Jack turned one last week! I’ve been procrastinating about writing this post! Why!

I hear people talk about how parenting has CHANGED them and I’m not always sure what they are talking about. Am I missing something? I still feel like me but with a cute and smelly limpet attached. I don’t feel fundamentally changed as a person and if I did I would wonder about my previous sense of self.

I know a bunch more stuff than I used to… all relating to babies of course. My perspective on government has changed to include more things that parent/child related. I LIKE kids more than I used to. But mostly I am still me, occasionally overwhelmed with self doubt but mostly happy to ignore that and go my merry way.

I love to be with Jack and I still love to be alone. I love to hang out with Vim and Jack and I love to hang out with just Vim. I like taking Jack to hang out and I like to go hang out alone or with friends. I’m happy that being a parent was TOO too hard to incorporate into my life. I’ve met lots of wonderful people because of Jack and I’m grateful for that.

Some days I am on top of everything. Some I have no idea what to do with myself. Somedays I think I could do the stay at home mom thing, others, not so much.

I am SO BORINGLY AVERAGELY in the middle ground. Um… yay? Er… *shuffles off to buffalo*

Let’s look at the year in pictures, shall we?! *twists your arm*

Me in hospital with just born Jack:

Let me take a moment to say how much I loved the hospital. Meals and vicodin brought to me at the push of a button. Also, kudos to Vim for rushing off to deal with car seats and shit fo our totally unprepared asses.

Soon, much to everyones dispmay, baby acne sets in and Jack and Willy Wonka get it on:

Slightly later, breastfeeding goes awry and Minnie is totally freaking out mess. Also, there is no sleep:

However, Jack is the perfect size to hang out on ones lap while one laptops:

Cats are suspicious, and rightly so:

Silly hats are fashioned:

Things get better and Jack eats Tokyo. Bad baby!

Baby starts to go on lots of adventures! To the museum!

The ocean!

Family visits! We go camping! And he can now grab stuff and hold his head up!

I go back to work and Jack gets his first leisure suit.

Jack eats real food:

and gets his first mohawk:

Jack stands for the first time and reads some Thor Heyerdahl.

He loves him some swings

and gets some teeth!

He hangs with his family some more:

and a cow:

and wears a silly hat:

MG. I am tired of posting pictures!

He crawls a lot:

and loves the beach!

And now he’s one!

TA DA!

Go enter my baby blanket give away! All you have to do is leave a comment on that post an you can win the soft and fluffy sushi baby lovey blanket! woo!

Baby Blanket Give Away!

Comments open ’til the end of Monday!

Hey y’all! The new Rookie Moms book is out!

I can’t remember when I found the Rookie Moms site.. but it must have been when Jack was very very new. Their activities were interesting and some local for me. They just had some great ideas about how to occupy yourself and your baby. A new baby is a tad bewildering sometimes. I mean, I kind of had no clue what to do with mine. It’s so weird to see new babies now. I forgot how they CAN’T DO ANYTHING. They can.. but they’re not much into moving around. At least mine wasn’t. He didn’t roll over until like 9 months…

So anyway, go check out the new book, buy it for a baby shower gift.

The Rookie Mom’s Handbook: 250 Activities to Do with (and Without!) Your Baby

And go check out their sites as well!

http://www.rookiemoms.com/

and

http://blog.rookiemoms.com/

Hey Rookie Moms are you going to Blogher?! Maybe I will see you there!

I had a dream last night in which i was supposed to be throwing a baby shower for a friend. I was researching baby shower games and HATING humanity. Did I really have to do this crap? was my friend’s happiness worth my IMMORTAL SOUL?!

I really need to update my wordpress theme. The problem is that I like super plain ones and Vim wants a graphic header. But I say, no one cares what our baby looks like… a cute picture of our baby is NOT necessary in the header. My little webdev soul picks at e telling me to WASTE NOT AN INCH of usable eyeball space. Not that I would cram it super full… but you know…

thank you for not being perky needs an upgrade too. When shall I  do all this? Not today. Today I go squeeze birds.

Yesterday I let Jack wallow in the disgusting dirty muddy sandy grossness that is my local parks sand pit. There were these two little kids there with their dad and the dad was holding the dumb water thing down for them and they were super cutely building a lake city. I gravitated towards them because secretly I wanted to get down there to help build a water city but I was wearing a nice skirt and briefly had a moment of a. not wanting jack to get too gross and b. not wanting to foist my baby into the bigger kids game.

Jack had other plans and wiggled over to them and they were fairly happy to include him by digging an island around him. He was sternly admonished by the kids for crawling into the water and getting his outfit wet.

This was all great for me because he was a giant fusspot yesterday. I think his teeth were bothering him and then I gave him this little hand mirror thing and he closed it on his finger and got a horrible blood blister. UGH! Poor bean!

Things went downhill from there and the only thing to do was chuck my baby into a gross sand pit with some other kids.

Today was much better. He was his usual cheerful self with only a smidge of annoying whinyness. He spent most of the day sprinting from one side of the compound to the other using his baby walker thing. His walk is a totally hilarious waddling shuffle tinged with desperation and glee.

He’s just so outrageously pleased with himself but also confused as to how one foot keeps moving in front of ther other. Who’s driving this thing?!  Also, unfortunately he can not turn it by himself and so this means I had to run around the compound endlessly as well.

I’m still reading that Lise Eliot book about child brain development. I’m to the part about sex difference in brain development and it’s pretty interesting. Basically girls are better at everything and smarter. Except for one thing… which I need to go reread so that I understand it better.

All the stuff about personality and temperament is interesting too. If think Jack fits  into the inhibited category but really only in crowds - note his blob-like sitting at the birthday party. Yet, when I take him to the library he explores and follows the librarians around and peaks happily at other kids. I think in crowds he is just fairly content to watch what is going on, he never seems pissed or disturbed more than his usual brow wrinkling “wtf” look. I wonder how he will be when he is able to walk on his own. Will he join in in crowds? I believe I was pretty inhibited as a child and mostly wanted to play quietly in a corner with other quiet children.
You know how they say, “sleep when your baby is sleeping”? Well, I had a hard time with that when Jack was a newborn. Today though, I took a nap in the afternoon while he was napping and it was gloriously warm and cozy upstairs and Vg got on me an napped as well.

So, we are going to Maui in June. I was going to be in May but Vim’s work schedule got in the way and we had to offset by a few weeks. No problem!

We are staying at a cute little place in Napili bay called the Hale Napili. It is the same place, and we are in the same room, as we were for our honeymoon. It was awesome then and will certainly be awesome this time! It’s a small hotel, right on the beach (!!!!), adn so I was worrying about STUFF FOR THE BABY. Like a crib and a high chair. Then I read some where about a service called Baby’s Away. And these people deliver to your hotel room all the baby crap that one could possibly need, for a fee.

I’m thinking that it is totally worth it. And after a few moments of getting with google I was able to find several services that do this. I’m comparison shopping right now. I am wondering if anyone has used this and if so what they thought.

I mean, we will get the car seat form the car rental plce and will bring a crappy stroller. but what of the crib, high chair, baby backpack and toys and blah blah blah. All the other crap you need…

Here are the two services I am concidering:

http://www.akamaimothers.com and http://babysaway.com/

I am NOT excited about another 5 hour plane trip with a  wiggling poop monster but at least Jack will be there with me.

eating cupcake

Originally uploaded by karensh.

Here is Jack eating a cupcake at his group 1st birthday party this weekend. He loved it! Look at that fat little cheek!

He mostly sat, blob-like, for the whole party. He’s been teething sort of horribly and we are back to Drool Monster Central over here. So he was grumpy, yet overwhelmed, yet entertained most of the party. He liked the big dogs and went apeshit over his balloon.

All the other babies were outrageously cute, it was totally baby chaos with moms and dads and dogs and cats and cake and presents.

One mom in the group is pregnant again! OMG! Brave woman! I’m excited for her tho and can’t wait to know if it is boy or a girl! Will she find out?! Ack!

He’s getting good with holding his own cup! He can bring a spoon to his mouth if you put it in his hand.

I came across this cuteness a vim was feeding him dinner yesterday.

Jack snuck in a couple of new teeth. He now has 8 4 on top, 4 on the bottom and his little toothy grin is so nerdy and cute I can’t stand it.

He’s almost a year old and hopefully that will justify the million toys  I bought him today. ALL USED, thank you very much. Alameda rocks in the used baby toys and clothes department.

I also got him a pair of cute little Claire and Maddie shoes for only 10.00. I only just now realized that they are SQUEAKY. Hahahahaha. I am highly amused. Every time he takes a step the shoe will squeak. Bets on how often this will make him have to sit down and inspect his own shoes? I aslo got him another pair of pedipeds for a reasonable price.

St. Vincent De Paul is such a load of hooey. I HATE them. They tried to charge me 1.99 per used baby board book. UM, NO. The lady points at a sign that says - “children’s hardcover books - 1.99″ Okay, who’s with me on this one? A nice hardcover of say… Lassie might be 1.99. but a board book of ‘Ducks first Halloween adventure’ that has been drooled on by countless babies is NOT worth 1.99. I tried explaining this to the lady and she disagreed but then offered them to me for 1.00 each. I refused on principle because I fucking hate that store.

So, I went next door to Goodwill and bought 5 kids books and 5 toy cars and trucks all for 7.00. So SUCK IT st. Vincent De Paul.

Then I went to the toy safari, which I LOVE, and bought him some more used toys. They had an old fisher price barn, the one I had when I was little, and I WANTED it! But decided to talk to Vim about it first.

Oh and a note to people who have a store with the word ‘Antique’ in the name… This does not mean all the CRAP you have in there is covered in GOLD. Sell the mom the block threading kit from the 60’s for say, 10 bucks. Do not ask for 20.00 because that is just STUPID.

Jack is bored with his current toys so I m glad I could get him some good stuff for reasonable prices. I can’t wait for him to wake up from his nap so that I can play with them with him.

So, I bought a bunch of wheeled vehicles for him. I’m going to have to put my foot down when it comes to branded wheeled vehicles. I’m sorry… I just have to. there will BE NO Thomas the Train. I know, it’s a tad silly but I can’t help it. The thought of him obsessed with bob the builder upsets me. Now, if he wants to play with trains and cars , which he does, then good, just no branded ones!!! Does any one else feel this way? Or am I a freak?