My Austin Peeps

After a 4 hour flight (but full day's journey) to Dallas, what else would one want to take on with a baby but a 3 hour drive to Austin?!? What a trooper our little guy is. He really traveled well on the trip (except for not sleeping great while we were there) and enjoyed all the activities we threw at him.

First stop in Austin was at my dear friend Amy's work. She happily took her lunch break with us and we made it easy and just ate at the cafeteria at her office. We arrived around 1 so we missed the lunch rush and had the place to ourselves. After the long trip in the car, Dylan had a great time getting some energy out by crawling all around while we visited and had a bite to early.

Amy, Dylan (Live Long and Prosper) and I

Next stop on the Austin tour was a play date in the park with Shaunna and her son Luke. Luke's just a few weeks younger then Dylan so Shaunna and I have been in touch more than ever commiserating about pregnancy symptoms, experiencing the ups and downs of having an infant and even discussing the many aspects of transitioning back into work after maternity leave. I felt honored that she took the afternoon off to meet up with us.

Luke was just waking from a nap and Dylan, loving all the other kids he's around (sometimes too much), might have been a little too aggressive for Luke's taste, but they did seem to enjoy each other most of the time. The highlight of the play date for the both of them was the swing!

Playdate! Dylan and Luke

Next stop on the tour was the Malones. I was the after school nanny for Mary and Pete's kids for several of my college years. Though I don't talk to them nearly enough, I do keep in touch with the family and always make a point to see them when I'm in Austin. Mary's a nurse midwife and was very interested not only in meeting Dylan, but in hearing about his birth story. While I filled her in on all the nitty gritty details (hey, she wanted them) I'll spare you that story!

Not only was she kind enough to invite us to stay with them for the night, she opened up her home to all of my friends so that we could have a central spot to visit. I was thrilled to be able see so many great friends. Though catching up with everyone was far too brief, I'm so glad I got to see all the friends I did that night. People came and went as their schedules dictated and it worked out perfectly.

One of my friends, Lisa, dabbles in photography and grabbed our camera for some candids. This is my favorite from the night:

As the night went on, Dylan had to go to sleep so we took Mary and Pete up on their offer to babysit and the gals still left at the party (and Mike) moved on to a bowling alley\karaoke\live music\restaurant\bar down the street. We hung out there for a while but after a long day, Mike and I called it a night pretty early.

Mike, Amy, Lisa, Lindsay, Colleen and Me - Group Self Portrait

To wrap up our less than 24 hour stay in the capital of Texas, we met up with Amy and Shaunna at Mike's favorite Texas spot, Taco Cabana, and enjoyed a Tex-Mex breakfast. Then, it was back to Dallas. A quick trip but well worth the travel!

Tub, Bluebonnet, Hoky

What do all of these items have in common? They make really cute baby accessories!

One of the fun things we did while in Dallas was have a little photo shoot to get Dylan's picture in the old tin tub. My parents have pictures of all the older grandkids in it so it's become a family tradition. It was Dylan's turn. In just a few minutes, we got a lot of ridiculously cute pictures. Here are a few

The Winner! This will be the one to hang beside the others.

His Hogan's Heros Look

Sans Hat. Pure Dylan Cuteness.

For some reason, Dylan was obsessed with my Mom's Hoky (a carpet sweeper). He had a great time watching her sweep up with it and a great time playing with it when it wasn't in use.

Hoky Boy

Last Thursday morning, we borrowed my Dad's car and left Dallas for a quick overnight trip to Austin to visit some friends. I picked bluebonnet season, purposefully, as the time to go to Texas. Bluebonnets are the state flower of Texas and grow wild all over the state. I love them! It's an Easter tradition for Texas families to plop their kids down in a patch of it and get some great shots. So, on our way down to Austin, we got to enjoy the sight of bluebonnets growing on the side of the highway and, at one point, even stopped to get some pictures of Dylan in them. He was super grateful for the break from the car and loved playing with the flowers. I couldn't pick just one shot to share, so here are some of my favorites....

Again, Dylan did great on the trip and we arrived in Austin for a short period of time but we packed a lot in. Enough that it will have to make it's own post.

Dallas World Aquarium

The Monday after Easter, we headed to the airport and flew to Dallas. The first flight we took there last November was extremely stressful to me. Packing and figuring out what\how to take\check all the baby stuff was pretty overwhelming. This time, it was nice to have that experience under our belts and I was pretty relaxed about that aspect. Though, I did worry just a little bit about having an active crawler in my arms for 4 hours.

Having been a parent for just 9 months, I've learned the "go with the flow" lesson and tried not to think about the flight too much until in the moment. While Dylan was extremely wiggly (gave my arms a good workout) and cried for a few minutes before being able to fall asleep, he did really well and we got through the trip with no major meltdowns. After traveling for that long, he was ready to play when we got to Mimaw and Pipaw's house!

I've also learned that baby proofing, for the most part, is not something you can do too much in advance. You do it as you see what your little monster is going to go straight for. At Mimaw's and Pipaw's, that was the cat food and the plants....oh, and of course, the cat! After figuring out how to move\block off most of that, we just had to keep an eye on him and Cleopatra, the 19 year old cat. She's clawed some other grandbabies in the past. We kept a vigilant eye and our time there passed without incident between the two of them.

We passed Monday and Tuesday just playing, going for walks, and enjoying our time with my parents. It goes without saying that Mimaw and Pipaw absolutely love having Dylan around.

Wednesday, we decided to have an outing to the Dallas World Aquarium. Though you generally expect to only see fish at an aquarium, this one has morphed into a kind of zoo. In addition to all the aquatic life, the have lots of birds, monkeys and other critters to see.

Towards the beginning of our journey through the exhibits, we saw these river otters. They were very active, jumping in and out of the water and swimming around. Lots of fun to watch!

River Otters

Shortly after that, I was looking down into the water at a manatee when my mom started trying to say something while laughing hysterically. At first, all I made out was "poop" and "head." I looked closer at the manatee to see the poop on his head when my Mom said, "Dylan! Dylan has poop on his head!" I looked down (he was in his carrier) and sure enough, there was a glob of purple bird poop on his head!

As you can see, he didn't seem to mind. All I could think was "better him than me." If it had happened a split second later, it easily could have been me! Does that make me a bad mother??

After that incident, we just had a great time looking at all the critters. As always, family favorites of ours are big cats. The aquarium had this beautiful jaguar that we admired for a while.

Jaguar

One of the major highlights\attractions of the Dallas World Aquarium is the shark tunnel. You literally walk into the middle of the exhibit and have sharks swimming beside and above you. We had fun sitting in the tunnel and looking around.

Dylan and I at the Glass

Shark Above Us

I have no idea what we were all looking at, but the expressions on all of our faces are hilarious!

Nice Smiles

Even though Dylan was pretty tired and hungry towards the end of the museum, he was so into looking at everything that he stayed calm. We all had a really fun time.

Easter Excitement

As we traditionally have done for the last few years, we headed to Mike's aunt and uncle's house just outside of Gloucester, Ma for Easter. Mike's parents made the drive up with us and we met up with all of the Lee cousins there.

It was a relaxing day with good weather, good food and good company. Dylan got to try something for the first time - crawling in the grass! He loved it and had a great time exploring their front yard. We snapped some shots on the day and I just wanted to share a few.

Dressed to the Nines!

Dylan loves "walking"!

Fun Times Crawling in the Grass

My Happy (And CUTE!) Boys!

9 Months

3/4 of a year...that's how old my baby is today! We had to cheat and take this picture a couple of days early, in his Easter outfit, since we're now in Texas visiting my family. What's good is that Dylan now knows that his crib is where he goes to sleep. The bad part of that is that he got upset when we put him in the crib for the picture since he was not ready for a nap! So, this is the best shot we could get before he started crying.

Dylan at 9 Months

We've had a really eventful month of developments with our cute little guy. He's keeping us (and the kitties) on our toes with his crawling. He's fast and seems to have an unending supply of energy. Every day he continues to explore something new inside and outside the house. On Easter Day, we even let him loose on the ground outside for the first time. He really enjoyed pulling the grass and getting his hands and knees dirty.

At One With Nature

Less than two weeks after he started to crawl, he pulled up to standing. He's perfected that and has even "cruised" (moved a couple of steps while holding onto furniture) just a little bit. That's opened up another level of exploration in the house to him (and is leaving less places for the cats to sleep peacefully).

He is a really great eater and has happily taken just about everything we've given to him. During this last month, we have given him a lot more actual solid foods that he can feed himself (as opposed to the baby food mush). Among his favorites are scrambled eggs, grapes and broccoli. On March 26th, the tooth we've been waiting for finally broke through the gums. 3 more will be coming soon....at least that's the way it looks. So, he'll have help shortly in eating all of these new foods.

His other big new tricks are clapping and waving. He's mostly been doing them randomly (and often) but it seems that he's finally starting to understand that when his hand waves, people tend to wave back.

We will definitely have to start finding more social outlets for him. Lately, every time he sees another kid, he giggles. I guess he's started to tire of only seeing our old faces everyday and finds a lot of amusement in people more his size. It's really cute.

That little personality is getting more and more pronounced daily. It's fun to watch!