I'm baa-aack....

Yes, so I took an extended blogging leave. It really wasn't by choice. One of my dissertation committee members agreed to be on my committee only if I could set my proposal meeting before the end of May. So you know what that means? Non-stop dissertating! I worked my butt off and now I'm happy to say that my baby has been handed over to the committee. My presentation was on May 22nd and I could have never anticipated it going so well! YAY!

In addition to dissertation bootcamp, I also was on a wedding marathon. Two weddings in two weeks in Long Island? Sure, no problem! We drove up to NJ on April 24th and then headed up to LI on the 25th for Abhisek and Sujata's wedding (college friends) while Ryan's parents watched Hudson. Our blind faith in technology had us trust the GPS to get us to the wedding. Apparently, Onyx (the car/GPS) decided that we should see the Lincoln Tunnel and midtown Manhattan on that beautiful sunny afternoon. Needless to say, we got to the wedding an hour late and missed the entire ceremony. We did, however, get to catch up with a bunch of Ryan's fratenity brothers (including 3 of his little brothers) which was wonderful. After the wedding, we made the trek back to NJ. Our return trip took less than 2 hours, compared to the 3+ it took us to get there.

Less than a week later, we headed to NJ on Thursday April 30th. We headed to LI on Friday afternoon for Jade and Jerrol's wedding (grad school friends). Since we learned from our mistakes, we took a new route (Oynx was not in control this time). Unfortunately, that didn't help. It took us over 3 hours to get there again thanks to Friday afternoon traffic and rain. Again, we missed the ceremony. Despite of bad luck with driving, we had a wonderful time at the wedding and a much easier return trip that evening.

The following day, May 2, we celebrated Ryan's birthday (which is May 4) in NJ with his family and our good friends, Megan, Jay, and Alex. Meg and Jay brought their adorable little girl, Izabella, too. We had a great time catching up and eating TONS of food (including Ryan's Dad's famous lasagna and sangria and a delicious ice cream cake).

So, two weekends packed with travel and one dissertation proposal have affected my ability to blog. But now I'm back and have updates on Hudson....

• Well, he gets cuter by the minute (seriously).
• He's (finally) starting to grow some hair, albeit more in the back in the form of a curly rat tail.
• He's starting to pick up words. Right now he says: car, cat, ball (although this sometimes means "grapes" if he's also signing grapes), juice, Mom, Da, Pop Pop, on, up, down, shoe, owl, out, puff, banana, and apple. I was SO happy to finally hear MOM!!! For the longest time both Ryan and I were "Da".
  
• His cognitive development has been blowing us away too. He's been doing puzzles for a while now. I still have no idea how he learned that. He also can point out a bunch of things in his books (i.e. if you ask where the butterfly is on a certain page, he'll point to it). Again, I have no idea how he learned some of these random words like bumblebee, owl, and butterfly. Just the other day, Joyce (our nanny) told me that he was pointing out red and blue blocks when she asked. He's our little genius!! CMU, here he comes! :)
• He LOVES to kick his ball around. We're convinced that he's going to take right to soccer, although we'll probably push him to go the Jeff Reed route instead (sans the crazy hair and penchant for hoochie mamas).
  
• One of his favorite games is when Daddy throws him high into the air (much to Mommy's dismay as she prays to Jesus that Daddy catches him and doesn't break his back). As soon as Ryan catches him, he immediately says "UP!!" and is ready to go again.
  
• He's starting to want to do grown up things. I've given him a little responsibility by letting him feed the cats each morning. He LOVES it! He runs to get the scoop, puts some food in their dishes and then runs back for more. If he spills any, he picks them up and puts them in the dish (although sometimes he chooses to put them in the WATER dish). He seems so proud of his little chore.
  
• He's still 100% obsessed with vacuums. Thanks to my Mom, he has two loud play vacuums that he pushes around all day. But as soon as he spots one of the real vacuums he comes running and just wants to push it all over the place. He even knows that our small Dyson is for cleaning the couch, so he grabs it off of the charger and takes it over to the couch. Hopefully his desire to clean lasts through his teenage years!
• He's getting really good at going down the stairs. We tried to teach him to sit on his bum and "scooch" down. As soon as we say "scoochie", he starts to go. Unfortunately, he's getting a little too brave and is starting to go without Mommy or Daddy there to supervise or he tries to walk down. For those of you who have been to our house, you know that there are 50 stairs (literally, we counted), so this gets to be difficult.
• He loves to empty Daddy's wallet (Mommy taught him well!). He'll sit there forever just taking credit cards in and out.
• As for his sleep, I wish I could say it's great, but sadly, it's not. We did make alot of progess with our sleep training (see previous sleep posts), but we kinda plateaued and didn't move forward. In fact, it seems that we're actually regressing at this point :(
• On a better note, he is eating MUCH better. He's finally eating real food and not just crackers! Still not drinking milk, but he LOVES cheerios in milk, so we're getting some in. I think the kid could eat 2 adult sized bowls of cheerios in one sitting!
• He's mildly obsessed with dandelions. If he sees them in the grass, he will stand there and yell and point at them until you pick them. Every. Last. One. Of. Them. He's getting brave and beginning to touch them himself.

• He just had his 18 month doctor visit. He was in the 70th percentile for height, but only 20th for weight. We so glad that the summer is here so that he can wear shorts and stop rocking the floods!

I hope to find some time soon to post more pictures. I just need to download them from the camera. I haven't even sent out his monthly batch....I know, I'm slacking....

Lots of updates!

Wow, where do I start?!? I seriously can't keep up with this kid!

Last weekend, we took Hudson to the National Zoo in DC for the first time. It was actually a date with his future wife Layla. They're so in love....

He had his first taste of yogurt and was a BIG fan!

His 4th tooth came in. He now has two on the top and two on the bottom. Could this toothy grin be any cuter?!?

He has learned how to stand on his own. He can stand without holding on for about 10 seconds before giving up and crashing down on his bum. We don't have a picture of the "assisted stand" yet, but don't fret - I'm sure we'll get it soon enough. I figured I'd just post a picture of him standing so that I could show off how adorable he looks in these crocs!

Hudson has also learned a new consonant sound - "ba". I warned him not to called Grami a "ba-ba"! So he now knows Ba, Da, Ra, Ga. We work on Ma everyday, but I guess he's saving that one for when the time is right.

As Ryan already wrote, Hudson also went to his first professional sporting event (the Yankees vs. the Orioles). I was a little bummed that it wasn't a Steelers game, but it's okay. We're just introducing him to the inferior sports so that he has a full appreciation for how wonderful Steelers games really are.

We're off to the beach tomorrow, so we should have some great pictures when we get back. Ryan bought me a great new cell phone for my birthday yesterday and he told me that I can blog from it, so maybe we can upload pics before we even get home! Happy (early) Labor Day to everyone!

Boobs to Breezewood!

This past weekend, we packed up the car once again (Hudson didn't contribute to the packing once again...), but this weekend we were off to Pittsburgh. My little brother Joey stayed with us during the week after our NJ trip, so he was also driving back with us. After a hectic morning of trying to get everything packed in addition to preparing our rental property for the new tenants, we finally headed out at 2p. For the last few weeks, I've had some problems with my car's AC. The fan would just stop blowing, but then randomly come back on. (This was particularly concerning since I spent a small fortune last summer to get a new AC). I wasn't too worried when it went out on Friday morning, thinking it will DEFINITELY come back on before we head out. Boy, was I wrong! Did I mention that it was 90 degrees?


This was one of the worst drives to Pittsburgh that I've ever been on. And I've been on quite a few since moving to Baltimore. We pretty much hit traffic from our house until Breezewood. Being the sweet wife that I am, I offered to drive so that Ryan could eat some food. Joey was in the back with Hudson. Well, I got caught up in all of the packing and organizing before we left, that I forgot to nurse Hudson before hitting the road (again, please don't call CYS...I promise I'm a better mom than these posts are making me sound). Since I was the one driving, there was no way to "road nurse", so I was stuck praying that the boobs would make it to Breezewood. In fact, everytime we hit more traffic, Ryan, Joey, and I would all sigh and say "Boobs to Breezewood!". Hudson was an absolute doll through all of this. I shed more tears than he did on this trip.
When you're sitting in traffic with no AC and the windows opened, you don't even get the luxury of a breeze. Good times....


We stopped at Starbucks in Breezewood (an iced tea-lemonade with black tea, sweetened was like a juice from the Gods at that point) so that I could nurse. Wouldn't you know that Hudson didn't even want to eat! Ahhh, the pain!


We finally made it (boobs and all) and went straight to Kings' Family Restaurant. Ryan gets the biggest kick out of Kings'. He doesn't think there's anywhere else in the world that is a big of a time warp than Kings'. Everything about the place (the people, the prices, the decor) is stuck a world that existed about 25 years earlier.

On Saturday, we went swimming at my cousin's pool. Hudson had a little piece of raw broccoli. He actually liked it. Well, except for the fact that he kept choking on it (damn! Looking like a negligent mother again!).




Thankfully, all of the heat, traffic, and boobie pain was worth it when we got to see our family! (Indulging in Kings', Giant Eagle cake, Lucci's white pizza, and Eat N Park cookies was just a bonus!!)

Grami and Hudson

Play time at the beach!

This post is a little late, but life with an infant is a bit chaotic!

Over the weekend of July 25th, Ryan, Hudson, and I packed up the car (well, Hudson was slacking on the packing duties) and headed up to Ryan's parents' house in NJ where we met Bobby and Joey (my 2 brothers who drove in from Pgh), Ashley (Bobby's girlfriend), and Alex (my college roomie/BFF). We all went to the beach on Saturday along with Ryan's mom. The weather was absolutely amazing. Hudson sat on his blanket and played with his toys. He wasn't too interested in the sand and definitely was not a fan of the water.

All of that surf and sun is tiring!

We had an amazing time on Saturday night when Che (another college roomie/BFF) and Mike (her husband), and Megan (high school BFF), Jay (her husband), and Izabella (their daughter) joined us all for dinner catered by none other than the family chef, Ryan's dad. It was so great to see everyone and catch up. Unfortunately, we got so carried away with catching up that we forgot to take pictures :(

Hudson also wanted to partake in the party...

(DISCLAIMER: He didn't actually drink the beer - don't call CYS)

Hudson also had his first taste of pasta - he was a fan.

A true summer weekend

This past weekend, we loaded up the 'tek (that's what we call Lucy, the Aztek, to make her sound a little cooler) and headed to Mom Mom and Pop Pop's house in NJ. We had a great time even though the trip back to Baltimore was an eventful one (Hudson decided to have explosive poop while in his carseat only 30 minutes into the trip. After changing him, he figured that he was stay up for the entire 3 hour ride home and just have Mommy entertain him).

During our visit, Hudson visited the Jersey Shore for the first time. I tried to show him the sand (he wasn't interested) and Ryan tried to take him in the water (he was REALLY not interested):

Hudson got his first taste of nectarines - they were a big hit!

The real reason for the trip was so that we could all meet baby Izabella. She's a tiny little thing, especially when she's next to our monkey man. She's now weighing in over 8 lbs. It's hard to believe that Hudson was once this small! Her feet were a third the size of Hudson's! Here's a pic of them together. Hudson loved her!! He's smiling here and wanting to touch her hair (maybe he's a little jealous since he's still bald!):

Megan, Jay, and baby Izzy live in NYC. We went to Central Park and to Bloomingdales:

A summer trip to NJ would not be complete without a dip in the pool!

A week of "firsts"

(Let me first start by saying that Ryan isn't doing all of these posts - he only did the Father's Day one. But all of our pics are under his Picasa account, so I need to be logged in as him to post pics on here. Just didn't want to give him all the credit!)

So Hudson has decided that this week was going to be a milestone one for him. He got his first injuries, ate his first actual solid (i.e. not pureed mush), and learned to crawl. Whoa, let's take this one step at a time....

Injuries
Hudson is a monkey man and refuses to sit still. So when he plays on his music table, he likes to kneel or stand like this:

Well, he got a little too excited and went face first into the table which resulted in a minor bruise below his nose:

Then about 30 minutes later, he was playing on his mat and got to the edge. He likes to grab at the base for his jumper. Well, he grabbed for it, lost his balance, and went head first into the hardwood floor. The result?


Yep, a nice egg (and a dazed expression). I'm not sure if he looks dazed because he hit his head or because his Mom grabbed the camera to document it.

Eating real solids
Isn't it funny that when kids start eating solids, their foods are far from solid? Purees and cereal? Not so "solid". Well we gave Hudson a "rice rusk" (fancy kid's rice cake) yesterday. It's actually solid. Here's a play-by play:

Mommy introduces the biscuit....

"What do you want me to do with this thing?"

"Okay, so it goes in my mouth..."

Tasting it...

"It's a little dry - I need some water..."

"It's so good that I'm going back for more..."

"The aftermath of my experimentation in solid food (you should have seen the floor!). Let the messy eating begin..."

Crawling
For weeks, Hudson has been getting onto all fours and "humping the ground". Then he started to move and arm or leg or scoot a little, but I was hesitant to calling it "crawling". Well, it's official. As of Tuesday (6/17), he is getting his cute little butt from point A to point B. It's still somewhat slow and unsteady, but he's movin'! Once I can get it on video, I'll post it.

New food adventures

Last week, Hudson tried two new foods. Let's just say he's not a fan....

Here's his first sample of peas:

And here's his first taste of avocado:

An update on the peanut

Hudson has his 6 month checkup on May 23rd. He's doing great. He weighed in at 17 lbs, 15 ozs (50th percentile) and was 26.5" long (50th percentile). As for his huge head....it's not so huge anymore! His head circumference was also in the 50th percentile. Even though he's measuring as "average", he is far from it in our eyes!

The doctor was really impressed with his sitting ability (not sure why since I thought most babies were sitting by 6 months). Because of this, she gave us the okay to start him on baby food meats (EWWW!). So far, he has had rice cereal (which we started on Mother's Day), bananas (loves), butternut squash (REALLY loves), apples (loves), pears (loves), sweet potatoes (not a fan), oatmeal (loves), and prunes (loves - surprisingly, they are not as gross as I imagined). I guess you can see that he is Ryan's son - he loves to eat as much as Daddy does! I've been making all of his baby food and the thought of pureeing some chicken turns my stomach. It may be a little while before we turn that stone.

Another doctor's appointment also means another round of shots :( He did pretty well - let out a scream as they jabbed him (each of the 4 times), but then nursed with his Mommy and calmed down. He was a bit fussy for the rest of the day and the following day, but I guess that comes with the territory of vaccinating.

Outside of the doctor's appointment, Hudson is becoming quite the little boy, rambunctious as ever! He loves to play with his LeapFrog table and his LeapFrog drum. Lately, instead of sitting to play with his toys, he turns himself onto his hand and knees and starts to hump the floor in an attempt to crawl. He can move his legs and also his arms, but has yet to coordinate these moves. Instead, he has taken to pushing off of his hands and sliding backwards on his belly.

Speaking of his belly, he has also learned that he likes to sleep on it. Every morning we get a kick out of the new position or location in the crib where we find him. Unfortunately for us, he eventually gets frustrated on his belly and just "swims" until we come in and flip him. While we're on the subject of sleep, I should mention that Hudson is waking up about 2x/night. Some nights are better and some are worse. I've read that many breastfed babies don't sleep through the night until they are weaning from the breast. I've already come to terms with it. Thankfully, my wonderful husband gets Hudson in the morning and gives me 45-60 minutes of uninterrupted sleep. And let me tell you - that's some of the best sleep I get!