Sad Passing

AJ's Chicago great-grandma passed away this weekend, and we said our good-byes at the wake yesterday and the funeral today. Great-grandma was born in Italy and lived in Salerno, near Naples, where she met an American soldier who was part of the army force occupying Mussolini's Italy during World War II. They married, and she came to live in the U.S. and raised two boys on the south side of Chicago.

One of great-grandma's biggest passions in life was to see her children, grandchildren and great-grandchild eat. Perhaps this had something to do with living through the food shortages in Italy during and shortly after the war and wanting her family to enjoy the times of plenty. When Joe was growing up, he remembers his grandma cooking huge batches of pasta and supervising to make sure that Joe and his three brothers got enough to eat. A few years ago, great-grandma was expecting Joe, his brother Dave, and me for dinner. Joe ended up having to work at the last minute, but great-grandma had made meatballs for two big grandsons and me. When Joe didn't show up, she just dished his portion out on my plate, and I swear I had eight huge, delicious meatballs sitting in front of me on a steaming plate of pasta (about a pound and a half of meat!) In the past year, great-grandma loved to hear about AJ and his appetite, as well as how big he was getting. We miss her very much already.

The picture above is of great-grandma meeting AJ for the first time and giving him a kiss on the forehead.

Picture me strollin'

We went for a marathon two hour stroll today with AJ's buddy, J. (who, as you may recall, was the tiger to AJ's elephant last Halloween). It was a perfect 70 degrees and sunny, so we just kept walking and walking and walking. AJ and J. compared teeth, sippy cups and containers of Cheerios (J's snack trap vs. AJ's baggie of Os). J. is having his first birthday party in two weeks, and we are crushed that we are going to miss it, but it is the one weekend all year when we actually have other social plans (a wedding.) J's party has a Kentucky Derby theme, and I heard it straight from the horse's mouth this morning (can't help myself with those puns!) that the little kids may get their own t-shirts with iron-on jockey names.

In and Out

AJ has been very enthusiastic lately about putting objects into bigger containers and taking them back out. One of his favorites is to put a pacifier into this big pink plastic cup, shake it around a few times, and then dump it out and repeat ad infinitum. Joe and I have also both recently found objects inside our shoes when we go to put them on--Joe found a pacifier in his shoe, and I found a Cheerio in mine this afternoon. If you come to visit us, you may want to bring some plastic wrap to cover the openings to all shoes, purses, etc. Don't say I didn't warn you if you find a piece of mashed up banana in your Nikes.

Monkey Business

AJ received this cute monkey bag from my friend, Andrea, at his Chicago baby shower. It came filled with books, but we have taken to using it for his food bag whenever we go on an outing. While it would be more efficient to pack the food into one bag with his diapers, I like the idea of keeping the food separate from the poopie diapers.

The second picture shows a typical menu for a meal for AJ: a banana, a jar of turkey and vegetables, a jar of carrots, and some crackers. He would mix in a little bit of table food from our plates with this too. Yesterday he tried part of a meatball sandwich from Potbelly's that was a big hit with him, and tonight he had some lasagna off my plate. I hear that kids are supposed to be able to be 100% transitioned over to table food only by a year, so we are working on getting AJ to eat more big people food. Anything pasta related seems to be an easy sell so far. I am going to have to start working on a wider variety of things. This is good for us, because it gets Joe and I to focus on eating a wider variety of things ourselves. Joe is especially predictable in his food choices to the point that I can order for him off a menu at a new restaurant without any input from him. The algorithm goes something like this: (1) pesto pasta; (2) if 1 is not available, then something with sausage; (3) if 1 and 2 are not on the menu, then a cheeseburger...and so on. You get the idea. My parents did a good job of getting my siblings and me to try new foods when we were little. I remember calamari, Moroccan lamb, oysters, cow's tongue, Japanese stir-fry and similar things that seemed very exotic to my small town Iowa roots. I hope to be able to encourage AJ to be an adventurous eater as well.

April Showers

We have had some warmer weather and spring showers this week. Here's hoping that it brings May flowers. The pictures above are of AJ in his spring raincoat from his Auntie Anna and Auntie Nikki--the jacket is too cute for words. We are looking forward to getting together with Aunties A & N in Denver in a few weeks.

The Naughty Look

Although I haven't gotten my hands on a child development book to confirm this yet, I am starting to get the sense that AJ knows when he is being naughty. He gets this little smirk on his face and his eyebrows go up, as you can see in the picture above. I have seen this face most often lately when I try to change his diaper and he crawls away squealing while giving me this look over his shoulder.

Standing on his own two feet

Our nanny, K., reported today that AJ stood on his own for about 10 seconds this afternoon! The set up was that AJ was holding onto the shoulder of K. as she sat next to him, and then suddenly he decided to take his hands away and stood there with a big grin on his face. We'll see if this leads to any independent forward motion in the next few days.

8 to 5

After ten long months, AJ finally slept through the night for the first time! I cannot express how much I have been looking forward to this milestone. In baby world, sleeping from 8pm until 5 am is sleeping through the night, which seems a little short to me, but as the old saying goes, beggars can't be choosers.

The baby book that I bought for AJ has spaces for writing in first bath, first smile, first time sleeping through the night, etc., and the items are written in what the book assumes is chronological order. The space in AJ's book for sleeping through the night has remained blank long after the following spaces were filled in for first time sitting up, using a spoon, and crawling. I am looking forward to filling this one in.

Daddy's Little Helper

Joe was assembling a new desk chair this weekend and had some unsolicited assistance from a little elf who enjoyed climbing all over the chair, stealing the bolts and waiving an Allen wrench around in the air in an attempt to evade confiscation by his dada. While I was busy holding the seat to the back as Joe screwed the whole thing together, AJ took the opportunity of unfettered freedom to eat part of a piece of paper that he pulled out of my work bag. For those of you who are wondering why AJ seems to never be wearing pants on these pictures even though it is still 30 to 40 degrees in Chicago, there are two reasons: (1) our apartment is constantly 80 degrees due to freakishly superior heat retention efficiency; and (2) he is in that phase where he crawls away from you during diaper changes, making getting the diaper and onesie back on him enough of an accomplishment that I just call it a day before the pants get back on.

Currently...

We did a "currently" update a few months ago, so I thought it would be worth doing again...

Currently...

Eating organic mac-n-cheese, scrambled egg and anything dropped under my high chair
Drinking water...in a sippy cup...that I hold for myself! Woot woot!
Reading anything with flaps covering pictures
Wanting to play with the broom...a drink from a shiny silver Diet Coke can...to push all of the elevator buttons
Grateful for mom and dad finally deciding to empty my diaper pail once a day rather than when it got full (pee-yoo!)
Suffering from walker envy (I see big kids who can walk and turn green with envy)
Looking forward to summer days, turning my car seat around to face forward, seeing my auntie pickle in a few weeks
Into balloons from Trader Joe's, laughing at myself in the mirror, banging on the drums at music class
Favorite show to watch it's technically not a show, but my favorite thing to watch are the big kids running around at the playground, at the library, at the bagel shop
Digging for treasure in my toy box (I get my whole upper half in there digging around for things)

10 month update

Our little man has hit double digits, as in the big 1-0 months old! The developmental changes are coming fast and furious these days. In the last month, he has learned to sign several words, cruises from one piece of furniture to another, makes new noises when he babbles, and moves when he hears music. He has started to develop goofy little endearing habits, like always pulling off his right sock (but only the right sock), setting food on the counter next to his high chair in an apparent attempt to save it for later, and falling asleep while sucking on his blanket. It's hard to believe that he is closing in on a year, but we got an invitation to one of his friend's first birthday party in the mail today.

As I mentioned, it has been getting harder and harder to get AJ to sit still for a picture, both because he is so mobile now and because he is fascinated with the camera. He starts breathing heavy whenever he sees it and lunges toward it, which makes taking his picture in the rocking chair particularly challenging. You can see above that I wasn't able to get a good shot of him with the phone and pillow for perspective like I was trying to do in past months, but this was the best we could get.

Story Hour

AJ made his first trip to story hour with our nanny, K. this week. It is at our local library and involves a story being read out loud, singing, "finger play" (think itsy bitsy spider), and "freetime". It is open to kids from birth to two years. When AJ goes to things like this, I really miss being home with him and call K. to pump her for a detailed report. (How did he react to the story? Was he interested in the singing? Did he make any friends?) She told me that of all the little kids who were there (including some who were younger and some who were older), our guy was the only one who didn't want to sit still for the story. Apparently he was crawling all over K. and "talking" loudly instead. I jokingly told Joe that misbehaving in class must come from his side of the family. I'm thinking AJ might be hyper from all the sugar in his diet--I guess I am going to have to cut back on the Cocoa Puffs and chocolate milk that I have been giving him for breakfast.

(Just kidding, that was a joke to poke at AJ's Grammy J, who never let us have sugar cereal for breakfast. For the record, AJ eats things like banana waffles and oatmeal for breakfast.)

Under My Umbrella-ella-ella

We are drowning in rain here today. Not a light spring rain, but the cold rain that blows sideways and makes you wish you had stayed in bed. As our fellow Midwesterners know, this has been a brutal winter. I read in the weather report today that it has been six months since temperatures were above 70 degrees in Chicago. How depressing is that? My little summer baby, AJ, is also ready to return to the warm weather of his roots.

Mohawk

We rounded out the weekend by taking the requisite pictures of AJ with a bathtub mohawk. As you can see from the pictures, his hair is starting to get a little curly, especially in the humidity of the bath. His dad had lots of curls by about age 2, so I am thinking that AJ might be taking after dada in the hair department. This picture reminds me of a cute one that my grandma has of my dad around this age with his baby curls swept up into a little row on top of his head. I will see if I can get a scanned copy of that picture to share with everyone.

Getting in the Swing of Things

AJ's Chicago grandparents updated their old swing set with a baby swing for AJ this weekend, so of course we needed to test it out once or twice. The little guy giving AJ a push in the picture is his buddy, L., a sweet neighbor of AJ's grandparents who was showing AJ how things are done around the swing set.

A Bug's Life (trapped on my t-shirt)

I recently found a very cute little onesie for AJ with a giant grasshopper on it that I couldn't resist. Who knew that an insect could be so adorable when paired with a baby? The top picture illustrates my problem with taking photos of AJ lately--he is so interested in the camera and in getting his hands on it that every picture ends up an extreme close up of him lunging toward the lens. I read online that they were marketing a camera at a recent convention for new consumer products that takes 100 pictures a second or something crazy like that. The makers are marketing it to parents of active toddlers. The catch, you ask? It currently costs $1,000, so we will have to wait until the prices come down considerably on that one.

Pat Pat

I wrote a post a few months ago about the little nicknames that we have given AJ. There have been more recently that seem to mirror his developmental milestones, like Smiley, Giggles and Scoots, as well as several food-related nicknames, like Peanut Butter and The Graham Cracker Kid. One of my favorite recent nicknames, though is Pat Pat, for the sound that his little hands make when he is crawling across wood floors. You can hear him coming a mile away, although he is so fast that the fact that we can hear him on the move doesn't mean that we are always able to head him off at the pass. When he is fast enough, one of his favorite pastimes of late has been to get into the pots and pans in the cupboards in the kitchen, as well as to investigate the contents of the recycling bin while he is making his rounds.

More

As I briefly mentioned in a recent post, I have been trying to teach AJ a little sign language to help him be less frustrated as he is learning to communicate. In addition to pointing at things he wants, he has also signed two words--fan, for his beloved ceiling fan, and more, as in "I would like more macaroni, please, mother!" (Hey, since he can't talk yet, I get to use my imagination in terms of how polite he would be.) The sign language book advises parents to be on the lookout for signs that your baby is trying to do, because they don't always get the motions exactly right, so you can think that they are just waving or doing something nonsensical and not realize that they are trying to tell you something. That is the case with "more" for AJ. You can see here how to correctly make the sign, and then see above how AJ makes the sign, which is to tap his index finger against the palm of his hand repeatedly. But I can tell from the motion and from the context that he uses it in (always while eating when he wants more cheese, more Cheerios, more macaroni, etc.), that this is his way of signing more. It was such a cool feeling when I realized what he was signing and that he was trying to communicate with me. I can't wait to see what word he will learn next! I am working with him on banana, which is also a favorite of his.

I'll Take Three

This picture is the epitome of irony to me. We were desperate for AJ to take a pacifier from months 0-4 to comfort him and help him sleep during those first fussy weeks. Every time we tried offering him one, he would promptly spit it out with a cartoon-like patooie and it would go flying. Our pediatrician and everyone else told us that some babies like pacifiers and some just don't. But AJ is his own man, because after vehemently rejecting them for the first 9 months of his life, he has developed a new interest. In the last month or so, he has started to use them as teething rings that he holds in his mouth and chews on, rather than sucks. So just about when the pediatrician would recommend weaning off the pacifier, our little guy is starting. These past few days, he has been juggling three at once, with one in each hand and one in the mouth.