It's raining, it's pouring

We are currently on Day 2 of the "Kansas-consecutive-days-of-rain" record. (Everyone keeps talking about how it is going to rain for seven straight days). We did not get to go for a walk yesterday due to the cats and dogs that were coming down (and the lightning didn't help either), so I was determined to get out there this morning. After breakfast, I looked out the window and realized there was a break in the rain so I made the mistake of saying the word "walk" out loud. Once Kasey hears this word, she is ready to go. Unfortunately, with a little one, you can't just walk out the door, so when we finally did get out, the rain was falling again. Thankfully, we have the weather shield for the jogger so Christopher was fine. Besides the rain was not coming down too hard. Well, we started our walk (to the amusement of our neighbor Dave who was out on his front stoop when we started). About half way up the street the rain started to become a little too heavy for everyone's taste and our walk turned into a mad dash back to the house. Great fun was had by all, and Kasey received a much-needed bath... We do have some indoor fun planned for later as we are meeting Miss Danna and her kiddos at the Parkside Cafe. Then CJ will spend some time with Miss Kay while Mommy gets a much needed haircut (it's been since before Christmas--yikes!).

Solid Gold

All of Christopher's grandparents will be happy to know that he was listening to the "Solid Gold Oldies" station this afternoon as we played downstairs. It was one of those TV stations that has music so we just kind of put it on in the background. We have tried out several of these stations in recent days, including blues, classical masterpieces, and something known as seasonal soundscapes. They usually just serve as background music while he plays, but today, Christopher was rocking out to the solid gold oldies! There were even a couple of songs that got him to stop playing, look at the TV and laugh out loud. The best, however, was one of my favorite Drifters songs (maybe because it's the only one I know?)... "Under the Boardwalk." I have fond memories of this song because my mom used to take my friend, Lauren, and I to Angelo's (an Italian place in River Vale) that had a great old jukebox. We loved playing this song and getting up to dance while we had spaghetti with meatballs. Well, such inspiration hit me again and I grabbed my little man and we danced around the family room. He was cracking up! And now when he gets excited about something, he waves his hands up and down. Usually, if he's sitting on his own, he will just pat his legs. Since I was holding him and dancing, however, he was smacking me on the shoulders and neck and laughing hysterically. Good times were had by all!

Mr. Happy Apple

(It's Brian)

Just wanted to bask in the glory of my victory that more people thought that the Happy Apple was a boy not a girl. Go Mr. Happy Apple!!

St. Gregory's CYO

So Brian used to play CYO basketball when he was a young'n. I will let him relate his exploits at a later date. Anyway, Grandpa Woglom is still involved with St. Gregory's and ran into Brian's old coach, Coach Hicks. I guess they got to talking about sons and Coach Hicks' son is named Christopher James, so he is a CJ too. Not long after this conversation, we received a package in the mail containing two "St. Gregory's CYO Basketball" jerseys, one for Brian and one for Christopher. It was so wonderful of him to think of us and the jersey for Christopher, although a little on the large side, makes him look like quite the athlete. I think he may be ready to dunk soon. Look out LeBron! Today we took some shots of the boys in their jerseys, although I have to say it was rather difficult to get a smile from CJ. It seems like little man likes to fuss when Mommy's in the room, but not Daddy. (Sound familiar, any of you moms out there???) Anyway, here are some more pics from our day...



(I hope to update the blog mid-week if we make it through the tornado watch we're having tonight... Don't worry, we're good as long as it's not a "warning." Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore!)

Saturday afternoon pics

Just some pictures from our afternoon...

As always, our boy is ready to pose for a picture:

Hanging with Daddy:

The boys practicing their wrestling moves:

All over the place

With the exception of the last post, you may be wondering why I do not update the blog on a daily basis and/or why there are not as many pictures as there used to be. To answer the first question, it is becoming quite beautiful here in Kansas and the last thing I want to do is sit in front of a computer at 2 o'clock in the afternoon when it is 75 degrees and sunny out (that, it is not today--hence I am in front of the computer at, well, 2:42). In response to the second question, it is hard to get little Christopher to sit still for a picture. Although he continues to have many "ham" qualities and will pose for a picture when given the opportunity, he usually notices something across the room and goes for it before I can snap away. Recently I've had many shots (that did not make it to the blog) where I catch him as he's half way out of the frame because he saw something more interesting than Mommy's camera. Also, I often have to stay within reach if he is in a potentially dangerous situation to prevent serious injury... The other day, Christopher had just woken up from his nap, the rain had cleared and he finished his bottle. We were sitting in front of the window (well, he was standing) in his room and it was open, allowing fresh air to just pour in. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, Kasey was sitting with us... CJ looks over at me, gives me a heart-warming smile, looks back at the window (all is well with life), and then BOOM, he falls and smacks his head into the window ledge causing a slight cut/bruise and many tears. Later on that day, he pulled something off the coffee table (that I should NOT have had there) and it gave him a little cut right under his eye. With this second injury, I nearly had a heart attack, but he was fine within a couple minutes and major snuggling with Mommy. I will do my utmost to bring you the highest level of quality in the picture department, but forgive me if they are not as numerous as before!

Oh c'mon already!

I try not to use this blog as a sounding board for my opinions too much but this one really got to me. In a way, it has to do with Christopher, as in he will NEVER get this as a toy to play with. We were walking through the neighborhood the other day where I used to teach, and in one of the driveways we passed was a miniature Escalade complete with fake speakers and chrome rims. You MUST be kidding me. I'll say it again, you MUST be kidding me. It's not fun or funny and please do not think about getting something like this for Christopher. It will be returned immediately. Why is this necessary? What every happened to Big Wheels with which children actually have to pedal... with their legs... and the muscles in their legs? What are we telling children by getting this type of "toy" for them? Ugh! Sorry, CJ, not in your wildest dreams.

A Day in the Life

I know many of you are just dying to know what a day in the life of Christopher, Mommy, and Kasey is like (sorry Daddy, you'll have to wait until the weekend; plus everyone has now seen that great "welcome home" video!). Well, hold onto your pants... here we go...

1. After a hearty, man-sized breakfast of oatmeal and fruit, Christopher says "good morning" to his best friend, Kasey.

2. Christopher then warms up his smiling muscles as he begins his daily pull ups on the furniture. It's a deep burn!


3. While traversing the kitchen, CJ comes across foreign objects unknown to him. He explores these alien tools by banging them on the hardwood floors and then trying to eat them.
4. Being the good Kansas boy that he is, Christopher does his best impression of a farmer after his PM nap.

5. This, of course, is followed by a close examination of his bouncy seat. Everything look good, CJ?

6. Christopher just can't get enough of his Kasey girl. They check out the yard together, making sure everything is in order. Then Kasey entertains CJ for a bit.


7. Christopher lets me know how hungry he is at dinner time by attempting to eat Daddy's shoe.

8. And after a long, fun-filled day, no one deserves her rest and relaxation more than Kasey Moe!

Poor baby

Unfortunately, there will be no picture of Christopher smiling for this blog post. That's because our little man had a nasty nine month visit to the doctor's office today. First of all, he got up extra early this morning so his schedule was thrown off a bit, but that wasn't too bad. When we got to the doctor's office, however, we had to wait to get in and then we had to wait again once we were in the room. Although I am not a huge fan of waiting, I usually can deal. However, when you have a very mobile nine month old in an office that has lots of wires and cords, waiting becomes the least favorite of my pastimes. By the time Dr. Brooks came in to see us, Christopher had developed some major fuss in his pants and also proceeded to spit up all over my jeans and the floor while we were discussing his eating habits. Speaking of which, Christopher is officially 23 pounds, 4 ounces (to think we were worried about him gaining enough weight those first few days of his life!) and he is 29.5 inches tall. And for anyone keeping score, his head circumference is 17.75 inches. Since we delayed his vaccines, this visit included three shots as well as a hemoglobin test that involved pricking his heel and squeezing out the drops of blood for like five tortuous minutes. He screamed for both of these events like he did when he was born. It was awful. Poor guy! He continued to scream the whole time during checkout until we got half way home in the car. The only thing that made him feel better was when Kasey gave him lots of kisses upon our return... So now he is down for his nap a bit early and hopefully he will be up and excited to go play at the gym. Other than all the yucky parts of the visit, CJ is in great health!

The Happy Apple

So Brian and I have been having this debate about whether the Happy Apple is a girl or a boy. I happen to think she is a girl but Brian argues that SHE is a boy. Hmmmm... We will leave it up to you, the reader, to decide. Please let your opinion be known in the poll!

Look who's nine... months

It's official. Christopher has been alive outside the womb for as long as he was alive inside the womb. It's hard to believe that little boy was born nine months ago (yesterday) and now he is a crawling/pulling-up maniac! Chris literally pulls up on everything he can get his hands on: chairs, coffee tables, Kasey, Mommy's leg. And he is also cruising, which is fun to watch. He likes to do this on the downstairs coffee table but it's funny because he only likes to move to the left so far. I don't know what he has against moving to the right (Daddy hopes this does not indicate his political preferences) but hopefully that will come soon. We went for a lovely family walk this afternoon and ran into one of the parents of a student I taught last year. This woman has two boys and she told us we are getting into the hard part now, especially because CJ is a boy. Apparently, she said, boys get into everything and the boys' parents look at their friends who have little girls with envy as they are able to concentrate on things for longer periods of time. As you can imagine, this topic led to quite a discussion between Mommy and Daddy as we returned home about boys vs. girls. (Girls rule, boys drool... at least that's what Kasey says!). Anyway, we have our nine month visit to Dr. Brooks on Tuesday so we will be giving you all an update on weight, height and head circumference shortly.

Must... eat... chair

Why don't they feed me?!?! Please send sustenance immediately! I'm wasting away over here.

All smiles

Yes, this is one happy kid! If there's one thing people tend to tell us about our little CJ (other than, "Wow, look at those cheeks!" and "He's a big baby... probably will be a linebacker.") it's that he is a very happy baby. This is very true (with the exception of occasional middle of the night tears) and it is no more true than recently. Perhaps this happiness has come with his emerging mobility. Often it is spurred on by the sighting of a furry creature with four legs that barks. But Christopher has a very sunny personality. Word is, he inherited it from his dad! Below you will see some examples of his utter happiness, but first a word about our trip to the dog park yesterday. It was beautiful here and we decided to take Kasey Moe to the dog park for some serious romping. I'm beginning to think that CJ and Kasey have switched bodies because he was much more excited to be at the park than Kasey was. (This theory would make sense if you read back to how much Kasey likes bubbles). Christopher laughed the whole time we were at the dog park. Every dog he saw, he just laughed and laughed. Unbelieveable! Enjoy the pics...

Bubbles!

What could be more fun than playing with bubbles? (Except, perhaps, eating chocolate chip cookies!). When I went to Babies R Us yesterday, I picked up a fun bubble contraption, one that Christopher will be able to play with without spilling when he is a bit older. Well, I purchased said bubbles for our little man. Turns out our other child is a bigger fan of the soapy, spherical things. I'm hoping to get this on video soon, but for the time being picture this scene: I'm sitting on the floor with the bubble tube and I start blowing bubbles. Christopher (who is across the room getting into all sorts of mischief) looks at me and contemplates whether it would be worth his time and effort to trek all the way to where I am sitting. Kasey, on the other hand, jumps off her chair (that's right, I said her chair) and sticks right by my side. She tries as hard as she can to pop as many bubbles as possible in the shortest amount of time by biting them. If a lofty bubble is descending too slowly, she leaps for it, stopping it in its tracks. CJ eventually comes over to join the fun and he waits patiently as the bubbles land on his hands, his feet, and sometimes his nose and watches them with curiosity as they pop. I try to explain that bubbles are transient objects. I'm pretty sure he gets it... As you can see from the picture, Christopher is moving on to bigger and better things than crawling. ("Crawling is for wusses," he said. "That is so last week.") He is pulling up on everything and as we watched a video this morning, he totally cruised three quarters of the way around our coffee table. Perhaps we should sign him up for the Shelter Island 10K? Speaking of that, I received a flyer in the mail with my name on it regarding this upcoming epic race and it is officially marked on my Dabney Lee At Home calendar. The flyer was trying to impress me with all the notable runners and record-holders who have competed in this race. I did not notice anyone with the last name Woglom, so needless to say, I was not impressed. With all the Wogloms running it this year, I fully expect to see some of our names on the flyer next year. Peace.

Easter lunch

Well, we're back from our Easter lunch at Matt and Jaime's house. Here are some pics of the kiddos.



And here are a couple of our little man from the past couple of days...

Easter Sunday

Ah, there is nothing like a beautiful Easter Sunday morning in Kansas and apparently Christopher felt the same way because he requested our presence at the sunrise service this morning. Our little man woke up at 5:45 looking for the eggs left by the Easter bunny and then wanted to be the first person to get to church. What a good boy! Anyway, I have to make a request to the Catholic Church on this joyous occasion. It is my feeling that childcare should be provided for babies during mass because their parents get to listen to about 5 minutes of the service, especially when we are in the "crying room." They have this little room (well it's actually big enough to fit about 30 people and their children) where you can go during mass because the kiddos tend to make a lot of noise. Well, we were not the only ones with a child at the early service this morning and all those other kids were giving their own homilies at the same time! Since we were at the 7am mass, many babies were getting their bottles. Even though our little man had his bottle at home before we left, he thought all the other bottles belonged to him and was not happy that the other babies were not sharing. The nerve! Anyway, we are off to Olivia's house later for our Easter lunch and good company with friends.

Daddy's Home

Every evening now, when Brian gets home from work, he doesn't just get the greatest welcome ever from Kasey. The welcome wagon now includes Christopher laughing and crawling over to his "Dada." It is so stinkin' cute and I want to upload a short video of what it usually looks like. Notice how Kasey is trying so hard not to be outdone by little man...


CJ loves his pops! This is seriously what it is like every evening now that Christopher can crawl... Here are some more pics from the past several days:

Book worm

Some women have a weakness for shoes. For others, the achilles is clothes. For me, it is children's books. I have a hard time walking into Borders and walking out empty handed. Today, Christopher had a babysitter for a few hours while I got out to run some errands. While I was out I decided to stop and relax at Borders for a while. I got something to drink, grabbed a magazine and hung out at the cafe for a while. When I was done, I saw the door to the outside world but some strange force was pulling me to the back of the store. Peaking my curiousity, I followed the force and found myself in the children's book section. As I browsed through the books, I kept thinking to myself, "Self, you have hundreds of children's books at home from teaching. You really shouldn't get any more." Somehow I walked out with three new board books for my little man with no regrets.

Catch up

We have been pretty busy over the past several days, so we have some catching up to do, blog-wise... The end of last week brought two play dates for Christopher with, who else, the ladies! Thursday we went over to visit Olivia and her mom, Jaime. The Mommys enjoyed Chinese food from Chen's kitchen while the little ones played and watched Sesame Street. Jaime and I remarked about the fact that we think the people on Sesame Street are the same people from when we watched it over 25 years ago. It doesn't seem like they have aged at all. I guess if you work on Sesame Street, there is not much stress involved! Friday brought us over to Maddie's house where CJ got to play on Maddie's swing set. The swing was fun but not as fun as watching their dog, Sasha, run around the back yard with her toy! Christopher enjoyed that the best... Yesterday, Daddy ran his half marathon in Olathe and finished in just over 2 hours. Way to go Daddy! Christopher was so excited for Daddy that he only slept for 20 minutes in the morning. Later on, Sierra came over to visit and we baked cupcakes for her to take home to her family. Little man just loved Sierra and smiled every time she smiled at him. It was so cute! Once again, we were determined to go out and run errands today but it was SO windy and cold (with a little bit of snow) that we thought better of it. Sorry, Grandpa, none of the snow stuck. Chris is also developing what seems like another cold (c'mon already!) but he's handling it like a champ. Here are some pics of our lazy Sunday:

Happenings

Here are some pictures of what our two "kids" have been up to lately...

Now that Christopher is getting all over the place, he is finding himself in interesting locations. I see you through the glass, little man!
Let me preface this next one by directly addressing Grammy: Don't worry, the bear was not hurt and is still in one piece!
CCCHHHHHEEEEEEKKKKKKSSSSS:
Umm... where ya goin'?

Alright, who was it?

Okay, I want to know who voted for the name "Bob." Reveal yourself!!! We might just need to have that be CJ's new nickname...

Today is the only day this week that we did not have something planned to do. Well, we were supposed to go to story hour at the library but that is always dependent on Christopher's nap. He went to sleep at 10 so I didn't think we would be able to make the 10:15 reading! He went to sleep at 10 because he actually slept until 7:20AM this morning. Don't jump for joy yet. Little man woke up at 3:15AM and then was up until 4:30. He keeps waking up around the same time every morning and it seems like his teeth are bothering him. ENOUGH WITH THE TEETHING ALREADY!!! This is a request to the universal force that causes teeth to emerge: Please, I beg you, let Christopher go through one month where he does not have teeth cutting through his gums. Thank you! Our day has included a lovely run this morning on the trail and a trip to Whole Foods. Let me take a moment to talk about Whole Foods. Yes, we have a Price Chopper right down the road, and yes, their produce section is very nice. But there is nothing like going to Whole Foods with Christopher. I wore him in the ring sling today so he could see better and he was just fascinated with everything going on. His favorite things to look at were the ceiling fans, but he was also really interested in watching the butcher wrap up the chicken and buffalo meat. CJ also helped me hold the zucchini and pick out mozzerella cheese. Yes, Whole Foods is a bit pricey but the food everywhere is expensive these days. Plus their food is awesome. I'm also being a total "snob mom" and cooking all organic food for my little man. We want our little foodie to get off to a good start nutrition wise!