Quick update

This little munchkin had his 9 month appointment today. He's fit as a fiddle and developing right on track. He is still a bit iron deficient, but so is his mama so I'm not too concerned. We will continue with the vitamins and giving him more iron rich foods.

He grew (again) - His head was 18 inches (in line with previous measurements and keeping him around the 60th percentile) and he grew another TWO inches! That makes him 31 inches long (still off the charts) and he's just a little bit heavier. He was 21 pounds even at his 6 month appointment and now he's 22 lbs, 10 ounces (that dropped  him down to the 80th percentile). It looks like I won't be getting that Michelin baby I wanted. He's leaning out and as he gets more active and mobile it looks like he'll continue to do so. The doctor even commented on how he will start looking more toddler-esque and I already am starting to see it.

Adelia took him to the aquarium last week and sent these pictures. Definitely more toddler than baby! Eek.

Standing

I think there's a joke somewhere about being on a boat...

Getting ready to row

Loving all the fish

And I swear, these pictures were taken last week and I think he looks bigger already. One day he woke up from a monster nap and he just seemed bigger -especially his feet! He's got his daddy's big feet.

When babies attack

It starts off all sweet and innocent...

Someone thinks he's big time

Callan has been perfecting his standing skills and he's getting more confident. He's itching to walk, but other than a few involuntary stumbles, he's still just cruising.

Sorry kiddo, mama has tough standards before she agrees that you've reached milestones. Everyone claimed you rolled much earlier than I will give you credit for so your first steps are still to be determined.

I love this picture because it looksl ike you're surfing.

And I also swear your legs aren't that short. Your pants are just too big (and probably falling down in these pictures).

9 months in, 9 months out

Dear C-

Today you turned 9 months old... holy moly, how did that happen?  9 months sounds like a totally legit age and way closer to 1 than I am comfortable with right now. I remember being pregnant with you like it was yesterday... and in reality, it was a whole lifetime ago. I catch myself saying I just had a baby, but that's really not true anymore (although to be cheesy, you'll always be my baby. haha)


You've had an amazing month and we've had amazing times together. You are really turning into this little boy with lots of personality. You've got teeth (currently 5, with 2 poking the surface and I'm hoping that's what is causing your current sleep issues, because, man, mama's tired since you won't let your dad get you at night!), you can cruise the furniture, stand up, crawl, babble, clap and wave -all reminders that you are cruising towards toddlerhood at lightening fast speed. Even your radish top is gone! The hair on the top of your head used to grow straight up and your dad said it looked like a radish top, now it's so long that it's fallen down and growing like normal hair. You are so fun and it is so amazing to watch you develop, but I always feel like I'm missing things and wish you'd reach your milestones a little slower -or at least spread them out a bit.


Your personality just continues to grow and grow. You're always on the move and so curious. We have to be extra vigilant with you now that you have the dexterity to pick up the tiny things on the floor that you see. You're quick and you know you're not supposed to be putting it in your mouth b/c you'll look directly at us while doing it as if testing our speed at fishing things out of your mouth. So far it's been benign, just paper and lint and an old cheerio or two, but that's mostly because we keep you locked up in your cage (joking, sort of). You love to climb (mostly on your toys and on mama), you love to play with the cars and to push all the buttons on your toys and knock things over -which really reminds me of how you are all boy (not to say a girl wouldn't or couldn't like these things too). 

You're determined and stubborn and definitely know what you want and will squeal in protest when something is taken away from you or things aren't as you would like them. I'm hoping this little personality quirk is a phase because I cannot be responsible for a bratty kid! But at the same time, you are one of the most chill babies I know. You started swim class this month and I'm kind of proud to admit that you are the only baby that hasn't cried yet. You love the pool and splashing and don't seem to mind the water at all (even when mama is a little careless and lets your face go under giving your dad a heart attack each time).  You do this cute thing when you get excited and you'll have something in your hand and you'll put it over your head and just grin and squeeze it so tight, it's like you're trying to will your arms to lift you up. You're desperate to stand up unassisted from sitting, but so far you've just taken to bouncing, which is ineffective, but adorable. You still haven't figured out pockets and will still carry things around in your mouth, which I have to give you credit for your resourcefulness.  You're a happy boy and love to smile and laugh and seeing how your face lights up in the morning or when I get home from work just melts my heart every time.


There's so much that's happened this past month and I have loved every minute of it. I'm still sad about the baby part of you that's gone, but that pales in comparison over the excitement of finding out about the boy you're becoming.


I love you and I can't believe I've know you on the outside now as long as I knew you on the inside... 9 months in, 9 months out... what an adventure it has been.


Love,
Mama



(Just to note: I actully had this written on time (Sunday), but your dad was out of town and he had all the pictures!)

These are pictures from the past month. There's a lot because I couldn't filter out my favorites.



eating Christmas Eve dinner at Hema's

Christmas morning

Opening a present from Santa

You love Daddy, but not in the middle of the night!

What a ham

Your usual sunny disposition

snazzy Christmas outfit

First Christmas

Always happy in the highchair

stuck in the cage

Can't believe how tall you are -these are 12 month pjs and we're kind of just jamming you in there.

Love this toy -thanks uncle Matt & aunt Nat









Love the cars -thanks Luke for sharing!




Learning to share with Ellis

SWIMMING!

Everyone's favorite time

Snack time!

What hams

Whenever I'm having a really crummy day at work, Adelia must sense it and will send me a picture that puts a huge smile on my face.

Callan (and Luke) are getting to the age where they can finally start interacting and Adelia sent us the funniest pictures of them the last few days and I can only imagine how much fun these boys are going to have as they get older.

Even though I sometimes fantasize about having enough money to hire a nanny full-time on our own I realize how great and beneficial that interaction with another baby is for Callan.

Yesterday they were playing peek-a-boo around the activity table and I can hear and imagine the squeals of laughter coming from Callan. 

She sent another picture of them playing at the table again.

Callan got this dolphin pillow pet from Adelia for Christmas and he's taken to snuggling with it... He's adorable when he does it and I love it -what a ham. I love these boys!

Roundup

I feel like it's been pretty light around here with content and it's not necessarily a lack of things to blog about... more a lack of time and creativity. I definitely have lots to say, but now that I've actually sat down to type this I can't really think of anything. Great. This is a pointless post! haha.

Ok, let's do a catch up of things that have happened...
Callan's first Christmas. I realized that other than a short little video of Callan opening his Christmas present from Santa I have a lack of material commemorating such an event. For shame! I personally love Christmas. I love the lights, the music, the crisp cold air, the snow, Christmas trees and wrapping paper. It's true -I love wrapping paper and wrapping presents. Although I often succumb to using gift bags, I'm a little sad about how they're replacing wrapped gifts. My dream job in high school was to be a wrapper at Bloomingdales or Neiman Marcus.... all the different papers on rolls on the wall and the beautiful ribbon and adornments really beckoned me. But, alas, I never was a wrapper there and now a girl can only dream. (wow, that was quite the sidebar there!) Anyway, our first Christmas with Callan was also our first Christmas in Chicago. This was the first year in 8 years that I haven't travelled at Christmas. As glad as I was to not rush around and hop on flights to Boston and Montreal, I was a little sad to not be with family this year. But, it was nice to be here in Chicago and to celebrate our first Christmas together at a leisurely pace. We went out to dinner Christmas Eve with our friends, Akiko and Jeff, Mike, Stace and Lucy, and Amy, Eric and Logan to Indian food. Callan was a trooper and seemed to enjoy it a little bit more than he did the last time. Christmas morning was spent at home opening presents and skyping/facetiming with our families back east and then Huge cooked a delicious dinner for us and some friends, Yogesh and Ming, Denis and Anaar. We had a relaxing meal and spent some time playing with Callan and hanging out. Yogesh and Ming made really tasty hot Toddie's (which reminds me that I need to drink more of them) and an equally delicious dessert (that I enjoyed for many days after). Even from afar we were spoiled and I still can't believe Christmas has come and gone already!

After Christmas comes New Year's Eve and this year we spent at home celebrating with Tara, Craig and Ellis and Akiko and Jeff. Craig and Huge whipped up a delicious (and decadent) dinner and Craig, owner of Perman Wine Selections, paired everything with fantastic wines. I felt like we ate for 10 hours, but every bite was totally worth it. I love hanging out with friends while eating and drinking delicious things, so this was a great way to kick out 2011 and ring in 2012.

But an even better way to ring in the new year is spending the day at the spa! And that is exactly what I did. As part of our Christmas presents, Tara and I received a day at the spa at the Elysian Hotel. Oh my goodness, it was an amazing day. We decided that unless one of us is preggos, we are starting every year that way. We each got pedicures and one hour massages and relaxed in the hot tubs, eucalyptus steam room and sauna. After spending the entire morning there we ate a really delicious lunch at Balsan and then spent a little bit of time walking around enjoying our freedom. By the time I got home the boys were both waking up from their afternoon naps (well one of them was still sleeping) and then Callan and I hopped in a cab to go visit our friend Angela who was in town from London.

Since then, nothing really exciting has happened to me. I'm back at work and I keep telling everyone around me that my motto for the year is "new year, new attitude, new me", but I'm thinking it's more for my benefit than anything else. It's one of those "fake it until you make it" mantras, and maybe if I say it enough, it'll be true. So far, no dice, but for a few days it was blissful.

Callan has started his swim class and he is really enjoying it. They are only 30 minutes long, but he hasn't cried yet (and nearly every other baby there has). The first class he was a little skeptical about it all and although he didn't cry, he was definitely a little wary of everything going on and only started splashing around at the very end. The second class he warmed up much quicker and was splashing for most of the class (unfortunately for the little boy next to us). I think Callan is a natural and we'll have a lot of fun in the water together. He's not afraid to get his face wet and has been dunked (accidentally -oops) a couple of times and he did fine. I'm looking forward to the next few weeks and then we'll get to go swimming every day on our vacation! Another sidebar -this past week there were 5 other babies at the lesson all of whom were about the same age as Callan and they were ALL boys! But, the point of this was that there were 4 other babies there with both parents in attendance. I for some reason assumed that all the moms would be in the water and the dads would merely be spectators. Boy was I wrong. It was me in the pool with all the dads! Huge was with me and I joked with him that it kind of made sense that I was in the water instead of him because all the moms were at the edge of the pool taking pictures and calling out to their husbands to be careful/watch out for the baby/etc... really being backseat drivers and all the guys were real laid back telling the wives to not worry. Yup... that's definitely us -Huge worried and me telling him it's fine. haha.

Well this post has turned out to be way too long and kind of boring. I guess if you made it this far you deserve a picture.

Fun family picture c/o iPhone 

OH my goodness. In my ramblings I forgot to mention that Callan's newest friend was born. Haruki Alexander Martin! He's gorgeous and tiny. I love him already.

I can't believe Callan was that small just a few short months ago!

I think they're already best buds.

Dad and me

Waiting for the bus... Brr, it's cold out!

Snow pants and a wet suit

Swimming in Chicago!

#Technology Fail

So I realize I'm about 7 years behind on this, but I've decided to start listening to podcasts on my way to work. As part of my "new year, new me" plan I decided that I need to get more informed about current events and things going on in the world (outside of the celebrity gossip/blogging world). However, I don't really understand how podcasts work. How do I get them to automatically load onto my iphone? Do I need to sync my phone everyday, because if that's the case, this probably won't last very long... I sync my phone about once every 3 months (much to my husband's chagrin). So can someone help me? Or point me in the right direction because I would like to be able to talk about current events without sounding dumb!

Fun with the camera

Learning to catch

He definitely doesn't get it, but he's having fun "learning" (even when dad was being a little mean).


I haven't posted a video in awhile, but this was with the wait.

Swim class!

Who doesn't love ribs?

Another year, another set of resolutions

It's a few days into the new year and it's time to set my new year's resolutions! Let's see, last year I recapped my 2010 goals and set new ones for 2011 -so let's keep the tradition alive and do it again!

2011 resolutions:
1. Working out -hm, I wrote that I planned on sticking with it and to run a half marathon or two that year. I honestly don't even remember that being a goal of mine (especially considering I was making that a goal of mine this year!), but needless to say, I didn't run any races. I'm going to pretend it's because I had a baby this year instead (and don't they say giving birth is like running a marathon?), but it is probably more because I didn't remember even having that goal!

2. Lose the weight -I talked about losing the baby weight and I can say that I successfully did that. I gained an incredible amount of weight (50+lbs) and came very close to hitting the 200 lb mark!, but by Dec 31st, I had successfully lost all the baby weight.

3. Hobby -ya, there was no hobby last year...

4. Organize my house -this is an ongoing goal... and most of the time I'm on the losing end. But, I'm going to just blame my husband for this... he is a slob!

So those were my 2011 goals and I would say I did about half of them (sort of?). Now on to 2012! I'm a few days behind, but my goals for this year are very similar to last year.

1. Work out! Or get back to running.
My goal is to run half marathon this year. I've talked about it a lot (and even more than I remember since it was a goal last year), but this is the year I actually do it. I'm sure I'll update you on it and if I see you in real life I'll probably talk about it a lot... so humor me and tell me how big of an accomplishment this will be. As part of this plan I figure I can commit to working out 3 times a week and attending hot yoga once a week.

2. Lose weight! Or finally get to my goal weight.
I'm hoping that training and running this half marathon will help with this goal, but I'm sort of remembering how running turns me into a ravenous beast, so I'll have to figure out a way to not allow running from preventing me from reaching this goal (I am SOO close -and it's only Jan 4th -I have a whole year ahead of me!).

3. Organize my house! Or finally start living like an adult. 
This is the term I use when I'm complaining to Huge about the state of our house -we need to start living like adults. I shouldn't have to step over a pile of laundry to get to the bathroom (not that I do now...) but we need to seriously purge and organize our house. An organized house leads to an organized life.

4. Stop stressing about work! Or work less.
I'm sure this doesn't need explanation. I would just like to work regular hours. And not feel like logging off at midnight is slacking (it's not in a normal world).

I think that's it. Oh ya, and this:

Although, I think I can already check that one off my list!

Am I missing anything? What else should I work on this year?

2011 survey

This is the survey I did this to recap 2010, and I thought it would be fun to do it for 2011!

What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?I had a baby! You'll probably get bored of this answer as I will probably talk about it a lot (not that I don't already), but it was the biggest thing I did in 2011.
Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I honestly didn't remember making resolutions last year, but lucky for me, I actually wrote them down (in this here blog), and I was somewhat successful. I am making resolutions for this year -I like to have goals for the year and I'll write about them later.
Did anyone close to you give birth?
YES! I did! and a bunch of my friends, including my best friend Lisa who gave birth to an adorable little girl Mabel in February.
Did anyone close to you die?
Thankfully, No.
What countries did you visit?
This year was pretty quiet in terms of international travel (due to that baby we had in April), but we went to Canada, but again, my husband is from there and his family is still there so that doesn't really count (and it's Canada, it's kind of like the 51st state, right?).
What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011? 
I would like to feel more balanced -with work, life and family.
What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Obviously April 22 -my baby's birthday. July 29th -the day I went back to work and then baby's first holidays (Thanksgiving & Christmas)
What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I had a baby -I'm not sure if that really qualifies as a big achievement, but I'm taking credit for having a pretty awesome baby.
What was your biggest failure?
Hmm, that's hard. I've spent some time worrying about things not in my control and I've let things overwhelm me and distract me from what is important.

Did you suffer illness or injury?
No, knock on wood I have had a healthy year.
What was the best thing you bought?
I can't even remember what I bought this year. 
Whose behavior merited celebration?
As always, my family and friends –they are all truly amazing.
Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
This is the same answer as last year: No one. I think I surround myself with good people and therefore no appalling or depressing behavior to worry about from them.
Where did most of your money go?
Food/eating out and of course, the baby (and baby related expenses).
What did you get really excited about?
Becoming a mom and creating this family. I think we're doing pretty well and it is only going to get better from here.
Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer?
a) happier
b) Thinner–by some miracle I have lost all my baby weight and then some. Now I'm just a few pounds away from my goal weight.
c) monetarily poorer, but in life, richer.
What do you wish you’d done more of?
I wish I kept in touch better with friends and family. Although I may not talk to or see them very often, I do think about them a lot. I wish I travelled more to see them because I do miss them a lot.
What do you wish you’d done less of?
I wish I worked less hours and stressed less about our fictitious family budget (stole that from last year's answer, but it's true and I'm sure 2012 is not going to ease the budget issues at all).
How did you spend Christmas?
This was the first year we didn't travel for Christmas. We stayed home and had some friends over for Christmas dinner. It was nice to be at home and relax, but not seeing everyone at Christmas was a little sad.
Did you fall in love in 2011?
Cue the cheesy music: I fell in love with Callan, fell more in love with Huge and with the family we've created together. 
What was your favorite TV program?
Let's see, this year my tv roster includes, the Real Housewives franchise (current fave is Beverly Hills), the Good Wife, NCIS and NCIS: LA (although they're kind of losing my interest), Parenthood, Suits (so good!) and most recently Game of Thrones.
Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
No, I can't really say I hate anyone. I think hating is a waste and if you really dislike someone that much, you shouldn't waste your time and energy on them.
What was the best book you read?
Yikes, I can't even remember what books I read this year. I swear I did read, but obviously nothing really amazing. 
What was your greatest musical discovery?
Music isn't my thing. I think my musical repertoire has been stalled since 2003.
What did you want and get?
A healthy baby.
What did you want and not get?
A get rich quick scheme or the ability to retire.

What was your favorite film of this year?
I just saw the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and loved it. I didn't see too many movies in the theaters this year (planning on changing that next year) and we didn't watch as many movies at home as we normally do.
What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I didn't do anything on my birthday. Huge was at a conference in Champagne-Urbana and Callan really dropped the ball and didn't remember to plan anything -he claimed he was just a baby, but I think that's no excuse!
What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
2011 was a pretty great year for me. I'm sure there were some down moments, but I like to focus on the positives and I'm not really disappointed with the year. I guess if I worked less or had the ability to work normal hours, that would make my life more satisfying.
How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

I'm going to say boring. I'm bored to tears at my wardrobe right now, but I'm not feeling overly inspired by what I see in the stores. I think I'm going to have to branch out from my Gap/BR/JCrew/Ann Taylor routine.

What kept you sane?

My husband, my family, my friends (who are my family) and my baby.
What political issue stirred you the most?

Not super political, so I'll pass on this.
Who did you miss?

I miss my friends who live far away and my family (who also live far away).
Who was the best new person you met?

Well the cop out answer is Callan. But I'll also say the Adams' -Shelby, Mike and Luke have made a great addition to our circle,
Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.

There is only so much you can control and instead of wallowing in self-pity it's more productive to come up with a plan for change.