bye bye

my sweet little baby is growing up to be a big boy. 

i know, it's no news flash - but it's still shocking to me every time i think about it.

now we're saying bye bye to baby food.  lately dax has been working on saying "bye bye" and he loves to add it to "all gone" when you tell him the yogurt is finished etc.  he's definitely right about one thing - the baby food is "bye bye all gone"!

recently daxton has taken to his sippy cup during meal times and learned that water or water with a "splash" of juice helps you wash down your broccoli.  yes, that's right dax also loves broccoli.  the other night i fixed roasted broccoli with just a splash of olive oil and a sprinkle of lemon juice, roasted at 400 degrees for 10 minutes, and he loved it!  i was shocked that he'd eat something that sounded so grown up, but he loved every bite and ate his entire serving.  it's his first full solid week of no baby food.  it was hard for us to get him off the baby food since it was just too easy to cave when he did not want to eat what we were giving him.  we've learned he really just does not care for the first bite of anything, regardless of what it is, and if you just keep trying you'll get him to eat about 90% of the things he tries.  the battle is a lot easier knowing that the first bite of everything is going to come back out, get tossed across the room, and made a disgusting face at.  he still does not really care for peas and eggs, but that is just about it.  (thankfully the dogs are always faithfully standing by to eat anything he tosses.)  likewise, if you dip anything in marinara he might just devour it.  he tends to love things in sauce - definitely daddy's boy.

he's a good eater and mostly a vegetarian.  he does not really care for beef or chicken, and we have not tried seafood with him yet since his bio dad listed that as a food allergy.

he really loves:

• yogurt
• banana
• mango
• blueberries
• broccoli
• sweet potato
• noodles
• marinara
• pears
• apple sauce with cinnamon
• carrots
• cheddar bunny crackers
• hummus
• tabouli
• rice
• o's cereal
• cheese

we're hoping to ween him off the bottle and get him to drink his milk from his cup, but so far he'll only drink water/juice from the cup.  if you give him a cup of milk he'll just chuck it across the room.  luckily (thank you cathy w.) we have straps for his cups so they don't go flying too far, but it still doesn't get the milk into his mouth.  we're working on that part.

thankfully we still get to feed him about 75% of what he eats, since it's coming to him on a spoon.  it's a cherished time in our house to give our boy his nourishment to help him grow big and strong.  will and i both love feeding dax and are still amazed watching those little chompers work.  seeing him crunch fruit, veggies, and crackers is just so hilarious.  when he slurps up a noodle its just surreal.  however, i think it will be a sad day when he's totally self sufficient in the feeding department and no longer needs us to blow on his food, cut it up into tiny pieces, and airplane it to his lips.  hopefully we've got a while before we have to kiss all of that bye bye.

so right now it's just bye bye baby food - bye bye!

which foods does your toddler love to eat?

snow day

my sisters and i used to pile up in front of the tv just waiting for the newscaster to tell us that there'd be enough snow that they'd have to cancel school.  the school system would wait until the 11pm news to release any school closings, so we'd sit there with our eye balls peeled just waiting for our county name to scroll past.  snow day.

dax has seen snow before, but only once and he was only 2 months old when it happened.  living well below the mason-dixon line people just don't know what to do with the threat of the white stuff.  yesterday morning the newscasters were giddy with excitement about the possibility and a "high likelihood" that there'd be accumulation.  schools started cancelling for the following day around 6pm, when it was only still raining.  just at the thought of their being snow on the horizon was all too much.

since i work from home, a snow day will never be the same again.  sure, i don't have the pleasure of scraping a windshield, putting on boots, being not so sure-footed as you step on a patch of black ice, or having a snow plow bury your car in roadside muck - but there is also no chance i can ever say i could not make it into work (up a flight of stairs) to my desk.  will got excited about the hope that there might be a day to play with daxton in the snow, but by the time i woke he'd already trudged on to work with the evidence in the drive way that there just wasn't enough of it to make the excuse.  somehow saying you could not make it to work in an inch of snow, in 40 degree weather, in a 4 wheel drive vehicle just doesn't fly.

i told dax i'd make sure he got to test it out, so i suited him up in multiple layers of clothes (could not justify a snow-suit purchase when there's a slim chance we'll see snow again this season) to take him outside and see what he thought.  he confirmed it was pretty cold by the chattering of his teeth.  he's sometimes a little dramatic with that, and it was already warming up to 40 by the time we made it outside.  however, he also confirmed it was pretty neat and he smiled to signal he liked what he saw.  i sat him in the snow under a tiny tree and he spent the majority of his time trying to figure out what those mittens were.

once he figured out that his fingers were still hiding under there he started to check out the snow.  he liked that it was pretty crunchy and hard and that when he smacked it he got a loud sound out of it. 

 

he played in the snow and checked out ice on a tree for about ten minutes before he wondered what all the fuss was about.  a school bus drove by and honked their horn and he admittedly thought that was pretty amazing.  (our property sits on the county line so some kids had no school while others only had a delay today.)  i assured him when he was a big boy and went to school he'd get to see what that big yellow bus was all about.   then, he'll see how much more fun the white stuff can be.

mama

everyone kept asking me - "is he saying mama" yet?  i had not ever really thought that he would be saying it yet, just because mama is harder to say than dada.  he says dada a lot and we hear dadadadadadadadada from sunrise to sunset on a daily basis.  i loved hearing him say dada and it always lit up will's face to hear that word.  but, there hadn't been any mamaing yet, and i only tried to get him to say it a couple of times.  i've been working on things more like - love you - Jesus - welcome - how are you - etc.  he's mustered through some of those and we think we hear him say "wel-com" quite a bit after we say thank you.  it's just a matter of time before these words just start sling shotting their way through our ear canals.

however, yesterday was a magical day.  it was the first time that he ever said "mama" and he said it twice in one day.  you know the first time you hear something you always think its a fluke, so you kind of brush it off like maybe you just did not really hear that.  still, i kept it to myself as some sort of little victory that the ever elusive word had actually been spoken.  i did not tell a soul.  but, then at dinner - he said it again - and this time there was a witness.  will heard it too.  then, this morning - he said it again.  i told him he was right, i was mama and he was dax.  he smiled and i melted.  it really happened.

see that word "mama" it's a powerful word.  it's a word we've been waiting on like a confirmation that yeah i am the mom and you are my son.  it's like daxton acknowledging that he knows and accepts this fact.  it's a word he'll use when he falls down and gets a boo boo, or when he wants my attention, or when he's trying to proudly show off something he's done.  it's a word, that now, once its been said will be said over and over again in repeated fashion - just like dada.  and every time i hear it my heart will melt just a little bit more.

it's like just last night after dinner (a dinner that dax actually ate at the same time we ate - eating real big people food - normally will feeds him his dinner first while i am still cooking the adult dinner) i was thinking how perfect this life is.  how, you never even know when you wish to be a parent how much treasure you're about to receive.  we adore cleaning up his sippy cup spills and smashed kidney beans that he rejected from his dinner tray because that means he's growing and trying new things.  we love being able to share things with him - rolling his ball back and forth and watching his face light up because that means he's having fun playing.  and we cherish the words that are coming out of his little mouth - even when he does say something that sounds like "aww gaaahd" because we know his vocabulary is expanding.  it's the little things to us that seem like such big things - even those two syllable words like mama - those are the things we're treasuring and absorbing. 

14 months

its been an amazing month for our little daxy!  he's worked on learning many new things and is exploring everything around him!  he's quick, he's funny, and he's happy!

he's perfected crawling and really knows how to get places in a quick fashion.  90% of the time now he'll take straight off in a regular crawl and get there entirely in that mode.  its only about 10% of the time that he creeps back down into that old belly drag, and it's usually when he's got something in his hand that he's trying to take some where.  it's awesome to see him crawling with full intent.  he knows exactly where he's going and he's on a mission.

one of daxton's latest tricks is climbing up stairs.  we do it in a controlled environment in our game room where there are only two stairs with a baby gate at the top of them.  mommy sits right behind with her hands two inches from daxton's bottom to ensure he does not go "a tumbling down".  if i was not there he would just raise up into a stand, turn to look back and smile at me, and then just go flopping right down the stairs.  usually i let him do a controlled glide back down and he thinks its pretty funny.  hopefully it will be a very long time before he wants to go up the 20 stairs in the foyer.

the largest miracle that has occurred this month has been the interest in the sippy cup.  just tonight he saw us pouring water from a water bottle and decided he wanted to play with it.  within minutes he was putting it up to his mouth like he wanted to drink from it.  will filled a sippy cup with water and dax spent about 30 minutes playing with the sippy cup and taking little sips from it.  hopefully we're trending into sippy cup land and leaving bottles in the dust.

daxton has 7 fully emerged teeth now.  we love seeing his little grin and he flashes it all the time.  he thinks we're pretty funny apparently.  he loves for daddy to brush his teeth and he sticks his tongue out to try to lick the fruity tooth paste off the brush.  he's tried doing some biting and gave me a bruise on my wrist, but i think i yelped so loud that he won't try it again. 

daxton is still working on trying new foods.  lately he's started enjoying basmati rice and likes it mixed with applesauce, green bean puree, or even bananas.  he loves cinnamon on his baked sweet potatoes and banana oatmeal.  he's tried pickles for the second time and really liked a cornichon!  we just gave him a taste on new years eve and he started chomping away!  he still loves his little cherry tomatoes and had 8 of them for lunch today.  he prefers them over most foods he's been offered, so we go through quite a few of those each week.

daxton still uses all of the words he's come up with, but this month he's brought out "thank you", "welcome", "get it", "choo choo", "did it", and "good girl".  he loves to talk right after he's woken up in the morning, or after a good long nap.  you never know what he's going to talk about, but he wakes up a chatter box and just babbles away.  his eyes light up when he sees the dogs and he screams "doggie"!  we're trying to be very intentional with telling him everything we're/he's doing to help him build his vocabulary, and it's pretty adorable when he gives or takes something from you and says "dank you"!

daxton has some new tricks like moving things from one place to another, putting things into and taking them out of baskets and bags, rolling and throwing balls with dad, trying to put on his own socks by laying them on the top of his feet, and rocking in his jumperoo from one leg to another like he's riding a rocking horse.  i told daddy he'd need to sign up for gymnastics as soon as he was age appropriate.  he still loves to work on opening and closing anything he can find and we have to keep putting more and more baby zip tie contraptions on closet doors, cabinets, the bathroom doors, bedside table drawers, and anything else he can lay his hands on.  he also still loves examining things like papers, tags, plastic bags, tissues, baby wipes, and different kinds of fabrics.  however, his all time favorite past time in my office is still taking books off of the bookshelf, flipping through them, laying down with them, throwing them into his pack and play, and occasionally attempting to rip out their pages.

daxton's sneaky move of the month happened just yesterday.  daxton plays freely in my office while i work all day.  he rotates between jumperoo, pack and play, crawling around the room, playing with toys, looking out the window, and taking all of the books off the bookshelf.  he has some odd toys such as a wireless keyboard because he watches mommy bang away on the lap top all day and so he thinks its fun to have one of his own.  i put it down on the floor for him and he played with it for a while and then moved on to a little toy dinosaur that sings songs.  later on in the day i looked at the keyboard and noticed the number 9 was missing.  i looked all over for it, did not see it, and thought i just must not have previously noticed it.  i went on with my life.  then, a few hours later, i saw daxton with his miniature van gogh book making a b-line for the waste basket.  he crawled right to it and proceeded to toss the book into the trash.  i told him that was not a good idea and took it back out.  he giggled and threw it back in.  repeat about 4 times, when i really looked into the trash can and found - not only the missing number 9 - but an ink pen, a computer book, and a block - along with all of the other trash...  sneaky mc sneakerton was really making a stash in there.  the waste basket is now sitting on a desk.

it's getting more and more fun!

first haircut

we've tried to get this done several times before today, but it just never seemed to work out.  we weren't in too much of a rush to make it happen, so when we ran into failed attempts to make an appointment, rainy weather, or a lack of ideas on where to go get it done - we just let it rest.  however, little man's hairdo was getting a little out of control.  we love the mohawk, but some parts of the hawk were about 75% longer than others, and it was just not rockin' like it used to be.  so, we bit the bullet and yesterday i called an made an appointment.

when i called i told them my son needed to come in for his first haircut, told them he was aa, and told them he had a mohawk.  the receptionist assured me that "nicole" was great with curly hair and could handle it no problem.  appointment set for 10am saturday.  then, this morning at 8:35 we get a call from "nicole" who says she was just told about the mohawk and she was not sure she could "handle" it.  i told her i appreciated her letting us know and that we'd pass on the appointment.  back to the drawing board.

a friend referred me to a dominican salon back before Christmas and we tried about 20 times to call them during the month of december and never got an answer, so we had given up on that place.  however, this morning - i tried again.  a fellow answered the phone and i told him we needed an appointment to have my son's hair cut for the first time and wanted to know if they had anything today.  he said it was not necessary to make an appointment and to come in "at any time" and let me know they closed at 9pm.  great!

so, we loaded dax up in the car and headed about 20 miles down town to the salon.  we walked in and the fella behind the desk (seemingly the same dude i spoke to earlier) just stared at us.  we told him we needed to get our son's hair cut.  he said the barber would not be in until noon...  umm, hello?  why did you not tell me this before?  grrr.  so, back in the car we got - me driving and will googling and reading yelp reviews for barber shops in the area.

we found one.  we followed google maps and got to  man-mur barber shop.  the place was straight out of a time warp with two barbers cutting hair just like you would have seen sixty years ago.  dax's barber mentioned he'd been cutting hair for forty years, so we're safe to assume he knew what he was doing.  men lined up waiting for their turn, and after about 5 people went for their turns before ours a man walked in who was 89 years old.  the two barbers cutting hair jokingly told him he should cut some people's hair while he was there.  not missing a beat he hung up his coat, grabbed a drape, and called for the next person.  the men waiting looked around at each other and finally a fella said he'd be brave and let him do his hair.  (i breathed a sigh of relief because i was not sure if this man really knew how to cut hair or what.)  however, after some time passed it all came out that he actually used to be a barber himself and so he did apparently know what he was doing.  finally, it was daxton's turn.

the barber suggested dax sit on daddy's lap while he cut his hair.  dax sat up big and tall and was ready for whatever was about to happen.  the barber asked us how much we wanted trimmed off and we explained we really only wanted a very minimal amount off the mohawk and none off the sides or back, except where there were long patches.  the barber got to work and dax remained sitting still until the razor went towards the back of his head and then he thought that was a little odd, but he just shrugged his shoulders and leaned far forward.  within a matter of about 10 minutes daxton's long locks had been trimmed down to a much more even level.  he did really well and seems to be no worse for the wear.

we'd been nervous to get this done and even chickened out completely right before daxton's birthday party.  we'd read old wives tales that it was bad luck to cut aa baby's hair before one year of age and we never discussed it again.  then, the longer we put it off, the more nervous i became about it.  once you cut it, its gone, and you can't get that baby hair back.  however, it was not nearly as sad or scary as i had made it out to be, and i think the sweet fella looks pretty dapper with his new do.

wake him from sleeping

we were told - by the "experts" - never wake a sleeping baby.

are we the only parents that miss their child while he's sleeping?  we literally have discussions about going and peeking in on him, who gets to wake him up, and missing him dearly while he's napping or before he rises in the morning.  it's all we can do to keep ourselves from barging in on his sleep and picking him up and putting "sugars" on him.  

our hearts just burst with love for this little fella.  he's more than we ever dreamed of, more than we ever hoped for, and more amazing than we could have ever known.  he makes us smile, laugh, cheer, clap, dance, make silly faces, sing funny made up songs, and be happier than we've ever in our lives been.  it's just unbelievable how someone so small can make such a huge change in two people's lives.

we resist our urges 99.9% of the time, and we let him sleep until he wakes.  but sometimes, just sometimes when it's a little too late on a saturday morning, or the nap time has spilled over into the night when daddy gets home from work - we just quietly open his door and happen to be there when he wakes up.  when he wakes himself up he's happy, talkative, and gives us his toothy grin.  he's all smiles, he's jovial, and he'll stand right up - waiting there for you to scoop him right into your arms.  

maybe we're a quirky family or we're a little obsessed, but he's our joie de vivre - no doubt about it.

2012 year in review

this past year was the best year of our lives so far.  we had such wonderful times with our sweet son dax and we've cherished every memory that's been created.

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we rang in the new year by celebrating with our tiny 7 week old son.  he didn't make it until midnight, but he watched us eat an early fancy dinner at home.  later on in january, daxton met his cousins, went to my office's holiday party, and even saw snow for the first time!

in february we celebrated dax's first valentine's day.  it was chilly so we did lots of resting and snuggling to pass the time.

in march we were honored to celebrate dax's adoption finalization and his baby shower.  we had a great time with friends and family who were all excited to meet daxton for the first time.

in april we enjoyed a visit with dax's birthmom and half brother at a park.  we also celebrated daddy's birthday by wearing party hats and making him a cake.  we took dax to his first trip to the beach and he became an instant beach baby.  we celebrated daxton's first Easter and he went to an egg hunt, an Easter performance at church, dyed eggs, and enjoyed a visit from the Easter bunny.

in may we celebrated mother's day with three generations of mommies.  we also dedicated dax to our church.  we traveled to richmond, va for my cousin's wedding and dax hung out with all of his family and got to swim in a pool for the first time.  we had our first family photo shoot and got some great pictures of our sweet boy.

june was a father's day celebration and my two boys had a great day of fun and laughter.   daxton also enjoyed walks in the park in his stroller and floating in his next door neighbor's pool.  near the end of the month dax took his first plane ride to chicago to visit his auntie conti and his uncle keek.  he did great on the plane and looks forward to more traveling!

in july dax celebrated his first trip to the lake and even "swam" in the water and snoozed on the boat!  he wasn't awake for fireworks, but he did try watermelon and loved every bite!

daxton enjoyed a visit from his namaw and poppie and entertained everyone with his dinosaur roar!  daxton's increased mobility was an exciting event for them to witness!

at the end of september daxton got to go back to the beach.  this time he really enjoyed the ocean and the pool.  he loved feeling the sunshine and spending a week with his great-granny, his gran-gran, his nani, his auntie conti, and his uncle keek.

in october daxton dressed up like a dinosaur for his first halloween.  he had a great time riding a hay ride and a train at the pumpkin patch.   he passed out candy to all of the neighborhood children.

in november we had a huge turn out for daxton's first birthday party.  we were all overwhelmed by the love and support of friends and family who came from as far away as chicago to celebrate in dax's special day!

later in the month we hung out at the park with dax's birthmom and half brother.  they swang on swings and had a wonderful time together.

december brought dax's second Christmas.  he was much more excited this year about what was happening.  he loved ripping the bows off, scratching at the colorful papers, and seeing what was inside of the presents.  he watched a choir presentation at church, sat on santa's lap, rode around to look at Christmas lights, and even made a hand print ornament.

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we've been blessed to have a happy and healthy 2012 and cannot wait to see what 2013 has in store for our family!

glory be to God!