Thomas's perfect day

In my imagination, today has been Thomas's perfect day. It's a rainy one (so far this summer has been the wettest here in 17 years, so it's often a rainy day!) so we met up with two of Thomas's friends - Parker and Eli (whose moms are Malia & Erin) - and went to an indoor baby "gym". It's a giant foam-covered play structure with a ball pit and slides and tubes. You can only imagine T's delight when he realized he could climb and run to his heart's delight. He was ecstatic.

We played there until the kids were exhausted & then headed home. When we pulled up to our house, another delight awaited: a digger! (Yes, the lead-pipe replacement project continues as they begin to repair our sidewalk.) The digger driver was the same man who's been coming since October and he was excited to see us, too: "I'm glad you're here!" he smiled. "I was afraid you might miss us."

But we didn't miss them and Thomas got to touch the shovel part of the backhoe. The whole crew was thrilled with his pure joy; they all took a break and watched him revel. If I can get it together, I'm going to send some of the pictures to the construction company: I'm not sure how often they are greeted with such enthusiasm!

Needless to say, Thomas is down for the count now - all that excitement has resulted in a good, long nap!

The Poop Surprise

by guest blogger Grandma Shirley:

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh ... when Thomas woke from his morning nap (short one) he did not want me to take him from his crib so I said ok and sat and talked with him for a bit ... then asked him again ... again it was a strong no ... so I said I'd come back in a few minutes and get him and I went down stairs ... he did not protest and I had the monitor on and he babbled ... I had opened the window and curtain (due to the yesterday still lingering smell of his big spit-up vomit) .... I chopped rhubarb and listened .... when he made a big squawking I went up and .... his diaper which was loaded with poop was on the floor ... and he and his bed was covered with poop ... face, arms, ... and the clean sheets and the blankets which were fresh off the line covered in poop ... i did NOT over react ... I said .... oh what a surprise ... I may have said that a few times ... and then ran the tub ... he loved his bath ... (he had had a shower early morning with André because of vomit) ... so ... poop everywhere but good news none on teddy bear or stuffed dog ...

we did make it to the playgroup but an hour late ... still had an hour of fun and he's now downed a bottle of milk and is down for the count ...

(My note: obviously we are not including pictures in this one!)

Bono who?

For nearly 11 months now, Thomas has thought (rightfully, no doubt) that the sun and the moon revolved around me. André likes to say that it's like living with Bono and being the Edge. (For any of you who don't know those names, think John Lennon and Ringo Starr.) The Edge is really great, but if Bono's in the room, well, we all know who'd we'd rather be with.

Poor Thomas has been sick for a few days; he has the flu and is feeling pretty puny. On Sunday he wouldn't let me out of his sight and almost wouldn't let go of me. He and André muddled through Monday while I was at work (4 hour-long naps made Monday a little easier for everyone), and then this afternoon brought a wonderful surprise: Thomas looked to André instead of me for comfort. He was upset and tired and barely glanced my direction before he held his arms out for his daddy. I'm not sure which of the three of us was the most shocked, but I know that it was one of those moments where I was 100% sure that André and I made the right choice when we decided to split our parental leave so that we could both be the stay-at-home parent for a while: Thomas knows that we both offer comfort, and he might even know that we provide slightly different kinds of comfort. And that's exactly what we want.

Somebody GOT a Haircut

Just to set the record straight, I was planning to trim those bangs before I even knew that André was blogging about haircuts...

Somebody needs a haircut

I don't think we'll make it to his first birthday before that unruly mop gets trimmed.

Charleston

Early in March the three of us were down in beautiful Charleston, South Carolina for the wedding of two dear friends with whom we share a special bond: they met for the first time at the same time and place that Mandy and I did (the wedding of two other friends down in Washington D.C.).

We traveled to Charleston separately, since I needed to be there a bit early to do some groomsmen-related things. Fortunately everything went fairly smoothly (the return journey was not so smooth, but we all survived), and Thomas bolstered his reputation as a hardy traveler.

Grandpa Dave, Grandma Donna, and Uncle Justin joined us, and very kindly took care of Thomas while we were out partying (well, it felt like partying to us, but we were still among the first to leave).

While we were in Charleston we did some walking about and took pictures of the three of us at a couple of places that have significance for Grandpa Jim's family: Fort Sumter, where one of his relatives served in the opening battle of the Civil War (look over my left shoulder, it's the little bulge on the horizon) ...

... and St. Michael's Church, where his father was Reverend years ago.

In other news, little Thomas has been a bit miserable the last couple of days. It was only yesterday afternoon, however that we confirmed the cause (we had our suspicions, but had not seen evidence until then): four new teeth breaking through! Anyhow, he's understandably a bit grumpy and drools constantly, but otherwise is in fine form.

In the category of "firsts", Thomas and I went to the vet not once, but twice this week. The first visit was fairly routine, which was to check on Peter-cat's weight and heart (he has a bit of a heart murmur, but no other troubling symptoms). The other visit was decidedly not routine, since poor Babbington got into a very serious scrap and had some nasty puncture wounds and gashes that needed more medical attention than we could hope to provide. The good news is that Babbington is doing much better, but looks pretty ridiculous since the vet had to shave the area around the wounds (pretty much his whole right shoulder). Happily, Thomas enjoyed both visits since the waiting room afforded him an excellent view of the street and there were many passing cars and trucks, which provided a constant stream of entertainment.

Walk like a man

Well, no pictures for the moment - and yes, we've been ridiculously bad about keeping this blog up since I went back to work (we're exhausted) - but the news of the evening is that Thomas walked.

He's been cruising around the house for weeks with one or both hands on the walls, the chairs, the cats, whatever, and he's been happily toddling around using just one of our fingers to balance, so we knew this was coming. And he's an excellent stander who can balance with a toy in each hand. More than that, like all good first-time parents we've been encouraging him to walk by playing "pass the baby" after dinner - we sit on the floor and he "walks" between us by falling forward & catching our hands.

But tonight, he stood up in front of André, took a good long look at me (on the phone, of course) and walked 5 or 6 steps before he caught my hand. Then, tickled with himself, he did it again. Our reaction must have completely delighted him because he took a few more steps over the course of the evening, but he quickly realized that crawling is much more efficient & reverted to his old ways.

Now, we'll see how long it takes before we can catch this development on film!