the de-evolution of dinner

spiced lentils with spinach and rice... lots to work with... lots of mischief-making ingredients... perhaps we should have thought of this when deciding on what birthday cake to make him...















de-lentilizing...

a trip of firsts

back from arizona! it was a great trip-- vacation when i wasn't working or thinking (i.e. fretting) about work. is it murphy's law that says work will be at its busiest the week you are planning to be gone or is it just that when it rains it pours? i guess nothing particularly went wrong to make this overabundance of work, so murphy's law doesn't really apply. well... okay... if you go back far enough then of course, something did go wrong... people usually do not need me if everything is going swell in their lives... but i think i am digressing. the work thing is virtually under control by this point. the great trip to arizona is over (sigh), but we can all enjoy pictures of some of william's firsts that occurred while on this trip. though so many things occur for the first time when you've only been around as long as a william, this was not his first airplane trip or his first trip to arizona (and his first trip to arizona was also not his first airplane trip... yes, environmentally conscious readers, this kid has already contributed his fair share to global warming via jet fumes, but he will be a good member of society-- i will put money on that. he already is with all of the goodwill he generates on his trips around the country).

okay... before i digress anymore, here are his firsts:

his very first haircut!

it was looking so scruffy in the front and his great (aka wonderful) grandma did a professional job sprucing it up. she didn't know just how many first haircuts she's given. i'm afraid to go near william with nail clippers each time his claws get scraggly enough to force that situation, so i was mighty impressed with my grandmother. she also trimmed my hair, and i think i was more still than my son was.

his first time in a swimming pool!

swimming with dada.

after his swim, enjoying a laugh with mama.

and leaving the pool area. we got him this little hat while we were there. for some reason i entirely expected 60 degree weather. we weren't prepared in dress or otherwise for hot, sunny days. did i not know where we were flying to?

next:
his first time in a wedding!

he was a spectacular ring bearer for my little sister's wedding. he walked down the entire length of the aisle, holding his dada's hand. it was the one part of the wedding where i thought i might cry. i was just that proud. heaven help him when he graduates from college... or even middle school.

aside from william there were two others just about his age. they had fun sharing (or maybe trying not to share) cheerios during the bulk of the ceremony.

which leads us to the final first:


his first birthday!

he turned one the day before we left. we didn't entirely have our acts together, however greg did manage to bake a terrifically low-sugar cake (winning little in the way of praise from my elementary-aged cousin, eric) and his grandma did find him a birthday balloon on the way home from dinner. but otherwise, we had to make do with decorations from my sister's fiesta-themed rehearsal dinner. it looks quite festive though, does it not?

here he is in his birthday garb playing his uncle's guitar...

and trying out his first piece of birthday cake... much of it ended up on the floor...

the end for now.

have a great weekend!

monks and earthly temperatures

yesterday, one of our generous neighbors (they are all generous, so describing her this way... i suppose protects her identity) offered to watch william tonight so we could go out. we have gone out, without william, approximately twice, other than a few lunches in between work. we took her up on the offer and ate cheap italian food, and i had exactly one-half of a glass of cheap wine and realized that my tolerance for alcohol is probably on par with that of a buddhist monk (and maybe they drink, i guess i don't know). this wouldn't worry me, except that i am throwing my sister a bachelorette party in a few short days, and i don't think there's anyway to get my tolerance up to speed with a bunch of 20-something non-parents who did not get on a plane in central time, only to land in a mountain time zone that refuses to recognize daylight savings-- the result, of course, being that, at 9 o'clock, while we are just heading toward the bars, i will be having drowsy and potentially tipsy thoughts of my empty 11 o'clock bed. but, i am young enough, and just because i have had only one night of uninterrupted sleep in nearly a year, such that i am in a permanent (?) sleep-deprived state of constantly thinking of sleep, i can make it, i know that this is possible, and i will enjoy it, on top of surviving it.

perhaps you are wondering where the one night of uninterrupted sleep came from... well... the other night we put william in his crib and at 3:25 a.m. i woke up... and momentarily panicked... we must check on him! why has he not gotten us up yet, given that he always wakes up no later than 12 or 1, and many times, earlier... so we checked. relieved that he was still breathing, we went back to sleep and he did not wake up until 7:00 a.m.! we had turned some sort of magic, wonderful leaf (but of course you know that is not the ending because it only happened once, and that was a few nights ago)... well, that morning we quickly learned that he had a fever... his first fever as a little earthling! so, it was something about the fever that made him decide it felt better to sleep than to pester his parents... and, he felt 100% himself the following day, and we have been back to our regular sleep habits ever since... the end! but, it is so, so nice to know that it is possible for him to sleep through the night... that it's not that he has some sort of defect that prevents it from even being possible. one day it will happen again!

probably not tonight though. sigh.

happy wednesday

and happy birthday to snephanie in just a couple of hours!

spring is (basically) here!

it is what i have been waiting for... the weather to turn pleasant. it is hard for a baby and his parents or grandparents to be cooped (is that how you spell cooped?) up in a house when he wants to explore and the house is only some small number of square feet and half of it is behind closed doors or baby jail (the baby gate that keeps him from tumbling into the kitty's lair (the basement)). yesterday we went to the zoo. it was... well... an eye-opener... do you know they keep animals in cages?! just kidding... that, for better or worse, was not the eye-opener. the thing which made us that much more wise about the world, was the realization that we are not the only parents out there. not the only ones who take their child or children to the zoo on the first decent saturday of the year... oh no... we are certainly not the only ones... far from it... do you know that there are thousands... probably millions of us, walking around, mostly with strollers (we had the little guy in a backpack, so somewhat distinguishable at least), pointing at animals behind cages and glass walls... oh the humanity. i'm still feeling at odds with the whole concept. but of course, that concept was so comforting when i first learned i was pregnant... that this sort of thing happens everday. well, my... oh my... does it. children are everywhere. if you don't realize that, then you are not hanging out in the right places... or... maybe you are hanging out in the right places.
cleansing exhalation. okay. this new knowledge does not diminish the fact (and really, just enhances it) that to us, william is the best little guy around... completely unique, wonderfully clever, and infinitely special to us. here are a couple of photos for those who feel similarly about him:

he loves the basketball.

and playing in the lazy susan, which he has claimed ownership of and we have removed all glass from!

enjoy the rest of your weekend! take a trip to the zoo... or maybe don't!

happy saturday!

life father, like son

william is having great fun with his grandpa in town, but today i found a couple of nice pictures of him and his dada, who has been working, working, working hard the past week. (which, consequently, means his grandpa and his mama have been working hard as well... just in different realms.)

we want you...

to know that willy is turning 11 months old tomorrow!

firsts

the other night (february 9 i believe), william was very inspired by obama's first press conference... so much so that he decided to attempt some sort of first himself. so he took his first steps. he walked right to obama, talking on the tv. we are very proud that he's made his political preferences so clear, so early on in life.

here he is last night...









now, walking is not his main mode of transportation yet. it's really mostly a novelty that he attempts when we're changing him into his pajamas. something about the freedom of being without pants. here he was willing to walk some while in his pj's... must of been the elephant. well, that is progress nonetheless.

happy valentine's day!

10 month update

william is doing plenty of good these days... he still enjoys using more utensils than is necessary...

and he likes to smile... sometimes with his eyes closed and food on his face...

he has a sled! and on the warmer wisconsin days, he likes to ride in it...

so little!

checking for bears and mooses...

reading an aptly named 'winter story' with his papa and his favorite stuffed animal 'monkey.'

and yes, he was just posing for this picture... he doesn't actually sit still and listen as we read him stories, as much as we'd like him to. the monkey does though.