a reflection

2009 is about to come to a close and I am reminded of how much Eddie has grown and developed this year as I watch my nephew Noah today. Back in January Eddie was where Noah is at; playing on the floor, sometimes rolling over, grasping at small objects and gnawing on everything with that animalistic vengeance only a teething baby has. And now...well he is officially running around, climbing on everything in sight and trying his best at imitating whatever his Dad does. At 16 months he is now, well, a sort of menace at times. He unplugs the Christmas tree lights, grabs at the blind cords and pulls them hard, taunts Marty with his food and tries to steal her food, plays in the toilet, i.e. flushes it repeatedly, tears toilet paper into little pieces and then splashes in the water and is into biting us, amongst other pesky behavior. But, on the other hand, he has developed into this sweet little cuddling machine. He has these moments throughout the day where he will just come and climb into your arms or sit right next to you and nuzzle. His big thing now is that he can climb onto the sofa and chairs and he will do so and just chill for awhile, or grab the remote and try to turn on the tv or change channels. He will also nuzzle on our bed and in Marty's dog bed. His movements are more like a little boy and less like a baby. Lately he has become sort of clingy though, always wanting to be held. But it is mostly because he wants to be a part of our world, a world that exists at 5 feet high and above; he wants to grab at anything on the counter, such as pens and paper, San Pellegrino bottles or a cell phone or remote control. He wants to sit at the table and eat with a fork and knife; he has his own forks now and has mastered them pretty well. He wants to drink whatever we are drinking, and eat whatever we are eating. He is still a good eater, most of the time, but several times a day he seems to just give away half of his food to Marty. He is still not saying any recognizable words, although DOG seems to be close as he points to them in books and says "DAW" or repeats this when he hears a dog bark. But he understands so much. I can ask him to get his boots, and he will retrieve them. or you can say, "where is the ball?" and he will go find one. There are so many other examples of such that I cannot list them all, but it is a huge milestone when your child responds to your words, even if the response is an action and not in actual language yet.

In 2010 I look forward to our new music class which starts next week, learning to ride a tricycle (a gift from Grandma Bonnie that arrived today), planting our veggie garden in the spring and playing with worms, going to the zoo (we never made it in '09), swimming with cousin Noah, a trip to LA (for Uncle Charlie's wedding and to meet baby Alex), another summer in Maine and words, spoken words...this is what I am most excited for.

this christmas

Eddie's second Christmas was full of snow and presents. We went up to my parents' on the 23rd amidst a heavy snowfall. Christmas Eve highlights included Eddie building a snowman with his Dad and a dinner with traditional Maine lobster stew, which E3 and I prepared together, our first joint culinary effort. Christmas morning Santa came; E4 woke around 6:30 a.m. and we showed him his presents under the tree. He went for a big bouncy ball first and then slowly but surely discovered all his other gifts including Legos, a caterpillar pull toy, a glockenspeil/xylophone, a small Grover doll (because he loves the story "Monster at the End of This Book,") a Mr. Potato Head, a forklift truck and various books. Then my sister, Mike and Noah arrived and we went to the country club for an early dinner. Afterward we visited with family friends, the Duchelles. The 26th we celebrated our family Christmas with Noah and Eddie stealing the show for most gifts. Snow fell again and we all went sledding (or sliding as they call it in Maine). Eddie loved it. Laughed and smiled the whole time. Went sledding again on Sunday. And a magical end to an overall magical Christmas - after a busy morning of outdoor play, Eddie fell asleep on Gramps' lap...something he hasn't done since he was a newborn. He was watching the Packers play and just passed out in Gramps' arms...too cute.

one nap

I want to report that Eddie is now consistently only taking one nap. For the past month he was taking sometimes one nap, sometimes two, which made making plans with anyone very frustrating, so I am quite pleased that he is now on a one nap schedule. I thought I would miss his morning nap because it also gave me a chance to nap too, if needed, but I actually like knowing that we have at least four hours from the time to wakes up until he will need to nap, which means we can get a lot more done. His nap now lasts about two hours, which has been great this week as I am busy with holiday chores. Gotta go finish the cards...

dog dog

One could argue that Eddie's first word is "dog." For the past week or so anytime he sees Marty he utters something that sounds like "dog dog." The "g" is not as defined as the d, and at first I just thought he was saying "da da" because it is his syllabal of choice, but more and more it seems to sound like dog. Or he could be trying to say "good dog" since this is the title of one of his favorite books "Good Dog Carl." Whatever the case, dog and baby are the best of pals these days. Eddie loves to feed Marty by throwing food from his high chair, or if he has a snack while walking around he will taunt Marty by handing her some and then not letting go and laughing. Sometimes wherever Marty is laying, Eddie will go and try to lie down beside her. And today after running some Xmas shopping errands (which I must report he is a VERY good shopper), Eddie was estatic when we returned to the car and Marty was there waiting for us with her wagging tail and sloppy wet kisses.

festive weekend

Eddie had a festive weekend despite his continual runny nose - he was congested shortly after Thanksgiving and the nose started running last Wednesday and is still going. Snotty face and sticky hands; this was my other idea for a blog entry since it seems like every kid right now has a cold. We have taught Eddie how to blow his nose, which is good, but he often runs away from me when I pull the tissue out. I apologize for the lack of focus, the lack of blog entries lately. But Eddie is now primarily only taking one nap which means I have even less time to myself to attack the computer - we cannot use the computer, or our cell phones, in Eddie's presence otherwise he pounces on the technology and throws a fit if we take it away from him.

Anyway, back to our weekend. In my family we celebrated St. Nicholas' Day, which is December 6th. St. Nicholas was believed to be the original 'Santa Claus' in the sense that he was the first to drop gifts down a chimney. The legend goes that a poor man's daughters did not have money for a dowry and one night St. Nick came and dropped gold coins down their chimney and the money landed in stockings they had left hung by the fire to dry. So on St. Nick's Eve we put out stockings and they get filled with little goodies by the morning. Eddie didn't put out a stocking per se, but I did let him pick out a stocking from the several we had. And it was filled with some new tinker toys and books that seemed to excited and overwhelm him. He was taken by the first item, a book, and didn't even think that there may be more in the stocking. So precious. He also attended a very festive holiday party on Saturday hosted by my husband's boss. We walked to the party, as they live only a few blocks away, and they even had a stroller valet...that was just the beginning of the extreme organization, thoughtfulness and over-the-topness of this party. Needless to say Eddie was mesmerized by all the commotion and as we were leaving squirmed away and ran back into the party; he is quite the social butterfly. On Sunday we had our friends Bryce & Hilary over with their baby Mack who is 11 weeks. And we walked down the street to Roscoe where they were having various holiday events and promotions at the stores. One store hosted Santa and so we took Eddie and baby Mack. We knew that Eddie would do one of three things, either stare intensely at him, smile at him or cry. I don't want to give away his reaction entirely because it will be a component of our Christmas card this year, but let's just say I don't think we adequately prepared him for what we were doing.



On Monday it snowed! The first snow of the year always makes me happy because it feels more genuinely like the Christmas season. I put on Eddie's new boots and he ran around in the snow giggling. Today it snowed more and I showed him how to make a snowball. Wow. That was really cool to him and he tried to replicate it.

stairs

Eddie starting walking down the stairs today. All day long I was trying to get him to do it but he would just reach out for me to carry him down the steps like I always do. And then all of a sudden this evening he went down the bottom half of our staircase while holding onto the banister, all by himself. Crazy. Video footage will be forthcoming.