Nine Months

Where did the time go?

How did this guy turn 9 (cough, almost 10, cough) months old?

Teddy's no longer a docile little nugget, trapped in whatever position I place him.

Nope.  He's all over the place.

What with sprouting 5 new teeth, pulling up to standing, and begging for food, our Mr. T has had a lot on his plate lately.  

Abandoning purees completely, he eats anything that we eat, a feat that no other child in our household has ever accomplished. In fact, I feel so guilty not sharing certain off-limits foods with him (like shellfish, honey, etc.) that I have to sneak around to eat any granola bars or shrimp.

And he'll tell you what he wants. 
When I picked my little bear up from school one day, his teacher told me, "I hope you don't mind, but I gave Teddy some of my pizza today." Of course I didn't mind, he'd been eating pizza with us for the last 2 months.  But why?

"Well, he scooted right over to me, sat up and started clapping and cooing and growling at me.  I just couldn't say no!"

 It turns out, his teacher had Jet's pizza that day, and our little Bear is nothing if not a pizza connoisseur.

Favorite Foods: pizza, mashed potatoes, green beans, ravioli, chicken, hamburger, apples, cantaloupe, avocado, carrots.  You name it, he eats it.   If he weren't burning so many calories getting into EVERYTHING, I might be worried about him becoming as wide as he is tall.

As I mentioned before, he's quite the communicator. 

Clapping is his preferred way of telling us he wants something, but he also finds grunting, growling, and yelling quite effective.

Or, if he's within striking distance of an object he wants, he'll just steal it.

Though he continues to battle teeth and ear discomfort, T's a pretty happy guy.

He flirts with anything in a skirt and is working on blowing kisses.

Hair-pulling is still a signature move, but he's added eye-gouging and kicking to his repertoire.

And it's really no wonder: every time I turn around, he's being tackled or wrestled by a territorial older sibling protecting turf or toy. 

This guy is gonna be tough.

But the sibs had better watch out: Big T is pulling up on ANYTHING, and I mean ANYTHING.  Drawers, legs, the dishwasher, Sarah and Will, the man wants to stand, and he is relentless.

Not only does he want to stand, Teddy is starting to cruise.  He'll go from leg to table, drawer to outstretched hand, often with a tumble along the way.  Like I said, he's tough, so he doesn't usually cry, he just looks surprised and then gets back into the fray.

Now that he's more consistently crawling on all-fours or cruising,

 I call him my Bulldog, since he's got the build and the mentality of one.

 So, what makes this guy tick?

Turn-ons: taking off his socks; no-handed pant-removal; swinging at the park; power naps; eating books; drinking out of a real cup.

Turn-offs: naps; sippy cups; wearing hats, shoes, or socks; solitary confinement (the exersaucer, high-chair, or crib).

So, here's to a new year and the countdown to the big 0-1!

No more Christmas music for a year!

Woohoo!

He's Happy...

...and he knows it.

Except for this month.  October was pretty crummy for Teddy.  I'm actually writing this two months late because of just how rough it was on all of us.  Sleep was lost, never to be recovered.  Various ailments visited in sundry forms, all of which resulted in turning my laid-back, up-for-anything baby into a total fussbudget. 

 Now, fussbudget by Teddy's standards is still pretty easy. 

 But, c'mon - we've got 3 of these boogers now.

 So, with all of the drama and unexplained night-waking, there must be some new teeth, right?

Wrong.

 Nonetheless, homeslice loves him some table food.  He's totally over purees, grabbing at anything we eat.

Faves? 

Pizza, bread, celery, apples, and crackers.  And leaves.  I'm not gonna lie, this man has had some roughage, because, hey, he's #3 and sometimes he's plopped in a pile of leaves while I'm trying to break up a fight or help somebody ride without training wheels.  For some reason, he loves a water bottle and will snatch it right out of his unsuspecting victim's mouth.

He's quite opinionated and enthusiastic all around, in fact.  He claps when he hears his jam ("If You're Happy and You Know It") of course, but also when he sees his favorite peeps or a toy he wants.

Young Teddy has also mastered the stair down to the den and aspires to climb to greater heights as we've caught him eyeing the steps to the second floor. 

There are no cute pictures of our little Harold and the Purple Crayon on Halloween, because, well, our Harold was not up to taking any moonlit strolls.

Or trick-or-treating. 

Turns out, basing your family costume around an infant is a pretty dicey business. 


Teddy and the family had a blast in St. Louis, and we had fun celebrating Mike's birthday!

Arch-car simulator.  We didn't drag the little one up to the top of the Arch.

Down by the Arch

Best zoo ever.

Eight months are in the bag, and we can't imagine life without our littlest!

We are really looking forward to the excitement of the holidays as a family of FIVE. 

I Don't Think You're Ready...

...for this jelly.

Fish, that is. 

I realize this post is about four months overdue, but it takes time to properly wish a princess "Happy Birthday".  And my phone held these pictures hostage for awhile. 

This summer, for her sixth birthday, Sarah requested a Mermaid-princess-theater-rockstar-hangout party.  With minions.  

Hmmmmm. 

I was kind of at a loss, to say the least.  But, then I taught a unit on ocean animals the last week of school and we ended the year with a pirate party, complete with shark attack photo booth. 

We named him Fluffy.

The kids adopted him for their very own

and so we took the Under the Sea theme and ran with it. 

Though Fluffy is my pride and joy, I got a leeetle carried away making these jellyfish guys for decoration.

These guys were supposed to crisscross overhead on the patio, a la Finding Nemo, but, alas, it threatened rain the entire morning before the party, so I kept them indoors. 

From Will's and my Jaws t-shirts, to the shark bite wreath welcoming guests at the front door,

the party had a decidedly toothy bent.

The rain held off, though, and we filled up the inflatable pool, slipped on swimsuits, and took the party outside. 

There are basically no good pictures of party action, because the photographer and the cruise director were one and the same: ME. 

Activities included splashing in the pool,

trampolining with pool noodles, and a no-handed donut-eating contest.

I don't have the donut-eating contest on film, but the kids had a blast trying to eat like fish on a line.  The setup was easy: I tied some twine between two trees and threaded donuts on it.  The kids lined up across from their chosen donut, and ate as fast as possible before it hit the ground.

Birthday girl.

 There was also a photo booth of the princess-y kind, ready for some goofy fun.

 We needed a little somethin' for the ladies, so a mermaid photo prop made from a tri-fold presentation poster board did the trick.

While most of the guests braved the water or the trampoline,

others enjoyed the little shark-themed corn hole game I whipped up about 2 hours before party time.

I was so shocked this idea actually panned out! 

Yet another tri-fold board made an appearance, this time cut on a slant and secured with duct tape to raise it off the ground.

 And so, Feed the Chum to Fluffy was born.

Oh, you need bean bags in a jiffy?
Just gather some beans or rice, a roll of duct tape, and some zipper sandwich bags.

Voila!

The party ended with blue-iced cupcakes topped with drink umbrellas, shark fins, and Teddy Grahams

As simple as the decor, the setup, and the food were, a good time was had by all! 

My best girl rang in year 7 in style, and we can't wait to see what the rest of the year has in store!

7 Months (And Some Change)

Is it just me, or do these Teddy milestone posts keep getting further and further apart?  I guess it's just the season of life that our family is in, but it's like we're sprinting.

Uphill.

For 26.2 miles.

Anyway, Teddy is a big part of what's keeping us busy, and he's been a busy dude this past month himself. 

Sleep has been touch and go this past month, but it has gotten steadily better than the vortex of snot and pain that we were dealing with in August.

Our little bear has been doing some growing, but he's still on the pocket-sized end of the height and weight charts, and we're okay with that.  If you plant corn, you're not going to get pumpkins, right?  And neither Mike nor I are exactly giants.

So what does Mr. Teddy like these days?  Let's take a look.

Turn-ons: 

• Table food (we share a plate of eggs every morning, and he gets rowdy waiting for his lunch and dinner)
• Grabbing plates and bowls off the table and dumping them in laps; grabbing spoons on their way to his mouth
• Baths/pouring water
• Speaking his mind 
• Big brother's and sister's Pez dispensers - they're an especially good chew
• Army crawling 
• His Kevin the Bird softie
• Taking off his pants without using his hands 
• Escaping.

Who? Me?

Teddy's repeated escape attempts have earned him the alias "Houdini" and a one-way

ticket to the maximum security wing of the Big House, aka: the exersaucer.

Another new phenomenon around is the arch.  No, not the Gateway to the West.  We're talking about a signature Teddy move used whenever he's being put somewhere he doesn't want to be.  As an inmate with multiple escape attempts and a penchant for log-rolling his way off of elevated surfaces, the Bear has been relegated to solitary confinement or the floor.  But he doesn't want to just sit quietly on the floor with a Mumm-Mumm or a toy.  Nope.  So, he arches his back and stiffens his legs as straight as a board, very suddenly, I might add, becoming quite slippery and hard to handle.  What this accomplishes, I'm not sure, but his silent protests are increasingly frustrating to the parental units.

Turn-offs: 

• Socks (seriously, people, what is the point of putting socks on a baby? There is no contouring, no curves for the elastic to grab ahold of.  It's just cankle with a Hobbit foot stuck on it.);

• Actually being a baby: this guy is beside himself because he can't hang with the big kids yet. He wants to get down and wrestle with them, chase them, and play with chew their toys.  I have heard Mr. T actually try to jump in whatever raucous yelling match with them in his own language. 

• His carseat.  We spent 5 hours on Tuesday driving home from St. Louis, and Teddy's been refusing to get in it ever since, even busting an Arch yesterday morning before leaving the doctor's office.

• Milk.  The big guy would rather have what we're having, please and thank you. 

Oh, Teddy.  You've become a total pain just like the rest of us, and we love you for it!