December 2004

12/28/04

Tommy will be 11 months old tomorrow.  He's just getting bigger and smarter every day.  Unfortunately he's sick today.  I think all the holiday excitement eventually wore him down.  He had a 103 degree temp after his nap this morning.  It's nothing serious though -- just a virus.  I'm sure the boulder-sized teeth that are trying to push through his gums aren't helping matters.  

The tooth that surfaced on the 24th is his first molar on the top right.  He already has all 8 incisors.  I guess he's skipping the cuspids for now, so there's a gap in the gum.  The first molar on the other side has just started to peek through the gum.  It's going to take a few weeks for them both to come through because molars have flat rather than edged surfaces.  I'm sure the matching ones on the bottom and the cuspids can't be far behind.  Poor little guy.  Oh, and I'm sure this picture is copyrighted.  I got it from http://health.allrefer.com.  

Just one photo for today. We went to Madrid yesterday with David's parents.  It's an artist community on the other side of the Sandia mountains.  We didn't know Tommy was sick when we left home.  He did really well but was feverish and unhappy during the drive home.  Anyway, here's a picture of him romping in the trunk.  It's carpeted and seemed like a good place for him to get his wiggles out since the ground was muddy and all the shops were filled with breakables.

12/26/04

Here are some Christmas pictures.  We're having a wonderful time.  David's parents are still here.  My parents left this afternoon and Ben & Erin leave tomorrow morning.  Tommy's held up surprisingly well considering how crazy-fun things have been.  He's even teething again.  Tooth number nine showed up on the 24th and his gums are super lumpy so I'm sure he'll have more new teeth in the next week or so.

I don't have a single picture of me, alone or with Tommy, so far this Christmas.  I'd better make David take some pictures tomorrow or we won't have any for our Christmas photo book.

Tommy was lifting my dad's pant cuff to "tickle" him.

Uncle Benny

One small boy among many presents.

We went for a walk up to the park after lunch on the 24th.  It was much colder out in the wind than I'd expected so Tommy got to wear Grammy's gloves.  He didn't seem to mind.  I had a warmer hat for him that he wore for the walk home.  Baby swings are fun!

Singing Jingle Bells with Grandma Sylvia.  She'd sing as long as he continued jingling his shakers and stop when he stopped.  He found this most amusing.

Unwrapping presents with Daddy.  I kind of dropped the ball during the unwrapping. I don't have a good picture of him tearing into the paper.  He really enjoyed unwrapping presents and playing with his new toys.  

Yes, we have a dancing Elmo.  David was insistent that we must get one.  He plays it all the time whether Tommy's interested or not.  Here's a picture of the two boys dancing along.

He loves walking (running!) behind his new hippo.  We can't turn it around fast enough for him.

He does this funny thing all the time.  He crinkles up his nose and sniffs in and out as loud as he can.  This picture doesn't really do it justice.

Reading with Grammy

12/19/04

Our holiday preparations are moving along nicely.  I think we just might get everything done.  Here are some pictures from breaks in the shopping, decorating, cooking and cleaning schedule.

He put the hat on himself.  David helped him with the mittens.  If I had a coat for him we'd be ready for the really cold weather that might or might not come round this year.

He was literally running as he pushed the stroller forward.  He went back and forth for about 30 minutes, laughing the whole time.  We're lucky he didn't take a big tumble.

12/16/04 -- later

Tommy took multiple steps without coaxing from us this evening.  He's been making single step attempts with prompting from us for about two weeks.  Tonight everything seemed to click and he started trying on his own.  I guess watching Henry run around at lunch today was an inspiration.  He lets go of furniture, turns towards something he wants and instead of dropping into a crawl starts walking until he falls.  He did it three times tonight and each time he walked about 5 steps before falling.  David's been saying all along that he'll be walking by Christmas.  He has just over a week left to practice!  

Oh, he's also babbling nicely these days.  He expanded his babbling tremendously this week.  I think he's even figured out that mamamama means me.  No wonder he's not sleeping well.  Learning to walk and talk at the same time must be hard on a little fellow's brain. 

12/16/04

We finally got a picture for our Christmas card.  They should be in the mail tomorrow.  Thanks to our friend Brendan for taking the picture.  I won't put it up here since it will be on the cards.

Tommy playing with Brendan after the picture taking was over.

Right before taking the picture.  Yes, I have makeup on and Tommy's hair is brushed.  The Christmas sweater came off right after the picture taking.  

I have a bell!  It jingles.  So this is what all that Jingle Bells rigmarole is about.

We can't seem to explain to him about waiting until Christmas to open his (and everyone else's) presents.

I had three mommy friends over for lunch today.  What a bunch of cute kids -- two Claudias, one Tommy and one Henry.

12/12/04

He can officially open doors within the house.  David taught him.  Curses!  It doesn't help that we have those narrow, handle type of knobs instead of the round ones.  He's tall enough to reach and stable enough to stand at the closed door and then pull it open without falling.  We'll have to get some of those baby-proofing handle locks to keep him out of the bathrooms when the company is here.  Actually he only does it when David's trying to play with him behind a closed door so I can get something done in the rest of the house.  Mommy hunting is a good incentive.

One of his new favorite activities is taking apart and putting together two ends of an audio cord.  We have earphones for the TV and an extension for them.  He needs a little help getting the two ends together, but can take them apart himself.  Pretty scary level of manual dexterity, don't you think?

We went to the zoo yesterday.  It was a beautiful, sunny Albuquerque day in the upper 50s.  Neener neener noo noo!  We didn't take the camera, so no pictures.  He loved looking at all the walls and embankments and shrubberies and fences...not as interested in the animals at a distance.  The only ones that really caught his eye were loud, brightly colored birds like macaws and flamingos.

Don't touch my balloon.

He can also open the shower door.  He spent a long time exploring the interior yesterday.

Sitting still for once!  We're still trying to get him to do this in his Christmas clothes for our Christmas card picture.  I take tons of pictures but can't seem to get a good one for the card.  Most of the people we know who could take a picture of the three of us went out of town for the weekend.  I'll be calling in favors soon.  I WILL get a picture and mail out cards this week! (hopefully)  I didn't know Christmas cards were going to be such an event this year. 

12/08/04

Eh.  Being sick two weekends in a row kept me from taking pictures.  We're all better now, although I'm 90% positive Tommy is working on teeth numbers 9 and 10.  I'm finally starting to feel like all the Christmas stuff I want to do is possible.  I'm certainly having fun every minute of it.  I just can't do very much on any given day.

Funny story...  Tommy was holding the phone up to my ear as he often does.  I was pretend talking and started asking him who I was talking to.  "Is it Grammy?  Is it Daddy?  Is it Uncle Benny?"  As soon as I said Uncle Benny he dropped the phone, crawled over to the computer and pointed to the monitor.  My desktop wallpaper is a picture of Uncle Benny with my parents and Tommy.  He points at Uncle Benny all the time and I always tell him who it is.  He doesn't point at anyone else in the picture.  I think he likes Ben's glasses.  Anyway, he must have remembered and made the connection.  Either that or he thinks Uncle Benny is the word for computer monitor.

He can put his legos through the sorting lid.  After he puts a few in he wants to take them back out.  He sticks his hand through one of the holes, grabs a lego and gets really frustrated when he can't pull it back out.  He waves his arm around with the lid around his elbow and a lego in his hand.

Helping Daddy assemble the Christmas tree.

12/02/04

Bonnie and Jack Estes stopped by on their way through Albuquerque.  They are long-time friends of my family.  Tommy just loves the bear they gave him soon after he was born.

Santa's little helper

12/01/04

We all seem to be mostly over our Thanksgiving colds.  No more sitting in front of the TV.  Time to start Christmas preparations!

It snowed like crazy Monday morning.  Unfortunately, Tommy and I were both still sick and I didn't have any sort of snowsuit for him.  He didn't get to play in the snow.  We watched it falling through the window for a while though.  I don't think I'll buy him a snowsuit since it so rarely snows here and never sticks longer than a couple of days.  There's snow on the mountain all winter, but it hardly seems worth it to buy a snowsuit just for drives up there.  I guess I should buy him a coat one of these days.  He's been OK in fleece pjs and a sweatshirt so far.  However, it's probably not reasonable for me to just stay inside on the random days when the temperature is lower than 50 degrees at noon.

I forgot to mention that he did a face plant on the tile Sunday.  He gave himself a bloody lip that was quite swollen that day.  Poor baby.

  Curls!

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