Sonogram of Baby Lauer!

As many, but not all of you, know, Chris and I are expecting a new baby! Drum roll please . . . introducing photos of Baby Lauer at 10 weeks'! He or she was doing gymnastics, tumbling, flipping, and swimming while the photos were taken, which was so fun to watch.

Last weekend we traveled back to Atlanta to celebrate with two nieces receiving First Holy Communion. (A third niece in Texas is experiencing this sacrament next weekend, but we won't be able to go.) We stayed at Grandmom and Pop-Pop's house where John discovered the electronic keyboard (at the end of the video, he shows you a cookie and explains, "Yum!")

Here is Anne and Kate's class lined up like ducklings before Mass:
After Mass, family and friends gathered at a hotel for a lovely brunch. Here is Anne's family:
John enjoyed running on the golf course grass, although when he fell down, he would not allow his hands to touch it.

Hard-Hearted Against Hard Soles

Apparently, John is not ready to wear hard-soled shoes.
He has outgrown his Robeez-style soft leather brown shoes, so I've been hunting for a replacement. Target never seems to carry them in the 12-18 month size. I could order a different brand online and spend a lot more money. While in Target yesterday, it occurred to me to look in the real shoe department, not the infant section. To my surprise, John is now a big-enough boy that I can buy his shoes in the real shoe department! I bought him the above hard-soled, casual sandals and a nicer pair of medium-soft soled shoes. One thing funny I noticed was that, of the four end cap displays of toddler shoes, each end cap contained about four and a half rows of girl shoes (so adorable) and half a row on the bottom of boy shoes (really plain). Anyway, I tried the sandals on John in the store and he burst into tears. I know they fit perfectly and are not injuring him, so I bought them anyway and tried them this morning. He wailed in terror and would not move his feet. Bad Mommy took a humorous photo before relieving him of his predicament.

Slurping Is Funny

Uploading this video means confessing to the world that not only was I eating Top Ramen, but I fed the stuff to my son. So, now that that confession is out of the way . . . the broth was very hot, so I was sort of slurping it. John thought this was very funny and would burst into hysterical laughter each time I took a sip. Bad Mommy that I am, I then slurped louder to elicit more laughter. I decided to film some of it, so, of course, he cooled down on his laughter then, but it's still funny.



And uploading this photo means confessing that I attempted feeding John a canned soup product with pasta Os and chicken bits (and probably 75% of his daily sodium). I'm kind of desperate these days in getting him to eat anything other than cookies and crackers. The photo illustrates his new cutlery with real metal tips. I wanted to get him miniature all-metal cutlery, but haven't found those yet.

Our Strong Man

John is at a very imitative stage, giving us many opportunities for hilarity. Recently he must have witnessed me straining at something (opening a jar? who knows) because he suddenly began pretending to strain when lifting, pulling, squeezing, and so forth. Sometimes he uses props, sometimes he uses nothing, as in the pictures below. Now it has become a game that John and I play back and forth, pretending to strain at something that isn't really hard. In the pictures below, I actually just asked John to "squeeze for Mama!" and he did. Note the taut ligaments in his neck! What an actor!

Well-Baby Check

Today John had a well-baby check because he hadn't been to the doctor in about five months, I had some questions, and I wanted to establish a relationship with a doctor in our new city before some emergency of John getting sick. I asked around with the right people and got a recommendation for someone who turned out to be a friendly, very like-minded kind of family physician.

Anyway, John weighs 24 pounds 3 ounces (25th percentile) and is 31" tall (40th percentile). His big head remains in the 80th percentile. This was the first time his height and weight were taken standing on the scale like a Real Big Boy. No more baby scale for him! Of course, I was a little alarmed about John's percentiles because they continue to drop, but the doctor reassured me up and down (as did John's last doctor) that growth slows dramatically in the second year, John is still gaining weight and height every month, and he's "obviously so healthy!"

The doctor wasn't really sure what to call this well-baby check since it didn't fall into the Very Official schedule of the 15-month or 18-month check, but John (16-1/2 mos.) has already surpassed all of the developmental milestones they look for at 18 months.

First Salon Haircut

I've given John half a dozen hair cuts myself, but recently butchered the hair at the nape of his neck. So, I let his hair grow out (which caused the shape to get even shaggier with Farrah Fawcett feathering) and today took him to a children's salon, Doolittle's.

I think 16 months is too young to be afraid, as John doesn't understand that scissors cut and that cuts are owies. He was serious and cautious (maybe because there was another toddler boy terrified and screaming bloody murder the whole time), but didn't cry or seem fearful at all. John got to sit in a fire engine chair, which was perfect considering our adventure just last night.

Looking very concerned about his new haircut:
It's really not as short and nerdy as it looks in that picture. There the hair was still wet (and I think there was some hairspray in the water mixture too). Anyway, my hope is that now I can maintain the shape of the professional haircut.

A "Vroom Vroom" Adventure!

On Sunday evening, a blaring police car and, not one, but two fire trucks responded to a fire alarm at the apartment building across from ours! John was thrilled to see fire trucks live and in person. Here is John telling us all about it:
Apparently the neighbors had a quick flash fire in the kitchen that set off the very effective sprinklers located in each room of these apartments. The fire was out, but the folks needed the firemen to turn off the sprinklers. Unfortunately, the sprinklers were probably on for 10-15 minutes. They seem to produce a big volume of water, as evidenced by the fact that the first firemen who rushed in came out within one minute and wrung out their shirts, pouring water onto the ground. Thinking about the tremendous water damage our neighbors are probably suffering was a swift reminder to us to buy renters' insurance!

Shopping with my Boy

On Friday morning, John and I took a stroller walk to the shopping center behind our apartment to shop at the drug store and look for pajamas at one of the department stores (which turned out not to carry children's clothing). I got there an hour before the stores opened at 10:00 and rather than take John home, unload, reload, and all that hassle, we just walked around, then shared a bagel with cream cheese at Starbucks.
Later in the day, we visited REI to look for a Nalgene bottle for John (plain blue!) at the suggestion of a friend. (Janeane, is this the kind of bottle your daughter has?) John really likes it.
We did succeed in buying John new summer pajamas, as his size 12-month PJs were getting too small. My baby surprised me by picking out his own clothing! I was digging through the rack when John began shouting, "vroom! vroom!" and lunged for a pair of PJs decorated with construction gear. Then he gave the same reaction to a pair of PJs with rescue vehicles (e.g., fire trucks, ambulances) on them. So, I bought those instead of the PJs with space ships, cowboys, or puppies. It was the oddest feeling to see my "little baby" show his own preference! (As you can see below, the 18-month PJs I bought are a bit tight, but I'd already cut the tags off this pair. I guess John needs 2T for his pajamas anyway, although not his other clothing.)
What's Cookin'? I got a neat, extremely simple recipe from another mom for those nights when we're so tired that we're one step away from getting take-out. It's called "Taco Soup," but it's more like chili.

Taco Soup

1 can each of black beans, red beans, white beans, corn, and crushed or diced tomatoes
Idea: Add ground beef for meat-eaters
1 packet of taco seasoning

Mix it all together in a pot, stir in some sour cream until you get the consistency you like, heat through, and serve with corn chips.

Happy Birthday Grandmom

Today is John's Grandmom's birthday. And while we are talking about birthdays, here is a picture of Grandmom holding John on the morning after his birthday. Unfortunately we will not be in town to celebrate with her.

We miss you Grandmom and we can't wait to see you next weekend!

Love,
John and Parents

Sports Bottle and Crayons

We've been trying to encourage John to drink more water lately--along with our continued attempts to get him to eat anything other than cookies and crackers--to help his intestinal health. We discovered that he will drink way more water if we spray it into his mouth with a little spray bottle, but we're not comfortable with that creative option in the long run because we don't want to teach him to grab the nearest spray bottle he finds (cleaner, poison . . .) and drink out of it. We thought he might like a sports bottle, so I bought him one at the grocery store yesterday. The Spider Man bottle was the only boy version without being covered in flowers or ponies, so I chose that one, but Chris and I are both kind of queasy about how commercial it is. As soon as I can find a plain-colored blue or green one, I'll buy that! Anyway, John is enthusiastic about his new sports bottle and is drinking more than usual.
Note that I'm letting him eat graham crackers again as long as they have peanut butter on them to make a nice protein snack.
After enough times watching John scribble with crayons on paper at restaurants, I set him up yesterday with crayons and paper for the first time. I taped the paper to a flat cardboard box.

Playing Horsie

About a month ago I began to see John's expanding imagination. I was lying down when he crawled onto me and straddled my back. I said, "I'm a horse!" And John replied without missing a beat, "Neigh! Neigh!" Since then we have often played horsie.

Today I heard John say, "Neigh! Neigh!" I turned around to see him riding poor, long suffering Oliver.

I am trying to teach John to use the stairs. We now live in a three-story townhouse and carrying a heavy toddler (and laundry or groceries simultaneously) gets old fast. But John's temperament is simply not one of adventure and I'm having difficulty getting him even to want to try the stairs. John practices going up the stairs several times per day, but it tries my patience because he is so slow that it takes two to three minutes, during which time I am saying, "Upstairs! Upstairs!" to the tune of "Mush! Mush!" Every few steps John stops, stands tall, and claps congratulations to himself.

Going downstairs is like pulling teeth. John doesn't seem to show fear or tears, but he simply won't go downstairs either on his stomach or his bottom. I got him to complete going down the stairs one time and it took something like ten minutes of my constant encouragement.

Any tips on teaching stairs are welcomed, although I suspect this will simply require patience and time.

Saturday

Pardon this photo being fuzzy but it shows John thrilled, mischievous expression when he found two highlighter pens. He used them to pretend to write on boxes because he saw me writing on so many boxes during packing.
Our apartment has a second-floor balcony which is proving very convenient for getting John outside for playtime. This afternoon it was rainy but warm enough and balmy, so I took stir-crazy John out onto the balcony. He rode his little red car while I relaxed and read a book, of all things!

Our boy is quite the engineer. Here is video of him trying to figure out the window-mounting device for our GPS device.

What's Cookin'? I recently discovered what I think is a new cooking show on Discovery Health. I like how the cook is not a trained chef and his goal is to cook healthy things fast, so he advocates food out of jars and other such easy stuff. One night I made Roasted Tomato and Goat Cheese Salad (John really enjoyed eating the steak!) and tonight I made Mediterranean Chicken Wrap. I hope to try the Chimichito as well.

"I Hate Fruit"

Below is a video of John refusing to try peaches. I have made no progress in encouraging him to eat fruit. He had been indicating that he was hungry for solids--as he asks for food at least half a dozen times per day now--so I sat him in his booster chair and offered him peaches. Note that he first makes the thhhbbbt sound with his tongue, which is how he indicates "yucky" and generally applies only to trash and Mama and Daddy's morning coffee. He won't even try the peaches, but he knows they are yucky. Then he "cries" and tries to go limp to fall out of the chair. He bangs his head which is his sign for I HAVE AN OWIE. Then he makes the sign for DOWN to get me to take him out of the chair. It's like this pretty much each time I offer him food that isn't a starchy carbohydrate. I'll just keep offering cheerfully . . .

In the same sitting I offered apple slices with peanut butter. John decided he liked the peanut butter straight off of his fingers and ate about a tablespoon of it.

On an unrelated note, John has become especially taken lately with "vroom vrooms" (cars and trucks). He comments on them when he sees them (especially big/loud trucks), he likes to sit at our third story window and peer down at the vehicles coming and going, and he actually asks to go in the "vroom vroom" (go for a car ride). So cute!

More Foods

I don't have any cute photos today, but want to give a quick update to Day 2 of the Course Correction. John rejected many foods today, but I was extremely impressed that he ate an entire slice of rye bread with peanut butter for breakfast (he normally won't eat any breakfast), about a half cup of dry Smart Start cereal (but wouldn't touch any pieces wet with milk), some rice at dinner, and a slice of sourdough with peanut butter before bed. Now, these are still all carbohydrates and constipating foods, but I'm still so happy that they're not cookies or crackers and that John was willing to eat some wet food (the PB)! I don't know why this baby rejects fruit so firmly when most kids love it, so we'll keep working on that one.

Course Correction

John had his frenectomy only five weeks ago, but the percentage of his calories coming from solid foods has increased dramatically. Before his tongue was clipped, John might take ten minutes to eat one goldfish cracker. After his procedure, John began eating all manner of foods, which was great! Of course, he also liked goldfish crackers and other baby crackers and cookies. Then he began showing preferences and asking for more and more. I was just so thrilled to see that he could eat a goldfish cracker in one big munch and ask for more. A couple of weeks into this process, I noticed he might eat 15 crackers at a sitting. Wow, that's great! About three weeks into it, I realized that John was now eating only crackers and cookies. Now this was not so great.

I don't want to get into food battles and I don't want to be a food Nazi, never allowing crackers and cookies. But I also don't want to create a child who eats only white foods. Chris and I decided that a course correction was in order, but I waited until after the move because there was no way I could get creative with food while moving and on the road. Yesterday I did a big grocery shopping trip and stocked up on all manner of appropriate foods for John. As of yesterday afternoon, I have (temporarily) cut off John from all cookies and crackers.

Surprisingly, I've already seen improvement. John has rejected many, many foods. I'm not going to shove food in his mouth, only to have him spit it out. Instead I casually eat the food myself without offering him any and eventually he asks for some. Then he will often just smash the food into bits, making a big mess. But finally, he will put some of this new foreign food into his mouth! On the first evening of this course correction, John ate hominy and a piece of bread with peanut butter. Today John ate many garlic roasted shaved almonds, about four thin slices of apples with peanut butter, about two tablespoons of Mama's soy burger, and one tablespoon of Grandmom's beef burger!

Apples:
Burgers:

I'm especially excited to see John eat some "wet" foods (apple, peanut butter) because he has consistently shown particular distaste for anything wet, which precludes any once-live food (fruit, vegetables), sauces, or puree-type foods (apple sauce, yogurt). If he ever got any wet food on his fingers, he'd hold out his fingertips to me with a look of horror on his face until I wiped them clean.

Getting Settled In

Moving has really been exhausting all of us:





In the last couple of weeks, John has begun enthusiastically waving hello to strangers in public. On the day the unloaders were carrying all of our belongings from our truck into the apartment, for a time I set up John's Learning Tower right next to the path of traffic. Each time an unloader would walk by carrying a box or piece of furniture, John would wave with so much energy and affection!







This morning we tried St. Michael's for Mass as we'd heard wonderful things about its conservative, orthodox pastor. The parish looks promising, so, inevitably, it is 40 minutes from our apartment. After Mass, we went to breakfast with Chris' parents.


We found a great local diner near the church called the Pancake House. The walls were decorated with NASCAR memorabilia and the air thick with cigarette smoke. It was a real locals' kind of joint and we had great fun.

Chris has departed for his next business trip and his dad has returned to Atlanta for work. My mother-in-law is staying for a couple of days to continue helping me with the unpacking, which is a great gift.

Photos from Moving

John amazed at the stacks of boxes on Tuesday:
Katherine, John, and the cats setting out for Charlotte (he was asleep five minutes later):
John gleefully chasing Oliver in the empty apartment today:
The new car seat we put in Chris' car sits more upright than his regular car seat, which is sort of fun for John, but then when he falls asleep, he slumps over in such an uncomfortable way!

I discovered today that John knows the cats' names, something I've wondered about the last few months. After we visited the cats at the apartment today, we drove back to the hotel where I asked him, "Did you like seeing Missy and Oliver?" He paused a long time, then answered, "Meow!" I tested him again at dinner when we were talking about the fact that horses say "neigh" (stimulating conversation); I asked him, "What do Oliver and Missy say?" He quickly answered, "Meow!"

Welcome to Charlotte

Part of the family is in Charlotte!

I've been slowly packing the house for a couple of weeks and Tuesday is when the professional packers (thanks be to God!) arrived to do the rest. It turned out to be more hassle than it was worth for John and me to be hanging around the house while it was swarming with packers. I'm so grateful that my mother in law came over to help me watch John. But the poor boy had nowhere to nurse or nap, so he was frazzled. At one point, we got in the car and drove for an hour just so John could nap. Despite his going six hours without nursing at one point (John never does that), one of the packers commented that John was the best baby he's ever witnessed on a packing day. That made me feel good!

Toward the end of the day, I commented that I wished I had driven to Charlotte that day instead of waiting till Wednesday. That sparked us to thinking and we figured out that I could get everything together in time. I was out of the house within an hour with a vehicle full of stuff, the baby, and two yowling cats. I left Atlanta at 4:30 p.m. so I hit a lot of rush hour traffic while leaving. It was a real blessing that exhausted John slept for the first two hours of the drive while I got to feel like an adult and listen to the Dave Ramsey radio show in peace.

I stopped for dinner in Greenville (John loved his fettuccine alfredo), but after that the drive got ugly. It was 8:00 p.m. when I left the restaurant and John screamed and wept for the next two hours to Charlotte. Normally he falls asleep for the night between 8:00 and 9:00, but for some reason he just couldn't fall asleep in the car again. It's been a while since John and I have had to endure two hours of uninterrupted screaming.

The night was not yet over, though! I had to stop by the apartment first to drop off the cats since cats are not allowed in the hotel. Chris had chosen the apartment and I had not yet seen it in person, so I made my way there. I can't describe much because it was dark and late, but it certainly seems like a neat place. Our first adventure concerned some wildlife which welcomed me at the apartment. I had John in my Ergo and was walking up the steps to the front door when I placed my hand on the rail, touching something very soft and wet. I let out an exclamation! It turned out to be a very cute frog who did not jump away despite my assault on his person. As I brought all the cat supplies into the house, John and I said hello to the little frog on each passing.

After getting the terrified cats set up with a litter box, food, water, and cat beds, John and I set out for our hotel six miles away. I got lost because my GPS system wasn't working at the moment. I called Chris, who got online and talked me through where I was going, and in the meanwhile John began crying again, the cats were yowling (which they do when John is crying in order to alert me to trouble with the baby--as if I don't know), and I briefly thought a policeman was pulling me over (but he wasn't).

I was bedraggled when I finally arrived at the hotel past 11:00 p.m., having been awake since 6:00 a.m. But we made it safe and sound. John had one night terror after falling asleep, which is pretty typical when he has outrageously tiring days.

Today Chris is supervising the loaders and then he will drive the truck to Charlotte, meeting me late at night at the hotel. John and I will probably spend a lot of today relaxing, as the poor baby woke up with dark circles under his eyes. But I might also venture out to buy a toaster oven and do an initial grocery shopping trip.