The Small Family   

Well, sorry for the very boring blog title for the week, but it was indeed an unremarkable week, for the most part. The big excitement was finding out that our car insurance is going to go down by $250/year for our brand-new car! We were expecting it to increase, so that was a nice surprise. Apparently 2009 cars are more eco-friendly than 2005 cars, so you get some extra discounts. Or so they tell me, anyway...

Theo continues to tentatively practice walking but mostly sticks to crawling, at which he is much faster and more efficient. His latest favorite thing to do is play on the grass. Mostly he just sits and feels the grass, but it seems to make him happy and content, so we did that a few times this week...at a park near our house, at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, and at the Davis Arboretum, where we went on Thursday so I could try to get some pictures for my photography class.

Theo is also doing much, much better on the sleeping front these days, which makes his mama and daddy super happy! The child who would not nap for the first 11 ½ months of his life now fairly regularly takes two naps a day. Sometimes they’re short, but heck, any nap is a good nap for us! And sometimes they’re wonderfully long. On Tuesday we met up with Janeane and Emma at the mall, and the kids played in the indoor play area for probably 30 minutes or so. Theo was so pooped after that, he slept for 2 ½ hours! I told Janeane we really ought to play with Emma every day! J

Of course, now that I’ve said that he’s napping fairly regularly, I’m sure he’ll throw me a curveball and give that up....

Theo’s also trying lots of fun new foods lately. Now that he has turned 1, we’re getting braver about letting him try new things. So far, so good...although he does have a rash all over his back today. But it’s a very light rash, and I think it may actually be a slight reaction to his recent MMR vaccine, since a rash isn’t unheard of after that shot. Anyway, we’ve been giving Theo tiny tastes of things that we’re eating, as long as they’re not too rich or dairy-laden, and so far he’s doing pretty well. He’s a big fan of some organic Cheerio-type things we got him at Whole Foods (although personally I find them rather bland). And, I’m embarrassed to say, he quite likes little bits of McDonald’s French fries. Ack—what have I done?!

He also got to have a bit of chocolate cake at Grandma and Grandpa’s on Saturday night, and he thought that was quite delicious! Like mother, like son... In fact, he was so fond of it that he stuck his fingers in my piece to try to get a little more!

We did try a tiny bit of cheese on Sunday, too (maybe ½ ounce, tops), as an experiment to see how he does with dairy. With luck, he should be starting to outgrow his dairy sensitivity, but the pediatrician said the only way we’ll know is to try it in very small quantities at first and see how he does. I noticed on Sunday evening that the ever-present patch of eczema on his cheek was more inflamed than usual, but I’m trying not to jump to a conclusion right away. We’ll try a bit more cheese in a couple days and see whether the same thing happens again. (The rash, by the way, was present before the cheese, which is why I’m attributing it to the MMR vaccine and not the cheese.)

Our big outing for the week was a trip down to San Jose to see Grandma Kathy, Grandpa Tom, and company. That didn’t go quite as well as we had hoped, but as my Dad used to say, “You win some, you lose some.” Theo was pretty cheery for the first part of the afternoon, but then he got pretty agitated and upset later on, and we ended up having to flee earlier than planned because he was just wailing and wouldn’t calm down...until we put him in the car, where he settled down almost instantly. We think he was just a bit overwhelmed, really. Cousin Nik has a huge heart and very much wants to hug Theo...a nice, big bear hug. Which would be great, except that this seems to freak Theo out. He seems to like his personal space. So every time Nik would scoot over and try to grab a hug, Theo would burst into tears and start wailing. If it wasn’t rather pitiful for both boys (Theo for being scared and Nik for so sweetly wanting to hug his cousin and being rebuked), it’d be almost comical: Nik is Mr. I’m-Gonna-Hug-You and Theo is Mr. Give-Me-Some-Space-Here, Man!

Ah well, I chalk this up to Theo being rather like his mama in that respect. I think it took me almost 30 years to get comfortable with hugs. Chris is definitely more the hugger in our family. Hopefully, since Theo is half Chris, he will get comfortable more quickly than his mama did. Until then, Nik will just continue to look baffled as to why his cousin doesn’t return his exuberant shows of affection! Anyway, there are very few pictures this week in part because Theo was pretty upset for a good part of Saturday, so I didn’t have time to take many pix. I did, however, get a cute one of Nik commandeering his grandfather’s chair, as well as some cute ones of Theo at a park near Grandma and Grandpa’s house where we took him for a walk.

Short blog this week...hopefully I’ll have more to tell next week! Until then, enjoy your week, all.