happy birthday tobo!

The last month has just been amazing. So many milestones that we have been looking forward to have come and past in a blink of an eye. Almost too many to mention.

Tobo is 29" tall (20%) , 18.5 lbs (5%) HC 18" (40%) as of his one year check up. The doctor is not worried about the 5%, but we've cut out giving him water and give him milk instead. I'm thinking about also including a 4th meal/snack in the afternoon. I think maybe tobo isn't taking enough time during the day to eat what he needs, so he's up a lot at night still to get the rest. Yesterday we did this and he actually was up only once and was ok with just a pat on the back and a return of a plug. (pacifier) He also spends a lot of time tottling around usually with his hands full, babbling at top volume.

Last week was motion, this week is language. So far in the last week, Tobo has figured out how to shake his head for no, yes, how to sign for hungry, thirsty and at one time actually verbally mimicked "yeah, I help." almost pitch perfect. Paul and I look at each other and said "did you hear what I heard?"

My mom is here this week -- as well as the first blizzard of 09. Poor mom. So much snow for a Floridian. We hope to get out to lunch to day before she flies out so we can do a little bit of celebrating for her birthday. We've been pretty much snowbound the last few days, but no one really cares because we just watch Tobo all day.

Last weekend we had Tobo's open house which was great. We had about 25 people come by, lots of balloons for the kids as a party favors, a carrot cake, which I realized a week later I forgot to put a candle in! It was really good, and Tobo only froze when we sang happy birthday. It was a lot of fun and he did really well. I had scheduled it in february in between naps, so by the time we got to March, the party was right in the middle of one his naps. So he was a real trouper.



Next week we will say hello to Paul's side of the family including our niece and tobo's aunt. It should be good! Hopefully there will be less snow. :/

Truly it has been an amazing year. So fast. At times so slow. And now I feel like we're flying with out a net -- we've officially older than any of our baby books.

rock around the christmas tree

From Baby Grows Up

Saturday, we decorated tobo's first christmas tree. Or rather, mom and dad did and tobo tried to break into the filing cabinet the tree is set up on. We're about to take the show on the road and visit grandparents and other family for the holidays. Sadly, we won't be able to see Uncle Jerry, who passed away suddenly. Paul's just back from the funeral and we're still kind of all in shock. It happened so fast and he was such a good man. He will be missed.

While dad was away, Tobo has been busy. We had a couple of bumps and bruises because someone *ahem* was not paying attention to where their hands and feet were. The doctor is going to think we're terrible folks when I take tobo for his 9mth. I had to move it because Monday it was -8 degrees at noon...if I don't have to take the kiddo out, I'm not going to. I did dig out a christmas present early. I knitted this crazy striped sweater for him -- already too short in the arms!

From Baby Grows Up

Along with the sweater, I whipped out a pair of mittens. He actually kept them on in the store, which means they will be too small by next week. Hope to plan better for the hat I want to make as well. Apparently I've got the knitting bug back. Kind of interesting to do when you've got a child who wants to see and touch everything you're working on. While I was doing that, tobo was doing this:

From Baby Grows Up

So much for my amazing baby proofing of the bookshelf. No, he's not standing unsupported...but really, you can see that it's just a formality that he needs a hand on the bookshelf for balance. We expect him to start walking any time during the holidays.

A few entertaining firsts:

1. tobo has stated initiating play. So like, peek-a-boo around the couch corner, or on the changing table.
2. We've often pointed out hot things to him...today he started pointing them out to me. *ahhh-ssssss* he said after he took a bite of stewed carrot. *ahhh-sssss* he said back to me when I said "hot coffee!" He also says it about cheerios, but the point is, its something different. It goes on the list of ma ma ma ma da da da da, growling, and giggling. It's really cool.
3. love/hate affair with the music box: So on the plus side he's started dancing when he hears music playing. He was actually kind of singing along to rocking around the christmas tree at KSooper's yesterday when we were shopping. The flip side of this is he started crying everytime his little music box stopped playing last night. He could not for the life of him figure out how to make the music go again. Also, it was time for bed.
4. He got really interested in my glass during lunch yesterday. It was plastic, so I let him investigate it. He gets a big gulp and as I tried to take it away he grabbed it tighter and tried again. So he got a bit of a bath, but after it was empty I let him go to town. This was the same kind of intensity we saw just before he started eating solids. (I should say chewing solids, he's still hit or miss whether he will swallow anything) Just has to have the grown up stuff. He loves eating whatever your eating. (hmmm where did he get that?)
5. Somewhere over the last 3 days he's grown too tall for the 6-9 month stuff. All his long pants for winter are now capri's. He still fits alright in the smaller sizes, but I notice. I'll be digging out a couple of pants for the road I think from the big kid bag.

From Baby Grows Up

caught in the act: I want what you're having

carrots!

Yesterday was crazy busy for a sunday. I ended up having to give a little announcement about our up-coming Breakthrough event to all of the adult bible fellowships (sunday school in laymen's terms.) That on top of not a lot of sleep. Overall I think it went well. At least, no one threw their coffee at me, though the over 60's seniors were kind of grumpy that I interrupted just before they were going to pray. (understandable) Glad it's over, but at least now the word is out. Only two other churches to visit and I'm done (!) until next week. At least with talking with people. I still need to coordinate some t-shirts and some day do something about the business cards I'm suppose to be working on, but all in good time, right?

In tobo news, Carrots are a hit. I had little faith that they would go over any better than sweet potatoes, and then he was grabbing the spoon after he finished about a tablespoon. He likes them better than rice cereal. Lots of babbling, grabbing his toes and rolling over now. The teething has gotten better. We've had two nights where he didn't need anything to get to sleep at any time during the night. He's still chopping down on everything, but it's not as painful it seems these days. Still no signs of teeth.

Last night we tried the "Ignore after 4 for 4" routine with limited success. Limited because he did end up whimpering past 4 minutes, but after 1 oz of milk at 4 and another 2 oz of milk at 5, tobo was back to sleep until 7 am. And spent a lot of time happily playing with his feet. Am I setting myself up for a fall by giving him a big feeding at 4 that will come to get me later on? He seems to be completely driven by stomach when his teeth are not bothering him. Yesterday was also pretty busy, since he spent 9 to 12 in the nursery with only one melt down. (hungry again) We then went and looked at a house in a neighborhood we'd like to live in, but decided it was not worth looking at since we're not that serious about buying yet. The yard was 3000 ft with a house that was 1750 ft plus a two car garage built on top of it. Someone doesn't like to mow.

In Wii news, Paul got Mariokart which we played last night. That is insane. Insane I tell you. I gave up at 11p because it was way past our bed time.

Ok, on to the day and much to do.

EDIT: And tobo just put himself to sleep for a nap on the bed next to me as I've been writing this. Our little boy is growing up!

back from there

We are back from the great land of michigan after a two week vacation/deputation visit. It was a really good time to remember what's good about the west coast (of the mitten) and get our fill of high humidity, sunlight, soft evenings, pretty sunsets, and cows. Thank you to everyone who came out to the open house. It was great to see so many people come out for hot dogs and look at the baby. A couple of special folks that we saw:

My uncle and aunt from the far north came down to coo over tobo:



Finally got tobo and Ch together.


We also were so pleased to see uwee's mom and dad as well as far flung friends from kzoo and St. Joe who made the trip. It was a great time.

Paul and I did go to the Beyond Beijing conference in Byron Center the next day, which as an amazing testimony for the work that is going on in China. I hope to say more about that in our prayer letter if I ever can finish it before August. We also caught dinner with a old friends in their new house and we got a chance to catch up with the IV staff worker at Kzoo just before we left. Oh, and we did get out sans tobo, but only for an hour or so due to exhaustion. All in all it was a good trip, but we are ready to be home.

Two weeks in baby time is crazy long, so Tobo has developed a number of new skills while we were away. Tobo can now:
- roll over. In his sleep. Which is most exciting
- one -hand grab toys
- teethe (which means drool)
- sleep in his crib with the light out
- grab at your plate at the table
- grab your finger and chew on it (see teething)
- do baby situps (with help from momma)
- found his feet. (didn't do anything else with them but tried to bend over to get them)
- has probably put on another .5 lb to make him 13 lbs

We tried a little smashed banana today, a lot of it got pushed back out, so I think we'll wait a bit and try again in a week or two. No rush. Really the teething is what's got his attention these days. He's sleeping more consistantly (9pm bed \ up at 1:30a to eat \ up at 4:30a to eat \ up between 6:30 and 7am for the day) and we're at least not up ever single hour of the night. Some of that is we've started to put him to sleep on a blanket on our bed, then when he's floppy we move him and the blanket to the crib. It worked really well until he started rolling in his sleep. So, now he's on a very thin blanket that we tuck in to the mattress once we move him. I think we made the mistake of putting to sleep in arms just to have him wake up when we put him down. But he's so much more alert and aware than he was. I think he will find our place boring now since there is no one here but us.

Paul and I are are glad to be home. It was a welcomed break, but we came home to yet another qwest dsl box on our steps. We now have 6 modems that need to be shipped back. We also came home to clean carpets and many dead spiders. Hopefully we won't have to have the pest control back until fall. I think the spiders are really a summer thing around here.

Today, I think we are doing laundry and may hang some pictures up. I'm certainly taking the day off, not sure if Paul is going to go in or not. Oh, and banana boy will most definitely be getting a bath today.

Lots of photos over at:

From Cute Things M...