exploring

Robert is definitely back to normal now. He loves to explore outside and no longer is solely focused on going up and down the driveway. Every day it seems like he finds a new part of our or Wes' parents yard to explore and explores it thoroughly! Last night it was the ramp going to Roger's shed (where he keeps the lawnmover). We went up and down and up and down and up and down! :) It was cute. At work yesterday I walked by the gift shop (about 10 times, I was delivering the procedure manuals-we are finally done!) and kept seeing this dog so I eventually bought it for Robert and Peggy's collection
http://www.amazon.com/Melissa-Doug-Life-Like-Lovable-Plush/dp/B0007WJ1OW
Peggy has quite a few stuffed pugs on her desk and Robert loves to go play with them. So I had to get it for them! Robert loved it; held it, talked to it, played with it's tail. It was SO cute! I was hoping to add a picture of Robert this weekend but something isn't working well with Wes' computer so I can't! :(

Train?

Robert continues to delight us all and amaze us (and tire us out!). His current fascinations include ring around the rosy, climbing on (parked and off!) riding mowers, watching scenic train movies (thanks Wes!), climbing everything and just generally exploring and expermienting. Yesterday I looked over to see that he was walking backwards! I have no idea where he figured that out from! He's also responding well to simple commands (bring me your shoes, ring the bell) and talking more and more. His new words include "yeah", "train", "tree", and I think I heard well (I think it was meant to be bell) yesterday. He's got all 8 of his front teeth now, so hopefully that is it for a while.

On Monday I got a call at work that he was throwing up. I wasn't lead teacher that day (each day there is 1 lead and 2-3 auxillary teachers for each group-usually 2-3 groups going at a time-the auxillary teachers answer questions and make sure people are where they need to be) and wasn't slated to teach anything til after lunch. So I picked him up and took him to sick day care on peds. Monday evening he felt pretty bad, somewhat better Tuesday (no fever or vomiting) and yesterday he was well enough to go back to Erica's. Today he looks good.

A whole month, huh :)

Whoops, I knew it had been a long time, but not this long! So, here we go! Robert's current obsession is climbing. Climbing the chairs to the table to eat cheerios, climbing stuff to get to the counter, climbing the stairs (doing really well and turning himself around and going backwards to get down), climbing, climbing, climbing. We have an outside swing under a tree at Roger and Peggy's and he really enjoys swinging on that. He's trying to say swing but it sounds like tink or wink or something. It's cute. He's talking more and trying to imitate what I say and I name stuff.

And naturally his other obsession is eating (got to replace all those calories you burn climbing!). His current favorite is drinking yogurt out of his straw cup. He loves it! He's also enjoying eating garlic bread and toast (he licks the jelly off and then eats the toast), mini muffins, various cracker type stuff. He loves to crunch stuff between his teeth. And of course ice cream.

I'm starting to see some toddler defiance which is hard. We carried him out of lowes crying last night-he wanted to stay and play with the lawn mower tracters some more. He loves lawn mower tracters (don't worry we don't let him ride them-just sit on Nanny's when he visits her etc)! But then he was as good as gold through a 45 minute wait to go out to eat (luckily we were near a place that has a small park area-fountain, some plants/ginko trees, short stairs and we were able to let him run around there) and was perfect for supper-which started at 8 and ended shortly after 9-his bedtime. I changed him for bed in the car and he fell asleep on the way home-and is still asleep!

My job is still going well, we start "super user" training this week (nurse directors and certain computer savy people from each unit who will help other users) and then main training the week after. ACK

Fun times!

We had a great weekend! Friday mom and dad were here and we went out to eat at Red Lobster-Robert decided to try some of mom's salad and blue cheese dressing. He also ate fish, shrimp, clam strips, crab cakes, cole slaw, rice, broccoli most of a biscuit, a bite of dad's gumbo... and then some ice cream from Klines! What a guy! He loves playing outside so he really loved being out with Wesley, Roger, Clif and the 5 dogs (Snoopy plus Wes' parents 2 pugs, plus Clif and Hollies 2 puppies!) Sat evening while the women folk were at a mother-daughter banquet. He had a busy time and both he and Snoopy have been TIRED today! Today we went to lunch at Panera and then he and Wes took a long walk while I spent a blessed 45 minutes in a bookstore. Oh BLISS. And that tired him out so he took a long nap. We spent the evening at Wes' parents with both of his grandparents and Eddie and Tracy. It was a great evening and Wesley even changed the dirty diaper (well, actually Peggy did and Wesley assisted) but at least I didn't have to do it.

I forgot to say that my first week of my new job went well and I'm excited about what I'm doing! We've spent a lot of time this week and weekend working on the camper since we're headed out Thursday for Martinsville and the Argus Collector's Group gathering. (Don't ask!). I'm ready for a break!

Here are some pics from Sat evening.

outside boy!

Robert is loving being outside! He plays and plays and plays. And now no longer cries when I leave him with Erica. I love to pick him up and find him with dirty knees and smelling of sunscreen and happy :) And then he gets home and goes right back outside! I need to take the camera with me next time and get some pictures. He's so cute. He loves to pick dandelions and shred them like yellow confetti and throw them. So cute. I've changed his bath time to night since he gets so dirty! Monday I was home with Robert and Snoopy in the morning and opened the window in our room (very tall, low window). Snoopy stood in front sniffing and Robert stood next to her and put his arm around her and then started to pet her very nicely and stroke her ears. They stood like this for a minute or so and then Robert tried to take the screen out of the window so I had to close it. But it was SO sweet!

I start Tuesday with my new job in computer testing and I'm excited. It will be a nice change for a few months (ends mid September!) and I'll be happy to have my evenings free. Although I will still work evenings on my weekend and may teach/support some in the evenings in a month or so. The head of the project told me we have 1,900 people to train in a month. YIKES!

pictures!
Robert checking out his new room organizer as it's being built

Robert playing with his helicopter!

his new room organizer!

what it looked like before!

life goes on

Well, they say bad stuff happens in 3's and the third has happened so hopefully this is it! The mother of a very good friend of ours (she was also one of our favorite people) died unexpectedly Monday and the family night was last night. They're doing a small family-only service sometime this weekend I think. She was only 54. These last 2 weeks the chorus of a fairly new Christian pop song from the group Superchick keeps running through my head

we live
we love
we forgive and never give up
cuz the days we are given are gifts from above
and today we remember to live and to love

here's the link to the rest of the song if anyone is interested
http://www.christianrocklyrics.com/superchick/welive.php

What a reminder to savor every day. I find myself playing more, reading more, hugging more. Life is so precious and I am so blessed....

On a more personal note, I am changing job courses slightly for the next couple months to do some testing and training on the new nursing computer system. It will be 3 days a week (office hours) and then I'll continue to do my every other weekend evening shift (which will bring me to 4 days a week). I'm excited about the oportunity. I was asked on Tuesday and start at the end of next week! Talk about sudden. The poor assistant director who is having to fill my schedule... 3-11 is not a popular shift to work!

Learning and Growing

What a week! I know it's been a sad week for all of us with the Virginia Tech shootings and add to that, the finace of the guy that Heather (my good friend) nannied for died unexpectedly this past week of MRSA sepsis. MRSA is a crazy scary bug and seems to be really spreading around this area. Then work has been crazy and I've been working til 3 am a couple nights. Anyways. Robert is trying to learn everything in a week! He figured out how to crawl onto the coffee table, tonight he figured out how to climb ONTO the couch (using the music table!), and at the vet's office OPENED the door (long handle instead of a door nob!) his walking is really good and his talking and signing are taking off like crazy. Today he said for the first time "duck" and "night-night" (and said them at appropriate times). His other new words are shoes (yes, Heather is proud!), mama-mama-mama-mama! and I'm hearing more "dog". He learned the sign for "more" in about a minute a couple days ago with his first taste of honey nut (generic) cheerios and today used it to ask for more books while we were reading! He's also signing eat/milk/all done and tries to snap his fingers for Snoopy!

It's amazing but SO tiring at the same time! He cries in frustration a thousand times a day, did not want to take a nap (and I worked from 11p-3a so I really wanted a nap :) wants to do it all himself but then gets frustrated/falls/bangs his head. Sigh. Well, here's a couple videos for ya'll!
http://www.megley.com/videos/

Growing Up!

Robert was so cute today. After his nap I took him outside with me to check the mail. He was ticked when I brought him back inside. After a few minutes he brought me a sandle. Then both of them. Then his sneakers. So I took him outside and he did the stairs for a few minutes and then walked all over the yard and then hightailed it for Roger and Peggy's house (but there was no one there). I carried him back to our house where he promptly took off for their house again. I let him mess around their stoop for a while and then took him back to our house and he went back to theirs. The last time I carried him in and he was NOT happy. Poor guy! A snack took care of everything though. It was just too funny. I can't get over how well he walks-in the grass and wind and everything!

He got him MMR today, I had it seperated from the rest of his shots, he seems a little fussy today but OK.
Well, that's all the news here!

fun days

I took Robert to Erica's yesterday for the first time since he's been sick and it was somewhat nice to get out of the house without him :) I got him settled playing in her great back yard with the slides and swings and trucks and all things fun (hey, I wanted to stay and play and have snack!) However as I was pulling out of her driveway I was suddenly struck with terror that someone might run over him someday. I have no idea where it came from (OK, it partly came from a horror story of the same that I read in a parenting magazine last month!) but the thoughts came from nowhere. If anything every happened to my little boy I would be crushed. I would survive and be sane, I hope but I would never be the same again. I prayed all the way to work and was fine once I got there, but it was just strange. Motherhood is a powerful thing. As I was thinking of what it would be like if something every happened to him I knew without a shadow of a doubt that it would be better to have him and to loose him than to have never had him. OK, off the morbid subjects. He's fine, and will be fine!

So, after I droped him off I went actually to the recognition luncheon at RMH for people receiving their 5-10-15-20-25-30-35 etc year pins/awards etc. The longer you work the better the stuff gets. I got a lapel pin and a framed certificate. It was a nice lunch etc but what touched me and made me so glad to work in a small community hospital such as RMH was the remarks made by several board members who were there. One talked about organizational assets and liabilities and how employees are usually liabilities (since you have to pay them) but how at RMH they see employees as great assets to the hospital and the community we serve. It was really cool and then the chairwoman said grace in a way that made me know that she really knew God and served Him and it made me happy to work in a place where grace is still said and God is still acknowledged in things like this. Every now and then I wonder what it would be like to work in a hospital where I would just take care of kids-no adult overflow etc and I think it would be cool but then I realize all that we have by working in a small comunity hospital-and that's even cooler. These first 5 years have been cool and I think that the next 5 years will be even cooler. I look forward to doing more and being more here. Tomorrow is the clinical ladder reception and that will be neat too. I'm one of 4 people on peds who have become Clin 1's and I'm excited and now trying to figure out what it will take to be a Clin 2!

Tomorrow also, Snoopy and I both get our teeth worked on. Snoopy went a couple weeks ago for her annual checkup and the vet found a tooth that had died so she's going in for a cleaning and tooth removal under general anesthesia. I went a couple months ago to the dentist and found out I had a couple cavities and they origionally scheduled me for July 31st! but they've been hurting so I called and they had a cancellation on Thursday so I'm going then. They're also going to re-seal my molars. I can't believe that the vet can schedule major surgery on my dog faster than my dentist can schedule minor surgery on me! So Erica is watching Robert and Roger will pick up Snoopy and I'm not sure if anyone is coming to Bible Study but if they are it will be spagetti!

Well, long post and no new stories about Robert. He had his 3rd haircut today and is napping now. I need to get him up and through the bath before I take him to Erica's and we need to leave at 12... so I guess I'd better get to it!

feeling better

Robert seems to be some better today, less feverish and eating/drinking better. He woke up at 4 am again but went back to sleep pretty quickly. Still lots of snot though... yuck!

crazy and sick!

I was originally going to blog on how crazy Robert was last night. We had been playing on the floor while Wesley was playing with his new toy (the slide scanner with the auto slide feeder-cool stuff!), then I was sitting on the sofa and pulled Robert up there to play. He figured out how to climb onto the arm and hold onto the wood and slide feet first into the office area (bypassing the gate). He thinks he's cool stuff! We had a good time together. He had taken an morning nap yesterday which I thought was a little unusual, but he was wide open all day. Last evening I thought he felt warm but he was acting normal so I didn't think much about it. Well, he cried on and off through the night (he does sometimes when he's teething) and at 4:30 was really restless and HOT. Sure enough he had a fever so I gave him motrin, changed his PJ's for a cooler pair and rocked him to sleep. About 30 min later he was awake and so I brought him to bed with me since he seemed to want to cuddle-very unusual for him. He was up for a couple hours today and ate some. His temp was 102 and he went back to sleep after being up for about an hour or so. Poor guy. He's been extra cuddly though and we watched the girl in the cafe-wow. I've been trying to watch it for weeks now-but haven't had much luck with the DVD player, but today it cooperated and I'm blown away. Great reccomendation Aunt Martelle! Well, that's about all here, I'm going to try to get Feb and March pics up on the website now!

Going away!

I can't beleive it, we're leaving Robert for almost 48 hours :( Surely there is a law against this? In one way I'm super excited about sleeping in, hanging out, not lugging a baby in and out of a carseat, eating a whole meal without cutting up someone elses, in another way I know I'll miss him like crazy. And I can't believe all the stuff I "have" to send with him. Good night, it's like moving! Clif and Hollie are keeping him for us. Sounds like they're excited too. Robert is defintely a little boy now. He walks great and is getting really fast (yikes, is running around the corner?), he can eat as much as me (a whole grilled cheese!), and he's so darn cute. His latest antics are:
1) If you're in the bathroom with the door shut he'll get down on the floor and lay his head down and peep at you
2) If you have something he wants he goes "mmm, mmm, mmm like Snoopy does, sounds like puppy whining. Cas in point, I was rocking him to sleep and Wesley walked in the living room with a peices of his (Wesley's) b-day cake. Robert took one look at the cake, slid off my lap (he's learned to flip himself and go down feet first!) bee lined to Wesley and started doing the puppy noises and reaching for the plate.
3) He can climb stairs (crawling that is_
4) learning to climb stuff. Today I cought him actually trying to climb into the refrigerator! This is after he spent a few minutes turning the light on and off in the fridge!
5) Pulling stuff off: in the backpack, from the floor it doesn't matter. He can reach further than he should be able to considering his height and length of his arms. Must be octopus arms. He can get stuff off the table that is suitably in and stuff off shelves at the grocery store if he's in the backpack. Today he's been clingly and wanting to be held and I've been trying to pack etc so I put him in the backpack. He grabbed the little stuffed monkey I was going to pack for him and held onto it for about an hour while he was in the backpack. It was cute.

Well, he's awake now so I'd beter get! We'll be back Sunday! And I PROMISE I'll do pictures for Feb and add some for the blog and everything. Oh and the new babysitter is working out great.

new babysitter

I found one! Oh, glory. I tried to blog a couple days ago but the blog server was down and I've been too stressed to get back to it. But I interviewed a wonderful lady this afternoon and gave her the job. I feel so much better. Robert will be well cared for there. Robert is walking more and more and is just too darn cute for words!

Argh!

Just in the middle of everything with Robert's b-day I go to pick him up from the babysitters to find that she's pregnant and won't be babysitting anymore. So I guess I'll be starting the babysitter search all over again. That aside, Robert had a great birthday and we're really excited about his first birthday party! I guess I'll worry about a new baby sitter next week. I have a call in to Childcare connection (how I found the first baby sitter) so once she calls back I'll have to wait for a new folder of people anyways.

It's my birthday and I'll cry if I want to!

lol, just when I was mourning my tiny baby, Robert decided to keep me up part of the night last night. I realized this morning that his 2 top teeth are about to erupt, I guess he was hurting! I went in to check on him abour 1 am on my way to bed (worked last night) and he was awake and then he started to cry. I left him alone for a while but after 10 min or so brought him back to our bed until he was asleep and then put him back down-screaming. Then back to our bed for a while and then back to his crib where he cried a few minutes before going back to sleep! Then I woke up a couple hours later and stuck some blankets on him-he was all curled up and looked really cold!

And I used to do this up in the middle of the night thing all the time? I am so out of practice!

A dose of motrin seems to have made everything all better. I guess it's time for breakfast and then storytime and lunch with daddy and a NAP (for both of us!)

crazy goomer!

Robert is changing so fast I hardly know what to tell here! He's walking more and more, and learned "SO BIG" yesterday (still won't always perform on demand with company though!). He's becoming much more interactive and more interested in how things work. He spent a good while today figuring out how to get a ball in and out of his ball pounder-from the bottom. He's loving books again (went through a phase where he didn't want to sit still long enough!) and wiggles and giggles when he sees his favorite "touch and see" puppy book. We're also working on the word "no" and seem to be getting somewhere with that. Oh, and he's starting to do some preliminary climbing (thanks to his friend in nursery I'm sure!). His bottom 2 teeth aren't fully in but are clearly visable and so cute! I love seeing him with teeth and he loves to brush them! He's chewing and drooling again so I wonder if the top ones will be in soon. He is really a joy. In the past I was such an infant person that I wondered if I would enjoy him as much when he turned 1 but I love him even more and love to watch him become a person and learn and grow. Oh, the other thing I was going to blog is that we took him sledding twice this week and he really liked it! Wes took him Wednesday before he went to work and I took him yesterday afternoon.

we're walking, we're walking

Oh my gosh, he's walking. I was cooking this evening and he was playing in his plastic wear drawer and I looked up to see him walking across the kitchen. He's now walking 4-5 steps at a time, to people etc. I'm so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Robert's life

Robert's life
I was thinking this morning as I shoveled pureed pears into Robert (buy the no sugar added pears, drain and puree in the mini chopper) how so much of this year has been about "mostly". I went into motherhood figuring that would be the way it would go but with more idealistic thoughts that I would make all my baby food, use only cloth diapers, make stuff from scratch etc. Well, I have used mostly cloth diapers (about 1700 of them to date-of course I don't have that many, that's just the laundry tally!), made most of my baby food (if you count pureeing canned pears!) but still use 4-7 jars a week (for supper) as well as a yogurt a night (I think he would die if he didn't get his yogurt!), completely breastmilk (yeah!) and well as of the stuff from scratch, he eats a lot of leftovers for lunch (thankfully he still likes the baked ziti from last week, I'm sick of it!) and a frozen waffle (not homemade!) every morning. So I guess it's all evened out. I did work last night and got home safely despite the snow (although I couldn't make it all the way up the driveway!).

Wes finished the slideshow for Robert's 1st year and I got to see it yesterday morning and I almost bawled. Wow, he's really grown! Ya'll will be able to see if at his 1st birthday!

Here's a pic of the goomer

Robert's life

Robert's life
Today was Robert's first full day in the church nursery without me! He did great (and so did I). And then he had lunch with the young adults while we had a congregational board meeting (the young adults who aren't members agreed to watch the kids and they had special kid food for them). He's been a litle fussy these past few days and finally got tooth #2 (the other bottom one) yesterday and is now working on the top 2. Poor guy. He's also walking more and more, still only a few steps here and there but walking. I was telling Wesley that it's taken me almost a full year to get my life back to manageable. I feel like I can keep up with stuff (housework, cooking, church stuff etc) as well now as before (of course working part time helps too!). I can't immagine life with 2! I was going to leave a picture but Wes still hasn't downloaded pics off the camera so maybe next time!

Robert's life

Robert's life
Wow, my boy's getting so big. He's up to 31 inches tall which is plenty tall to get into the sippy cup drawer (the only one except for the top silverware drawer we didn't lock. He's babbling more now, saying something that sounds like "thank you" (tank too), "pee bo" (peek a boo), and once we heard diaper (immitating what we said back). Of course the talking is non stop one day and non existant the next. He's still on the cusp of walking. He stands well and can take a step but prefers not to! Little goomer! He's still on antibiotics for an ear infection (took him to the doctor last wednesday), he takes medicine really well! That's all for now!