We Are Thankful For...Our Son

Its been quite a long time since my last blog update. Well over a month, actually. The issue was timing and really nothing more. We planned a very long trip back to Chicago to see family so Billy could meet most of his relatives for the very first time. The problem was that the date we left correlated with the date I typically update the blog, so the last blog update weekend was skipped all together. Well, all that means is this blog update will have to be super long and feature a boatload of pictures to make up for it. So here we go.

To kick us off will be the first of a couple major milestones that Billy has begun to break through. Always the biter, his little clamping gums were quite powerful. If he caught a knuckle in there just right, you'd certainly feel it. Well, a couple weeks ago, the little guy added a little razor blade into that equation, better known as a tooth. As of the typing of this email, that little tooth has a friend right along side of him in the center of the bottom gumline. When Billy decides to use that on your hands now, you have to correct him. We are trying to teach him not to bite at an early age, but I know that with those teeth coming in, that's going to be an uphill battle.

Aside from his new set of jibs he has coming in, he's also changing in the height/weight categories. Billy's up to 19 lbs. now on the scale at home and is measuring out at 26.5" to 27" in length (he doesn't seem to want to stay still for an exact measurement though. His growth seems to be steady and he's filling out quite well. Even his hair is beginning to grow in toward the back, so his Mother's fear that he would remain essentially bald until he was about two years old like his Father did may go unrealized. We'll see.

Before we get into the trip back to Chicago, which is the primary subject of this entry, we had one more major event. The Grand Opening of my new bank in Jacksonville. Of course Billy and Antoinette came to join in the fun as we arranged for jumping jacks and ball pits for the kids, a full spread of catered Southern BBQ, martial arts exhibitions in the lobby, and lots of giveaways to the customers and members of the community that came out to support us.

Luckily, the entire family was able to stay for the entire four hour event and meet the staff and bank executives that were present. Even little Billy found himself mingling with the whose who of the banking establishment of the South. But before long, the little man wound up running out of gas. Oh well. He tried. And for his efforts, he left with about two dozen Fifth Third Bank Grand Opening balloons that were fun trying to fit into the truck. But the little guy likes balloons, so why not. Before any of you respond to this, we don't allow him to be by himself with balloons. I can see the emails coming already...

So, let's get to the meat and potatoes of this blog update. Or should I say, the turkey and the stuffing. It was Billy's first Thanksgiving, so we figured, what the hell. Let's give him two. We'll head back to Chicago to see family on an absolutely insane trip that would encompass traveling with a 6 month old child strapped into a car seat for 42 hours of total driving over a 6 day time span and we would drive through 7 states, stopping to visit family in 3 of those states. Could we have flown? Maybe, but with our desire to have as much of Billy's stuff as possible up there to use as we moved from home to home on this whirlwind tour and knowing we would inevitably be coming home with much more than we left Florida with, we thought it wiser to take the truck.

So after a long day of work, I got home in time to finish packing the truck and Antoinette and I hit the road for 18 hours of driving, straight through the night, with the intention of hitting Chicago by early the next morning. Being late in the year, it was soon dark and Billy was fast asleep. Luckily for us, he basically slept the entire car ride. Before long, we were in Atlanta and all of her late night traffic, Chattanooga for some practice driving through the mountains with a light fog in the dark, Nashville as we cleared the other side of the mountains and hit the foothills, up to Louisville on the border with Indiana, through to Indianapolis at day break and flat land, and then on to Chicago. By about 10 AM, we had arrived at our first destination, which was the south suburbs of Chicago and Billy's first chance to meet his Grandparents, his Aunt and Uncle, and three of his cousins. Of course, he found himself quickly in the arms of his Nanny for the very first time.

Now my brother has three kids. All of them are under the age of 7, but the youngest is just a couple months older than Billy. Yet because she can crawl and even take a few steps, she is far more advanced than our little guy, who at this point, is just rocking back and forth. So we put them down next to each other and there is the inevitable smiling, slapping, eye poking, crying, touching, and staring. This is soon replaced by the escape of my brother's daughter who has basically had enough. Billy watches her, mesmerized at another little person who is getting away and he reaches out for her to try and grab on, but its too late. Little by little, as we watch him interact, he seems to be studying the youngest and her crawl. Well, back to this later. In the meantime, we are not home more than a couple hours when we're loading up the vehicles again, packing up all of our stuff, taking a very short nap (which never actually happened), changing the kid, and then in a couple of vehicles, heading 2 hours north to Wisconsin to my sister's house out in the sticks.

In Wisconsin, my sister decided to have all of the kids and their families, now spread all over the United States, to come home for a sit down Thanksgiving dinner about a week prior to the holiday so that it would coincide with my cousin's wedding. So my parents and oldest sister and her children all made the trip up from the Chicago area, my brother and his family came in from the Philadelphia area, and Antoinette, Billy, and I made the trip up from Florida, all with the intention of getting together for the first time in a long time. I've lived in Florida for three years now. I was not looking forward to Wisconsin in mid November, but what can you do? So there we are. Billy is getting passed around like a sack of potatoes and I think he's loving every minute of it. In the picture below, this was Billy's first appearance with all of the boy's in his generation. From left to right is Jacob, Ricky, Luke, Brett, John, and Billy. As you can tell, Billy was extremely interested in what all of these older boys were doing.

By the end of the night, we had all sat down to a huge Thanksgiving dinner with 20 of us all together for the very first time since the two latest arrivals. It was a very nice evening and my sister Christine was a wonderful host. We stayed the night in Iceland (Wisconsin) and after some breakfast in the morning, Antoinette and I were loading up the truck again and driving another 2 hours to the southwest suburbs where Antoinette is from in order to see her Mother and sister, Auntie Laura. For this Grandma, she had seen Billy a couple times before, including just minutes after he was born, but for Auntie Laura, it was her first time actually seeing her very first nephew in person.

We spent the rest of the day with Antoinette's Mother (Grandma) and her sister and then later that evening, one of Antoinette's best friends came to visit and brought her husband and her two children, one of them, a little boy, was just a few months younger than Billy. So of course, we had to get a picture of all of them. Unfortunately, about half of these pictures didn't turn out, but one of them did that I thought looked really nice, so I'm adding it below. Here is Billy with his buddy, Gavin.

On Saturday morning, I left Antoinette and Billy at her Mother's house and drove across the city yet again to meet my Dad and brother so we could begin getting ready for my cousin's wedding while watching the Ohio State vs. Michigan game. Seriously, who gets married on Michigan weekend? Luckily, my cousin Lauren timed up her wedding so that we could watch 85% of the OSU game before the wedding and the remaining 15% before the reception. I remain very appreciative (especially since we won...again). Billy stayed with his Grandma while Antoinette and I hit the reception at Cog Hill Country Club. After the reception, Antoinette went back to her Mother's and I went back with my brother and brother-in-law to my parents. Lots of driving. After celebrating with the bride and groom at the hotel party afterward, we got home at about 3:45 AM. Later that morning, we began preparing the house for more guests, as my uncle and his family, one of which consisted of my cousin who was just married the night before and her new husband, were planning on coming over to watch the Bears game and see little Billy for the very first time. Billy was busy getting his game face on.

Billy arrived at about 3 PM with Antoinette and surprise, surprise, he quickly began to crawl. Just a couple feet here and there, but still crawling. By the time my family arrived to watch the Bears game, the little guy was crawling up a storm. Billy got to meet another have dozen relatives from his Great Aunt and Uncle (which is his namesake) and many more cousins. Toward the end of the night, when it was time to call it an evening, little Billy went upstairs and laid down with Grandpa on the couch, where Grandpa put him to sleep. Before long, the little guy was out cold. Speaking of cold, I had to slip this picture of Billy at his Grandma's house experiencing fun outside in the cold. He looks thrilled to be outside, doesn't he? Not used to that sort of chill in the air!!!

At 3:30 AM, we were up and packing everything we had. We were off to head back to Jacksonville, FL and were on the road by 5 AM. The trip back was a bit crazier than the trip down since it was during the day and Billy was awake most of the time. We stopped off in Kentucky to visit Billy's other Grandpa and Grandma, meeting in tiny Bowling Green for lunch. It actually turned out to be a terrific little pitstop, as the food was great and Antoinette's Dad got to meet his Grandson for the very first time. After hanging out for nearly two hours, we were off again, finishing the drive at about 1 AM, safe and sound back home. An incredibly packed weekend trip to say the least.

On the trip, we were able to pick up an enormous amount of gifts and presents for the little guy. At Nanny's house, he was able to pickup an Ohio State quilt and pillow that Nanny made for him from scratch. At Grandma's house, he got a rocking horse that makes real horse noises. At Aunt Chrissy's house, it was a pair of sizable boxes of clothes, etc. that Billy's cousins no longer fit into. And from his Grandpa in Kentucky, Billy's gift was a hand crafted train set made from wood with real moving parts made by a local craftsman. Billy also got a visit from his Great Aunt Sharon and Great Uncle George at his Grandma's house. Uncle George and Aunt Sharon had very sweet gifts of their own, giving Billy a pair of outfits and a bib. All wonderful gifts and we thank you all very much for them.

Since we've been home, Billy's crawling has advanced exponentially. Hard to believe that when we left for Chicago, he had just begun getting up on his hands and knees to rock back and forth with regularity, and then within three days of returning from the trip, he was full blown crawling all over the house. There was no stopping this kid. His couple feet here and there had turned into crossing the breadth of the entire house in just minutes. Here one minute, gone the next. And he's into everything. You never know what is going to interest him as he'll be in the dining room slapping the tile one minute and then trying to play with the TIVO box the next. This became the only view we had of the little guy.

Obviously baby proofing the house became an instant priority. We are not crazy, over-the-top baby proofers. After all, we managed to survive somehow without all of that stuff. But we are taking care of the outlets, the cabinets, and securing things that could fall on his head if manipulated. We are also taking a floor's eye view of the area he will be crawling in and following him as he traverses the house looking for new things to touch and test. Speaking of testing, Billy's new thing is to get to something somewhere in the house he's never been too before, and then bang on it, beat it, twist it, yank it, pull it, punch it, slap it, and then repeat a dozen or more times until he's satisfied he's played out that particular object. Then he moves onto the next. Its interesting to watch his little brain work, processing each new experience and taking note of the enormous wealth of information he is getting from each touch and manipulation of that object.

As I update this blog tonight, Billy has a couple of new "tricks". One is that he seems to have finally perfected moving from a crawling position to a sitting position. The reverse has been possible for a couple weeks now, with only the occasional face plant, but to go from a crawl to a sit is brand new. He loves to test this skill out in his crib, where now, when we put him down to sleep, instead of just rolling around until he dozed off, we will often find him just sitting there crying. We've tested this out to see what his limits are and it appears that he can cry for nearly 7-10 minutes before he falls asleep. When we just put him down normally for a nap, it usually resulted in him being fast asleep within 3-5 minutes of some crying. Not sure if this is going to last or not or if its just double the tears because he's not sure what to do to get back to a sleeping position when he gets himself sitting up, but its quite funny to go into this room and see him just sitting there half asleep, thumb in mouth, and looking exhausted. But if you lay him down instead of him laying himself down, you need to start the process all over again.

Billy's second new "trick" is standing. He's far from perfecting this one, but his legs appear sufficiently strong to help him stand while holding onto an object. Unfortunately, his core strength is not there yet to hold him that position and he often will bend at the waist and then crash to the floor within 30-90 seconds. But he's getting there little by little. He also seems to have a new level of spacial awareness. He is clearly developing a memory of the location of objects that are outside of his view, such as the TIVO box or the dog kennel. He knows where these objects are and how to get to them. We've blocked them and then brought him into the room and he simply goes right around what is blocking the object to get to what he knows is back there. His understanding of object permanence is developing on target. Finally, he is also learning to waive good bye. He has the "open/close" fist thing going on, but he isn't quite pointing it at you when he's doing it. He's just sorting of opening and closing his hand like a crab. We're working on it.

Since we celebrated Thanksgiving with the family a week early, Antoinette and I were free to celebrate it again on actual Thanksgiving with our own immediate family. So Antoinette made up and elaborate spread of food, as if to feed 25 people, and we sat down for our first Thanksgiving as a family. So Billy donned his "I'm Stuffed" Baby's First Thanksgiving bib from his Auntie Laura and we prepared him for his first bite of mashed potatoes. Take a look at this picture and tell me if you think he enjoyed them or not. After dinner and helping Mom clean up, we moved to the living room to start unpacking some Christmas decorations and to watch football. We'll save those pictures for the next blog update though.

Christmas should be lots of fun this year as we have my family coming to town for the holidays. Quite a bit of them actually. We will take lots of pictures and be sure to share them on the blog update just after New Year's. The next update will have all of the pre-visit prep going on and Billy's first taste of Christmas lights, which has been quite fun to watch, as well. As you can tell from this picture, Billy is as tired as I am after typing all of this out, so good night to you all, and we'll talk in a couple weeks. Sorry for the graininess, but the picture was taken in near darkness.