My sincere apologies for the mountain of time that has passed between these updates. Many of you have been hounding me for not getting one out sooner and I have nothing to say for not having one out quicker. But without further adieu, here's the Christmas and New Year's updates right through the month of January...
The Christmas season was packed with all sorts of crazy events, starting with two of the best on Christmas Eve. First, on my way home from work, I had to stop to pick up some wrapping paper from the Dollar Store. As I'm coming down the street and about to turn in, just a few minutes down the road from home, my cell rings. It's Antoinette and she's having a problem. It seems that Billy has awoken from his mid-day nap and in the process of fumbling with the doorknob, he managed to twist the lock and has now locked himself in his room. Antoinette, not sure how to get the door unlocked again, called me for an idea. Seems Billy was currently content talking to her through the door, but she had no idea how long that would last.
So I decided against picking up the wrapping paper and instead got back to the house. After a series of attempts at unlocking the door using everything from a paper clip to a coat hangar, I defaulted to a screw driver to just take the entire doorknob off. At this point, Billy is starting to freak out a bit and Antoinette and I are both talking to him. Within about 3 minutes, I had the doorknob off and on the floor in about 6 pieces and we're looking at Billy through the hole that used to be the knob...except the door still won't open. The piece still in there was not allowing us to pop the piece out of door jamb that would open the door, so I had to try and pry the little metal latch still in the door until it opened. Finally, Billy was free. To prevent this from happening again, we had to switch the doorknob around so now it looks like we torture our child by locking him into the room, when instead, it's just a method of preventing him from imprisoning himself. Merry Christmas.
Next up later that night was our feeble attempt at finding a good Santa video on Youtube so that we can teach Billy a little about Santa Claus, how he works, and what Billy had in store if he went to bed early. So I take Billy in his room to change him and get him ready for bed, all the while telling him all about this guy Santa Clause that will be coming to visit him tonight, while Antoinette finds the video to use. When we come out, we all sit down and start watching some video labeled Dr. Pepper Santa Commercial or something like that.
On the roof lands Santa and his reindeer and Billy is getting very curious. Down the chimney comes the guy in the red suit and now I can see a little smile starting to develop. Out of the fat man's sack come all sort of presents as he places them one by one under the Christmas Tree and Billy is really getting excited. Santa then takes a seat on the couch and starts eating the cookies and milk that were left for him while he gazes approvingly at his work. Just then, a little girl appears at the bottom of the stairs and says "Santa?" Santa's response was to look at the girl, look at the tree. Look at the girl and look at the tree again. At that point, Santa gets up and runs across the room and tackles the little girl out of the camera. You then begin to hear punches and kicks and I turn to ask Antoinette what the hell we are watching. Finally, Santa, with Billy watching because Antoinette and I are still in shock, runs into the living room and begins destroying the presents under the tree that he just put out.
Luckily, as I'm practically knocking Billy over to turn the monitor off before he sees something that goes any more overboard than that, I look at Billy's face and notice a big ear to ear grin. He's laughing at it and clearly doesn't know who he's looking at and what he's supposed to be doing. Unreal...
Later that night, after Billy went to bed, "Santa" arrived and began laying out all of Billy and A.J.'s presents, including a massive tent that came in a package that said it contained 30' of tunnels. I guess it never phased me how much 30' of tunnels actually covered because when it was assembled, it literally swallowed up the entire living room.
With the little guy not quite big enough to open his own presents, Billy had to do the honors for everyone and he certainly had a blast with it. His presents had everything from clothes to football guys, giant tent setups to a Leapfrog computer, helicopters, army men, tins of cookies and books, and even a cap gun like the kind I had when I was a kid. A little bit of everything. A.J., well he kind of got loaded up with clothes and a small rattle or two. Tough for "Santa" to know what to buy a 6 week old baby, so he did the best he could. Overall, Billy's favorite gift seemed to be matchbox cars. In fact, he spent the better part of the morning lining them up and zooming them all over the table. His tent was a bit overwhelming, so when we reduced it to just a couple sections, it worked out just fine (which is the current configuration it finds itself in our living room) and he spent a lot of time between the two sections, the tunnel, and the ball pit.
During Christmas Day we had Heath and Carli over and had a nice sit down family dinner. It was very nice. Christmas dinners just a few years ago consisted of Antoinette and I having dinner together with Hunter running around somewhere looking for scraps that fell off the table. I remember us talking about things like those being the last Christmas dinners we would ever have alone again, and sure enough, two years later, Christmas consisted of Antoinette and I, the two boys, and Heath and Carli...with Hunter running around still looking for scraps.
By the time New Year's rolled around, things had settled down so much that I wish I had some great New Year's story to tell you. Instead, all of us had a big day of doing absolutely nothing (and loving it) and then all falling asleep by 9 or 10 PM. I fell asleep on our coach watching some TIVO'd college football bowl game. At 11:30 PM, I woke up and with my whole family sound asleep, for the first time in my life, I spent New Year's Eve by myself, on my couch, watching some New Year's special, and thinking about a house full of all of the things I have to be thankful for. You would think that a New Year's all alone like that would be a lonely New Year's, but it was actually the best I've ever had. A great chance to really take a moment and think about everything that 2010 was and what 2011 will have in store for our family.
So ultimately the holiday's came and went and my Ohio State Buckeyes were able to pull out another BCS win (back to back now), finishing with yet another top 5 finish that spun into a top 5/top 10 recruiting class and huge expectations for 2011. With all of that behind us, we moved head first into 2011 (I'm not going to be discussing my Bears losing to the Packers in the NFC Title game or the whining from Bears fans about Jay Cutler's knee, which is what it amounted to.) I know. I'm getting sidetracked. Couldn't help it.
We've got a few major milestones that are being hit now. A.J. is smiling and cooing already and guess what? Another happy baby. This guy just needs a smile in his direction and he unloads with smile after smile after smile. He rarely cries and has been an exceptional baby so far. Even when his older brother decides he wants to see what placing an ice pack behind his arm will do. A.J. just sits there uncomfortably wondering when someone is going to get that thing out of his swing. And speaking of swings, we had to replace the one we had. It had gone through about a half dozen family members I think, and we were rolling through D batteries like nobody's business. Plus the mobile has never worked on it anyway, even when Billy was in it. So we replaced it with a new one that plugs into the wall and it's money. No more batteries so should easily cover the extra expense in the long run if it makes it through any future babies.
Other milestones for A.J. are holding his head up, which he's been doing pretty well since he was 6 weeks old, and he just started rolling half way over from a stomach down position trying to get to his back. He gets about half way over before he decides it's too much effort to complete the maneuver and flip back to his stomach. You can see his legs getting stronger as he has begun to reach for things in front of him and use his feet to rotate himself counter clockwise when laying on the floor, so I'm thinking by next update, he'll likely be rolling completely over.
Speaking of milestones, Billy's hit a couple of his own. He can count to three now. Sounds more like "On...Ooh...Tee!!!", but you get the point. He's also been climbing on things all over the house and even moving dinette chairs over to the counter so he can climb up onto the counter. Resourceful little booger for just 21 months old. Antoinette was in the kitchen with him when he decided to hop right up on the counter and start crawling around up there. We had buy another gate just to try and keep him out of the kitchen all together. He's also been climbing into his booster seat from the floor and then trying to turn around to sit in the chair, which is pretty dangerous for him since he's over top of a tile floor. Billy just recently started walking backwards for some reason (just to try it out I'm sure) and is still a dancing machine when anything even resembling a beat comes on, like the Ipad commercial with that catchy little jingle that accompanies it.
Billy has also started to sing. Pretty funny stuff. His Mother reads/sings him the Wheels on Bus song, but now Billy has begun singing along and making the hand gestures that go with each of the parts of the song. Shortly after that, he began doing the same with the Itsy Bitsy Spider. Now, he sings "My Rifle, My Pony, and Me" with me, in the roll of my support singer, I guess. When I finish a line, whatever the last syllable was, that's what he's singing out loud and apparently with facial expressions similar to my own.
Some other curious items for Billy include Avatar. Kid's obsessed with that movie. Every morning, even with the attention span of a one and a half year old, he wakes up, changes his diaper, gets his milk, gets on the couch and wraps up in a blanket, and we turn on Avatar for him. He then watches this movie for 30-45 minutes straight while I get ready for work and so Antoinette and the baby can sleep in, before finally deciding he has some other things he'd like to be getting done. He also is fascinated by the Space Shuttle and if you ask him what sound one makes, he clenches both fists and begins shaking them in front of his face and growling "BOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!" as loud as he can. Rockets, space shuttles, etc. We watch the launches on Youtube when we get a chance and it really has begun teaching him quite a bit. He can tell you where the water tower is on the launch pad, will assist in the homestretch of the count down for lift off, tell you what are the rockets and what is the shuttle, anticipate the water suppression system activation, point out the fire, smoke, and falling solid rocket boosters after launch, and ultimately get really, really, really excited each time they rumble through the speakers and shake the desk.
We've also been working with the giant map on the wall in the office and Billy is pretty good at being able to identify the seven continents on the map. He doesn't always say them clearly, but he's much better at saying Australia, Asia, and Antarctica. He can also say and identify the ocean, which is neat, and his usage of the Iphone is amazing. Kids these days are pretty impressive with this stuff. When given an Iphone, Billy can move through it at a very rapid rate, flipping through screens, finding his favorite pictures and videos, setting the alarm and timer, changing the ringers, playing his favorite games, finding various maps, making phone calls, and even sending me gibberish text messages while I'm at work.
Add to that some apps that he can go into and change the settings to his preferences. For example, Billy can go into a "Perfect Day" app that is basically a tropical beach scene that you can change to suit your needs. For instance, you can alter the wind, the rain, the sunshine, the time of day, the things on the beach, the wave size and volume, the birds chirping or flying by, the cloud cover, etc. Anything you want to make that scene perfect for you. Billy does that. He goes into the settings and sets the thunder and lightning for maximum amounts and then goes back to the main screen to touch it and trigger lightning bolts. It's pretty crazy. And that's after watching us show him how to do it once or twice. It's a fairly complex process. For a 21 month old, that's pretty crazy stuff.
By the next blog update, we'll have transitioned A.J. from our room into his own room with Billy. He's nearly sleeping through the night consistently at 11 weeks and the deadline I was hoping to hit was 13 weeks. Probably 90% of the time, A.J. will sleep 6-7 hours without waking and the amount of time that occurs is increasing with each passing week. Last night he slept 8 hours and 40 minutes before waking for the first time. By 13 weeks, my goal was to have him sleeping 6-8 hours straight about 85-90% of the time, and we're right on target. I'm hoping to get that to 7-8 hours most of the time over the next week or two and to get Antoinette another couple weeks with the little guy before we relocate him. That's about the time frame we used with Billy and it worked to perfection. This would mark a huge milestone for the baby to hit.
On a final note, I thought I would leave you this week with a very funny story. I mentioned Billy's Iphone use and it bears mentioning that Antoinette has a particular app for the phone that allows her to play some kind of generic Scrabble with random people who sign up to play you. At any point, you can exit the individual game you are signed up for by just selecting "quit". Billy doesn't know what he's doing, we think, but he's logging into the game, registering for various matches with people who are starting to play against him, and then getting out of the game right when it just starts. For one poor guy, Billy started and ended a game twelve consecutive times before the guy could possibly imagine what the hell was happening. His emailed response to Antoinette was "WTF!!!" after incident #12. Guess Billy touched a nerve...
Antoinette's Mom is here for the next two weeks and the Super Bowl is this Sunday. We should be having a couple families over, many of which have kids about Billy's age, so it should be fun and there should be plenty of material for us next time around.
Last couple odds and ends include a doctor's visit for A.J. granting him a clean bill of health and locking up his first set of shots so we can begin taking him out of the house. Billy and A.J. both continue to be fairly tall babies for their age in the 75th percentile or more, and both weigh slightly above average weights. More detail with the next set of visits. As the weather improves, we'll get the two of them out quite a bit more, like to the zoo where we went last week or to the beach, but it's still a bit chilly to have A.J. out for too long, but I'll have to cover that stuff when we go over Antoinette's Mom's visit in detail.
The video soundtrack is from one of the greatest movies of all time and probably doesn't fit the pictures very well, but that's tough. So, without further adieu, here are my kids to the soundtrack from Conan the Barbarian!!!
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