phone fill-in (January thru March 14)

I just downloaded half a year's worth of photos that Sean has been taking with his camera phone, so here are a few of those images.

January 20

January 20

February 3.  Put her hair in sponge rollers for the first time during our trip to Vermont.

February 3

February 19

March 14.  Final flight home.

goodbye, Astoria.

the squirrels won (this time)

If Santa's Dog ever brings Josephine a bird feeder in the future, I think he might need to stick around and guard the thing...

Sammie did it.

And check out the impact he's had on our rain barrel out front; I've even caught him moving aside the rock and getting a drink.

Anyone remembering the issues we had with the blasted creatures in our attic (and their MITES-- oh great heavens those cursed mites!!!) will know that squirrels and I have already completely fallen out.  At this point, no one should be terribly surprised if they find me with my dad's slingshot having a go at dear old Sammie.

Christmas in Teague...

...only 5 months, 7 days late.

Can you believe Mama Jo and Grand Favog LEFT UP their Christmas decorations all this time??  Dusting Christmas trees for half a year requires serious devotion!

It all made for a really special day, though.  Santa's dog, who visits Teague, left some pretty intense stocking stuffers.  Clement LOVED Josephine's electric Mini.   Below, he's standing up at the wheel going "vroom".  He thought he was big stuff standing in that car!

Turns out Josephine's a bit of a, um, "reckless" driver.  Seemed to think the gear shift that threw it in reverse was the brake, as opposed to simply taking her foot off the pedal.  And steering was apparently something that was supposed to happen by merely thinking about it and looking in the correct direction.  At times she scared herself enough to let go of the wheel altogether and hang on to other things: the windshield, the door, the fake maltese riding next to her... but of course, never took her foot off the pedal.

Anyway, if you see her in this, just cross to the other side of the street and watch your back.

Josephine's wearing an adorable eyelet dress that Granny made for Mama Jo when she was a little girl.

Meanwhile, Grandfrog's become quite the goose whisperer.
No connection between these geese and our Christmas dinner.  We ate chicken.

Merry Christmas, y'all!

yuletide swimming

10 months!

The wee one is getting less wee, day by day!

Current chomper count:  4 teeth on the top (the fourth of which just broke through yesterday) and 3 teeth on the bottom.

Favorite activities:
Throwing ANYTHING.  Sometimes his expression is that of a scientist conducting an experiment (will it bounce, how far will it roll, will it be loud, will it frustrate me, will I like doing this)... other times he wears a look of utter disgust (how dare she assume that I want that object!  I shall not be distracted from fussing at her!!)... other times, when Josephine is around, he does it to get her attention because she's entirely too nice to him and always brings it back saying, "oooo, kemit, did you dwop this??  here you gooooo."

Lately he gets excited when we go places.  It's pretty impressive how flexible he can be with his meals and morning nap (to a limit, of course), as long as we are out and about.  He frequently squeals with joy when we head out to the car, and thankfully we haven't had any trouble with him riding in his car seat, even for relatively long stretches.  Too many days of chaos does make for an irritable baby, though, so our outings are still secondary to our schedule.

He loves to play ball and has quite the repertoire of techniques, which can be seen in these couple of videos... a short video, and a longer video.  This is a pretty surefire way to pull him out of a funk, as is (unless he's tired) helping him pull up and stand at the couch.  He can cruise, mostly to the right.  In his crib, he can cruise either direction, and I've seen him pull up once on his own there... but even then I had to situate him right in front of the bars.
Because you see, he still has zero interest in crawling.  For a while there it seemed like maybe he was going to get it down.  But apparently he decided the effort of figuring it out wasn't worth it, because we're back to the place where he hates being on his stomach.  He can roll places (as of this last month), but he doesn't like having to.  Generally, if he thinks I expect him to get somewhere/something on his own, his heart breaks and strongly voiced cries of neglect doth ringeth forth.
So, he's an expert sitter.  He does think he's big stuff when he's standing, and he absolutely delights in having people hold his hands while he walks (very slowly) somewhere.  And of course, he jumps.  As we all know, the boy loves jumping.

Talking:
Clement's very studious when it comes to learning new words.  If you're talking about something he's interested in, he will pay super close attention to the word you are saying.  And then with careful pronunciation, he'll mimic you with a very precise, "Bhhaaaaaa."  Yep, pretty much all the time.  On the rare occasion, these vocabulary lessons have resulted in him mimicking a "lo" sound, an f/sh, and maybe some others, but he's pretty certain all new words start with a B, and he's determined to teach me this.  Of course, most things that he cares about, like balls and blocks, do start with a B, so it's natural that he picked up this sound.

His regular vocabulary includes "all done", a variation on "more", a greeting that sometimes is a clear "hi" other times a chill "heeeyyy", and when he's feeling comedic he'll randomly grin at me and go, "boo!" followed by a laugh.  (He also works the occasional odd guttural noise into his comedy routine.  If he has some drainage and notices a rattling sound when he breathes, he'll get tickled, look at Josephine and me, and repeat it, exaggeratedly, then laugh.  And do it again.  And laugh.  And usually by then we're laughing too because the poor kid's doing his best to tell a joke and when you're 10 months old, your resources are limited...)
My parents heard him repeat back "hi Clement" plain as day when they were here a month ago, but I haven't heard anything that complex.  His very favorite thing to talk about is Dad.  "Dada" gets announced to me every time Clement so much as hears his feet on the stairs, greeted ("hi dad"), narrated with "dadadadada" the whole time he's in sight, and receives a regular departing phrase of "bye dad."  All in joyful, giddy tones.

He also knows "mama", but reserves my precious name for times of utmost distress.  I have only ever heard him calling it out while crying or screaming about whatever form of neglect he is experiencing, his impending demise from being in the crib 5 minutes too long, the utter starvation from not having his next bite IN HIS MOUTH as promptly as he would prefer, etc.

Sigh.  So typical.

Sleeping:
As you might imagine, I'm super excited to announce that the child is FINALLY sleeping through the night!  Sometime over the last couple months, it became the norm that he would not wake up and demand to eat during the night, as opposed to the rare and gracious blessing it had been before.  And for almost the entirety of this last month, we have all relished the predictability of getting to sleep without waking up to a crying child in the wee hours of the morning.  As soon as I realized he'd reached a point where it was feasible for him to fall back asleep without nursing (without screaming for two hours, give or take), I started enforcing it.  I'm so relieved to be free of that nursing session.

Intake:
So now we're down to nursing when we wake up around 8 or 8:30, when he gets up from his morning nap before lunch, again between the afternoon nap and dinner, and once before bed.  Since he eats such good-sized meals, every now and then we'll skip a nursing session just to keep life flexible if we're on the go.  Naturally, I worry about the impact on my milk supply, especially when he's going through a teething spurt and seems uninterested in really feeding well.  Occasionally I'll supplement with a bottle of formula that is supposed to be safe for the vast majority of babies with allergies to cow and soy milk.  The cow milk proteins are broken down to easily digestible, itty bitty pieces (because those proteins were just so massive to begin with).  But Clement is Clement, so he still reacts.  However, my current sense is that he reacts less than he probably benefits from the well-balanced nutrition.

The never ending battle:
His eczema is dramatically better.  It's not gone.  He does still have some rough patches, mostly on his legs, and lately his face has been flared up again on the left side.  For a while it had nearly entirely disappeared! ...but I was eating only at home, abiding by all the restrictions, eating low-gluten (though no longer gluten-free) and seasonal irritations were a bit lower for all of us during that stretch, the air conditioning was running, etc.  Throwing anything into the mix -- a bit of formula, a restaurant, something too acidic like tomatos/citrus -- results in consequences.  Even though I ask about dairy when I go out to eat, and don't order anything with nuts or seafood, I still think things sneak into the restaurant food.  Pretty much, if I think the food tastes a little too good, it's probably going to cause a little flare up in him.  Lovely.
However, since the majority of his diet is solid food, now, I think what I eat has less of a consequence than it used to.  Plus as he gets older his system should be tightening up a bit and fewer of these irritating proteins should escape his gut and cause reactions... or however all that works.  :-)

Anyway, suffice it to say that I still fret when I see him itching, but he doesn't scratch anywhere near the amount that he used to.  My relief that his torment has lessened is indescribable.

And that's pretty much the state of things on one certain little 10 month old.  He's a kid with a LOT of specific ideas about how things should be, but he more than makes up for that by still being my snuggle bug.  I can handle difficulty when it's solved by a simple scoop-him-up-and-cuddle solution!  Under whatever layer of spunk he's testing out is just the sweetest little soul a kiddo can have.
I'm not biased.
That's simple, objective true.
I'll be sure to give him birthday kisses from all of you!