The Small Family   

Busy days in the Small household this week! Thankfully, I’m getting caught up on work, so I was able to enjoy some fun activities this week...and Mr. Theo was a willing comrade for our adventures.

Monday was my photography class, and Theo got to spend the afternoon with Grandma Diane, who reported that they had a wonderful time, though she described changing Theo’s diaper as “something like changing a baby orangutan.” Ha—that’s my boy! He does not like to stay still for diaper changes. I’m quickly learning how to diaper a baby who is crawling away from you, which I think is quite an art!

On Tuesday, Theo and I ventured downtown to visit with Auntie Jeanette for lunch. Tuesday was a grumpy day for Theo, but Auntie Jeanette got a couple smiles toward the later part of lunch. And we were back downtown Wednesday for lunch with Shelley (a Sac State friend of mine and Chris’s) and her adorable three-month-old daughter, Ella. It was interesting for me to see Ella, who is a stark contrast to Theo at the same age. Back then, Chris and I still had to pretty much count on the fact that Theo would start screaming uncontrollably if we went somewhere, and we had to be prepared to flee if necessary. Ella, on the other hand, sat very calmly and quietly, just taking everything in and looking generally content with life. Sometimes I wonder if we ever have a second child, will it be a baby like Theo, or will it be a much calmer child? I’m really not sure Chris and I would know what to do with a calm child—we’d probably spend all our time thinking, “What’s wrong with it? Why isn’t it crying?! Shouldn’t it be screaming at us??” One thing’s for sure: Theo has prepped us well if we decide to have any more children. Assuming another child is born healthy and without disability, it can’t be much harder next time around...can it?!

Thursday, Theo and I went to the mall for a stroll with Janeane and Emma. Janeane needed to do some shopping at Motherhood Maternity (!!), so I kept an eye on the kiddos while she tried a couple things on. The neat thing was, they have a play area set up for kids, and Theo is finally old enough to play in something like that...at least when there aren’t a lot of other, bigger kids around. It was just Theo and Emma, so I put him in there with her, and he had a grand time. There was a Lego table that he really liked, as well as an interesting bead/wire thing that he could stand up to and slide the beads along. It’s so neat to me to see Theo playing like a little boy! Not that I want my “baby” to grow up quickly...I will miss this age when it’s gone. But it’s just remarkable to me to watch him, and I so enjoy watching him progress and develop, literally right before my eyes.

And speaking of development, Theo learned to play his first game this week! He will now throw a ball or small toy to you, and if you toss it back, he will toss it back to you...and so on. He also tries to throw the ball for Luna, but instead he throws it at Luna. She looks rather perplexed about why he keeps pelting her with balls, but at least they’re very tiny balls that don’t hurt when they hit her, so she doesn’t really bat an eye.

And speaking of Luna, we’re pretty sure Theo is saying her name now (or trying to, anyway). Chris, I, and Grandma Diane have all heard him say several times something that sounds like “Luna” when she is outside and he stands at the sliding-glass door, waiting for her to be let in. Awwww...he knows his best friend’s name!

Friday was Chris’s day off and my day to work...so I worked. For half a day, anyway. The other half of the day was spent at Kaiser—one doctor appt for me and one for Theo. We decided to have the doctor take a quick peek at Theo’s ears, since he has been pulling on them a lot and had a few really awful nights of sleep (fussing every half hour to hour in his sleep—Chris and I were EXHAUSTED after two nights of being woken up every 30 to 60 minutes!).  My Mom and I are still having ear trouble after the cold that she, Theo, and I all had in January, so I thought, “Well, maybe he’s still having ear trouble, too...I guess it wouldn’t hurt to have it checked, just in case.” As it turns out, his ears are fine, as I figured they probably were. But the fun part of the appt was getting an unofficial weight on the little tank while we were at the doctor’s office: 22 pounds 7 ounces! That’s with a cloth diaper and clothes on, so it’s probably more like 22 pounds on the nose. But wow—amazing that they can go from 8 pounds to 22 pounds in a year in just 11 months, isn’t it?

Grandma Diane offered to babysit Friday night so Chris and I could go on a date, so we happily took her up on it and had dinner at Mas, a Mexican restaurant here in Roseville that we like. Good thing we had a nice, relaxing date, since Theo had a rather lousy night of sleep that night!

Luckily, though, Theo was in a good mood on Saturday, since Chris had him on his own all day (with a little help from Grandpa Tom, who came up for some father-son-grandson bonding time!). Chris, Grandpa Tom, and Theo reportedly had an excellent day looking at a couple possible houses for Grandpa and Grandma, having lunch at the Burger Hut, and hanging out at the house and having barbequed halibut for dinner. Meanwhile, I was living it up in San Francisco with Kim—it was our “cityscapes” photography field trip! I expected “cityscapes” to be like “landscapes,” but it turned out to be more “find fun little things in SF and take pictures of that.” The vans dropped us off in various neighborhoods and at some sites for an hour or two at a time, and we were let loose to photograph whatever struck our fancy. We were supposed to pick a theme, so I stuck to mostly pictures of people, animals, and...old vehicles, for whatever reason. Kim and I also made sure to enjoy good food while we were there! We visited a British tea house in Noe Valley for lunch (scones and clotted cream—YUM!) and a nifty little Italian place in North Beach for dinner. All in all it was a good day, though I would’ve preferred it a bit shorter. We were supposed to arrive back in Roseville at 10pm, and we didn’t get in until almost midnight! I was totally wiped out by then. And Theo didn’t have the most fantastic night of sleep on Saturday either, so I was pretty tired on Sunday.

But, tired or not, we were determined to go to Napa to visit with Auntie Lisa and Uncle Chris, who were in California for the weekend at a cooking class in the Wine Country! Given that Napa is just 90 minutes from us, we couldn’t pass up a chance to see them! So when we found out late last week that they’d actually have a couple free hours on Sunday around lunchtime, we decided to drive over and meet up with them. Theo had a great time flirting with both Auntie Lisa and Uncle Chris, and we all had a yummy casual Venezuela lunch. Alas, I was a dummy and forgot to bring the camera in, but if Auntie Lisa is so kind as to send me the pix she took, I’ll post them on next week’s blog.

So that wraps up our wild and crazy week! I think the upcoming week will probably be much quieter. J