Wooly wooly

Here are some new pictures of Logan sporting his brand new woolen "longies" that my Aunt Judy made for him. They are pretty darn cute and will definitely keep him warm in his room, which gets quite chilly at night.

Here he is getting ready for nigh nigh, brushing his teeth like a big boy! He is working hard on his bottom 1st year molars. The left is starting to break through and the right is really swollen. So those will be 9 & 10. Good thing he loves to brush those teeth!




















He is not too happy about being "restrained" to take a picture, but it is a good close up of the woolies!





















Here is a great "action" shot of him on the move. Pretty much, L does not walk anywhere anymore. He runs. I guess, his thought is why walk when I can run? And I have no good logical answer to that - as if logic could work on a 1 year old. He goes for it, full gusto, no fear, no hesitation, no thoughts of I might not be able to do this, just fully confident in his footing and his ability.
















I'm always amazed at the lessons of extroversion, absolute joy in small daily wonders like the blender or the coffee maker, faith in one's ability, and a unshakable confidence in one's ability even if he goes "boom" that I learn from him daily, hourly even.


By the way, for those of you waiting for L's big photo debut, HGB has a few pictures up on the their website. On the RIGHT there should be a link for Foods For Living, East Lansing, MI. When you click on it, you will see Logan's picture on the first page of 6 images. There is one of him (dark blue with light blue striped tank) with his friend C (green, red, yellow striped tank) and then one of him alone! The boys are pretty cute! If you are interested in seeing the whole photo shoot, all 72 pictures. Let me know by email and I will send you a link!

http://www.happygreenbee.com/photoshoot.cfm?sid=30

L's first cooking show...

Okay, as I said before, L really enjoys helping with appliances. Today, we decided to make some breadcrumbs and Logan was a super helper!





And here is one from dinner the other night. Jim thought it would be fun to give our toddler the empty wine glass to see what he would do with it. Apparently, there was absolutely no confusion on this front!

I got rhythm

This little video is of Logan trying to walk with both of the maracas in his hands. We got them for him for his birthday and he loves them! At least, he wasn't wielding them at the dog!

Logan: the Barista

I had to compress this video, so I'm hoping that it will work out okay. It is a bit long, and it has 2 parts (I got to play with iMovie, yeah!). L is crazy about helping Jim with the espresso maker, so here they are in the morning making J's coffee! Too cute! More to come, I have some cute footage of L wielding his maracas that he got for his birthday....

In more detailed news, L is developing too fast - let me say for the record, L, please SLOW down! He is now using both hands to play with his toys in a more deliberate fashion. For instance with his stacking ring toy, he holds onto the ring with one hand, gets it over the peg, and then steadies it with the other to match the hole up to the peg. It's important work. I will try to get a good video of it without interrupting his work of course!

Ode for Logan

Ode to Logan on the Occasion of the
Very First Anniversary of His Auspicious Birth

What can a mother say looking back on the first year of her son’s life?

As I am told by so many more seasoned and presumably wise parents, there are many inconveniences:

the interrupted or sleepless nights

the indignity of being peed on, vomited on, and even finding poop on an article of clothing and not being sure how it got there

the nips, pinches, and now more than often the acrobatic twists and contortions that accompany nursing

the helplessness to prevent the bumps, goose eggs, bruises, scrapes, and lots of tears that come with the tentative, wobbly first attempts to stand and then walk

the inability to form intelligent or sustained thought on any topic--ever
the loss of personal freedom to decide spontaneously to go somewhere or even get out of the house in under twenty minutes

the ever present guilt that we live with, when we are working that we are not with our families and when we are with our families that we are not working

While I might wish to say that many of these things are not true, I really can’t: In this past year, I have been exhausted, peed on, ended up with poop on my sock or my shirt or both, have breastmilk stains on the majority of my shirts, have been pinched to the point of breaking out into hives, had to endure wrestling-style nursing sessions, watched in fear and utter powerlessness as I couldn’t protect you from falling off the bed, been unable to concentrate on my project like I might like, and missed social events and even lost contact with a few friends...

But--I have you.

I have you.

You are my miracle - my little squishy alien bean who fought and stuck and stayed with me

You are my miracle - you fell asleep on my chest and breathed your little strange, hesitant baby breaths

You are my miracle - you trusted me with your care; you taught me what you needed and when and how

You are my miracle - you showed me a world of adventure, fearlessness, extroversion, and joy

You are my miracle - you showed me unconditional love in those big, wet open mouth kisses, the razberries on my belly and my breast while nursing, and even the insistent, “MAMA” when I walk in the door

You are my miracle - you find your work and your meaning in the day-to-day, in taking your diapers out the drawer and then replacing them, in moving magnets around on the door, in following Sadie around and around the house

You are my miracle - you teach me about what balance really means

You are my miracle - my son

And today, I celebrate you and your first year, Happy Birthday

two cake videos!

Okay the videos are a bit chaotic...grammy is on skype and on speakerphone b/c we had problems with audio, C is in the background chatting it up, and then we're also of course having a party...but here it is, the chaos of a first birthday in all its glory!




This first video is of L eating his initial bites of cake....




This second video is a bit more into the cake eating experience and he is much more covered in cake than the first one!

birthday bash

Today we celebrated L's birthday. And we were very thankful that a few very close friends braved the torrential downpour to help us out with all the cake! L had a great time - loved the cake, somehow learned the word immediately even though up until this point has never actually had any cake!

Here's one of the cake that I made him! I used mini-oreos and chocolate chips for the paws!

















Here is one of L giving Sadie a treat!

















A great one of L in his birthday hat!

















L fully enjoying the sugar and chocolate with our good friend and neighbor, M

















Post-cake mini-bath in the sink!

Big day for the big boy

Logan is sleeping sounding while Jim and I sit up together reminiscing and retelling the story of his birth to each other. Tracing out the hours before 7:33am on September 8 to see what we were doing when. In many ways it feels like no time has passed at all, but then when we think back we know exactly how much time has passed -- our little squishy guy is now walking and talking -- he has very definite ideas of what he likes and isn't afraid to tell us. He chases the dog around the house trying to share his toys with her. He eats finger food meals on his own. He has figured out how to do so much, both on his own and with our help. He crawls up the stairs for bedtime on his own. He walks to his chair for meal times. He even accompanies me to the bathroom so that he can help flush his own poop and then affix the lock on the toilet back again! He is already communicating in sentences. His first sentence was while watching Sadie outside doing her morning business, he turned to me to say "dog, poop?". His second was actually two sentences was far more complicated: "Nur nur done. Gotta go dog." To which, I understood him to me that he was done nursing and wanted to go look for the dog. We can't even keep track of all the new words he says anymore. He's a hilarious and goofy little guy. He enjoys listening to music, everything from Ralph's World and Johnny Cash to Iron and Wine and Frank Sinatra. His favorite toys and books have pictures of dogs in them. He loves to give hugs, mostly to Sadie. He also loves to bonk heads (lightly) and he often tries this as an a playful way to extend pre-nap and nigh night routines. So here is to Logan - the big birthday boy - now one year old!

Feed me, mama!

After I came home from work yesterday, L was fairly fussy, crying, whiny, etc. I was ready to sort of chalk it up to teething, me being gone for work, and such. But when I sat him down in his chair with food in front of him, it was clear that he was just plain hungry. Here's what he ate:

• 4 slices of zuchini
• 1/2 mini bella mushroom
• 4 chunks of eggplant
• 5 slices of chicken & artichoke sausage
• 1/4 small potato
• small bread heel
• 1/4 peach
• lotsa water
• couple sips of soymilk (by accident)

The meal ended with him saying "teesh" for peach. Very cute. The same thing pretty much happened today with dinner. He ate and ate and ate. Then we cleaned him up, and he walked back to his chair and tried to climb into it. So we figured, he might still be hungry. So I gave him some peaches. He ate those down. And was still looking for more. So I got him some cut up watermelon. and then more watermelon! It was actually fairly insane.

I think I need to let both of L's babysitters know how much the boy can actually eat. I think that whatever they are giving him for afternoon snack simply isn't enough. Feed me, more!!

So busy getting big...

I've been keeping track of some of L's new words, what he finds funny, and cute moments on a scrap of paper. Right now, I've scribbled in minute words even in the margins, so it is definitely time to update the blog. The semester started, L is now walking the majority of the time, Jim came home, whew, what a week!

Here are some highlights!

• L has some new things that he thinks are just hilarious: Sadie sneezed (it's allergy season even for her) and L laughed for several minutes; eskimo kisses get him really going with that deep belly laugh that he has; he also finds me washing my face something very entertaining as well; and pretty much any words that begin with P or Z he thinks are pretty funny.
  
  
• He has learned a host of new words (see list to the left for all of them). But here are a few highlights. Poop, Burp, , Ter (water), Gar Gar (Sugar Sugar - the song, not the sweetener).
  
  
• His favorite new fruit is pluots; we had to fight over the last one!
  
  
• He loves watching rocks get "plunked" into a bucket of water.
  
  
• He was walking down the hallway, let out a pretty big fart, turned around and said, "Broom?" (for bah-room, which is what we say when he farts). Pretty cute!
  
  
• We let Sadie out in the morning for her "business" and Logan as always stood at the sliding glass doors to watch her. And he looked at me and said, "Poop dog" - pretty much I think that counts as his first sentence! :)
  
  
• In one of his books, he fills in the words. "This little baby wants her mommy...MAMA" and "This little baby is sleepy...NIGHT NIGHT" Very cute!!
  
  
• He is now thriving with some new freedoms (to go along with some restrictions in freedom, mainly consisting of me reminding him to be gentle with mama, no biting, no hitting, etc). He walks to his chair for snacks and meal time. He climbs up the stairs for nap time, anytime we go upstairs, and usually for bed time, though sometimes he is too tired. He is learning how to wipe up his placemat. And he is even learning how to wipe his bottom when we change his diaper. He has mostly mastered drinking out of a cup when we hold it, but not so much when he holds it.
  

Now that I have written some of these out, I know why we've been so busy! Hopefully, more picture to come!