1st Birthday!

This past Saturday was Davis's first birthday and we had a wonderful time. We started the day off with a trip to the Horse Retirement Farm in Alachua. Mom and Dad and Chase met us there. Daivs loved feeding the horses, but he also tried to eat the carrots himself a couple of times. Next we picked up a beach bike with baby seat that I spottted on craigslist. We took Davis on a quick spin and then we took his seat off so we could use it on my new trike. That afternoon Chase and Tim took D to the park while I got dinner ready. Once mom and dad arrived at our house we opened gift and had cake- it was a simple celebration but it was so so nice.
It really doesn't seem like its been a year already- feels like someone put this past year in fast forward. I must admit that as he changes I learn to appreciate each new time with him. Now that he is walking, and climbing, we go the park all the time. I also try to let him walk some when we go to public places. Which is why I ended up getting him the monkey backpack with leash. Yep- I have my child on a leash. I always though that leashing your child was aweful/funny, but that now joins the long list of things that I said I woudln't do but I now do. The problem is that I never understood how fast and determined a one year old could be until I was in charge of one ALL the time. He loves those doors that automatically open, like at Publix. If he sees those- forget it- he is out the door.

Another new phenomenom is our dust trail. We leave a heavy trail of Cheerios wherever we go. You can spot a table at a resteraunt that we have destroyed by the number of Cheerioss on the floor and the tons of wadded up, chewed up napkins on the table. Wondering if we made it to church that morning? Look for the scattering of Cheerios all over the seat, hymnal and stuck in the offering envelpes. I really try to clean up as we are leaving, but many times we are leaving because Davis is screaming and that leaves little time to gather the Cheerio debris.

Now I've never been one to have a super clean car, but having a baby has taken it to all new levels of filth. Not only is there the usual stockpiles of stale Cheerios in every crevase, but we also roll around with several of Davis's outfits, socks, shoes and blankets in the back. These outfits may be clean or dirty when they got in the car, but due to the high number of food particles and flying milk sippy cups in the car, they are always dirty when I find them. Plus Davis thinks that as soon as you get itn eh car, its time to kick off your shoes, pull of your socks and chew on them for a while. So sometimes I find his socks and shoes once we arrive at our destination, but sometimes I don't and they join the heaps of mystery clothing in void of the floorboard. Oh and toys too, of course- we have all kinds back there and they are usually sounding off making me think that there is some kind of Emergency Vehicle behind us. I try to clean it out about once a week, but its back to trashed again in a matter of hours.

But even with the all the Cheerios and dirty clothes, I am absolutely loving staying at home with him. Somedays are rough, but overall this year has been the best of my life.
Jenn

Davis’s Favorite Things

He might only be 11 months old, but Davis has already let us know that there are things on this Earth that he likes and things he really doesn’t like at all. This list describes his favorite toys, non-toys, and activities.

1- WALKING- That’s right, he is walking. He started kind of trying it out in December, but he is really moving now. He will still crawl when it is imperative that he get somewhere quickly, but he is walking more and more each day.


2- Swimming- He still loves swimming in the pool with Pops, but with all this cold weather, he hasn’t been in the pool since early November. Every time we go over to mom and dad’s he looks out at the pool and crawls/walks up to their pool fence, trying to figure out a way to get in. Thank goodness we enrolled him in those Infant Swim Resource classes. This video is his graduation back in early October. He was in winter clothing- to practice in case he was to ever fall in during the winter months. It is a little hard to watch, but I feel like it was very important for us to do everything we could to make sure that he is safe around water. Of course we still watch him like a hawk, but he is so quick and a good climber- if any child could figure out how to get in, it would be him. The lessons were NOT one of his favorite things, but I’m hoping that he will enjoy it more when he learns how to actually swim in February. In ISR they teach babies under 1 year old to roll over and float, mainly because they are too small to grab onto the side of the pool. Once they are 1 year old, they are taught how to roll over float and then swim to the side.

3- The Dishwasher- It doesn’t matter what Davis is doing, if he hears that dishwasher open, he is on the move towards it. I don’t know what his fascination is with it, but he tries to crawl into it, pull things out of it, and throw silverware from it. I have to try to open it very quietly and close it quickly. This may be something that all babies are fascinated with- I saw Tim’s niece Rebekkah climb all over heather’s dishwasher at Thanksgiving- or maybe it’s just a Garrett baby thing?

4- Cheerios- these are favorite snack. He gets them everywhere and he has started sharing them with the dogs. Yet this is not the worst Cheerio story we have. A couple of months ago we were in the docs office for shots and they asked me to take Davis’s clothes and diaper off so that he could be weighed. The nurse was right next to me when I took the diaper off only to discover that Davis had a Cheerio stuck to his private parts. I kind of laughed and said, “Wow, these things really do get everywhere”. She didn’t have too much of a reaction, so I figure either she sees that all the time or she thinks I don’t ever clean my child.


5- The Roomba- The Roomba is big crowd pleaser at our house. Davis loves to chase it, the dogs love to chase Davis chasing it, and I like that it actually picks up a few hairballs while keeping them entertained. And if you know our house, you know that we need to use the Roomba often, so it’s a good thing that everyone likes it. I’m hoping to get a Scooba one day- the robot that mops your floors, but I am afraid that we have so much hard surface flooring that it will wear out the Scooba. I’m holding out on that one until they have perfected the design.

That’s all on his favorites list right now. I can’t believe it, but his first birthday is rapidly approaching. I'm debating on how much of a big deal I want to make of it. We have lots of other parties to go to for the other boys in our playgroup and I may just want to have a small family celebration. Whatever we do, the evidense will be posted here.

First Haircut & First Christmas

December was a big month for Davis. On December 22, Tim, Mom, Dad, Chase, Davis and I all pilled into our wagon and headed to Disney World for Davis's first haircut. How did we all fit in the car? Tim was driving, Chase rode shotgun, Mom, Davis and Dad were in the back seat and I rode sitting backwords in the way-back seat. Riding in the way back wasn't as bad as you might expect and I think I'm the only one small and flexible enough to get back there. I will admit- it was a little overboard to go all the way down there and pay admission to get his hair cut, but it made it way more fun than just getting it done here in Gainesville. And we really needed to get his hair cut before Christmas- he had this wierd side rat tail thing going on that I just couldn't stand anymore. I do not recommend going to Disney on Christmas week, though. You would never know that we have a recession going on- tickets were full price even for Florida residents and the place was PACKED. But still, Disney knows how to do it right, and the video of Davis's haircut is supercute. After the haircut is finished, they give them their first set of Micky Ears that are embroiderred with "First Haircut" on the back. Note the big bruise on Davis's forehead from trying to dive into the side of the daybed.

Davis was jsut too little for many of the rides, but he LOVED Its a Small World. I think he also enjoyed the Enchanted Tiki Room, the one where you walk into a Polenesian hut and there are huge singing birds everywhere. Once the sun went down, we had enough of the crowds and the cold and Davis was tired so we pcked up and headed home.

Later that week, Kathy, Todd, Allie and Weston came down from Christmas. Davis opened his first Santa gift- a Cozy Coupe. Its still a little big for him to ride in, but he loves pushing it around. He also got a great Pop Up Playtent from Mom and Dad, a Backpack carrier, a drum, and lots of other loud toys. Davis was still too young to really know what it was all about, but we enjoyed starting some Christmas traditions with him, like Tim reading the Night Before Christmas. I can't wait for next year when he really knows whats up.

We really enjoyed the visit with the Tolfords. Weston brought his Xbox and I discovered that I love the Rock Band Game- especially playing lead guitar. I have some great footage of Todd belting out Hungry Like a Wolf. I now agree with Tim in thinking that I would love to get one of those, actually probably a Wii. The day after Christmas, everyone came over to our house to try some of Tim's smoked wings and pulled pork, made on his new smoker.

Many people have been asking if Davis is walking yet and the answer is - a little. He will take four or five steps, like moving from the sofa to the coffee table, but if its a long distance he always drops to the floor and crawls it. He is a really fast crawler-sometimes we play a game where I chase him and he crawls away as fast as he can- I dont know how he can giggle so loud and crawl that fast at the same time. He has five teeth now- three on top, two on bottom. I am still making his food, which now consists of a little chucnkier foods and some crackers as a snack. Its so great when I give him a cracker because he will raise it up with one hand, wave it around and howl like he has won the big prize. Somedays it seems like he and I are in a race to see who can eat the most bananas- he can bite off a whole piece of banana now and its definatley his fruit of choice. He is also saying Mamamama and Dadadadada. Sometimes I think he might actually know that Im mamamama, but I cant be sure yet. He is DEFINATLEY making the sign for milk- he loves the bottle and it will be tough to ween him from it in the next few months. Its still really cute when he pushes away the food Im trying to give him and he emphatically makes the sign for milk. The look on his face just says, "Hey woman- I need something to wash this down with now!" I had no idea that they would be able to communicate with you so much, even before they started talking.

He really has so much personality- I'm amazed. Unfortunatley, it seems as though he has inherited my short temper for now, and he is pretty loud when he airs his complaints. As you can tell, many of his development skills are centered around eating. When we go to church, I usually have to come stocked with lots of Cheerios to keep hum busy/quite. I sometimes bring some Tea Biscuits, too- a not too sweet wafer that kind of a cross between a cracker and cookie. During the Christmas Eve service at church, Davis decided that my brother Chase really needed to try one of these Tea Biscuits. So Davis took the wet, slobbery wafer out of his mouth and tried to shove it in Chase's mouth. Chase was horrified, not wanting to offend Davis, but definatley distguisted by his generous offer. Whats worse is that Davis does this ALL the time with the dogs and they take him up on it. I fear for how much dog slobber and fur the child has ingested.

So thats all thats happening around here!

Jenn