Wedding Memories

Brad and I celebrated our 5th anniversary a couple of weeks ago by staying home with Tate, who was finishing getting over hand, foot, and mouth disease. Brad was sick as well with what we are pretty sure was the same thing. Whoo hoo! Any celebration of this milestone (5 years of wedded bliss that is, not having HFM) was postponed until January.


But speaking of weddings, if you've had one you remember all that goes into planning one. I remember it especially well since we had a 4-month engagement and I thought I was going to lose my mind. So many details. What type of invites to have. What color ink to use. Which font. What to wear. Location, centerpieces, photographer, what to serve, how to buy a condo and pay for wedding at the same time and not go broke....blah, blah, blah. Want to know what the guest takeaway was from all that 5 years later?



Last weekend we were out celebrating Brad's 40th and a friend of Brad's told me that the one thing he always remembers when he thinks of our wedding is that we had served asparagus at dinner (which I didn't even remember) and that by the end the night the men's bathroom reeked of asparagus pee. Yup, 4 months of frantic planning and the big takeaway was asparagus pee. Hilarious. So really folks, don't worry if the post office is out of the "LOVE" stamps like the crazed bride-to-be who was in line in front of me last time I was there. In five years no one will remember. But do serve asparagus.

Fall Fun, Part I

Lately I've been itching to get out of the city and do some fall camping or hiking. Since we don't have any plans in the works I've been trying to find ways to get my nature fix without leaving town. Last weekend we went up to the North Park Village Nature Center at Pulaski and Peterson. It was our first time there, and I was pretty impressed. It's a forty-six acre nature preserve that includes four different habitats: a woodland, a wetland, a prairie, and an oak savanna. (As an interesting footnote, the area used to house the city's tuberculosis sanitarium until 1974 when, owing to medical advances, there was no longer a need for one.)

Tate had a great time; he has started pointing and reaching for things now, and he wanted to touch and see everything. It was so exciting to see him so interested in nature (although he also wants to touch everything on the CTA bus, so maybe his interest wasn't in nature per se). We saw geese, a doe and her fawn, about a bazillion bees (the yellow flowers in the picture are just covered with them), and Tate's personal favorite, squirrels. We saw a handful of families with older kids, and I was thinking of how much Tate will enjoy coming there when he can walk on the trails on his own. The trails are a lot shorter than they look on the map, so it's a perfect hike for little legs. Since major roads surround the preserve you can still hear traffic and sirens so it wasn't quite as remote as we'd hoped, but it was still exciting to find a place like that in the city.

If I ever see my life flash before my eyes...

...I'll be super glad to finally know what happened to all of my lost stuff.

Today I spent the better part of an hour retracing our steps to try to find one of Tate's shoes. Tate hates shoes and socks, but I felt like I had to put them on since when I don't strangers like to tell me that he's going to be too cold (which is exactly what happened after he lost the first one and I took the other one off so we wouldn't lose it too). It was one of his cute little baseball Robeez that I bought on eBay last spring since I was no way going to pay full price for Robeez. I came home a shoe short and so grouchy Brad even went out later and looked for it, but no luck. What happened to it? Did some other kid grab it? A strong wind blew it into a sewer? Is someone's dog in bed happily gnawing on it right now? Just another of life's mysteries, I guess.

(illustration via julianmizuki.blogspot.com)

Bad mommy

By now most of you have probably heard about this lawsuit in which some rich kids tried to sue their mom for emotional distress for things like failing to send college care packages, trying to make her son wear a seatbelt, and asking her daughter to come home at midnight from a homecoming celebration. (That daughter should have lived in my house; my curfew was midnight and my parents would set a radio alarm clock with the volume turned up all the way in our living room for just after midnight. If I wasn’t home to turn it off the parents would be awake and very, very mad. If I had been smart I would have come home, turned it off, and then gone back out...but I wasn’t.) Anyway, this got me thinking of all of the things Tater could possibly try to sue us for down the road. It’s not a short list.

-Failing to recognize that he had jaundice when he was born even though he was orange as a pumpkin (we thought he was just tan).
-Bringing him home from the hospital on a germy CTA bus.
-Dropping the home phone (Brad) and cell phone (me) on his head when he was a couple months old.
-Letting him nap in his bouncer for the first 6 months since we couldn’t get him to nap in his crib.
-Failing to read the sleep/baby books ahead of time so that we’d know how to get him to nap in his crib.
-Getting him an Easter basket filled with candy we like rather than something he could actually enjoy.
-Not feeding him much in the way of finger foods until close to his first birthday since we thought he shouldn’t have them since he didn’t have teeth and would choke. (Turns out babies don’t need teeth to eat. See above: failure to read baby books.)
-Letting his 3-year-old cousin Tondi tongue kiss him (and taking a photo of it).
-Me lying to a superskinny salesperson that I didn’t know what size dress I needed since I’d “just had a baby” even though Tate was a year old (and not with me at the time, which is why I got away with it).
-Failing to make homemade cupcakes for his first birthday even though I said I would.

I’m sure there is more. I’m really glad the “bad mommy” lawsuit was thrown out. I don't need that kind of precedent hanging over my head.

What'sa matta you?

(photo via www.vinyl4u.eu)

So when we were back in Michigan my sister and I had the opportunity to go through some of our old records. ("Opportunity" meaning my Dad said we needed to get our crap out of the basement, even though one tiny box of records pales in comparison to the "Hoarders"-like activity the parents have going on down there.) Remember records? They were before iTunes, CDs and cassette tapes but after 8-tracks. Not only did we have records, we actually had a pretty decent collection of 45s that I didn't remember having. And yes, that makes us really, really old. It's weird that Tate will never know what it was like to listen for hours for his favorite song to come on the radio. Or, to avoid that wait, to go out and buy the single with some generally crappy song by the same artist on the B-side.

Looking through our records I was pretty excited. They must be worth something, right? I had visions of my sister and me cashing in our collection and sending our kids to college until a quick eBay search revealed our "My Sharona" single listed for .99 cents. With no bidders. Oh well.

In addition to "My Sharona" our collection also included Blondie's "The Tide Is High," Eddie Rabbitt's "I Love a Rainy Night," Newcleus' "Jam On It" (even Brad doesn't remember that one; it's listed in Wikipedia as "old school hip hop" and may be the first and last time I was on music's cutting edge), and Joe Dolce's "Shaddup You Face." My sister and I didn't remember the name Joe Dolce, but "Shaddup You Face" brought back a lot of fun memories.

What'sa matta you, hey!
Gotta no respect, whatta you think you do,
Why you looka so sad? It's-a not so bad, it's-a nice-a place,
Ah, shaddap you face!

I did some Googling, and did you know that (as of 2005 when this article was written) "Shaddup You Face" is Australia's highest selling single ever? EVER! What about Olivia Newton John? AC/DC? Air Supply? INXS? Rick Springfield (who Brad reminded me was born in Australia)? Did "Shaddup You Face" seriously trump sales of "Jessie's Girl" at home?

Maybe it was more than just a song. To re-quote a music journalist quoted in the above-mentioned article:

"Shaddap You Face summed up the change in Australia when multiculturalism displaced the derogatory label 'New Australian', when colourful Immigration Minister Al Grassby regularly graced the national stage, and SBS was about to take to the air..."

I'm pretty sure my sister and I were not tapped into any cultural undercurrents in Australia. I'm pretty sure we didn't even know it was an Australian single. Mostly I think we just liked being able to say "Shaddup You Face" to each other over and over without getting in trouble. Hey!

Hole in my heart

On Thursday we went to Tate's 1-year cardiologist checkup. When he was born he had an irregular heartbeat, which was what landed him in the NICU. While he was there they did a lot of other testing and discovered that one side of his heart is bigger than the other. We were told that babies do normally have a bigger side, but the side of his heart that is bigger is the opposite of what they'd expect to see. The doctor said it could indicate some sort of problem during his development, but he seemed OK. He wore a recording monitor for 24 hours when he was about 3 weeks old, and afterward Brad got a call from the hospital with the message that all was OK and that we'd need to come back for a checkup when Tate was a year old.

So when we went back we really just thought this was a "better safe than sorry" recheck just to make sure everything was still OK. We were surprised to learn that he has a hole in his heart. Two small holes, actually, that they somehow didn't see last year. I guess they saw something then, but it wasn't clear they were holes like it is now and it wasn't communicated to us. The doctor said that as heart defects go this is on the less serious end of things, but she still didn't give us that reassuring "don't worry" speech I was hoping for. So what happens now is that they will check him again in a year. The hope is that the holes will close by themselves. If not, they will have to do surgery. There are lots of "ifs," and we're just praying that they close on their own in the next couple of years. It made me feel better that Brad was chatting last night with our niece who had a similar condition and she said her hole did close on its own. I'm trying to keep things in perspective since in the greater scheme of things there are a lot worse things that can happen to a baby, and if it doesn't fix itself it can be fixed. Of course, I'm his mom and I'm me, so I'm sure I'll still worry.

I talked to my parents yesterday and my mom, bless her heart, tried to put a positive spin on it. She insists that we use more positive wording if something has a negative connotation. We didn't have a "retirement party" for my Dad since I guess that made it seem like he was old and going to sit around in his chair. We had a "graduation party" since he was done teaching/counseling and was now onto the next phase of his life (which does seem to involve some degree of chair sitting). My grandma's service wasn't a funeral or memorial service, but a "celebration of life." And she didn't die, she had a "soul graduation." So when I told her about Tate's heart she said, "Oh, we don't call it a defect. He's not defective!" I told her actually we DO call it a defect, since the medical term is Atrial Septal Defect, but I have to agree. He's not defective--he's just perfect.

Tater is 1!

Tater turned 1 on August 8 and we celebrated with a cowboy-themed party in our building's community room.



Tate doesn't have any special fondness for cowboys; Brad was just looking for an excuse to order BBQ and I'm not so good when it comes to themes (mine was um, he's 1 and there will be cake?) so cowboys it was. I stole lots of ideas from the internet, and I have to give a big shout-out to Brad for making a country-but-not-too-country playlist. I didn't get to really listen to it until afterward, but one of my favorite songs on it that I hadn't heard before was "I Should Be Sleeping" by Emerson Drive. Very appropriate for this past year. We felt very blessed to celebrate this milestone with so many friends and family. Brad's Mom and twin sister Amy and two of our nieces came in from Michigan, and Tate really enjoyed playing with his cousins while they were here. He also came down with a cold the day of his birthday, so if any of you ended up sick after the party we apologize...he's not much for keeping his germs to himself. But sickness aside, I think everyone had a good time.

It's hard to believe that just a year ago he was this tiny



Tate got to celebrate again in Michigan when we were all home for my Grandma's funeral. My Mom said it would make her happy to look forward to celebrating this little life the day after the funeral (plus her own birthday since it was that week), so we did. My sister baked my Mom and Tate a cake (unlike his Mom, who didn't get his cupcakes made in time for his Chicago party and we had to get them from a bakery on party day) and got some balloons, which he loved. We had to bring one back on the train since he was having so much fun with it. He also got to play with more cousins. He learned fast that kids with siblings play a little rougher. My niece Madi kept grabbing him when he tried to crawl away. At one point she just grabbed a handful of the back of the neck of his pajamas and lifted him up like a cat carrying a kitten. Another time he was crawling away and she grabbed him by the waistband of his shorts and dragged him back. Madi is one tough cookie. And his cousin Tondi gave him his first tongue kiss. I'm not going to post the photo, but I'm pretty sure I'll be able to use it as leverage down the road. I'm also pretty sure this is how my nephew, niece, and Dad all ended up with Tate's cold.



It's been a wonderful and exhausting first year. There isn't a day that goes by that we aren't so grateful that we have him. He makes us laugh and smile just by being himself. Happy 1st Birthday, Tate!

Remembering my grandma

A really sad thing happened while we were in Massachusetts. We got the news that my grandmother had passed away. It wasn't unexpected since she had gone into a hospice facility when we were all home back in May, but we still miss her very much. I was able to talk to her on the phone the morning she died. She wasn't conscious, but I hope she heard me. Our last conversation before that hadn't been an easy one. We tried to talk on the 4th of July, but her dementia (she had been diagnosed several months earlier) had taken both her ability to speak clearly and to understand what I was saying.

Her memorial service was last weekend. It was a really nice celebration of her life at the church she attended for about 70 years. A member of the church played a few numbers on the bugle. Another church member is an opera singer in NYC and she came back and sang a few songs. My mom and aunt gave loving eulogies, and the rest of us also passed around the mic and shared a few words.

The one thing that made me feel really good was that we had had a 90th birthday party for my grandma two years ago where her friends and family had a chance to stand up and share their favorite memories of her. Afterward she told me it felt like she had just attended her own funeral. Normally I'd say that isn't the sign of a good party, but I knew what she meant. I'm glad she knew how loved she was. Tate, life lesson #1: make sure to tell the people you love how you feel about them. (For the sake of authenticity you can also tell the people you don't love how you feel about them, but that tends to stir up trouble.)

Anyway, here are a few pics of my grandma.


This is a photo of her as a baby with her mother.




And here are a couple of her from nursing school. I remember being impressed growing up that my grandma had been a nurse, since not many grandmas I knew worked. I found out recently that her mom had wanted her to get an education so she didn't have to marry the first guy who came along. Pretty progressive for those times, huh.





And here are a couple of her with my grandpa (the top is their wedding photo). I love the story of how they met. She was dating his roommate and my grandpa used to answer the phone when she called. She hadn't met him in person, but he fell in love with her voice. I'm a little fuzzy on the details of how this all played out, but I think my grandpa eventually met her some time after she broke up with the roommate and asked her out.







My grandma and my mom (left) and aunt (right). Yes, it was the 1970s.



My grandma and her siblings. Her oldest brother and youngest sister are still living. They all grew up on a cherry farm in Michigan.




Here she is showing me off to their next door neighbor.


And here she is working out in the fitness center where she lived. At 90 even after two strokes she still worked out several days a week.



This is the first time my grandma met Tate. She was so happy to see him (and vice versa).



This is from the night before my grandma went into hospice (her health took a turn for the worse that night). We had just finished a family dinner at her place. She is hugging her first grandson (my sister's son Tondi). They named her "Director of Hugging" where she lived because she gives so many hugs. She told me at Christmas never to forget her hugs. I won't.

Day drinking with Kathie Lee and Hoda

I owe stay-at-home moms a big apology. I used to think they had it good: strolling down the street sipping lattes, reading magazines while their babies slept, working out (I'm not sure how I thought that happened with babies), chillaxing in the park... . Back in my working outside the home days it all seemed pretty cush to me. I remember hearing about SAHM's who had cleaning people and I was incredulous. What did they do all day? Now I know. Most days are a mix of preparing Tate's meals, feeding Tate, doing laundry (I seriously do laundry every day now), changing a bazillion diapers, trying to keep the place picked up enough so DCFS doesn't come and take Tate away because we're living in squalor, and most importantly, trying to keep a very active 2-foot-tall person with absolutely no fear from killing himself. The last is a new development since Tate has gotten more mobile, and it's simultaneously exciting to see him exploring his world and exhausting keeping up with him.

So once he's down for his morning nap (assuming I can talk him into taking one these days) I take a quick break from from it all and sit down with some coffee or breakfast and watch 10 minutes of the fourth hour of The Today Show with Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb. Before Tate the only reason I knew there was a fourth hour of The Today Show was because Joel McHale always makes fun of it on The Soup. Now I find myself tuning in daily. All of the girls in the dorm LOVED Kathie Lee when I was in school, but back then I just thought she was overly perky and irritating (this was before she got axed from her show with Regis for the younger, perkier Kelly Ripa). But aging Kathie Lee has an "oh eff it" attitude of resignation that is actually kind of amusing. And I like Hoda Kotb because every time I see her name on screen I spend a few seconds wondering why her last name doesn't have another vowel. Anyway, every day I tune in just to feel like I have some brief connection with the outside world and you know what those ladies are doing? Day drinking! Every single day. I'm sure some producer came up with the idea to make the show seem to viewers like a cozy hour-long chat with your girlfriends Hoda and Kathie Lee, and it's working. Although if I ever do crack open the tequila at 9 am on a weekday I hope someone does call DCFS. It's a slippery slope.

If you like pina coladas...

Ok, so I still haven't posted Tate's 9-month OR 10-month photos, but Brad and I are going on vacation! Or I should say, Brad, Tate and I are going on vacation. Brad and I haven't been on a real vacation since our impromptu Costa Rica trip in 2008, so we are definitely due. I was thumbing through a magazine at my hair salon and came across an article that included a spread on what to wear if you are going to Nantucket this summer (cute, preppy J. Crew-ey stuff) and got inspired. Well, turns out you AREN'T going to Nantucket if you are reading an article at your hair salon in June and expect to find a semi-affordable summer rental for a week there. But we did find a cottage on the beach in Cape Cod. And Brad referred another employee to his company so the referral bonus (provided the guy sticks it out for 90 days) helps with the semi-affordable part. We know next to nothing about the area, so we have some research to do in the next couple of weeks. Here's what we know about the Cape going in:

1. Kennedys, Kennedys, Kennedys
2. Cape Cod = Vodka, cranberry, lime
3. The people in The Pina Colada Song like hanky panky at midnight in the dunes there
4. It's a great place to break out the madras skirts and seersucker shorts

We're still trying to work out all of the traveling with Tate stuff, but we're excited for our first family vacation. Since Tate still takes 2 naps a day (and is kind of miserable if he misses one) there may be a lot of time spent sitting on the deck looking at the water while he naps. And that sounds A-Ok to me.

Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto! You're beautiful!

I gave Tater his second haircut the other day. It was much harder than the first since he's a lot more wiggly now. Brad had to attempt to hold his head while I did the cutting. I was so nervous about potentially poking an eye out or cutting off an ear that instead of using the proper haircutting technique my stylist showed me I just went in and lopped off a big chunk. And then tried to fix it. Brad says Tate looks like Thomas Dolby now. Since we didn't have MTV back in the day I had to Google Thomas Dolby to see what he looked like:

I don't think it's quite that bad. But I did notice that in current photos Thomas Dolby is sporting a completely shaved head. I hope Tater doesn't ever have to go that route since his flat spot on the right side of his head still hasn't rounded out.

And I always thought the lyrics in Dolby's "She Blinded Me with Science" were "Good heavens, Miss America, you're beautiful!" Who is Miss Sakamoto? I'll have to ask Brad. He usually knows these things.

Every day's an endless stream...

...of something.

Tate has officially been sick this past month many more days than he has been well. I'll spare you the details, but we're off to the drugstore to pick up some probiotics to try to help fight the side-effects of his antibiotics and keep the little guy from getting dehydrated. Brad and I are slowly coming apart at the seams, but I'm sure we'll be doing better once Tate isn't up late pukeing and whatnot.

Aren't you glad there's no picture with this post?

Sleep!

The past three days I've woken to light streaming through the window. My first instinct has been to race to Tate's room to check on him, only to find him slumbering peacefully in his crib. Yes, our baby is SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT. Since this marks the first time I've gotten more than 3-4 hours of sleep in a row in 2011, it definitely calls for the use of all caps. I'd love to say it was the result of one of the sleep books I've been slowly ploughing my way through, but it's actually due to one that hasn't been written yet called "Hey Mom, Did You Ever Think Maybe I'm Just Hungry?" Seriously. I was in the middle of an internal struggle about whether to employ the popular (and apparently effective) cry-it-out method of sleep training when I came across a feeding chart my sister had given to me. Even accounting for the fact that Tate started solids a little later than some, he wasn't eating nearly what the chart indicated he should be for his age. So I doubled up the cereal at his next meals and added an additional cube of fruit and bingo, sleeping through the night! I've been reading a little more about attachment parenting (which surprisingly seems to be a philosophy that appeals to me), and one of the things that stood out was that crying is viewed as communication, not manipulation. In this case Tate was apparently trying to tell us that he needed more food!

Family photo day

So sometime right around 8 months I decided that if I couldn't make time stand still I could at least capture this stage of Tate's life by having some photos taken of him. We got a referral to a really great photographer named Jen Soares from someone in my new moms group. Jen was so awesome! You can see a preview of the photos she took on her blog. I love the shots of Tate, and it was so nice to get some pics of all three of us together. The photos also commemorated one of the few times the three of us were showered and wearing clean clothes at the same time. Even our house was clean. It was a good day.

8 Months!

Tate just keeps getting more and more fun--and more and more mobile! We put a quilt down over our living room rug and he loves to roll around on it. We can't turn away for a minute, because he's really fast at rolling under the couch now. He also loves to grab things. Anything within his reach is fair game. He especially loves things he's not supposed to have, such as the TV remote, cell phones, and Brad's computer. He also has a special fondness for zippers and tags. And Brad's baseball hats. He loves to chew on the brims of those. He also says da-da-da-da-da, especially when he first wakes up in the morning. A couple of times we've sworn he's said "hi" to Brad (ha da-da). We're torn between being excited to watch him grow and develop and wanting to hold onto each stage just a little longer.

Lights out, uh-huh!

Remember our nice tall windows? The ones that make our smallish condo seem a bit more spacious? The other night Brad and I were up at 11:00 at night covering them with superclassy black plastic garbage bags because our baby WILL NOT NAP! Ok, it's not that he won't at all. It's just that his naps are too short according to the sleep books. Apparently the sleep experts think his short naps are bad and will cause him to...well, I don't remember why they are bad because I'm now too sleep deprived to retain new information. But until now Tate would only nap in his bouncer in the living room (bad) after first being nursed by me (also bad). So Brad perched precariously on a ladder while I handed him garbage bags and tape until we got the job done. The next day we put Tate down in his nice dark room for his nap and he napped a whole 5 minutes. But today he napped in there for at least 45 minutes. Progress!

7 months!

I've pretty much decided that Tate is the perfect man. He likes to do everything I like to do, hangs on my every word, and laughs at all my jokes. The other day me saying "cool mist vaporizer" over and over got a huge laugh every time. I have no idea why.

Love hurts

Tate got his first kiss from a girl today. We were in mommy/baby pilates class and a little girl about Tate's age named Danica crawled over to where he was lying on his back and pressed her mouth to his face for a little kiss. Then she hit him on the forehead a couple of times before her mom and I could intervene. He just squinted and looked confused. Later in class she was off kissing some other baby boy. I told him that's just the way love goes sometimes.

Spring forward, fall asleep

Brad and I used to be notorious night owls. And we used to love to sleep in on the weekends. Back in our pre-Tate days I used to joke that we needed to add a morning person to our relationship to help us get up and be more productive on Saturdays and Sundays. Little did we know how much our 2-foot-tall morning person would shake things up.

In addition to being a morning person, Tate also plans ahead. He decided to spring forward a few weeks before the rest of the country and he now wakes up at 6 am every day instead of 7. Like clockwork. And he's also started waking up several times during the night. He seems legitimately hungry (growth spurt?) so I don't want to try letting him cry it out. Brad and I are both exhausted and looking pretty rough these days. I'm seriously thinking of blowing off the change to Daylight Savings Time this weekend and just operating on Sandra Time until we fall back in October. That's how much I want to hold onto that extra hour of sleep.

6 months!

Time just keeps flying! Tate is 6 months old now (or at least he was three weeks ago--we're a little late getting these up.)





From month 5 to 6 Tate started rolling over (stomach to back, mostly to get out of tummy time) but he didn't do it on a regular basis. We also started him on solids, and he didn't get really interested until right about 6 months when I started mixing applesauce with the rice cereal. At his 6-month checkup he was 14 lbs 15 oz. I think he was something like 26 inches long. All checked out well except the ped. wants me to go to an eye doc at Children's Memorial to make sure he's not cross-eyed. The ped. is 98% sure he's fine, but since Brad needed eye surgery when he was younger he'd rather have us be safe and get it looked at.

We're still enjoying him like crazy. Here's a sleepy shot of Brad and his Dad the morning Tate turned 6 months old.

Happy valentine's day to my silly valentines

We had a fun day today. Tate humored me when I wanted to do a little v-day photo shoot.



And the Midnight Baker even whipped up a batch of Pecan Sandras late last night in honor of the occasion (pretty delicious, if I do say so myself).



We hope everyone had a day filled with lots of hugs and big sloppy kisses.

Mommy really needs this snow to melt so we can get out of here

Sleep deprivation

The other day I was putting away dishes and opened the cupboard to find Brad's opened can of Diet Coke up near the juice glasses. It sort of made sense, since he likes to drink his Diet Coke from those glasses. When I asked him about it he said he knew he had opened a new can and was wondering where he'd put it. We've had a lot of those moments around here in the last 6 months.

How about getting off of these antibiotics...

Tater and I made a follow-up visit to the pediatric urologist today. We've been following the situation with his right kidney since I was 20 weeks pregnant with him (how crazy is that?). Basically, his kidney isn't emptying as well as it could. We found out during tests after he was born that this was due to a small(ish) blockage, and that it would either get better on its own or he might need surgery. At today's visit the doctor said that he doesn't see anything that concerns him. The kidney isn't worse, and if anything it's a little bit better. Tate had been on a low dose of antibiotics since he was born to help prevent infection, but now the doc feels comfortable taking him off. Yay!!! And we don't have to go back for a follow-up visit for a year. The doc said we're still just waiting for Tate's body to tell us what needs to be done, and that usually you can get a better idea of what is going to happen by the time a baby is 1 or 2 years old.

I got what felt like a bazillion ultrasounds when I was pregnant, including several to follow the kidney situation. It was funny to see Tate lying there with jelly on his tummy getting an ultrasound to check something I had been getting ultrasounds for when he was still inside me. Tate actually seemed to enjoy the trip to the doctor's office after being condo-bound for the last few days because it has been so cold. During the exam he kept trying to get the doctor's attention (I think he wanted to play) and grabbed onto the cord for the ultrasound scanner with both hands (sadly, Dr. M. didn't seem to get that it was time for tug o' war). And he really enjoyed the ride in the Zipcar. I had trouble getting his car seat in and out since I rarely do that without Brad. I was jostling him around, and he just laughed and laughed. I am so grateful for my happy, healthy baby boy.

Please don't let me become that woman...

A week before Tate was born I was at dinner with friends joking about people who breastfeed older kids. On the way home my friend Beth snapped this photo of a display in the window at Be By Baby. At the time I thought it was super creepy--the kid mannequin looks old enough to eat pizza, and is that mom mannequin wearing lingerie?!? It was really funny at the time. Now I'm afraid I might actually become that woman who breastfeeds forever, minus the creepy lingerie.

Newsflash: Rice cereal? Not so good. Bibs? Delicious.

So we gave Tate his first taste of solids a few weeks ago. Based on how excited he is about his grape-flavored antibiotic, his Vitamin D drops, and even the sweet oral rotovirus vaccine (he cried almost as much when they stopped giving him that as he did when he got his actual shots) I thought he'd be one of those babies who dive right in when it comes to solids. Nope. The first time he let me feed him the rice cereal, but he just pushed each bite out with his tongue. Ditto with attempt #2 a week later. So then I tried the rice cereal. It's horrible! So I'm not sure if Tate just isn't ready for solids or if he just has a discerning palate. My doctor had said we could also try applesauce or a really ripe banana, but my sister read somewhere that if you start with something sweet the baby will develop a sweet tooth and it'll be harder to get him to try vegetables. Too late on preventing the sweet tooth, I think.

Turns out meat really is murder...

So I went to an infant CPR and safety class today and know that the #1 choking hazard is for kids? Meat! Maybe that will help my campaign to keep Tate a vegetarian just a little longer.

The class was really good. It was led by a nurse at Prentice (where Tate was born). The instructional video for the CPR part of the class had actors portraying a scenario that involved grandparents babysitting their infant grandchild. They find the baby unresponsive in her crib and begin CPR. Even though the "baby" was just a doll, it brought tears to my eyes to even think about it.

The choking information was good too. The instructor said everyone in the class would probably have to help their child during a choking incident at some point since when kids first start eating they tend to shovel in more food than they can handle. Ha. She doesn't know about my plan to puree all of Tater's food until he's 16.

Let the good times roll

On Friday, January 14 Tate finally rolled over for the first time! Brad was on a conference call in the bedroom so I couldn't call him in, but I could tell it was about to happen. One minute he was on his stomach, then he arched his back and threw his head back and let the weight of his huge noggin propel him over. He was pretty nonchalant about it, until he saw how crazy I was going and he started smiling. I put him back on his tummy and he did it again. He must not really be that into the whole rolling thing, though, since he didn't do it again until today when Brad was gone. So for now it's the Snuffleupagus of milestones--no one sees it but me.

5 months!

I know I say this every month, but I can't believe Tate is 5 months old already. I didn't include any milestones for his 4-month photo, but I think that is because the change wasn't so dramatic from 3-4 months. He just kept getting stronger, but that was about it.

There was definitely a change from 4 to 5 months. Over Christmas we noticed that he was holding up his head so much better, and that he could sit up when we supported him. He also grabs EVERYTHING now. He grabs onto my shirt and holds it when he eats. He'll grab a wipe or his clothes when I'm changing him, and when I try to pull it away from him we get into a little baby vs. Mommy tug o' war and he laughs and laughs. And everything he grabs goes right to his mouth.

Other than that Brad said he read somewhere that babies will start to get your jokes around this age. It's so true! The other day I made a silly joke and he laughed right on cue. It was probably more the look on my face than anything else, but it was still fun.

A bit of a backblog

Ack...I'm so behind in posting. Below is a summary of Christmas 2010.

Favorite holiday memory: Tate meeting his grandpa, great grandmas, aunts, ancles, and cousins and watching our families make him so happy and vice versa.

Least favorite holiday memory: Tate having a meltdown at dinner in Lakeside (where we stopped on our way home) because he was so overtired from the whole trip. He was shaking his head back and forth and scratching his head and face. He ended up with a big bloody scratch on his cheek, and we felt like the worst parents ever. We packed up our dinner to go, and got him to bed asap.

Tate's revenge: He woke me up every 45 minutes that night.

Favorite holiday quote: (from my ususally non-church-going sister, after I asked how she liked the Christmas Eve service at her minister neighbor's church) "Well, you know. We're not really into the whole J.C. thing." This might be my favorite all-time holiday quote, right after my grandma telling my mom c. 2002 that "Sandy will never find a husband if she doesn't stop swearing so much." (I'd accidentally said "damn" and "hell" at the dinner table.)

I hope I'm better at keeping up Tate's baby book than I am at updating this blog.