one year old.

Assessment
Number of teeth: 6
Favorite food: grapes, cheese, and chocolate.
Walking: not even close. Orion is thrilled with his smack-smack-smack the floor crawling.
Life goal: to obtain an opened, non-empty can of Coca-Cola.
Birthday party: one was held at home, on the Sunday prior to his birthday; another impromptu celebration popped up at work, where Baby O is a dedicated employee.

banana slime spots

It started with a banana.

Orion was thrilled.
He growled and sucked on fresh banana through the ingenious mesh feeder device.

At first, he was just shiny and slimy.
Then little boy's face began to get red everywhere that the banana slime had touched.
Mama took the banana away!
Baby O objected.
He was so enchanted by this first encounter with something besides breastmilk.

Who has an allergic reaction to a banana? I've never known such a thing. Poor kid has never had any other solid foods, not even rice cereal. Makes me wary of trying more new things...things that little man is very interested in getting to know.

and just what are you so happy about?

In the fog of my too-busy, unfocused, haphazard existence, I find myself gazing in awe at my baby as mothers so often do, amazed by his unfazed joy.

And I say, so often, "why are you so happy, little boy?" or, "what are you smiling at?" because nothing so grand seems to be unfolding at the moment.

Well, why not? What's wrong with smiling for no apparent reason? I've said before...the most genuine smiles are probably the ones that noone sees. If nobody's watching, it's not a fragment of a forced bit of show for someone else's benefit.

So...what are you so happy about? What makes you smile, like this:

The unbelievably-happy-at-work baby.

I'm happy that Orion is nearly six months old and still going to work with me, so I don't miss out on all of those little daily babbles and smiles, and heck, even the diaper blowouts. Because, if anything, for whatever reason it sucks a whole lot more to clean up poopy clothes in the evening at home when you didn't see the intial damage done in the diaper.

Even though I am paid so little, at least it is all done within the "typical" workweek, so that I can take kids to events on the weekends without missing out on sleep like 2nd shift workers or people who have to work Saturdays and Sundays.

Even though it is sad that Grandma Norma is no longer with us, it means that we have Claire, Anthony and Sophia in town now. No more missing birthdays for lack of gas money. No more three months without visiting. Way more familial interaction for my little ones, and way more opportunities for the hiliarity of childhood to shine through.

bon bebé

I still can't believe what a good baby Orion is. I'm sitting here at work, and Orion is in his exersaucer, just looking at me, smiling, and chewing on his tongue sideways. The exersaucer was given to him by a co-worker who found it at a garage sale. He has a swing in here, too, a donation brought up by another co-worker. I never imagined I'd keep him here at work with me for so long, but so far, so good. I just wish Mira's daycare/pre-school admitted babies under 18 months, because as good as he is it's doubtful we can make it all the way to 18 months without losing productivity. He's due to begin getting mobile sometime very soon here. He's been doing that thing where he goes from lying on his tummy to an upside-down V shape by extending his legs out and sticking his bottom in the air, and he likes to lurch towards things from a sitting position. People ask now if he's starting to crawl yet and I feel almost insulted--he's too little! He's too young for that! Don't prematurely age my baby--but then, wait. He's 5.5 months old now. He is growing up, too fast.

Smile, toes, smile! ओं यौर फीट

Don't ask.

Chillin' at work

Mira changing Orion's diaper in his under-desk in-office cave

Happy baby. At, of course, work. Wow, we need to get a life.

Oh, wait, Torrin did that for me. He arranged himself a babysitter tonight. Here I was, looking forward to going to bed, and Torrin insisted on our leaving. We went to the Coffee House and saw I Love You, Man. The babysitter? A college student whom we had not previously met. Torrin Facebooked him. He's a volunteer at the place where Torrin, Anthony, and Sophia go to after- and out-of-school programming, so it's not quite as weird as it sounds.

pobrecito

On Monday, Mira was sick. It's not often that she willingly puts herself down for a nap, but that day, she did. Horrid cough, tired and hot little girl.

On Tuesday, she felt better. The cough lingered. And happy Orion looked like this at work:

On Wednesday, Mira was feeling even better. But Orion had inherited the congestion and fever.
Today is Thursday. He isn't warm, but he's still feeling cruddy. His voice is still a squeak, and he snuffles as he breathes. He's eating better, though, and hopefully his sickness arc will continue to approximately follow Mira's so that tomorrow he will feel mostly well again (and return to his joyful babbling that he can't cobble together today through his sore throat).

This morning Torrin was holding a CD and the light reflected on Mira's face, creating a nice rainbow effect:

Here's to hoping that Orion is just as sunny tomorrow as Mira is today.

bikin' bear baby

Orion loved his first bicycle ride.
For those observant folks out there...there's a Festiva in the background. That one is #9 in the Official Festiva Project; 27 total Festivas have been documented to date.

Way too fast.

Somehow my little Poppyseed had grown into a big, smiling, cooing, rolling over baby. What happened?

Orion Tadé

No baby yet.

I've gotten to a point in the pregnancy where I am totally and completely done. My feet are doing that awesome swelling thing they started doing about a week before I had Mira. I've been contracting irregularly since about 630am Sat. It's now 325am Sun, and no, I haven't been to sleep yet. They come about every 8 min...but not on time. Sometime's it's 6 min, sometimes 10. This could get old verrrrry quickly. Actually, it has already gotten old. *yawn*

For fun, here's a picture of someone never-before-seen-on-my-blog, the one and only PGG. Here, asleep with Mira a couple nights ago. Nice dark picture because I didn't want to wake them with a light or a flash, of course. And speaking of sleep, I'm going to go attempt a catnap.

See? I can't make it through an entire pregnancy looking un-pregnant...or, "How to Smuggle a Basketball."

Like Wildfire

Another Sunken Gardens shot here.

So they've finally caught on to the baby bit at work. The Friday before last Nosy Coworker #1 finally asked. Then yesterday, Nosy Coworker #2 asked. This is noteworthy because both are guilty of regularly inquiring whether I was expecting when there was no reason (that I know of) to suspect so, yet for the past 6 months when I actually have been didn't pose the question. #2's asking yesterday was followed shortly by his son learning of the news. And his son? Is currently staying with Viktor Krum and TCO. Yay. Today, two more Poppy inquiries. Eh. Whatever. I'm 26.5 weeks along now, which translates to roughly "six months pregnant." A typical pregnancy is based on a "due date" figured to occur after 40 weeks, or 10 lunar months.

Some stupid news of the day: Harry Potter lost his virginity at 16 to an "older woman," and scientists have linked a gene to males' likelihood to cheat. Meow and growl!

Dude, Where's My Post?

I had posted a few days ago about my ExpectNet online baby pool...Somehow it turned into 2 posts, so I deleted one, one was left, and now both are gone...hmm...well, click on the banner below to enter a guess as to when Poppy will arrive, birth weight, gender, etc. Naming rights (or perhaps opinions on the final choices) to winner may be negotiated ;)

Baby is due 05 Dec 2008 based on a 40 week pregnancy calculated as 10 lunar months. Torrin was born at 41w3d, weighing 9lb., 0.8oz and 22 inches long. Mira was born at 38w5d, weighing 7lb, 12.6oz, 20.5 inches long.


>

It's fun to stay at the...

Okay, so we don't use the YMCA in that sense...but in any case, we went last night and re-started our membership. It was nice to go again. You'd be surprised how 10 - 13 miles of daily bikeriding did NO favors for my body. But I must say, I was impressed with how non-pregnant I looked in my now skin-tight workout clothes. I would've felt reasonably comfortable running into TCO there (which of course is always a distinct possibility). And as far as I know, he doesn't know. He did volunteer with the youth program a bit last week, and another guy who interns with the youth program knows. But I doubt that's something he'd just up and talk about. It's just a matter of time, though. TCO's brother Viktor Krum is technically my supervisor, and I'm due to sign a contract at the end of the month to continue working there. Except that whole baby being born at the end of November or early December detail...which is something he should probably know about.

Introducing...Poppy!

This is old news to most of you...but, meet Poppy! Pictures from July 10. I was 18w5d.

Work peeps for the most part don't know yet. But they will soon enough. I figure, heck, I'll be 20 weeks on Friday. My clothing options are severely limited. They're gonna find out, one way or the other, sooner than I would prefer. Before November is too soon, as far as I'm concerned.

Just a lil FYI

The PGG poppyseed is not up for discussion here, at this point. That will come at a later date.