Happy Birthday, Hunter!

We had a great time today at our good friend Hunter's first birthday party! I can't believe that Mel's baby girl is one! UNREAL! They hosted a great pool party in their backyard and the day could not have been more perfect for a fiesta. The party actually started at Colin's normal nap time, so he was not in the best mood, but still managed to find time to flirt with all the girls. I am really going to have to watch this kid. ;-) The first shot is of Daddy and Colin swimming in the pool. The second picture is of Hunter opening her presents. She was hysterical...she sat in that chair and opened every single one of her presents. We all figured she would get bored since she is so young, but oh no! She loved it! The third shot is of Colin trying to grab his newest girlfriend, Breck. He was all about the girls today....at one point he tried to untie Hunter's dress! It was so funny. The last one is of Colin and I...not the greatest shot as Colin was beyond ready to sleep, but you can see his adorable little outfit. He looked so cute! Anyway, the day was great and I got to see my girls Melanie and Melissa and their families. Mel's parents were there and they are like a second set of parents to me, so it was great to see them, too. All in all, a great Saturday. Jer took a little video of Colin flirting with Breck on our camera...I will post that shortly as well!

Summer Lovin!

It is hotter than all get out in Texas this week, so we headed to the pool when Jer got home from work. I have a feeling that we are going to be spending a lot of time there this summer. It is just too hot to do much else! I am thanking my lucky stars that we decided to buy a home in a master planned community with all these great pools and parks. It makes for fun, free, child friendly entertainment. That is just about all I can ask for these days!! :-)

Colin Plays Ref

Colin was pleased as punch this afternoon to find himself the referee of the latest Battle Royale between Enzo and Ferris Mewler. Those animals are complete lunatics and Colin thinks it is hilarious. He was rolling with laughter. Another important tidbit in this photo...I finally broke down and pulled out one of Colin's size 18 month onesies today and as you can see...it fits fine. For some reason I am having the hardest time moving him out of those 12 month clothes...something about "18 month" is freaking me out. It just sounds so big...the little guy is only 10 months old! I don't know why 18 month is bothering me so much...what I am going to do with 2T?!? ;-)

Also, my baby is getting close to really needing a haircut. All of a sudden it is growing like lightening! He has always had a full head of hair, but now it is getting long and curly. Shannon noticed and so has Jeremy! :-) I love those soft curls!! I am going to have a breakdown on haircut day. I am determined to hold out until his birthday. His actual birthday falls on a Sunday, so I think that would be a fun day to do it. Jer gets his hair cut at a great old time barber shop that we will use. I think it would be fun to have his first haircut certificate to be dated on his first birthday.

Post About Food!

Colin has started eating lots of new foods in the past few days, so I thought I would devote a post to what his meals look like right now. This is one of those things that I want to document for posterity. :-)

Bottles: Colin takes three bottles during the day and he very rarely makes any changes to the schedule. Each bottle is 7 or 8 ounces. He takes them at around 7:30am, 12:00pm, and 5:00pm. One funny thing...Colin is not interested in eating immediately after he wakes up in the morning, despite having no bottles during the night anymore. He wakes up at 6:00am every day, but he won't even look at a bottle until 7:00am or later. I think that is funny because I am not big on breakfast when I first wake up either. I like to think that is a little mom trait coming out. :-)

Food: Colin always eats breakfast at around 8:30am, lunch sometime around 1:00pm, and dinner at around 6:15pm.

BREAKFAST: He always eats a YoBaby Yogurt or Oatmeal with Apples and Cinnamon (baby food). Sometimes he will have some scrambled egg or waffles on the weekends if we cook breakfast for ourselves.

LUNCH: For lunch today he had bite size pieces of chicken nuggets, cheddar cheese cubes, and watermelon. I try to always give him cut up pieces of fresh fruit and cheese at lunch, which he really enjoys. He used to always eat a jar of baby food fruit and veggie and lunch, but lately that is becoming really hard to pull off. He likes to feed himself and starts to swipe at the spoon a lot. Breakfast is still working because he loves that yogurt, but even that is getting harder.

DINNER: I have started letting him try whatever we are eating and the results have been great. Last night he had some of the Eggplant Parm that I made and loved it. However, his stomach kept him up off and on until 11pm last night, so I think that one might have been a bit much for him. Tonight I made a pineapple chicken over brown rice and he ate that, as well as diced peaches that he fed himself. He still has several stage 3 dinners that he likes and I am feeding him those off and on as well. I am starting to only feed those if what I make is too spicy or something he should not eat.

Colin gets too close for Enzo

Let me explain these pictures in order:

1. "Just one more second and that tail is mine, Enzo!"

2. "Mom, PULEEZE save me...please....seriously, this kid is CRAZY!"

3. "Who, me? I did not touch that dog."

MAMA!, Queen of Safety and Well Being

Superman is really Clark Kent. When Clark Kent sees danger, he quickly changes into Superman and rushes in to save the day. This is how I feel as a mother sometimes...one moment I am Chalna and the next moment I am "MAMA!, Queen of Safety and Well being". I am pretty sure that "MAMA!" is not the most fun version of me, but it persists none the less. This is who I am now, or at least the most major part of me. I relish my title and promise to fight only for good. :-)



Yesterday, our neighbor threw a wonderful Memorial Day BBQ, complete with pool party, lots of alcohol, and good food. There is nothing that I love more than a pool party on a hot day and let me tell you, I could use some sun drenched, hamburger eating, good fun. So we packed up the little man and headed over as a family. We entered through the back yard and much to my chagrin, Chalna turned into "MAMA!" immediately. First of all, it was beyond hot outside. It was sweltering. It was about 95 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, and the humidity was way up there. Keeping in mind that these are my next door neighbors, we were already literally dripping with sweat by the time we walked around the corner. Not good. When we walked around the corner, I noticed that there were no children in attendance. There were tons of sunburned adults who had obviously been drinking in the heat...loud, a little crazy, and having a great time. Chalna would have grabbed a frosty beer and jumped in to the festivities, but MAMA! was on alert. The pool was being dominated by a volleyball game at that moment, so Colin could not get in the water. There was a huge ashtray full of cigarette buts and I saw several packs here and there. Chalna would have no problem with that...MAMA! was not happy with Colin outside too. The hosts, who are WONDERFUL folks (we are so lucky to have great neighbors!), were so happy to see Colin and welcomed us. They are not married yet, dating, a bit older than us and childless. They live in a world that I used to play in all the time, before Colin. They pulled up chairs for us, but there was no room in the shade and Colin was starting to resemble a tomato. I picked him up and felt sweat trickle over my fingers. That was it. Jer jumped in the pool to play volleyball (one of us had to stay...I felt rude enough turning around and leaving!) and Colin and I headed out. I made our excuses and know full well that I came off as a pain in the ass. But MAMA! does not care how she comes across as long as her baby is safe. I was there for 6 minutes total. That must be a record. I walked right back in the house, took off Colin's sweaty swimsuit, turned the fan on high, and we played with blocks in the safe cool house for the rest of the afternoon.



It is amazing how much my life has changed in just a few short months. It seems like an eternity ago that I was childless and getting sunburned and tipsy at a grown-up pool party. I was reminded of several things yesterday. First of all, I am really glad that we had Colin when I was 30. I always thought I wanted children earlier, but I am thankful that I am older. I got years to play...get drunk and sunburned...party all night...sleep in all day with Jer...come and go as we pleased. We have amazing memories of those times and I am glad that I got to experience that life. It made me ready to be where I am today...a mom. I had a blast in my twenties and I am ready to be more settled now. I did not mind giving up that party to play with my little man. He is my focus now, his needs are mine. Don't get me wrong, I know that I still need adult time every now and then, and I find ways to get it. But I certainly don't mind missing a drunken pool party to keep my baby safe and happy. I also learned that I am lucky to have the great friends that I do...most of my best friends now have little ones, so we have tons of opportunities to have kid friendly parties. I am reminded that we need to invite folks over more often and schedule more time with those friends. There is nothing more valuable than good friends who you know will take care of your baby the way you would. Thank goodness for ya'll!



So that is the latest in the MAMA! chronicles. I am sure she will be swooping in to save the day again very soon. :-)

Hot Dogs, Enzo, and Vegetable Beef

The first shot is of Colin sharing his hot dog bites with Enzo. We had chili dogs for lunch today and I cut up a hot dog for Colin and put bites on his tray. Enzo went nuts (how shocking) and Colin (as usual) gave half to the dog. I swear he does that because the only time Enzo will let Colin pet him is when he is giving him food. :-)

The second shot is from tonight. Colin had a vegetable beef dinner and dipped his hands right in the bowl. The next step was to wipe the hands all over the face. Hence picture two. It was just too funny not to get on film! That stuff stains fast, too! We got right into the tub afterwards and I had to scrub to get the orange tint out of his eyebrows!!

Colin has been practicing a lot on his walking this week. Tonight Jer and I sat very close together and let Colin "walk" back and forth between us. We let our arms go for a second and he mostly falls into our arms, but he is starting to get a few steps in there first! He gets so excited...walking is his absolute favorite thing to do. It is so funny, he tries to lead with his belly, which totally throws off his balance. He is getting better at it, but he still mostly resembles a drunken sailor! I get so nervous because he really REALLY wants to walk, so badly that he will take off after Enzo and if I don't watch close he will go right down on his face. On more that one occasion, Colin has been standing up with his hands on the couch for support and then gotten a wild hair to go after the dog. Luckily I am always beside him to catch him. I have to watch that kiddo like a hawk!

Lazy Weekend

This is an extremely lazy Memorial weekend! Colin slept really fitfully on Friday night...waking up screaming at 11:30pm and again at 4:00am. We finally had to get up with him at 5:30. He had been running a low grade fever on Friday evening and it stuck around all day yesterday. I kept waiting for him to get sicker, but he just kept the low fever all day and was generally a fuss pot. As we were getting ready for bath time last night I noticed that his top "fangs" are coming in on either side of his front teeth. (they are so cute!!) I am therefore guessing that the fever and fussiness are due to teething yet again. My sleep book claims that teething "does not cause night waking" and each book I read has a differing opinion on the fevers... "Teething does NOT cause a fever or runny nose!".... "Teething can cause a fever and runny nose!"...etc. However, because I am his mother and that automatically makes me smarter than all doctors and authors...I say it is teething. :-)

The bad news is that we skipped a party at my friend Dana's house yesterday due to said fever. I was really looking forward to going and having a good time, but I was so worried that Colin's fever was an illness. I hate nothing more than when people bring a sick child out and get Colin sick...that really pisses me off! Therefore, we kept Colin home yesterday. Now that it looks like Colin is not in the least bit sick, I am sad that I missed out on the festivities. Oh well. Colin slept much better last night and this morning we all had waffles for breakfast, including the little man. He loved them! He probably fed at least half of his share to Enzo, but I finally gave up trying to stop him. Enzo loves Colin more than ever now. ;-)

As we speak, Colin is sitting behind me playing with the big diaper box that I just opened. We buy the family pack of Luvs that comes in the box and Colin likes to turn it into a baby sized fort. Right now he is beating it like a drum. Our panther of a cat is laying beside him just out of baby grasp. Ferris Mewler likes to keep an eye on Colin. It is really sweet considering that the cat is mean to pretty much everyone else that lives here. :-) This afternoon we are planning on making a trip out to an adorable little specialty toy shop that I found. Colin's friend Hunter is having her first birthday next weekend and I know exactly what we are going to get her. I can't tell, though, because her mom reads this blog! Hi, Mel! HAHA!