My baby can read!

Or at least stick his face inside the book.....well, hes not exactly reading yet, but its close right? :) At least he has the book facing the right direction!!
and even though he cant read yet he sure does enjoy pulling ALL the books off of the shelves!

Planning...

So I am sitting here thinking about the baby's first birthday. Its fast approaching and i should probably begin planning. I'm thinking the weekend of August 30th, probably the saturday. Where, what time, what theme, all things he will never remember.
I think I am going to rent a gazebo, shelter thing at CB Smith Park. Its surprisingly not that expensive, yay, thats a good thing and it will give us some shade as it will be August and hot and miserable out. And i think we are going to do Curious George. I am not the biggest fan of specific character related themes however, he sleeps with his monkey every night and that seems to be the only thing he has attached to, and I cant find any other monkey related birthday themes online that look like his monkey. So, Curious George will probably be it. And a cake. My friend Lindsay found a great place that does awesome cakes for not that expensive. so thats good, and I'm not that picky. Just a regular cake with a big monkey face on it, maybe a cupcake cake...that seems easier and I like cupcakes. MMMmmmm, cupcakes. I really like cupcakes.
I cant believe he will be turning one at the end of the summer. times goes by so fast and i miss the little 7 lb peanut i could wrap up in a blanket and snuggle with all day....theres not so much snuggling going on any more....or even keeping him in one place!! oh well, hopefully there will be another itsy bitsy baby sometime in the future, although not for quite some time (need a house, yard, more money) and I dont want a newborn and 2 year old, that seems like a lot of work!

So, birthday, he is going to be one. :)

Parenting at it's best...

I firmlt believe that we are good parents. I do. Although sometimes i question our tactics at entertaining our son, especially when he gets cranky before bedtime. Today, one of our finer moments. Yes that is a box that diapers came in. Yes, we pulled off hte top pieces. Yes, we put him in it. Yes, we cut a hole and put a dog leash through it to pull him around. And yes, we did in fact attach the other end to the dog. yes, we are fabulous parents.
oh, and E attached it to himself as well, solely for a good picture opportunity.
My child loves beer bottles. I dont know why. He sees them and its like you turbo charged his....butt....all the way to it. He likes to chew on the top grab at it and drool all over it. so, whil he was in the baby jail i put it just outside.....and his little had ventured out to get it. again, i swear we are good parents.

Happy Fathers Day a few days late....

Fathers Day was nice, uneventful, but nice. E didnt get a fancy new laptop like I did for Mothers Day (or anything remotely close) but he did get something I put a whole lot of work into (a good 10-12 hours). I made him a chipboard book, covered each page with special paper and pictures and other things that took me forever to do as I am still a novice at the whole crafty thing. The last page had an envelope with a piece of cardstock folded in half with a peom printed on it (a cute heartfelt poem that basically says "walk a little slower daddy, for I am following you") and on the front were the baby's footprints embossed on it. It came out really nice and E seemed to like it, although he was a little lacking in the emotion department, must be a guy thing.

On the baby front: The top tooth is trying its hardest to push its way through. I can see it, but its just kind of hanging out there. He is feeding himself cheerios and goldfish crackers much better now, getting most into their destination and leaving only a few for the dog to get later.

And...we are eating pieces of banana without gagging or throwing up! YAY! I have tried several times to give him pieces but he had no desire to chew it and would gag and usually throw up...everything....it was gross. But this week we were successful at eating a lot of banana without incident. yay. and today I put a few pieceson a plastic toddler fork and he actually got it in his mouth! yay! its the little things sometimes.....

Here you can see those two little teeth on the bottom, not the straightest but cute anyways!

Look-Alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

Jump and Gym

We met the new play group this past thursday at Jump and Gym. Open play all day every day, except Saturday. The other moms were nice, but I still felt out of place, maybe i'm just anti social. i dont like meeting new peopl ewhen I dont know even one of them. oh well. the baby had a blast though. Jump and Gym is 4000 sq. ft of play stuff. 2 ball pits, 3 or 4 inflatable slides and bounce houses, swings, things to climb on and various other toys. It was fun. The baby played in the ball pit and even went down the little slide into the pit...had a hard time crawling through it but it was fun, none-the-less. We also went on the swings (one of our FAVORITE activities) and crawled around on some other things. all in all a good time, we will definately go back.

Congratulations to both Becky and Tessa, both whom delivered their first babies this past Tuesday. Becky had a healthy and happy boy Dominic Charles and Tessa had Maia Grace. Congrats to both of you!!

The Right Stuff....

sorry sara, i stole your blog post title. it seemed fitting.

so yeah, i officially got my NKOTB tickets. YAY!!! Section 115 row 4. Its at the other end of the areana from the stage, but its 4th row next to the floor seats. yay. i am such a dork. Becky is going to fly down for the weekend and we are going to sit in an areana with a lot of 20-40 something year olds (a little strange and unnerving) and watch the first boy-band phenomenom. hahahaha, its already making me laugh. :) yay.


other news: i'm officially on vacation. and sick. vacation is good, except with not working this summer I am broke and have no money to actually do anything with the baby. I know there are "free events" but many are outside and it is HOT here, it is miami. and those events are parks. and there arent a lot forlittle kids at parks. hmmm. so i joined a mommy meetup playgroup. hopefully they are nice and it works out. The do things together in the South Broward area which is close to me so i'm hoping. And we have a free class at My Gym tomorrow. The same concept at Gymboree but WAY cheaper. So that's $180 for 10 weeks. ugh, but its $180. and again, i'm not working. icky. looks like next year i'll be working to pay down the credit cards again.


anyhoo, i'm trying to figure out what to do with the baby when he wakes up. maybe go walk around the mall. its close and airconditioned.

We were invited to a Birthday!

Our neighbors across the hall invited us to their son's first birthday party. Of course we had to go, even though we arent exactly friends with them. We see them in the hall and say hi, but thats about it. So we went, it was awkward and strange but the baby seemed to have fun as Helen the 2 yr old girl repeatedly took away whatever he found to play with, but there were no tears or crankiness until the very end. it was ok.

And today i'm sick, very sick. Sinus infectio0n probably that has moved to my chest and has made me wish I didnt have to get out of bed today.

Now some pictures from yesterday.

9 month checkup and other milestones..

We had our 9 month check up today. The stats: weight - 18 lbs 5.5 oz Length - 28 3/4 inches Head Circumference - 46 cm all seems to be good. For length he is in the 75th percentile and for weight somewhere between the 10th and 25th percentile. Head Circumference is about the 75th percentile. So basically he hit a growth spurt and is "tall" and "skinny"....not that we know where he got the "tall" genes......

other milestones, 2 front teeth, he's clapping and babbling. well, not so much on the babbling. Its a lot of yelling "AAHHHHHH" with some other one syllable "words" thrown in there. He eats crackers and cheerios and goldfish and drinks water or juice from a sippy cup and flirts with anyone and everyone when we are out. he tries to take a step without holding on, usually with disasterous results (like falling eye first into a hard plastic toy resulting in a slightly swollen and light purple area under the right eye. hmm, and falling into the wood base of the rocking chair resulting in a bump and bruise to the head. i assume it will only get more fun. he doesnt cry to much (which is a little unnerving), usually a short wail and then back to whatever he was doing prior to the accident.

all in all he is right on his "developmental chart level" more or less and nothing out of the ordinary.

2 more days officially working at southridge. Yippee!! :) <--- big smiley face!

Funny Pictures

Now i think my kid is pretty cute, but I am definately bias, however, these next pictures definately WON'T win any cute kid awards, he looks, um...well, not his best!! Probably just the angle but i thought i'd share...

These on the other hand are cute. He got a rocking horse from his grandfather (E's side) that makes "real" horse sounds when you press his ear. He LOVES it now that he's not scared of it! Dont mind the drool...its a never ending faucet at the moment, but it you click on the picture you might just be able to see that first tooth! the second one is coming in as well but its not quite visible yet...
And next snack time, the "biter biscuits" are designed not to be easily chewed but sucked and chewed on until they become soggy and messy but apparently tastey none the less....quite a mess!
But yummy!

I am either old or just not cool anymore..

My friend from work's birthday was yesterday. She invited a bunch of people out to celebrate in South Beach. So E's mom agreed to watch the baby. Now, I havent been out in a VERY long time...do i even remember how to "be out?" Lets see....

I dont like to go out and have the baby sleep at my mother in laws. He doesnt sleep very well and I like having him here (at home) when I wake up. But I agreed to leave him there so we could have a long over due night out with some friends, well, my friends fromwork and our friend Abraham. So E drops the baby off and I take a shower and then I am faced with what should I wear? I dont even know if I have anything that fits that is a "going out" outfit. Keeping in mind that we are going to South Beach (somewhere we NEVER go because it is too expensive and they play crappy music) I find a skirt and tank top I used to wear.....does it fit? YES! Let me tell you, putting on that skirt that i havent worn in 2 years definately made me feel good. So i do my hair and makeup and put onmy cute mini skirt/black tank top/short sleeve white button up shirt to go over it and yes, even heels, something i definately have not worn in god even knows how long. I feel good, and maybe even a little excited. Its 10pm and we are ready to head out even though I'm looking at my nice warm bed thinking "maybe we should just stay home and get a good nights sleep".....maybe I am just old. But I digress...we leave the house around 10:15, go pick up ABe, head to the bank to pick up some cash and drive to SOuth Beach.

We are lucky enough to find a lot that has spaces a block away from Lincoln Road where we are headed, and at $10 its not so bad. So we wander down to Lincoln Road and look for Santo, the bar/club/lounge or whereever it is these people are. We find it, its almost 11:30 and as I am standing outside looking in I see peole eating dinner and hear this electronic techno house music crap playing. oh, and did I mention you cant just walk in, they have the whole entrance blocked offwith a "velvet rope" not so velvet but you get the idea. I'm thinking "I am definately not cute enough to get in here and I'm still thinking maybe we should just head home. But we are here and we paid for parking, how bad can it be? If I only knew.

We are let in after this pretty little blonde girl looks me up and down and walk straight into this enormous bodyguard looking man who in a voice deep enough to almost scare me says "$20 please" while pointing to the cashier. "20 per person?!?" reason 1 why we dont go to south beach. So $60 gets us in the door. the fun begins.

I have high hopes. i love to dance so as long as there is music we can dance and have fun regardless of the $20per personm to get in. ...but we dance to hip hop and spanish music....neither of which is playing. E gets us all a drink which is more mixer than anything else. and we stand around with some ther people I work with. they open up the back room, oooh, good, that means the fun should begin now right? yeah. more touristy "rave music" while surrounded by young 21-25 yr olds who are either super drunk or have taken god knows what kind of drug...and there we are with our less than adequate drinks looking like fish out of water. but hey, the night is only as fun as you make it. so yeah, lets cut out the hour and a half standing around dancing a little to the crappy music and jump to, Its about 1:30am and I have definately had enough...I am tired and cranky and am ready for bed. So E closes out the bar tab and and we say our goodbyes and out the door. Want to know how much our bar tab was? For the three of us, me, E, and Abe each having 2 drinks a piece (and for those of you who cant count that would be 6 drinks total) it was $90...yes, you read that right $90!!!!!! for 6 drinks! and not very good ones at that. That is $15 a piece. you have got to be kidding. $160 for a crappy night out. awesome. and that brings me to the title of my post...I am either old of just not cool anymore becasue I do not find spending that amount of money for NOTHING fun. :( Especially since we dont have that kind of money to spend. nice.

its been a super weekend! hey, but at least I can look forward to this week, its my last week of work before vacation and I only have one exam to give and graduation on thursday. yay!