More steps out of Kieran and Julian cracks us up

Kieran started taking several steps at a time this weekend, but he still cannot get himself to a standing position without pulling up on something. But he is so proud of himself when he walks. I can't wait to get some footage to post here.

Julian watched a lot of "The Wonderpets Save the Beetles" DVD today and by the end of the night he was full on singing every thought that came to mind to the tune of one of the songs on there! One of the things he was doing was hanging his toy Halloween skeleton on his big toe and waving it around singing to us about "look what's on my foot fumb (thumb)!" That cracked Mike and me both up partly because he was calling his big toe a foot thumb and also because of the pronunciation of thumb. He is a funny kid. He had a busy day today and he was completely beat by the time I got him home from kids' church tonight, but he was playful still. By the time I got him into bed he felt awfully warm to me so who knows how the start of this week will go. I hope he is well though and the warmth was just a fluke.

Funny little story

Jealousy starts so early and this was illustrated last Friday. I had our new neighbors Fabiola and her daughter Nicolette over for a portion of the day and I offered to show them the second story even though it was a disaster. When we got to Julian's room Nico was looking through Julian's bedside table drawer and playing with the little toys and tidbits in there. There was a small picture frame in the drawer containing a picture of Julian's friend Lena. Faby saw it and she picked it up and asked who she was. I said it was Julian's friend Lena; she said, "Oooh, is this Julian's girlfriend?" Nico said, "He's my boyfriend too!" So Faby held the picture in front of Nico and said several times as she moved the thing closer to Nico's face, "Do you think she's pretty, Nico? Huh, huh?" Nico took the picture and nicely put it back into the drawer, firmly closed the drawer, and said briskly, "Bye Friend!" We about died laughing! Too funny.

Check out the Gleason boys in the Tigger outfit then and now

Halloween 2005 - Julian wore the Tigger costume first.

Halloween 2009 - Kieran in the hand-me-down Tigger.

They look nothing alike, right???

Halloween 2009

Well, Halloween here in Georgia was cool and rainy which is not the best combination for small kids, but oh well. We went trick or treating with our new neighbors across the street and they ended up taking us around in their truck to help us stay dry. Unfortunately, it then took twice as long to cover the same area getting in and out of the tall diesel truck and walking up driveways and steps. In all, I think the kids had a good time though. I think if it rains on Halloween again while the kids are little we will reroute to the mall or something because it was kind of miserable and the whole time I was worrying that one or all of us was going to get sick. And now I have a cough...

Mike holding the Kieran Tigger.

Kieran Tigger wondering why he's got a hoodie on inside the house.

Julian dressed as Bumblebee Transformer. He was totally excited about it. Too bad he didn't have some dark shoes to wear with it, but I already spent nearly $30 on the costume, so...

The boys together wearing their glow sticks (thank you Aunt Amy and Uncle Michael!)

It's been awhile since I last posted. I haven't got any new pictures to post I don't think. Kieran is still not walking, but has recently started saying "uh-oh", buh (bye I think), and pointing at stuff. Over the past week his appetite really picked up. If he would have been eating like this in the first place I wouldn't have taken grief from the ped's about his growth chart. He is completely off bottles and completely weaned as well. He took to whole milk like a duck to water and seemed eager to use sippy cups! What a dream. So I gave his bottles away to friends and we do not look back. His 12 month well visit will be this Friday.

Julian is getting better about some of his letter and number writing, but he still gives me a ration of crap about doing homework every night. Plus, there are certain assignments he flat out refuses to do at school so they end up getting sent home and then he has homework he needs to get done on the weekend too. Lame. Tomorrow is picture retake day since he was a little bunghole and took off his polo shirt and had his picture taken in a graphic tee last month. More lame.

I am going to be hosting a Pampered Chef catalog/online sale during the month of November so let me know if you would like to shop and items ship right to your home for $4.95 shipping. I would love to hook you up with some great stuff and it makes great Christmas gifts as well.

Kieran has taken a few steps by himself over the past week or so, but I see he needs to be already standing in order to make it happen. So far he hasn't figured out how to stand himself up without some to pull up on so I predict a bit more crawling time before walking starts up.

He was cranky this evening, but I think he was just very tired and it seems he is working on sprouting several teeth so that'll do it too. He had a low fever about 100 degrees today so who knows what the hell he's got going on. Time will tell.

Kieran's first birthday party

The cake made for smashing.

Big cake

Before boy met cake.

That's mommy's boy loving the Publix cake!

Ok, now I'm done with this sticky mess! Help!

After the bath and feeling much better and ready for nappytime.

I'll post pictures of more presents when I get a chance.

Kieran's first birthday gifts

Gifts arrived for Kieran's birthday on Thursday. What an outpouring of love from friends and family. He has also received lots of great birthday cards as well. Thanks to Grandma Flo and Aunt Patty for the ten spots! Thank you to all for thinking of the little guy!

Cotton sleepers from one of my fellow October '08 mommy friends. These are the best!

Kieran playing with bristle blocks from Aunt Amy and Uncle Michael.

An outfit from Grandma Loy.

Blanket sleeper from Grandma Loy.

Bristle blocks!

5 outfits and socks from Aunt Amy and Uncle Michael. Cute!

What the heck?

First thing that has me shocked is that Kieran went to bed tonight around 7:30 without nursing at all. I attempted to nurse him, but he bit me so I brushed his teeth and put him in the bed and left. No crying, nothing. First time in his entire first year. He must have gotten the memo that he's almost a year old! Though I do wish he would stop biting me - this is a new thing he started today. Not cool.

Next, Julian was in bed by 7:45! That means both kids were in bed before 8 and all my chores were finished by 8:15! If this could happen every night I would love that, but oh well. I will take it while I can. I'm sure he was exhausted from his field trip to the Tellus Science Museum today.

Kieran is very near weaning which means I am very near the end of pumping during my work days and that is pretty wonderful. What the heck will I do with a full 8 hours to work? And when will I get my blogs, mommy boards, and Facebooking done???

First official haircut

I could no longer stand to look at Kieran's mullet, so we made a plan to get him to the salon for his first professional haircut. He was so good for it, at least for the first 10 minutes or so. :)

Here he is before. Like those feathery wings?

Woops, I guess I got them out of order here. This was before he got his cape on. It's too bad I didn't get a picture of the back wit hall the curls and stuff!

Doesn't he look so grown up now??? Now it's much easier to believe he will be one year old in a couple of weeks.

After the cut posing with Miss Ellen, my favorite hair artist.

Random cuteness

Little guy likes to crawl into the dog's crate!

Kieran started waving this week!

I need to not blog about sleep I think

I think it was the day after I blogged saying that Kieran was sleeping so well that he ceased sleeping so well. I had thought perhaps it was teething, but of late I'm more of a mind that he is working on the new skill of balancing to stand unsupported and that's what's disrupting his sleep. He got his second tooth over the last weekend and THEN started back to crap sleep. If it's not one thing it's another I suppose.

So anyway, I guess assume that he's sleeping like crap and I'm going to try not to write about it.

But I forgot to mention another good thing

I hesitate to write it down for fear that I will jinx it, but Kieran has been sleeping MUCH better this past week. For the past 4 days or so I think I've gotten 6-8 straight hours of sleep without baby wake-ups! Last night I got him in the bed around 8:15 and he didn't wake until 6:30! I think it helps that his appetite has improved and that I've turned the baby monitor WAAAAAAAAAY down so it takes a real prolonged wake-up to get me up. Gosh, I hope he can keep it up!

Summing up the last week

It SUCKED eggs.

Saturday 8-29 - Kieran had diarrhea all day and I changed no fewer than 8 leaky mess diapers and worried nonstop that he was going to get dehydrated.

Monday 8-31 - Julian threw up minutes before he was supposed to board the school bus, so I burned the only personal day I get until 1-1-10 so I could stay home with him. He didn't throw up for the next 8 hours so I assumed the bug was clear and he was on the mend so we went to the bread supply place to get more wheat and as soon as we walked in their front door he threw up all over their carpet in the entryway. Good times.

Tuesday 9-1 - Julian seemed ok when he got up and wanted to go to school so we sent him. During lunch I received a call from the nurse saying he was complaining of tummyache. Eventually he threw up in PE class and Mike had to go get him.

Wednesday 9-2 - Julian came home with yellow for the day after he had a screaming fit on his teacher and hit her. Crushing disappointment ensued for us all.

Friday 9-4 - Mike took today off and we were set to have a date day. We took our time in the morning and went to a cafe for breakfast/brunch after we dropped Kieran off. After breakfast we planned to go to Ikea shopping without kids at our own pace, but at the end of breakfast I saw I had missed a call from the school. The vice principal was calling to tell me that Julian had had (and was still having) a MAJOR outburst because they could't find his Friday Ice Cream Day money that Mike put into the envelope, into his folder, and into his backpack. He was apparently so upset that the screaming caused a huge disruption in the office and the front of the school. That was the first call, but by the time I got the whole story he was calmer and they decided to give him ice cream even though they couldn't find his money. So I figured all was ok and we headed to Ikea. We had barely started shopping when I got another call. This time it was to tell us that Julian had had a poop accident and refused to clean himself up and they cannot do it for him (inappropriate touching/lawsuit fodder/CYA) so we would need to come and clean him up. Well, this was not an emergency in our book so we didn't rush right out of there. We left the store within 15-20 minutes. We were 45 minutes or so from the school and when we were 5 minutes out I got another call asking were we on our way because Julian had just thrown up and had explosive diarrhea all over the clinic to the point where they had to shut the place down. What a seriously hot mess he was and I got to clean it all up while Mike was interrogated about why it took so long for us to get there. In all, the school acted like assholes about the whole situation almost as if they thought we knew he was sick and sent him in anyway. And then they were shitty because it took us so long to come get him, but they didn't realize that the first couple of times they called us there was nothing emergent about the situation so there was no reason to rush and get a speeding ticket. We only found out when we were 5 minutes away from the school that the situation had deteriorated.

Oh and Kieran's got another cold. Sweet. I really gotta get these kids their flu vaccines so they can hopefully avoid seasonal flu at least. The one bright spot in the week was that Mike got the offer from Ericsson to start working with them at the beginning of the year so he will be employed at least through 2010.