How Do You Clean a Toddler?

Talking

Nate is still a long way from actually talking, but for now he's a non-stop stream of gibberish.  Although most things are just sounds, he is beginning to assign "words" to people and things.  We've had MomMom and Dada for a while now.  But this weekend he started using his Aunt Dara's name.  He picked her out of a photo and even called her name in response to her voice when he couldn't actually see her.  It is so cool to watch his verbal skills develop.

The best is when I record him and then play it back.  He laughs and wants to watch it again.  I wonder if he knows what the baby on my screen is saying.

August Recess

There is a lot of excitement in our house when August rolls around and Congress is in recess. Typically this means Aaron's home in time to see Nate before bed. And this week we've been extra lucky to have some nice family evenings at the swim club.

But the most excitement is reserved for our annual trip to the Outer Banks. We spent last week in Duck, NC with my family and lucked out with fantastic weather.

A trip to Duck means many mornings of fresh Duck Donuts. Aaron and I were glad to share one of our favorite things with Nate.

Nate loved the sand, the water, the waves, everything. A wave would knock him down, give him a face full of sand and salt water, and he'd smile and run right back in.

As we walked away from our last evening on the beach, my Mom said, "He is his parents child, a beach lover."

PS - A recommendation since I know some of our friends vacation in the Outer Banks - Aaron and I had our date night dinner at the Blue Point Grill and it was great.  Try to get there early and have drinks in The Yard.  We relaxed with cocktails and a beautiful view of the sunset over the Sound.

First Haircut

A success!  No fussing, no crying, just smiles and finger sucking.  And he helped clean up afterward so all around it was a good day.

Before:


During:


After:


And the clean up:

happy birthday Nate!

If you follow our pics on flickr or google buzz, you might be wondering why we haven't posted recently (except for fuzzy cell phone shots).  Murphy's Law - the week before our baby turns one, our camera breaks.  Aaron sent it back to Nikon and they're repairing it.  But that means we were without our camera for Nate's birthday.  I have an old digital camera, back when 3 megapixels was cutting edge.  Thankfully my friend Lindsay is a professional photographer and kindly offered to shoot some pictures of the day. She put one up on my facebook wall and she's incorporating the rest with the digital images from our family session with her this weekend.

Nate's party was a success, camera or no camera.  We had about 30 adults and 13 kids.  I was praying for no rain because there was no room in our house for all those people.  Luckily the rain held off but it was quite warm.  This didn't bother the little ones though.  We set up two baby pools and a slide and the kids had a ball.

My Dad was able to get a couple of good pictures.

What the heck is this thing and why did you light it on fire?

And I like this shot of Nate and my Dad because you can kind of see the wonderful chaos that was our backyard on Sunday.

best dinner

The other night, Nate and I had one of the best meals I've had in a long time. We were a little late getting home from daycare pickup and Aaron had to work late so we were in charge of walking Guinness. I knew we didn't have a lot of time for dinner so I was looking around for something very fast. There was leftover pizza in the fridge, I grabbed a piece for myself while I looked for Nate's food. As I was making plans he leaned over and took a bite of my pizza. Then another, and another. Before I knew it, we were sitting on the kitchen floor, eating cold pizza straight out of the box. It struck me what a big boy he is and how wonderful it feels to share something you love with your child. Even if it's as silly as cold pizza.

Due Date

Yesterday was the anniversary of my due date with the little man and it's hard to believe an entire year has gone by since I wrote this blog post.  It's funny to read everyone referring to Nate as he/she or him/her, hard to beleive it was Nate in there.

We started what could have been his birthday with a gorgeous morning swim.  Nate's taking lessons at our swim club and even though he's the youngest in the class, he's the most fearless.  No tears for that guy.

After swimming and his nap, we celebrated baby Will's baptism with a trip to church and more swimming.  Sam and Will have a great baby pool/slide set-up in their backyard and it occupied Nate until he nearly fell asleep in the pool.

Another nap and then on to our evening celebration - a trip to Dairy Queen!  Nate got his first taste of ice cream by sharing my Oreo Blizzard.  That's motherly love, not only sharing my ice cream but ordering peanut-free Oreo instead my usual Reese's so that we could share.

This week we're getting ready for Nate's birthday party and looking forward to his Grandma and Grandpa's arrival on Thursday night.