Oliver's First Christmas

Here it is... finally... my post on Oliver’s first Christmas. Sorry for the delay but there was so much to relate and remember. 

We all went down to San Antonio on Wednesday afternoon. My grandmother and Uncle Ken had gotten to my mom’s house just a half hour before us. We unloaded the car (a task in itself) and piled the gifts under the tree (which was already full of gifts... apparently we were all very good boys and girls this year).

Mom’s house, as always, looked gorgeous - inside and out. Her house always looks so great at Christmas. Decorations everywhere!

We all hung out for awhile Wednesday afternoon/evening admiring Oliver and then headed over to Kirk and Peggy’s house for a holiday party Wednesday night. Oliver came with us and was perfectly behaved even though it was passed his bedtime. He did great! We headed back to the house around 8:30 and had the kiddo in bed by nine. After trying (without success) to all share a bedroom in San Antonio in October we improvised a separate room for Oliver this trip by putting his crib in the closet of the guest room. Mom sewed a curtain to hang over the doorway of the closet and O’s crib fit perfectly. I was a little skeptical about how this would work but it worked like a charm! Every night that we were in San Antonio Oliver slept from bedtime until at least 3:30 or 4, ate and then went back to sleep until 7. Success! 

I had to work on Thursday (Christmas Eve), so Brian and I headed back up to Austin Thursday morning, giving my mom and grandmother a few hours alone with Oliver. (Great)-Grandmommy hadn’t seen him since October so I’m sure Oliver worked hard to impress her with all of his new tricks - crawling, standing, trying to cruise, waving, babbling, etc. I put in a couple of hours of work at the store and then headed back down to San Antonio to start the long holiday weekend. We spent the afternoon playing with Oliver and slowly getting ready to go to church. 

Christmas Eve service is one of my favorite things about Christmas - I love getting to sing all of the Christmas carols - so I was really looking forward to going to church, especially since Oliver had shown us the night before that he could handle staying out past his bedtime. I thought it would be a cinch. After all, he’d stayed in the nursery at my mom’s church before so no biggie, right? Wrong. About halfway through the service, one of the youth leaders came to our pew and whispered to me that Oliver had been screaming his head off and seemed pretty miserable. Oh boy. Brian and I rushed over to the Assembly Hall and could hear him screaming as soon we stepped into the building (he was still a whole floor above us but we could hear him). We got to the room and found our sweet little boy sitting in the nursery worker’s lap crying like we haven’t seen him cry in months. It even took a little while for him to realize that we were there. I scooped him up, took him into the next room and nursed him (turns out he was a little hungry in addition to being tired and disoriented). He calmed down but Brian and I decided it was best to head back to the house and put him to bed (we had brought two cars to church, so everyone else stayed to enjoy the rest of the service).

By the time we got him into the car he was his normal happy go-lucky self. He spent the ride home babbling contentedly and playing with some toys (and it was a long car ride home since Brian and I took an unplanned detour through the San Antonio Airport ... you’d think I wouldn’t get lost driving back to the house my parents have lived in for 13 years but you’d be wrong). We got home and decided to try and drag out his bedtime routine for as long as possible so that everyone could tell him good night when they got home from church. We gave him some cereal, let him eat some puffs, put him in his pj’s and were just about to start story time when everyone got home. I think my mom was glad to get to see him before he went to sleep. He even got to participate in the traditional opening of the pajamas part of Christmas Eve. 

It was his first “taste” of present opening (and was a good warm-up for the marathon he would run the next day).

After Oliver went to bed, we all enjoyed a dinner of Brian’s green chile pork stew. Yum! Then we got breakfast ready for the next morning, stuffed stockings and then headed to bed ourselves to prepare for an early start to Christmas morning.

Oliver woke us all up around seven o’clock on Friday morning. We put breakfast in the oven and then went into the living room to see what Santa had brought Oliver. He made quite a haul! Santa brought him a car that he can ride on or push when he learns how to do that, a red wagon, and an awesome basketball hoop. 

There was even more cool stuff in his stocking. And, let’s take a moment to talk about his stocking. My mom found this amazing vintage stocking sewing set this year and set out to make Oliver the cutest stocking you’ve ever seen. She spent months on it and it’s so adorable! It’s hard to tell in the picture below but it has his name on the top. Oliver’s lucky to have such a talented grandmother!

By the time we were done with Oliver’s Santa gifts, his stocking, and had started on our own stockings, it was time for his first nap. While he slept we all ate breakfast and continued opening our stocking gifts. After Oliver’s nap, he rejoined the festivities and had fun playing with all of his new toys. (I’ll admit it, we spoiled the kid this year. Couldn’t help ourselves. So, I’ll spare you a list of all of his gifts. Suffice it to say, he’s set on toys, clothes and books for awhile. Everything is so cute and he’s been having a blast playing with all of his new stuff. Oliver and I especially love the jack-in-the-box that my grandmother got him). Oliver didn’t just get things, though. He gave his grandmother and great-grandmother each a photo book of pictures from our trip to the zoo and botanical gardens earlier this year. And, he gave his grandfather a 2010 calendar full of pictures of (who else?) himself.

We spent a leisurely day opening presents. Taking breaks to visit with each other and with Willie when he came over, to watch Oliver play, to cuddle with Oliver and to eat Christmas dinner around eight thirty. We had an amazing horseradish crusted beef tenderloin with horseradish cream sauce, roasted potatoes, asparagus, and homemade biscuits for dinner. So good! 

We were all so good this year that it took us full twelve-plus hours to get all of the gifts opened. We opened the last gift just before 10 pm. Apparently, everyone was impressed with the grandchild we gave them this year, because Brian and I were showered with gifts. I’ve been on a baking kick lately but have sorely lacked good equipment. So, I got a new food processor, some cupcake tins, a set of awesome round cake pans for making layer cakes, a set of pastry bags and tips and a caddy to store them in so that I can learn to decorate cakes, a cookie press, and (most importantly) a rolling cart to store all of these things on since I’m lacking storage room in my kitchen as it is. Brian got an ice cream machine that I expect him to use a lot! Brian and I both surprised the other with a vintage aluminum Christmas tree, which means that my house will have four (!?) Christmas trees in it next year!  

It was such a great day. The food was fantastic, Oliver was in a great mood all day and we all had so much fun spending time together and oohing and aahing over all of our new things. 

On Saturday, Brian, Oliver and I headed up to Blanco for lunch with the Jordan family. It has been awhile since Nana and Bombone had seen Oliver so they were glad we were able to come up. The weather was beautiful and it was fun seeing my aunts, uncles, cousins and their kids. Oliver looked pretty cute that day. 

We headed back to San Antonio after lunch and spent the afternoon letting Oliver play with all of his new toys while we all lounged around the living room. That afternoon we Skype’d with Grandma and Grandpa so that they could see some of his new toys and watch him zoom around the house! After Oliver went to bed, we played some games for a few hours before turning in. 

On Sunday, my grandmother and Uncle Ken headed back to Midland and Brian headed back to Austin so that he could go to book group so it was just me, my mom, Richard and Oliver for the day. We went out for lunch but spent most of the day hanging out at the house (Oliver took two really long naps that day. I guess all of the weekend’s festivities had finally caught up with him). After he went to bed, we watched a movie and  then played some dominoes before going to bed ourselves. Richard and I both had to work on Monday but we figured since the kiddo was in the house we’d be up in plenty of time. Boy, were we wrong. Oliver surprised us all and slept until 8 o’clock. So, Richard was late. Sorry, Grandpa!

We had such a fun time in San Antonio that it was a little sad to admit that it was over on Monday morning but we were glad to get home to our dogs and cats and to get all our new things set up in the house. We were also greeted with presents from Grandma and Grandpa in New Mexico. Oliver got a duck that zooms around and a train that he can ride. So cute! It was a wonderful Christmas full of family, food, friends and one amazing little boy!

Sundays With Oliver - Week Thirty-Seven

I’m still working on a Christmas post (which makes sense since there are over 500 pictures to sort through and over 12 hours of present-opening festivities to recount) but I wanted to get this week’s edition of Sundays With Oliver up before people start calling and asking where it is! :)

We had a great Christmas week! Oliver went back to his “normal” sleep schedule of going to bed at 7 and sleeping until 3:30 or 4 and then going back to sleep until 7 am. He even kept that up while we were at my mother’s house and all sleeping in the same room. Thank goodness! I was exhausted. In other news, we have finally achieved actual clapping! He started to master it just today. And, we’ve added a number of consonants to his “vocabulary.” We’ve got D’s, N’s, R’s, G’s, M’s and B’s now. Yesterday he even said: “Nana Dada Rah Rah!” Which I think means: “Hooray for grandmothers and Daddy!” I’ll have a more detailed update on the week in the upcoming Christmas post.

Here are the pictures:

Sundays With Oliver - Week Thirty-Six

I’m not feeling well so this will be a short update (sorry it’s late). We had a good week. Oliver spent Tuesday with me at the store so that we could get our house treated for fleas. He did really well - he actually managed to take a nap in my office so I was able to get some work done while he was there. On Friday, Oliver and I went down to San Antonio so that I could decorate the Christmas tree with Mom. On Saturday afternoon, we spent a couple of hours in the park with Laurie, Robin and Lydia. Saturday night we tried (without much success) to go see the carolers at Nicole and Chris’s house. And on Sunday, we went to Lucas’s birthday party. It was a long, fun week.

Oliver did some better sleeping this week but naps have been a struggle the past couple of days. He’s become an expert at pulling himself up and now does it every time he’s put into his crib. He still can’t get down, though. It’s pretty frustrating but it’s also pretty cute to go in there first thing in the morning and see him standing up in his crib, ready to greet the day.

Here are the pictures from this week:

Sundays With Oliver - Week Thirty-Five

I slept eight hours in a row last night! No, it’s not because Oliver had a good night’s sleep (in fact, this whole week has brought a resurgence of his 2 AM feeding, despite the fact that it had disappeared weeks ago). No, I got that much sleep last night because Oliver was at Grandmama’s house. I feel well-rested and ready to tackle another week and Oliver had a blast showing off all his new tricks for his grandparents. He’s crawling all over the place and pulling up on everything he can get his hands onto - toys, chairs, bookshelves, the walls, etc. Being able to move around on his own has actually made Oliver a much calmer baby. He doesn’t fuss nearly as much as he used to and Brian and I think that might have to do with how much freedom of choice he has now. If he’s bored with one activity, he can move on to another. But mobility has also brought a MAJOR interruption in his sleep patterns. Like I said earlier, he’s been getting up most nights at 2 AM and I, like a fool, have been feeding him when he does it. The few times I’ve tried not to feed him, he’s cried for an hour or more. And, now he will stand up in his crib and cry instead of sleeping. I’m exhausted so after Christmas we will be doing yet another round of sleep training. Fun!

Here are the pictures from this week. There weren’t many good ones to choose from since I was alone while I tried to take the pictures so I couldn’t get him to sit still. 

Mama

Like any new mom, I am totally guilty of development obsession. Why hasn’t he done this yet? Why hasn’t he done that yet? So-and-so’s baby does x, why doesn’t Oliver? Etc., etc., etc.  My latest obsession has been with his verbal development. While Oliver shrieks (see the video posted awhile ago for proof), he has not started babbling in the traditional “ga ga goo goo da da ma ma” way. He vocalizes but he hasn’t found his consonants and I’ve spent a lot of time worrying about what this might mean. This weekend Oliver threw me a bone and started making “ma ma” sounds. We got a video of it (see below) but he hasn’t really done it since then so the obsession continues. I try to convince myself that he’s just too focused on moving right now and that the verbal will come later but that only calms me down a little. The life of a new mom is fraught with worries. 

Anyway. Whether it’s a stride towards verbal development or just a complete fluke the video of his “ma ma” noises is still pretty freaking cute. 

Sundays With Oliver - Week Thirty-Four

Oliver had a horrible night’s sleep last night (meaning we all did) and I am exhausted today so this will be a short post. We had a great week. Oliver is all over the place. His preferred destinations appear to be the dogs’ water bowl, any electrical cord and the vacuum cleaner. When there’s something that could potentially hurt him he heads to it like a rocket. Brian and I have been so tired trying to keep up with him.

Pat-a-Cake

I tried teaching Oliver to clap this weekend. Here’s what he learned instead:

Sundays With Oliver - Week Thirty-Three

So much has happened this week that it’s hard to believe it’s only been one week. Oliver started out the week hanging out at Laurie and Robin’s house on Monday night while I worked to get the house ready for all of our visitors for Thanksgiving. I want to say a huge “thank you” to both of them for watching the little guy for a few hours while I scrubbed the house. I got so much done and it would have been impossible if I had to watch Oliver at the same time. On Wednesday, my parents and Brian’s parents arrived for Thanksgiving so we spent a nice evening eating dinner and watching the kiddo. Everyone chipped in for bedtime on Wednesday night - Richard and Ann read Oliver some stories, Bill fed him some cereal, Mom and Ann gave him a bath and got him in his pajamas and I nursed him and put him to bed. I wish we had four grandparents around all of the time! 

After Thanksgiving, we got to spend Friday with Brian’s parents. I had to work and Brian had to pick up the dogs from the kennel so Grandma and Grandpa finally got Oliver all to themselves for a few hours. Oliver is way into his New Mexico grandparents. Ann can make him laugh like crazy and Oliver immediately starts to wave when he sees his Grandpa. It’s so cute! I wish we could see them more! Oliver misses his Grandma and Grandpa. On Friday afternoon, we all went to the park and hung out on the swings and slide. 

Ann and Bill left for New Mexico early Saturday morning so it was pretty much business as usual for us - breakfast at Dan’s, hanging out at the park and chilling at home. All business as usual, that is, until Oliver started crawling around Saturday evening! It was a big week developmentally for Oliver - crawling, learning to wave (although he’s still not very consistent with that, and it’s more of an arm jerk than a wave but still...), and trying to learn to clap. 

Here are the pictures from this week. Ironically, despite the fact that this was his first Sundays With Oliver after learning to crawl, he actually let me take some “traditional” pictures. Go figure. Check out those thighs!

Thanksgiving

Brian and I hosted Thanksgiving this year for both sets of our parents, his cousins, Chris and Nicole (along with Chris’s girlfriend, Tiffany, and Nicole’s friend, Cindy), and our friend, Lindsey. If you lost count, that’s dinner for eleven adults! It would have been a challenge (especially considering the miniscule size of our kitchen) but everyone chipped in dishes and prepared things ahead so that on Thursday no one person was stuck slaving  in the kitchen all day. My mom took care of the dressing at her house on Tuesday, my mom and I did the turkey together on Thursday. Nicole brought a salad, cranberry relish and ratatouille tarts for dinner and a low sugar apple tart for dessert. Lindsey brought an amazing brussels sprout/chestnut in brown butter dish and pumpkin swirled brownies for dessert.  Richard made an awesome pumpkin pie (with pecans and ginger and sour cream, etc... yum!). Bill took care of the mashed potatoes and Ann made her famous rolls and apple pie. The meal was delicious! 

Because the actual preparation of the meal on Thursday wasn’t too stressful we all had lots of time to hang out and enjoy each other’s company and be entertained by Oliver. He had an awesome first Thanksgiving. He was in a good mood all day and even managed to sit at the table with us during the whole meal. He kept himself busy trying to feed himself some Puffs but got a little annoyed that he wasn’t the center of attention during the meal. He’s been working on waving hello and at one point in the meal, I looked over and Oliver was waving at the entire table as if to say: “Hey, you guys! I’m still here. Pay attention to me!” So, I had the table wave back at him and praise him for waving. What an attention hog! But so cute! 

Here’s the day in a few pictures:

Here We Go...

Well, I was going to do a post about the wonderful Thanksgiving we had on Thursday (and, I promise I will do it soon) but Oliver trumped that post with his new trick. Check out the video... our lives will never be the same again.

Sundays With Oliver - Week Thirty-Two

Oliver’s new tricks this week? Separation anxiety and temper tantrums! I don’t know if it’s the teething that’s making him so needy/fussy but I’ve had a heckuva hard time with my little guy this week. He’s been great for Brian during the day but when I get home from work, he just wants me to hold him the all of the time. If someone else is holding him, he’ll dive towards me. It’s a little cute to see him reach out for me but when I’m here by myself it’s hard to keep him constantly in my arms or on my lap. In addition, he’s started throwing tantrums for me, especially when we do his cereal feeding before bed. He really wants to hold the spoon and when I take it away from him to put more food on it, he screams bloody murder. He’s instantly quiet when I give him the spoon back. So, it’s time for our next parenting adventure... discipline! Don’t know how you discipline a seven month old but we’ve got to figure something out. I don’t want to teach him any bad habits now. 

Other than that it was a pretty typical week. His bottom teeth are really coming in now and he’s really really close to crawling. He can now get wherever he wants to go pretty quickly but it’s with a combination of crawling, dragging himself and rolling. He’s particularly quick when he’s heading towards electrical cords and outlets. It’s probably time to childproof the place. 

Here are the pictures from this week. I’ve given up trying to get our traditional Sundays With Oliver pose as he won’t lie still on the dog anymore. I just have to take what I can get, I guess.

  

Sundays With Oliver - Week Thirty-One

Lots of firsts this week. Oliver and Brian had their first night alone while I went to work the Women’s Conference in Houston on Wednesday and Thursday. They both did great and Oliver even cut his daddy some slack and slept through his 4 AM feeding (he woke up and fussed a little but was fast asleep before Brian could get the bottle ready... maybe it’s time I try to let him drop that feeding?). Oliver also cut his first tooth this week. Since the last post, we can now feel it and can see the other bottom tooth starting to come through. Oliver spent Saturday night at my parents’ house and apparently practiced his moving a lot. When we got home to take this week’s pictures, Oliver kept getting up on all fours rather than sitting still for his pictures.

I’m afraid crawling isn’t too far away.

Here are some pictures from this week, although it was impossible to keep him still so there weren’t many good ones to pick from.

  

I have a feeling that the Sundays With Oliver photo shoots are going to be a struggle from here on. There doesn’t seem to be any keeping this kid in one place anymore!

Chompers!

Yesterday, Brian and I tried to go out to lunch at Pho Van near our house. Oliver, however, wasn’t having it. He got so loud and fussy that we had to take our food to go and head home to eat. As I was strapping him into his carseat for the trip home, he was screaming his head off. His mouth was wide open and suddenly the source of this particular meltdown was obvious. He’s got a tooth coming in. So far it’s just a white sliver on his gums (we can’t even feel it yet) but it is definitely coming through. I’ll try to get photo evidence of it soon but Oliver isn’t crazy about letting us peek in there. No wonder he was a cranky pants at lunch!

Sundays With Oliver - Week Thirty

We had a great weekend. Oliver and I met my mom in San Marcos yesterday and went to the outlet mall to find Oliver lots of cute clothes (including what he’s wearing in today’s pictures). Today, we went over to Laurie and Robin and Lydia’s house for a delicious brunch and to let the kiddos hang out. It’s so cool to see them sitting across from each other and to hear them “talking” to each other. They’re getting so big. 

Oliver will be seven months old on Thursday. That is too weird. These past seven months have seemed to fly by although the time when he was just a tiny baby who could only sleep, poop and cry seems like so long ago. He changes everyday. This week he kept working on trying to crawl (he can get up on his hands and knees and rock back and forth but can’t figure out the mechanics of the whole crawling thing) but his biggest development was finding a whole new noise to make with his voice. He’s still not babbling in the traditional sense but in the past few days he has found this shrill yell that he uses to express pleasure. It’s really loud and pretty annoying but he seems so proud of himself when he does it. He kept doing it as I was taking the pictures this week so lots of them look like this:

  

Sundays With Oliver - Week Twenty-Nine

Lots of fun this week. Oliver had a great first Halloween and spent a long time practicing his moving. He’s squirming all over the place. 

Here are the pictures from this week. Thanks to Liz for the t-shirt from Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi.

  

And, an extra picture because his new hat is too cute.

Happy Halloween

Oliver had a great first Halloween. He was Charlie Brown and looked adorable! We took him to BookPeople this morning for Halloween storytime. He spent time with my friend, Madeline’s, little four month old, Miles, and showed off his costume to some of my coworkers. After BookPeople, we went and ate some lunch and then headed off to a Halloween party at a friend of a friend’s house. It was a baby Halloween party and there were lots of super cute babies in even cuter costumes. Oliver committed the unfortunate faux pas of coming dressed in the same costume as the party’s host. Both were Charlie Brown. How embarrassing! Oliver had lots of fun playing with all the other kids and Brian and I had fun visiting with the parents and cooing over all the adorable costumes. Here are pictures of his costume. I think it turned out great!

  

Trip to San Antonio

We had a great time in San Antonio this past weekend visiting with my parents and grandmother. We went down on Thursday afternoon and stayed until Monday morning. On Friday we hung out at the house while Mom was at work. I did some work and Brian and Grandmommy entertained the kiddo. Friday evening we all spent time watching Oliver play (he can sit and play for so long now!). On Saturday we hit the town. Mom and Richard joined the San Antonio Zoo earlier this year so we went there on Saturday morning, thinking that was going to be our big outing for the day. The San Antonio Zoo is amazing and we had perfect weather to explore it. We were there for hours and the weather was so cool that the animals were all out and active. We pushed Oliver around in his stroller and then would take him out every once in awhile so he could get a better look. All of us really enjoyed seeing all of the animals but I think Oliver was more interested in the people. He did his best to look for the animals, though.

After we had been there awhile, Oliver quietly drifted off to sleep in his stroller while we explored more of the zoo. We left the zoo around 1.:30 and headed to lunch at W.D. Deli. The deli is owned by some of my dad’s friends (Wayne and Michael) and was where I had my first job. Oliver also had a first, there. Sitting in a real high chair for the first time.

My favorite part of the deli (apart from the awesome food) is the wall of pictures that Wayne has put up. There are pictures of his family and friends and I love going to look at them since there are quite a few pictures of my daddy. While everyone finished their lunch, I took Oliver to look at picture of his granddaddy. 

If you squint, you can see the pictures of my dad right above Oliver’s head. Love this picture!

While we were at lunch we decided that since Oliver was being such a trooper that we would try to squeeze a visit to the San Antonio Botanical Gardens into our day because there was an exhibit of giant bug sculptures there that we wanted to check out. When we got there, I found a nice secluded bench and fed Oliver for awhile before we got up to explore. The gardens were beautiful and we got great pictures of flowers and butterflies... and Oliver! Oliver was in such a good mood all day that he didn’t take a bad picture the whole time - he was all smiles and giggles! 

After a few hours at the gardens, we were all pooped and headed home (it was practically bed time by the time we got home although we did squeeze in some swinging). We all marveled at how good Oliver had been all day. He is such a social baby and loves being a little man about town.

On Sunday, Grandmommy and I took Oliver up to my parents’ church so Mom and Richard could show him off. That afternoon, Great-Grandmama took him on a shopping spree and got him some super cute clothes (that will definitely be making appearance in future editions of Sundays With Oliver) and an adorable stuffed hippo. We spent our final evening together sitting on the back porch and pushing Oliver in his swing (which was lots of fun until Oliver got pelted in the head with an acorn and started screaming). 

Oliver got up early Monday morning so that he could tell his grandmother good-bye before she went to work (so thoughtful of him... although it meant I had to get up at 6:45). We spent some time hanging out with my grandmother before we packed up and headed back up to Austin. It was such a great weekend with the family and Oliver was a joy to be around the whole time!