I need to update more often

and I imagine I'll need to change the name of the URL now that Riley will be a big brother. Right now he's like a little businessman in his footie flannel pajamas, he's got his hair combed with a nice side part.

Working Mom's Baby Book Post

Officially walking ... started this weekend so maybe Riley just needed some time away from Mom and Dad to flip the switch. No doubt about it, our 16-month-old is on the move! It's a bit Frankenstein-like, he holds out his right arm to balance himself and it just might be the cutest thing ever. He's figured out how to stand up by all on his own and he is good to go. Tonight at bedtime I sang him some songs ... need to expand my repertoire as I stuck with Indigo Girls. He loves it, we rocked in the dark and I sang out of tune while he kept doing 'more more.' Pretty special.

Riley's new favorite toy is his wagon. He loves to ride in it as well as push it. Tonight, per Daga, he pushed his wagon all the way from our driveway to the end of our street (with a few stops for a sippy cup break).

Seems like walking is around the corner - although we've been saying that for a few weeks now.

Climbing the stairs

Somebody is very accomplished at climbing the stairs now. The only issue is when this certain someone wants to go down the stairs headfirst.

Also, I'm not naming names, but somebody throws himself--specifically his head--down on the floor when he is told "no." It's not Andy or Kingsley.

Things to Remember

When we ask Riley to clap he cycles through all of his tricks. He starts to wave and he also shakes his head "no no no no no." He throws his hands up in the air to demonstrate he's "so big."

He loves to explore our faces at bedtime. We're like Mr. PotatoHead for him.

bedtime

riley has always been the easiest kid to put down. he has his bottle and he is DONE, whether it's his nap or bedtime. every now and then he's more interested in telling us his deepest thoughts instead of napping, but for the most part it's smooth sailing. we're so lucky.

i love putting him to bed. he's so exhausted at 7 p.m.! i give him his bottle and sometime he can't even finish it, he's so tired. that probably means we should put him down earlier, but he doesn't cry and it's more time with us so oh well. but he just stops drinking and puts his head down on my chest and he's out. i usually hold him for a bit to "burp him" but it's mostly just to get that last snuggle in and hear him breathe and kiss his downy cheeks. he's such an angel.

waving

tonight riley spent a lot of time waving at the light fixtures. not sure what's up with that.

alfafa

Milestones

Riley can now clap. Andy asked him to do it this weekend when we were celebrating Passover in Silver Spring and now we have a master clapper on our hands.

Periodically he'll cycle through all his tricks ... he'll clap, fake cough, wave bye bye and smile. We always appreciate the performance.

He loves it when we run quickly up to him, or hold him and run around the house. It's a good workout for us and he just thinks it's hilarious.

Video from 3.21.10.

Baby Fat

Riley has become more pudgy ... it's so cute. He was always so lean and now he has fat wrists and a little beer belly. He's edible.

Videos taken 3.21.10.

park

I'm not sure Riley likes the park. Maybe today was an off day but he was not into the swing. He was very serious.

I'm also including a picture where you can see my fat rolls but his blue eyes look beautiful so I'm taking one for the team. Every time we are out in public someone comments on his big blue ones.

teething

two-tooth johnson seems to be getting more teeth ... at least i hope so. that can be the only reason for the Jekyll-and-Hyde routine and the crying every five minutes.

could it explain the throwing off all items off the high chair? or is that just being almost 11 months old?

just 2 teeth in this pic. hopefully more to come ..

Mornings

I try and get to Riley at 7 a.m. every morning - sometimes I am delayed because of my shower/lack of an ability to get out of bed on time. He is usually talking before then, but we've found that if we get him earlier he tends to be a bit more tired. I think he needs time in his crib to talk and gradually wake up.

Every morning I take him out from his crib and he immediately swivels, and turns his entire body to look at his bookcase. He points or "eh's" to the book he wants (thank god he seems to not be as enamored of those damn cat and dog books) and we sit down in the chair to read.

I love this little routine. It reminds it of me a bit - Riley seems to get a lot of pleasure just looking at his little book collection. He's a lot like his mama that way; I love just gazing at the books in our bookcases, either picking out something to read or remembering which books I enjoyed.

Two-Way Communication ... and the Dangers of Standing Up

Riley is really good at telling us what he wants. He either points, does this cute little "eh" squeak, or just complains. It's nice that he's able to do this now, but it also means we are wrapped around his little (pointing) finger and will do whatever he says. Look at his favorite cat book the billionth time? Sure. It's only going to get worse.

Today we took him to the park to enjoy some of the sunshine. He loved swinging - I would run back and forth to play peek a-boo - and he liked the slide. So much so that when we went to leave, he *communicated* with us and we had to take him back to the slide so he could finish up.

* * *

We had been saying we needed to lower the mattress in the crib and tonight we did. We put him to bed and about 5 minutes later he started crying ... I thought it was because he was the dreaded overtired, and was prepared to let him cry it out. Andy was concerned he could have fallen out, so thank goodness we checked on him ... he was standing up in the crib crying his little eyes out because he couldn't get back down. This was a far cry from when he triumphantly greeted Andy with a huge smile after his (non) nap this afternoon, very proud of himself for standing up. So we lowered the crib (Riley helped by holding onto the bars and squawking), and now we have to stand on a stepstool to put Riley down -- both Andy and I have such short stubby arms it would mean either dropping Riley in, or using a crane. The stepstool should work.

* * *

Two other updates: bathtime has become difficult because he wants to stand up and grab onto the faucet. Dangerous.

He's started to wrinkle his nose - especially when his picture is being taken and there's a red light blinking in his eyes. Photo proof below.

Sleepy time

There is nothing cuter than when Riley is going to bed. He rolls over on his side and cuddles his little lovey. He's all snuggly in his sleep sack. Tonight I checked on him and he was sleeping on his tummy, breathing deeply. I hope he was dreaming sweet dreams.

He cried out as he was going to sleep -- I ran upstairs from the basement. I think I was hyper-sensitive given the time he got the blanket over his head. In retrospect, I didn't need to check on him, he would have quickly calmed down and gone to sleep. But it was so nice being able to calm him down and snuggle him as I rocked him back to sleep. I told myself as long as it didn't become a pattern it was okay.

Some more milestones

Because this is my defacto baby book and I want to remember these things. I need to get some more pix up here, stat.

Yesterday Daga went to get Rileypants after his nap and she found him standing up in his crib with a big smile! Guess it's not that surprising given how hard he's been working to pull himself up. (It's so cute to watch him ... he cries in frustration and wobbles as he strains to get traction. But he always gets there.)

And today Riley came into the office! I had a ball showing him off and Riley loved playing with a box filled with soccer cleats. Daga and I took him to a lunch and he dropped bananas all over the floor. He also was obsessed with the numbers Cosi gives to diners waiting for their food ... he stared at ours--119--for a long time.

Milestones March 2, 2010

Today Riley said his first word!!! I am pretty sure it counts - it was one word, and it wasn't surrounded by babbling.

He said "Mama."

I am so lucky to have caught it. I was working from home today. He crawled into the office from the nursery and said, very clearly, "Mama." I was thrilled and my heart was racing!! Boy, this erases any mommy guilt I have for the day!

He hasn't said it again, and I'll anxiously await hearing his sweet voice again utter my name.

Other milestones for today: Daga and Riley visited the library for the first time.

Riley climbed up two stairs with the assistance of Andy and I. He wasn't too thrilled with the idea, especially when his goal (Kingsley) ran off, but he worked really hard at it and got up two steps!

He also pulled himself up on his red push toy and took a few steps as Andy pulled the toy away from him and he held on. I was there to steady him and make sure he didn't topple backwards.

Next up: getting his drivers license and his first date!

Riley gets more exercise than we do.

First Haircut

Today, on Riley's 9-month birthday, Riley's hair was cut. It was pretty serious business, despite the salon's cheer, toys and bubbles. He didn't crack a smile once.

When he was done, he looked even more like his Grandpa Stuart.

He received a balloon, certificate and a lock of his hair (that's for us, really) immediately following the cut in a car. He didn't really get into the balloon until we got home.

my new favorite photo

Getting the daily text images from Daga has been a lifesaver this week as I am away from my little man on a business trip. When this one came through, I wanted to jump through the screen of my blackberry and gather him and his chubby perfect body up in my arms.

More After-Nap Photography

We seem to be getting back into the swing of nap-things now that Riley is (fingers crossed) on the tail end of his bad cold, although I think we're still teething. This photo was taken yesterday, pre-nap-swing-of-things, after about a 45-minute nap. This resulted in quite an impressive melt-down later in the day -- maybe one of the worst we've seen in a while. But at that moment, he was happy so it was of course relished.

Check out the two teeth!

Memories

A few months ago, Andy was trying to back up our hard drive and something happened and the hard drive imploded. We lost all our data - our photos, our videos and our music.

We've been working with various types of IT geeks/professionals to try and get it fixed, but it doesn't look good.

When Andy called me today to give me an update--the latest guys couldn't get it fixed--I was really upset. It sucks. It's photos from our honeymoon, it's photos from family gatherings in like, 2002, but most importantly, it's photos from Riley's early days. He was so impossibly small then. His skin was all flaky. He never had that mushed up newborn look: right away his eyes were huge and aware. He was a schmoop, that's what his Aunt Michelle called him. He fit in his swaddles, and I couldn't imagine the 3-6 month old pajamas ever fitting him. He lived in button one-piece outfits from the Gap. He wore his blue bathing suit while he were in vacation in Michigan and kicked away at his toys on his activity mat. The bottle seemed to eclipse his face, and his pacifier was ginormous.

One of the reasons why I love posting photos and videos to the blog is so I can try and capture how wonderful this is and how Riley has become the center of our universe and how he is our joy. It all goes so damn fast so catalouging it to me feels like I'm slowing it down a bit.

We'll be able to get photos from Snapfish, Facebook, friends, digital frames, etc. but I think I'm so upset because I so desperately want to hold on to everything and slow it down. I know it's only going to get better but it's pretty darn good now and I want to remember it.

Add to that the fact that he's growing out of all his clothes (and I don't even know what fits because Daga dresses him every day because I leave for work so damn early) and has a second tooth and is eating cheese like it's going out of style, and I hardly saw him this week because I live in Wisconsin and work in Chicago, and it's easy to get a bit panicked.

sitting up in the bath

it's much easier to get riley's tummy clean now that he's willing to sit up. it was very difficult when all he wanted to do was lounge in the warm water on his stomach on his comfy green frog (which he enjoyed chewing) and he refused to roll over.

Milestones

Riley has his first tooth. It made his appearance just before he turned 8 months old. And today, Jan. 10, 2010, he had his first bath with Daddy.

Post-Nap

When Riley wakes up from his nap (exactly 1.5 hours), he's in a great mood. His cheeks are ruddy from sleeping on his, well, cheeks, and he's always smiling and laughing. Andy and I race to his room in order to have the privilege of receiving that first post-nap smile. He loves to check out his mobile, his favorite thing is to be able to grab the stars and funny faces while we prop him up in his sleep sack. And of course if there's a cat in the room, then it's a giggle-fest.