. but i LOVE the big bed and thomas loves it too - he did his 4 limbs-thumping-all-at-once happy dance. we got two king pillows thrown in when we bought the mattress, so i bought two accent pillows as well which just happened to match the color of our bedroom set. might as well buy into the whole "bed ensemble" thing right? :)

---------------william's back at work---------------

i spent the day with thomas and we actually spent a lot of time at safeway because he got hungry about half way through errands and i didn't feel like going home to feed him. so i picked up some taco bell for me and went to safeway to get him some food. turns out a LOT of people eat lunch at safeway! i was really surprised but at 1pm, safeway was pretty darn busy. there were a lot contractors just sitting out in the parking lot, eating lunch. inside, the line at the deli never was below 5 people deep and i just managed to get one of 4 tables for thomas and i. lucky timing. we saw young people, old people, working people, high school kids. it was so funny - i never knew so many people ate at safeway. i guess once safeway remodeled their stores and made it more inviting for people to come eat, people came!

---------first gate installed---------

sunday evening before william started work, he installed a gate at the top of the stairs. if i close the bedroom doors, i can hang out in the den upstairs with him and it is relatively safe. he has quickly learned that the gate bars are easy for little hands to hang on to, so he likes to go over and pull himself up. then, he holds on with one hand, while slapping the bars with the other. it is metal so it makes a ringing sound that he likes. also, he likes to stomp his little foot. i tried to capture it - but the picture doesn't do it justice. he is this little, solid 2 foot person, standing there, stomping his foot up and down, while calling out to me. if you look closely, you can see he is even standing on his tip top on his one foot. maybe he will be a ballet dancer... or a broadway dancer... heh heh...

finally, in the den, thomas is always taking all the tapes off the shelf and trying to find a way to stuff his hands in the VCR. yes, we still own one :)