Road Trip! Part Three

Sorry for the long silence but I had to go out of town for work a few days after we got back from our vacation and I’ve been crazy busy trying to catch up at work. 

So, here’s the third installment of our excellent adventure...

After an amazing two days in Oxford, we packed up the car Monday morning and headed to our next stop - Knoxville, Tennessee (seven hours away). It was a beautiful drive that took us through the backroads of Mississippi, through Alabama and into Tennessee (we even dipped down into Georgia for about ten minutes). Oliver was, once again, a complete trooper in the car. He slept some, played some and fussed a little (just a typical day for him, really). We got to Knoxville around five or so, just barely beating a huge thunderstorm rolling into town. After the rain cleared, we drove downtown and ate dinner at a restaurant on the river, near the University of Tennessee campus (not nearly as pretty as the Ole Miss campus) and found ourselves dining with a five year old:

Seriously. How grown up does he look here? He loved watching the ducks in the water while we ate dinner. Afterwards, we walked down the river to see what we could see.

The next morning we made a quick getaway and pushed through the final stretch to Richmond. The drive was unbelievably gorgeous. We went through the Smokey Mountains and then through Virginia farm country. It was so pretty (and you will just have to take my word for it since I don’t have pictures). 

After another typical day in the car, we arrived in Richmond around four and quickly found our way to Jennifer and Tom’s house. Their house was built in 1920 and is in a great neighborhood. You can walk to a huge park, to numerous bars and restaurants and to many museums. It makes me wish we lived in a walking neighborhood.

We unloaded the car (I’m pretty sure that when Tom saw how much stuff we brought he thought we were going to stay forever) and then relaxed a little bit.  The weather was a little gray and wet but when Jennifer got home from work we still went out to explore the nearby park. Byrd Park is just a few blocks away from their house  and is the home to what must be 90 percent of the US Canadian goose population. They (and the evidence of them) were everywhere. Oliver loved staring at the birds.  We walked for over an hour exploring the park and the neighborhood.

We went back to their house, fed Oliver and packed him off to bed and spent a great evening drinking wine and catching up with Jennifer and Tom. We’ve missed those two since they left for Virginia! We called it a night much later than we intended and headed to bed.

The next four days were a whirlwind of exploring Richmond. We saw lots of parks and Oliver sat on lots of benches - a favorite pastime of his judging by this picture:

We saw Civil War landmarks, the Virginia capitol and the Richmond Children’s Museum, which had this disheartening sign outside:

but made up for it with fun exhibits like this:

We ate some amazing food - both at Jennifer and Tom’s house and abroad. We had lunch one day at a place called The Black Sheep where we waited outside in the rain for twenty minutes and were rewarded with delicious sandwiches. I had the Miss E sandwich - avocado, bacon, lettuce, tomato, red onion and horseradish on toast with a side of deviled eggs. Oliver had a watermelon, mint and feta salad. Yum! 

On Friday, Tom, Brian, Oliver and I met Jennifer at a park by her office and brought boxed lunches from a stand located in the park near their house, called Sally Bell’s.

Each lunch came with a sandwich, a deviled egg, a side of potato salad or macaroni salad, a savory cheese cracker and a super cute mini cupcake - all homemade and yummy!

That’s it for now. There’s still plenty to come from our visit to Richmond, though, including the tale of our awesome evening at the botanical gardens and how Oliver fell in love with the worst band ever.

Road Trip! Part Two

I’ve got so much to catch up on that I’ll be breaking the rest of the road trip into as many parts as necessary. Here’s the second installment.

We arrived in Oxford, Mississippi Saturday afternoon, checked into the hotel and then headed out to explore the town. I’m sure lots of you are asking why we would choose to stop in Oxford so a quick explanation. Oxford is the home of William Faulkner and an amazing independent bookstore called Square Books. Brian and I have been saying for years that we would like to visit Oxford and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to visit on our way to Richmond. 

Square Books is actually three bookstores, all located on the historic square in downtown Oxford. They have a regular trade store, a remainder store and a children’s only store. On Saturday we headed straight to the children’s only store, called Square Books, Jr... remember this picture?

That’s a Square Books, Jr. t-shirt he’s wearing. 

Oliver had a great time wreaking havoc on the store and we left with a brand new t-shirt to replace the one above.

We went to dinner at a restaurant called Ajax Diner which came highly recommended by everyone we’ve ever known who has been to Oxford. The food was delicious, especially the sides. The sweet potato casserole was so rich it would have made a great dessert.

We headed back to the hotel, took a quick dip in the pool and then put Oliver to bed and spent a few hours reading some Faulkner (we are such nerds) before turning in.

On Sunday morning we ate at Big Bad Breakfast, a breakfast joint and smokehouse. They make everything from scratch, including their numerous sausages that they smoke on site. Breakfast was unbelievably good. As most of you know, Oliver is quite the biscuit aficionado. We gave him biscuits at Big Bad Breakfast and got this response

I’d say he approves. After breakfast we drove over to the Ole Miss campus and walked around a bit. It is a beautiful campus with some amazing old buildings. Unfortunately, it was already so humid that morning that most of my pictures are fuzzy.

I kept joking with Brian that you could see the air in Mississippi it was so thick with humidity. (Plus, it got up into the triple digits every day we were there. Yuck).

After nap time we headed down to the square so that we could explore the other two Square Books locations. We got down to the square and started at the main store. Oliver lasted about ten minutes before he was bored so Brian kindly took him over to Square Books, Jr. so that I could continue to explore. After a few minutes in the store I bumped into my friend, Cody, who is the head buyer at Square Books. We already had plans to get together for dinner on Sunday night but I hadn’t expected to run into him at the store. I was so glad I did, though, since he was able to show me all the back of the house stuff that I was really interested in - where they do their receiving, the buying, how they run events, etc. It was awesome to get the personal tour. Unfortunately, I lost track of time and poor Brian was stuck chasing Oliver all over Square Books, Jr. for over an hour. I’m so sorry, Brian! Thanks for letting me be the giant bookstore geek that I am!

After checking out the bookstores, we headed over to Rowan Oak, William Faulkner’s house. It was a beautiful old plantation style house. Luckily there weren’t many people in the museum/house part because Oliver wanted to run around as much as possible. He lasted about ten minutes in the house before he decided it was time to go out and explore the grounds. He found the sticks particularly tasty:

Sunday evening we got together with Cody, his wife, Katie, and their absolutely angelic three month old daughter, Abby. Before dinner, Lyn, one of the other managers of Square Books, invited us all out to her house for cocktails. We met Cody, Katie and Abby at the hotel and followed them about fifteen miles outside of town to Lyn’s house. Lyn, her husband, Greg, and their daughter, Cecille, were the best hosts. Their house is unbelievable. It was a century-old house that they had been renovating, repairing and adding on to for years. We spent the evening sipping sangria in their recently renovated library - a book lover’s dream room. Cecille is eight and kept Oliver entertained the whole evening.

After cocktails, Cody, Katie, Abby, Brian, Oliver and I walked the few doors down to the restaurant. It was Sunday in Mississippi so there was, of course, only one choice for the main course - fried catfish! The place was amazing. It was miniscule, with an enormous wait list, great food, and live music. We didn’t even sit down until 8 o’clock so Oliver was completely exhausted through the meal (at one point he almost passed out into his plate) but once the music really got going he got up and started dancing and found his second wind. I find it hard to explain how awesome that whole evening was. Good drinks, good conversation, good new friends. Brian and I both agreed that it was up there on our list of all time best nights ever. We felt so welcome and at home. But we suffered a major parenting fail and didn’t get any pictures of the night except for this one of Oliver and Cecille (who Brian aptly described as a female Huckleberry Finn)

and this one of Oliver at the end of the festivities

He was done. Completely tuckered out. 

Speaking of tuckered out. That is what I am at this point so I will leave it here until next time.

Road Trip!

So, I never mentioned it on here because I wasn’t ever 100% sure it was going to happen but everything fell into place and right now Brian, Oliver and I are on day three of a ten day road trip that will take us from Austin all the way to Richmond, Virginia to see our friends Jennifer and Tom. I wasn’t sure it would happen because I kept thinking that maybe we were crazy to plan such a long trip with such a little kiddo but we decided to be brave and go for it. Although we never would have gotten everything done and packed and ready if my mom hadn’t helped us out so much. She came up on Wednesday of last week and did laundry, ran errands, watched the kiddo, bought diapers, etc. so that we’d be ready to go. If she hadn’t come up and helped I wouldn’t have gotten any sleep on Thursday night. Because of her I got 8 hours! Thanks, Mom!

On Friday we left Austin and drove all the way to Little Rock, Arkansas (about an 8 1/2 hour drive it took us from 9:30 to 5:30). Oliver was a total champ in the car until we were about 20 minutes outside of Little Rock. Then he melted down a bit but it was all forgotten by the time we pulled into the hotel. I drove most of the day on Friday and Brian split his time between the front seat when Oliver was napping and the back seat when Oliver needed someone to entertain him. On Laurie’s advice, we packed TONS of toys and books to keep Oliver busy. And it worked like a charm. Here he is at a little past the halfway point. Perfectly content and playing “If You’re Happy and You Know It” on his stereo for probably the fiftieth time that day.

We slung all of our stuff (and trust me, it’s a LOT of stuff) into our hotel room and headed out to let Oliver stretch his legs. Our hotel was right on the banks of the Arkansas River so we headed down to the hike and bike trail that ran along it. We weren’t expecting much but after walking about a quarter of a mile we found what must have looked like an oasis to Oliver... a splash pad! We didn’t have his suit with us but we stripped him down to his shorts and bare feet and set him loose. I’ve never seen a kid so happy to get wet and run around.

After he’d run around for awhile and worn himself out we loaded him back into the stroller and made our way slowly back to the hotel, passing a Korean gate along the way.

We changed him into his swimsuit and then headed to the hotel pool so that Brian and I could cool off. Back in the room we fed Oliver some dinner, gave him a bath and then started bedtime.

I had been nervous about trying to share a hotel room with Oliver since he’s slept in his own room since he was a month old but my mom came up with an awesome contraption to block off his pack n play from the rest of the hotel room. It’s an engineering marvel made of PVC piping and a custom sewn cover and it is the most amazing thing ever. Oliver goes into his pack n play, with an iPhone playing white noise directly underneath the crib, I draw the cover closed and he doesn’t even notice that Brian and I are in the room. He’s gone to sleep super easily both nights so far and has slept through the night just like normal. He’s napping in it as I type this. After O went to sleep on Friday night, Brian and I had an amazing pizza delivered from a restaurant nearby. We ate and drank wine and read and talked until we turned in a couple of hours later.

On Saturday, we got up early-ish (Oliver slept in until 6:45) and headed out to the Farmers’ Market that we had seen signs for the night before. It was at a place called the Little Rock Market, which is open seven days a week. Inside there are a bunch of different types of food booths - bakeries, middle eastern food, cajun food, bbq, etc. Brian and I had shrimp and grits and beignets for breakfast and Oliver had a biscuit. Yum! Outside they had the traditional farmers’ market which is only open on Tuesdays and Saturdays. We saw lots of beautiful fruits and veggies and great crafts, etc.

Then we headed back to the hotel and loaded up the car. I had wanted to see the Bill Clinton Presidential Library while we were in Little Rock but had decided against it since I couldn’t see wasting the money to get in when Oliver would probably be bored and we wouldn’t enjoy it. So I had decided that we would skip going into the museum but that we would check out the building and the grounds. On Friday night, I checked the museum’s website to get the address and noticed that Saturday, the 14th, was Bill Clinton’s birthday and that Bill Clinton’s birthday = free admission to the library! So, we go to go in and see the exhibits. It was perfect because it was super crowded and loud and Oliver didn’t bother anyone. (It’s weird how your definition of a “perfect” visit to a museum changes when you have a 16 month old).

After an hour at the museum we loaded into the car and headed to our next stop - Oxford, Mississippi. Just a short 3 1/2 hour drive. Along the way we stopped and had a picnic:

Tales from Oxford will come soon.

Oliver's First Haircut

On Friday, my mom and I took Oliver for his first haircut. His hair was getting really long - getting in his eyes, covering his ears, and growing into a mullet-like style in the back. So, it was time.

We made an appointment with Kathie, the woman who does my mom’s hair and who gave me my first haircut twenty-some-odd years ago (okay, maybe thirty-some-odd...). For a frame of reference here are a few “before” pictures Mom took:

Lots of hair! My mom had a brilliant idea and brought the booster seat that Oliver uses at her house to the appointment. It kept him safe and the toy on the tray kept him entertained throughout the appointment. 

He did great the whole time and that is entirely due to how awesome Kathie was with him. She would show him everything she was using and talk him through every step of the way. She made it fun for him so he sat still and let her do her work. He didn’t cry a single tear. He would look apprehensive every once in awhile but Kathie would talk to him a bit and he’d start smiling again.

She even managed to use the clippers on his sideburns and the back of his neck. He didn’t even flinch!

I was so impressed with Kathie and with Oliver! Not only did he do great the whole time, he looked great when he was done! Here are the “after” shots:

Fifteen Month Wellness Visit

On Friday morning we took Oliver in for his fifteen month wellness visit. 

Here are the pertinent stats:

At 12 months:

Weight: 24 pounds, 3 ounces (70th percentile)

Height: 29 1/2 inches (45th percentile)

Head Circumference: 19.2 inches (97th percentile)

And, at 15 months:

Weight: 25 pounds even (60th percentile)

Height: 32 inches (75th percentile)

Head Circumference: 19.5 inches (97th percentile)

Giant noggin boy. Plus, I don’t understand the massive jump in his height but good for him. 

We spent the majority of the appointment talking about Oliver’s verbal development since that was my major concern. He is on track or better on everything else but (even by the doctor’s admission) he is behind with his language skills. She agrees that he is advanced in his ability to understand our language (being able to get a certain book, pointing to body parts, etc.) but she also thinks that the fact that he only has mastered two words (three if we count ‘kkkkkkk’ for kitty) and isn’t saying “mama” and “dada” indicates that he’s “behind” in this area of development. She said that if I was truly concerned about it then we could talk about speech therapy but that if I felt it was okay, then she agreed. That is, she didn’t feel the need to take more action unless it was going to make me feel better. 

So, I decided we would wait and readdress the issue at his 18 month appointment. I think about the way Oliver was with walking. He stood up and walked behind things for ages before he finally decided to take those first steps and two days later he was everywhere. Maybe he’ll be the same way with talking and is just waiting until he can do it right. Meanwhile, Brian and I are trying to be more vigilant about providing Oliver with as many words as possible. We have gotten used to his signs and his grunts and can easily fill his requests without him using his words so it’s just a matter of giving him the word for everything we see and do during the day.  If he hasn’t made improvements by his 18 month appointment, then we will talk about speech therapy (although I’ve got to say I can’t even imagine what that looks like with a toddler). 

Other than all that, the doctor agrees that Oliver is absolutely perfect. Healthy, smart and irresistibly cute. See?

Brag Book

It’s been really hard to keep this updated lately. I think it’s because once he hit that walking milestone I felt silly updating on what he’s doing now. His days are pretty routine to us. But then I remind myself that about eighty percent of this blog’s readership are Oliver’s grandparents or great-grandparents and they would never find anything the boy wonder does “routine.” And, in reality, when I take some time and really think about all that he’s doing now, I puff up with pride. So, here it is. A short and sweet “brag book” of all the amazing stuff that our little kiddo is doing or trying to do now.

• Moving and Grooving - He’s all over the place. I haven’t seen him crawl in ages. He much prefers to walk (or try to run). He’s recently started trying to climb up on things. He’s limited this to trying to get into chairs and his wagon so far so I hope we are going to skip the whole trying to get out of his crib thing. 

• Words - Despite my early enthusiasm about his verbal skills, they have completely stalled now that Oliver has started walking. He still only says “da” and “ba” consistently and some would argue that those aren’t even real words. He REFUSES to say “mama” or “dada.” But his signing vocabulary has grown exponentially. He can sign the following words: more, eat, water, all done, music, book, help, bath, please, thank you, bye bye, yogurt, and banana. He also has signs for Brian and my stepfather. For Brian he pumps both of his fist (this is directly a result of me trying to get him to do the Daddy chant a la Aidan). For Richard, he points to his nose. So, I’ve gone from being enthusiastic about his verbal development to a little worried about it. We’ve got a checkup on Friday so I will ask the doctor and hopefully she will put my mind at ease that he’s just focused on moving and the verbal will come later.

• Mommy’s (and Daddy’s) Little Helper - One thing I am 100% certain that his slow verbal development does not indicate, is a hearing problem. Oliver can easily follow simple (and somewhat more complicated) instructions. He will bring us the ball or a book when we ask and can even find us specific books so that when we ask him to find “Before John Was a Jazz Giant,” he will dig through his stack of pictures books and bring us the one we are asking for (it’s a little spooky, truth be told). He also LOVES to “help” around the house. He’s a huge fan of the vacuum but will settle for a broom in a pinch. He’s taken it upon himself to gather the dogs’ bowls after their meals and bring them to Brian or me. And he’s oddly obsessed with putting things back where he got them (when he feels like it). 

• Where’s Oliver’s ___________? - Oliver can now point to numerous body parts when asked (when he’s in the right mood). He can do nose, head, ears and toes. And, my personal favorite: “Where are Oliver’s dimples?” In response, he puffs out his cheeks, points his fingers at his face and blows raspberries. Pretty stinkin’ cute. 

• Meal Time - Oliver continues to be a picky eater but he is slowly becoming a self- sufficient picky eater. He’s a pro at finger food, of course, but he’s also shown himself to be quite good with a spoon. Part of that is physical dexterity and part of it is the fact that I suction his food bowls down to the table. Also, his table manners are slowly improving. He used to spend most of his meals throwing food on the floor. Now he will try to hand us the food that he doesn’t want us to eat. If we don’t take it, however, his next step is to throw it to the dogs so we are ever vigilant. 

• Nursing - That’s right, we are STILL nursing at least twice a day. And that’s all I have to say about that.

• Naps - And, for the last update tonight, we have officially transitioned to one nap a day. Oliver was fighting his second nap for awhile so we tried one nap and it’s been working really well (except for those days that the one nap gets interrupted). An unexpected benefit of this one nap thing is that he has moved his wake up time back a bit so that now he wakes up in the morning sometime between 6:30 and 7 instead of between 5:30 and 6. Hoorah!

That’s it for tonight. I’m pooped and need to head to bed. But, no, I haven’t forgotten about my temper tantrum tease from last post. Don’t worry, that post is still in the works...

Checking In

This is the busiest time of the year for me at work (which really stinks because so many people I know are on their summer break). I’m in the middle of buying books for the fall (AKA the fourth quarter, the money maker) and we’ve got our storewide inventory on Sunday, which is keeping me extra busy this year since our longtime tech guy left this year and I’m having to run the whole shebang.

All that by way of excuses for why I’ve been ignoring the blog. And, really, I’ve got nothing for you right now either except a copy of an email I sent my grandmother a week ago. She liked it so much I thought I could make it a quick blog post (at least enough to assuage the grandmas).

Here goes:

Oliver is doing great. He is really into hugs and kisses lately (he tackled a little boy to the ground at the bookstore the other day trying to hug him). He won't really give hugs if you ask him to but every once in awhile he'll sneak up on you and throw his arms around you. It's the sweetest thing and looks a bit like this:

Chris was staying with us last week and Oliver spent lots of time giving Chris hugs.

Of course, he also likes to hug his big brother, Miles. Which ends up looking a lot like this:

Miles LOVES Oliver. He will let the kiddo cuddle with him all day.

When he's not showering everyone with affection he's running wild around the house. His favorite time of the day is "Naked Time." After his evening bath we give him a good ten minutes to run around without a diaper or clothes on to dry off (we've done this for months and amazingly we've only had one accident... it happened tonight). Naked Time ends up looking a lot like this:

and this:

So much fun! He adores that tractor push toy that his Grandpa gave him at Thanksgiving. He pushes and drags that thing all over the house now. 

That’s it from us for now. I promise more next week once inventory is over. 

But here’s a teaser

TANTRUMS. 

Which looks a little like this: