Oscar!!

This is my friend Sarah's new baby boy Oscar! Isn't he beautiful? We sure love him!

I'm not one to toot my own horn... but I must admit that I'm pretty darn proud of these pictures. Thank you Sarah for letting me harrass your little boy for a while.

Not too bad

Remember back when I was pregnant and I did this post?

Although the hair and eyes aren't right, I'd say it's not too shabby.

What do you think?

One night in the life

I have to write down what happened tonight. I want you all to know what an amazing little dude I have on my hands. Anders was playing around in the living room tonight, he wasn't acting tired at all. I said to him, "Are you tired, ready for bed?" It was almost 9:00. He rubbed his little eyes. I grabbed his bottle and a binky and picked him up. Walking to the bedroom, unprompted, he gave me a kiss on the cheek. I layed him down on the bed and gave him his bottle. He took it and I layed there with him for a minute or two. Anders has to play with my ear every night to go to sleep. After a couple of minutes, he took his bottle out of his mouth, grabbed the binky and put it in, patted me on the face as if to say "I'm okay mom, you can go now" and turned over on his other side. I stood up and kissed him good night and left the room and he fell asleep. I really can't express with words how much I love that kid. He is my heart.
And p.s. this little show of independence, is kind of bittersweet.

14 months

Love this kid... he's more and more fun every day. We will be spending our weekend re-arranging furniture. There is a brick ledge above one of our couches and he has decided that he is a rock climber now too, so there will be changes coming to our living room. And still... he is the cuddliest, most affectionate person that I've ever known. Couldn't ask for anything more.

Tickidah!

Sometimes he whispers it sometimes he screams it! I just wish I knew what it meant.

Trauma!

On Friday while I was at work I got a frantic phone call from Cam. He told me that Anders had been playing in the cupboard where we keep our canned food, he pulled out a can and dropped it on his toe. He said that the nail was split right down the middle and asked me what he should do. I told him to load him up and head to instacare and I would meet him there.
We went into the room and I was so nervous. A nurse came in and asked the nurse who was taking his vitals if she should "get a tray ready." Our nurse replied, "no, I don't think it's that bad."
Waive of RELIEF!!!
Then the doctor came in and took a look and said, "yep he's going to need some stitches." I started shaking and was just sick about what was going to happen next.
I'm very thankful for two different things. 1. I'm thankful that everyone there, doctors and nurses were so good, not only to Anders, but to us as well. And 2. I'm thankful that Cam was willing to stay in the room with Anders so that I could leave. I just knew that I wouldn't be able to handle it.
Of course a child that small is not going to hold still for such a procedure, so they brang in what they called a papoose. It was basically a flat board that they could strap him down to. They had to first give him two needles of numbing stuff (novacaine? I can't remember) shot into his toe and that was the part that I knew I needed to leave for. I'm so glad that Cam was willing to stay with him. Cam did say that it was REALLY tough though.
After that was all over with I went back in the room and we waited to make sure that he was numb. In the time that it took for them to come back the poor little guy was so exhausted that he had fallen asleep in my arms. They came back in and I layed him down on the table but kept my arms underneath him. But as soon as they started cleaning his toe off he woke up.... we ended up having to strap him down again. I think that by that time, he was so tired that there wasn't much of a fight left in him. Which was really hard to see. So although there was no screaming, he definately cried while they were doing the stitches. I was able to stay in the room with him for that part and I'm glad. Cam and I just sat at his head giving him kisses, telling him how much we loved him and how big of a trooper he was.
You can see in the picture the two bruises at the base of his toe, those are from the needles.
Once we got home Anders took a two hour nap. He definately needed it, and I think that Cam and I probably would have benefited as well if we would have taken one.

The doctor cut the part of the toenail that was ripped, off (I was afraid she'd have to take the whole nail off, but she just sewed straight through the nail, it just makes me cringe to think about that). There are two stitches in his toe. The good news is that it doesn't look like anything affected his nailbed and the doctor said that his toenail should grow back normally.

The second that Anders woke up he was off and running again. I thought that he would be a bit sore, but I must have been wrong. A little while after he woke up I went into the kitchen to go get some food for him only to return and see him standing on his tippy toes at the gate waiting for me. His TIPPY TOES! Then he was crawling around and sat down on top of his foot, no reaction. I am AMAZED by him. It has NOT phased him one bit. But us, well by the end of the night we were both just a bundle of nerves. Following him around, worrying about him dropping something, anything on the toe. Worrying about him sitting on it, standing on his tip toes, it was non-stop. At one point I had to run to the grocery store to stock up on Tylenol and Cam called me while I was there and the first words out of his mouth were, "This kid is going to be the death of me." He picked up Cam's xbox controller, raised it above his head, and threw it down on the ground BARELY missing his toe. Then after I got home, he was in the process of crawling onto the couch just like he always does and misplaced his knee and ended up falling flat onto his back again. I feel so bad for Anders and his little toe, but I'm so glad that he's healing and seems to be feeling great so fast.
Let's just say that it was quite the experience for all of us, and I'm so proud of my husband for being so strong (and darnit Cam, stop feeling so guilty about it, it could have happened with any one of us) and of Anders and what a tough little man he is.

P.S....while I was out getting the tylenol I saw the p.j's that he's wearing in the first picture and just could not help myself!

13 Months

Let me tell you... I sure feel like I have a big kid now. Somehow in the matter of a month I really have felt the change from baby to toddler. He sure keeps us on our toes.
The other day I was listening to a mom tell a friend how her daughter has just hit the terrible twos. "She does X, and oh my gosh she does Y, and EVEN Z." I sat there with a smile on my face because my one year old does all of the terrible two things... except talking back to me. Haven't hit that one quite yet. But he sure is a strong willed little one. Even the doctor commented on it. Sure it can make some things hard but I love having this little turkey on my hands!

I remember telling my sister while I was pregnant that I hoped that he was a wild one. And you better believe that she reminds me of that quite regularly. Having a wild one just makes life that much more interesting!
So here's the scoop on Anders for the month. He's learned how to crawl onto the furniture so his favorite past time is jumping on the couch! He'll walk to the edge of the couch, look at me, look down at the ground, look at me until I start running to stop him, then he turns around and launches himself into the back of the couch and starts laughing. Little turd fell off the couch twice yesterday. It only took me walking into the other room to grab some diaper ointment and in that time he managed to get onto the couch and fall off.

Speaking of diaper ointment. Anders had a hideous bum rash a little while ago. And whatever the doctor gave us not only didn't work but made him SCREAM when we put it on. It was horrible! So I decided to pull his potty chair out, you know, why not get him used to it? And if he loved it and was into it, well I would love to get him potty trained this early. I've done some things to get him interested and stuff and here's what we have now:

A potty chair that Anders loves to play with, pull apart, carry all over the house (but hates to sit on) and a little boy who mid-changing takes off running stands on the tile (don't know why he only does it on the tile, but hey I'm okay with it... I guess) and grunts, squeaking little streams of pee out. Then either laughs hysterically or just smiles at me and takes off running again. He did the same thing to my mom the other day when she was watching him.

Anders has become quite the little show off. Anytime we go out in public he makes sure to make as much noise as possible and do the "funniest" things that he can. Which includes spitting food, taking shoes off and throwing them and screaming at everyone who walks by. It's crazy to see the change in him from home to public. He really doesn't act like that at home.

I love to listen to him jabber all day. He'll copy a lot of what you have to say but his favorite word (I have no idea what it means but he wanders around saying it all day) sounds like tickidah. He's also added ball, bottle and Anders to his vocabulary as well, loves to sing and regularly dances his little heart out.

He loves his dogs and I am OH so glad that they are so patient with him. Atleast Lola is anyways. Onyx sees him coming and just leaves the vicinity but Lola will just sit there with an "oh great, this again" look on her face and deal with it. Basically they have just become toys that he can crawl over and around. He loves to straddle them and bounce up and down with his arms in the air. Unfortunately I can't seem to get a good picture of it though because it's always blurry... go figure. His other favorite toy is his vacuum. We bought him a fake vacuum for his birthday and he pushes that thing around all day long. He loves it!

He's started drooling like crazy all over again. He must have more teeth coming in. Right now he has three on top and four on bottom and they all seemed to come in so quick but it's been a while since anything new has shown up.

And my favorite thing of all about this kid, is that he is the cuddliest, hugginist, kissiest boy you will ever meet in your life. I get constant loves from him all day and so does everyone else!