October 2010

Well, it’s come to this. In order to be able to pick up and keep going with more recent blog posts, I need to do a quick post for the entire month of October.

October highlights included:

* Oliver’s 18 month wellness check. We lost the paper that had all the pertinent stats on it so all I can remember is that he was about average for height and weight and his head is still huge. The doctor was pleased with his verbal development. He spent the entire appointment sitting on the floor in front of the doctor and babbling in his own secret language.

* Weaning. I mentioned in an earlier post that I had gone two nights without nursing Oliver before bed. That weaning attempt worked and we have been completely weaned since then. I’m proud of us for breastfeeding for 18 months but I am sooooooooooooo glad to be done. And I’m so happy that the weaning process ended up being stress free for both of us.

• A visit from Great-Great in San Antonio. My grandmother came down to San Antonio in October and we all spent a nice long weekend together. We went to the zoo and downtown and took a barge ride on the San Antonio River. Oliver loved spending time with his Great Great and demanded that she sing him Itsy Bitsy Spider over and over again. We all obliged:

* And, finally, Halloween. Oliver was a garden gnome for Halloween. Unfortunately, Brian had book club that night so it was just me and the kiddo, but we had a blast handing out candy and doing a little trick or treating. Oliver was adorable. Every time kids would come up to get candy, he would put it in their bucket or bag. When they turned around to leave he would start out after them with candy in hand crying: “More! More’! When I took him around to a few of our neighbors’ houses to do some trick or treating, he would take candy out of his bucket and put it in their bowl instead of getting candy from them. What a giver!

Oliver's Got Moves

Last Saturday (the 9th) we watched Lydia while Laurie and Robin went out to eat with some friends who were visiting from out of town. We had such a blast having the two kiddos here. There was an early power struggle over an orange ball but once we put that away the two of them got along great. They ate dinner:

Lydia, by the way, is an expert with a fork. So impressive! Oliver, as you can see, is still in the finger food phase.

After dinner, it was bath time, pj time, story time and then bedtime. Before they retired to their separate bedrooms, however, they shared a heartfelt good night.

Luckily it wasn’t Lydia’s first kiss (Aidan took that prize ages ago) so she didn’t have to be so disappointed in Oliver’s poor form. We’re now working on close-mouthed kisses. 

We Get By...

... with a LOT of help from our friends.

On Thursday Brian and I experienced what has to be one of the worst experiences for any parents of a toddler (although as I type that I find myself imagining far worse experiences and am counting my blessings). After a (what seemed then) nice dinner with our friend, Liz, on Wednesday night, Brian and I both woke up with a horrible case of food poisoning. Brian was definitely worse off than me (I even managed to go into work for about twenty minutes before realizing what a bad idea that was) but we were both in pretty bad shape. I’ll spare you the full details but I will tell you that I think Thursday might have cured Oliver of his habit of following us into the bathroom every time we need to go (he may have seen some things he wishes he could forget). Brian and I would trade off kiddo duty as much as we could and both spent nap time completely comatose between bathroom runs but by the time the afternoon rolled around we were tapped out. Brian was passed out in the bedroom and I was collapsed on the couch while Oliver watched Yo Gabba Gabba. Yes, I resorted to the electric babysitter. No, I don’t feel even a little guilty about it. We were done. We couldn’t keep up with him anymore...

Enter our heroes. I texted Robin to see if he was home with Lydia and, if so, could he come get Oliver. He called back immediately to see what was up. I explained our situation and he agreed to come get Oliver ASAP so that we could get some rest. Just a little over one episode of Yo Gabba Gabba later, Robin was at the door, ready to take Oliver away for as long as we needed. Oliver happily got into the car (I guess he was tired of hanging out with us) and Brian and I immediately collapsed. A few hours later we were feeling a little better but still nowhere ready to be responsible for Oliver. I called Laurie and Robin and they quickly agreed to let Oliver stay over at their house on Thursday night so that we could get as much rest as possible and try to get over the butt kicking Wednesday night dinner was handing us. 

I crawled into bed around 7 on Thursday night and slept until 6:30 the next morning. Brian did pretty much the same. We woke up the next morning at about 75% - tired, weak, a little sore, but no longer nauseous (not quite hungry yet, though). We threw on some clothes and went to gather the little dude who, we were glad to hear, was well-behaved during his surprise overnight stay at Casa Ganser. 

I can’t tell you (or them) how grateful we are that they swooped in and took care of Oliver for us. It is so great to have friends like that and we feel blessed to have not only Laurie and Robin in town but so many other friends who offered help when we fell ill. Sometimes it can feel so overwhelming to be a parent - to be fully responsible for the health, happiness and security of another (pretty helpless) human being - so I am glad to know when Brian and I find ourselves in the position where we need to take care of ourselves, that we have such great friends and family to make sure our amazing little boy is as healthy, happy and secure as we try to make him every day. It’s a great feeling.

Chatterbox and Other Updates

Oliver’s going through one of those spurts - one of those times where it seems like he’s learning about 20 new things everyday. It’s so amazing to watch. In the past month he’s gone from following directions to babbling more to FINALLY trying to talk. A few weeks ago he started saying Dada... very quietly and only when prompted. I would say: “Say Dada” and he would say Dada. When I would say: “Say Mama,” he would say “Baba.” Close enough for me. But last week he finally found his M’s and started to say Mama when prompted. On Wednesday, our friend Liz came over and Oliver said her name when asked to (it came out Diz but whatever). On Friday morning we had a major breakthrough. Oliver woke up early and Brian went in to get him and play with him while I slept in a little. Twenty minutes after he got up he ran to our bedroom door, started banging on the door and cried: “Mama! Mama! Mama!” It was the most amazing wake up call ever. On Friday afternoon Brian brought Oliver into the bookstore before he started his shift. He hung out in my office with both of us for awhile but then it was time for Brian to get to work. He left the office and Oliver spent a good 15 minutes walking around the offices calling for Dada. It was a little heartbreaking but also kinda cool. He finally knows our names and how to call us! Too cool!

Since then he’s been trying out more and more words. He even managed to say Grandmama to my mother yesterday (I’m pretty sure she would buy him a car right now if he could figure out how to ask she was so excited). Today he picked up the word “No-no” so that will be fun. It’s just been amazing to watch and listen to him this week - he’s finally mimicking us and trying to talk. Such a relief. Hopefully the pediatrician will think it’s good progress when we go in for his 18 month check up next week.

Oliver’s still great at his receptive language skills. He follows directions (when he wants to) and is starting to understand the concept of “one more time” or “one more bite” or “one more minute.” When we go to the park he is obsessed with the slide - the long twisty slide from this video:

He runs up the stairs and flies down that slide over and over again. It’s impressive. It can get a little hairy when it’s time to go, however, since he loves the slide. The past two times I’ve taken him I’ve told him that he can go down “one more time” and he has held up his index finger, run up the stairs, gone down the slide and started off to the car. At dinner I can get him to drink milk (cow’s milk!) by asking him to take one sip between bites. Granted, he’s got to be in the mood to follow these directions but it’s been nice to have some moments where we can “bargain” with him or reduce the stress when we change activities.

In other news, we are finally moving forward on an attempt at full weaning. The past two nights I have put Oliver to bed at night without nursing him, which means that for the first time in his life he’s gone days without breast milk without me having to leave town. It’s bittersweet but it is definitely time (and, admittedly it’s been easier so far than I had imagined). The last two nights he didn’t even cry when I refused to nurse him. I just changed our routine a little bit by reciting a different story and he laid his head on my chest and let me rock him before putting him down. 

So, that’s a taste of what’s been up with us. Once again, I apologize for the radio silence.

Road Trip! Part Four (Finally)

I should just have a paragraph saved to excuse my long absences from the blog so that I can skip trying to come up with a story as to where I’ve been for almost a month but I don’t so I have to rewrite it each time. Sorry I’ve been MIA. Work’s been crazy, I’ve been traveling, etc., etc., etc.

So, back to the trip.

Oliver decided to be a champion napper while we were in Richmond so our days were short but we still managed to see a lot of the city. Jennifer and Tom live a few blocks away from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, which gets my vote for the most amazing art museum in the country for this reason alone - it is 100 percent free all the time. That is such a relief to the parents of a toddler who couldn’t imagine blowing any money on admission when their kid is pretty likely to only want to spend 15 minutes inside. We went to the museum a few times while we were there. They had a great Chuck Close exhibit and their permanent collection was really impressive. Oliver did okay (and only okay) in the museum so we never stayed for long.

We also found a cute children’s bookstore in Richmond which now has the distinction of being the site of Oliver’s first ever bloody nose. He tripped on a display and banged his face into their playhouse. So fun. We did get a great book there, though, and Oliver was sufficiently embarrassed by the experience.

On Thursday night we went with Jennifer and Tom and some of their friends to the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens in Richmond for their Flowers After 5 program. On Thursday nights during the summer, they have wine tastings and live music in the gardens. The weather was beautiful, the gardens were spectacular, the wine was drinkable, the company was entertaining, and the music was ... awful. Seriously, the world’s worst cover duo. A man and a woman in their late 40s singing some of the worst top 40 songs ever written. There was an area set aside for dancing that stood painfully empty the whole night except for one determined little tiny dancer. 

He thought they were AMAZING. And they thought he was, too. Every time he’d come up and dance they’d talk to him over the microphone and the guy playing the guitar would make all sorts of silly faces at him. It was surreal. But even if I don’t always agree with his taste in tunes, I am glad that he appreciates music and loves to dance.

When we could tear him away from the band he played some soccer. You should have seen him run up and down this hill. So impressive.

We managed to see and do so much in the four days we were there and we are so grateful to Jennifer and Tom for letting us stay with them. But our visit came to an end and before we knew it it was time to pack up the car and head back. Our plan was to drive to Knoxville the first day, Little Rock the second and make it home the third and it all went according to plan. I was a little worried that Oliver would be a nightmare the second and third days but he did great. Part of what made the car times so easy was that we made sure to schedule long breaks where Oliver could run around and let off some steam. Most of the time that was in a fast food restaurant with a playscape but on the second day of our trip home we decided to stop at the Memphis Children’s Museum when we drove through town since it was one of the museums we could get into for free with our Austin membership. It was HUGE and Oliver loved running around it. And we loved it because it was free and because it wore Oliver out enough for him to nap from Memphis to Little Rock.

The last night of our vacation we stayed in downtown Little Rock and returned to the splash pad that had been such a favorite on our first night. 

It was such a great vacation. People still think we are crazy when I tell them we drove over three thousand miles with a 16 month old but it was absolutely perfect. I loved getting to spend so much time just the three of us with no work, animals, etc. to distract us. It took a few days for Oliver to adjust back to our normal schedule when we got back but it wasn’t anything too dramatic (honestly, the biggest adjustment was that he had gotten used to nursing three times a day while we were away and we made him go back to once a day when he got home). 

We are already planning our road trip for next year. I’m thinking Yosemite but nothing’s set in stone yet. 

I’ll be back soon (hopefully tomorrow) with an update on what we’ve been up to since we got back and on a pretty exciting development(al milestone).

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.