Meeting a new friend & being silly

Last weekend we visited with our friends Mark and Ali who welcomed their little guy into their family on October 9th. His name is Wyatt and he is pretty adorable.

Emmitt thinks so too. We think they'll be good friends :)

Next I will share some rare footage of Emmitt being his goofy self. It is really hard to catch video of him completely in his comfort zone because he usually turns on his deer-in-headlights look as soon as he realizes he's being videoed. This is one night (the 11th) right before he took his bath. He had a whole lot to say :)

What does a stay-at-home mom do all day?!

A friend of mine posted this on her facebook profile and I couldn't resist posting it on this blog to share. In case you're wondering what my days are like, read the below :)

TELL ME ABOUT IT ®

By Carolyn Hax

Carolyn:

Best friend has child. Her: exhausted, busy, no time for self, no time for me, etc. Me (no kids): Wow. Sorry. What'd you do today? Her: Park, play group . . .

Okay. I've done Internet searches, I've talked to parents. I don't get it. What do stay-at-home moms do all day? Please no lists of library, grocery store, dry cleaners . . . I do all those things, too, and I don't do them EVERY DAY. I guess what I'm asking is: What is a typical day and why don't moms have time for a call or e-mail? I work and am away from home nine hours a day (plus a few late work events) and I manage to get it all done. I'm feeling like the kid is an excuse to relax and enjoy -- not a bad thing at all -- but if so, why won't my friend tell me the truth? Is this a peeing contest ("My life is so much harder than yours")? What's the deal? I've got friends with and without kids and all us child-free folks get the same story and have the same questions.

Tacoma, Wash.

Relax and enjoy. You're funny.

Or you're lying about having friends with kids.

Or you're taking them at their word that they actually have kids, because you haven't personally been in the same room with them.

Internet searches?

I keep wavering between giving you a straight answer and giving my forehead some keyboard. To claim you want to understand, while in the same breath implying that the only logical conclusions are that your mom-friends are either lying or competing with you, is disingenuous indeed.

So, since it's validation you seem to want, the real answer is what you get. In list form. When you have young kids, your typical day is: constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, clean, dressed; to keeping them out of harm's way; to answering their coos, cries, questions; to having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys, and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear; to keeping them from unshelving books at the library; to enforcing rest times; to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces the kind of checkout-line screaming that gets the checkout line shaking its head.

It's needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15.

It's constant vigilance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant relegation of your needs to the second tier.

It's constant scrutiny and second-guessing from family and friends, well-meaning and otherwise. It's resisting constant temptation to seek short-term relief at everyone's long-term expense.

It's doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything -- language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity. Empathy. Everything.

It's also a choice, yes. And a joy. But if you spent all day, every day, with this brand of joy, and then, when you got your first 10 minutes to yourself, wanted to be alone with your thoughts instead of calling a good friend, a good friend wouldn't judge you, complain about you to mutual friends, or marvel how much more productively she uses her time. Either make a sincere effort to understand or keep your snit to yourself.

Halloween: our little Frankenstein

I bought a second-hand Frankenstein costume off of craigslist for Emmitt's costume this year. The main reason for this particular choice was that when he first started walking, he would put his arms out in front of him and keep his legs sort of stiff...very Frankensteinesque. I also knew that he wouldn't want to keep any costume on for much longer than a few minutes and didn't want to spend a bunch of money on a new one and it just so happened that there was a just-like-new Frankenstein costume that was in his size on craigslist so it couldn't have been more perfect. As expected, he didn't really want to wear it so it really was on just long enough for me to take some quick pics. So, enjoy!

No! Don't look at me - I'm a monster!
He really didn't like it at first...

Then he saw himself in the mirror and thought he looked pretty cool...

Kerry, Emmitt and Auntie Krista

Still a little unsure...

Our little Frankenstein!

I love this one...

He loves his balloon...

He also loves pumpkins. He especially likes to try to pick up the pumpkin so it was a good compromise that he was at least able to carry around it's lid :)

Emmitt's first birthday PARTY

We know so many people with little ones right now and are just so thrilled that Emmitt is going to grow up with so many buddies that are children of our buddies. To keep things fairly simple for Emmitt's birthday celebration this year, we just invited our family and Emmitt's play group over. The play group consists of Emmitt and one other little boy as well as a couple of little girls. Together with their parents, we had quite a crowd! It was great fun.

Emmitt enjoying one his new toys: the Radio Flyer walker wagon

I think he enjoyed the balloons we got for the party just as much as any of the presents that he received..

This is Emmitt with Miss Nora. She's so cute I can't even stand it!

Emmitt telling Nora all about everything...

This just cracks me up. Mommy is chowing down and Emmitt doesn't really want anything to do with the cupcake. I guess we should be grateful for that?

This is what was left.
My cupcake: gone.
Emmitt's cupcake: completely intact.

A happy birthday boy!

Emmitt's FIRST Birthday!!!

Kerry had a board meeting that he had to attend on Thursday, October 28th in Lexington, VA. He was to travel there on the 27th, Emmitt's birthday- so Emmitt and I happily went along. We arrived in the afternoon, went on a hike with some of Kerry's co-workers, went back to the inn for Emmitt to take a quick nap and then went to Macado's in downtown Lexington for dinner. Emmitt was happy and so we were happy!

Of course I'm sure you expect that I do some reflecting here on where we were a year ago and of course I will :) It is really incredible how much can change in seemingly such a short time. In many ways I can't imagine what life was like before I met Emmitt (and don't want to!) I'm not one that is really into celebrating birthdays but I couldn't help but celebrate a year of knowing such a special little person. As Kerry pointed out, it has also been a year since our own births as parents and that truly is a milestone worth celebrating. It is really impossible to explain to someone what being a parent is like until you are one - which reminds me of one of my all-time favorite books "The Dream Tree" where all of the butterflies tell a curious caterpillar that "someday you'll know" what it's like to be a butterfly rather than trying to explain. I guess that not all people will know or will want to know what being a parent is like but now that I am one, I can't imagine it any other way.

I love you, Emmitt Foster!!!...to the moon and back!

Emmitt loved the Macado's menu!

Trying to tickle him to get him to smile...worked for us but not him apparently

Some catching up

The time has slipped away from me again and it's been almost a month since my last post! So, Emmitt knows he can walk now (he really started feeling more confident starting on October 11th) but still prefers to hold the hand of Kerry or I...a l l t h e t i m e. I know that sounds cute and that maybe one day I will look back at this period fondly because inevitably he will outgrow wanting to hold my hand all of the time and will in fact not want to hold my hand in most situations but let me tell you something: months of hand-holding gets tiresome! Also, hand-holding isn't entirely accurate either. Emmitt has little hands and we have adult-sized hands so it's really finger-holding; like, pulling-your-finger-out-of-the-socket-finger-holding. Yeah, it starts to hurt (and turn purple) after a while. Needless to say, we are ready for the next stage of him walking on his own. People have told us that we shouldn't wish for that stage because then we will spend our days running after him but I'll have you know that we already spend our days glued to him via finger-death-grip so given the choice between that and running behind him, I'd take the latter.

To get you up to speed on the rest of the month, here's what we've been up to:

• The first started out with a trip up to Leesburg to go to the Waterford Fair (I don't really have any great shots from the fair or I would post them.) We also enjoyed Leesburg while we were there and walked the historic part of town as well as took a trip to the outlets and did some serious damage. Basically, we probably bought all our Christmas gifts for each other early. On Saturday afternoon we had our family photo shoot with Live It Out Photography. The photographer, Amber, and her hubby/assistant, Jon, met us at Lucketts Store (right outside Leesburg) and we really hit it off. They made us super comfortable and we had a fun, laid-back shoot with some great results :) Check out the preview...

• The second weekend in October was the annual Richmond Folk Festival. It was fun but it was tricky trying to fit it in between Emmitt's naps and also, it was super hot this year!

• Last weekend we celebrated Miss Claire's first birthday at her house on Saturday. On Sunday, we went to the Ashland Berry Farm to go to the pumpkin patch with Auntie Krista. Emmitt loved the pumpkins and the tractors that gave us the hayride but we came away without any pumpkins figuring that we would get them a whole lot cheaper elsewhere. I guess we better get on that though since Halloween is only 5 days away! Here are the photos from the pumpkin patch:

Here we are on the hayride (Krista took the picture and I later realized that we didn't get any photos of her at the pumpkin patch! Sorry, Krista!!!) The guy to my right was delivering a carved pumpkin that read "Amber will you marry me?"...he placed it among the other pumpkins for the bride-to-be to find and we got to witness the proposal! It was pretty cool.

Exhibit A: Emmitt squeezing the living daylights out of Kerry's middle finger. He was completely taken with the pumpkins though! He thought they were pretty neato...

Emmitt pointing at the tractor (the double point means he was extra excited)

Emmitt's "give me a break, Mooom!" face.

Hitting the pumpkins was especially fun!

oooh! it has a stem!

Deep in thought over the pumpkin:

Finally, I'm throwing in a picture of Emmitt with his GDaddy from Oct. 14th when my parents came for a visit. Emmitt was dying to sit in my dad's lap so that he could have a go at the computer. Trouble!

Emmitt took his first steps!!!

Well, he's done it!...he just doesn't know it yet. Last week at play group, Emmitt unintentionally took 4-5 steps towards me without any assistance! We were able to get him to do it one more time but as soon as we tried to video it, he got too excited by the camera and all our hoopin' and hollerin' and wouldn't do it. That night when Kerry got home, he even walked to him but he hasn't done it again since that day (September 21st.) He is very steady for the most part but insists on holding at least one of our hands when he walks. He spends most days giving me tours of our house. All in good time, of course :)

I'm pretty excited about this coming weekend; we are going up to Leesburg, Va to stay for a few days and to go to the Waterford Festival which I went to in my elementary school days and have always been fond of. We are also getting our photos taken at Lucketts Store for our Christmas photos!

Finally, congrats to our good friends Virginia and Danny on their new arrival: Parker Scott (9/16/10)! Virginia is one of my very best friends who I've known since middle school and I am thrilled that we are new moms together and that Emmitt and Parker will grow up together - even if they do live a couple of hours away! :)

P.S. Emmitt is 11 months today!!!

Trip to the Jersey Shore

We were invited by our good friends Ethan and Shannon to spend a long weekend at Shannon's family's shore home on the Jersey Shore. Given our past experience with Emmitt on long car rides, we thought that this time taking the train might be fun.

Kerry did a great job keeping him entertained.

The very first night we were there, we figured we would see how Emmitt would do in the bath if he had a friend to keep him company and play with. Well, the photo below says it all: it didn't work. He still didn't want to take a bath and in fact, seemed quite traumatized by the whole experience. On the other hand, if there was any doubt as to whether Claire has a thing for Emmitt, we are no longer in the dark on that one. I can't take credit for this potentially award-winning photo - Ethan snapped it right before we saved Emmitt from the bath.

The next day, all was forgiven and Emmitt had a great time at the beach!

So did Miss Claire (she even clapped for us to show us her excitement)

Claire with her mommy, Shannon

Day 2 at the beach:

Saturday night we went to the boardwalk and had a great time. Here are 7-week old David with his "yummy mummy," Melissa.

The weather couldn't have been more perfect and the company was pretty fantastic as well. Thank you, Ethan and Shannon for hosting us and for a great time!

10 months!

Well, it's true what they say...time is flying! I can't believe my little strawberry blond (as I've been calling him recently) baby is 10 months already. I am blown away thinking about how much he's changed when I look at past photos and videos of him. Each stage and milestone has unfolded so naturally and his personality hasn't changed a lick but gets more and more defined all of the time.


Here are some Emmitt facts at 10 months:

Likes: walking all over the place (with our help) he is not impressed with crawling and pulls on our pant-legs at every chance he gets to let us know that he wants us to walk him around. Chasing and being chased (on all fours); this is a new development as of this week and he thinks it's hilarious. Shoes. He loves shoes: especially daddy's boots. Yogurt. Feeding us (he holds everything up to our mouths...I guess he just wants to see us make it disappear!)

Dislikes: still doesn't like having his diaper changed, having his clothes changed, taking a bath and sometimes he really doesn't like eating (he waves his arms all around and makes a stink face at whatever you're trying to give him...sometimes even when he likes the food you're trying to give him!)

Weight: 24/25 lbs. ish

Height: somewhere around 28in.

In other news, we went to the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens last weekend and had a lovely time (although it was quite hot!) Here are some photos from that trip:







I also wanted to note that it has been baby season! Emmitt has met 3 new friends that have been born in the last few months: Brooklyn Hope, Parker Winn, and David Graeme and has yet to meet one that was born last week: Henry Campbell and two that haven't! (I'll list their names when they arrive). So congrats to all of the parents who have recently joined the club. Kerry and I are looking forward to watching all of our little guys and gals grow up together.

He is not going to cry it out

Today I pleaded for some encouragement from friends on Facebook because I was at what felt like my wits end with sleep. That is, Emmitt's resistence to sleep. We have been on a schedule for nap time and up until fairly recently he would go to sleep without a huge fuss. However, putting him to sleep has always required quite a bit of holding, rocking, walking, singing, shushing, etc. on my part. The process has been to go through the routine until he falls asleep and then to gently place him in the crib. Recently, after some loooong attempts, he seems to finally be asleep but as soon as i lay him down, his eyes burst open and he thinks it's playtime. I have been amazed (and annoyed) at how one can go from what appears to be a sound sleep to literally leaping up and jumping in the crib. I've been reading a few books in a desperate search to find an answer to this sleep problem we've been having (because putting him to bed at night is no picnic either) and one book suggests laying the baby down while he is awake but groggy. HA HA HA! The author clearly doesn't know Emmitt.
So my plea for help was from parents who are anti the cry-it-out approach because I simply cannot do that but in one of my friends responses, i was reminded why I have taken a stance against that particular way to a good night's sleep and in a minute i will explain why. First of all, i know many fantastic parents who have resorted to letting their children cry-it-out so don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming that you can't be both a good parent and someone that believes in that method but it simply isn't the way for our family...
We (the collective "we" - take that to mean whatever you want) have become obsessed with wanting to "teach" our children how to comfort themselves. One book that I'm reading even said that children don't know how to go to sleep on their own and that it is a learned skill that we need to help them learn - just like anything else they learn. Finally, one book says that when your baby is crying in their crib "every bone in your body is telling you to just get her, hold her, soothe her...Your natural inclination is just to soothe her. And yet, you've been doing that for weeks, months, or years- and that hasn't helped her sleep." Wow. Just wow. After reading that, I swiftly closed that book. A book that tells me to ignore my most maternal instinct doesn't have a place in my bookshelf. Among other things, one question that came to mind after reading that statement was, who would I really be "helping" if I let Emmitt cry himself to sleep? Would I really be helping him and how? Or would I be helping myself? Also, in order to be okay with listening to his cries, I would have to repeatedly tell myself "he's okay, he's okay" and that would be a lie because really he would be trying to tell me in the only way he knows how that he needs me. At the most basic level, leaving him to cry isn't even following the golden rule!
I will admit that there are times that I want to sit on the floor and have a good cry myself because nothing seems to be working but no one said being a parent was going to be easy. Here's the thing; I'm an adult but does that mean that I never want anyone to comfort me when i cry? Absolutely not. As my friend pointed out, if i were crying in one room and my husband heard me in a neighboring room but rather than coming to comfort me thought to himself, "well, she's a grown woman, she can comfort herself" would that be the kind thing to do? Is that the kind of man that i want to be married to; the kind of family I want to be a part of? No, not really. So why then would i let my child, a person who needs me at every other time of the day - for feeding, changing, etc - cry until he gives up? First of all, i fear that the real lesson i would be teaching him is just that- to give up. Secondly, I just don't feel I could look Emmitt in the face when he's old enough to actually understand me and tell him that I will be here for him no matter what with the knowledge that when he wasn't even old enough to talk I went ahead and left him comfortless just because it was convenient for me and because I just couldn't handle the crying. On the contrary, I think the times when we most need each other are the hardest and if I'm completely honest with myself, I know that leaving him to cry would in no way be for his benefit but really just a way for me to get out of the hard work that I've grown weary of.
So after talking with my friend on the phone yesterday I am glad to report that I am refreshed and I now remember why I refuse to let my child cry all alone. If he's going to cry, I am at least going to be holding him to let him know that his emotions aren't too strong or hard for me to handle - I'll be with him in the best of times and in the worst of times. If I thought that sleeping through the night was the most important lesson for him to learn right now, perhaps I would resort to letting him cry but let's face it, the child is eventually to sleep through the night and I don't believe that letting him cry just to speed that process along is necessary. One day if Emmitt reads this blog I'll want him to know that when he cried the hardest is when I held him the tightest and that, if nothing else, will help me sleep better at night.

We're moving in...

Wow! What a whirlwind! I have a lot of catching up to do with this blog but I'll spare you all of the boring details and just give you updates with photos.

Here we are in front of our new home, which we moved into on July 22nd:

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's what happened leading up to that. First, Emmitt "helped" me pack up the condo:

Amongst the craziness of moving, Emmitt also sort of started eating finger foods. He isn't really all that excited about the taste of anything yet but he is really proud of himself for eating with his very own hands. Here he is with a teething biscuit:

After Kerry and I moved ourselves to New York and back, we vowed never to move ourselves again so this is what Kerry and Emmitt did while the movers unloaded our boxes at the new house:

I'm throwing this picture in just because I think it really shows either how small our sink in our downstairs bathroom is or how big Emmitt is getting! He is taking a foot bath in this picture after getting into something...although I can't remember what it was now:

Here are a couple of shots of Emmitt enjoying the new place:

This is Sophie, the giraffe:

This is what Emmitt likes to do with Sophie:

On 8/4, Emmitt and I took a trip up to Alexandria to meet up with a friend of mine, Natalie and her son, Andrew who is 5 weeks older than Emmitt. Here are her parents and mine proudly holding their grandsons:

And Natalie and I, proudly holding our sons :)

That night, my parents, Emmitt and I all stayed at Hotel Monaco in Old Town. I tried to get Emmitt to sit still in the middle of the bed to pose for his picture but he wanted the camera...

One more picture of Andrew; he's so cute!

As a house-warming gift, Kerry's parents kindly gave us a Dyson "Animal." Kerry loves it (as you can see here.) Emmitt really loves it too and he also enjoys riding piggy-back style on Kerry in the Ergo while Kerry vacuums (Emmitt doesn't look thrilled in this picture but normally he's screeching with delight.)

Emmitt still isn't crazy about getting in the water so we bought him this "pool" that's really more like a mat that fills up with and squirts water. Last weekend we played with it for a while in our new BACKYARD!!! (we love having a backyard)

Emmitt still wasn't sure about it...

Also last weekend, we went to a bbq at Kerry's fellow band member's house.

Up until now, I forgot to mention how much Emmitt likes to walk with our assistance. But here you have it:

Last night some friends of ours came over and brought their little sweetie, Claire (you may remember her from past posts...she's 4 days older than Emmitt and in our playgroup)

Emmitt & Claire listening to some music...

Finally, in case you're wondering how the cats are adjusting: they are doing just fine.

I think that pretty much brings you up to date! Now that we're moved in with computer access, I will update more regularly (I hope!)