Dallas Aquarium

Emily rounded us up for a trip to the Dallas Aquarium Saturday morning in Fair Park. Fair Park is where the Texas state fair is held annualy. It has a number of buildings built in the 30's all done in art deco style. It's also site of the annual Cotton Bowl.

Everything worked out, i.e. Sam's mood, traffic, etc. and we got there about 10:30 AM. It was a popular destination for a lot of families as we saw a number of kids and parents with strollers.


Upon entering, we were greeted by this "smiling" fish in a large rain forest exhibit. I can't remember the details of these fish (above) , but I can tell you they were large -- about the size of Cleo.


We brought the camera and a backup lens that does well in low light. I was immediately glad that we did because I had to swap the lens out as soon as we got there. The scorpion fish above was quite happy to have his picture taken.


I can't remember the details on this one, but I assure you, that's not a rock. Look closely, it's a fish!


I got this nice shot of a sunning alligator. Hmm, he appears to be looking at Sam....


Why so nervous, Sam?


Sam was happy to hang out with Emily. He was mostly people watching. Also notice that Emily recently got a haircut.


Here's a trumpet fish. Emily and I saw quite a few of these on our dive trip to Hawaii. It was nice to see them again.


Nope, not a rock. It's an alligator snapping turtle. Judging by the vegetation growing on its back, I'd say it spends most of its day snoozing.



According to the sign on the display, this is a baby alligator snapping turtle. I'm not sure I believe that, but anything that can grow to 250 lb. makes a lot of changes growing up.


Nemo! It seems that no aquarium is complete these days without a clown fish display. Emily got a good shot of this one with the black back.



There was an octopus display near the entrance with two large rubber tentacles. All of the kids got a kick out of it. Sam was no exception. He especially likes suckers on the bottom of the tentacles.

We stopped off for lunch at Freebird's, a burrito place, on our way back home. Sam did really well eating his lunch with Emily while I waited in line to place our order. Once we got our food, Sam was happy to play with the straw in Emily's drink. He got a big kick out of it and had this goofy grin on his face the whole time he was playing with it. Sam even tried some of Emily's rice and beans while we were there. He was a good sport.


We were expecting a lot of wind Saturday, and boy did we get it. I stood in the street in front of the house and took this picture at 4:30 PM. Winds were gusting at 60+ MPH and kicked up a lot of dust. Some of my neighbors will be surprised tomorrow morning when they step outside to find shingles from their house on the lawn. DFW airport was shut down until 7 PM because of the high winds.


Here's a shot of the same house taken today.


Melanie was flying from Jackson to Vail with a layover in Dallas. Her plane got redirected to College Station, but she was able to make it back to Dallas to spend the night with us and rescheduled the flight to Vail today.


We all went to the neighborhood park today before we packed up and took Melanie to the airport. Sam, Emily, and Melanie played on the swings. I went with Cleo and let her explore parts of the park she doesn't usually see. Walking back, we noticed these birds in trees in front of our neighbor's house. They were all happy to sit in the tree and let me take their picture. After the winds and dust yesterday, I bet they're happy to get a break.

Sam continues to grow like a weed. He got a few weeks off of teething, but it appears that his molars are coming in now. He's drooling a lot more than he did for the other teeth. Emily got a call from the day care on Thursday telling us that he had pink eye, so she took him to the doctor and found out that in addition to the pink eye he's got a double ear infection! He's a good sport about everything, so that's why we weren't concerned when we saw a few sniffles earlier in the week. We thought it was your run of the mill cold coupled with teething.


Shot above is Sam playing peek-a-boo with Aunt Melly. You can see that he's got four bottom teeth, and his two front teeth are showing.

We also had the Katch-A-Kid pool safety net installed this week. Keyhole style anchors are fastened into the pool deck and then the net is set up with hook resembling an S-hook that slides into each anchor. Tension pulls the hook from the round part of the keyhole to the slotted part. One line is used to gather up the excess in the middle and it looks off into one of the keyholes, just like everything else. You use a hand winch, similar to a come–a-long, to tension the net and lock it off. The whole thing will probably take about 10 minutes to take off or put on.


Shot of the net in place.


Keyhole anchor.


Hand winch.


The excess is gathered in the middle of the net.

-- Chris

Future Heartbreaker

We had a nice Valentine's Day last week. Chris brought home a chocolate French silk pie which we had with coffee before dinner - yummy! Sam got to taste the chocolate and whipped cream, but he didn't think much of it. Sam and I went to a Valentine's party with the MCOP Mom's group. It didn't work out that great because Sam didn't want to take a nap before we left, so he fell asleep in the car. It was REALLY cold outside, so he wasn't happy to wake up and trek across the parking lot. He was ok once we got inside. We made Valentine's for Mommy and Daddy and played some games. Mostly Sam explored the room by crawling around and pulling up on things.




Sam turned 9 months old this weekend. He's started pushing his walker and his bike around the house. Of course I'm scared because we have wood floors. There isn't a lot of friction so he can get those things moving pretty fast. I tried to take him outside in the grass, but it wouldn't roll in the grass, so we ended up on the concrete sidewalk which isn't any better. His favorite indoor game is throwing something (like a block or a ball) and then chasing after it.



He can even stand up for a second or so on his own before he looses his balance. He thinks that is a lot of fun.



Lately we've been doing a sort of tag-team diaper change. Sam was throwing a fit every time we changed his diaper, so I started singing and clapping with Sam (mostly Pat-a-Cake, Acka Backa, or Itsy Bitsy Spider) while Daddy took care of the business end. This has had a humorous side effect though. Sam now starts crying and clapping when we put him on his changing table. He stops crying when I start singing (hard to believe, I know). He'll also clap when we aren't changing his diaper which is very cute and lots of fun.



Sam has moved up to the next class in day care. He was in "Beginners" and now he's in "Wobblers." It's good for him to move up to the next class because half the kids are walking there, so it's a stimulating environment. The room isn't full of swings and exersaucers, so he has lots of room to crawl around. He wasn't very happy when I dropped him off in the new room, but I know he'll be used to it in a few days. We threw out all of his pacifiers as part of his transition. He really hasn't been using them for the last month or so, and we didn't want him to form a dependence on them. His friend Jackson is in the new class now, but will probably be moving up soon. We met Jackson and Brad for dinner Friday night. It seems like Sam and Jackson are starting to recognize each other now.



Here is Daddy tickling Sam ...



Here is Sam reaching for the camera ...



Here are some videos of Sam "walking" ...

• walking
• walking
• and more walking
  

Changes

I know I just posted on Thursday, but Sam has changed so much this weekend! He seems to have gotten over his fear of falling. So much so, that he's now a little daredevil. He's pulling up on everything, and crawling to, over, on everything. (We took the picture above last weekend in our home office. Nanner got this cute outfit for Sam for Christmas. You can see all four bottom teeth in this shot.)



Here is Sam climbing on his VTech Smart Wheels. I started him out sitting on the rocker. Then, he climbed onto the seat. I had to hold him at the ankles to keep him from trying to climb up on the steering wheel. I can't believe that this is the same little boy that was fussing every time he stood up last week!

Now as much as he looks like this little daredevil, he's actually started to be scared of strangers. The ladies at day care told me about it on Friday morning, and I kinda shrugged it off. But, Sam had a meltdown at Pottbelly's when one of the ladies that worked there tried to talk to him. I hope that doesn't last long. He's always been so friendly, and everyone wants to come talk to him when we're out when they see his red hair.



We had a great relaxing weekend. Sam started it off by sleeping thirteen straight hours Friday night. I woke up in a panic at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday morning. You gotta understand, we haven't had to set an alarm clock for the last nine months (unless we were traveling) because Sam has always woken us up before 8:00 a.m. I almost ran into his room, but I calmed myself down and did my normal morning stuff before going in to check on him. When I went in, he was just sitting in his crib playing with a stuffed animal. He's been sleeping through the night for a while now, but he's always up before 8:00 a.m. Sometimes he'll wake up once, but that's usually before we go to bed, so it's not so bad.

Once we were all up, we cleared a space in the living room and put some of Sam's toys in there. He played by himself while we ate breakfast. Here he is watching Saturday morning cartoons.



Here is Daddy playing with Sam and his monster puppet. Sam loves it, but Cleo is not crazy about it. Look at all those monster teeth! Speaking of teeth ... guess what! ... Sam finally got one of his top front teeth!!! I swear the other one is going to break through any day, too.



Since Sam has gotten so mobile, he's been literally crawling his socks off. One of the other moms told me that shoes actually help keep the socks on. I've been resisting buying him shoes, but the other moms recommended Robeez which are these super cute leather shoes with a soft suede sole. They are really nice and easy to get on. They also don't slip on the wood floors. Here's Sam playing on the outside of his exersaucer with a pair of Robeez on.



Sam started cruising today. He was playing with his Leap Frog table and just started going in circles around it to play with the different toys. I'd put out my finger to him and he'd grab it and practically run over to me. We think he'll be walking in no time, but maybe he'll cruise for a while. It takes a lot of courage to let go, and he seems to be really happy holding on for now.



Sam is getting his baths in a real bathtub now. He loves it! Lots of water to splash around. He wants to crawl around in it, so we can't fill it up very much. He also likes to pull up on the side, so we put a non-slip mat in the bottom and a beach towel on the side.

I went through Sam's closet and drawers on Friday and pulled out all his clothes and other stuff that he'd outgrown and filled two HUGE plastic storage containers to go in the attic. I reminisced over all the little baby things that he'll never use again. I even went back and watched videos from his first week. Oh yeah, did I mention that he's about to outgrow his 9 month old clothes? He's out of about half of them, and most of the rest aren't far behind. I decided to skip the 12 month clothes and go straight for the 18 month old clothes, so they'll last a little longer (hopefully). They are a little baggy, but I'm sure that won't last long.

I also finally put all my maternity clothes up. Chris took the opportunity to clean the garage and attic and put the Christmas decoration boxes up. We also retired Sam's infant car seat and installed new convertible car seats, Britax Roundabouts, in both vehicles. With so many changes in one weekend, it feels like he's growing up way too fast.

We went by Paul and Patty's house to return some baby stuff (including the swing) that they'd let us borrow. Elizabeth is almost two now and is cute as ever. Paul and Patty are expecting a boy in May right around Sam's birthday. I'll be loaning them Sam's clothes which works out perfect since they'll be almost exactly a year apart. It was fun to see how Elizabeth was reacting to having a baby in the house playing with her toys. She didn't seem to mind sharing. Sam thought it was great fun and was following her around.

I thought you guys might enjoy taking a stroll down memory lane with me. Here are some videos from when Sam was just a few days old. It's hard to believe that that was just 9 months ago!

• 3 days old
• 4 days old

-- Emily

Falling Down

Sam has been busy learning how to fall down this week. Sounds easy enough, but he's been very frustrated. He's been scared to pull up because he couldn't really figure out how to get back down. Sometimes he'd start falling and he'd go board stiff, which, as you can guess, does not translate into a very successful transition. He spent a few days where he didn't even want to try to get down. He'd just start fussing. He's kinda got the hang of it now. He doesn't want to just plop down on his butt like most of the other babies. He hangs on with one hand and streeeeetches to reach the floor with the other hand. Then he'll let go and crawl away. We've been trying to walk a fine line between keeping him safe and letting him figure it out. It's really hard not to just rescue him every time.



We got Sam this Leap Frog Learn & Groove Musical Table so he could have something small to practice pulling up and sitting down. I got it half off at a consignment store, Kid-to-Kid. He kept opening and closing this little compartment looking to see if there was anything in there. So, I put some banana puffs in there. He got a big kick out of that and was actually getting them out one at a time, putting them in his mouth, "chewing" them, and swallowing them. Up til now he has been spitting them out after he sucked on them for a while. (Look at all that drool!)



Of course, Cleo smelled banana, so she was very interested in what was going on. Cleo LOVES bananas. She comes running when she hears us break one off the bunch. I think she's gotten a third of every banana eaten in this house since we got her. Sam shared a few and thought it was funny.

Here's the videos from last week:

• Sam and Daddy playing with a new toy
• Sam eating (3 videos, click Next to view all 3)
• Last bath in the sink (3 videos)

-- Emily

Pulling Up

Sam is starting to pull up on things. He can pull himself up to where he is standing on his knees, and he can pick one foot up, but he hasn't quite figured out how to shift his weight to that foot to stand up. He doesn't want to go in his exersaucer any more. He wants to stand up on the outside of it and play with the toys from there. He also figured out how to sit up on his own a few weeks ago. He's been sitting since he was 6 months old, but that was when we put him in the sitting position. He started going from tummy to sitting right at 8 months. If he doesn't want to take a nap, we'll find him sitting up or pulling up and fussing. I had to remove his mobile from his crib today because he was using it to stand up and he pulled it over on himself.

(I wrote this post on Thursday but just now got around to finishing it, so today=Thursday. I was waiting to publish some videos, but Chris has been trying to backup our Mac for a few days in preparation for our new Mac Pro. So, I'll just have to post those videos next time.)

So of course it's time to baby-proof the house now. We called Dr. Babyproofer that I met at the Mom's group through Medical Center of Plano (MCoP). He had a lot of good information. We have 22 cabinets, 29 drawers, 33 outlets, 18 doors, and 14 windows to secure along with other miscellaneous stuff. The single most expensive is the fireplace hearth gate, but it all adds up to around $1,000 uninstalled!!! I also met with Katch-a-Kid about installing a pool cover/net. It seems to be a better option than installing a fence. Both Dr. Babyproofer and our pool company Riverbend Sandler recommended them. That's going to be another $2,250. Here is a picture of Sam sitting on one of the leather cubes that we bought to replace the coffee table which was not child-friendly. Look at that red hair -- it's really coming in now!



We went out to eat to Joe's Crab Shack on Friday with Brad, Jennifer, and Jackson. We put Sam and Jackson next to each other in their high chairs. They wanted to take each others' food and toys and poke each other with messy, food-covered hands. They also just smiled and laughed at each other a lot. It was a fun restaurant to go to because they have lots of lights everywhere and the waiters dance to the music.

We went to a birthday party for four of the kids from our MCoP Mom's group on Sunday. It was a circus theme. There were a lot of people there and the room was pretty crowded, so Sam didn't get to crawl around and play very much. We took pictures with a clown doll which Sam liked very much. They had a bunch of stationary toys which he liked too, like a Leap Frog table, a Leggo type table, and a lady-bug rocker. It seems like when you get babies that are this age together, they mostly want to poke each others' eyes or bite each other. We got a big laugh out of the number of cameras in the room, so we took a picture of everybody else taking a picture.




I took the day off from work today, and Sam and I went to the Plano Library Rhyme Time. It's a storytime for children birth to 23 months. They had books, songs, rhymes, peek-a-boo, bubbles, and other stuff like that. We met a few of the moms and babies from the MCoP Mom's group there. Sam loved to watch the other babies and especially liked the bubbles. After most people left Sam was crawling around the wide open room like crazy. Then we left and met Daddy for lunch.



I bought some fruit and veggie puffs and wagon wheels for Sam to practice his pincher grasp and eating finger foods. He can pick them up and put them in his mouth, but then he makes a face and spits them out. Eating has been hit or miss lately. Some days he'll take 35 oz or more of formula then the next he'll only take 22 oz. Some days he'll eat three jars of baby food and others he doesn't want any. It still seems like not eating coincides with teething, but I can't be sure. I check every morning and evening to see if those top teeth have come in yet, but still nothing. Sam is also learning how to drink his bottle by himself. It's a skill that he needs to learn to move up to the next class in day care. It's also a stepping stone to learning how to use a sippy cup.



Bathtime has been funny lately. Sam has started doing this thing where he puts his face in the water and tries to swallow it. He ends up breathing it and choking on it sometimes. We try to stop him, but that doesn't work. Somehow I don't think he's going to be scared of the water in the pool this summer. I can't wait! I already bought him some swim trunks and rashguards (swim tops) from Old Navy.



We are also going to have to move him to the bathtub for baths this weekend because he is starting to make a huge mess with all of the splashing!



-- Emily