Be Thankful for the Little Things

Today's lesson: be thankful for the little things.

Like, when your child refuses to eat anything all day long, be thankful for it. Because then, when he later throws up absolutely everything in his stomach, you know it could have been a lot worse. Instead of two fruit snacks and a bottle of milk, you could be cleaning up an entire day's worth of food.

Be thankful, as you are cleaning up said puke, that at least most of it got on the top sheet of the bed, which is way easier to throw into the wash than a lot of other things. And at least your child doesn't need an emergency bath session, since he more or less avoided throwing up on himself. That's something to be thankful for.

End of lesson. Hope you learned it well, so you don't have to experience it yourself.

Tooth number seven emerged yesterday. It's so easy to blame everything on teething. So when Caleb woke up a million times during the night two nights straight, then was beyond tired all day long both yesterday and today, resulting in him wanting to be held constantly, and then added to his other symptoms a utter refusal to eat, followed by a fever so hot that even his hands and feet were burning, I blamed it all on teething.

After cleaning up much puke, I'm starting to have second thoughts on the origin of his symptoms.

Sacramento

My friend Jocelyn is in town visiting, so we headed down to Sacrament for the day with our boys. Our first stop was the Railroad Museum. Caleb wasn't really that into it. He was feeling shy and overly clingy. He'd sit in his stroller fine, but if ever I took him out to try and get a photo of him, he wanted to be held the whole time and would cry till I picked him up (or put him back in his stroller, which still required picking him up first).

We did see lots of cool trains, as well as really old toy trains. There was even a section of toys that the kids could play with. Since that was our last stop at the museum, Caleb did a little better, but still didn't like being near any of the other kids. Mostly, he just kept bringing me all the toy trains from off the table.

After that, we walked around old town Sacramento for a while. Caleb was still in a funky mood. (It might be due to the fact that he woke up at 5:30 this morning, instead of his normal 8:30 or 9, and didn't want to go back to sleep.) I couldn't get a single good picture out of him. He wouldn't hold still anywhere and just wanted me to pick him up again. Which means that all I ended up with are pictures that Jocelyn took of Caleb and me together. But at least he'll know we went.

By the time we got to the capitol building, he was starting to relax a little around our friends. Finally, a few shots of him by himself!



Then, as I was about to take a picture of Jocelyn with her boys, Caleb completely surprised me. He started walking away from me. I was shocked. He'd been so needy all day long, I just couldn't believe it. He even climbed up the stairs on his own.



After that, he did a lot better and wanted to walk on his own. I was finally able to get some cute pictures of him. Here he is (above) in front of the entry doors and (below) sitting in front of a Redwood tree.



The one disadvantage, however to walking on your own, is that you are than available for tackling! Really, Teak was just trying to show Caleb love, but Caleb's not used to such body slamming love (except from his daddy who remembers to still be gentle or else Mommy will likely get mad).


Well, after a long day of fun, we headed into the Sees candy shop. The sales lady there hooked Caleb up good! So much for not eating sweets till he turned two!


(Sadly, he only got a tiny bit of it, just long enough for Mommy to take a picture, before I ate it out of his hands. Rules are rules after all.)

Cuteness

A few more cute pictures from last week's photo shoot at our apartment complex.




Caleb's excited face. It's especially fun when Daddy comes home for a minute and Caleb gets so excited to see him.

Getting Faster

While not running yet, Caleb's starting to be a quick little walker. Especially in the house. He's such a good little boy and will come wherever I want him to come. That is, until we go outside.

Outside, he's the slowest little turtle. He loves to look around at all the things, pointing at them, sometimes picking them up. Often, he'll take a wrong turn, though for the most part, he'll walk straight to the car (which is down a little ways from our apartment door). Coming home though, he never wants to go back in and will wander off wherever he can until Mommy comes to fetch him.

(At the store, he's not allowed to roam much, since he always runs away from me and thinks it's so super funny to have me chase after him.)

Quirks

Besides the below mentioned hatred of grass walking, Caleb's only real quirk is that he HATES when Mommy's hair is in her face.

It's rather cute actually. He always wants to move the hair out of my face. I've had to teach him how to be soft about it, because otherwise he just keeps hitting me in the face until the hair is gone.

Soccer baby

After hanging out with the Fox family one day, I decided it was time for Caleb to learn how to kick a soccer ball.

He's getting pretty good at it. Well, he walks with the ball in front of him, kind of kicking it as he goes, but I figure that's a start. He loves it when I have him sit in my lap, then I kick the ball (with his foot) really hard and the ball goes sailing. He also loves to just pick the ball up and carry it to me.

So far, most of our soccer skills take place indoors, as Caleb is still unsure about walking in grass. Even with his shoes on, he sometimes won't move at all once I set him down in the grass. He's doing better about it, and will eventually warm up to the idea. It just takes a little while.

Golden Hour

Last Thursday, as we were waiting for dinner to finish cooking, Caleb and I went outside and had a little photo shoot. Towards the end of it, we found this patch of grass that the last bit of sunlight was shining directly on. Since people often call that last hour of sunlight the golden hour, I thought we should go take advantage of this rare find.

Sadly, the golden hour translated into a really orange Caleb. But after playing around in photoshop a little bit, I really like the images. It's also a lot of fun to see how many cute different expressions I can get out of my kid.


Smiling at a stranger that was walking past us. Caleb can say hi, but sometimes gets too shy and will just smile instead.


Caleb's angry face. He also makes this face a lot when he says the word "no."