Welcome to November and a quick apology for the two month delay since the last blog update. Had some issues with the website that have prevented me from getting a new video up here. The newest videos won't have a music soundtrack attached to them due to some issue with Youtube and the record label, so until that gets sorted out, they'll seem more like a Charlie Chaplin film.
In the meantime, let's get to Billy and his soon to arrive brother. Billy's growing up so fast that it's really hard to believe. As much as this Blog is for all of you, it's just as much for Antoinette and I so we can look back and see how much he's changed over the years. Crazy to believe that just a year ago, the little guy was just rolling over and holding his head up. Today he's sporting roughly half of his teeth and just recently got his first haircut. He's climbing on things, expanding his vocabulary and his understanding of the world around him daily (he can actually say the word "alligator" using four syllables), and is definitely his Daddy's son, climbing on everything, wrestling around, and watching football.
Billy has a favorite show now. We've talked about it before, but it's actually pretty funny because he gets so excited now over it. It's not football, Elmo, Sesame Street, cartoons, or some Disney movie. Nope. None of the above. His favorite TV show is Bill O'Reilly. How funny!!! We ask him if he wants to go watch Bill O'Reilly on TV and he stops what he's doing, begins shaking his head yes, and then runs into the living room at high speed and stands right in front of the TV. Then he waits there until we turn it on and start The Factor. He immediately starts pointing at Bill when he pops up on the screen and gets upset when he shifts to the other guests. It's really hilarious.
He also seems to really enjoy his books. Of all his toys, his books are clearly his favorite. He's often rooting around in his toy boxes and pulling one toy out of after another, only to pop out from the box with a book in his hand that's about trucks or random objects. He loves to play games with those where you ask him where any number of objects are on a page that could have up to 20-30 different objects on it and let him pick out the one you ask him about. We constantly practice saying each word, but they still sound awful similar to someone who doesn't live in our house. To us, we find that we can understand the point he's getting across more often than not, even if his annunciation is a bit limited.
Since the last blog update, we've had a boatload of new adventures. For one thing, Billy is old enough to hit up the park now. We have a couple in our subdivision, each with slides and rock climbing walls, tunnels and other fun stuff for kids. Even at just 18 months, Billy is all over those suckers. He's climbing up the stairs, running across the bridges, and heading down the slides (with some assistance for that part, of course). While he was reluctant at first, when his cousins were in town, watching his big cousin Ricky do big kid things meant he certainly had to give it a shot. He seems to learn quick from watching his cousins do something he can't. That's basically how he picked up crawling, walking, and most recently, jumping off furniture. Wow...
About a month ago, we took a visit to a local restaurant down here. It's one of Antoinette and I's favorites. A quiet little oceanfront restaurant called Sliders in Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island. If you get a nice night, you can't beat it. Great breeze off the ocean with the waves and the smell of the surf just a couple hundred yards away. Outdoor patio dining with some live music next to a giant tiki bar. Food's pretty good, too. Anyway, as Billy gets older and we visit the place, he seems to dig the music more and more. One of these most recent visits in September, we had the pleasure of listening to a young lady playing the guitar and she was pretty good. So after dinner, we head over to the stage and Billy starts bouncing around in my arms. Now this kid absolutely loves to dance, so this wasn't a big shock to Antoinette and I, so we put him down. Well he ran right over to the stage and looked up at this lady who was now looking down at him, and he starts dancing up a storm. People around him from the tables to the bar are stopping what they're doing and watching this little 18 month old tapping his feet and swinging his arms to the beat. It was so funny. The girl said she was going to take a break, but for her #1 fan, she had no choice but to sing another song just for him, so off she went and Billy starting jumping all over the place. After she was done, she got a resounding round of applause from the little guy while he was getting applause of his own from the diners.
So I mentioned that Billy was learning a lot from his cousins, which was thanks to my brother and his wife deciding to take a little visit down to Jacksonville in mid October. This was just their second time visiting Jacksonville and the first time where they were going to get some really nice weather, so it really couldn't have gone any better. We had a chance to hit the beach a couple times to let the kids build sand castles and find shark's teeth, got to visit the local museum where the kids had a chance to see automated dinosaurs, play in little water tanks, and even run around in a giant tree house, and had an opportunity to go out to eat as a big family (all eight of us) to a couple of very nice waterfront restaurants to watch the sunset while we ate dinner. To top it all off, we had a chance to take them down to St. Augustine for their first time, which is always fun. We were able to stop at the Castillo San Marco so the kids could see real cannons and a three hundred year old fort, not to mention a little walk down St. George Street before heading home and calling it a week. Overall, Billy simply had a blast with his cousins, practically trying to climb out of his crib when we told him his cousins were waiting for him in the living room each morning.
Our little dancing machine had his 18 month checkup and everything looks good. He's 100% healthy, growing like a weed, and getting taller and leaner every day. He's now in the 80th percentile in height and the 45th in weight, meaning he actually lost weight since his last visit. Doc says that's perfectly normal since he's flying around like a bat out of Hell all day long. He's still eating well and healthy foods like vegetables, fruits, chicken breast, milk, water, etc. And of course there's desert every now and then with some cookies, cake, Popsicles, etc. He seems to have dropped most of his baby fat at this point, most likely from being so active, and you can see the little guy's muscles flexing in his legs when he's running around in his diaper. Getting back to Popsicles and cousins, Billy has fallen on his face while tearing around the house on multiple occasions, splitting his lip off the tile like crazy. Give that kid a Popsicle and when he's done, it's like nothing ever happened. He's back wrestling with his cousins or dancing in the living room or trying to tackle his Uncle.
In the funny story category, we decided we would take Billy, who is fascinated with airplanes, to the Air and Water Show in Jacksonville. It's a military town with a couple of very large military bases and we've been to the air show a couple times in the past, so we figured he'd really get a kick out of it. We packed up chairs, umbrellas, food, drinks, etc. Everything you could imagine. We head out to the local base and decide to setup shop at the Target right next door where we wouldn't be limited by what you can or can't bring onto a Naval Air Station. Here's a plane and there's a plane. Billy's very excited. There goes an A-10 Warthog, flying low and keeping his attention. Very exciting indeed. So I set up an umbrella for Antoinette and while I'm putting it in the ground, Billy's about 8-10 feet behind me playing with a cooler or something. To all of our dismay, there is an F-18 sitting on the runway about a quarter mile away with his engine pointed right at us while he waits to take off. BOOM!!!!!!!! That sucker opens up and starts hauling down the runway and creates a noise so loud it scared the crap out of me. I immediately turn for Billy to make sure his ears are covered and here comes this little guy running toward us scared out of his mind. Didn't know that airplanes made those kind of noises, I guess. Well, that plane looped over our head a couple times and it was way too loud so we decided to pack up and leave. We made it over to a local park and had a picnic instead where we could see the planes from a distance, occasionally looping over our heads to make another pass at the Air Base. Might have to wait a few more years before we try that again.
And then of course there was Halloween. Billy went as a Bumblebee last year, but this year, he was none other than Brian Urlacher for Halloween. We decked him out in his onsie, threw on a pair of dark blue sweat pants, and added a little eye black to complete the picture. His basket was a little football to put his candy in and he was ready to go. To finish getting ready, we threw an orange shirt on Antoinette, put some eyes and a mouth on her and turned her pregnant belly into a pumpkin, brought out a giant wheelbarrow (more for Antoinette than Billy at 9 months pregnant) and off we went. Billy went up to a few doors with the neighbor kids and didn't really know what was going on, but got scared pretty good by one of the neighbors when they came to the door in a scary outfit. Candy seemed to be a pretty good cure for what ailed him though and by the end of the night, he was back in the mix walking with Daddy door to door from then on.
The boys' room is nearly complete now. We have names mounted over the doors to their closets, added a giant Ohio State logo on the wall, hung the Ohio State pictures, ordered some additional Ohio State items to finish up the room, and bought Billy his first toddler bed, so now he can use the Ohio State blanket that his Nanny gave him. Speaking of that toddler bed, we figured we'd buy this bed for him now, get him used to looking at it and maybe reading or playing in it, and then by January, when the baby was ready to transition to the bedroom and out of the bassinet, Billy would've taken a couple naps in the toddler bed and the transition would be a much smoother one. We were wrong. Within a week of buying the toddler bed, Antoinette already had Billy taking his naps in it. Granted, he half fell out the first time we tried this, with Antoinette walking in to check on him and finding him with his legs over the side and resting on the floor with his chest and face on the bed...out cold. Anyway, he's doing much better now and while I'm typing this out, he's already sleeping in the bed for the first time tonight. That's 18 months to transition out of a crib and into a toddler bed for naps and nighttime sleeping. Excellent!!!
On a final note on Billy, his cousin (my cousin, so his cousin once removed or something like that) and her boyfriend have just moved down to Jacksonville this past weekend, so we've had them over a couple times and guess what? Billy absolutely loves his cousin. Carli seems like she never runs out of gas chasing the kid all over the place. Most people play with him for an hour at most before he wears them out, but she was still going strong after a couple hours the first night at my house. Now that we have them all moved in and just 15 minutes from us, I'm sure Billy and his brother will be excited to see them a whole lot more.
Speaking of his brother, the new baby finally has a new name. We decided on it quite a while ago, but have waited until now to break it out. The new baby's name will be Alexander James Lionhood and we'll call him A.J. I had to get this blog update in before his arrival since he'll be here before you know it with Antoinette's due date coming up on Tuesday. I'm sure the next update will be almost entirely devoted to our new arrival and his adjustment into the house, time with his Grandma who is coming to town soon, interaction with Billy, and Antoinette's overall well being, among other things.
He's obviously growing well. Last doctor visit was great, but Antoinette has barely begun the process of walking down that road to delivery. On the next visit, we'll discuss induction dates, but for now, we're just waiting him out. Like his brother Billy, he doesn't seem all that interested in leaving the current place he calls home. We've had a labor pain or two a couple times that started the clock, but they always seem to fall away without ever getting closer together.
Like all babies, A.J. has 300 bones in his body, which will likely fuse into a more compact and efficient 206 by adulthood. He's probably in the 19-20" range in height (Billy was 21.5" I want to say) and likely weighs 7-8 lbs (Billy was 6 pounds 13 ounces, I think). His pudge is starting to come in all around him to keep his little body nice and warm, which he's going to need in order to deal with a frosty Florida winter. He should have all of his parts from eyebrows to a nose, mouth to fingernails, arms and legs. It should all be in place. While his eyes are developed and fully intact, they won't exactly work correctly until he's nearly 8 weeks old, at which point he'll finally be able to focus.
Preparation for this little guy is in full swing. We have bags packed, car seats ready, action plans in place, hospital registrations complete, work schedules sorted, call trees ready, swings and bassinets built, infant clothes and diapers stocked and ready to go, etc. At this point, it's a tying up loose ends waiting game, as we count down the time until this little guy decides he's ready to be welcomed into the world.
This is the final blog update with just three of us. For the next one, we'll be a family of four. Expect that to come in the next couple weeks and be short and sweet, and more or less an explanation of A.J.'s story. Until then, enjoy this montage of pics.
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