Ellis took his first 6 steps today. The first four were at the mall playground and left Kent and I both teary eyed in front of all the other parents who were probably rolling their eyes at us. The other two were at home. It’s both shocking and wonderful. Although I’m surprised at how shocking it is, I mean all normally developing kids walk at some point right? Still, it’s a day I want etched in my memory for all of time.
We’re moving to Bellingham in northwest washington state. It’s scary and exciting and we are determined to make it work. More on the Tschoepe exodus later…
This week since I my last pair of jeans finally became unsuitable for public wear with holes in both the ass (4 inch rip) and crotchal region (quarter sized hole) and you could always be quite sure which underwear I was wearing, we went to Good Will looking for jeans. If you have body image issues and don’t wear a single digit size, consider this a public service announcement: The Good Will dressing room is officially the pit of hell. Forget fire and brimstone (which, what the fuck is brimstone?), hell is bad lighting, dirty donated doors with wonky locks and pants that have already been broken in by someone else’s fat ass. I felt actually nauseous. So we gave up and went to Target for groceries. But! While we were there I saw that they were having a clothing sale. 75% off bitches. Five dollar shirts 20 dollar jeans thank you very much. Speaking of shirts, I have a confession to make. I bought some maternity shirts. Not the poofy in the tummy kind but the form fitting stretchy and just loose enough kind. Since my boobs are still ginourmous all the regular shirts are way too short, and lets face it, they’re not as comfortable, and they lose their shape after wear.. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t make shirts out of the Liz Lange maternity line material.
Anyway, onto the pants. Before I had Ellis pants were always too loose in the waist and fit just right everywhere else. I lamented this fact and while I hated belts I often wore them just so I didn’t have a giant gap between my back and my ass. Post Ellis I’m having the opposite problem. If the pants fit my hips and thighs then the waist is too snug (read: can button but are tight and have some slight um, overage, ahem). If they fit in the waist then they’re loose everywhere else which is OK until I wear them for a few hours and then they loosen up even more everywhere and begin to fall down. Does anyone else have this problem? It’s driving me slowly insane. But hey, at least they don’t have holes in the crotchel region.
Ellis,
Hi there. Your Ole mom is a few days late again. I’m sure that’s something you’re used to by now. It’s December which means it’s your very first Christmas. I was all excited about decorating, and putting up a tree, and wrapping presents to put underneath it until I realized that all Christmas decorations are basically death traps for climbing little guys like you. As a result we have only stockings and one plastic snow globe up in the house. You love to watch the snow swirl around in that thing, and my plan is to get you one each year so you too can have boxes of crap to store in your attic when you’re my age. You are really digging this Christmas thing though. Everywhere we go you point out decorations and smile at the Santa’s. When we happened upon a Santa at the Gaylord Texan where we had gone to let you look at the model trains, I wasn’t sure how you would react to sitting on his lap. You just sat right down, smiled at him then looked straight into the camera. Afterwords you were giddy with excitement, laughing and bouncing around. It’s like you have some secret knowledge of what that big red bearded man will be bringing in the years ahead.
As usual this month there are so many new things you’re doing that I know I’m going to forget some. New this month: speaking your own language (no more da da da da), several words (moo, gotcha, neigh, poop, da for yes), the sign for hungry (which you use even in your sleep), pointing to things and asking us to identify them, 5 new teeth (OK, two are still under the gums, but they won’t be for every long), hugging, you can point out cows, pigs, frogs, and cats. Still developing: cruising, standing without holding on to anything.
I think the biggest news this month is that I am no longer tethered to you at bed time. Since our nighttime routing has been well established, you are letting your dad sit with you until you fall asleep. Make no mistake baby I have loved being the one to help you fall asleep, but it’s been so nice to share that particular job for many reasons. I now have a little time to pick up, or read blogs alone. But more importantly, your dad gets to see how cute you are when you roll around like a drunken old man fighting sleep until you grab the hand that we’ve shoved through the crib bars and fall asleep. The next hurdle we need to tackle is getting you to stay asleep. You’re still up at least twice in the night asking for food. I can’t tell if you’re really hungry or just in the habit of eating, but I can tell that lately I’ve been wondering what it feels like to get a full nights sleep. It’s been just about two years since I had one of those.
Your love of books is still in full force, and you’ve started "reading" them by yourself. I’ll catch you out of the corner of my eye open a book which is inevitably upside down, turn pages and yammer that Ellis language with each page. Your favorites lately are Miss Spiders Tea Party, and Fire Trucks In Action.
You were sick this month for the first time, all listless and hot to the touch. So I bought you a bunch of old movies for us to watch in bed while you rested. One of them was the Charlotte’s Web I remember from when I was kid. I put it in not really expecting you to watch it for more than 5 minutes, but you were completely enthralled. You smile, point, clap and dance every time you watch it. I’m even able to get a peaceful shower these days.
Your first birthday is right around the corner and I’m afraid it won’t be much of a celebration. You see, we’re moving across the country two days after you turn 1. For a long time, even before you were born, your dad and I have talked about not wanting to raise you in Dallas. We just don’t belong in a place where there are no mountains or oceans, no food co-ops or car shares, where what kind of car you drive is more important than what kind of person you are, where Mary Kay has it’s world headquarters, where there’s a steak house on every corner, but only two vegetarian restaurants. So we’ve found a place where it is not 110 in the summer and 80 in the winter. Where we can teach you to snow board and mountain bike, where people value the environment and each other a little more. We’ll be only a couple of hours away from your Gmum and Grand Gmum in Canada. I am so happy that we’re able to give this gift to you for your first birthday. I can’t wait to discover this new part of the world along with you.
I love you little man, you are my sunshine.
Love,
Ma ma
Bed time here has been getting better and better over the last month or so. So when Ellis wakes up around midnight to nurse as he has done since he was born, I no longer curse and stomp, and whine about how unfair it is that I’m the only one who can breastfeed. Well, not usually anyway.
Last night around 11:45 he stirred so I went in to see if I could get him to go back to sleep without nursing. No such luck. He was sitting in his crib with his eyes closed and arms raised above his head signaling he wanted to be picked up. Like I always do, I softly asked him if he was hungry, to which he sleepily nodded his head yes for the first time ever.
It was possibly the cutest thing I’ve ever seen, and I don’t know, the fact that he can communicate like that even when he’s basically asleep just felt like a miracle. It was one of those moments to which it is difficult to do justice, and that I will remember for the rest of my life.
Last week I was working at the computer while Ellis was playing in the adjoining room. All of the sudden I heard the rustling of blinds and thought "Gee that’s weird he can’t get to any of the blinds." I’d made sure of that. So I looked over to find that he had CLIMBED on top of the side table and had grabbed the blinds CORD. He had never climbed anything before. Of course when I looked over and saw where he was and what he was doing I exclaimed loudly which startled him, which made him fall backward off the side table while still hanging onto the cord which stopped him from hitting his head by jerking his top half upright so he landed on his bum. He hasn’t climbed back up there yet.
Then this morning he was finishing his breakfast in his high chair while I put some clothes in the dryer. Our washer and dryer are in a closet in the kitchen so while my back was turned, my ass was actually touching his high chair so it’s not like I went far. He was happily jabbering away so I transfered the clothes, turned the dryer on and turned around to find him STANDING UP IN HIS HIGH CHAIR TRYING TO CLIMB OVER THE BACK. (the chair has a strap but I can’t figure out how to tighten the damn thing so he just wriggled right out of it) Thank God I was standing close enough to grab him before exclaiming loudly and scaring him so badly that he fell out. Remember when Britney Spears son fell out of his high chair and hit his head? Oh how I judged. Oh how superior I felt. Karma, she’s a bitch sometimes.
Last weekend we went to the Gaylord (which I call the Gaylord Focker, because really, how could I not) to see the train and light display and Santa!
