Go!

So my fabulous "team in training" (CJ and Kasey) joined me for a trail run on this absolutely stunning day in Kansas. I've been getting up early to run (5AM) recently because, to be honest with you, pushing the stroller is not always my favorite form of getting a jog in. But on a day like today, I could have been pushing triplets and it would have been awesome. We went out a mile and a half to our usual turn-around point and began heading back to the car. I felt very light on my feet and Kasey was all "emptied out" and had some kick. On our way back, Christopher began saying something which I couldn't quite make out. It seemed like he was saying "Ga." So I repeated back "Go!" and he kept saying "Ga" and we went back and forth like this about 6 times. Each time he said "Ga" I ran faster and faster. It was great motivation! Now, who knows if he was really repeating "Go" when I said it, but it was fun nonetheless. Next run I expect CJ to be saying "faster" after his "ga."

Just like old times... again.

As many of you know, Christopher was not the greatest of sleepers for the first 5 months of his life. In recent months, however, he has been making up for this lack of initial sleep with two 2-hour naps a day plus 10 hours of sleep per night. Ahhhh... And then there was last night. I think little man didn't want us to forget his younger days because at 12:30 AM we heard a very loud and piercing "waaaahhhh" coming from down the hall. I'm pretty sure it had something to do with the two, possibly three nasty molars coming through this poor boy's gums, but it surprised us just the same. I went in and held him for about a half an hour until he was calm and ready to go back to sleep. He hung out in his crib, sitting up for a while (I was watching through the monitor) and finally went back to sleep. Half an hour later, he was standing up again, screaming and chewing on the rail of his crib. I went in to give him the pacifier and he plopped down and was out. Brian and I were talking about it in the morning and when you think about it, he really wasn't up for more than 45 minutes last night which would have been a dream for us 9 months ago! But now that we are used to undisturbed nights, 45 minutes makes us feel like we only got 4 hours of sleep last night (and that's probably because we did since neither of us could go back to sleep very long after waking). Ah, perspective.

Grammy's Visit

I know, I know... I've been slacking on the blog. So sorry! We were having such a nice visit with Grammy that I lost track of my blogging responsibilities but now we're back. Christopher had a lovely visit with his New Jersey grandmother and he wants to send a shout out to her and her peeps at the Hillsdale Public Library (we know you're all reading this--hehehe!). And although he looks like he's punching Grammy in the face in the picture above, Christopher really enjoyed having her here in Kansas. The reality of the picture is that it is hard to keep this little one year-old in one place now. One minute, he wants to be picked up. The next minute, he wants to be down on the floor running around. Grammy believes he is giving us a preview of his "terrible twos." Goodness, I hope not! Anyway, during our visit, we relaxed and stuck to our normal schedule, which is how Grammy wanted it. The one thing I really had to get used to was having someone clean up after us in the kitchen! She was so helpful this way, as usual. When Sunday came around and Christopher's cups were sitting in the sink unwashed, I let out a big sigh and snapped myself back to reality. One day that Grammy was here, we went swimming in our neighborhood pool. It was great because we had the pool all to ourselves! Here are some pics:

This is shaping up to be a busy week for our little man. We will be hanging out with Maddie tomorrow and Olivia (plus a new friend, Addy) on Wednesday. Christopher has a lot of ladies to hang with. We need some boys too! Later in the week we are hoping to meet up with Danna, Lahna and Liam as well. Should be fun!

Wheels

In the several days post-party, Christopher has been enjoying many of his new big boy toys. Dan and Mary got him this great Fisher Price "Little People" garage that has a multi-level spiral ramp that a car (or little person or random ball) can go flying down. He has definitely been having a blast with that. Chris has also been enjoying the Sandra Boynton "A to Z" book from Jaime and Matt as well as his puzzles from Danna and her family. Grammy also brought CJ a personalized Mother Goose book that stars our little one year-old. Yesterday Mommy assembled the bike (shown in the picture) from Grandma and Grandpa Woglom. I think the toy companies make you assemble such items yourself so that you don't lose your mental capacities! Add engineer to the list of job responsibilities under "Mother." Anyway, after some hammering that was not necessarily required in the directions, the bike was ready to go for our little man. Christopher sat on it for a little bit and he was somewhat interested when we pushed him around the basement. I think it might take him a little bit to get used to riding a bike though. Perhaps he got nervous after hearing how silly Mommy fell of her bike when it was not moving (note to self: get off the bike before you start running!) and he didn't want the same thing to happen to him... In other news, Christopher is now down to one bottle a day (at bedtime) as we had milk in a cup with our morning breakfast today. Good thing this kiddo is not particular about what form his food comes in. As long as he gets the food he needs to grow, he does not care where it comes from! And speaking of growing, we had the big weigh-in yesterday at his one year doctor's appointment. Chris weighs 24 lbs. 10 oz. and is 30 inches long. We were a little surprised because he has felt heavier and looked taller in recent days but maybe I just need to get my arms in better shape. Perhaps all the food is going to grow his brain, though, because he moved up from the 40th to the 65th percentile in head circumference. According to Daddy, he is just growing his "manly-sized brain."

Party Animals

Where to begin... Well, I'm sure every mom says this, but it's hard to believe that an entire year has passed in the life of our little man. Both yesterday and today I have been thinking back to what was going on this time last year. (And with the help of the blog, I have been able to recall exactly what was going on!). Actually, this time last year, we thought Christopher was going to be coming out any minute. In fact, he decided to delay his appearance in the world until 11:28 PM! Anyway, we celebrated in style today as the Woglom residence became....... "The Party Zone" for a couple fun hours. First, the preparations:
I didn't think we were going to have a theme, per se, for CJ's first big bash. When you walk into a party store, however, you are left with two choices--baby Sesame Street or baby All-Star. Being the sports-minded people we are, we went with the latter. Here is some of the fabulous decor...

In addition to the decorations, we set out a table that had pictures of Christopher, our written birth story, a calendar that has all of his "firsts" recorded in it, and the scrapbook in which we are placing everyone's writings about our little guy... And of course, the cakes!

Chris began his day by dressing up in his sporty new outfit from Aunt Jamie and going crazy with the pacifiers from Aunt Dabney and "Crazy Uncle Peter" (Dab's words, not mine!)...

Our guest arrived shortly after 11:30AM and the fun began! Our neighbors came over as well as Jaime and Olivia, Dan, Mary and Tristan, Sarah (our doula), Danna and Adam with Lahna and Liam, and of course, Grammy. The house was lively and Kasey was thrilled by the amount of pizza all the little children moved her way.


The real fun, of course, began when Mommy and Daddy announced that the "Cake Craziness" was about to begin. Everyone was excited to don their party hats for this part but no one could top the original party animal, Kasey Moe. Notice how she could barely contain her excitement...

I will give you a play by play for what happened next... After stripping him down to his diaper and singing "Happy Birthday" to our big boy, we removed the incendiary device (read: candle) and let him go to town. At first, he was a bit hesitant...

He soon realized that the big sugary substance in front of him was actually edible. Since no one was stopping him or feeding him little bits at a time, he decided to take full control and dig in. Kasey said, "Are you going to eat all that?"

Since Christopher had an audience for his cake eating, he realized it was time to bust out his "ham-iness" for both crowd and camera...

To remove all the remnants of the cake, we ran the bath and threw the little one year-old in. He emerged a clean machine and rejoined the festivities. The party then began to wind down as children, adults, and dogs needed naps...

After everyone left, the house looked like a hurricane hit it but that is usually the sign of a good party. The guest of honor seemed to enjoy himself and it was funny watching him run around with the bigger kids. It made me realize that he is officially not a baby anymore!

Birthday Boy

Happy birthday to me

I'm shouting with glee
I'd like some cake now, Mom
Before I turn three!

(Don't worry, we'll put up more recent pictures later!)

Drop it like it's hot

Christopher "Newton" Woglom has been doing a little experimenting these days. It seems as though he is bound and determined to discover the secret behind this little thing called gravity. It began a couple of weeks ago when we headed up to Grandpa T's, and CJ decided to see what would happen when he dropped his pacifier on the germ-infested airport floor. Being the thorough scientist that he is, he continued his experiment until we boarded the plane and then wanted to see if gravity changes at 35,000 feet (or in a different state... or even in a different time zone). Since our return to Kansas, Christopher has been dropping objects of various sizes, shapes and weights and will do this over and over and over again. It's actually pretty funny to watch him get deeply involved in this process. He has not written a report on his findings yet, but I am expecting it by his first birthday. Unfortunately for Kasey, he is not yet dropping food intentionally... The two of them are having fun together everyday though. Here they are engaged in a little birdie tug-of-war.

A message for Grammy

Dear Grammy,

I am so excited to see you this Friday! I can't wait to show you how fast I walk and how I can climb up the stairs all the way to the top. That's right, all the way up. Hahaha! Look at all the trouble I'm going to get into now!

Love,
Christopher

Growing up

As we approach Christopher's first birthday, I am finding it hard to believe that an entire year has gone by in our little man's life. Looking at the video I posted a couple days ago of CJ in his bouncy seat at 1 1/2 months old and then looking at him run around the basement now, I am amazed at all the changes a baby goes through over the course of a year. Even in the past couple of days he has made some crazy changes. For example, he has become proficient at standing up without holding onto anything... his ninth tooth has finally emerged through his gums after 3 weeks of drool (see where his finger is in the picture to the left? that's where the new tooth is)... today he figured out how to drink out of a straw so Mommy can get rid of the sippy cups... this morning he was trying so hard to say "Kasey" when he saw her (it consisted of the "K" sound followed by two syllables)... and his walking has turned into a walk/run or at least a power walk. Another sign of Christopher growing up is his transition to stage three of the Exersaucer. I had it put away for the past two months because he was losing interest in it. Yesterday, I took it back out, changed it to level three (where he can stand up and walk around it), and let him go to town. Little man was very excited to see his fun toy again!
But despite all the toys he gets to play with, his favorite still requires no batteries, involves no flashing lights, and makes him laugh every time.

This time last year

I know what you're thinking. I can hear the voices inside your head as you read the title of this blog post. Those voices are telling you, "Man, this lady doesn't even know her own son's birthday. Doesn't she know CJ was born on the 18th? You'd think she would remember such an important day in her life." Well let me set you straight. It was this time last year that Brian and I saw our last movie together in a theater--that is, until last night. I had not even thought of this fact until we walked into the theater last night to see "The Hangover." Great movie! Definitely not G, PG, or even PG-13. And very funny. The theater we went to has this great service called "Fork and Screen" where you can get dinner and drinks while you watch the movie. The theater has the same set-up as a regular one except you have a counter in front of you for your food. It was fabulous! And although the food was average, my (one, two, three) pomegranite martinis were out of this world... Christopher was home with a new babysitter while we went out (poor Kay had foot surgery and is out of commission for several weeks!) and did a good job. Brian and I had a lovely date night and look forward to another one soon.

Transition and flashback

It's official! Christopher has moved on from his original car seat to his new and improved big boy seat. And just to give you an idea of how much this boy has grown in the past year, here are two pictures of CJ in his first seat when we came home from the hospital and CJ in his new seat this morning:

Speaking of growth, while we were away, my arm muscles swore that Christopher has gained several pounds and grown several inches. We all know he is an expert eater but I really think he has been going through his 12 month growth spurt. He now fits into an 18 month-old outfit that Ally brought for him when she came to visit! (He is actually laughing in the second picture--it looks like he could go either way.)


And let's just keep the subject of growth and reminiscing going with this little video from when CJ was 1 1/2 months old in his ever popular bouncy seat:

NY Pictures

Okay, it's a sad state of affairs that we spent a whole week up at my dad's and all we have are a few pictures to show for it. But they are good pictures (I hope)! So enjoy and we will try to make up for it in future blog posts.

Another great time

Well, we have returned from Upstate New York, tired but happy and relaxed from our visit. I'm sorry to say that we don't have a ton of pictures because our small digital camera was acting up and, while we took some with that, we had to resort to (gasp) a disposable camera with (double gasp) film! Anyway, I am hoping others who took pictures will email them to us (hint hint) and I will download what we have later. Anyway, here is our top ten list from the impromptu Turick family reunion:

10. Escaping from 100 degree weather and experiencing fall in the middle of July. (This was the first time I wore a sweater on the Fourth of July!)
9. Seeing Christopher's face when he saw 9 dogs sitting in front of him.
8. Christopher's accordion lesson from Grandpa T.
7. Watching a full double rainbow appear over the valley view from Dad and Nancy's house.
6. Running after CJ as he zoomed around the house on two feet, opening every cabinet he could find and emptying their contents.
5. Having little man on my lap as we flew Southwest and watching how he charmed the flight attendants and then how he gazed out the window as we flew. (Do we have a future pilot on our hands?)
4. Seeing Chris try to throw the ball to Jackson (non-beagle, visiting dog) through the screen door.
3. Pushing and pushing and pushing Christopher on the swing we hung from a large tree branch.
2. Getting a full-night's sleep every night we were on vacation! (!!!)
1. Seeing our son (and us) spend quality time with the Turick side of the family.

It was so awesome to be able to spend so much time with Dad, Nancy, Aunt Judy, Uncle Jack, Nanny, Jack Michael and Denise, Mary Jane, Kathy, Becky and George (I hope I didn't leave anyone out!). We had a great time upstate and we are looking forward to a visit in the future.