Isaac's Blog: April 2005

A wean-a-way, a wean-a-way

We are in week 3 of a little experiment I like to call Operation Pump No More. Two Sundays ago, the in-laws, the hubs, the bitty guy and myself were out whooping it up at the mall (see photo documentation below), and I forgot to give him his noon-ish boobie. He was a little fussy about it, but survived, which gave me the idea that maybe it's time to get on with this whole weaning hoo-hah. When he first went back to day care, his teachers said he was a little p.o.-ed about it all, and would glance longingly at all the super-little people happily slurping away on their bottles like life was so unfair to him. But he got over it, and I haven't had to pump at work since April 8. Score! Now Isaac gets two boobies daily, the "bedtime" boobie, which I try to get in before he gets his bath specifically for the purpose of NOT nursing him to sleep, and the "morning" boobie, which usually occurs at 4 am specifically for the purpose OF nursing him back to sleep. Because getting up at 4 is just wrong, and I refuse to be one of those ladies who is bossed around in insomnia-land by her baby ANYmore.

Speaking of, Tuesday night the little jerk kept me up for THREE HOURS in the middle of the night, from ~1:00 to ~4:00. That was the final straw for me, FOR REAL THIS TIME, and since then it has been cry, cry, cry to sleep each night. But the funny thing is if I let him cry himself to sleep at night, which, by the way, only entails 10 minutes of crying max, he now stays asleep the whole night. He's done this for 3 nights in a row -- slept from 8 or 8:30 straight through till 4. BRING IT!!!! If someone would have told me me it's okay to let him cry like this months ago...well, let's just say I weep now for the lost sleep, and I will be a wiser mommy for Isaac v. 2.0.

This blog is worth $4331.81

For kicks, I just happened to Google my blog (typing "isaaconeal"). I got two links back -- the blog of interest, AND this strange and completely fake internet trading game called Blogshares. Evidently this dude Ryan King was all over fake-buying and -selling my blog in December. Ryan King, we salute you!

Shopping with Grandma & Grandpa

Forgot to post some more cute pictures from Grandma & Grandpa O'Neal's last weekend here, when we went to the mall. First there was Big Boy, who insisted on walking around himself. No stroller for him, thankyouverymuch. If you wanted to hold his hand, he *might* let you.

Grandma and I also discovered that he likes shopping. There is so much for him to do -- he can pull these off of hangers, those off of shelves. So much work to be done here, folks:

Photographic evidence of Dad's defense

Here's a picture of Dada at his defense, chugging coffee and surrounded by a bunch of Geo-Smarties.

Here's what Dada did to prepare for his big talk the day before:

Evidently watching TV and munching with your son = recipe for success.

New kicks

In the past month, Isaac has gone from "walking" (read: taking a couple of tentative and unpredictable steps) to WALKING (read: perambulating on his own ev-er-y-where). He is also continuing in his fat-dom, so last Saturday we broke down and bought him a pair of K-Swiss sneaks, size 4:

He digs his new shoes quite hard, and is unstoppable in his desire to wander around aimlessly when he has them on. He scoffs at us, "Just try strapping me in my stroller now, punks! You'll be sorry you were born!"

More daycare pix

Isaac's teachers gave me some more Classic Isaac Moments At School on e-film:

From previous posts, you may recall The Table -- where all the cool kids are. Isaac started sitting at The Table quite early on, I think at 6 months, because he just had to be where the action was. Even today he gravitates towards the table. He'll probably drive himself to obesity being such a social eater. But here I present to you Isaac's first meal at the table, with his friend Jay who has since moved on to the Toddler room:

At school Isaac (and each kid) has a poster his teachers made that is a sort of collage of photos of his family. Isaac's poster has a picture of Dad and I, a picture of each of the grandmas and grandpas, and a picture of Uncle Chris and Aunt Robin. When he first discovered his famous word "Dada", evidently he became quite a show-off and would point out his Dada to innocent bystanders:

His favorite "work" for some time was playing the piano at school. We were inspired by this to get him his own piano/xylophone combo for home:

Dr. Dad

Yesterday Dada successfully defended his doctoral dissertation, making him officially Dr. Dad. Many gracious congrats came his way -- I think he especially enjoyed lingering around the department this morning to hear all the professors at his talk yesterday greeting him with a "Good morning, Dr. O'Neal". Three cheers for our resident smarty-pants on his fantastic acheivement!

Isaac's birthday party at school

Isaac's teachers documented his birthday party from school on e-film, and passed the fabulous results on to me. I really need to ask them what kind of camera they have...

Here Isaac's buddies and teachers gather around the table to sing him "Happy Birthday"

From the left: Iris (~18 mos old), teacher Agnes, Birthday Boy, and teacher Jill.

Isaac's beautiful, professionally decorated birthday cake that I got FOR FREE courtesy of an extremely rare coupon sent my way by the fabulous people at Safeway:

Here is Isaac's girlfriend Alicia (who babysat for us last month), helping him eat his delicious birthday cake):

A close-up of Iris shoveling Isaac's cake in her mouth; more Alicia and Isaac canoodling:

Here's a baby's eye view of the awesome kiddie table. The guy on the far right is Justin, who is 2 weeks older than Isaac.

Isaac's buddies were really into the cake. Cases in point:
Justin

Yazhu (is she 9 or 10 mos?)

Kaj, who is a day younger than Isaac

And, of course, our little star

Even the floor was enjoying the party grub:

But then again, Isaac likes sharing all of his food with the floor.

Assorted grandparent "extras"

I wanted to post some other cute grandparent-photo bric-a-brac I found laying around my hard-drive. Both grandmas have digital cameras now, which makes this extra easy.

Climbing in his toy box for Grandpa O'Neal -- he did this alllllll by himself:

Look what Grandpa Ross found (this hat seems to suddenly draw lots of attention):

Falling asleep on Grandpa Ross:

Thursday afternoon I came home from work griping about my lack of sleep, so the grandparents suggested I take a nap while the four of them + Isaac went downtown to explore Pike's Place Market. This sounded like a great idea until they left the house and I realized they probably didn't know where they were going. I didn't get any sleep, but they ended up having a fabulous time. Especially Isaac, who walked the grandpas up and down the main market stretch insisting on holding on to one grandpa plus his stroller (but not two grandpas) the whole time.

The grandmas also delighted in discovering Isaac's fruit addiction. Here he demonstrates for Grandma Ross how to apply a rejuvenating blueberry masque:

And then for Grandma O'Neal his love for sucking on lemons. Yes, lemons. He likes pickles, too.

Grandpa Ross also taught him to drink vanilla milkshake from the bottom of a strawa ala a baby bird:

Isaac birthday photo blog-nanza

Isaac's birthday was this past Wednesday, and we were fortunate enough to have all four grandparents in attendance. Over their loud protests, we sent Isaac to day care in the morning so he could party down with all his buddies for his birthday:

We procured a special cake proclaiming his impending birthday happiness for this event, but in my birthday swept-upedness I forgot to take a picture of it. Grandpa Ross went with me to drop Isaac off at school and Isaac's teachers were nice enough to let him peek in on the place and check it out for himself.

Grandma Ross and I picked Isaac up at one, and she was also permitted into the secret baby world for a closer look at what Isaac does for half the day on weekdays. Isaac's teachers said he had a lot of fun, and that they took a lot of pictures which I will be able to share with the blogcommunity when I get 'em. When we got back to our house, Grandma and Grandpa O'Neal were waiting for us, and we all went out for a classy birthday lunch at everybody's fave, the International House of Pancakes:

Isaac's baby-mullet was especially sporting that day, so Grandma Ross insisted I capture his mullet-tude on e-film:

Soon it was time to open presents:

First, Isaac got a bench with pegs to wail on with a hammer, one of Dad's favorite toys when he was a tyke (thanks, Grandma & Grandpa O'Neal):

Isaac showed us what a pro he was already at the construction biz, which elicited a big round of applause from the crowd:

The next present was an adorable Lamb-y Bank, which promptly became enormously heavy as the grandpas emptied their spare change into it (thanks Grandma & Grandpa Ross, and subsequently everyone for the change):

Then Isaac opened up a scrapbook which Grandma Ross had lovingly assembled with pictures to chronicle Isaac's first year. Isaac thought this was "eh", but I was completely overjoyed to see that my baby would not suffer from MY completely negligent scrapbooking. And Grandma's hard work and excellent picture choice made me completely lose it later when I had time to pore over the book (thanks, Grandma Ross):

The next present was Toby the Tot-Bot, a new buddy for Isaac who spells, counts, talks about shapes, sings, and even RAPS as he moves his head and arms around -- a big hit with little man (thanks, Grandma & Grandpa O'Neal):

Then Isaac discovered his manly big-boy dump truck and Legos for bitty guys, thinking that these are surely a match made in heaven (thanks, Grandma & Grandpa O'Neal):

The dump truck, evidently, is also another fascinating object for his weightlifting exploits:

Isaac was insanely fascinated by this blue and green furry bag with a monster face on it lurking in the corner. He pulled out of it a new T-shirt and jeans, as well as this stylin' Indiana basketball jersey that also came with matching shorts (thanks, Aunt Robin, Uncle Joe, and cousins Nate, Emily & Sarah):

Uncle Chris and soon-to-be Aunt Jean sent Isaac a Bambi DVD, for which we also give them a shout-out. Can you tell that I am so crassly using my blog in lieu of thank-you cards?

Isaac also got a rocking horse and a mulching mower from Grandma & Grandpa O'Neal, and a Radio Flyer walker wagon from Grandma & Grandpa Ross -- these will be featured a little later. All his presents opened, we moved on to the birthday cake, a double-layer carrot number with cream cheese frosting, because I know my boy and my boy loves him some carrots. I lovingly shredded three cups of carrots for this beast, meaning there was probably a reasonable quantity of Claire-blood mixed in the batter. Mmmmm. Grandma Ross made the frosting and helped decorate the cake. Awe at our three-year-old's scrawl:

We sang "Happy Birthday" and Isaac demonstrated his early fascination with fire:

Isaac didn't get to blow out his candle, though, because Dad SUCKS and blew it out first. Argh. But he did very much enjoy his cake, and shoved handfuls in his little pie-hole relentlessly:

Then we all went outside to play with his new toys. A big hit was our creation of the "Baby Luge," a seamless marriage of the new Radio Flyer wagon and the sloped sidewalk outside our apartment: