13 Months (And Some Change)

While I had no plans to continue my monthly updates after Dylan turned 1 year, I've realized that he's had lots of developments I haven't posted so wanted to share them with you!

After taking his first steps a couple of weeks ago, Dylan's had some "practice" daily but is far from being a regular walker. His preferred method of transportation is still crawling. Since he's really great and fast at that, I can't blame him. Why fix it if it ain't broken??

His vocabulary is also developing and in the last couple of weeks, he's definitely had his "first words." While eating, he'll tell us "Mo" (I think I even heard an "R" at the end yesterday) for more food. He points at one of his favorite toys, a ball, and say "Ba" and will say "Do" when the neighbors dog is outside. To be fair, pretty much everything he points at is "Do" or "Da" so we're not confident that it actually means dog. Mike tells me he's also working on saying book but I haven't heard that one yet (which means it's still unofficial). And even though he says da and ma all the time, it never seems in reference to us. So, I'm still looking forward to the day that he'll look at me and say mama.

Also, as of last week, Dylan is officially weaned.While I'm thrilled in many ways to have finally reclaimed my body after pregnancy and nursing, I'm also (very unexpectedly) sad about it. I've heard that there can be a hormonal shift afterwards that I can only presume is partly to blame. However, what I'm already missing is my snuggle time with Dylan. He's such the little man on the move that it's rare that he sits still long enough for a hug let alone extended close time.

I am so proud of the fact that I was able to nurse him for the recommended year, especially because we had a lot of problems from the very beginning that lasted a long time. Then, of course, there was the not so fun experience of pumping while at work. I did that up until about 11 months. The week after I stopped pumping, Dylan stopped taking a bottle during the day. Lucky coincidence! After that point, we tried to introduce more (cow's) milk to his diet but he was completely uninterested in it. So, before I could drop the last 2 nursing sessions (morning and night), we waited until his 1 year check up to talk to the doctor.

After a discussion about how to make sure he was getting enough calcium in his diet, we got the thumbs up to go forward with our plans. He very easily dropped the night time feeding a week later. Then, last week, we dropped his morning feeding without any drama. So, that's it...we're done with that phase of his life.

With the huge changes that have happened in the month since we celebrated his birthday, I can't help but notice that my little baby is not a baby anymore...he's a toddler. I am so excited to get to know my little boy and his personality better through his continued mobility and communication. However, I can't help but be a little bit sad that my little squeaking baby bundle is now only a distant memory. I guess this is why they say time passes too quickly....

Yard Renovation Before and After

Even though our yard was 90% done for Dylan's party, I didn't want to do a "Before and After" until it was 100% done. Since those very small last remaining details are either 1) Not obvious in pictures or 2) Not going to be done immediately, I decided it was time for this. So, here goes.

When finding pictures for this post, I was floored. Even though I haven't forgotten what a hot mess our yard was before, seeing it in stark contrast to the beautiful landscape we have now is a bit of a shock! I often feel as though I should have had this documented on an HGTV show since the transformation is as extreme as any of theirs. It's still surreal to us how beautiful the yard is and we are really trying to enjoy it every moment we can.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for, Before and After pictures..........

View From Back Deck Before

View From Back Deck After

Our Welcoming, Picket Fence

Before, a Hill Pretty Much Only Good for Rolling Down

Along with an Ugly, Decrepit Wall and LOTS of Weeds

After - Paved, Terraced Space with Lovely Plantings

Before - From the Top of the Ledge

Before - View from Top of the Ledge to the Side Yard

After, from the Top of the Ledge

Future Site of a Fire Pit

Behind it, Boulders Uncovered From the Yard and the Ledge

From the Top of the Ledge - Side Yard

Side Yard Before - Sloped and Unused

Side Yard After

Leveled, Fenced, Ready for Play

Front Yard Before - All Weeds

Front Yard After, Sod, Perennials and a Birch Tree

Front of the House

Potted Annuals

So, there you have it. Even though I played some part in the planning, I'm still amazed at how it turned out. I will admit, this is the very first house project that I relinquished some control of and left to the professionals. Admittedly, I know little about plants and landscaping so worked to find a quality company whose opinion and work I trusted. For a control freak like myself, it was scary and freeing, all at the same time, to let go of the reins a bit. In the end, I feel like the vision and execution of the yard was a beautiful collaboration and had a wonderful result.

Now, Mike and I are ramping up quickly to learn how to take care of (ie preserve) this gorgeous yard. If any of you want to volunteer your time to come over and weed on the weekends, our casa es su casa!

Dynamic Duo

The witching hour. It's a term used to describe that time of day when a baby is regularly cranky. For my 1 year old, that time is usually after his afternoon nap and before dinner....just before I get home.

Every once in a while, I'm met at the door by my boys, both with frowns on their faces. On those days, Mike is more than ready for the parental pass off. Often though, Mike's able to find an activity that makes Dylan forget his crankiness and occupies him until we sit down to eat. Today, I came home to a happy dynamic duo.....the dynamic cleaning duo!

Dylan, for some reason, really loves the vacuum. He'll hang out with Mike and smile while the vacuum is running. In the last week, he's also become really interested in pushing things around other than his walking toys - bar stools (at home), a kiddy slide and some foot stools (these last two at his play group that he and Mike started going to last week). Today, Dylan combined his love for vacuuming and pushing things around. Together, Mike and Dylan made a fantastic vacuuming team.

Isn't it great that he's already learning to "earn his keep?!" (Dylan, that is...Mike earns his keep and then some every day!)

He Walks!

Today Dylan hit a HUGE milestone. He's enjoyed walking while holding our hands for months. He's been working standing on his own for weeks with his legs getting increasingly closer together and more steady. He got a walking toy for his birthday and has absolutely loved moving around with it. So, we knew the day was coming but nothing could have prepared us for the shock we felt today.

After a fairly cranky day, by Dylan standards, and one with little naps, we didn't expect a happy baby tonight. But, after we got home from some errands and started dinner, he was ready to play. He moved from squat to standing several times, as he's been doing fairly often in the last week, before Mike moved in from of him. And then, as I stopped making dinner and turned around to watch, Dylan walked two steps to Mike all by himself! We whooped, laughed and cheered together. Then, because I can't stand to be left out, I stood a couple of steps away from him after Dylan got into a steady standing position....he then walked 1.5 steps to me. Literally minutes afterwards, we witnessed him walking 5, then 7 then 9-10 steps at a time!

He was obviously LOVING it and very excited about it. So excited in fact that he was frog jumping because he was so anxious to get on two feet moving that he wasn't being patient enough with his body and was trying to get to his feet and going too quickly. When he did give his wobbly legs enough time, he would start stepping. When he fell, he would get right back up without getting upset even though the poor child was ridiculously exhausted.

Needless to say, Mike and I felt incredibly proud and very excited...for him and with him. What a major milestone he accomplished today! As much as he improved 10 minutes after his first steps today, I can only imagine he'll be walking laps around the house by the time I get home from work tomorrow.

My Little Walker

Belly Laughs

A just for fun post! This is an exerpt from a video I took of Dylan playing ball with Pipaw the first day the grandparents were here for their week long visit. He was cracking up for a full 5 minutes. This portion is at the end where he's laughing so hard, his face was turning red and he could hardly breath! Enjoy!

Balancing Act Success

Last weekend, despite the heat, was an absolutely wonderful weekly. So rarely does a weekend contain the perfect balance of productivity, fun and relaxation. This one did.

Saturday, Dylan was up early. As Mike often does, he let me go back to sleep while he and Dylan played. Then, Dylan helped me do some yard work while Mike napped. When all of us were finally awake at the same time, we took our weekly trip to the local farmers market. I love getting some local grown, fresh veggies! After stocking up, we headed to our favorite bike shop with plans to get set with a kids bike seat and go on our first family ride. Dylan fell asleep en route so I went in knowing I had some time to kill.

I've been looking for a bike for several years. I was ready to buy one this year but hadn't found the right one yet. The bike I've been riding I've had since college. And, while I still love it, it's a mountain bike and doesn't work very well riding next to Mike's hybrid. So, I wanted to get a hybrid bike to speed up my commute times and allow me to ride more comfortably next to Mike when we went on rides.

I got all the information we needed on kid car seats, and found a new bike for myself! While they were getting my bike customized and ready to take home, Mike brought his in for a few tweaks and we got the kids seat all set up. 2 hours spent in the bike store later, we were ready for our ride!

Excited for His First Bike Ride

Unfortunately, after all of our time spent at the store, we only had a little bit of time left for the ride. Mike and I had a date night planned and needed to get home and ready to go out. The bike shop was not too far from the arboretum, so we just hopped on our bikes outside the shop, rode to the park, up the peak and then headed back. It was a nice 45 minute ride. I'm not sure Dylan knew what to think of his ride, but he did at least seem to enjoy watching me ride my bike next to him.

Bikin' Boys

Mike and I probably don't do date night nearly enough, especially since we now have found a local sitter that Dylan seems to have fun with. When we did date night pre-Dylan, we always had something new, fun and exciting to experience up our sleeves. Now, we've fallen into the proverbial "dinner and a movie" date night. The thing is, we never get a chance to do that type of thing anymore so it's actually really fun to get to do that. Last weekend, in honor of the recent Bastille Day, we ate at a French restaurant and went to see "Le Raconter Jouet Trois," known in English as "Toy Story 3" (I hope I didn't botch the translation). I know, we are such wild and crazy kids, aren't we?!?

Sunday was another great day. Armed with our zoo family pass, Mike and Dylan had gone one weekday last week and found out that the new aviary exhibit we had being watched built was now open. Mike described to me how you could feed the birds and Dylan's experience with it. I wanted to see it for myself so we went to the Franklin Park Zoo on Sunday morning to do that and walk around a bit.

The aviary exhibit was really cool and I really enjoyed feeding the birds with Dylan. In normal Dylan fashion, he found the most exciting part of the exhibit the little girl squealing with delight at the birds. Oh well....at least I got good entertainment out of the seed sticks we bought!

Feeding the Budgies

Another highlight of our zoo trip was seeing the prehensile-tailed porcupine. He's usually buried in his log but on Sunday, he was at the top of the tree and in fine form to view.

Prehensile-Tailed Porcupine

And My New Favorite Picture of the Boys Taken By That Exhibit

The day was topped off with some cleaning and laundry around the house, some afternoon naps and family pizza night. It was a really great family weekend that was packed with fun but also very relaxing - a perfect balance.

Storyland is Hot, Hot Hot!!!

The 6th, the day after the crazy party, was Dylan's actual birthday and his Mimaw and Pipaw's last day here. My Dad, who doesn't know how to relax apparently, was driven to finish the swing set. He and Mike got the slide up and running. My Mom and I spent a somewhat leisurely day indoors with Dylan. Of course, my Mom doesn't know how to totally relax either so she lent us her mending skills on a stack of our clothes. They did manage to get a good amount of playing time in with their grandson too.

The morning after that, we all packed up. We drove to the airport said our goodbyes to my parents and then immediately hit the road for our next adventure - a couple of days at our place in NH with Mike's cousin, Eric, his wife, Jessie, and their two sons - Justin (turning 2 next week) and Ryan (5 months).

Normally, when it's hot in the city, we can get away to our place in the mountains which will have cooler temperatures. Unfortunately, the mountain escape didn't get us away from the heat either. Not only was it just as hot (or hotter) than Boston, we have absolutely no A\C there. Ugh! If not for the ice cold pool, which I normally can't get in for over a minute, we surely all would have melted. The temperature inside the condo was upper 80s to 90 during the day, dropping only to the lower 80s at night...at least on the main floor. The loft where we sleep retained most of the day's heat. 4 adults, 3 young kids and a lot of heat. We weren't sure how this vacation was going to pan out.

Lucky for all of us, we're all fun people, made the best of the situation, and have pretty great and resilient kids. Although I don't think any of us will forget the intense heat of those two days for a very, very long time, we will also remember what a fun first vacation we all had together.

On our first day there, we mostly just enjoyed the pool and a night out at what we hoped would be a nice cold restaurant. While a little cooler than our condo, it was obvious they weren't well equipped for that kind of heat either. Back at the condo, we put the boys in a cool bath to try and get them to a nice temperature to fall asleep.

Cold Tubby Time with Dylan and Justin

The next day was our Storyland adventure! Storyland is a little kids' amusement park about an hours drive from our place. It's a pretty popular family vacation spot so I was somewhat surprised to have little to no lines all around the park. I guess the heat was on our side for one thing, reducing the crowds.

Dylan's a pretty adventurous guy. The more we throw and swing him around the happier he is so we thought he would absolutely LOVE all the rides. Well, I don't think we were quite right. While he was in good spirits and not ever upset, he pretty much retained his deer in the headlights look during the typical amusement park type rides. Though, I do think the heat played a part in draining him. He's usually not as his finest on hot days.

Mike and I tried not to fight too much over who got to ride rides with him. Somehow, I won the coin toss for going on his very first right with him - The Flying Dutchman!

Dylan's Very Fist Amusement Park Ride

Jessie and Justin

We went for a different kind of ride after - a safari type ride. This one Dylan was a little more into. He didn't really care too much about the silly scenery, but he had a great time sitting on the seat, swinging his legs and holding onto the railing. Man, I wish I were amused that easily

Safari (Good Thing We Had The Right Hat)

One of his favorite park activities was not a ride, but the Loopy Lab. Playing ball is just about his favorite thing. There were only about half a million foam balls under the Loop Lab tent and he crawled around throwing everyone he could get his hands on. Seemed his mission was to get to every one of them.

His Hat Also Held a Lot of Them

Other rides included a balloon ferris wheel, some flying whales and a tractor drive.

Mike and Dylan on the Flying Whales

Eric and Justin Tractor Driving (note the small size of the front seat)

Family Self Portrait on the Tractor

Dylan really enjoyed turning the wheel on the tractor. It probably would have been a lot cooler for him if his mother hadn't tried to shove into the front seat with him. Even with my short legs, my knee was crammed into the wheel!

A group highlight of the day was a stupid show about a scarecrow and a vegetable garden. Why was a stupid show a highlight? Well, the auditorium was air conditioned! The adults cooled off in there and Dylan enjoyed cruising around the bench and seemed to also enjoying looking at the characters on stage. Justin and Ryan didn't enjoy it as much as the rest of us - Justin got scared of the fake lightening and Ryan started a melt down. So, after cooling off, it was time to call it a day.

Dylan Giving Ryan Pats

We headed back, spent some time at the pool and all tried to get another night of sleep in a ridiculously hot home. Mike and I had planned to stay at least another night but we were all done with the heat. After Eric, Jessie and family packed up to head home, we followed suit. It was still hot in Boston, but at least there we had the sweet relief of air conditioning!