Year the First

In all the frenzied craziness of the holidays, I didn't get a chance to wish Bry an official happy birthday. So, happy birthday, bug! You seem to have gotten bigger. And more vertical.

One month

Two months

Three months

Four months

Five months

Six months

Seven months

Eight months

Nine months

Ten months

Eleven months

One year

Crikey, it went by quickly. People told us often when you were a wee thing that it just keeps getting better. And it has. Your daddy and I can't wait to see what your second year brings!

The Christmas Birthday Holiday Extravaganza 2007

We're all still reeling a little bit from the festivities over the past couple of days. Christmas and then Bry's first birthday back-to-back turned out to be a bit much. There were gifts, cake, lots of guests, very little, if any napping, at least two giant meals, and one small kitchen fire. Yes, a kitchen fire. Contained inside the oven, but still, I saw flames so I say it counts.

First, Christmas. The entire Eng clan journeyed to Minneapolis to celebrate and were greeted with several inches of snow. This would have been festive, except that it caused Dana and Ryan to slide off the highway and the rest of the family to get stuck before they could leave Wisconsin.

Santa Baby says 'Merry Christmas!'

The "fire" mentioned above was a byproduct of either a too large turkey or a too small roasting pan, depending on how you do the math. About 3 hours after we put the 20-pounder into the oven, a quick check revealed a hole in the roasting bag through which turkey drippings were, well, dripping onto the bottom of our gas oven. I couldn't give you the exact chemical equation, but basically, hot grease on flames seemed to cause an awful lot of smoke, followed by several flaming flare ups inside the oven. Shortly after Steve opened the oven door and was greeted with billowing smoke, the 3 smoke detectors on the ground floor started going off simultaneously. Amidst the cacophony, I was waving kitchen towels somewhat futilely at the smoke detectors, Steve was staring a little blankly at the flames, Grandma E was trouble shooting the fire, and Bry was blithely trying to eat lunch. If he hadn't noticed the fact that mama and daddy had to leave his sight to take care of things, he probably would have totally ignored the screeching smoke detectors.

The flaming oven problem was resolved when Steve stuck a cookie sheet under the roasting pan to catch the remaining drippings. The turkey was finished about 2 hours ahead of schedule and amazingly not burned to a crisp. The only trick was that we needed to scramble to cook the rest of the meal to catch up with the turkey. I put Bry on my back and the whole team pitched in to hurry up the rest of the dinner. An hour later, dinner was served and all was well. Of course, by the time we were ready to eat, Bry was ready to nap from a physically exhausted standpoint, but not so ready to nap from a "I don't want to miss any of the excitement" standpoint. When all was said and done, the adults enjoyed a good meal and Bry enjoyed about a 20-minute nap.

The rest of the evening was devoted to decorating for Bry's birthday party. I had folded about 75 paper cranes in the weeks before the party and my family and Steve helped to fold 25 more so that we could string 100 of them around the basement.

Like this.

And this.

We collapsed into bed, exhausted, that night. It took almost an hour to get Bry down at bedtime. Dude was wired. Yesterday we also found out that Bry has double ear infections, so the poor little man was probably in a fair amount of pain too. We awoke bright and early the next morning, and Steve started working on 3 pans of lasagna for Bry's party at about 6:30 am. After 3 solid hours of cooking (and more smoke detector tripping after one of the pans overflowed), we were good to go.

Bry's party went well, although it got off to somewhat of a slow start. Bry refused to nap that morning up until 15 minutes before the guests were supposed to arrive. He slept for a grand total of 30 minutes and woke up groggy and grumpy. But after some warm up time, he had a blast. He shmoozed with guests, opened more gifts, and enjoyed his very first slice of cake. The cake sequence went like this:

What is this?

Oh, I'm supposed to eat it.

Digging the cake.

I can poke it with a fork, too.

Cake, what cake? Look at this fork!

There was no dramatic headfirst plunging into the cake (as mama had done on her first birthday), and Bry seemed a little annoyed that the frosting stuck fast to his fingers. He did eventually tip the plate over and get red frosting all over his shirt sleeve. Overall though, the cake seemed to rate a definitive eh. The highlight of the party for Bry was this cup, which captured more of his attention than any of his new toys did:

See my cup!

At the end of the day, we were all ready for naps, but it again took a good long time to calm Bry down enough to make that happen. It also took me three days to wind down enough to write this post. Phew. No more celebrations for another year, right?

Gearing up for the Holidays

Due to the complexities involved in making time to celebrate the holidays with both sides of our family, Bryson had his first taste of Christmas at Grandpa and Grandma Sanger's house this past weekend. Thus we kicked off the first of, I believe 5, count 'em, 5 holiday celebrations we'll be partaking of between now and December 29. And that doesn't count Bry's birthday on December 26. I'm thinking New Year's Eve will be spent doing the most exciting thing I can imagine of at this point: sleeping.

I'm not sure Bry's really aware that he has experienced his first Christmas celebration, but he managed to greet the event with his usual enthusiasm. Especially since it involved his first taste of ice cream (more! more!) and he got to skip his morning nap in favor of playing! And more playing! Even though this was his second chance to open gifts, he still didn't quite catch on:

Watching uncertainly as mama demonstrates.

Starting to get the hang of it.

Looking on as mama helps him finish, lest we all be sitting around for the 17 hours it would take him to get all of the paper off of the box.

Nevertheless, he loved all of the gifts he received, especially the slide and the sled that we used to tow him around the living room.

Is this much fun legal?

Given the sheer number of holiday celebrations coming up, it's going to be a real letdown when the weekends stop being all about new toys and relatives (OK, mama) sneaking Bry sweets. Guess we'll just have to compensate in the meantime by being as boring as possible. Better go hide the shapes and the bibs.

Why Our Holiday Cards Will Be Late This Year

OK, so the first reason why our holiday cards will not likely be arriving in a timely fashion is because I procrastinated on getting them put together. I tried hard on Saturday to get a good family photo, but the forces of a squirmy (almost) toddler, dark lighting, and the end of a long day conspired to make it not so.

No problem, I figured. We'll just try again on Sunday. However, a trip to Target before making another photo attempt got in the way of this plan. Steve put Bryson into the back of the shopping cart (which he loves, especially when the cart is being pushed nice and slowly, right daddy?). Through some freak accident that I did not witness directly (read: it happened under daddy's watch), Bry tumbled into some part of the cart that caused this:

Baby's first puncture wounds

From two aisles over, I could hear Bry's distressed wails and figured it was no big deal. He's bumped his head before and usually gets over it as soon as he gets distracted by something more interesting. Like his shoes. Or the kitty. But as his crying started to escalate I got worried and rushed over. People, I have never seen a bruise develop that quickly. And there was blood! Granted, not very much blood, but enough to smear across his forehead and make me feel very, very sad. Steve sprinted off to the food counter to get some ice, and it's just as well because I might have been tempted to punch him. Just a little. You know, with a pointy object into his forehead. See how he likes it.

True to his nature, Bry calmed down pretty quickly and started grabbing for anything within reach on the shelves. His parents, on the other hand, were a wee bit more frazzled. The official injury count (not that I'm keeping track - OK, I'm totally keeping track) is Daddy: 2, Mama: 1. And the injury that occurred on my watch didn't even involve any bruises or bumps. Just so you know who's protecting your cranium, Bry. Ahem.

So, no holiday cards until Bry ceases to look like he's been in a bar fight. Or a bear fight, as Steve likes to say.

Obsessions

Bryson's latest obsession is putting things in other things and then taking them back out again. Sounds exciting, doesn't it? For example: (1) Put shapes into shape sorter (but not necessarily through their respective holes); (2) Dump shapes out; (3) Repeat step 1; and (4) Repeat step 2. And so on.

Example 2: (1) Pull all of the bibs out of the drawer; (2) Put most of the bibs back into the drawer; (3) Pull all of the bibs out of the drawer and toss them exuberantly over your head; (4) Put some of the bibs back in the drawer; (5) Pull all of the bibs out of the drawer and push them around the floor; (6) Crawl over to the book shelf and pull all of the books off. As you can see, this particular sequence doesn't repeat itself quite as nicely as example 1. And if you're particularly astute, you'll notice that it ends with all of the bibs not in the drawer (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Bibs strewn about haphazardly.

Figure 2: Destruction achieved in approximately .25 seconds.
Possibly a new land speed record.

Zzzzz....

Knocking wood here, but just shy of his first birthday, Bry has finally figured out how to fall asleep on his own. Well, mostly on his own. I still nurse him before bed, but he goes into his crib awake, flails around for a few minutes and then flops over onto his side and babbles to himself until he falls asleep. Kind of like a puppy. Um, who talks.

He also sleeps through the night for the most part, so long as he's not sick or teething. Which, in recent weeks, has worked out to him sleeping through the night approximately once a week.

The only trick is getting him to learn how to stay asleep past 6 am. Actually, 6 am would be acceptable. Bry seems to be up and ready to start the day around 5 or 5:30 most mornings. He must believe he lives on the east coast. Or perhaps in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, where this wake-up time would be a little more reasonable.

A Nap a Day...

...is one nap too few.

Bryson seems to be trying to decide if he wants to drop one of his naps. His predictable 9 am and 1 pm naps are a thing of the past. Not that they were around for all that long. Just as soon as I was comfortable with Bry's schedule, he's decided to change it up. Nothing surprising there, but perhaps I should have a talk with middle management about the information flow in this corporation. Mama seems to get left out of the loop an awful lot.

Yesterday morning I battled Bry for 30 minutes, trying very hard to convince him that napping is nice, that it feels good to close your eyes and rest, yes it really does. He was having none of it. After an epic battle that I didn't feel like carrying on all morning, I gave up and Steve took Bry grocery shopping. I left to run some errands and conveniently didn't come back until I was sure that Bry would be ready for another go at a nap and Steve could be the one to try his luck at charming Bry to sleep. (OK, I actually spent most of the morning trying to find winter boots for Bry and legitimately didn't come home until after the start of nap time. Every single pair of toddler boots that cost less than $50 seems to have disappeared from the metro area. Curse those parents who actually prepare themselves for the change of seasons on time.)

Twenty minutes before I arrived home I got a worried call from Steve, "Um, this child doesn't look anywhere near ready for a nap." I reminded him that Bry can hide his need for sleep very, very well and urged him to try anyways. Steve got him to nap without incident, but he only stayed asleep for an hour, after which he was up banging his hand on his crib rail and ready to be done with this whole sleeping thing.

Fast forward a couple of hours and Bry is tired. And cranky. Dinner consisted of excitedly and frantically signing "more" when the BANANAS! were first sighted on the counter, followed shortly thereafter by much writhing and protesting when I dared to offer Bry a spoon to feed himself some BANANAS! (You see the contradiction here, yes? Babies just are not reasonable. End of story.) Mid-meal I took him out of his highchair because he was coming close to ejecting himself out of pure misery and rage. I put him on the floor in the living room where he commenced to roll around, also in misery and rage. Dinner re-commenced after Bry calmed down and crawled over to me, again signing "more?" in a hopeful manner. And then it re-ended 10 minutes later when Bry threw everything I offered him (cheese, water, his spoon) on the floor.

Straightaway to the bath, where Bry calmed down almost immediately and played happily with his cups in the tub. He was asleep for the night (in the figurative sense) by 6:15.

Needless to say, one nap doesn't seem to quite do it for Bry. Not yet, at least. I'm thinking some baby Unisom is in order. Or maybe some hypnosis. Or, failing that, earplugs. For me.

Party Like It's 2007

Bryson attended his first birthday party today. It was held by Sarah and Abbie in honor of the 6 babies from our "Mom & Baby" group who are all turning one within about a month of each other. While there wasn't any cake, there were plenty of baby crackers and cheese to go around, so Bry was generally happy with the menu. However, he was apparently the acting King of Crankville today and fussed and cried through about half of the party - in between bites of cheese, that is. Not sure if it's because more teeth are on their way or because I had to wake Bry up from his nap to get to the party. Or maybe it's just the fun of a developing mind that decides it wants to do A (e.g., eat cheese) when all mama wants it to do is B (e.g., play nicely with others). You can see how that might set up some conflicts.

Overall, the scene was pretty much one of chaos. Babies sprawled about here and there, playing with toys, trying to steal others' toys, crawling and walking around, testing the limits of the baby proofing in the house, etc. If they had been renting a hotel room for the party, I'm pretty sure management would have deducted a deposit, because they did a pretty good job of trashing the place.

There were presents to open, and true to legend, most of the kiddos seemed more interested in the wrappings than in the gifts themselves. We should have wrapped up some chocolates and jewelry. Then the babies could have the thrilling experience of unwrapping and the moms could have had some useful (chocolate and jewelry are totally useful) gifts.

The cast of characters:

Emerson

Lucas & Sanni

Mr. Crankypants, in a rare moment of calm.

Abbie

Austin & Daphne

See, I told you things got crazy.