Plant food

The dog food incident should have clued us in, but it didn't and thus, this post.

We have a plant stand of various plants growing in our kitchen. We thought that they were out of DJ's reach, but apparently, they aren't. In particular, there is a cactus - not the prickly kind but the water retaining kind - that must have shed some of its long-ish "pods". DJ got a hold of one, and in his mouth it went. ::sigh:: I love that you love vegetables, DJ, but that is not a green bean, even if it looks like one.

So I took it out of his mouth (he hadn't chewed it much) and since then, we've had to be on high alert when DJ's loose in the kitchen with us because he heads right for the plant stand now. Next time, DJ, try the Italian Flat Leaf Parsley or the Oregano we have growing in the kitchen. At least that's truly edible, and probably tasty, too!

Surgical success!

Earlier this morning, DJ had his probe and irrigation surgery on his left tear duct. We had to be at the hospital at 8:30am, but DJ couldn't have breakfast. This worried me as he is Mr. Food Motivated, but it turns out DJ did just fine without it. My dad (Papou) met us at the surgical center and helped to keep DJ distracted while we checked him in.

After he was checked in, we were taken back to room 51, where we let DJ run around the room and get some exercise in. His favorite toy right now is walking, so that's what he did! The nurse came in and had us change DJ into a mini hospital gown and socks that were waaaaay too big for him. He toddled around in that, too, until it was time to take his vitals. I so want the thermometer they have... you just rub it around his temple and voila, in 2 seconds you have his temp. That was sooo nice.

Dr. Collins (his pediatric ophthalmologist) and the anesthesiologist came in to talk to us and then it was time for Steve to put on the hospital coveralls to take DJ back. That was at 9;30am. Steve said that DJ tried to first bite the anesthesia mask but took it and in 20 seconds or less, was asleep. Then we got to wait.

Dr. Collins was back in 20 minutes with the results of his surgery, that he was already starting to stir, and that everything went well. By 10:15, DJ was back in our arms, alert, but not thrilled to be feeling kinda bleh. He sat in Steve's lap with his pacifier in, content to just sit there until I brought out his bottle with some apple juice in it (as recommended by the doctors). That was his first taste of juice (he'll get some chicken broth later). I was told to have him drink it slowly. Yeah right. He took that first sip, realized how good it tasted and then realized how hungry he was. He fussed at me every time I took it away to make him slow down! Ultimately, he sucked down 8oz of apple juice and wanted more.

We got him dressed in his street clothes, put him in the stroller and he loved his ride back to the car. He talked the whole car ride home (clearly his blood sugar had leveled out and was a happier boy). When we got him home, we let him walk around, but it was clear he was a little unsteady still, and definitely tired. We put him down for a nap just after 11. Sweet dreams little boy. :)

I feel loved!

Almost without fail, every morning DJ will wave bye-bye to Daddy and blow him a kiss (hold his hand over his mouth and then pull it away saying "maaa"). I rarely get waves and I never get kisses. Usually DJ is too busy playing or stuffing his face with Cheerios. ;-)

But today, I got 3, *THREE*, kisses!! I feel so loved!

Quack

It's actually been more fun to see what DJ will eat than it is eating in general. Last night, Steve grilled a duck breast, and we decided to feed DJ a small piece to see what he'd do with it. Sure enough, he not only ate it, but he fussed for more! Once again, Mommy wasn't cutting up his share fast enough! He also fussed for more asparagas while he was at it. ;-)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DJ!!!

11:26am, one year ago, Steve's and my life changed forever. DJ was born that minute, and we can't imagine life without him now. He has been our angel child, and tonight he sleeps in his crib with his pooh bear rattle in hand and binky in mouth, 15 pounds 9 ounces heavier and 9.5 inches longer than when he was born. I just wanted to hold him in my arms all night, but he's a wiggle worm when he sleeps so eventually, that plan would have backfired on me. :-)

His day today didn't start ideally... he had his 12 month check up with the pediatrician which means vaccinations. He weighed in at 24 lbs 6oz, and 30.75 inches long, placing him solidly in the 75th percentile in height and weight. He received 3 vaccinations and a clean bill of health allowing us to now feed him everything but peanuts (even shellfish is allowed!). Whole milk is on the grocery list, and that will be the next big transition for him, besides moving to a cup from his bottle. But as the doctor said, one change at a time!

We then went to have his blood drawn for the (socialist) state of Maryland lead test since we live in a house older than 1970-something. Needless to say, having a toddler's blood drawn is quite dramatic, and he really let me know he was unhappy about it. At that point, though, he was soooooo tired as it was way past his nap time, nevermind he'd already been given 3 shots earlier. But he was a trooper nonetheless. He did better than I would have under those same conditions!

We then went to Miss Eleanor's, where Savannah (4 yrs old), Lauren (2 yrs old), and Grace were waiting for him. The older girls were so excited to see him! As Miss Eleanor put it when I came to pick him up at the end of the day, "He got more mothering than what he needed today!" The birthday boy had lunch at noon, and then went down early for a 3.5 hour-much-needed nap. The girls and DJ celebrated his birthday with cupcakes after his nap. DJ also received really nice gifts from Grace and from Mr. Sonny and Ms. Eleanor.

I brought DJ home, and he got to walk around a little before dinner. Walking is his favorite thing right now. He had dinner, got to play (walk around) some more, and then he went to bed having read his favorite books and drinking a whole bottle of formula. He put his pacifier in his mouth by himself, and I haven't heard a peep since.

Sweet dreams, Little One. And may you have many, many more happy birthdays. Mommy and Daddy love you very much.

Added some pictures

I went back to my March 1 blog about our trip to the Isle of Palms, SC (Charleston) and added some pictures if you'd like to go take a look. :-)

DJ's 1st Birthday Party

Yesterday, Steve and I threw DJ his first birthday party. We invited immediate family and very close friends to keep the size of the party down. If the invite list were any bigger, DJ would have been completely overwhelmed by it all.

The day started out with DJ and I driving to the grocery store and doing some last minute shopping, including picking up the deli tray I'd ordered a few days earlier. Got home in time to put DJ down for a nap, and finish the party prep. I had cleaned the house and done laundry on Friday, so that was done, at least.

Side note: It was Good Friday for the rest of Christianity and why the US Stock Exchange is closed on Good Friday but not any of the other minor federal holidays (like Veteran's Day) is beyond me, but I'm not complaining. It was a nice day off for me.

DJ napped until Damian, Jenn, and DJ's 2 year old buddy Leo arrived due to the dogs going bananas at the door. Then Mike (it was early for Mike, but not as early as we were making him get up in Charleston - see my earlier March 1st post) and Andy arrived, and slowly family started trickling in as well.

We served lunch, and DJ had his first taste of goat cheese, and both green and black olives. Then we sang Happy Birthday and DJ took a swipe at his cake (Yiayia's famous Marshmallow Cake). With marshmallow icing all over his hand, he ate some, and then promptly put his hand on Steve's shoulder. Steve went to go change while I washed DJ off. DJ ate nearly a whole piece of cake; he certainly wasn't going to stop opening up for such good stuff like that! He'd never had something that sweet before, and boy did he like it!


After cake, we opened presents. He wasn't much into helping me open the gifts, even though we thought he might enjoy ripping off the paper, but alas, that was not so. There was a gold wrapping paper that caught his attention after it was off the gift, but that was the extent of his playing with the wrapping paper. DJ received a nice assortment of clothes, books and toys from everyone.

By 2pm, DJ was ready for a nap, and Steve took him in to put him down. He went down without a protest and slept for at least an hour and a half. Andy stuck around for another couple hours after everyone else left, and Steve's dad stuck around until later in the evening.

All in all, it was a really nice day for DJ. He'll be celebrating his real birthday tomorrow with Eleanor after his 12 month doctor's appointment.

1 Year Molars

I mentioned in my March 6th blog that DJ was teething his first (of four) one year molars on his top right side. A week later, I found that he had a hard spot on his bottom left gum, a good sign of his next one year molar on its way. Today, I felt around again, and the bottom left molar has poked through the gum (a little), and his top left molar is starting to work its way down as I can feel a hard spot on the gum. There is no sign of the bottom right molar yet. All this teething explains why he's been sleeping and drooling so much!!! He's been a little more cranky than usual but if not for the other two symptoms, you'd never know he is teething!!

Dog food. Yummy.

On Friday, I was busy in the kitchen while DJ was playing in the kitchen with me. Naturally, we keep the dog food bins in the kitchen where we feed the dogs. Up until Friday, DJ couldn't open the bins; he wasn't coordinated enough despite being strong enough. Friday, he not only opened the bin, but then took out a piece of food and popped it in his mouth. Yes, our son ate dog food, sort of. I pulled the dog food out of his mouth before he started to try and chew it. Multiple people had asked us if he'd eaten any dog food yet and now we can say YES! And yes, we have secured the bins so he can't open them now. However, he knows what is keeping the bins from opening! He just doesn't have the coordination yet to undo a twistie tie. ;-)

DJ is officially Greek

DJ has now been officially indoctrinated into the Greek culture. He had lamb chops yesterday for dinner. I cut him very small pieces of my chop for him to chew on, and he kept opening up for more after he'd swallow. He probably ate at least half a chop, and that was after he'd had a full dinner. OPAH!!

Well Hot Dog!

It's lunchtime, and I wanted a hot dog for lunch. Since DJ was eating lunch with me, I decided to share my lunch with him. And thus, he had his first taste of a Hebrew National hot dog. And it wasn't just a taste, I'll have you know. Every time he'd run out of hot dog, he'd whine at me for more! So far, he's had 1/2 a hot dog, 1/4 cup of applesauce, and a half a slice of multigrain bread. Where does he put it all???

Choo choo train

Yesterday, I went to the obstetrician, and I got to hear the heartbeat of a little 12 week old baby in utero. Again. :-) I love the sound; it sounds like a little choo choo train. So yes, DJ is going to be a big brother in September! Clearly he has no concept of what's going on what it'll all mean when the baby arrives, but I hope that one day, he and his younger sibling are very close. Sure, I expect that there will be lots of fights growing up. But I hope that they will love and protect each other as feverently as they will fight. Here's to what I hope will be another low stress happy textbook pregnancy, and Steve and I look forward to another happy healthy surprise!

Wreaths

It's official. DJ loves wreaths. He gets totally excited every time he sees on one hanging on a door. He starts panting excitedly, he'll make noise, and then kick his legs like a frog. Of course when we get close enough to it, he tries to grab it. And it doesn't seem to matter what kind of wreath it is. He loved Miss Eleanor's Halloween wreath, her Christmas wreath, her January/February purple wreath, and now loves her Easter egg wreath. I'm almost tempted to put a wreath on our garage door just for DJ! I suppose I could use one of our corded race tires; it would be appropriate!!

What's with the tongue?!

Last night, as DJ was playing, Steve and I noticed DJ was sticking his tongue out. He was just holding it there while he was doing his thing. He was doing it again this morning at Ms. Eleanor's, so it's a new trend!

Hello!

DJ now waves bye-bye consistently, as long as his right arm is available (i.e. not holding on to someone). But to add to his repetoire, he now waves hello with his left arm!

Someone is teething again!

It started on Sunday... the drool. Yes, DJ was blowing raspberries, too, but there was an awful lot of drool beyond the raspberries, too. Then, it was the chewing. DJ would put his mouth on anything he could to chew on. Table tops, chair seats, toys and your finger were all valid and frequent targets of DJ's chewing.

Yesterday, I decided to check to see if a tooth had actually come through yet. Sure enough, the right side 1 year molar has poked one cuspid through his gums.

There is no question he's not done yet, so I'm wondering if the other one is coming as well, as has been his trend of teething two teeth almost simultaneously.

So he has all four of his top front teeth, then skip a spot to the right and he's got the next tooth over poking through. He also has all four of his front bottom teeth, for a 9 tooth-count total!

The official Dilbert widget

I have a Dilbert habit. I love reading Dilbert. So I always ask for the Dilbert 360 day calendar for Christmas every year and I get Dilbert in my email daily.

Now I am sharing the Official Dilbert widget with everyone reading this blog. I've posted it to the right-hand sidebar. You can read today's Dilbert strip and any other strip back to January 2005. I suspect Scott Adams will be adding more strips to that widget eventually, but 3 years of strips is certainly a nice start!

I also added it as a Dashboard widget for my Mac. Love it!!!

Back in Baltimore

The rest of our South Carolina trip was just as nice as the first few days.

On Sunday, DJ was up at 5:30am. Mommy and Daddy on the other hand, were not, but awake we had to be else DJ would have woken up the whole house with his wails. We never figured out what was waking him up so early; it's not like the sun had even risen over the horizon yet! We brought him to bed with us to try and get him to settle down with us for a little while longer but that was a futile effort. The Wiggle Worm lived up to his name. By the time the rest of the house was awake, I know I looked as bad as I felt... bad. DJ took an early nap, thankfully, and I lay down, too.

Meanwhile, Mike, Andy, Damian, Jenn, and Leo started a road trip to see the Battery in Charleston. When DJ woke up, we hopped in the car to follow them figuring we'd catch up at a playground there. Unfortunately, the wind was really whipping off of the Cooper River (neat bridge!), so the first crew called us to let us know they were going to Fort Moultrie instead.

Steve wanted me to see the Battery so he drove us through there as a detour. Talk about some ENORMOUS houses. Holy cow... clearly they were old but beautiful. What a neat area. As Steve put it, on Saturday nights, the Battery is where the teeny boppers and the motorcyclists go to be seen. Steve also recognized some of his favorite restaurants on Battery Street, and filled me in on a little history. I'm glad we detoured... what a really neat place.

We joined the rest of the crew at Ft. Moultrie, and DJ got to see the fort from up high, thanks to Daddy. Mike and I were sitting in the grass taking in the sun and some really nasty burrs, apparently. OUCH! It's not like you could SEE them on the ground, so I had no idea until I sat down. But the sun was warm, the breeze was gentle within the protection of the fort's walls, and the sky was cloudless. Truly, it was a perfect day.

We found lunch at an Italian restaurant, and DJ heartily shared my spaghetti and meat sauce. The boy takes after my own heart. :-) Sunday afternoon was spent with most of us catching a nap in a sunbeam. We brought dinner in that night, and we spent the rest of the night packing and cleaning the house in hopes of leaving on time on Monday.

DJ apparently wanted to go home early because once again, he was up at 5:30am. Brutal!! But this time, when we brought him to bed with us, he didn't wiggle. In fact, he stayed curled up with each of us for about 20 minutes apiece. He didn't sleep, but he wasn't wiggling, talking, or fussing. He was just playing with his pacifier and I guess enjoying our company (we were certainly enjoying the cuddle time and extra "sleep"). At 6:30, it was time to get up i.e. DJ was done with cuddling with us. ;-) We got a head start on getting our sheets washed and cleaning our room and bathroom because of DJ.

DJ's breakfast was notable because I don't know where he put it all. He had a full bowl of oatmeal, a smaller bowl of yogurt, and 2 whole pieces of raisin bread. Yikes! While DJ was eating, we helped finish cleaning the house and doing the laundry. At 9:30, we were ready to depart.

The ride home was about as uneventful as the ride down, except that we turned DJ around for the first time during one leg of the trip. He LOVED it. He was so excited that he was waving his arms around and talking a mile a minute. It was so cute! But it was so exciting to him that he couldn't fall asleep when it was time for his nap. So at the next rest stop, we turned the car seat back around. Within 3 minutes of the car moving, he was out like a light. He had his next taste of fast food, this time Wendy's grilled chicken and oriental noodles out of my salad, and some chicken nuggets (sans the breading we could get off) from Chick Fil'A.

At dinner, Damian offered to drop Mike off at his house since we had much further to go than everyone. That really was a blessing. DJ only fussed for 10 minutes after dinner in the car, and then he was quiet the entire rest of the way. I'm wondering if because he was alone in the back, he didn't fuss because there was no one to fuss to! Whatever the case, he was an ANGEL. We got to my parents' house to swap back cars at 8, and we were home by 9. DJ was in bed by 9:15, and we were in bed by 9:45.

It was a long day and drive, but I'd do it again because we really did have so much fun with everyone. This trip also showed me that we'll be able to drive down to Wrightsville in July and that DJ will do just fine.

Isle of Palms, SC

Greetings from the Isle of Palms, South Carolina!

Currently, Steve and I are sitting in a beautiful ocean front beach home (hoping for DJ to go back to sleep!). We're looking out at the ocean on a 65 degree sunny day. After the 18 degree day we left in Maryland, this is a very welcome change of pace!!

We're here with Damian and his family, Andy and Mike. This house is Andy's cousins', and they have been gracious enough to let us borrow it for a few days this weekend. We couldn't be more spoiled by this place. The 10 ft ceilings make the rooms feel beyond enormous, and the house is truly luxury. It feels like the house my family stays in when we go to Wrightsville Beach. It's just wonderful.

The drive down was LONG. We left the house just after 8 on Thursday morning, picked up Mike at 9:15 or so, had lunch around 12:30, stopped for dinner at 6:30, and got to the house around 7:15. We let the kids play as much as we could during the stops and once we got here, but naturally they were so done with being in the car seat by dinner time. The 40 minutes from dinner to the house was one big fuss, but the kids truly did awesome for that long a trip. At one point during the trip, we swapped bachelors, and we got Andy and Damian and Jenn got Mike. It was good bonding time for sure!

We let the kids play in the house once we got here and while we unpacked the stuff for them. DJ went to bed around 8, and then we unpacked the rest of our stuff, created a grocery list, and then I effectively went to bed. I was wiped out.

Despite it being a new place, DJ slept great. He woke up at 5am on Friday morning (rough...), and eventually he fell back to sleep in our bed with us for about another hour (as we hoped that by doing that, we wouldn't wake the entire house). He took two 2 hour naps on Friday and ate like a horse all day. I think he was making up for the fast food we had on the way down of which he didn't eat much (good boy!). We spent most of the day doing nothing but trying to catch up on sleep and letting the kids adjust to the new digs. DJ spent a lot of time walking (with and without fingers!!), and he tired himself out big time!! But he did great progress walking as he'd take 4-5 steps at a time without any assistance. As he'd get overexcited, though, he'd fall over trying to "run" because he seems to forget to remain balanced. We also think that he's watching 2 year old Leo run around and is finding confidence that way, too. DJ went to bed at 7 with nary a complaint and slept through until 6:30 Saturday (today) morning.

Today, the group of us went to see the USS Yorktown (aircraft carrier) and the Coast Guard ship, the Ingham. Both were WWII era ships, but the cool thing was that Mike's dad did his CG service on the Ingham! Although Steve and I didn't do too much exploring (it's tough walking up and down ship stairs with a stroller, even folded!), we talked a lot about what we were seeing across the Cooper River, which was Charleston itself. We also watched a sailboating class of 13 boats practice maneuvers from the deck of the Ingham.The Ingham

We then went to see the Yorktown and you know what, it's big. And what's scarier is that today's aircraft carriers are a football field bigger. To someone like me who's not really familiar with military procedure, learning about how planes land on a carrier, both WWII era and today was neat. DJ was kicking his legs the whole time, people watching and watching the movement of everything around him.

We snagged lunch at Firehouse Subs. DJ had an *entire* grilled cheese sandwich. The subs were yummy, though it certainly helps when you're starving! :-) After lunch, Steve, DJ, and I took a drive down Memory Lane to see some of Steve's old haunts, including driving over the "new" Cooper River Bridge. It was nice to put some images to all the stories I'd heard. DJ and I fell asleep on the way home.The Cooper River Bridge

This afternoon was spent mostly enjoying the downtime. Steve took a long nap in the sun room, Mike took a nap outside on the deck, Damian and Jenn took Leo to the beach, and Andy and I watched DJ together. It was a nice quiet afternoon. The guys are currently making dinner, Steve is watching DJ, Jenn is watching Leo and I'm here blogging.

We wish we could stay another few days. This has been great! I'm hoping this becomes an annual tradition with us because this has been good bonding time and really fun for the kids.