1.25 Update

... Fooled you.  You thought you we were done with our month-by-month updates, but we couldn't resist going quarterly.

This big guy is quite the ham.  He's definitely on-the-go, all boy, and is quite the sponge.  Lately, we have noticed how much better he is at communicating and responding to commands.  Most noticeably, he created his own sign for water and brings me my shoes (and his own) when he wants to go outside.  With that, he also has learned how to throw a giant fit, complete with rolling around on the floor and stopping to see if anyone is looking at him.  He's definitely a toddler.

He also loves hats.

He's obsessed with balls and balloons.  Easy, cheap entertainment.  We also tried bubbles for the first time, but he thought dipping the wand was just as exciting as the bubbles (just as exciting as dipping ketchup, ranch, salsa, etc.).

In other news, we are eager for warm weather.  Nolan hates when he can't play outside.  Yesterday, it started to rain while we were outside.  That didn't deter him from going into the garage, maneuvering his way around to his tricycle and pulling it out to us.  He then pointed at it until we took him for a ride.  We have about 9 weeks left until summer.  Almost there!

These last few weeks are going to be tough though.  Scott is starting call again (weekends, nights, etc.), and end of the year in schools is always busy.  Never mind the 8 no-shows in conferences I have to reschedule.

Other than that, I think everything is basically the same. I need to go back to working on my spring-break goals: cleaning my house.  So far, we've successfully avoided cleaning by going to two different zoos. Nolan is going to have quite the reality check when work starts back up again.  He's been spoiled a bit too much.

#ToddlerCressman?

Where has this year gone?  As I sit here writing (with a sleeping baby on my lap), I can't help but be filled with emotions. I'll try to keep the melodrama to a minimum, but I'm going to sincerely miss some of my favorite baby moments that I know will disappear far too quickly as he becomes more mobile, more sassy, and more independent. At the same time, I'm looking forward to entering my favorite stage in child development.  I can see him starting to process the world at a new, deeper level.

First, his conclusion to our monthly photos. I can't say I'm going to really miss the photo sessions. Our cats might not miss it either.

We had a fun celebratory birthday party with family and friends after Nolan's dedication at church.  It was fun to open our house to a big crowd and all celebrate Nolan's first year.  Here are a few pictures that somewhat capture our fun day. In Nolan's true "I love food" fashion, he picked up the cake whole and dug in without wasting a second.

After a quick bath, he enjoyed opening gifts, getting some additional family cuddles, and tiring out for a nap to finish off the party. Mom may have joined him.

As for developmental gains, we do not have a walker by a year, but he certainly impresses us daily. He giggles easily, is ticklish everywhere, and loves to be silly. He can stand up on his own, enjoys pushing anything that he can make move (high chairs, regular chairs, strollers, walkers, etc.) and could spend all day chasing after the cats.  He gives kisses, occasionally bites, and loves to give hugs. He will share everything with you and expects any food to be shared with him.   I'm proud we made it through a year of nursing, he is transitioning to solid foods without a hitch, he has such an easy-going personality, and we've learned that sleep isn't actually necessary. Overall, he has taken over our house... and we wouldn't have it any other way.   To Nolan's new friends' parents (especially one that is due any day now and a new cousin on the way!), I know every single person with kids tells you how fast it goes, and they're right. Enjoy every moment.

From the Cressman Clan, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a great start to 2016!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Doing these monthly posts can be exhausting.  I don't mind keeping the blog up to date, but I think our little stinker is done with the elephant poses.

This month was the hardest to date.  To start, he was especially sick.  If you didn't notice, we're a week late in the post.  Nolan came down with what we think is Roseola a week ago.  Scott and I each had to take a day off of work (which was difficult in itself), and we had a sick baby over the holidays.  I'll get to that in a second, but the picture taking process was plenty difficult.  The first take on the actual 11 month day was miserable.  We probably have 20 takes of him screaming in different positions while we tried to act as silly as possible.  Today's shoot went much better.  It's his first full day of having an appetite, being silly with us, etc. He was smiling/laughing with us and grinning ear to ear when he saw the cats.  The down side is that he can now move.  So he wanted to be silly on top of us, grab the cat, or crawl behind the blanket backdrop... sitting still is no longer one of our strengths.

However, a few batches of shots later, we have this cutie.

He now has a little more hair, has kept those baby blue eyes, and is slimming down quite a bit.  Now that he's healthy again, he's on the go a lot.  He can climb up and down stairs, up and down couches, and down from our bed.  On days like today, his 5:30am wake-up call was a bit too early for mom and dad... so while he played in our bed, we tried to get a few more minutes of sleep.  To keep things brief, I woke up to find that Nolan had managed to get down from our bed safely and was traveling downstairs.  He clearly was ready to play and start the day.  And, he successfully found his quiet, alone place to poop (he's very particular about this). 

The holidays were nice, despite some last minute changes.  Nolan got to see his cousins, grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great grandma. Even though he was plenty irritable, he was a trooper.  He even celebrated his first birthday a little early on one side of the family. 

      

Nolan doesn't mind getting a bit messy.

This sickness has also brought on little fits (which I think are here to stay) and his new communication tool: yelling at us.  Rather than crying when he's awake and wants us, he now just does this little "yell" to get our attention.

We're not ready to go back to work.  While we always have been thankful for the love that surrounds us, this year has been especially noteworthy.  This peanut has made us feel even more grateful to our families, friends, and those that influence us. To Scott's side of the family, thank you for the adding Nolan's birthday to the Thanksgiving mix.  We enjoyed it and love his new toys and clothes.  To Selena's side, thank you for making last minute schedule changes due to Scott getting called in to work.  While we are thankful we have a job and are always grateful to those who have to work on the holidays, we know it caused a lot of  last-minute stress.  We were sad that we didn't get to see everyone, but we look forward to catching up in a few weeks.

Happy Halloween

When did we get a 10 month old?  I mean, obviously it's a natural progression from the last post, but I just feel like we're losing our baby.

This picture was the first that was truly miserable to capture.  He's adorable as usual, but he wanted nothing to do with sitting.  He wanted to watch the leaves, crawl to us, grab the kitties instead of look at them, and anything else that was not sitting with the elephant.  I have a feeling 11 and 12 will be the same.  But, we've almost made the whole year.

This month has been the month of personality.  He's hilarious, silly, and eager to please.  Then again, if he doesn't know you, he's very suspicious.  He loves his cats, standing, and is quickly learning cause and effect.  The teacher side of me is so fascinated at the new stuff every day, but I'm definitely becoming one of those emotional moms.  I've seen some of those emotional moments on dad's end, too.  My favorite moments currently include him being proud of himself (it's very cute!) and him learning to play independently or with the cats.  They're his little buddies. I don't think they've quite established the "best friend" level, but they tolerate him. I also find it a tiny bit cute when he's sad after we tell him "no". Those little pouty lips.

For kicks, here's a recap for those of you who haven't seen this on facebook (and now it's flipped the right way!)

All in all, I'm looking forward to the next few months.  We're going to lose our crawler, wobble into a toddler, and he's going to continue interacting with the world.  But, as we head into these involved months, I'm also eager to have a few vacations, celebrate a college roommate becoming a mommy, and go back home to see family. I truly enjoy the end of the year and all the holidays.  We're going to ignore the fact that it also becomes winter.

Before I sign off, here's a little Halloween treat.
Meet Bert, Ernie, and the little Rubber Ducky.

And here's a timelapse of our pumpkin carving experience, complete with cats, babies, and Sesame Street music!

9 Months in & 9 Months Out!

For some reason, this has been an emotional month for me.  I imagine it's all the developmental leaps Nolan has been going through, but he just seems so much less baby-like.  He's so mobile, responsive, independent, eager to communicate, ... I could go on and on.

Everything hasn't been roses.  We're starting to have to discipline the little cutie.  We're learning that he's pretty persistent.  If he wants it and we tell him no, he'll just find an alternate route.  Or, our new favorite, he'll grunt back at us. It probably doesn't help that we named him "No"lan.  Scott and I are already trying to hold back the smiles when he laughs in response to "No."  I know, I know.... I imagine it's 1,000 times worse when he begins to reason with us.

In a follow-up to a previous post, I'm happy with our choice to do Baby Led Weaning. While there were certainly some concerns and hesitation to the method, Nolan loves to eat (couldn't guess that, could you?).  He's eager to try new foods, new textures, and be involved with dinner. On the flip side, Scott and I are trying to put forth a better effort to give him healthy meals. He's great with veggies, fruits, meats, and of course, noodles!  He's also eating off the "big kid" menu at school, and his teachers have been impressed.

All the things we couldn't wait for seem to be in the present.  I can't tell you how much we love watching him learn, play, and make connections. It's so precious and goes by too fast.

In other news, I think I'm going to let Nolan skip being a middle schooler.  Or, at least, maybe I'll go down a few grades while he goes through that stage.  They're such tough, moody things. This year, "cliques" are in full force. But, like every year, I'm enjoying teaching my students that the # symbol is not a hashtag when talking about numbers, and flooring them with subtraction problems leading to a negative number (What!?). But with that comes the harsh reality that maps are no longer necessary to students, handwriting is at an all-time low, and much of our education system is still stressing out about teacher deadlines (testing windows), and money.  I don't have a magic answer to our problems, but what we have isn't any better than what we had.  But, I'll get off my soap box for now.

Nolan, be good in school and love to learn. That's my goal for you.

8 Months & Mobile

Our little guy is 8 months old. Where did the time go?

He loves to talk at everything near him.  It's adorable.  Here, he's talking to his elephant. Or cat. You never know.

Nolan made sure he met all the deadlines so he can officially say "I crawled before I was 8 months old." The day before he turned 8 months, he woke up and wowed us with his new ability to crawl AND pull up on everything in his sight. I'm glad he developed some new skills in the 3 hours (3am-6am) he spent just staring at me the night before. Being mobile has been fun, but he certainly shows us where we need to baby proof.  We have some gates currently sitting in our amazon cart, and we're trying to come up with some creative solutions to other parts of our house.  So far, Nolan has gone straight to trying to climb up the stairs, playing with Dad's Wii U, rocking our not-so-stable floor lamps, and finding any cord possible.  His toys are not nearly as cool as mom and dad's toys.

In other news, we're all moved in to our house.  We love it.  For once, we have a house that feels like home.  Pictures are hung, spaces have been filled, and the rare weekends at home feel so relaxing. It truly makes a difference to have a cozy house. It has only taken us 4 moves in 4 years to figure that out. :)

I can't say I'm overly excited to start school tomorrow.  Mom life is wonderful, and I don't want to share him. This really has been such a fun summer. I feel like the move stole some of my vacation, but I know I'm fortunate to have these months with this little peanut.  I hope that Nolan enjoys all the new toys he can play with at school this year, along with now being able to get where he wants.  It's more comforting to send him there now that he can entertain himself.

To my future students (who shouldn't be reading this), I look forward to this year with you. Please be kind, hard-working, positive little middle schoolers.

Homeownership

We're moving up in the adult world.  Homeowners! :)

So far, the move was painful.  Someone once asked me if I thought it'd be better to move pregnant or with a baby.  Well, pregnant hands down. Sure, I wasn't that far along when we moved last time, but it's next to impossible with a baby. We didn't even get my happy-go-lucky baby.  We got a sick, ear-infected baby who wanted nothing more than to be held.  And, we had rental showings in the evenings the weeks leading up to the move to complicate the process.  It was miserable.  Luckily, though, we have wonderful family who saved us during the move day.

By now, we're basically all moved in.  And by basically, I mean that we still have a room to go, a garage to finish organizing, and a few things to hang, but we love it here. There's more places to sit, more room to move around, and pictures on the wall finally make our place feel like a home.   I have a terrible habit of refusing to hang pictures in a rental house (unless, of course, the nail is already there... then I find something to hang on it).  Here, it felt risky nailing things into the wall, adding shelves, etc.  But, I'm so happy that everything is coming together.  I'm looking forward to watching Nolan learn to walk, talk, and play here.

And, growing up seems to be happening way too quickly.  How do we already have a 7 month old? A scooting 7 month old?  He's not all that interested in crawling, but he loves to stand up against all of our furniture, which of course makes him think he's hot stuff.  Other loves? Anything outside, swinging, water, being thrown up in the air by daddy, frozen blueberries, and my favorite, kisses.

On a slight change of pace, if you know us, you know we're not lying when we say that we have the worst luck.  We've found it laughable at this point and come to expect that things don't work out the way we think they should. It's always just a nice reality check.  So, it was only fitting that our first week in our home, we found a groundhog hole in our back yard and had high hopes of catching the giant thing.  We borrowed some live traps, got some of Nolan's floor veggies (you know, the 9/10 that don't make it in his mouth), and set it up. The next morning, the AT&T guy came to our house (cable/internet issues on top of that),  and asked if we were intentionally holding a skunk in the back. "What!?"  So, 2 days and $100 later, the Critter Control arrived. We're back to enjoying our backyard again, but the skunk said goodbye in a dramatic, smelly fashion. The stinker groundhog is till making himself noticeable (like in our garage), but is always one step ahead of our trapping skills.

And finally, in other news, Scott's officially a PGY2.  Yep, he's out of intern year (yay!!!) and into strictly radiology. For now, that means we have weekends together (despite some necessary nightly reading), and a more predictable schedule. But, like every other year of this medical journey, I'm finding that a year without board exams isn't any cheaper.  Now, we're required to join costly organizations for board certification.  Lately, I feel like the medical journey (med school, residency, fellowship, etc.) needs a how-to guide filled with tips of unexpected costs every year, what to expect, when to expect what, and some overall words of encouragement. All in all, though, Nolan and I couldn't be more proud of all the work he does. :)