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: