Off-Duty Mom

Today, Christopher got to spend an extended period of time with his favorite babysitter, Ruth. Ruth has been over with our little guy several times now and they always seem to have a great time together. She told me that he was laughing up a storm and although he didn't seem to want to take a long mid-day nap for her, he has currently been sleeping almost 2 hours. Where was I you want to know? Well, let's see... first I went to Starbucks and actually sat down with a book rather than rushing through the drive thru in the Mommy mobile. After an appointment, I met Brian down on the Plaza for lunch and then did a little Christmas shopping... kind of. After last week's trip to the mall, I am totally digging being able to buy non-maternity clothes. And finally, FINALLY, after more than a year, I returned to Ann Taylor Loft today and got a dress to wear to Christopher's baptism. As you can see from the picture above I also got stockings for us to hang from the mantle with care. I figure, we have a fireplace, might as well make it look festive. Finally my day was made complete with a trip to the dentist for a cleaning (how exciting!). I used to dread the dentist but going through childbirth really puts things in perspective and it didn't seem all that bad. As nice as it was to have a little time to myself today, I did miss my little Christopher and I am looking forward to when he gets up. But... we're not going to rush things.

Muscle boy

Just a brief update today... Christopher is just growing and changing every single day. His new thing is pushing himself up with his arms really high. He's actually able to get the entire part of his upper body up off the ground! It looks like he is doing a push up. (He must be inspired by all the times he has watched his parents workout with the 30-Day Shred!). He's also rotating his body when he is on his stomach to try and get things. Right now I'm watching him completely turn his body around to try and get his little "Colors" book. He is very determined and keeps reaching for it but he's not quite there yet. Of course, when he gets it he's probably going to put it in his mouth, but we have a few years before he needs to be reading it!

Trouble with a capital K

I know this blog is supposed to be about our son but somehow our other "child" keeps trying to steel his thunder. We were out this morning meeting with a woman at church about Christopher's upcoming baptism and, therefore had to leave Kasey at home... alone... to do whatever she wanted. Well, yesterday I had placed several wrapped Christmas gifts from Grammy out under the tree to set up a little scene for Christopher's Xmas card picture (I will not be giving any previews; you'll all just have to wait until you get your cards.) Silly me thinking Kasey would leave these alone while we were out. Apparently, said dog just couldn't wait until the holidays to open everyone else's gifts. She especially wanted to know what Chris got, so thank you Grammy for the Tom Chapin CD. She also wanted to show our Santa Claus Snoopy who is top dog of this household. While no stuffing was spilled, it looks like Snoopy was tossed around a bit, for he was passed out on the rug with a black eye and some scratches. It looks like Kasey will be going to Pawz at Play tomorrow to work out some of her energy!

A Story By Kasey

It was a dark and wintry morning. Not a creature was stirring in the house.. except for the little creature with a stinky diaper who's voice could faintly be heard through the monitor at Mommy's bedside. As she always does, Mommy got up to tend to the stinky diaper boy in the other room. Since I had been in bed since 7 PM the night before, I felt it was time for me to relocate to the living room to give my humans the hint that it was time for my potty break and breakfast. I'm not quite sure why they didn't immediately get the hint and take care of my needs but I will not complain given the amount of leftover turkey I've received in the past five days. Anyway, after the stinky diaper was disposed of, Mom finally came out with the creature who was wide awake and smiling at me. She requested my presence downstairs and opened the door onto the cold morning. I stepped carefully out onto the patio so as not to make my little paws uncomfortable. As the door closed behind me, what did I see but the silhouette of my favorite animal in the whole world sitting quietly on my very own snow covered lawn! It was a bunny! Forget the cheap dog food my owners feed me--this was the breakfast I had been dreaming of all night! I had to be stealth. With my front paw drawn up and my tail extended in true pointer fashion, I set my sights on my prey. Carefully I focused and then... I took off!!! Bounding down the hill, I went flying after the bunny and just as I was about to grab it in my mouth, it darted off out of reach and escaped through the slats in the fence to safety. Wascally wabbit! I will get you next time. You have a lot of nerve venturing into my backyard. Oh well, I guess I would have to settle for a breakfast of kibble one more time.

Christopher's First Tree

Now that Thanksgiving is over and Santa Claus showed up at the end of the Macy's parade, we can officially declare the Christmas season open! After I returned from braving the mall with Sierra today, Brian and I decided it was time to put up the tree while Kasey and Christopher stood watch. We spent hours and hours of manual labor putting all three pieces of our artificial tree together and stringing up the hundreds of lights... Actually, it only took about five minutes since we have a pre-lit tree. Good thing too because Christopher did not have much patience watching us put this thing together. I thought I might even get several minutes of non-fussiness so I could put up the ornaments but I was being a bit optimistic. In order to get the ornaments up without Christopher crying, I had to sing "You Are My Sunshine" repeatedly, at full blast because it is the only song that calms him down! When I was all done, I picked up our little man and we stood back to admire our hard work. Christopher is definitely fascinated by all the white lights and was attempting to have a conversation with the tree. I wonder what he thought when it didn't talk back. All that admiring made Chris a tired boy so he is asleep and Mommy and Daddy are drinking hot chocolate and admiring the tree ourselves... Anyway, our boy has been busy rolling over and practicing his arm strength by pushing his upper body up off the floor. It seems like he is getting stronger and stronger by the minute! Here is a full-length picture of our tree...

Movin' on up

We are pleased to announce that Christopher has officially moved up to Level 2 of his Exersaucer play center. Level 1 was just this little arch that had toys hanging from it and Chris would have to lay on the floor to play with it. Now, he has graduated to the next level which, as you can see from the picture above, is over-stimulation central! Instead of putting the Christmas tree together today, my project was assembling this crazy thing. But the cool part is that he can sit in the middle of all the fun and eventually put his feet on the bottom and bounce around. There are all kinds of things for him to look at, pull, spin, press, and play with and he was already trying to put everything in his mouth. He only sat in the Exersaucer today for about ten minutes before his appetite took over and he requested dinner... We hope everyone has recovered from turkey day and everyone returned safely from shopping today!

Too much turkey...

This is what happens when you eat on Thanksgiving and play with your puppy friends who come to visit with their humans! Kasey and the rest of us all ate way to much food on this Thanksgiving day, but isn't that what you're supposed to do on this day? Dan and Mary, who work for Hallmark, picked up Thanksgiving dinner from work yesterday and brought it over for mass consumption today. And mass consume we did! It was delicious and we hardly had to do anything. Mary and I were in charge of heating everything up while the big boys were in charge of the little boys. At the end of it all, we didn't even have room for pumpkin pie... at least not right after we finished dinner. Brian and I had our pieces later this evening and now we are going to officially explode! Looks like a ten miler tomorrow, at least. Christopher enjoyed his first turkey day very much. He actually wore the outfit I bought him to wear for Christmas because all of his other pajamas were in the laundry. Oh well, he'll probably grow out of it by the time we head back east anyway. Here is a picture of father and son...
All in all we had a very nice holiday and the weather was unbelievable too--60 degrees! We would also like to say that we are thankful for Christopher, Kasey and all our family and friends. Here are some more pictures of our day!