Another week of 1sts

First soccer lesson at KC Sports Lodge, playing with the Dinomites for the next 6 weeks. The coach is clearly an expert at 'herding cats' :)

First time using 'rs' together...to say, 'cars', constantly .

First night out w/ the adults...bowling. And by the way, the kid is strong, he picked up my 8 lb ball a couple times and promptly dropped it on his toe, unbeknownst to him.

Growing by leaps and bounds and still being a sweet love. Also very affectionate towards, Fran, the lady that looks after him at the gym daycare. He leaned in for a kiss from her the other day before leaving and is also courteous to all his 'fans' in the daycare, waving bye to everyone before exiting the room.

Wine Riddle

If 4 oz of red wine has approximately 100 calories and there are 25- 28 oz to a bottle, does having a bottle 3 or 4 times a week make me an aspiring fat ass?

Answer: YES!

Solution: do not buy wine, if it is not in the house, you will not drink it...same rule we follow with regards to sweets.

I love when I press the EASY button on a solution!

I can almost hear the pounds melting off now.

Technology Fan

Remind mama to tell you what a technology nut you were, before u were even 2.

Now u ask for the iPAD(bapa) regularly. Reading stories on the ipad with mom and dad use to be enough to whet your appetite, now u like to have it all to yourself so you can peruse all your apps and movies. Favorite movies on the ipad, Cars and Finding Nemo. We just hand it to you and you navigate everything on your own....which may or may not be a good thing :(

Now that you have access to an ipad mom and dads iphone and the tv remote, hold no allure for you.

Learning words, fast and furious!

The average 20-month-old can learn ten or more words a day, but don't expect your toddler to utter all these words just yet. Now he's working on his ability to understand.

And even though we don't always understand which word he is using, he is adding new ones quite quickly.

When not learning new words, we are honing our technology skills via the iPad(or as Pax calls it the bapa). He knows how to quickly navigate his programs, turn up the volume and shoot emails to grandma and grandpa....ok well not really on the emails :)

Enter, the Step Stool....

unearthed from my closet(so I can reach all my shoes, kept up high) by the Pax man and dragged upstairs, to his room, this is now his favorite accessory. He steps onto it to look out his bedroom window, carries it to his bathroom so he can get up on it to wash his hands, brush his teeth and hair. He used to carry it down stairs to use at the kitchen sink, until he realized we keep another step stool in the laundry room, which he now uses for downstairs activities.

Who knew so much fun could be had from one step stool. Guess mama needs to buy one more, for her closet again :)

RSV Playdate

no, not RSVP'ing for a playdate, but the nasty upper respiratory virus that experts say ALL kids will have by the time they are 2...we were lucky to pick it up at one of our playdates.

Total drag, as it is nasty in little people. Plays out like a cold in adults w/ more mature immune systems, but in your toddler be prepared w/ the puffs, humidifier, pedialyte pops(for hydration), honey elixir to soothe the cough(since you cannot give them any cough syrup) and tylenol to reduce the fever they are guaranteed to get. Also, there is no medicine for it, so might as well save yourself the wait in the sick area at your pediatricians office, unless the breathing is really labored and your little one has a really bad case :(

Oh , and consider yourself in quarantine for a week...incubation is 2-7 days.

Better have a good rotation of videos you can tolerate watching w/ the little one in misery, as playing is almost out of the question.

Wah!

Personal Shoppers are AWESOME!

I may be very slow in discovering this fun little service at Nordi's, but love that I now have someone else's ear to bend re:fashion, besides that of my husbands!

does this go w/ this?....should I wear these shoes or these?...what necklace should I wear?

Though Jay may not always have the answer, this personal shopper just might.

My new BFF is only a phone call away :)

No need to have someone come shop my closet, now I can slowly bring it to my personal shopper for pairing and perfecting , oh happy day!

Raising a climber

climbing the ottoman, climbing on to the couch, climbing onto his rocking chair, and trying to climb onto mama's too tall bed :)

sorry son, some spots are just off limits. Though I 'm sure it's not long before he figures out how to get up onto my bed.

He is all boy, oh boy, I love him!

The words are coming faster now too, which is exciting.

He readily tries to imitate what he hears, but L's do not come. He can mimick his friend Joshua's name....zha zha, but has no clue where to start sounding out Lily :) he just gives me the 'what the' look.

Paxton's Vocabulary to date

mama=milk

do=dog

chee= tree

ball

car

rubs chest in a circle=please

cackah=cracker

opple=apple

chuck=truck

moo=cow

choo choo=train

qack qack=duck

chee=fish

geo-cheerio

shoes

col=cold

ha ha=hot

doh=don't(imitates mama yelling don't touch or don't go in there)

Merry Christmas 2011!

It's wonderful to capture that 'O' shot of a kid at Christmas.

Perhaps Blogger does not like Apple files, this might not EVER upload :(

And then there was Print Awareness!

They tell us at the library story time that print awareness is one of the early reading signs in kids.

Paxton is now well aware that you cannot read or view a book, an Ipad or an Iphone updside down :)

A proud moment to see his awareness take hold.

He also can point to almost all his body parts, recognizing them when you say the word.

Head, shoulders, knees and toes!...sing it :)

ASL is taking hold!

So proud of Pax for picking up sign language more quickly now.

It means mama needs to quickly bone up on her vocab.

Some things are just not very intuitive to me...for instance, cracker. This sign, to me, looks like I am sloughing off an elbow callus....ewwww!!

Grapes is fun,

http://www.signingsavvy.com/sign/GRAPES/1423/1

and he mimicked this immediately :)

So fun to see my little sponge trying to say and do what mama asks!

1st photo w/ Santa

well, it was sort of as I suspected, since he is afraid of balloons, large stuffed figures(ie a giant stuffed rabbit at the Pediatricians office) and anything in costume/disguise, Pax was no different w/ the jolly ol' Santa at Bass Pro.

A classic first shot w/ Santa.

Happy Halloween!

While Pax did not go trick or treating this year, he did sport his muscle man costume at the library's Halloween puppet show. Being thrust into the face of horror and his mama's favorite holiday has not been easy, but I think he's coming around(just not to the Halloween 'witch closet' yet)

Man Overboard!

Paxton decided to catapult himself outta the crib today.
I did not think it would happen so soon.
Apparently the bumpers in his crib assisted him ....so buh bye bumpers, hello Craigslist.
One more step towards manhood  :(

Forks over Knives...

....after watching this movie, Jay and I sort of decided to change some of our eating and DRINKING habits, decreasing our meat consumption in lieu of more veggies/grains and cutting our alcohol consumption...not really influenced by the movie, but our desire to eliminate empty calories.
Jay is sticking to it like a real champ and even wined and dined clients at a nice steakhouse w/ out imbibing himself and dining on salmon...STUD.  He has abstained from alcohol for 2.5 weeks now!
While I have maintained the healthy eating and increased my workouts...I did fall off the wagon after a week of abstaining from alcohol and had a few drinks  :(
But, much better than having a couple of glasses of wine a night, which is were I was coming from.
The empty calories and weight gain do not justify me having a glass of wine a night...cuz, let me be real for a sec, it never is just ONE glass of wine.

My Amorous 16 month old

I LOVE this stage, I wish it would last,  but I know it won't , and so, I brace myself for the day I will hear,  'I hate you'.

Still, I am moved when my son hugs me and pats my back, leans in for a kiss anytime I do something 

Labor DayWeekend!

what a delightful Labor Day weekend!   After a sensory overload outing to Science City on Saturday w/ Paxton, we had our neighbors over Sunday afternoon for a sunny and 70's fajita feast on the back deck, complete w/ Chocoflan for dessert !  Monday was our first trip to the Kansas City Zoo, which was lovely.  Even though KC has some seriously depressed neighborhoods, they spared no expense for the zoo.  Pax was wild for the polar bears, but still quite excited to see a tiger up close and in person.  Still,  while he enjoyed it, I could not help but feel sad for the captive animals and especially  the elephants plucking off bits of painters tape from their cable enclosure and eating them.
Perhaps we will have to take him on a wildlife excursion instead  :)
Daddy, can we go to Africa instead???

The 15 month gait

'When your child first learned to walk, he probably strutted around all day with a wide, swaybacked gait, his stomach jutting out in front. As he gets better at balancing, the distance between his feet will narrow, and his toes will point ahead instead of turning out. And now that he's so good at walking, he'll be looking for challenges like the stairs.'


As we near his 16 month, I can see the speed and perfected walk emerge....this is where my sister in laws words ring true, 'you'll never sit down'   :(
 Though still a a little wobbly and bobbleheaded at times(especially close to naptime), today at lunch he took  a big step out, clear off  the deck, missing both stairs and toppling  over like Humpty Dumpty.  Poor baby, busted the inside of his lip. Thank goodness I still had some teething rings in the freezer which he likes to chew, which helped  :)


Wonder what we'll bust up tomorrow?
Boys!...gotta love'em.

Dog Lover Paxton

Clearly I will need to do some training w/ the little mister around stranger dogs.
While he is a big lover of doggies(like his momma),  he does not know it is faux pax to stick your face in front of doggies face...to give kisses, of course.  I was the same way as a child, fearless of dogs, always in their face and never feared them, even when I was bit and chased a couple of times by an unfriendly  neighbor dog.
Oh well, it is hard to train a dog lover to stay away or keep their distance.