Stephanie: Life's Little Details

Today is Sam's first birthday, so I thought it would be fun to memorialize everything that we do today. Especially since Alex and I are both taking the day off!

7:30 am - Sam wakes up. We sing happy birthday and play in bed.

8:30 am - Trip to Dancing Goats coffee. Sam has a rice cake and apple juice. Mom and dad have coffee and doughnuts (well, mom has doughnuts. Dad has more sense than that). Sam makes friends with nice lady.

10:00 am - Back home. Play with drum from Mimi and look at pictures from Sam's birthday party.

10:30 am - Naptime! Even birthday boys need naps!

12:00 pm - Blueberry pancakes! Sam gets two of his very own pancakes with a candle for his birthday.

1:00 pm - Open presents from Mom, Dad, and friend Aidan. Play with new toys.

2:00 pm - Glenlake park. Fun on the swing!

3:00 pm - Naptime, or rather, crib playtime. Sam finally falls asleep. Mom and Dad watch a video of their last vacation before Sam was born.

5:00 pm - Sam watches part of the video and then plays with truck from Grandmama.

6:00 pm - Dinner at El Tesoro in Decatur. Sam has lots of chips and guacamole, then fruit and a quesadilla. While we're eating dinner on the porch we hear the sirens go off at Agnes Scott warning of a tornado. The sky doesn't look too bad, so we pay the check and go home.

7:30 pm - Our neighbor tells us that there were two tornadoes sighted in DeKalb County, so we go to the basement. Which is fine, because we were going to go down there to do an art project anyway. We each put our handprints on canvases that Alex bought me for Mother's Day.

8:00 pm - Tornado warning ends. Bubble bath for Sam! Bafflingly, he cries at first, but then decides that bubbles are good to eat.

8:30 pm - Bedtime! After two books, Mom rocks Sam to sleep. He is out!

9:00 pm - Mom and Dad have some wine! :)

My first Mother's Day as a mom was lovely. After Sam woke up I gave him his bottle and convinced him to go back to sleep in the bed with me for another hour. Then Alex got up and made me "adult" coffee and brought it to me in bed. He also brought my cards from Sam and him, as well as my presents--which were canvases stretched over wood and non-toxic paint. Our Mother's Day activity was to paint the canvases with a background color and then put our handprints on them. So cool!

We lounged around in bed and played with Sam and then Alex made a big breakfast of waffles, fried apples, and bacon. Yum. Then I went to brunch at Wisteria with my mom and Grandmother. Came home and had a yummy Zinfindel waiting for me. After Sam went to bed I knit until the power went out. Then I got to get ready for bed and read by candlelight. I'm so grateful for my boys. And for all the moms before me--my mom, grandmother, great-grandmother, etc.

This is bad. I should be unloading the dishwasher, doing laundry, starting dinner, etc while Sam is napping, but instead I ventured onto Ravelry. I've been dying to check it out for awhile, but I've had very little free time.

So, I added some friends and was looking at the groups that said friends belong to, one of which was an Attachment Parenting group. Well, I kind of thought that I was attachment parenting, but the rules of the group imply that they are opposed to routine circumcision and crying it out, among other things (and maybe also opposed to parents who have done those things?). Hmm... I guess I better rethink my parenting label.

I left the circumcision decision up to Alex, since he has one and all. I could see both sides, so decided I'd be fine either way. I started out opposed to crying it out. I went for 9 months with very little sleep. But when Sam started waking up every 45 minutes (literally) and staying up for another 1-2 hours before falling back asleep I had to do something. I tried everything I and the experts could think of. I read countless books and blogs. Eventually I felt like I had to let him cry some. And I would do the same thing again. He sleeps for 11-12 hours at night now and wakes up chattering away happily in his crib. The dark circles and pink eyes are gone.

Has my parenting philosophy changed? Am I no longer attachment parenting? Was I never attachment parenting once I allowed him to be circumcised? Curious. It's funny how you can do something that you were once so opposed to and feel okay about it. I wonder what else I will do in the years to come that seem unfathomable now.

Oops, gotta go! My little sleeper is awake!

A woman at Dancing Goats this morning said that Sam was ridiculously cute and then said "he looks like a baby from a fairy tale--like he could be Snow White's baby." Does that make me Snow White? I can just hear the birds chirping and the dwarfs singing. Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's off to work we go...

I just spent a few minutes catching up on Spynotebook and you people are all so funny and insightful. Me, not so much. Let's see...

Yesterday I learned how to crochet! We are crocheting an afghan at work for my legal assistant who is undergoing chemotherapy. More people in my office crochet than knit, so I just have to learn. I'm going to practice momentarily. Surprisingly (or not), only the women in the office have volunteered for the project. At least the men offered to buy the yarn and crochet hooks. :)

Sam is eating everything in sight. He squeals with joy when he sees cheese toast or garlic bagel crisps. He'll also eat veggies and can do a pretty good job gnawing an apple. He's a funny little guy.

I was just thinking I should write down "our song" so I don't forget it:

(sung to the Flintstones theme song)
Pooper, he's a Pooper, he's the poopiest baby in history
From the town of Decatur, he's the poopiest boy you'll ever see
Pooper, he's a very poopie boy
Pooper, don't know what he will destroy
Pooper, he's a pooper
He's a poopy, poopy pooper, a poopy pooper
He is a poopy POOPY POOPER!
(see? Having a baby will make you CRAZY!)

I'm actually reading again--my bedtime book is The Other Boleyn Girl, which I can't put down. My lunchtime reading book is Snobs--also good, but not quite such a page turner.

Ok, gonna go crochet now!

Okay--that post worked. Maybe I'll try to post a picture in this one.

Since I can't seem to keep up with Sam's baby book, I figured if I can start blogging again I'll have some kind of record of his babyhood. I want to remember when he did things so I can tell him later. I'm sure I've already forgotten all kinds of stuff.

As of today, he can crawl reasonably well, and he is sleeping 12-13 hours straight at night. Woo hoo! Today we had a lovely/funny time sitting on the couch watching B&B. I was waiting for the lasagna to come out of the oven and Sam was getting very cranky because he never took his afternoon nap. He just wanted me to hold him constantly, so I grabbed a bag of garlic bagel chips and a glass of apple juice for me and a sippy cup with apple juice for Sam and headed for the tv. When I started munching on a bagel chip he reached out for it so I let him try it. To my surprise, he loved it and kept wanting more. So we sat next to each other and ate bagel chips and after a while I realized that every time I took a sip of my apple juice, Sam would pretend to take a swig of his (he hasn't really figured out the sippy cup yet). I figured it would be a few years before I would share junk food and watch soap operas with my kid! It was pretty funny how happy he was to act like a big kid and hang with mom.

Since he was such a big boy I gave him a whole apple to gum for dinner. He did a surprisingly good job with it!

Okay, an attempt at pictures...