Introducing James Wallace

Gymnastic James

2011-07-07T17:55:00.004-04:00

James will be joining Cirque de Soleil next year.

Two years with James!

2010-10-05T20:51:00.006-04:00

James is two years old! We had party #1 last Saturday at our house, and party #2 will be next Sunday in Augusta. Here are two of his presents: the tricycle that lights up and makes all kinds of sounds, and the Georgia Bulldogs shirt.

This is one of the presents that James actually opened himself. He needed a good bit of help opening most of them, not because he couldn't do it, but because he was too easily distracted by all the other stuff going on. Whatever this present was, it clearly impressed both Uncle Dan and Great-Grandma Wallace.
Mommy, Grandma, and Kristin made these Veggietales cakes (Bob the tomato and Larry the cucumber) as well as some cupcakes. They were very good, although James is not much of a dessert person. The rest of us enjoyed the cakes, and everyone including James enjoyed the hot dogs and hamburgers that Papa grilled.

Constantly learning

2010-08-01T21:39:00.005-04:00

James is a big fan of animals of all kinds, and we play with his little Fisher-Price animal set for several hours every day. Here we see one of his favorite activities: Mommy or Daddy will name an animal, and James will go find it. James is very good at this now; he can tell the difference between the quail and the nightingale better than Daddy can.

Sorry that the sound is so bad on this one; don't know what the problem is.

James has also figured out that his toys are representations of actual animals. He has a young person's encyclopedia with lots of pictures of real animals, and he likes to pick out a toy animal and then find the picture of the same real animal in the book. He's a little annoyed that his encyclopedia doesn't have a picture of a vulture, though. We had to get the 'V' volume of the grown-up encyclopedia and let him see the vulture's picture in there. Along the same lines, he now knows that the little plastic giraffe seen above is the same animal as his big stuffed giraffe, and they are both the same as the giraffe in his puzzle. When he sees the giraffe picture in his encyclopedia, he brings Mommy or Daddy all the various giraffe-related toys. Same for the penguin, the iguana, and the cat (although he usually tries to grab the real-live cat, which doesn't always go too well).

This understanding of symbolism extends to things other than animals, too. He was wearing a shirt with an airplane on it the other day when he saw an airplane in the sky. He pointed to the airplane, then to the picture on his shirt, and said, "plane, plane." Well, it was more like "pay, pay," but we knew what he meant. Also, whenever he sees the University of Georgia-style letter "G", he says "Grandpa!" because Grandpa has a big UGA sign for his car. So apparently he thinks that the "G" stands for Grandpa, and Grandpa has lots of fans. He'll probably think the whole state loves Grandpa once football season starts.

Speaking of football, with no Little Gym classes this summer, James has developed his own training regimen. Here we see him working on his linebacker drills. We prefer it when he uses cushiony furniture for tackling dummies, but he occasionally employs other things like toys, walls, and Daddy.

Who is responsible for this?

2010-07-10T21:50:00.003-04:00

I don't know where this came from, but for some reason when James sees a picture of Superman, he says something that sounds a lot like "it's George Bush." Here's an example:

We're not sure if he's talking about 41 or 43, or perhaps the 19th-century Biblical scholar by the same name. Nonetheless, in an effort to remain nonpartisan, we are trying to teach him to say "Dick Cheney" when he sees a picture of Lex Luthor.

Beach Week

2010-07-05T21:30:00.003-04:00

Well, two thirds of the Wallace family is recently returned from the eleventh annual Lundberg Family Beach Week Extravaganza, which was, as always, a blast. James and I were the two thirds able to enjoy it. Patrick had to stay here to do his new job at Camp Twin Lakes. So like him to be all altruistic while I'm off "relaxing" (anyone who has been responsible for a toddler in a non-babyproofed house full of people who insist on leaving expensive electronics on the floor knows that the experience is anything but), but that's why I love him. Although we missed him, James, it turns out, loves the beach.

We drove up there with my mom and my cousin Erik, and it took less than three lifetimes, which was an improvement over last year. We were still the last to arrive, so when we got there, my grandfather, father, two uncles, one aunt, two sisters, and one other cousin were already there. Erin's boyfriend Min met us there later in the week, so I suppose we weren't technically the last to arrive. The house we stayed in was great. Its very best feature was that the beachfront porch had a gate that James didn't know how to work, which meant that when we were out there, I could sit down for approximately three seconds. Of course, we didn't spend very much time in the house anyway. James LOVED the ocean, and he wanted to be running around in it the entire time we were there. He ran through the waves, swam (with some assistance) on calmer days, and had a bevy of family members help him jump over the waves. He loved when people would bring their dogs to the beach and he could pet them, and he very much enjoyed stomping down sand castles that the rest of us made. On top of that, he learned all kinds of new things, one of which was blowing bubbles.

The week went by quickly, and James slept very little, but had the Best Time Ever.

When we got back, James eagerly received the gift of a fire truck that Patrick had gotten him, and he learned how to do something vaguely resembling a siren sound.

Another outcome of our trip to the beach was a hunger strike on the part of my twenty-one-month old son. You see, James has never really been a great eater. We have been horrible parents and resorted to letting him watch television while he eats because the dulcet tones of the Veggie Tales and Phineas and Ferb lull him into enough of a stupor that we can shove some food in him without having to hold him down screaming. The plan was that while we were at the beach, we would get him off the television while eating thing. There would be lots of people there, and they would provide enough of a distraction that James would eat there more easily than here, and then, by the time he returned, he would be a champion eater and would scarf anything we put on his plate.

Sadly, that was not to be, and I blame my mother for that. She was helping out the afternoon after we arrived by feeding him lunch. He was, as usual, being difficult and refusing his food, and my mother, whose intentions are always noble, knew that I would be upset if he didn't eat well. In an effort to keep everyone happy, my mother let him play with her iphone while he ate. Her iphone has games like Old MacDonald and The Wheels on the Bus and Itsy Bitsy Spider and Fish School, all of which James loves. He was enthralled, and he ate fantastically. All week. With the aid of the iphone. He also learned to take pictures with the phone (cousin Jason taught him that one) and took about forty pictures of his feet, and a good number of the tray on his high chair. Everything went beautifully. Until we got home, that is. Tragically, neither Patrick nor I have an iphone. We do not have The Wheels on the Bus or Itsy Bitsy Spider or a camera that is operated with a touch screen. What we did have was a child who screamed for as long as we made him sit in his chair to eat. We tried everything. Below you will see a video of one of the things we tried. It worked that night and hasn't worked since, but it sure was entertaining at the time.

Well, that's all from the land of Wallace for today. It's late, and I'm tired. I'll try to post again soon. James is more and more fun every day, and Patrick is good at catching his cuteness on video. It seems unfair to keep something so adorable all to ourselves, and I'll make an effort to be better about sharing him with the world. :)

The Summer of Waaah!

2010-06-11T20:21:00.003-04:00

Unfortunately there are no pictures or videos to post today. We'll try to work on that.

James has been a bit grumpy lately, which might be blamed on one of three things, or a combination thereof:

1) Lots of new teeth coming in at once,

2) The frustration of knowing that he can climb on the kitchen table, counter, desk, etc., but is constantly prevented from doing so by mean mean Daddy, or

3) He thinks crying will actually get him what he wants (he is very very wrong).

According to everyone we know who has kids, the grumpiness is normal - the proverbial "terrible twos" are just a little early. We are trying to help him avoid frustrations as much as possible, but the unfortunate fact is that there are things he is not allowed to do. Things that will hurt him, things that do not belong to him, and activities that violate state and federal law are all no-nos. Hopefully he will learn that soon; right now, he just thinks Mommy and Daddy are mean.

He does have a lot of fun at the pool, however, so we go down there several times a week. He's very comfortable in the water now, which means he'll probably love the beach next week.

Last weekend Mommy's co-worker Anne brought her daughter Jenna, who is about a year older than James. They had tremendous fun playing at the pool, the playground, and in James's room. James isn't quite as fast as Jenna, but he enjoyed trying to keep up with her.

We had our first babysitter (other than Grandma) this week. Mommy had school stuff, and Daddy had some projects at Grandma and Grandpa's house, so Mommy's co-worker Laura stayed with James. James thought Laura was great; he's pretty sick of Daddy by now. Mommy and Daddy were a little worried about leaving him, but he didn't mind at all. We probably won't need a sitter very often, but it's nice to know James is okay with the idea.

James is becoming a food connoisseur, too (or he's just really picky)

2010-05-18T21:45:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was Daddy's birthday, so we all went to Provino's, a fancy Italian restaurant where birthday boys and girls get a free dinner. We were kind of worried about how James would behave in the restaurant, but he was quite well-behaved. And he ate a huge pile of fettucini alfredo, too. He wanted to play with the glass of water for a while, but once he tried the pasta he just kept eating. We let him use a grown-up fork (mainly because we didn't bring one of his small forks), which made it even more fun for him. He had the rest of the fettucini for lunch today, and was just as enthusiastic about it. That is very encouraging, considering the trouble we have had lately getting him to eat. We just hope that he'll like eating something other than expensive Italian restaurant food.

Today was the last Little Gym class until the fall for James. They had a nice little "awards ceremony" where all the kids got a medal, and then we just played around the rest of the time. Here we can see him on the big donut (although it's backlit pretty bad at the beginning; sorry about that). James has a lot of fun at the Little Gym, and he has learned some impressive stuff there, so we'll have to come up with lots of fun activities over the summer to fill the void.

The pool is open!

2010-05-16T20:37:00.002-04:00

The neighborhood pool opened this weekend, so we got James in his suit and headed down there. The water was incredibly cold at first, but eventually felt pretty good. James wore his little floaty-vest, but was still unsure about being in the water. He spent most of his time in the water clutching tightly to the neck of Mommy or Daddy. He did really enjoy a puddle beside the pool, though, and that gave Mommy a chance to swim on her own a little. Next weekend, the neighborhood association is having a you-kill-it, they-grill-it pool party - somebody will set up a grill and cook whatever the people bring. Within reason.

James has a couple of molars coming in, and they occasionally cause him some irritation. This might just be coincidence, but he is also a lot more fussy about sitting down to eat. Could be the teeth, could be the proverbial terrible twos starting early, we don't know. It's a problem, whatever is causing it. Meals take twice as long, and James does a lot of crying and throwing food around. The previous tactic of watching Veggietales doesn't even work anymore. Hopefully we can think of something. Maybe we can find another magic video. Maybe he'll just eventually realize that food is yummy. If any of you have ideas, please share.

The Veggietales don't work for eating anymore, but they have taught James to sing. He doesn't know all the words, but he knows the tunes of such great works as "Where is my Hairbrush?," "The Cheeseburger Song," and "If it doesn't have a tail it's not a monkey." He sings about every fifth word and hums the rest, and he's learning more words to sing every day. Mommy is thinking about composing songs for everything we want him to learn from now on. What sort of tune goes with "Don't eat that; that's the cat's hairball"?

We're becoming hospital food connoisseurs

2010-04-29T22:34:00.003-04:00

James was a little sick this past week - coughing, a lot of phlegm, trouble breathing - so we took him to the pediatrician on Tuesday. It wasn't really anything too serious, but unfortunately all of the medicines that would help are on the list of medicines that he cannot take because of the heart medicine. So the pediatrician said to check James into the hospital and let them give him medicine under observation. There were no adverse reactions, and the doctor said James probably just had a virus that wouldn't last long. James was far more irritated by the monitors and the IV and the nurses waking him up every 2 hours than he was by the actual illness. So we went home the next day. James is still coughing a little, and he has to breathe in some medicine from a nebulizer every 6 or so hours, but he seems to be getting over it. In case any of you were wondering, the food at Athens Regional hospital is absolutely terrible. Getting James to sit down and eat is tough enough; getting him to sit down and eat crap is impossible. Daddy nibbled on what might have been a chicken finger, or perhaps jerky, but only because it was the only thing available. Vastly superior is the food at Emory Eastside, where James was born. The Scottish Rite is even better, so if you have a choice, aim your sick kids there and enjoy the make-your-own-sandwich bar. Hopefully we won't get to learn about the food at any more hospitals, though; eating at home is a lot more comfortable. And cheaper.

March for Babies

2010-04-24T06:38:00.003-04:00

Today is the day we are hoping to walk in the March of Dimes 5K March for Babies, as part of Magdalena Roberts's team (http://noahandjulieroberts.blogspot.com/). We are hoping to, but the weather outside, as they say, is frightful. Lots of rain and lightning. But we've got the stroller all ready, and we're wearing our matching shirts, so we really ought to walk somewhere. Maybe we'll go to the mall and walk 5 kilometers in there. Lots of people do that anyway, we have found.

(Update Sunday, 4/25)

Okay, we did actually get to walk yesterday. The rain was fairly light for most of the walk, though it poured a couple of times. The weather was not nearly as bad as it was for Noah and Julie in Mississippi, where they canceled the whole walk. Tornados and such. Here, we just had some rain. James was comfortable in his covered stroller, and even went to sleep during the walk. He also got to play for a while in a school bus (he loves school buses) that had been converted to a mobile playground (he loves playgrounds as well) - it had gym mats, a slide, a little trampoline, and other fun things that kept James entertained and out of the rain for a while. We'll try to get the pictures from Grandma soon. And many thanks to all of you who sponsored us in the walk.

Break it down!

2010-04-23T20:29:00.003-04:00

James is dancing to "Yo Gabba Gabba," this weird, low-budget, 1970s-looking kids' show on nickelodeon. I can't properly describe it; go to yogabbagabba.com to see the madness for yourself. The part James is dancing to here is at the end of each episode where the freakishly skinny man in the furry hat and the orange unitard (I am not making this up) says, "Can we dance? Are you ready? Well let's do it! Break it down!" Then he does this thing with his hands that James is doing in the third picture here. Other classic songs from the show include, "Don't Bite Your Friends" and "I Like Bugs" Why does daddy endure this, you ask? Because while James is dancing to Yo Gabba Gabba, he is willing to eat whatever Daddy shoves in his mouth. This particular day, he had a plate full of tortellini for lunch. We have never gotten him to eat as much as he should without a big struggle, but it seems that DJ Lance Rock can succeed where we have failed.

Along with the weird dancing, James has been working on his singing too. Mommy sings "Who put the overalls in Mrs. Murphy's Chowder?" when giving James a bath, and he's starting to sing along. His part goes, "No! Abba na na na na na na cha-doe!" Amazingly, that is the actual harmony part as heard in the original 1901 recording:

http://www.huntingtonhistoricalsociety.com/1901-edward-m-favor-and-mrs-murphys-chowder

Perhaps he'll also like "Whiskey in the Jar" and "Danny Boy."

James also enjoys songs that have a lot of clapping, such as Marc Broussard's "Home,"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuWPseegaKw,

"Trip Through Your Wires" by U2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePUvdJC5xs4

and "Get Ready for the Bettys" from Phineas and Ferb

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHaLWp0cac0.

If any of our loyal readers have suggestions for other good clappy songs, please feel free to send them in.

Below is a picture of James with a pretzel stick, his favorite snack. He calls them "fish," because that's what he learned to call Goldfish crackers when we first gave them to him, so now all snacks are "fish." That's fine for now, but it might confuse the lunch lady down the road. It also kind of looks like he has a stogie in his mouth, which is something we wish to discourage as soon as possible. But until he starts saying "I love it when a plan comes together", we'll be okay.

That's an "A-Team" reference, folks.

Happy Easter

2010-04-13T19:59:00.003-04:00

James is saying Happy Easter. He looks like he's making you an offer you can't refuse, but that's just the sun in his eyes. We went to a sunrise service that was outside the church, which James seemed to like. Afterward, we went inside where James and his friend Jenna ran around and played tag for an hour or two, and everybody else enjoyed breakfast. Then we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house, where James got to put on comfy clothes. That's a clip-on, by the way. A fun easter for all of us.

James continues to add to his vocabulary every day. This morning, he looked at a picture of the Lundberg family at Christmas, pointed to Grandpa, and said, "Empah." Close enough, we think. He also says "opah" every time he tries to open anything, which is often: he tries to open doors, drawers, books, bags of pretzels, cups of yogurt, and anything else that looks like it might be openable. And he has learned to count to three on some occasions. He helps Mommy make her coffee in the morning, and together they count out the scoops as Mommy puts the coffee into the filter. We count as we go up and down the stairs as well, although James doesn't make it all the way to eight yet. Throughout the day we try to find other things to count as well.

James is pretty good at throwing a ball now, as we see here. We're going to keep working on the left-handed curveball, however.

Uh-oh, the Bus!

2010-03-29T21:07:00.002-04:00

No new pictures today, but we wanted to report a big step in James's vocal development. Yesterday, he used his first multi-word phrase: "uh-oh, the bus!" He was playing a "wheels on the bus" game on Grandma's iphone, something he learned to do on the long car rides at Christmas. Apparently he hit a button that exited the game and returned to the main menu, which caused him to exclaim the above phrase. Mommy and Grandma, who were there to hear him, were quite impressed. Next week we're going to try to get him to say, "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."

Sniffles

2010-03-21T22:38:00.005-04:00

James has a bit of a cold. It's not too bad, but he's got a constantly runny nose and he can't sleep very well. Nonetheless, he has enjoyed the warmer weather this week, and has played outside as often as possible. We have been cooped up in the house for too long; it's nice to be able to use our yard and go to the playground.

The above pictures were taken inside, however, because keeping up with James in the yard is now quite difficult. James has learned to run pretty fast, and Daddy can't chase him and work a camera at the same time.

Another wonderful skill James has developed is the ability to work a doorknob. Last week he reached up and grabbed the knob on Mommy and Daddy's bedroom door, and opened it on his own. Shortly thereafter, he opened the pantry and got himself some pretzels. So now we have these big doorknob covers all over the place, making it impossible for anyone to open a door without a fight. Quite exciting when one has to go to the bathroom.

We got some encouraging news from the cardiologist on Friday: James's QT interval was within normal range on his EKG. The doctor is unwilling to say that James no longer has Long QT Syndrome, but he said that it's possible that James can grow out of it. We still have to give James medication, and he still can't play competitive sports (not a big problem at 17 months), but if future EKGs show a normal QT interval, then the cabal of cardiologists might think about getting together and rescinding the diagnosis. Of course, that's a long way down the road. But it was nice to get some encouraging news from the doctor, and it gives us hope that maybe James will eventually not have to worry about a heart condition. Either way, he's learning to throw a left-handed curveball.

More James movies

2010-03-12T14:00:00.006-05:00

Okay, the movies don't always work, but we're going to try anyway. Hopefully you can see these; they're fun.

James is playing "whisper whisper BOO" with Mommy; a delightful game that he created.

This is his new slide/climb/dunk apparatus that Meme got him. It can go outside, but the weather has been such that it is more useful in the living room. James spends much of his day playing on it now, especially since it will never stop raining. Here we see one of his favorite parts, the basketball hoop. No one showed him how to do this; he just grabbed a ball and dunked it. Who knew basketball was written into our DNA.

Where are the videos?

2010-02-23T21:33:00.003-05:00

So, like Uncle Dan, I am getting frustrated with blogger's utter inability to consistently make videos available to readers. Sometimes they're viewable, sometimes they're not. It's an irritation. So, to make myself feel better, I thought I'd post some pictures of James at various intervals from the past several months. And grrrrrrrr, blogger.

This is James reading with his Auntie Erin.

This is James and Grandma at the Botanic Gardens in DC over Christmas. They had this incredible display of trains and little houses and made entirely out of natural materials. It was amazing, but I think James appreciated the trains far more than the intricate craftsmanship.
James saw tons of snow over Christmas in DC. I think it was something like seventeen inches. However, he did not see any snow fall. So, a week or so ago, when snow was falling here, he was euphoric. Apparently snow is the greatest thing ever when it falls out of the sky, but not all that interesting once it reaches the ground.
Sledding was fun though. At least, it looked like James was having fun. I have no idea where my sled is, so there was no big people sledding during this most recent snowfall. Patrick tried to sit in James's sled, but he did not fit.
This, I thought, was incredible. Now, admittedly, I am somewhat biased. However, I drew the heart on the window, and James colored it in. Almost all in the lines! For someone who misses his mouth every other time he tries to stick a piece of macaroni in there, I thought that was pretty good.

Snow day

2010-02-15T20:02:00.003-05:00

We got such a tremendous amount (a couple of inches) of snow last Friday that Mommy got a day off from work. We went out and played in it for a while on Saturday, and James got to use the sled he got for Christmas. We didn't think we would have much use for the sled here, but it's a good thing we brought it back with us.

James enjoyed running around in the snow as well. He enjoys running around everywhere, actually. It's been too cold to go to the parks, though, so we've been looking for inside places to run around in - the library, the mall, Wal-Mart, Home Depot. We also run around the house a good bit, but other places are more exciting (and bigger).

James has expanded his vocabulary, and he can now say the following:

mama

dada

ball

kittycat

bath

bus

duck

fish

bubble (usually bub-bub-bub-bubble)

moo (what a cow says)

baa (what a sheep says)

woof (what a dog says)

uh-oh

ah-choo

He says a lot of other things, but most are in his own language. Hopefully we can either learn his language soon, or he will continue to pick up English.

One of our favorite indoor activities is drawing, either with markers on paper or on the windows with grease-pencil-type markers designed specifically for that. Occasionally some marks end up on the furniture, but not too much. James is very good at putting the caps back on the markers, which 1)shows very good hand-eye coordination, and 2)is a great habit to learn early.

Haircut!

2010-02-02T21:07:00.004-05:00

Mommy gave James his first haircut this week. He just needed a little trim; he was looking a bit like a hippie around the ears.

As you can see, though, there is still plenty of hair to fashion into fun designs using broccoli-cheese casserole as a styling product:

I think he was going for a Flock of Seagulls look.

Acrobatics

2010-01-27T21:39:00.002-05:00

James and Daddy went to our Little Gym class again yesterday. We learned how to do this:

Dinner conversation

2010-01-18T20:41:00.002-05:00

James is sharing his opinion. On what, we're not sure.

Developing good habits (hopefully)

2010-01-17T21:57:00.002-05:00

James has been doing much better eating and sleeping lately. We were having tremendous trouble getting him to eat solid foods, but since we got back home after Christmas he has improved tremendously. He will now sit down and eat three full meals a day, and he snacks a lot between meals (cheese and pretzels, mostly). It sometimes takes him a while to stop playing and start eating, but he will eventually eat. Before, we would often sit at the table for an hour with no success.

Another wonderful development is that James is now sleeping through the night most of the time. This is especially wonderful to Daddy, who was getting up with him several times a night, every night. The weird thing is that he just decided to do it on his own. For weeks we had been trying every variation to his sleeping routine and environment that we could think of - changing the temperature, moving back his bedtime, giving him a bottle right before bed - and none of them worked. Daddy gave up and was ready to accept that he would never get a good night's sleep again. Then one day about 2 weeks ago we woke up and realized that he had slept all night. We didn't do a thing; James did it on his own. Since then, he has only gotten up in the middle of the night once. Hopefully this will continue for the next seventeen or so years.

This week James and Daddy tried out Gymboree and the Little Gym. Both have kind of the same activities, but we liked the Little Gym better. We did more organized activities together there; the Gymboree was kind of a free-for-all. James seemed to like the kids and parents better at the Little Gym, too - most of the parents at the Gymboree were more interested in socializing with each other than with playing with their kids. At the Little Gym, we learned how to do a somersault (James did the somersault and Daddy helped him flip), played with a parachute, walked on a balance beam, and worked on sign language ("up," "down," and "bear [like the animal] "). It was a lot of fun for James and Daddy. We're going to talk to Meme about signing up for a regular class.

Along with his gymnastic activities, James also likes to dance when he hears music on TV. This is one of his favorites, a song from the Disney show "Imagination Movers." If you listen to the song, you can hear that he is going along perfectly with the words:

Since he can now understand and respond to things on TV, we are trying to keep the TV time down, and we are watching what we watch more. Of course James needs to watch football, and we usually watch Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, but we turn the TV off more and read several books a day (or one book several times, usually). In the morning, though, we still watch some kids' shows like the one above, or Sesame Street. Hopefully this will not turn James into a serial killer.

Another activity James has recently picked up is drawing. Scribbling, actually. We got him some crayons and markers for Christmas, and he is now an excellent scribbler. He even stays on the paper most of the time. The first few times we tried drawing, he put the crayons and markers right in his mouth. After he got tired of the taste, though, he started using them the way they were intended. We'll try to publish some of his works here soon.

Christmas!

2010-01-06T20:42:00.007-05:00

Sorry we haven't updated the blog in a while. We didn't have any time during the Christmas travel marathon, and then when we got back the computer broke. Well, you know what they say: sometimes you're the windshield; sometimes you're the bug.

Over the Christmas break, we drove several hundred thousand miles to visit relatives. James didn't complain too much about the long hours in the car (less than Daddy did, anyway), but he did require Grandma's Iphone to keep him occupied much of the time. There was a lot of snow in Virginia when we got there, and we took James out to play in it a few times. He was not sure about the snow at first, but he eventually got where he enjoyed it. We found a James-sized sled, complete with a seatbelt, and here we see him going for a ride:

Okay, for some reason the video was pushed to the bottom of the page. Please scroll down. Stupid Apple computers.

On Christmas Eve, we went to the Lutheran Church that Great-Grandpa Lundberg attends. James was well-behaved, though occasionally squirmy. He also chose an inopportune time to practice saying, 'uh-oh', the new word he had recently learned. The preacher was leading one of those group prayers, saying something about judging the living and the dead, when James chimed in with an 'uh-oh'. It was the funniest thing to happen in a Lutheran church in several hundred years.

During the opening of the presents, James was far more excited about the laundry basket on the floor than he was about any of his many gifts. He did play with some of the gifts briefly, but he kept trying to climb into the basket. Apparently we should have shopped for James at Bed Bath & Beyond instead of Babies-R-Us. He is enjoying his gifts now, however. Since he has so many to choose from, we have only gotten out some of them; we can rotate in the rest until his birthday.

James is talking almost constantly now, although Mommy and Daddy aren't always clever enough to know what he's trying to say. From the expression he has when he talks to us, it is apparent that he knows exactly what he's saying. And he has added some English words to his vocabulary as well: the aforementioned uh-oh, bye-bye (complete with the wave), up (meaning 'pick me up'), bus, and bucket. He will also sometimes repeat a word right after Mommy or Daddy say it. We'll have to be careful with that.

Meme had the great idea of getting James into a class where he can practice his jumping and climbing in a more organized setting than the living room, something like The Little Gym. We are looking into our options here in Winder, and we hope to start one soon.

Thanks to everyone who sent us Christmas cards; hopefully our Christmas cards got to everybody. We hope you all had a good Christmas, and that the new year will bring you all blessings.

Big Thanksgiving fun

2009-12-03T22:25:00.003-05:00

Last week's Thanksgiving festivities at Grandma and Grandpa's house were lots of fun for James, as well as the rest of the family. James fell asleep five minutes into the big feast, but after a good nap, he tried all kinds of new foods. Stuffing, green bean casserole, and mashed potatoes with gravy were some of his favorites. He was not too impressed with pumpkin pie, but that might be because his piece wasn't covered in whipped cream like everybody else's. His solid-food eating skills are improving, and Thanksgiving was a very good time to get some eating practice. In the week since then, he has made great strides in his ability to use a fork and spoon, take manageable-sized bites, and even drink milk from a big person cup. This last skill still needs a lot of work, however; he prefers blowing bubbles in the milk to actually drinking it that way. It does not help his progress that Daddy cannot stop laughing when James does that.

James also got a lot of attention that weekend, because lots of relatives and friends were visiting. Here we see Min giving James a ride, which James enjoyed so much that he made Min do it a few hundred times.

On a completely different topic, Aunties Erin and Kristin were commenting on our choice of terminology for James's, um, diaper fillings. Mommy uses the terms "wet" and "solid;" Daddy prefers "wetness (the noun form)" and "thunder." None of these were approved by Erin and Kristin, so we have sought new terms. Henceforth, we will use the German words for one (eins) and two (zwei) for his number one and number two, respectively. We chose German because it is unlikely that we will use German in any other way, and because much of the German language sounds kind of like words made up by a small child anyway (das ist gut, der flughafen, purpurfarbig, etc.). Hopefully we will not accidentally offend any German friends or neighbors with this use of their language.

Big little steps

2009-11-16T21:29:00.003-05:00

Ever since James squeezed past the gate and fell down the stairs a few weeks ago, we have been working on stair safety. Since he could walk he has enjoyed walking up and down the stairs with Daddy holding onto his hands, and we still do that almost every day. Sometimes it seems like that's all we do - the Dacula park has stairs leading down to the playground, and we spend more time on the stairs than on the playground. Daddy thinks that James should learn how to manage stairs on his own, however, in case he somehow manages to get past the gate again. This is unlikely, considering the reinforcements put on the gate, but better safe than sorry. So we have been practicing solo stair descending, and James is now pretty good at it. This technique only works when there are rails available, but that's good for now. He uses the standard hands-and-knees crawling method for going up the stairs, by the way.

Buff Baby

2009-11-08T21:10:00.003-05:00

While I am somewhat laith to put a video of myself working out on the internet, I couldn't help it when I saw how cute James was. Here James is working on his abs. He saw me doing crunches the other day and decided that if Mommy does it, surely I should too. He then sat down and began his own version of abdominal exercise. Now we just have to plan what we'll say to the doctor, who already criticizes James for being too thin, when he sees James's rock hard abs.

Our Need for Deep Carpet Cleaning Increases Exponentially

2009-11-08T21:04:00.003-05:00

So, as you can see from the above video, James has been practicing with his spoon. He does pretty well with dipping the spoon in something he wants to eat and then bringing the spoon to his mouth. He does not always bring the correct end of the spoon to his mouth, but hey, we all have to start somewhere, right? Needless to say, this particular learning experience is taking its toll on our carpet. Alas.

James Enjoys Fall

2009-11-01T19:08:00.004-05:00

I am not nearly as reliable as would be ideal in contributing pictures to the blog. Sorry about that. Here are some.

This is me and James handing out candy to some of the 348 trick-or-treaters that came to our house last night. James thought it was tremendous fun. He would pick up candy out of the bowl and drop it. Sometimes it landed in the baskets the kids brought, sometimes it landed on the floor, but more often I was able to catch it and distribute it properly. We made a great team, overall.
This is James in his fancy lion costume. He did not think the hat portion was tremendous fun. Therefore, it was short lived.
This is me and James playing with the parachute during story time. James also thought this was tremendous fun. I agreed.
This is James playing with this gear game thing at the park near our house. He loves this park in general. He climbs up the slide and then goes back down it for hours at a time.
This is James video chatting with Auntie Erin and Auntie Kristin. He absolutely loves this particular activity, though I think he likes the opportunity to hit the keys on the computer more than the actual conversation (sorry, sisters).

Now that I've figured out how to hook my fancy pants new camera up to my computer, I'll be able to be more forthcoming with the pictures. In theory. We do live in a constant state of chaos, after all.

Saturday Morning Play Time

2009-10-24T14:33:00.005-04:00

Patrick and I generally take turns sleeping in on the weekend which means that I get to spend Saturday mornings playing with James. This morning we had a spectacular time. First, James was excited that I had on my Veggie Tales shirt as he is a big fan of Bob the Tomato. He kept turning me around so that he could see all sides of Bob. Then, he turned on and off all of the lights in the house repeatedly. Next, he flushed the toilets for a while, after which he ate some prunes and apples with oatmeal. Finally, just as he was winding down for his first nap, he sat down for about forty five minutes and played with the truck my dad made him. He rolled it back and forth; he put his blocks in it and then took them back out; he dumped the dumping part of it and flipped the flap at the back around in circles. It was tremendous fun. In fact, he was having such a good time that I even got a video of him without him immediately stopping what he was doing to try to eat the camera. So I thought I'd share it. :)

As nice as it is to sleep in, it's a treat for me to get up and play with James when he's at his happiest. Saturday mornings are pretty great.

Talitha's Tree

2009-10-15T21:01:00.001-04:00

Two years ago today, our Daughter died. Last year, when James came along, we were very happy and very relieved, but we still miss our first child. Today, to remember her, we planted a tree in the yard. It doesn't look like much now, but hopefully it will eventually be a pink cherry blossom tree.

The second first birthday party - wait, does that make any sense?

2009-10-12T21:14:00.002-04:00

James had his second party for his first birthday this past weekend. The Augusta side of the family had a party down there for him at a really fun park. James ran around on the playground, watched some kids play basketball, and found a very nice stick, all before the party even started. Eventually we got him to come to the table and have some cake. He 'had' some cake; he didn't really eat it, as you can see.

Birthday toys

2009-10-06T20:55:00.003-04:00

James is enjoying all the fun stuff he got for his birthday. This is one of his favorites, a stacking game from Great-Grandpa Lundberg:

James went to the doctor today for his 12-month checkup. Everything went well, but he had to get 5 different shots. He was not very happy after that, so to cheer him up, we went to the park. This particular park has a big playground, some walking trails, and a big pond where ducks and geese congregate. James forgot all about the shots when he was chasing ducks around. The ducks there are pretty tame and not very fast, so James could get quite close to them. They are a little faster than James, though, so (thankfully) he did not actually catch one. I don't know if ducks bite, but I would rather find out from the Discovery Channel.

Happy Birthday James!

2009-10-04T23:43:00.004-04:00

James is a year old today! Here are some highlights from his birthday party yesterday:

Grandpa made James a fully-functional dump truck. It is an amazing piece of craftsmanship, with lots of really detailed parts.

Grandma made Freddy, a panda that is just like the one she made for Mommy when she was a baby. James likes it as much as Mommy did.

James and Aunt Kristin are playing with new toys.

His first cake (cupcake, actually)

pulverizing his first cupcake

Here are the (non-pulverized) cupcakes that Mommy, Kristin, and Grandma worked very hard on. The animal pairs go along with the "Noah's Ark" theme of the party.

The Noah's Ark cake

James had lots of fun at his party, and Mommy and Daddy did too. We also enjoyed visiting with out-of-town relatives who came for the party: Great-grandpa Lundberg, Great-grandma Wallace, Papa Wallace, Uncle Dan, Aunt Cindy, and Auntie Kristin. Min, Grandma, and Grandpa aren't exactly from out-of-town, but we're glad they came too. And James gets another birthday party next Saturday in Augusta. He might start to expect a party every weekend at this rate.

Walt Roberts is here!

2009-09-28T20:27:00.003-04:00

This morning, our friend Noah and his wife Julie gave birth to their second child, Walter Douglas Roberts. He's a healthy eight-pounder, and he and his parents are doing fine. There are some pictures on their blog, noahandjulieroberts.blogspot.com . We're hoping and praying that Walt will grow up as happy and healthy as James is.

Speaking of James, he is quickly approaching his first birthday. This Saturday, the relatives visit, and he will get to have some cake. At the risk of spoiling the surprise, I hear there is a Noah's Ark theme.

James continues to learn new stuff every day. Now that the weather is better (it rained for a solid week here), we have been going outside again. James has learned to kick a ball, which is impressive in and of itself, but it also shows how well he has mastered walking. Here we are in the driveway, kicking the ball cousin Hannalee got for James this summer:

James also enjoys pushing things. We went strolling around the Home Depot the other day, and James pushed the cart for me. He couldn't reach the handle, but he pushed from the bottom of the basket quite well. He also pushes his own stroller when we go to the neighborhood playground. Pretty soon, we'll let him loose with the lawn mower.

Today James learned how light switches work. Daddy demonstrated 'on' and 'off' a couple of times, then held James up and let him try. James quickly mastered the up/down motion, and proceeded to create a strobe-light effect in the bathroom. He would still be doing it if Daddy didn't get tired of holding him up. James is getting heavy.

Speaking of which, James's eating technique has improved tremendously. He keeps things in his mouth now (he used to let about half of every spoonful dribble out onto his chin), and he is chewing quite well with his two teeth. Meme (Daddy's mother) got James some crunchy snacks, which have helped him improve his chewing. Now he eats them all the time, which is good, because it keeps non-food items (shoes, cellphones, the cat) out of his mouth. We were kind of worried that constantly feeding him high-calorie formula to bulk him up would impede his normal-food-eating development, but he seems to be doing fine.

Less than a week until James is a year old!

Almost a year old

2009-09-21T19:29:00.002-04:00

James and Daddy went to the Georgia Aquarium last Friday. James had a great time, although Daddy didn't let him run around free as much as he wanted to. He is confident enough in his walking now that he doesn't like Daddy holding his hand all the time. Daddy doesn't care; James has to hold Daddy's hand when we're in a big crowd. Nonetheless, we both enjoyed seeing everything in the aquarium. When we left, we went to the grassy area between the aquarium and the World of Coke, and James chased pigeons around.

James enjoyed the pigeon hunt more than anything in the aquarium. Next time, Daddy will save the $35 and just find a flock of birds somewhere.

James is almost a year old, and we are eagerly anticipating his birthday parties - one at home and one in Augusta. He is growing up quickly, and we will take the time on his birthday to see how much he has changed since he came into the world last October 4th. Thankfully we have lots of pictures and videos of his first year, so we can remember, and so we can embarrass him later.

As seen above, James is an excellent walker now. He is steady enough that he rarely falls, and when he does, he gets himself up without any difficulty. He also walks without concentrating solely on walking - he can pick up a toy and play with it, or drink from his sippy cup, or try to grab the cat's tail, all while walking perfectly fine. This is fun for Daddy, because now James and Daddy can play hide and seek. Daddy will run into the kitchen, and James will hunt him down. Daddy will scurry off into the bedroom, and James is right on his tail. Daddy will try to take a bathroom break, and James will ignore the game-off and chase Daddy into the bathroom. We're going to have to work on that. Another walking skill he is mastering is walking backwards. The past couple of days, he has been practicing: he will take a few steps forward, then stop and take a few steps backward, then forward again. It kind of looks like he's practicing ballroom dancing.

We have determined that James has started to actually talk. He has been making all sorts of sounds for quite a while, but it does appear that he is now associating a particular sound with a particular thing. The first one was 'mama,' which was the first sound he practiced saying over and over again. Now he only says it when he sees Mommy, or sometimes when he's getting his diaper changed. Not sure what that's about. But he definitely means 'Mommy' when he says 'mama' - when Mommy comes home from work, he holds out his hands to her and says 'mama' over and over again. Mommy likes that. The other semi-word James says is 'cah', to identify the cat, Spooky. He's clearly talking about the cat with this word, because he only says it when he's chasing Spooky around, trying to grab his tail. And he says it with tremendous enthusiasm. It's also possible that Daddy has been dubbed 'gagga' by James, because James does say that a lot around Daddy. However, 'gagga' might also mean milk, or book, or any number of other things that James sees every day. But it means something, that much we are sure of.

Labor Day

2009-09-08T20:24:00.002-04:00

Last Sunday we went to the annual Labor Day weekend family event at Daddy's uncle Roy's house. Uncle Roy lives on the edge of Clark Hill Lake, and his yard is a perfect place for a big family gathering. It is especially exciting for eleven-month-olds who think leaves are really great toys.

James walked around in the leaves for half an hour, and would have stayed there all day, but we had to eat lunch.

He was a big fan of the macaroni.

Fun outdoors

2009-08-30T21:35:00.008-04:00

Since we got back from the beach, James and Daddy have been trying to find fun outdoor activities that we can try, when the weather permits. James had so much fun at the beach that Daddy figures he will probably like exploring other terrains. Our yard is the most frequent outdoor exploration spot, and James does enjoy walking around out there. He takes small steps, so we still haven't explored the whole yard. For a little variety, we try to take advantage of the various parks around here. There's a big state park, Fort Yargo, that's just a few miles away. It's free on Wednesdays, so we occasionally go for nature walks out there. It's a lot of jungle and swamp and not much grass, though, so James does more riding than walking there. Close to Mommy's school is another little park (the name eludes me) that is just a few picnic tables, some trees, and a grassy hill. James enjoys that one tremendously; the hill is not very steep, but steep enough to make walking interesting. The pictures here are from a park that's close to our old townhouse in Duluth (the park is actually in neighboring Suwanee); it's a longer drive, but it's a great park. The round, grassy area in the middle is bigger than a football field, so even if there are a lot of people there we can find somewhere to walk safely. This particular morning, the park was not crowded at all; school has recently started back, so most kids were otherwise occupied. James has continued to improve his walking ability, and he walked halfway across the park with no help from Daddy. He stopped several times to pick up leaves, however. He loves the leaves. He will pick up one leaf and carry it around until he spots another good one, then he will put the first leaf down on the ground beside the new leaf, and compare the two. After a few seconds, he will choose one of the leaves, pick it up, and continue walking. This makes the walk across the park take a little longer, but for James, it adds to the fun. As Tolkien said, not all who wander are lost. What Tolkien did not say was that not all who wander wear pants. Daddy usually tries to keep his boy decent in public, but we had a little diaper incident and had to go to the backup outfit seen here. James did not let that spoil his fun, though; he does not share his father's need for pants.

This is one of James's favorite leaves. This one made it through several elimination rounds, but eventually James found another favorite. Unfortunately that favorite was a discarded cigarette. Daddy had to put the camera down and intervene at that point. We (well, Daddy) decided that it was time to visit the best part of the Suwanee park, the fountain.
This is a great fountain, all on ground level so kids (and sometimes fathers) can run through it. I just discovered that clicking on the picture makes it bigger, which is helpful here - the camera didn't go into the fountain with us, so it's a little far away. James wanted to go into the fountain solo, but Daddy didn't want to be left behind, so he held onto James's hand. The spot where we are standing in the above picture is one of the fountains that goes up and down; James loved this. The water would diminish and disappear, and he would squat down and stare at the spout until the water came out again. Then he would stand up as the fountain got higher, and stick his hand out to block it when it went past his head. This made water splash everywhere, which was really exciting. James spent quite a while at this spot. We also walked over to the big, constantly-flowing part of the fountain that is at the right edge of the picture, but it was a little too much water for James. Sticking his hand out didn't do much to slow it down. He will probably like it a little more when he's a bit taller, and pesky Daddy isn't holding his hand. We had lots of fun, though, and we'll probably make this a regular outdoor activity as long as the weather is warm.

This is not in any way related to fun outdoors, but James is having a good time, so we'll show it anyway. I believe it is green beans that is making him so excited.

Walking everywhere

2009-08-22T22:04:00.002-04:00

James is walking on his own a good portion of the time now. He will sometimes grab a helper to start out, but then he lets go and heads off on his own. Daddy still holds onto his hand when we're walking outside or on a hard floor, but that's more Daddy's choice than James's.

What language is this?

2009-08-20T10:52:00.002-04:00

James does this weird thing all day now. I hope it's his way of exploring his new teeth, and not the manifestation of a nefarious mutant superpower. Or he could be talking to snakes, like Harry Potter and Voldemort can do. Whatever it is, I'm getting him a costume with a cape.

Update on James

2009-08-14T20:31:00.003-04:00

No pictures this time, because we're on a different computer. But as long as internet access is available, we will use it.

James has been walking all over the place. He prefers to walk with a buddy, holding onto their finger with one hand and carrying something to chew on in the other. We walk all around the house like that during the day, and occasionally we go out into the yard and walk around in the grass. Yesterday, we went to the Falcons training camp to see them practice. James didn't care too much about the football practice (although Sam Baker's beard was impressive), but he loved the facilities there. Beside the practice field there is a grassy hill where spectators sit, and James walked and crawled around on it for almost an hour. He would have run around longer, but the practice ended and we had to go home. Falcons practice isn't open to the public anymore, so we'll have to find another grassy hill pretty soon.

James is also improving his independent walking. Today he walked across the living room - eighteen steps - without holding onto anything. After that, Mommy, Daddy, Grandma and Auntie Erin sat on the floor and James walked between us for a while. He is doing quite well with his walking technique, and he has learned to steady himself with his arms. Previously he would just flop down on his bum when he started to lose his balance. He is getting more confident in his solo walking abilities, but he still likes to hold onto a finger most of the time.

A second tooth has revealed itself. Both are bottom teeth, so he's probably not ready for corn on the cob yet. But neither tooth caused him much pain when it came out, so hopefully he won't have any problems with the rest of them.

We'll try to get some pictures and videos posted soon.

James has a tooth!

2009-08-10T20:25:00.005-04:00

James's first tooth broke through this week. It's hard to see in the picture, but trust me, it's there. It's on the bottom, slightly to his right side. He has been drooling and chewing on things for months now, but the tooth didn't want to come out. Now that the first one is here, we expect more to follow shortly. Then we'll all eat corn on the cob together.

James has been working on his walking skills. He is now an expert at walking while pushing his wheeled toys (he did about 40 laps around the coffee table yesterday), and is very good at walking while holding on to someone's hands (fingers, actually). He is comfortable enough with this now that he will hold on just with one hand, and carry something to chew on in the other hand. Daddy gets a lot of exercise (though not much sleep) with James's walking practice. Though he usually wants to hold onto someone or something, James has taken up to seven independent steps without touching anything. Mommy and Daddy sat opposite each other on the floor and helped James walk between us. One of us would turn him in the right direction and help him steady himself, then let go and let him walk to the outstretched arms of the other person. He was a little wobbly, but he got better and better at it, finally making it seven steps without falling. And even when he fell, he enjoyed it tremendously - he landed on his diaper-padded bum on a carpeted floor, so that was fun too.

This newfound mobility means Daddy has to keep a very close eye on James now, even more than before. Previously he was hard to keep up with, but I could always assume he was on the floor somewhere. Now, however, he is learning to climb. That means Daddy has to watch for vertical threats as well as horizontal ones. We discovered his new desire to climb last weekend, when he tried to scale the wall of his kennel (see previous blog entries for explanation of 'kennel'). What he once saw as a barrier, he now sees as a challenge. This morning, he learned how to climb onto the coffee table. He did quite well (with Daddy spotting), but he didn't really know what to do once he got up there. So now we are working on our climbing-down technique. Hopefully James will learn this quickly; right now he's willing to let gravity handle that part of it. Daddy, however, is not.

James's tooth isn't visible in the following picture either, but it was a really good picture so Daddy thought it should go on the blog.

First beach trip

2009-07-29T22:59:00.005-04:00

We just got back from Myrtle Beach last weekend. Beach week with the Lundbergs is always fun, but it was even better this year since James was with us. He loved the beach almost as much as he loved having thirteen adults give him their full attention. James played in (and occasionally ate) the sand, splashed in the waves, and generally had a great time. See footage below.

We went to the doctor yesterday for a weight check (the doctor thinks James is too skinny), and James is up to 16 pounds, 11 ounces. That's over a pound more than he weighed 3 weeks ago. He's also eating better; for a while there he was not happy about his food. He has a big appetite now, however, so hopefully the doctor will be satisfied with his size.

James's favorite activity these days is walking around. He needs to hold on to someone's fingers to keep his balance, but he walks all over the place now. He's fast, too; it looks like he's pulling mommy and daddy around by the fingers when he gets going at full speed. The cats aren't too happy about his improved mobility, though - chasing them around keeps James entertained all day.

Mommy goes back to school next week, so James and daddy will be on their own during the day. That also means no more sleeping late for daddy. Not a problem for James, who never sleeps late, but daddy enjoys having mommy to cover the morning shift. And mommy enjoys the summer break, so going back to school will be painful for her too. But we're planning some fun activities for the weekends that hopefully James will enjoy, so we have something to look forward to.

James is Awfully Good Looking

2009-07-15T12:29:00.002-04:00

So, you guys should all go check out James's pictures on Stylized Portraiture's website (http://www.stylizedportraiture.com/blog/). Just scroll past their Christmas ad and you'll see a number of highlights from James's last photo session, which, I think you'll notice, he loved. He just grinned the whole time and was a complete ham for the camera. It gets increasingly difficult to decide which pictures we will purchase as they're all so freaking good, but, tragically, also freaking expensive. In a week or so, Heather (the photographer) will put all the pictures up, and we'll let you know how to see those when we do. Enjoy!

9 Months Old!

2009-07-02T23:29:00.004-04:00

James will be 9 months old tomorrow! The fun thing about this blog is we can go back and see what he was like when he was born, and see how different he is now.

For instance, he couldn't throw a ball back then. As you can see above, he has learned how much fun it is to play catch. He doesn't release the ball at a consistent point in his swing, so the ball can go anywhere. That makes it even more fun. He had a few really good throws this afternoon, but of course there was no cameraman available. You just have to take my word for it. He usually uses his right hand, which does not bode well for his future as a left-handed pitcher for the Braves. Sorry, Grandpa.

James continues to enjoy walking behind his wheeled toy, and did this until about midnight last night. His balance continues to get better, and on the occasions when he does fall down, he aims himself well enough that he usually lands on his caboose instead of his face. Quite a useful skill; Daddy still hasn't perfected it. The only limit to his walking fun is the small track; he crosses the room in about 15 seconds, and the horsie is quite difficult to turn around. Mommy or Daddy do the turning, which keeps us quite busy. We need to find a bigger runway.

Yesterday evening, James went biking for the first time. Daddy was actually driving the bicycle, and James rode in his rickshaw-type wagon attached to the back of the bike. And Mommy jogged alongside. James looked a little unsure about the whole experience, but he wasn't scared at all. Hopefully he'll get used to it; we have a nice neighborhood to go biking in.

In another display of rare baby fearlessness, James endured two needles at his recent doctor visit and didn't cry either time. At his 9-month checkup, they gave him a flu vaccination and then the doctor ordered a blood test to check his iron levels. James sat (relatively) still and got through both needles without a peep. Some adults can't do that.

We're all still enjoying the summer, visiting the neighborhood pool often and finding fun things that James can do. We're getting ready to go to Myrtle Beach in a couple of weeks, and we're close to a state park that provides plenty of activities for us. Hopefully this will help James learn to love playing outside, and keep him from wasting too much time with TV and video games.

Fun new methods of getting around

2009-06-25T20:52:00.005-04:00

I had a big long blog about how James is walking with his toy, crawling around chasing after the cats, and playing in the neighborhood pool, but the internet connection cut out and it all disappeared. Hopefully the neighbor we are stealing internet from will get that fixed soon. It's quite annoying.

First Summer (Outside the Womb)

2009-06-08T17:07:00.004-04:00

This is our first summer when we can play with James. Mommy can attest to his presence last summer, but he's more fun (and less painful to Mommy's back) now. James is enjoying his summer with Mommy and Daddy both home, as you can see. Meme (paternal grandmother) got him a pool, so we decided to set it up on the deck and see how he likes water. He didn't mind sitting in it, but he was not willing to put his face in the water - a good instinct, I think. We'll gradually add more water to the inflatable pool (it was about at bathtub level here), and eventually he should be ready for the big neighborhood pool.

With Mommy and Daddy both at home for the summer, lots of tasks that Daddy never got to finish are finally being addressed. Mommy has been working on decorating James's room, and it is almost complete. He still has his bed in our room, but all of his clothes and things are in his own room now.

Daddy has mostly been outside, trying to tame the yard. Recent rain has made the grass (weeds, mostly) shoot up, and keeping up with it has been difficult. But we had a couple of sunny days, so the lawn is finally cut. And thanks to the fertilizer spreader that Daddy got for his birthday from Mommy's family, the ant problem has been taken care of. At the beginning of May, there were over 40 ant beds in the yard, and Daddy was getting tired of attacking them one-by-one, only to have another one pop up a few feet away. But with the fertilizer spreader ( a Scotts EdgeGuard Deluxe Rotary Spreader), the whole yard has a nice layer of anti-ant protection. Yesterday I saw three feeble little beds, easily destroyable, instead of the 40 or so that we used to have. The ants probably just moved into the neighbors' yards, but who cares. They can borrow my spreader.

On rainy days, Daddy got the garage organized. Papa (paternal grandfather) gave Daddy a bunch of tools, including a table saw, a band saw, and the world's biggest drill. The garage now has shelves and some kind of order, so finding all of these great tools will be easy. Daddy's next project will be the construction of a porch swing, so all the tools will be put to good use.

Back to James, the actual star of this blog. He has reached the stage that I'm sure all parents recognize, the ' rapidly crawling everywhere' stage. He can cross the room on his hands and knees faster than most adults can on foot. And he wants to climb everything. We're trying to think of some cushiony-yet-stable objects he can climb on without hurting himself if he tips over, which occasionally happens. His balance is pretty good, however, and he doesn't fall much anymore. He can pull himself up to standing quite well while holding onto something (or someone), and will briefly let go and stand unsupported for a second or two, before grabbing his support again. He usually has his legs spread pretty wide when he attempts his unsupported stands, though. We'll probably have to teach him not to do that, though; otherwise he'll walk like a sumo wrestler. He's too skinny to be a sumo wrestler.

James is spending more time outside, now that the weather is nice. Besides the above-mentioned pool, we have been going to the neighborhood playground, which conveniently has baby swings. There was also the fun trip to the petting zoo. Mommy was a little freaked out when the deer/goats/peacocks came right up to us, but James thought it was great. We went with Mommy's coworker and her baby Kara, who is about the same age as James. We hope to find more outdoor activities as the summer progresses. There's a big state park nearby (Fort Yargo) that has free admission on Wednesdays, so we'll probably try there this week.

Last Sunday was the first time we have put James in the church's nursery - we used to carry him into the service with us, but he's getting a little talkative for that now. Mommy was kind of worried about how he would behave being around a bunch of other babies (and not his parents)for the first time. The nursery gave us a vibrating beeper (yes, like the Olive Garden) and said they would buzz us if he had any problems. But apparently he slept the whole time, so he couldn't have been too upset. He was probably glad to have a little break from Daddy, anyway.

Growing fast

2009-05-18T21:47:00.002-04:00

James has learned all kinds of fun things. He perfected the forward crawl just recently, as seen in the previous blog entry. Now he has learned how to stand up on his own. The play table in the picture above was originally much taller, but I cut a bit of the legs off to make it easier for James to reach. At the time, he was not yet able to sit up on his own, so I thought if he could grab the top he could support himself. Within a couple of weeks, he was not only supporting himself with it, but crawling on top of it. Now he can stand up beside it. Of course now the legs would be better at their original height; I hope I saved the pieces I cut off. But James is using all sorts of other things to stand up now: the walls of the playpen, the edge of the couch, the footstool, and me if I happen to be sitting on the floor. I imagine soon I will have to pull him down off the top of the bookshelves.

James also learned to play the piano. His grandma sat down with him in front of her piano last weekend and he learned that hitting the keys made a fun sound. Mommy has an old electric keyboard, so we got that out for him to practice on. He's already better at the piano than I am.

Finally, James's manual dexterity is developing quite well. He can pick up his Gerber Puffs (little cereal-like finger foods about the size of Cheerios), although he doesn't much like the taste of them. He can also pick up his pacifier, turn it around in his hands, and put it in his mouth the correct way. I've been trying to wean him off the pacifier - only giving it to him when he's going to sleep - but now he can get it himself. He likes the teething ring better, though, so maybe we can retire the pacifiers soon.

We got James a small inflatable pool this week, so of course the weather is now unseasonably cold. It should warm up soon, though, and then we'll see how he likes the water. He enjoys the baths, so hopefully the pool will be fun too.

James has mastered crawling

2009-05-12T01:32:00.002-04:00

As you can see, James is now harder to keep track of.

James's first march

2009-04-29T16:19:00.005-04:00

On Saturday, we participated in the March of Dimes walk in Roswell. James led the way in his stroller, and Mommy, Daddy, and Grandma followed along. As you can see, James was fairly comfortable in his stroller. Daddy carried him for the last half-mile or so. The weather was great, and we all feel like we did quite well in the walk. We went as part of the Magdalena Roberts team, the rest of which will be walking this Saturday in Mississippi. Many thanks to all of you who donated to the March.
James continues to learn all kinds of fun new things. He is very good at raising himself up from his stomach into a seated position. He puts his hands out, pushes back, tucks his legs under, and sits up. The first couple of times he did it, he looked a little surprised at the position he ended up in. Now, however, it is no big deal for him.
James is also starting to climb up onto things. As soon as he learned to sit upright on his own, he decided he wanted to stand. He has a little activity table with buttons and knobs and lights - last month, he learned to sit in front of it and hit the buttons, and now he holds onto it and uses it to get up on his feet. He is also holding onto the sides of his portable kennel and using it to stand up:

Technically it is not a kennel, but it kinda looks like one. Mommy's friend Ann is letting us use it. It's great; it keeps the cats out and the boy in.

James has also discovered that it is fun to stick his tongue out. He gets really excited when Mommy does the same. Sitting with Mommy and making faces keeps him entertained for hours. Well, minutes, really. But it seems like a long time.

We got a call from the cardiologist's office, and they had the results of James's recent blood test (see previous blogs for details). The tests show that James does not have any of the markers that indicate a predisposition for long QT syndrome. Of course they still won't say that there's nothing wrong with him, because that would mean they'll never see our bank account again, and they've grown quite fond of it. So they want to do periodic EKGs for as long as they can get away with it. But evidence continues to pile up proving that James is perfectly healthy and that these doctors are full of crap. I say that with all due respect, of course.

Okay, time for prunes and carrots. For James, anyway; hopefully Mommy and Daddy can find something else to eat.

James Has Never Looked Better

2009-04-23T21:01:00.002-04:00

Ok guys, two things you need to do:

1. Check out James's new pictures on

http://www.stylizedportraiture.com/blog/

the blog for Stylized Portraiture. These are only some of the pictures Heather took, and they're incredible.

2. Sponsor Patrick and me on our walk for March of Dimes on Saturday. We're walking as part of the team for Noah and Julie's baby, Magdalena. You may have read about her as Patrick linked their blog. In case you want to check them out, their blog is on

http://noahandjulieroberts.blogspot.com/

if you want to know their story. But we're looking for sponsors, so go to

http://www.marchforbabies.org/jpfwallace

and sponsor us.

And have an excellent day. :)

Picture Pages, Picture Pages

2009-04-22T21:37:00.004-04:00

Look at this gorgeous guy. :)

James wears his Boyd's Bears jammies--take note, Auntie Erin!

James and Daddy Look so handsome.

Well, today was a big photo day for James. He had his six month photo shoot with the fancy photographer (Heather Lickliter of Stylized Portraiture) at the Botanical Gardens in Athens. He looked great, especially in his Def Leppard onesie. The pictures will be great. We also took some pictures of him because he's just so gosh darn cute.

Case in point: tonight as Patrick and I are desperately trying to get him to go to sleep, he's making raspberries and sticking out his tongue and making raspberries again. So I stick my tongue out and do a tongue-protruding raspberry, and James tries to do the same thing, mostly just producing large amounts of spit. So I do it again, and he tries again, over and over.

He finally achieved success (as much as can be expected of a six month old), and Patrick got it on video. We all had the most marvelous time, even though we're exhausted and very ready for sleep. Well, two of us are. James is still wide awake and playing with Patrick's shoe lace.

Pictures and a Brief Update

2009-04-16T21:03:00.003-04:00

Auntie Kristin painted James a beautiful valence when she was visiting. We'll be putting it up this weekend.

Grandma bought James a new hat, which he loves.

The Easter Bunny brought James all kinds of good stuff.

As Daddy said, James looked quite dapper on Easter.

Looking somewhat less dapper, James enjoyed his carrots.

Not too much time to write tonight, but I wanted to post some pictures of my beautiful boy. He's growing so fast and doing new things every day. Today he was laying on his stomach and pushed himself up so that he was on his hands and knees, rocking back and forth and all primed for crawling. Growing boy. So cute! :)

So Many Firsts

2009-04-09T15:33:00.003-04:00

Well, it has been an exciting few days in the life of James. On Sunday, at six months and one day, James got his first scrape (photo to come). Poor kid landed on his nose on the edge of my computer (Can you believe what a bad mother I am? Someone should really call DFACS.) while he was working on his sitting up and I was working on Facebook. His nose seems to be healing well, but there's no telling how deep the emotional scars run. Mine and his.

The very next day, at six months and two days, James did his first community service. He and I went with my mom and my sister Kristin to do Meals on Wheels, which was great fun. James cheered some of the elderly residents of the elderly residence home where we delivered the meals. They all thought he was adorable, so obviously they all have very good taste. I hope they don't have very good taste buds, though, as the food didn't smell that great. But perhaps it was delicious. I didn't sample, so I suppose I really ought not judge.

After we delivered the meals, we took James to his very first tea party at this tea shop near my mom's house. He was unimpressed and mostly cranky, though I was quite taken with the orange tea and cinnamon scone. James cheered right up after I fed him, so I think the crankiness was primarily due to hunger and not a general dislike of tea parties. His father might disagree though.

This week, he and I have been hanging out while Patrick worked for his old land lady (old in the sense that she's no longer his land lady; not old in the sense that she's some sort of geriatric person. She's really quite spry and lively.). It was so much fun to be able to spend the day with my little boy. However, I'm amazed that Patrick is able to do things like laundry and dinner-making. James is certainly a full-time job. A fun full-time job, but a full-time job nonetheless. I was considerably less productive than he generally is.

I'm quite distressed that I'll have to return to work in just two days. It was a great spring break, and now I can't wait for summer. I love my job, but I love my boy more.

We'll have some Easter pictures to post soon as my mom and sister found James the cutest Easter outfit. I know he'll be the cutest thing ever on Sunday.

Right now the house sounds like it's about to collapse down on top of us as the hail that's hitting it must be the size of small Volkswagens. James seems undisturbed, and is sitting on the floor (with tremendous skill, I might add) playing with his little trucks. I'm going to go enjoy more time with him.

Six Big Months

2009-04-05T14:55:00.006-04:00

James is officially six months old! This is a milestone for several reasons, we have discovered.

First, a lot of his toys are labeled "6m+". He has been playing with them for a couple of months now, but today he can officially play with them without Daddy getting in trouble from DFACS. So you know what that means: time to buy him some 12m+ toys.

Second, a lot of baby health problems are less likely after the six-month mark. SIDS is rare after this age, and his immune system has developed enough to fight off infections more efficiently now. Respiratory infections and things like that are less life-threatening, too. We still worry about him, but it's good to know that he's not completely helpless against sickness now.

Third, he has started eating actual foods. Well, not actual foods like pot roast or tacos, but non-milk foods. We have been giving him a little bit of baby cereal for a couple of weeks now, but it's mostly milk with a little bit of rice powder in it. Now we get to try fruits and vegetables (in mush form). Here we see the first experience with green beans:

He was a bit confused at first, but he seemed to like it after a few tries. He actually ate most of what was in the bowl (everything that he didn't end up wearing). We have a couple more days with the green beans (we're supposed to stick with one food for a few days to see if he has an allergic reaction to it), then we can try other fun things like carrots, bananas, and applesauce.

A couple of weeks ago, we got a big bucket of baby clothes from a yard sale. We're still working our way through the bucket, but it was worth the price for this one outfit alone:

It is an authentic Def Leppard onesie! Who knew such things existed? James can't wait to see what other treasures await him in the mystery yard sale bucket. We're hoping the previous owners were Bon Jovi fans too.

Auntie Kristin does not get a spring break, but she is taking a day off work to spend a long weekend here in Georgia with James (and the rest of us). Auntie Erin was here last weekend, so James has had lots of attention lately. Kristin is currently painting a window decoration for James's room, keeping with the jungle motif that mommy started. Kristin also brought him a toy from her recent trip to Belgium, a little doggie that is now named Wags.

Apparently Wags is quite tasty:

We go to the doctor for the 6-month checkup and immunizations on Tuesday. He's probably not going to like that. Hopefully it won't be too bad, though. Mommy is on spring break, so she can go with us. Everything is a little easier when Mommy is there.

James is still not exactly crawling, but he is rolling around like crazy. He can get into the crawling position pretty well, but he just pushes himself backwards. He sits up completely on his own now, and he stands up on his own with a little help balancing. One of Mommy's friends came to visit last week, and she brought her one-year-old daughter. Seeing her run around everywhere was a good indicator (and warning) of what we can expect with James in the next few months. I think I should start baby-proofing the house now; hopefully it will be safe by the time he can scamper freely.

We've almost reached 6 months

2009-03-26T11:29:00.005-04:00

James and Auntie Erin (sorry you're sideways)

James and Grandma

James and cousin Jeffrey (sideways again; sorry)

Supermanning with Daddy

Cousin Jeffrey, James, and Cousin David

Sorry there has not been a blog entry in a while. We don't have internet at the new house. Occasionally Mommy's laptop can pick up a wireless signal from somewhere, but it doesn't always work. We're trying to come up with a better plan.

James is sitting up on his own pretty well now. He has also learned how to pull himself up to a sitting-up position, if he is on a slanted surface (like a lap). He can't quite lift himself up from a completely flat surface like the floor, but he has the idea. He has also decided that whatever position we hold him in is the wrong position, and he will squirm constantly until he finds the correct position. He has not found it yet.

In a continuing effort to pay off their student loans, the doctors have decided to do genetic testing on James, to look for the long QT thing again. They'll have to take a couple of ounces of blood and send it off to some lab somewhere. We have a pediatrician visit coming up, so we'll try to get it done then.

James got to visit new relatives last week, and he also got to see auntie Erin. Mommy's uncle Danny and Aunt Lisa brought their sons David and Jeffrey to town, so James got to hang out with them for a couple of days. He especially liked their dog, some kind of poodle hybrid that looks like a muppet. Mommy and Daddy got to play some football with the visiting relatives, and Erin carried James around so he could watch. Then while Daddy was at the Home Depot, the rest of the family toured the Mayfield Dairy, conveniently located just minutes from our house.
Daddy was at the Home Depot instead of the dairy because 1) Daddy doesn't like wearing hairnets, and 2) the house still needs a good bit of work. But progress is being made. We have successfully cleared out a play room for James on the second floor that the cats are not allowed in. So James can roll around on the ground freely without Daddy worrying about him ingesting cat remnant. We also purchased a small lawn mower and received a weedeater from Grandpa, just in time to tame the lawn before the homeowners' association got impatient. The yard is still not great, but at least it looks like someone lives there now. I wonder if Google Earth can do another pass and update our image now that I've cut the grass. It's terrible when your yard looks crappy from space.

James has gotten too big for his bassinet, so he has moved up to the full-sized crib. He has also outgrown some of our favorite outfits, but thankfully we have lots of bigger outfits that we have been eager to try on. We're also trying to find more advanced toys for James - things that help him learn more motor skills. The aforementioned Aunt Lisa sent us a good suggestion for a play set that allows him to sit up while playing with it, which I think he'll enjoy. We might also look for things that he can lean on while trying to walk, because he appears almost ready to walk. Baby toys are a lot of fun, so Mommy and Daddy will enjoy the shopping. For James's benefit, of course.

Picture of James sitting up that I mentioned in the previous post

2009-03-06T22:36:00.003-05:00

This is James almost sitting up, almost on his own. Read the post right before this one for more information.

Congratulations, you're five months old! Here, have a bum rash.

2009-03-06T21:28:00.004-05:00

Yes, I know that's a cat and not a bum rash. I'm not about to post a picture of my son's bum rash on the world wide web. The picture merely shows how excited James is about the cats. They've been here for several days now, but the trauma of moving has kept them huddled up behind the dryer most of the time. Only recently have they come out freely into the rest of the house. James saw them a few times when we were all living at Grandma and Grandpa's house, but he was unimpressed then. But now, wow, they are enthralling. He watches them intently whenever they come in the room, and tries his best to grab them when they come near. That, of course, makes them run away. He has actually made contact a couple of times, but the aforementioned rash appeared shortly after his first feline contact, so we thought maybe that wasn't such a good idea. But the rash is apparently just a run-of-the-mill baby thing, and not some cat fungus. Still, Daddy thinks the cats would be better off in the basement away from James's things, but we all know it doesn't matter what Daddy thinks.

James has been a bit uncomfortable lately, and the doctor says it is because he will soon have teeth. Last night he (and therefore all of us) slept very little and cried a good bit. We went to the doctor this morning, and he said that teething would cause some discomfort, but it was nothing to worry about. Hopefully he'll be finished with it soon, though. He rarely cries, so it must be bad for him to make him cry like he did last night.

On a happier note, James is able to sit up almost on his own. He can sit up and play with toys and books for a long time with a little assistance, and can hold himself up on his own for a few seconds. He has sufficient strength to hold himself up longer, but he forgets he has to balance himself, so he falls over. A little practice and he should soon be an expert, though. We have a semi-good picture of him sitting up; I'll try to figure out how to upload it here soon.

Snow Day!

2009-03-01T21:27:00.002-05:00

Great news: Mommy gets to stay home tomorrow! We had a (relatively) big snowstorm, and Jackson County schools are cancelled tomorrow. The local weather people said that about 4 inches fell - not a terribly impressive amount for you folks from Minnesota or Colorado or London, but that's pretty big for Georgia. Enough to bring the public school system to a screeching halt, at least. But Mommy gets a snow day, so who cares if we fall behind the Japanese.

This morning, James went to Church. We went with him, of course. There was a nursery for kids his age, but we decided to keep him with us during the service to see how he did. He was doing pretty well at first, but then he got hungry and wanted to tell everyone about it. Daddy got up and headed out to the hall to give James his bottle. It was a bit of a long way. Mommy's friend had invited us to sit with her in her normal spot, which is at the front of the church. I'm pretty sure if we had been sitting in the back, James would not have made a sound the whole time. But since we were up in the Amen pews, we had to skip out early. That's okay; it was the "financial responsibility" sermon. Daddy can recite it from memory. We'll try again next week from a more James-friendly location (i.e. the back row).

Tonight, none of us are (is that right? Or is it "none of us is"? Chalk it up to the illness) at our personal best, health-wise. James has been extra fussy since after church, Mommy hurts all over (like the aches that come with the flu), and Daddy seems to have a stomach bug. If we can get James to sleep, Mommy and Daddy will work on doing the same, and maybe we'll all feel better tomorrow.

Up to His New Tricks

2009-02-20T22:22:00.002-05:00

About ten minutes after I posted the last blog entry, James wowed us again with his many talents. He proceeded to kick himself clear out of his pants, which is only slightly different than what he had been doing. When he wears a onesie and pants, he will sometimes pull the pants down while he's playing with his feet. In an effort to keep his legs warm, Patrick dressed him in a full-body outfit that snaps all the way up. James would have none of that, though, and figured out how to move his legs up within the outfit and then kick out so that all the bottom snaps come undone. Which he proceeded to do. Repeatedly.

Also, after weeks of trying, James finally managed to get his toes into his mouth. He was ecstatic. Patrick managed to get that on video, so that will be a good one for posterity. :)

Then, to top it all off, James slept all night last night. Well, technically, he did wake up one time to kick around a little and make some noises, but he went back to sleep before I woke up to feed him. This morning I had to wake him up to give him breakfast before I went to meet our movers.

Which reminds me, today we had all our furniture moved in, so we'll finally have somewhere to sit other than the floor. Not that it's not a great floor, and we're making do with what we have, but I am really looking forward to sitting on a couch again. Also, much as we appreciate my work friends lending it to us, Patrick is really sick of the air mattress. I kind of liked it, but I imagine that's because it's been so long since we had our actual bed that I've forgotten how great it is.

Well, I probably ought to get James up from his nap now. It's kind of late for a nap, and I'm afraid that now he'll be up all night. Alas.

James is a genius

2009-02-18T20:56:00.002-05:00

So, James had quite a day today. He began by learning how to roll from his back to his stomach. He'd been rolling quite successfully from his stomach to his back for some time now, but the other way involved an awkward arm placement that kept thwarting him. However, he overcame that obstacle today by learning about momentum. He swings his little legs to the side and rolls right over. He can now roll like a barrel around the living room, which means that we need to buy one of those gates for the stairs.

On top of that, he also learned how to use the flaps on his book about body parts today. He has liked turning pages for some time, but he doesn't really get that books go from left to right, so he hasn't been overwhelmingly successful in that particular arena. The flaps have no such rules, so he does quite well with those. The book is basically big drawings of babies in various outfits that cover specific body parts. You then lift up the flap and see that particular body part. James's favorite body parts were the tongue and the fingers, mostly, I think, because those flaps lift downward, which seems to be easier for him than the ones that lift upward. Unfortunately, with the enthusiasm he's now showing for the flaps, they will probably not be long for this world. But that's ok. I'm still awfully impressed with him. :)

Moving In

2009-02-17T17:42:00.002-05:00

Well, the move-in is going well but taking some time. On Monday, my mom was off (this is Melinda, by the way. Patrick is out doing general maintenance on our heating unit and asked me to do an update) and helped Patrick get enough stuff here that we could start living in our new home. Of course, it's a bit of a camp out now, as most of our stuff will not arrive until Friday. Naturally, James has everything he needs, and Patrick and I are doing fine with what we have for now. Patrick has been back and forth to the storage unit several times a day to pick up what he can since we have to pay the movers by the hour on Friday. I'm off on Thursday and Friday for winter break, so I'll be of more assistance in the house set up bit then. I can attest to the fact that it was absolutely wonderful to leave my house at 7:15 this morning and arrive at work fifteen minutes later.

The neighborhood seems great. We all three did a stroll yesterday and saw all kinds of neighborhood things. The pool and tennis courts look really nice, and as I have been typing this (possibly five minutes), about a million kids on bikes have ridden by. I think this will be a wonderful place for James to grow up. Once we get some stuff set up inside, we'll post some interior pictures for you guys to see. Right now, I have no camera. It's somewhere in storage. :)

And by the way, Uncle Dan, the "guy" in the red shirt in the last picture was me, thank you very much. Sheesh. A girl gains a few pounds while she carries around a whole nother person, and this is the kind of comment she incurs.

We're no longer homeless!

2009-02-12T21:26:00.003-05:00

Today we finally closed on our new house! We've been trying since December, but it was in foreclosure and we had to sit around and wait for some bank in Baltimore to sign off on the sale. The bank had several thousand foreclosures to deal with (thank you sub-prime mortgage lenders), so they took a while to get around to ours. But the closing went fine, and now James has a home. We'll try to start moving in this weekend. The process took a lot out of Melinda, who has had to fight off the sniffles while faxing and emailing several thousand documents this week, so hopefully she can also get some sleep this weekend.
Melinda did a lot to get our house, but Bob Bailey, the world's greatest real estate agent, did even more. We had just about given up on selling our previous house in Duluth, but Bob got it sold. It is terribly difficult to sell a house these days, and it took a lot of work by Bob to find a buyer. Then once we sold it we thought the hard part was over, but we were mistaken. There are so many houses on the market right now that finding the right one is like finding the proverbial needle in the proverbial haystack (Barrow County has many actual haystacks as well as proverbial ones). One was really nice, but the "as-is" status was worrisome. Another one would have been great except that it was in a completely empty neighborhood. Then there was the house that was already inhabited - by roaches. Melinda really wanted that one. Then we found the big winner seen above, only to discover that it was set to be auctioned at the Barrow County courthouse in five days. Bob got it off the auction block just in time, and kept working furiously until we got it. We have no idea how much work it took, but we know it was not easy. So if anyobody needs a real estate agent, you should call Bob:

Bob Bailey
Prudential Georgia Realty
Roswell/East Cobb Office
3775 Roswell Road, Suite 200
Marietta, GA 30062
(770)973-8822
http://www.BBaileyProperties.com rbailey@prudentialgeorgia.com

Busy day

2009-02-06T17:17:00.002-05:00

James is a little sleepy today. On Wednesday we went to see the doctor, where James got a series of shots. He did fine at the doctor's office, but the shots caused him some irritation that night and on into yesterday. A little Tylenol helped, but he still wore himself out crying.
Yesterday we went to see the inspection of the house we are trying to buy, where it was very cold. We had expected that the inspector would have turned on the heater really high in order to check it, but that was not the case. There was no heat because there was no electricity; the power company didn't get there when they were supposed to. So it was really cold, and Daddy did not pack all the really cold weather gear. We wrapped a blanket around James, but his face was still cold, and he kept wiggling his legs out. After a few minutes, we decided to hang out in the car with the heater on and listen to NFL Radio. We didn't get home until after dark, and James's eat/sleep/play schedule was thrown off. He was ready to stretch out and play after being confined in a carseat or blanket for much of the day. Daddy's suggestions that he go to sleep some time before midnight were ignored.
Today, we slept a little later than normal, and we also took a little afternoon nap. And I do mean 'we'; Daddy fell asleep on the floor beside James. I woke up first, though. Hopefully this weekend we can get back to normal.

James is 4 months old!

2009-02-04T18:45:00.004-05:00

Today James is 4 months old, which means another doctor visit. He is up to 12 pounds, 1 ounce, and 25 inches tall. James did not enjoy the shots they gave him, but he got over it quickly. He is in excellent shape, according to the doctor, and on schedule developmentally. Hopefully we will not see another doctor (other than the now-unnecessary cardiologist) until his 6-month checkup.

Mommy is working furiously to complete the purchase of James's new house (we're planning to live there too), with the closing scheduled for Feb. 12 - next Thursday. Tomorrow, James and I are going out to the new house to meet the inspector. We'll try to get some pictures while we're there. It's a nice house, with lots of room for James to grow, and it's very close to Mommy's work. We are enjoying our time with the grandparents, but James has already amassed so much stuff that he needs a room (or two or three) of his own. Hopefully we can complete the purchase without any problem.

Good news from the doctor

2009-02-03T13:14:00.004-05:00

We just got a call from the cardiologist (see previous blog entry regarding QT intervals), who said that nothing bad turned up during James's 24-hour monitoring. Whatever might have been going on with his heart when he was sick has now disappeared. Just for fun, we're still going to the other, more specialized pediatric cardiologist in a couple of weeks, so that she too can tell us don't worry, James is fine, that will be six thousand dollars please.

Super weekend

2009-02-02T20:26:00.004-05:00

James got a new toy this past weekend, and he seems to enjoy it greatly. Meme got him a different chair, but it took us so long to get to Augusta to visit that by the time we got the chair, James was too big for it. So we traded it in for a bigger-size toy, seen above. He sits in a chair suspended from springs, and is able to spin around to play with the different toys attached to it. We got it assembled in time for the super bowl, so James got to watch from his bouncy seat. He's not quite tall enough for it yet, hence the pillow under his feet. But he likes it, and he's getting more used to being upright.
As mentioned in a previous entry, we have been working on exercising both sides of James equally. Today he rolled over from his stomach onto his back from the left side, completely on his own. Previously he had seemed to prefer the right side, and only went left with a little nudge from daddy. Now we'll continue to work on crawling, until he has perfected that. And we'll continue to bounce in the new seat.

Exercising

2009-01-30T13:28:00.004-05:00

James and I are working on some new moves. Auntie Erin and a baby-yoga book that Mommy got both suggest working on exercising both sides of the body. As we can see in the earlier video, James likes to roll over by pushing off with the left side and pivoting on the right side. With a little help, he rolled over the other way a few times this morning. He seemed to like it okay, although he kept trying to put his arms back in a position that would roll him over the first way.
James also likes to roll over from his back on to his side, sometimes to squirm around, sometimes to go to sleep. At night he usually rolls onto his right side, but during the day he will go on either side. This morning I got down on the floor with him, and he rolled onto whichever side I was on. Then I got up, and he rolled on to whichever side had a nearby toy. That makes me suspect that perhaps he sleeps on one side at night, not because it's necessarily his dominant side, but because that's the side Mommy and Daddy are on.
Another fun activity James has learned is crawling on his side. He squirms and pushes and swings his legs while on one side or another, and he eventually works his way around in a circle:

These pictures were taken over the course of about 5 minutes, but James is well on his way to performing amazing feats of strength and dexterity like this great athlete:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt0qeIrdRpk

Olympics, here we come!

Fancy pictures

2009-01-27T14:39:00.001-05:00

Last Saturday, James had some professional pictures taken. They can be seen on the photographer's blog:

http://www.stylizedportraiture.com/blog/

James is about a third of the way down.

Exercise

2009-01-27T11:53:00.005-05:00

Last week we went to Augusta to visit the relaitves there. James was feeling a little grumpy at Papa's house, so we didn't get any successful pictures. But a ride in the car and some milk made him feel better, so he was a happy guy at Meme's house.

James and Meme

James and cousin Hannalee

James has learned to enjoy playing on his stomach, it seems. He is not crawling yet, but he is rolling over successfully and grabbing things while on his stomach. Here is some action footage:

James continues to grow

2009-01-22T09:44:00.003-05:00

James and I have just finished up with the laundry, and now we're playing with a toy dragonfly. Well, James is playing with a toy dragonfly; I'm typing.

James's hand-eye coordination is quite good now; he looks at something and then grabs it successfully. This skill coincides with the beginning of his chewy phase, so he usually looks at something, grabs it, and puts it directly in his mouth. He also drools a good bit more than he used to, and I have heard that the combination of these things could be a harbinger of teeth. It's a little earlier than average, but certainly possible.

James is not yet crawling, but he is getting more comfortable on his stomach (see top photo). He has no trouble keeping his head up, and he can roll over on his own. He seems to have the strength in his arms and legs to pick himself up, but not the coordination yet. We are hoping to be in our new house before he figures out how to crawl, so that we can have it set up for his safety and enjoyment. We don't want to mess up the grandparents' house with baby-proofing equipment if we don't have to.

James is also more comfortable sitting up in his Bumbo chair (see second photo). He leans to his right a little, but he keeps his head up without any problem. He will now play with toys while sitting up in the chair, so he no longer has to consciously think about holding himself upright.

Time for James to eat. More pictures later.

Rubicon

2009-01-20T12:40:00.002-05:00

Sorry this isn't exactly about James, but I can type and he can't. We're watching the inauguration, and I think it's worth commenting on.

When I was a kid, Joe Montana and Jerry Rice were the modern-day Arthur and Lancelot. We went out in the backyard and somebody would be Montana, somebody would be Rice, and the rest of us would be disappointed. Herschel Walker was like a comic-book superhero. My brother's stories of Jim Thorpe and Hank Aaron were, to me, like the legends of Paul Bunyan and John Henry. Dale Murphy was the famous Brave of the day, but Hank Aaron was timeless, larger than life. None of us knew anything about any of those great athletes except that they were great athletes. They were the greatest athletes. We wanted to be them. None of us, even in semi-rural Georgia, ever thought about the fact that some of these super-athletes were a different color. He can catch/throw/hit a ball; who cares what he looks like? I didn't even know that Jim Thorpe was Native American until I was 18 years old. In fact, it was in high school that I first understood that there was a time when Jerry Rice and Hank Aaron wouldn't have been allowed to play. It took guys like Jackie Robinson and Fritz Pollard and Thorpe, who were brave enough to be the first, and good enough to make people see their talent instead of their color, to pave the way for them. It also took owners, managers, and coaches who were willing to give them a chance, who chose teamwork above segregation, who decided that being the same was not as important as being the best.
Today, our political system caught up with our pastimes. The majority of our nation voted to be led by a man that doesn't look like the majority of our nation. James is going to grow up in a nation where George Washington and Barack Obama are no less equal than Montana and Rice. Won't it be great when in school, James will learn about Obama, not as the first, but as the 44th? Barack Obama might turn out to be the best president we've ever had, or he might be the worst. But he's in; he's the president, and that makes his color irrelevant. We have officially gotten past how he looks; now let's see how he plays.

Growth

2009-01-18T14:51:00.004-05:00

Several blogs ago, I (Daddy) mentioned posting some pictures of James at zero, one, two, and three months, so we can see how he's grown. I am finally getting to it here.

Birth

One month

Two months

Three months

As of yesterday, he was an even 11 pounds. Mommy spent a good portion of the day putting away his clothes that are too small, and getting out his bigger clothes that fit him now. We'll miss the monkey outfit, but we'll enjoy the green overalls for a while.

Prolonged QT interval (vastly superior to a Long QT Syndrome)

2009-01-16T23:14:00.006-05:00

So I get home from M-I-crookedletter-crookedletter-I-crookedletter-crookedletter-I-humpback-humpback-I last night at about 10 in the p.m. Shortly after that, a cardiologist called (yes, at 10 p.m.) and said we should bring James in first thing in the morning. That's what you love to hear, immediately following an infant's funeral.

We went in this morning, and the doctor said that he saw something that worried him on the EKG James got in November. So we had another EKG, and an echo-something, and now the doctor is no longer worried. Here's what he found: the earlier test showed a prolonged QT interval (see above). He says that means basically that the heart isn't beating efficiently. If the QT interval is consistently prolonged, you call it Long QT Syndrome and it's potentially hazardous. James, however, only had it for a short time, when he was sick. Today's test showed a normal QT interval, so the previous one was likely just a symptom of whatever made him sick. No big deal. The doctor is no longer worried. But he has bills to pay, so he's having James wear a monitor for 24 hours, and he has a follow-up in a month. And mommy and daddy get to take their own EKGs, so that he can see if James is genetically predisposed to weird heart stuff. But the cardiologist thinks there's nothing to worry about.

Fun week.

Celebrating Magdalena's life

2009-01-16T17:05:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I (Daddy) went to Jackson, Mississippi for a celebration-of-life service for Noah's daughter Magdalena. There were a couple hundred people there, and hundreds more around the world (like Nims!) who sent comforting words. Probably a thousand people who have been blessed by the life of this little kid. On the drive home, I was thinking about all the things that most of us have that Magdalena didn't, and how little we do with it.
It doesn't hurt to breathe.
Our minds are clear.
Food is an enjoyable thing, not something we have to force in through a tube.
We can talk.
Certainly with all of these advantages, we can do more with our lives than Magdalena did.
And yet Magdalena did more to bless the people who knew her in 167 days than I have in 11, 745. She didn't just make it through 167 days, she conquered them. She fought against a bad heart and an extra chromosome and a bevy of medical experts that said she wouldn't even be born, and she beat them back long enough to bless a multitude of people. She stood strong, though she never got a chance to stand, and she was never strong. Every breath was a triumph, every day a victory. And when she finished what she was here to do, God brought her up to Him for a well-deserved rest. I'm blessed with good health, a wonderful family, and the resources to communicate with people around the world in an instant. I should probably start using them to bless others. Perhaps, when my days on earth are done, I will also have 167 victorious days.

In the immortal words of Indiana Jones, "It's not the years, honey. It's the mileage."

Magdalena Grace Roberts

2009-01-13T10:21:00.002-05:00

My friend Noah's daughter died this morning. Magdalena wasn't yet a year old. She had trisomy 18 (an extra chromosome) and was not expected to live through birth at all. But God decided that we could use a little more beauty and love down here, so she stayed on earth for a while. In just a few months, she touched more hearts and felt more love than some people do in 32 years. It was a short stay, but it was a good one. Now she can rest, and her spirit isn't confined to a body that was far too small to contain it.

Here is her blog: http://noahandjulieroberts.blogspot.com/

Her parents, Noah and Julie, are great people, with incredible faith in God's love, and they are undoubtedly better prepared to handle this than most people. Certainly better prepared than I was when Talitha died. But please pray for them anyway, because every little bit helps.

The boys at home

2009-01-12T16:05:00.002-05:00

James and I (Daddy) are having fun at home together during the day. Mommy would prefer to be home too, but I'm the lucky one. We're trying to develop a routine, but it hasn't happened yet. I try to fit in reading time and play time between naps, food, and diaper changes. James determines if he wants reading time or play time, however, and indicates this by the amount of wiggling he does. He is currently asleep (a low-wiggle activity), so I am able to type this.
Last Friday James learned how to roll over from his stomach to his back. The event was captured on camera, in case he fogot how to do it after Mommy came home. Thankfully, he retained the knowledge, and Mommy got to see it live this weekend. He is generally more comfortable with the tummy time, so we did a bit more of that today. We got him a crescent-shaped pillow for support, and he seems to like that. He is kicking his legs while on his stomach, so hopefully he will perfect the art of crawling soon.
Since he is three months old, we thought we would find a picture of him at birth and then each month, so that we can see how he's growing. I'll try to help Mommy pick out the pictures tonight and get them posted tomorrow.

James is 3 months old!

2009-01-04T14:31:00.003-05:00

Today is January 4th, which means James has been out in the world for 3 months. It also means that Mommy has to go back to work tomorrow, so it's her last full day with James. I (Daddy) will be home with him during the day, so goodbye Days of Or Lives, hello SportsCenter.

James has recently started trying to talk, which is quite entertaining. He picks a sound, like "hay" or "ah", and repeats it several times, getting comfortable with it. The look on his face indicates he wants to tell us something, but we're not smart enough to catch on to his language. It must be frustrating for him to have slow parents. One of his preferred utterances kind of sounds like "Erin," which should make his aunt happy.

He is also working on hand-eye coordination, grabbing for things that he is looking at. He has a pretty good grip (at least I think he does; we haven't given him a dynamometer or anything), but he hasn't perfected the timing of the grip yet. So he usually looks at something, reaches out for it, slaps it, then closes his hand a second later. After doing this a few times, however, he has managed to synchronize the reach with the grip. He has a little arch with fish hanging from it that he lays under, and he managed to grab the fish's tail and hang on for several seconds.

Yesterday he had his most successful tummy time (we lay him on his stomach so he can practice lifting his head up, in preparation for crawling), getting his arms underneath him and using them (mostly the left one) to push himself up further. He is not a big fan of the tummy time, and only tolerates it for a few minutes at a time before crying. But his attempts have gotten longer, so hopefully he'll get used to it.

I don't know if any of these things are on par with other kids, since we have never raised another kid. We do what the doctors and the legitimate-sounding books tell us to do, and let James learn and develop as much as he can. We are deliberately avoiding comparing his development to that of other kids. There are probably three-month-olds that can juggle apples or list the presidents or have their own World of Warcraft avatar, but I see no good in comparing James to other kids. We don't have other kids; we have James. We'll give him everything we can to help him grow, but he has to do the growing. There will be plenty of time for competition later.

The Post-Christmas Post

2008-12-31T09:23:00.007-05:00

James and Great Grandpa

James with Auntie Kristin and Auntie Erin

I don't really know what was happening here, but I thought it was pretty funny.

James's baptism photo with the whole family, plus Pastor Sea

James's first hotel room (where we did not let him touch the bedspread, just in case)

We apologize for not updating the blog sooner, but it's been a very busy time. James had a lot of new experiences this past week, and he handled them all quite well: his first interstate trip, his first night in a hotel, his first church service, his first Christmas, and his first crack pipe smoker, just to name a few. Overall, it was a wildly successful trip.

In the car, James was nothing short of wonderful. He slept much of the time on the way to Virginia, waking only to eat. He would then stay awake for a while afterwards, but would play quietly with me in the back seat while Patrick drove. Of course, finding somewhere to feed him occasionally proved difficult (that's where the crack pipe smoker comes in), but we were usually able to find the back of a parking lot somewhere to satisfy his hunger. Changing him in the car was more difficult due to the lack of flat surface area. He kept rolling towards the back of the seat. However, aside from a few crooked diapers, we all faired quite well in our travels.

The visit itself couldn't have been better. James saw his Aunties Erin and Kristin again, and met, for the first time, his great grandfather, his great uncles Dan and Tom, his great aunt Cindy, and his second cousin Jason. James was beautifully behaved for the entire trip, and we all enjoyed visiting with the family. The first big highlight was James's baptism, which went great. He didn't even cry when the pastor poured the water on; he just looked at him skeptically. My grandfather arranged for a nice reception after the baptism, where Grandpa wielded the cake knife like a samurai sword, and all the Lutherans were enamored with our beautiful boy.

The Christmas festivities were spectacular. James was awake at all the right times, asleep at almost all the others, and everyone had a great time. We couldn't have asked for more.

The trip back went almost without a hitch. About at the Virginia-North Carolina state border, we realized that I had given my house key to the cat sitter, Patrick never had one, and, though we had my mother's keys, her house key was not on that ring. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), all the doors to my parents' house were locked, and, in an effort to be helpful, the cat sitter had locked the key I gave her in the house so we would have it as soon as we got back. My parents' neighbors who used to have a key moved last month, and the only key we could come up with was the one my mom had back in northern Virginia. Since we had just spend about four hours trying to get out of Virginia, we weren't wild about the idea of traversing back through that whole state to retrieve the key. Therefore, my poor mom had to rush over to the FedEx drop off and overnight the key to her friends down in Alpharetta so that someone would be able to sign for it, and then we went to their house to pick it up. On the up side, the night we stayed in North Carolina, Patrick finagled a low rate at a swanky hotel, so that was really nice. :)

All in all, the trip was spectacular. I think James had a lot of fun, and Patrick and I did too. Our next excursion will be to Augusta to visit with Patrick's side of the family again on Friday.

We hope you guys all had a great holiday, and Happy New Year!

And They're Off

2008-12-19T07:40:00.002-05:00

We're getting ready to head out on our big, two-day road trip to VA. Packing for this thing has been interesting. We pretty much have to take all of James's possessions with us. After all, he'd be sad if we didn't take his seat with the animals. He'll most certainly need a bath. There's no telling what kind of weather we'll have up there, and James has days where he goes through five outfits, what with the spit up and leaking of other fluids and whatnot, so we need to bring all his clothes. We'll need his pack and play, but we should bring his travel bassinet too, because that's really more comfortable to sleep in. Turns out that everything doesn't fit in our car, so we have to take my mom's. It will be a long trip. Wish us luck, and, if I don' post again soon, Merry Christmas.

We are officially homeless!

2008-12-15T20:27:00.002-05:00

Auntie Kristin tickles James

James is happy with Auntie Erin

Yay! We successfully finished our closing today, and we are now proud homeless people. :) Now, we just wait to see if the house we really want is going to be available. We should find out within the week. If it turns out that we can't get it, we'll go back to hunting. James needs a room and a yard.

Only One More Day . . .

2008-12-14T21:05:00.003-05:00

until we close on our house! I'm soooo hoping that it goes smoothly. We'll see. Wish us luck.

James continues to do well. He had a bit of the sniffles this morning, but he doesn't seem much worse for the wear. He was still full of smiles this morning, which is my absolute favorite time with him. Right now we're both morning people, and Patrick thinks we're both crazy.

In other news, I've just discovered the wonders of facebook and have reconnected with friends from seventh grade. It's amazing. I'm sure the whole thing is really just an ingenious plan by the government to track all Americans under the age of thirty-five, but I'm ignoring the Big Brother factor and just enjoying it. :)

The pictures, by the way, are of Patrick entertaining James with a puppet he made out of a bag from Jason's Deli named Mr. Crinkles.

Busy Days

2008-12-12T15:43:00.003-05:00

Sorry it's been so long since an update. Things got quite intense with the moving thing there for a while. Patrick had been packing up things at a somewhat leisurely rate starting late last week. However, on Tuesday, our real estate agent called and said, "You're not out yet? Why aren't you out yet? Those cats aren't still there, are they? My cleaning people are coming. You need to get out." So, we ran over, grabbed a UHaul, and went crazy trying to get everything into storage by Wednesday, when we HAD to be out, according to good old Bob (the real estate agent).

Patrick did all the packing and moving himself since I was mostly caring for James. The poor guy had to carry an entire bedroom set, a queen mattress and boxspring, all my boxes of books, two tall bookshelves, and a desk down the stairs by himself. It's a wonder he can still move. It's also a wonder that there aren't any holes in the walls. Unfortunately, he doesn't believe in labeling the boxes, so it could be months before I see my socks again. Alas.

On the up side, we should close on our house on Monday at four, so we'll be free to buy a new house. Also on Monday we should find out if the house we really want is free to be bid on. Wish us luck.

On the James front (a much cuter front, I must say), things seem to be going well. James seems to be over his little virus thing. His cute tummy is no longer all bloated, and he doesn't do that groaning thing very much at all. Also, he's growing so much. When he had his weight check on Monday, he was nine and a half pounds. This morning, the bathroom scale said he was ten, but the precision on that one leaves something to be desired as it seems to think that I can lose as much as two pounds just by brushing my teeth. To be fair, they did need brushing, but they didn't need brushing that badly. :)

Our First Road Trip

2008-12-07T21:33:00.003-05:00

Patrick's dad (Papa), James, and Patrick's grandma (GG)

James and Papa

James, Patrick's mom (Meme), and cousin Hannalee

James and Meme

Well, we survived our first road trip with James. He and Patrick and I went to see Patrick's family in Augusta on Saturday. All in all, it went quite well. James slept for pretty much the entire time in the car, both there and back. The worst thing we had to contend with during the drive was a bad Tori Amos rendition of Little Drummer Boy.

We started out going to Patrick's mom's house. Though Patrick's brother Allen, his sister Amy, and her daughter Hannalee came to see James on the day he was born, Patrick's mother wasn't able to make the trip. Therefore, this was the first time she had a chance to meet James. We had a very nice visit with them. Of course, they completely showered him with gifts. He now has tons of Christmas clothes including but not limited to a Christmas bag to wear while sleeping, an outfit that looks like a little bear, a John Deer onesie and a motorcycle hat (not Christmas related, but absolutely adorable), and an outfit that makes the wearer look like a Christmas tree. We will have lots of cute pictures to post here shortly.

After we visited with that crew (minus Allen) for a while, we headed over to Patrick's grandmother's house to visit with her, Patrick's dad, and Patrick's Aunt Vicky. Patrick's grandmother is the nicest lady, and she made some very tasty lasagna for us. James was so good the whole time the adults were eating. He just sat in his little car seat and watched us, occasionally making little noises, while eating his fist.

All in all, it was a great trip. We made it back at a reasonable hour, and, on top of that, we finally found the Sirius Christmas station and were no longer plagued by Tori Amos every tenth song (we only brought the one CD, so it just looped).

Tomorrow we go to the doctor for a weight check for James. Last time we went he was nine pounds, five ounces. Hopefully tomorrow he'll be up to at least nine and a half pounds. His appetite has been pretty good today, so perhaps he's finally getting over his little virus thing. More later. :)

They Shot My Baby!

2008-12-03T20:35:00.003-05:00

Beautiful James

Far and away our funniest Thanksgiving picture

Chich pretending to be taller than Kristin

Chich and Kristin in actual size

I couldn't resist sharing some of our more humorous Thanksgiving pictures. On to the post.

Well, James had his well child visit at the doctor today. He's now in the tenth percentile for length (21.75"), the sixth percentile for weight (9 lb. 5 oz.), and sixty-fifth percentile for head size (15.94"). No doubt he'll be a genius. :)

Though James is not yet recovered from his virus, the doctor assured us that James was not likely to get any of the thing against which they were inoculating him. Therefore, they went ahead with his vaccines. One of them was just this thing they gave him to drink through a dropper. He didn't mind that one at all. Sadly, the same cannot be said of the shots. They gave him one in one thigh and two in the other. Poor kid screamed bloody murder and turned a frightening shade of purple. It was somewhat traumatic for all of us, but he seems fine now though. Not much worse for the wear. He does have some swollen thighs, but other than that he's fine. Apparently he may be fussy and get a fever, but we're supposed to give him some Tylenol. Patrick bought that and an ear thermometer as neither one of us was terribly keen on checking his temperature the other way. :) More later.

Stomach Bug

2008-12-02T14:45:00.003-05:00

Mommy and James in our jammies

Grandma and Danny (in a characteristic pose)

Auntie Erin and Min (with Adam in the background)

James

Auntie Kristin playing with James

I couldn't resist sharing a few more Thanksgiving photos. Chich took such great ones. I'll likely put up more tomorrow. Ok. Now back to our regularly scheduled post.

Sadly, James, according to the doctor (something of a schmuck in whom I have somewhat minimal faith as he said James was fine two days before the poor kid ended up in the hospital for four days and only speaks to Patrick--truly, will not look at me--when we both bring James in), James has developed a stomach bug. He's been doing this awful thing where he's straining for a significant portion of the day. He flings out his little limbs and tightens all his muscles to the point that his little belly button (an innie) protrudes from his person. He turns an interesting shade of purple. It's torture to watch, though it rarely leads to James crying. We saw the doctor yesterday, and he thinks James has some sort of stomach bug and will be following up tomorrow when we take James for his well child two month visit. I'm not sure what they do on that visit if James is not technically a well child. Perhaps he'll get over this thing before tomorrow and it will be a moot point. We'll see how it goes.

*A special message for Nims: We missed you at Thanksgiving. Maybe next year. :)

A New Post at Last

2008-12-01T13:38:00.005-05:00

James learns about Tofurkey

L-R: Adam, Danny, Auntie Erin, Min, James, Patrick, Me, Auntie Kristin, Mr. Zinn, Mrs. Zinn (not pictured: Chich [the photographer and family friend], Grandma, and Grandpa)

James hangs with Auntie Kristin

James gets a cuddle from Auntie Erin

James's special Thanksgiving outfit

As I have received some criticism for being so long in posting again, I figured I'd best get down to it. James is sitting in his bouncy seat enthralled by his animals (particularly the zebra), so I have a few seconds to update everyone on James's exciting life.

And exciting it has been. Thanksgiving was wonderful. James finally got to meet his aunties, among other important people. We had great fun. I'm sad it's over, and I think James is too. He's wanted to be held all day today. I think he got used to Erin and Kristin holding him all the time. Oh well. Only twenty days until we start our Christmas celebration. :) A new countdown begins.

Countdown

2008-11-25T13:04:00.002-05:00

Only eleven or so more hours until James gets to meet his Auntie Erin and Auntie Kristin! We should have lots of great pictures to post tomorrow. Woo hoo!

Busier and Busier (But in a Good Way)

2008-11-24T16:07:00.003-05:00

Well, aren't I awful for going this long without posting? We've been ridiculously busy with the house. Of course, that's a good thing because it means that so far, things are still rolling along. We've gotten everything from our office packed up. The carpet cleaners and the heater guy came today (the buyer requested that as part of the contract), so we're doing well.

We also found a house that's pretty perfect. It's in a great location, needs some work, but almost everything it needs is something we can do ourselves over time, and it's just inside our price range. We'll see how things go. Cross your fingers for us.

An Offer We Couldn't Refuse

2008-11-19T15:51:00.004-05:00

James naps wearing his "Grandma Loves Me" shirt.

Grandma and James chat about all sorts of exciting things.

Good news! Our real estate agent called last night to report that the offer did in fact come in on our house. It's actually not that bad an offer, all things considered. We're quite hopeful that this thing all works out. With that hope in mind, Patrick spent the day packing stuff at our house, and I worked to set up appointments to have the carpet cleaned, the heater serviced, and other things the buyer requested. We'll see how it goes.

Patrick also made time to swing by the Trader Joe's and pick up a couple of Tofurkeys before they were all gone. Now I'm set for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Thank heavens. I was concerned as they're not that easy to come by, and, according to Walter at the Trader Joe's, there's been a run on Tofurkeys in the past two days. He's not sure their new order will be enough to feed the growing number of Tofurkey eaters. So it's a good thing I have mine now. No worries.

On a different note, James and I spent some time working on his baby book today. It's so weird. Looking back, it's hard to conceive of a life before James was here. It's only been a month and a half, but it seems like it's a completely different world than it was before he arrived. I have to say, I prefer this world. :)

Growing Up

2008-11-18T19:01:00.003-05:00

James looks particularly dapper in his sweat suit.

Daddy reads to James from Popular Mechanics.

Well, James is definitely growing. He's officially eight pounds as of his last doctor's visit, and he's outgrown several outfits now. I looked at him this morning after I had dressed him in an outfit that started out too big for him only to see that his ankles and wrists were beyond hanging out. Looking back at pictures of him from when he first came home just made it all the more real. He's getting bigger and cuter by the day.

Dare I say he's also turning into a better sleeper? Patrick and I got him a humidifier that looks like an elephant and spews the mist out of its trunk and a sound machine that has a heartbeat sound. We thought that perhaps using these things at night might help him sleep better. So far, it seems to be going ok. He stayed in bed all night the first night we had them, and last night he stayed in bed for a while too. That's not to say that he was asleep the whole time, but small steps, right? Of course, I might be premature in getting excited about that, but, as Patrick and I discussed just minutes ago, I do tend to be cautiously optimistic.

We did hear from our real estate agent earlier today with word that there is a person who is planning on putting in an offer on our house. While I'm sure it won't be any kind of spectacular offer, we would pretty much take any offer at this point. The only question is whether or not it will actually come in. Again, I'm cautiously optimistic. It would be really great to take James home to a house with a yard he can play in as he grows. It would also be really great to not have to commute for forty-five minutes each way for work, as I know already how eager I'll be to get back home to my baby. We'll see how it goes, and we'll keep you posted.

Fancy Photos and Funny Fountains

2008-11-16T17:02:00.003-05:00

Well, things do seem to be going well on the James front. It's been several days now since we got back from the hospital, and James seems to be back to his normal self. He's still waking himself up when he needs to eat and spending several consecutive hours of the day awake and alert. Thank heavens.

One other indication of James's normalcy is that he's back to astonishing us with his productions. I don't know if you guys have seen that commercial where the man takes the baby into a bedroom and lays him on the bed to change his diaper. Once he removes the old diaper, the baby proceeds to squirt with the force of a garden hose, spraying all over the bedroom. The man quickly replaces the diaper and looks at the baby in astonishment. Then, he waits until he's sure the baby is done, removes the diaper again, and the process repeats. If you haven't seen it, you could come visit our house and view it in person. I swear, that exact same thing happened with James today. I really didn't think someone could fit that much fluid inside himself. We now owe Kristin a new carpet as well as new walls.

On a different (and cleaner) note, we currently have all of James's professional photos available online, should anyone be interested in viewing them. Go to the following link, and, when it asks for a password, put in "poomachine" (I promise, the photographer came up with that one all on her own).

http://www.stylizedportraiture.com/clients/index.php?do=photocart&viewGallery=1183

Oh! I forgot the most exciting thing. James has started smiling. It's wonderful. We'll try to capture it on film, but I imagine this is going to be one of those things to which no picture will do justice. He's amazing.

Back to (ab)normal

2008-11-15T14:58:00.002-05:00

James was strangely lethargic last week, and after he would not wake up to eat, we finally took him to the closest hospital. They did not have any definitive diagnosis, but lethargy in infants is apparently a symptom of meningitis, botulism, and numerous other malevolent things. So they pumped him full of antibiotics, antivirals, antitoxins, et cetera, and passed him off to the experts at the Scottish Rite hospital. They ran every imaginable test on him (including a spinal tap!), but did not find any obvious reason for his lack of alertness. No meningitis, no botulism, no brain damage, no obvious bacterial or viral presence. He stayed there a couple of days, and eventually got better. The doctors still don't know exactly how, but somewhere amidst the intravenous medications, medical examinations, and large numbers of people praying for him, he fought it off and regained his energy. Now, to make up for lost time, he wants to eat every hour and a half. But that's better than being sick. And now we have a giant list of things that aren't wrong with him, so that's reassuring.

Thanks to all of you out there who were praying for him through this, and thanks as well to the doctors and nurses and staff at Scottish Rite, who routinely save the lives of kids like James. Even though they didn't figure out what was wrong with him, they watched over him and took care of him like they were his parents. Whatever they're paying them, it's not enough.

Weaker and Weaker

2008-11-06T10:53:00.002-05:00

Well, James seems to still be doing well. Last night Patrick observed that either James was getting heavier by the day, or he was getting weaker and weaker. I noted that my biceps were increasingly sore as well. Therefore, we concluded that James seems to be thriving, though we did observe that sleep deprivation was probably not good for building or maintaining muscle mass. So it could be some combination of the two.

I had to go to work briefly yesterday to talk with my new sub, so I got a mere taste of how much it will suck when I have to go back full time. Don't get me wrong; it was good to see some of my students and coworkers and to think about teaching for a while. But I was away from James for four and a half hours, and that was torture. No sense in worrying about it now though. It's still two months away, and I'm holding him now, so that's what matters. More later.

James is a month old!

2008-11-04T09:45:00.002-05:00

Congratulations to James, who is one month old today! He shares a birthday with Charlton Heston (take your stinking paws off me!, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-6L_hT3QtQ), Rutherford B. Hayes (19th president of our fair nation, http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/rh19.html), and King Charles IX of Sweden. Sorry, I have no quote for King Charles IX of Sweden.

A Good Day

2008-11-03T21:46:00.003-05:00

James naps on Daddy over the weekend.
James looks cute in a sweat shirt.
James correctly signals a touchdown while watching a football game on Sunday.
James wears the Bald is Beautiful shirt he got from cousin Hannalee.

Well, today was indeed a good day for multiple reasons. Reason one: James slept for three and a half consecutive hours last night. Patrick and I were euphoric. Now, I imagine it's too much to hope for a repeat of that particular performance tonight, but it was really nice to at least have a couple hours of sleep in a row for once.

Reason two: James is getting better at his feeding. He's now successful without the aid of assorted gadgets about a third of the time he eats. This pleases me tremendously as the whole stress of feeding him is occasionally more than I can handle when it doesn't go right. If there are at least a few bright spots, then I have an opportunity to regain my optimism.

Reason three: James had his pictures professionally taken on Friday, and we can now look at the previews of said pictures on the photographer's blog (http://www.stylizedportraiture.com/blog). You have to scroll down a bit to find them. He's on there as Baby J. They're awfully cute, even though my father thinks they're pornographic. I'm quite pleased with them. I can't wait to see all the pictures she took in about a week or so. They'll be on a different web site, so I'll tell you where that is if you are interested in seeing them.

So, as far as James was concerned, the day was a wild success. Less so for me personally as my long-term sub had to quit, so I had a good bit of work to do today to prepare a new sub. But that's a different story, and this isn't really the forum for telling it. So, James had a good day. I'll be content with that, and I hope you are too.

Halloween Outfit and Photos

2008-11-01T16:00:00.003-04:00

Well, yesterday was an exciting, albeit long, day. James, Grandma and I traveled to Athens to have James's picture taken by the photographer who did Patrick's and my wedding pictures. James was mostly cooperative, but, due to his age (a whopping four weeks!), he no longer likes to pose all bent up, which is what the photographer was going for. I'm sure the pictures will be great though. She spent a good solid three hours working on getting him posed and getting good shots. She clearly has tremendous patience, as she apparently does newborn photos on a regular basis. There should be some previews available early next week. I'm very much looking forward to that. That did make for a very long day for us all, but the pictures will be worth it, and James was great in the car (he slept the whole way there and back). I slept some of the way back myself as I had only had about an hour and a half sleep the night before.

Of course, the other big excitement of yesterday was Halloween. James did not trick-or-treat, though Grandpa suggested that he do so and bring back some candy for people with teeth to enjoy. We declined to do that, but we did celebrate. James wore his fancy outfit sent to him by his cousin, Hannalee, and he had a cute, vibrating ghost to play with sent to him by his aunties. He also went to meet all of the trick-or-treaters. One little girl, when Grandma commented, "I like your costume," replied with, "I like your baby." And how could you not when he's so cute?

Breaking a Promise

2008-10-31T07:13:00.003-04:00

Well, I know I promised to keep news of James's productions to myself for a week, but this was just too weird not to share. Read on; you'll see what I mean.

Last night Grandma and I were preparing to give James a bath. He doesn't need but two or so a week, but last night's was especially important as James is going to have his picture professionally taken while he is in the buff today, so he needed to be extra clean. He did not like his bath as much this time and kept wiggling himself all around so that he was virtually submerged in the water. Perhaps he was cold. But I digress. The interesting part came before the bath.

As we got him all undressed for the bath, we could not help but notice that James had produced a large pile of bright green poo. And I do mean bright green. Oh dear, I thought. James has radioactive intestines. This means an immediate call to the doctor. Of course, we had his bath and things all ready then, so we had to do the bath before I could call the doctor. Then, after the bath was over, I did a quick internet search to see if there was some sort of likely culprit for such an event. Turns out, according to multiple internet sites and my What to Expect the First Year book, that bright green is a normal color of poo for a baby. So, for future reference, it is normal for it to look as though Slimer has visited your child's diaper. This assertion does fly in the face of conventional wisdom, but I'm learning that I know less and less every day. I suppose parenthood will do that to you. That, and sleep deprivation. Nap time.

All is Well

2008-10-29T15:51:00.002-04:00

James had his weight checked at the doctors' office today, and he's up to seven pounds, two ounces! I normally abhor the use of exclamation points but feel that several might be warranted after James's wild success in weight gaining. Breast feeding can work! Yay!

I was particularly relieved as this was the first weight check when we hadn't been keeping careful track of exactly how many ounces James was eating. Those of you who know me will be shocked by this, but I was worried. ;) He is a thin baby, and after what happened during his first few days, I was so scared that he might be losing weight again. But perhaps he just has his father's metabolism. Either way, this is cause for celebration in our house. Patrick is out getting KitKats so that we can celebrate properly. I hope all of you guys have a good day too. :)

Admission

2008-10-28T14:47:00.002-04:00

Well, as much as I hate to admit it, I was apparently wrong, and James's grandpa was right. No, Obama has not been proclaimed the antichrist. It was the other major issue the two of us have been, um, discussing, for the past several weeks: thumb sucking.

At pretty much every opportunity, my father has been trying to teach James how to suck his thumb. I kept telling him to stop as he was going to cost me a fortune in orthodontia ten years down the road. He insisted that I would get more sleep if James learned how to suck his thumb and could comfort himself in that fashion during the night rather than crying for me or Patrick to come hold him.

As I sat up holding him last night at about one in the morning, I perused my trusty parenting books and websites scouring articles on pacifiers. Were they detrimental to breast feeding? Is it okay for kids to go to sleep with pacifiers in their mouths? I have to admit that I was surprised to see that most articles advocated thumb sucking over pacifiers. The babies control the thumbs themselves, these articles told me. That way, the babies can suck them when they really need comforting, and parents can't use them as a crutch. They are less likely to interfere with breast feeding because the thumb is in no way similar to something from which the kid might eat. On top of that, they said that pacifiers could be even more harmful to teeth than thumbs. The only plus to a pacifier was that, since parents control it, parents can ween kids off that easier than they could thumb sucking.

So, Dad was right and I was wrong. Darn it. I hate when that happens.

On a completely unrelated note, I loved this picture and couldn't help but share it. Don't Patrick and James both look so good?

Up to Something

2008-10-27T11:27:00.003-04:00

Well, James sure did have some adventures this past weekend. James did wear his UGA outfit on Saturday to cheer on the team, and actually stayed awake for most of the game, so that was exciting. The same cannot be said of me, as I fell asleep at about half time and did not wake up again until it was over. But I'm told UGA played brilliantly.

Our first excitement of the weekend, however, I was awake for. James, Grandma and I began our Saturday by taking what was by far James's biggest stroll yet. Up to this point, Patrick and I have pretty well kept James within the confines of Grandma and Grandpa's neighborhood in our strolls; we wanted to be close in case James got upset. However, Grandma is brave. We went over a mile from the house and back. This will shock you: James slept through the whole thing.

Our other excitement is rated ***PG-13*** for some mature (or possibly immature, depending on how you look at it) content. So proceed with caution.

After everyone but James and I had gone to bed Saturday night, I needed to change James's diaper. His official changing station is upstairs where James, Patrick and I are staying, so, to avoid waking Patrick up, we just set up a portable station in Grandma's family room. We have a portable changing pad in our diaper bag (thanks to Auntie Erin), so I got that and the necessary diapers and wipes out and ready.

Things seemed to be going well at first. James wasn't crying, and I felt that success was eminent. However, I soon realized that I had forgotten that tissues we use to keep him from shooting the walls as we change him. No matter, I thought. I'll just use the soiled diaper as a shield. I am wildly clever, I thought. It did seem like that plan would work at first. But, when I lifted his little legs to clean off his bottom, he transformed himself into ThunderPants and proceeded to shoot poo straight out of himself and all over everything in the general vicinity. Thanks to my lifting of his legs, the trajectory was really quite impressive. Having held him prior to this incident while he, um, produced, I had felt that, even through his diaper and outfit, he had some impressive force behind his output. I had no idea.

So, shocked as I was by that, I was laughing as I tried to clean him up, because what else can you do? Sadly, the laughter and focus on one mess caused me to let up on my vigilance on the other offending orifice. Sure enough, James then let loose with some pee. Fortunately, genius that I am, I still had his old diaper balanced atop him. Unfortunately, the diaper had slipped a bit as I cleaned and laughed, and, instead of being in a position to absorb anything, merely pointed his member downwards. The end result was the most repulsive, soupy mess of excrement that I have ever seen. The poor kid was swimming in it. It was disgusting. I used up all the wipes, and his UGA outfit might need to be burned.

Sorry about grossing you out there. I just had to share that particular bit of adventure in parenting. They didn't cover that in any of the books or magazines I've read on the subject. Grandma says that all I write about on the blog is James's output, so I promise to avoid that topic entirely for at least the remainder of the week and focus only on James's more positive and non-biohazardy attributes. Of course, even covered in bacteria, he's the cutest baby in the world.

Tired Today

2008-10-24T11:42:00.004-04:00

Well, James and I got a much needed nap this morning, as I think we both only slept for about two hours last night. After we woke up, James ate, spit up, and went back to sleep. I, on the other hand, am trying to get some work done. Well, to be fair, I'm procrastinating on my work by posting to the blog.

Last night, Grandma and I gave James a bath, and he really enjoyed it for the first time. Previously he's been rather upset by the whole bath ordeal, but last night he calmed down enough to realize that it's really quite pleasant sitting in a pool of warm water (he even added some of his own water to the tub). Of course, I forgot to bring his rubber ducky into the tub again. I'm sure he'll enjoy the whole experience even more if I can ever remember that. Nonetheless, James was not at all eager to get out. Of course, once he did get out, he REALLY wanted to get back in as he got all cold and was generally unhappy. He and I snuggled by the fire for a while, and he calmed back down. Of course, as it was nighttime, that particular condition (calm) didn't last long, but it was nice while it did.

James has also built up his wiggling skills. We have this special sleep positioner thing that's supposed to help keep James on his back while he sleeps. It is basically a piece of slightly inclined foam cushion that has two removable wedges on the side to keep him centered and his head slightly elevated. James now has the ability to wiggle himself all the way down his positioner to the bottom of his bassinet. In the process, he also wiggles himself out of his swaddle. Since he's inevitably already kicked off his socks, his feet tend to get cold, which makes him wake up, which makes me wake up, which makes us all very tired. Perhaps tonight we'll try to put him to sleep in his special sleeping bag outfit. That might help.

Well, I should get back to work (or, more likely, find a different way to procrastinate). More updates later.