PEAS!!!!!!!

we added a new food group tonight.....milk, cereal with pears....and now peas! i expected him to make all kinds of faces as he did when we first introduced cereal to him, but he accepted the peas without much protest at all. either he really liked them or didn't notice the difference. either way, its fun to add some color to his diet. and he's really taken to grabbing my hand with the spoon in it and using it as an extension of the utencil, in essence he is trying to feed himself. he grabs the spoon-hand, pulls it towards his face and opens his mouth at the same time. its everything i can do to keep from jabbing him in the back of the mouth as he grabs it with such force. guess he likes his yummies!

daddy is having a good time in tampa and time is passing quickly which is great because we miss him lots! its only been a week and i am already back to wearing his t-shirts to bed at night. can't wait to see him may 10!

at the risk of whining, my head feels a bit like its going to spin off from all the tiny details and moving parts i am trying to keep straight between now and may 10th. after that, i can take a deep breath, reidy will be home again and all i will have on my plate is getting ready to move. until then, man oh man.....its gonna get a little busy. and what's with the swine flu??? ew.

so much is going on......

reid's gone in tampa, things are going well he says and he's enjoying a weekend off to relax in a hotel room and sleep in as late as he can handle. :) he deserves it, he's been workin his bootie off!

work is, work. 1 more week. i can't believe this friday is my last day in the navy. woo woo!!!

this morning i hit the big hill by our house with my friend tracy and our baby joggers (she has a double wide for her 2 kids, she is motivation!) and it was fantastic. it was also a beautiful morning and man, do i LOVE my new jogger. its a-mazing. and baxter sure did like the chance to do a long hill climb and jog back down. he was a champion!

i'm hosting a teensy dinner party this evening and am super excited to be making spicy grilled salmon filets, fresh black bean salsa, green beans, french bread and fresh strawberry pie!

petey's a-nappin like a champ and is getting strong strong! he's starting to hoist himself up onto his elbows or his hands more and more now when he's on his belly. and today he even decided it was an ok idea to nap on his tummy instead of yelling for me to flip him over (and over and over). phew, was that nice! and he is so cute in his little devil outfit from rebel. love it!

my mantra for now: stay busy, stay happy.

that. just. happened. (do not read if you don't want to read about poo)

i always wondered who designed a carseat and why did they choose that design. was it ergonomically correct? or best suited to ensure safety even in a collision? all those things and easy to carry? but now i know. the bucket-type seat is the way it is because....it catches all things. a dropped pacifier. a misplaced teething toy. and now today, it also caught.....ready for it?......liquid poo.

oh yes, it was a banner day. poor little petey has had a bit of a problem with his bum since sunday. i guess i am blaming it on him finally ingesting his cereal and pears mixture. he hadn't had a single bm but today, the flood gates opened and the contents of his body came a flyin. luckily, he was in his carseat with the ingenious bucket, catch-all design. not a drop on the car. nothing on the babysitters carpet or couches or skin.....all carefully caught and maintained in the basin of the carseat. so good.

well its all been cleaned. petey. the blankey. the carseat and straps. my hands. emily's bathtub where the cleanup took place. i am a bit scarred by this memory, and yet i know we will laugh about this one for a long time. even adam got to witness the greatness that was this poo. it really was incredible. disgusting but incredible.

and thank heavens he didn't decide to demonstrate his new trick while stuck in his carseat bucket o' dookie. no need to ever buy this kind another chew toy or rattle. he has discovered his toes and plays with them non-stop. they seem to be especially distracting at nap-time and are eve more fun when covered by a blankie which has started ending up over his head after a few minutes of playing. that gets him as upset as being stuck on his tummy (but not as upset as when he's stuck on his tummy and spits-up. we call this "pie in the eye" and sadly he does it frequently). all things things have me (and emily, i'm sure) bustling in and out and in and out of his naptime areas keeping tabs on him and rescuing him from his own tricks and contortions while trying to stay out of his eyesight to not further distract him from the task at hand: sleeping. today his flexibility finally gave way enough that he can now get his toes in his mouth. don't worry, i carefully cleaned his toes and toenails after the 'poo' incident. ew.

dinner blahs

so....its like 97 here. which basically means we should be having pasta salad and burgers for dinner. but, my head is about to spin off, i'm not thinking straight because so much seems to be happening at once, so i thought it was a good idea to get a pork roast out of the freezer to make tonight. i think my logic was making it so i could at least make one nice dinner this week before reid leaves for 2 weeks to go to tampa. so its in the oven. only 5 hours to go. and i am really sad because on this hot, hot air-conditioning-blasting kind of day not only does a pork roast and potatoes for dinner sound totally disgusting.....but it is stinking up the whole house too!
i'm whining about a self-inflicted situation, i know....but now that its thawed and in the oven, the only other option is to destroy the pork roast and they are just too darn expensive to do that. even though i really want to just drive to the coast and eat pizza on the beach for dinner tonight.

oh yeah, we had pizza for dinner last night.

first date night!

we went out without baby friday night and had a great time! we missed him, oh yes we did...but not enough to come home too early! our great neighbors eric and sydney watched petey for us while we had a great time with reid's squadron at jack's la jolla. sorry about the shortage of posts these days, it may be a bit sparse for the next few weeks as i'm wrapping up loose ends with the navy, getting my marine-corps-wife paperwork in order, reid will be in tampa for 2 weeks, we're visiting IL for 6 days oh - and we're going to move to a cute house in poway. so we will be busy...but i'll try to post a pic or two of petey in the meantime.

and the great news of today is he ate his whole bowl of oatmeal with pears in it. thanks to jen kelley for the sage momma wisdom of ditching the rice cereal which is basically paper machier paste (yeah petey, no wonder you made that face!) and switched over to baby oatmeal which has a better taste, consistency and added a drop of pears for a little yummier flavor. he was like a little birdie with his mouth wide open and then as soon as the spoon was in his mouth, he'd snap his gums down on the spoon. good baby!

think about our isaac, ok?

ok team-Isaac has round 2 of chemo tomorrow. Please keep him and his family and support network and doctors and technicians....and anyone involved in the process in your hearts and prayers! Especially pray that this dose of chemo doesn't wipe him out so entirely as it did the last bit, that was scary for everyone, but particularly for Isaac - and we are hoping this time is less horrible to his body so he doesn't have to dread every treatment in the future. much love.

the picture is of isaac and ang at our commissioning in may, 2004. we love him lots and lots and lots!

where have 4 months gone?!?

happy four month old "un-birthday" to our happy little man!

he's 16 lbs 14 oz and 26.5 inches long...growing growing growing and has the green light for twice a day cereal. now if we could just get him interested in that strange texture on the spoon.

this boy

brings so much joy to those around him!
his smile can melt your heart.
his giggles and coos are precious.
he's trying to crawl, you know?
he is not a fan of this new taste on a spoon.
is it really supposed to taste that way, mom?
you can't hug him enough times.
you can't cuddle him in close too much.
there's always room for more.
breathe in his teeny tiny delicious baby smell.
watch his chest rise and fall and his fingers tickle the blanket as he sleeps.
we are blessed.
with so many special moments and happy memories ahead.

first taste of cereal.....

Happy first Easter, Peter

stay in bed all day kind of day

its just a rainy, gloomy, chilly - sleepy, cuddly, lambs-on-pj's kind of day today.

hoping daddy gets home soon so he can cuddle with his boy for a few hours this evening. then its my turn! happy saturday.

petey's new tricks

so, petey sneakily rolled from his tummy back onto his back yesterday finally. it was accidental, but graceful and with little effort....meaning he'll be doing it a lot and quite soon.

he also likes to scoot around his crib and investigate the big open space he's given. right now he's babbling away up there (supposed to be sleeping) and had scooted himself up into the corner. earlier today he was in the opposite corner on his tummy-and MAD about it. this morning when he woke up, he was sideways on his tummy with his face in the bumper-again MAD about it. all this new mobility is fun until he gets stuck, poor little dude. soon he'll have a bit more control over where he ends up, but he is definitely enjoying the trip in the meantime, just not always loving the final (stuck) destination. i'll try to snatch a pic sometime, but usually he's announcing that he is in quite a crisis situation and super-mommy has to come dashing up the stairs to rescue him. its quite an ordeal, you see. :)

reidy is off for a training flight, he'll be home saturday. we haven't decided what we'll do for Easter yet, but i am daydreaming about a hike and a picnic and a perfect sunny day. fingers crossed. however, i'm realistic about the fact that reid has been going and going and going non-stop for about two months now, so he might enjoy a good long relaxing day of cuddling and playing with his petey-poo.

and monday is a big day - petey has his 4 month doctors visit. we are interested to see what he weighs now, we are thinking he's about 17 pounds (oh, and he is comfortably wearing 6-9 month clothing now, thank you very much....i am already wondering how many gallons of milk we're going to go through each week during his teenage years).

we had a great time with briana visiting, and i am pretty sure she and petey enjoyed their week of special bonding time together. we both agreed that when she sees him again in may, he will have grown so much more and will likely have even more tricks to perform!

also, please keep isaac, his wonderful girlfriend gina and his family in your thoughts as they are all being forced into wrapping their minds around this lymphoma thing. isaac has had his first round of treatments and is now doing some in-patient therapy for some strength loss he's had. i know its got to be a struggle because right now he's in the phase where all of this is happening TO him and he just has to take it...once they get into a routine and see how he responds to all the treatments and the future isnt' so foreboding, i am praying he will be at peace with this just being part of his life. and hope and pray that it will just be a teensy part of his life, hopefully a terrible nightmare of a memory and that things will get easier, the emotions will become less overwhelming, the humor and joy of every day living will be theirs once more and that he will again have his health and a long joyful life to live. we love isaac and his family so much and think of them constantly, please keep them in your thoughts and send some positive energy their way!

our little red devil

he even has a tail on his sweatpants. In case you don't know, daddy's squadron is VMFA 232 Red Devils.

Oh, and daddy was stuck in El Centro last night....and may be stuck there again tonight if they can't get his jet up and workin again. bad news (depending on your view of things) is if he is stuck there tonight, he can't go away for 3 days this weekend...i have mixed feelings of course. ;)

easter cookies are ready!

come on over! :)

fabulous wonderful kind of weekend

briana is here. :) :) and reidy is home. already a great weekend!
we ate the best fish tacos in the world in carlsbad saturday with good friends before the race expo. it was a gorgeous day. i ran the carlsbad 5000 (5K) sunday - great race and a beautiful day! we told our birth story last night at a bradley method childbirth class. petey was a perfect little prince, sitting on liza's lap not making a peep.

and there is sugar cookie dough whose fate is to be a cute little easter egg or bunny cookie chilling in the fridge.

and we watched slumdog millionaire. incredible.

isaac

please pray for reid's best friend, isaac. he's been sick awhile now. he needs some good news.
if you've already been praying, please pray harder. and tell your friends.
and if you don't believe in praying, do whatever it is you do when you do your deep-down, soul searching spiritual journey stuff....
either way, please keep isaac and his whole family and support group in your thoughts.

sealed with a kiss

baxter was cheering on petey this morning, as always - and congratulated him (as always) when he rolled over. :)
check out his sweet "racing stripe" across the back of his head....chicks totally dig it!
and today petey realized that its not so cool to roll over while in your crib. when he woke up crying today, he was on his tummy and he hasn't learned how to roll back to his back yet. we are entering a new crazy phase of learning about mobility! and daddy did make it home last night, sometime around midnight....he's exhausted needless to say.

an afternoon with friends

my friend jen brought her 9 month old beautiful baby, Ryan, over to play today. it seems like i haven't seen her in ages, so it was great to catch up and chat all afternoon. when i met her she was uber-preggo and i was just a teeny bit preggo so its fun to see our boys together now, and oh so big! thanks for the visit, jen and ryan!
ps-what a cutie pie!!!

trying something new

so the rolling over was happening in full force tonight before bedtime. over and over and over. and he's less and less upset about being "stuck" on his tummy. it seems like every second petey is getting stronger, holding his head up higher and longer. tonight he had himself on his chest and balancing on his toes with his big diaper-bum straight up in the air. he is basically trying to crawl without using his arms. when you hold him in the standing up position, he gets this big, proud grin on his face like he has conquered the world and loves looking around and basically walking his legs around. i mean he's really really moving, without actually going anywhere. once this kid gets it figured out, he will be moving non-stop. the one thing he isn't too interested in is learning how to sit up. even with help, he sort of just folds in half forward with his forehead on his toes. its cute, but sort of seems like i'm torturing him so i don't leave him on his own for more than a second. this little chair, the bumbo, kinda helps out. he's able to sit up and work on building up his neck strength a bit. daddy is in tampa tonight and tomorrow so petey had to do bedtime bath and stories with mommy's crazy songs and stories instead of daddy's. looking forward to a full weekend of daddy being around! much love-

oh, and this face? well....it was right before bedtime, so he looks a little....out of it? yes, that's it i'd say. :)