Troy's First Haircut

Shugar and I took Troy to get his first haircut today. It's just beyond unruly and I figured if he got a hairdo it would grow into something less wild. We'll see!

We took him to Cool Cuts 4 Kids that's right near our house. I called Dan before I scheduled the appointment and he told us to go on. He decided to unwind and get cleaned up instead. Granddaddy wanted to go, but he had to meet the Christmas light guys for an estimate. So, it was just Mommy, Shugar, and T on the big trip.

He got to sit in the taxi cab and played with the steering wheel. He tried to brush the lady off when she used the clippers with the big guard and when she used the scissors. But, as soon as she whipped out the clippers without the guard he was not so happy. He was pretty good, thought, considering. He looks like a big boy now! My baby is growing up waaaay too fast!! He's looks pretty precious, though! The lady was really great. She was gentle and very quick! We got him into that chair and out in just a few minutes. Very few. I'll continue to take him there.

Thank goodness I got these pictures BEFORE he decided to roll himself right off the bed just out of my reach and land himself on his face. He's got a pretty big bruise square in the middle of his forehead and nearly made me cry.

His hair looks far more tame now and less like a wild man, but I will probably be giving in and growing it a little longer. I want to see his curls before he can start voicing his opinion about his own hairdo.

Here are the pics! Enjoy!

Troy's Bachelor Pad

So, I had been surfing around on Craigslist to see if I could find some cheap things for Troy to play with. Some bigger stuff, like a little playhouse, kitchen, or something. So, something lit a fire up under Mom's butt and she went buckwild at Wal-Mart this morning without us knowing. She came in with a kitchen, couch, basketball goal, and shopping cart. He loves everything. We set it all up in his little pen and it now looks like he's got his very own bachelor pad. All he needs is a toilet and he's all set.

Here are some pics of him hanging out in his new crib. He refused to nap the whole day, because he was having so much fun. He knows how to hold the glass to the icebox door and press it against the ice maker and then he'll sip from it.

I'm totally jealous. I would have killed for a kitchen like this when I was a kid.

Mommy's Little Helper

Troy has taken a liking to floor cleaning. He loves to play with the Swiffer, broom, and tile vacuum. I hope that's a sign of things to come! A momma can only hope, right?

He's a silly little man. He runs around the house giggling for hours on end. He loves to play chase and peek-a-boo (usually while we're going to the bathroom...). He's been saying "ho ho hooo" in a deep voice, like he's Santa or something. I can't imagine why he would even do that, since he hasn't heard that since Christmas last year when he was 7 months old. Who knows? It's cute, nonetheless. In addition to "mama", "dada", and "weeee!" he know says "mommy" and "daddy". Yesterday when I was trying desperately to get him to follow me out of the studio and I was saying "let's go bye-bye" he walked away waving and saying "hi!". It's the first time he's ever done that. Leave it to MY son to talk only when being a smartass. :o)

We have a well-baby checkup scheduled for the end of the month at the Garland City Health Department. I can take him there and get exactly what I get at the regular pediatrician, only I pay 10% of it. I normally can't walk in the door without being charged at least $300 out-of-pocket (usually winds up around $500) while Garland charges $50 at the most! Yay! I'm going to get him his regular flu shots, too.

The three of us are booked to fly up to PA in November. Dan will be taking his CA exam on Nov 11 or 12th and then we'll leave the 13th for Baltimore. My best friend Melissa will pick us up and take us up to Harrisburg. I can't wait to see her. Her birthday is the 14th, so she's just beside herself to see me for a birthday present. Not to mention the fact that we'll be meeting each other's son. I bit the bullet and bought some Baltimore Ravens fabric to make her son some housepants and a pillow as a gift. Meanwhile, I'm also doing my best to make Troy a Steelers fleece hoodie jacket. We'll see how this turns out... Well, I hope. That NFL licensed fleece isn't cheap. We'll be returning home on the evening of the 15th. We'll have to DVR the game that night. My parents will leave the next morning to go to Cozumel (possibly) for their 40th wedding anniversary. A few days later, Julie is leaving to go to Miami. We're just jet-setting kind of people. hahaha

I'll try to update this again soon. I'll definitely have it updated when we get back from PA. I'm so excited for my first trip to the North. I've never been further North than Oklahoma City, not counting the 1 hour layover I had in St. Louis 8 years ago.

Love to all and enjoy the pictures!!

We're All Back to Normal!!

Well, as most of you know, we've been living in a sick house for the last couple of weeks. Troy came down with a cold and ear infection on a Thursday. He was put on antibiotics and cough syrup and was feeling a bit better by Sunday. We packed up and went down to visit Grammy and Pap. We were having a blast... until Troy woke up at 4am and started throwing up. He did it consistently for the next near 2 hours. So, by 6, we were ready to head back home and get him taken care of.

We got into town and took him back over to Primacare. They weren't able to deduce right there whether it was a result of the cold, the ear infection, or a virus. Well, Dan suddenly got very sick on Tuesday afternoon, so it was clear it was a virus. Dan got back to normal within 24 hours, but since Troy is so little he didn't get to heal up so quickly. By Thursday, I was able to get Troy feeling a little better. He hadn't had any "incidents from the top or the bottom".

Then, the doc said I could start reintroducing milk within 48 hours. Well, he was wrong. We were fine until Saturday night when we started having diarrhea again. We threw up the next morning, but after all that milk was out he was fine. He's been OK ever since. He's still a bit clingy and has a few tantrums, but he's slowly coming back to his old self. We've had him on lactose-free milk for the last week. Once we run out of the supply we have now, I'll reintroduce him to regular milk. I read online from a pediatrician that when a baby has diarrhea and vomiting, their milk enzymes that digest the lactose go out with everything else and take a week or so to regenerate. Seems that makes perfect sense. He's still not back to eating very well, but we're getting better and better. He ate more yesterday than he's eaten any other day in the last three weeks. But, he hasn't lost any weight.

He's really getting into reading and vocalizing, now. He reads everything aloud and LOVES books. He was running around with my hand mirror this morning. It has a barcode and "made in" sticker on the back. So, he turned it around, put his finger to it, and read it aloud. It's too cute! Every night when we get into bed, he "calls" for his books. I read "All By Myself" by Mercer Mayer (a Little Critter book, which were my FAVORITES when I was a kid), "Mister Dog" (a Golden Book), and "Good Luck, Bad Luck". Usually by the time we get to "Good Luck, Bad Luck" he's ready to lay down. But, sometimes, I wind up having to read everything a couple of times or just read several more from our collection.

Whenever I'm on the phone, he has to start talking. So, if it's Mom or Dan I'm talking to I'll put the phone on speaker so we can both talk. Mom and Julie swear he said "bye-bye" the other day when he was running around the studio and trying to sneak out the locked front door. I didn't hear it, but Dan doesn't believe them at all. I dunno - he knows what "bye-bye" is and he's starting to wave "bye-bye" when we're at Mom's and we start to give each other sugars and hugs. He's really getting great dexterity, too. He takes straws out of your drink and will put it back into the hole in the lid and he's taught himself how to screw a big washer-type thing on the back of his old crib mobile. On and off, on and off it goes. It keeps him entertained for up to an hour.

The pick below was taken the other day. I was working at my desk in the den and Dan was in the kitchen on a snack search. I looked over to see where T was and saw him... lying underneath a chair I use as a barricade - totally sacked out. It was too sweet.

Dan and I are doing very well. Dan's still going to the gym on a regular basis and is noticeably getting more and more fit. I've lost nearly 10 lbs and am down a size on my jeans and almost into another size down. I didn't do it consciously - I just haven't snacked and I stop eating before I start to feel full. Now, if only I had a moment to do some yoga I might actually firm up a bit... Dan would watch T if I wanted to get it done, but Troy really isn't a fan of me doing it. He prefers to latch onto my leg. Now that Troy is feeling better, I've been able to get mostly caught up on my work. I missed an assignment in my Quickbooks class, but my prof. was really cool about it - I think she may be a mommy herself. I've got another article to write for the Club Industry's Fitness Pro magazine, a newsletter, and some training to do this weekend, but I'm glad to have the work. Now, if Troy will let me work that hard I'll be forever grateful. Well, see!

Ah, the obstacles of motherhood. I couldn't live without them!

Y'all take care and we'll post another update soon!

We Podluckys are Busy Bees

Man, we are on a roll! Busy, busy bees are we. I've got more and more work coming in - yay! We got our study material for Dan's CA test, so I've been busy making study guides and quizzes for him. I'm getting all the finishing "touches" taken care of for the upcoming exhibit that Tesserae is doing. Our good friends Tim and Carlos invited me to go see Cure and Bowie cover bands play at the House of Blues last night. I went and Dan stayed at home with T. I had a great time and saw a guy I used to talk about music with in high school - he actually remembers me and we're now friends and writing on Facebook. Cool, cool. Dan and T watched some football, napped, played, and then went to sleep. Dan was up all night. He said he must have caught the insomnia from me. I'm sure he'll be fine tonight.

I've got an old friend/acquaintance from HS on Facebook who has a little baby that's about 1 month or so old. She's getting all this advice from her friends that her crying baby (sounds colicky) needs to be left alone and she shouldn't be holding him all the time. I gave my 2 cents. As you all know, I never put Troy down for the first 6 months of his life. He was colicky from 3-6 months, but he didn't cry too much since I was always holding and bouncing him. He's not needy, whiny, ill-behaved or anything - perfectly happy, smiley, laughing little man. All that "leave him alone & let him cry" business just frustrates me...oh well. I can't tell you how grateful I am for the time I got to hold onto my little guy while he was so tiny - I'll never get that time back.

T-Bone is just a crazy little dude. Running around, getting into everything. He's not feeling like eating today for some reason - way too busy wanting to play. He got crabby when a stranger stopped by the studio and discussed mosaics with me. I don't think he liked that person coming in. He's fine, now. :) Stranger Danger, I guess. He's started dancing with me. It's too cute! He just stomps his little feet and turns in circles and laughs his head off.

Well, I was going to upload a video here, but that darn editing software is still on the fritz. Maybe I can buy some one day here in the next few months so that I can upload these sweet videos. Until then...

Granny & Barbie

The boys and I just had the BEST visit with Granny & Barbie this afternoon. T just ran around playing and having a good time. Barbie rocked him in Granny's little chair and played peek-a-boo and showed Aunt Barbie what a sweet laugh he has.

It was an absolute joy spending so much time with just the three of us, Granny, and Barbie. Nice and relaxing and gave us lots of time to catch up.

Granny - I hope you enjoy those brownies. I'll be sure and bring some with me each time I see you. All of them, just for you.

Barbie - It was sooooo great to get to spend that time with you. We never get to sit down and talk wtih you when you come down. We have to do this every time from now on. And soon we'll visit you out there in the Deep South.

Enjoy the pics. I love the one with Granny - she glows like an angel!

New Pics

Sorry that I haven't posted much lately. I've been really busy, luckily. I've had a bunch more work and am also working as the Office Manager for Tesserae. Not that I'm working for money, but I look at it as paying off my debt to my parents. LOL Maybe one day, I'll get paid when they are regularly making a profit. My Mom and Julie have some great news that I cannot speak of right now, but it's going to cause them to really need me more and more.

Here are some pics that I've taken recently. The one with the snack puff on his head and the socks in his mouth was taken right before we dropped him off at Shugar and Granddaddy's to go celebrate our friend Tim's birthday.

The one with the messy face is the first time he ever had real spaghetti. He's had baby spaghetti, but this is Mommy-made, big boy spaghetti.

And the other two are just him being his usual self around the studio.