Just a Picture (or three)

I'm tired! We had a great day today, but I don't feel like writing much. But I know you all just come for the pictures anyway....

(a rare moment when all his limbs are still!)

Michael in the Mirror

Who can blame him for wanting to look at himself? I can't keep my eyes off of him!

So Many Reasons to Be Thankful

As we approach the last day of our Thanksgiving weekend, we realize how much we have to be thankful for.

In addition to this little turkey, Michael and I are SO very grateful for our families....

We realize how abundantly blessed we are for both sides of our family. Our families are so supportive, so helpful and so joyful...

The Barbers...for all your love, time spent watching Michael, great food, fun company, great advice, and all the little things you get for Baby Michael (and Michael and I) when we see you and come to visit, and how you go out of the way to make us comfortable..

The Campbells....for all your love, great food, envigorating conversation, baby advice, and the wonderful gift of three adorable, loving, well-behaved nephews that make us really look forward to having more kiddos!

The Gilmores....for all your love, great food, time spent watching Michael, and all the ways you help us like building cribs, storing our stuff, cleaning out Michael's room, your great advice and ways you go out of your way to make us comfortable...

(I did that in alphabetical order, by the way!)..

And of course to Grandma Horton, Grammy and Papa Tom, Lala, Marty, the McKinneys, Fr. Peter, the West Covina Barbers, Uncle Larry and Aunt Nancy...

...and all our friends and people we work with as well.

We are so thankful we live so close to both sides of our families so we don't have to travel hundreds of miles to get together and Michael can grow up knowing you....we are so thankful that our families are filled with so much love.

We are so blessed to have you in our lives, and Baby Michael is so blessed to get to grow up knowing you and calling you his family and friends. It became evident over the past several days that Michael is going to have so much joy everywhere he goes.

We're thankful for our jobs, which is so much more than employment, but truly bring us joy...

We're thankful for our health, and Baby Michael's health and happiness...

We're thankful for living in San Diego, and for being Americans, for living at one of the most exciting periods in history to be Catholics...

God is SO abundantly good to us!

It's Baaaaack!

Just a few short weeks into retirement, the Miracle Blanket, aka the "Straight Jacket" comes back into play for a reprise role....

Michael and I have been joking about doing something to prevent Baby Michael from constantly rolling over in his crib and getting himself stuck on his tummy....I mean just when all other sleep issues are starting to improve, now this. Time after time after time, morning, noon, and night, Michael rolls on his tummy and gets stuck, resulting in a cycle of crying and frustration that is hard to bring him down from. And when he gets stuck on his tummy, there's a very, very small window of tolerance...and if one of us doesn't get in there in that, oh...I'd say 30 seconds or so, he gets SO angry and then we don't have to just roll him over, we have to soothe him and get him to a place of quiet so he stands a chance of getting to sleep.

Well, we've been pretty patient....but last night was a real test. It was 3:30 in the morning and he got up to eat. No biggie. Routine situation. He ate, I changed his diaper and put him back to bed. Well, this routine of rolling on his tummy and getting stuck went on until almost 5am! He lost whatever sleepiness he had, and he was unstoppable!

It is a tricky balance because he is comfy on his side and tummy and sleeps really well here, but it is a very delicate calculation for him to find just the right spot at just the right level of tiredness. If it's not the right spot, or he's not tired enough, he just cries and insists on being on his back.

So, after hopping in and out of bed countless times, I was cooked! I needed something to tie him down. I had two choices: either get out my stapler and staple the kid's clothes to the mattress, or...yes! I know! Swaddle blanket!

I wrapped him up, hopped into bed and rubbed my hands together rather fiendishly, feeling like I've done something sinister by tying him up...and as I switched on the video monitor to see how he was liking them apples....

I saw......

....he was already fast asleep and stayed that way until past 8 and woke up smiley and cheerful ready to play.

Oh, thank heavens! So Swaddle Blanket will be back into play at least until he learns to roll from his tummy to his back!

What a character this kid is! He would do something like this wouldn't he?

Well, nevertheless, we love him to pieces and to be honest, find this little habit of his pretty darn endearing.

The Same Baby?

Sometimes, I think Michael has a twin brother who appears in the same body. But he's not an identical twin...he just happens to be the same name and age, but a different face and they can switch back and forth at a moment's notice. Like facial schizophrenia:

Are these two really from the same child?

He looks, like, 10lbs heavier in the second picture! He's our little double-agent!

The Long Walk

Today, I took Michael for a long walk. It was great.

He never used to like walks very much in the stroller, because he was in his car seat and couldn't see around very well, but I tried putting him in the stroller like a "normal baby" which gave him the freedom to look around.

And he loved it!! He looks so cute all ready to go and looking at the world!

This morning, after a remarkably long night of sleep (asleep by 7:30pm, awake once at 2:30am to eat and then asleep 'til 8:00!), I bundled him up, put his little Moose and a blanket with him and off we went.

We walked and walked and walked, through the park, through the college, and over to Starbucks. I ordered some coffee and a donut (and a cup of water, because despite my victorious reaching of Starbucks, water was the drink that actually tasted the best!) and we headed back home.

In total, we were gone about 50 minutes and the whole time Michael did great. He got a little whiny towards the very end because all the sights and sounds wore him out. He didn't want to eat...he wanted to go to bed!! So I put him in his bed, and after our normal routine of him rolling on his stomach and getting mad...then me rescuing him, and him rolling back on his stomach and me rescuing him...oh wait, now he's hungry, better feed him, put him back in his bed...doh! He's back on his stomach...ok, back on your back...stay....stay....phew! He's asleep!), Michael finally knocked out for a morning nap...a morning nap which he rarely takes.

Normally, his first visit to the crib is quiet time because he is too tired to continue to be out playing, but when he gets to his crib, he would rather play with his feet, make weird sound effects, kick the bars of his crib. He just never winds down enough to sleep, but the time apart from the stimulation of being outside of his crib is somewhat regenerative, so when I get him out of bed, he is in a good mood.Then, an hour after I get him out of bed, he's ready for his late-morning nap and takes that one pretty well (that lasts anywhere from 30mins to 1 hour).

Now, his whining toward the end of our walk makes me question if we should be doing a trip all the way to Starbucks...maybe it was just a tad too long. However, the fact that I found a solution that makes him tired while envigorating me....well, you just can't beat that!

Definitely His Daddy's Son

I've been taking lots of pictures of Michael lately (um...well, really, I always take lots of pictures of Michael) and this one stood out to me as a spitting image of Michael Sr.

So I took a picture of Michael and edited it so they were side-by-side.

Wow! Do they ever look alike! I love it!!

It also helps the family resemblance when you do this: