OUT: Walking; IN: Climbing

Joseph is like soooo over walking. Walking is what 11-month olds get excited about. 13-month olds are like so beyond walking. Walking is so blase (the e needs an accent mark but I couldn't figure that out on blogger), so yesterday, so not what the cool kids are doing these days. Cool kids are climbing, apparently. I thought walking was the last physical feat for Joseph to master - I forgot about climbing.

Unfortunately, Richard and I unknowingly encouraged climbing. A couple times we picked him up and let him stand on a chair in our bathroom. He liked to turn on the faucet and splash around in the water. It was like baby heroine - one time and he was hooked, obsessed, addicted. He will be in a completely different part of the house and all of the sudden it's like a light bulb goes off in his head and he is literally running through the house and into our bathroom. If we don't pick him up right away, he'll attempt to climb the chair himself. Unfortunately for him the chair does not provide much leverage for climbing. His attempts end in frustration and us picking him up....as this video shows:

I was telling my mom about this and she suggested putting our step stool there instead of the chair. That way he could climb and stand himself while playing in the water (with us close by, of course). This worked well...a little too well. Joseph could definitely climb up the step stool. The problem was that this also put him up high enough to attempt to climb onto the counter. It wasn't good enough to stand and splash anymore - he had to be on the counter and in the sink bowl.

This didn't seem incredibly safe to us - if we were holding on to him we would let him walk around for a few minutes. However, one day when Rich was busy with something for 30 seconds, Joseph took off and by the time we caught up with him, he was on top of the stool in mid climb to the counter. We caught him just before the impending fall and likely ER visit that would have resulted. The door to the bathroom is now closed unless we take him in there to play. This creates a major issue for Joseph. When he goes running through the house, only to find a closed door, it's major devastation. We have at least 5 minutes of him laying on the floor screaming and crying.

Luckily for Joseph, he has found something new to climb. The coffee table in the den. He discovered this one day when I walked out of the room for about a minute (sometimes I do have to go to the bathroom). I came back to Joseph standing on the coffee table. I had no idea how he did it...I assumed pure strength and determination allowed him to pulled himself up off the floor. I discovered later in the day, when he did it in front of me, that my kid is also a problem solver. He climbs into his toy basket and uses his toys as leverage to climb on the table. We caught an attempt on video:

Also turns out I am pretty smart and have just been keeping the toy basket far away from the table. Joseph does not appreciate this and is currently in search of new climbing toys. He's given his play house, his crib and his dresser a try but so far none of them have proved to be suitable climbing items.

Lost in Translation

Joseph has a wide ranging vocabulary that consists of 5 words. We hear him say this stuff everyday, so we know what he is saying, but for the amateur, some translation is required.


Hi - pronounced High-eee


Bye Bye - pronounced Buh Bi


Bottle - pronounced Ba Ba


Ball - pronounced Bah


Uh-Oh - surprisingly, pronounced as you would expect.


At first, he would just say these things after we said them. Now, he says them in context with no prompting. He seems to know when we are leaving some place and starts waving and saying "Buh Bi". A new, friendly face is greeted with "Hi". The minute he lays eyes on his bottle, he gets all excited and says "Ba Ba" really enthusiastically (too bad for him, the weaning off the bottle process is about to be undertaken. Poor kid hates sippy cups - this ought to be fun for all involved). His latest word mastery has been Ball - he loves to go searching for his dinosaur ball in his toy basket. When he finds it, he very proudly declares "Bah".


The funniest thing he says has to be "Uh-oh". He uses it in exactly the right context. He drops his paci or a toy and you hear "Uh-oh". A few nights ago we put him in his crib and he was taking forever to settle down and actually go to sleep. He had been in there a good 30 minutes alternating between playing and fussing, when all of the sudden we heard him keep saying "uh-oh". We had no idea why he might be saying it because he really only says it in context. We didn't think about it again because 15 minutes later, he finally settled down and went to sleep. We discovered why he was saying "uh-oh" at 5:30 the next morning. He woke up, which he usually does, but after 5 minutes of fussing, hadn't settle back down like usual. Rich went in and both of his pacis were laying on the floor by his crib. We are pretty sure he threw his pacis out of his crib last night (he has a habit of throwing things when he is annoyed) and when he realized he was paci-less for the night, thought "uh-oh" was the appropriate response. I am sure if he had a more colorful vocabulary, it would have been more like "Oh - f*ck". Once the paci was back in his mouth, he immediately was back to sleep. Hopefully he learned that throwing stuff out of his crib is not such a smart idea....sort of cutting his nose off to spite his face.


Here is a video of him being prompted to say "Bye Bye". Rich didn't want me to post this because he said it's not a very good version of Joseph's "Bye Bye" and in his words, "we look like tools" because we just keep saying "Bye Bye" and "Hi" over and over again. He was over-ruled. Enjoy!

How Sweet It Is!

I edited (with Rich's assistance) our playlist to include the song you are listening to now (if you have your volume on).



I added the song and am dedicating this post to Richard on his last business day of non-employment. He starts his very impressive, resume building job in corporate Treasury at the BofA on Tuesday. As part of his new job responsibilities, he will be in charge of some new initiatives that bank is undertaking in response to new Obama administration requirements for banks that took bailout money. I am really hoping that leads to me meeting Barack (ok, it's more likely I'll be win the lottery but a girl can dream). Anyways, Joseph and I have loved having Rich home the last two months and are really going to miss him all day!



So I chose the song because it certainly is sweet to love and be loved by my two favorite boys. I would have prefered the James Taylor version, but My Playlist did not have it. This is some beach music version (Please, if you are not from the south do not ask what beach music is. I still have not figured out what exactly beach music is. All I know is that this version is apparently it and that southerners - especially over age 50 - love them some beach music - particularly when they can shag to it. Shag as in a kind of dance not the Austin Powers definition of shag).


This first picture was taken during Joseph's gangsta rap phase of May 2008.

I wish I could have seen today

I wish that 2 years ago today, I could have seen myself today....seen what I was doing, what I was thinking because 2 years ago was the most difficult day of my life. If I could have just seen how it would all turn out, maybe it would have been a little easier.

Two years ago today was the day I found out that I was going to lose (had already lost, really) my first pregnancy. It was the Monday after Mother’s Day. The day after the day I had spent blissfully ignorant of what was to come. The day after what I thought was my first Mother’s Day as a Mommy to be. Rich gave me a card and took me to Janie & Jack (only like my favorite kid’s store ever!) where I picked out a tiny little newborn nightgown in light green that had a little pea pod and “Our little sweet pea” embroidered on it. It was perfectly gender neutral choice appropriate for my 9 weeks of pregnancy. I brought it home and carefully hung it in the closet of the future nursery.

The next day Rich and I headed to my OB appointment. I had had an ultrasound at 7 weeks that showed a wonderful heartbeat. However, my little peanut only measured at 6 weeks. In my naivete, I believed my doctor when he said this was mostly likely no big deal…we had a heartbeat and that’s what mattered. He did want to do a follow-up ultrasound at 9 weeks just to make sure the growth was proportionate. Hence, the reason Rich was with me. I wanted him to see for himself that flickering little heartbeat of our baby. When they started the ultrasound, I knew immediately something was wrong. The first time, the doctor pointed my baby out to me immediately. That day, it seemed to be taking forever. Honestly, in those 2 minutes, I knew. I remember saying in my head over and over “Please show me my baby. Where is the heartbeat?” And then the doctor said words that I will never forget. Until my dying day I will be able to picture this moment of my life. She gave me that “I am about to deliver bad news” look and said to us “I am sorry Mr. and Mrs. H, but I don’t have good news for you today.” She didn’t need to say anything else, I knew. I knew in that instant that my little Christmas baby, the one that had been planned and loved since the minute two little lines on a pregnancy test showed up, was not to be. Everything after that was a blur...the doctor finished delivering the news. It was something to the effect of “You are 9 weeks, we should be seeing a heartbeat today and I just can’t pick anything up.” I just remember grabbing Rich’s hand and sobbing “Rich, no! Please, no!” The doctor left us alone and I sobbed. Rich told me later it was so loud, the entire office heard me…for sure. I just remember saying over and over again “I can’t do this again. I can’t ever go through this again.” I remember feeling like I was watching myself go through the rest of the motions. Discussing options with the doctor, walking out of the medical complex, the drive home, Rich calling his boss to tell him he wouldn’t be in, calling our parents, laying on my bed and just sobbing, clutching that little nightgown I had bought just the day before and soaking it with my tears…it was an out of body experience.

Over the next weeks and months I went through the normal grief process...fluctuating between anger, frustration and hope for the future. It certainly would have been easier to deal with if I had known in 2 years I would have a day filled with diaper changes, shoveling pureed foods into a 1-year old's mouth, walking up and down and up and down (and up and down again) our driveway because it makes a newly walking toddler very content. I wish I could have known I was be oh so grateful to my husband for sending me out to an afternoon of pampering at the spa, followed by a play date with some wonderful ladies I have met through Joseph. A play date spent taking complete and utter joy in watching 1-year olds splash around some water

and push each other around in toy cars

and just burn off in energy on a beautiful spring day.

Yes, if I could have seen this day 2 years ago, I probably would have shed a few less tears but that's not how its suppose to happen.

Note: At this point you are wondering "What the heck does she have that kid wearing?". Let me explain. About 5 minutes into playgroup, Joseph decided to stuff his face with about 10 goldfish crackers. For the most part we are over that whole gagging and vomiting ordeal when he eats. However, apparently when he stuffs too much food in his mouth, this is still a problem. He gagged and then proceeded to vomit all over himself. Luckily, being the hyper-prepared, anal retentive mom I am, we had a change of clothes in the diaper bag. Not exactly a great looking outfit, but enough to allow him to stay and play.

Play boy

My friends, our son is the next Hugh Hefner. He busted out with this hot 2-piece pajama outfit tonight.

I had bought these for him at Christmas, mostly because they had monkeys on them and we were looking for some warm pajamas to put him into tonight. I know you are wondering why we are needing warm clothes for our child in May when we live in the South. Apparently we did not do proper research before choosing the room for the nursery and its the best ventilated room in the house. With the heat running in winter, we have to keep the rest of the house bone chilling cold to keep his room under 72 degrees. In the summer, we sweat all night long and keep the temperature set high and still struggle to keep the nursery above 65 degrees. Hence, the reason we bundle him up in fleece pajamas all summer. It's also a pain to try and buy properly sized pajamas months ahead of time at the end of each season.

Anyways, Rich came out with Joseph to the kitchen (you know, I am always in the kitchen cooking since that is where I belong) after his bath and I died laughing. He looked like a little Hugh Hefner.

This video also shows off Joseph's hot pajamas. It also shows off his walking skills...although they were a bit shaky in the video. Joseph gets really clumsy when he is tired and this was about 5 minutes before he went to bed. Please note the stellar parents we are as well. He falls and takes a complete digger at the end of the video and we laugh. This is mostly because Joseph is made of steel, apparently. He falls constantly and quite hard at times and rarely cries. He just gets up and keeps going. I think he realizes that if he wants to be as crazy hyper-active as he would like, its going to come with a lot of bumps and bruises.

Now I have to get going...we have a grotto to build in the backyard and need to find some blonds with big, fake boobs to move in.

Games

Now that Joseph has mastered the major physical milestones (sitting, crawling, walking) he seems to be focusing more energy on those intellectual skills. He has started saying "Hi" to everyone. On walks, in the park, at the grocery store...we pass someone and they get a smile and an enthusiastic "Hi!" He also knows the words "Bye Bye" and "Nose". Say "Bye Bye" and he waves. Say "Nose" and he points to it.

He has also started playing with his toys in the way they were intended to be played with. While he still enjoys a good chew on a ball, a stuffed animal or any other plastic item, he is also figuring out that you push trucks around the floor and crash them into stuff, balls go into the proper holes of his toys and he is even starting to get the hang of how that shape sorting toy works.

One of his favorite games right now is to take various items out of our bathroom cabinet and throw them into our whirlpool tub in the master bathroom. He enjoys watching stuff roll around down in the bottom...which makes my golf ball sized bath salts a particular favorite to be tossed. In a related game, the other day Joseph decided sliding my blackberry along the keyboard of my laptop was about the funniest thing he had ever seen. Below is a video of the tail end of this game...his laughing had died down a bit...right before we got out the camera he was laughing his head off.

We aren't sure whether he's been intending to do this or not...but he seems to be starting to hide things. Not just anything, though, things that are important to him....like his blankies and pacifiers. We keep finding them in random hiding places...his blanky in the tube of the kitty condo, pacifiers in cabinets. I don't know if he is doing it on purpose or not. He certainly does not seem to remember he's put anything in a certain spot. Whether he's doing it on purpose or not, he does seem to be getting smarter!

Joseph's Ark

Note: This post was written by both Richard and Crystal at various points - so please don't be confused at the complete change in authors at random points.

After today, Joseph must want to build an Ark

First, we planned a trip to the indoor water park near our house. Remember when Joseph met Ray, the super cool Mecklenburg County Parks & Recreation mascot a few weeks ago (see post here)? Well, Ray has his very own water park downtown called Ray's Splash Planet.

When we first arrived, Joseph was a little skeptical. Whenever something scares him, he puts his hands over his ears. The minute we walked out from the locker room and he heard the roar of all the water running through the water slides and sprays, he covered his ears. We slowly took him into the water but every time Rich would dip his feet in, he would cry and cling to him. WARNING: Pictures of Rich shirtless follow. He is very worried that some of the ladies might have a rather strong reaction to his half-naked body.

Slowly after watching me splash around in a kiddie pool for 10 minutes like an idiot, he decided I had suffered enough humiliation and would stand and walk in the water by himself. Over time he let us take him down the mini-slide and even sat on my lap in the tube as we rode the lazy river.

However, the two things Joseph liked the most didn't involve the water. He liked climbing the stairs to the giant water slide and chasing the beach ball around the deck of the pool. All in all, it was a great way to spend an afternoon for $20.

Shortly after arriving home from "Ray's" the first significant thunderstorm of the summer season rolled through Charlotte. For those that haven't lived in the South before, these storms are quite severe bringing torrential rain, hail and tornadoes (see link from the soon-to-be bankrupted Charlotte Observer). Joseph was surprisingly curious about the whole ordeal. After 2-hours of significant rain fall, the storm finally ended at 6:30PM.

In the midst of Joseph's bedtime routine, we heard helicopters hovering over our house for an extended period of time. This isn't highly unusual as we live near the largest hospital between Atlanta and DC which specializes in trauma, and consequently we hear a lot of helicopters. However, much to our surprise, it was a news helicopter. I though out loud to Crystal that the Greenway 200 yards from our house (which is known for flooding) had most likely flooded.

Pictures of the Greenway under normal conditions:

This is a favorite place of ours to walk with Joseph. It leads to a cute playground and lots of nice streets in our neighborhood. On the weekends there are often festivals, events for us to check out and countless Joseph meltdowns when he can't stay as long as he would like.

As I had some time to kill before we put Joseph to bed, I decided to take a walk with Joseph to survey the damage (Crystal stayed home to prepare dinner as she knows her role as a woman). As a turned the corner to the greenway, I knew immediately that something was wrong. I took a few more steps and turned around immediately to get Crystal. The flood was MUCH worse than anyone could have anticipated and even warranted letting Crystal leave the kitchen. The Hill family spent the next 30-minutes looking in awe at the entirely unplanned new outdoor water park near our house. Suddenly we had become waterfront property owners. 3 blocks of houses were under waste deep water and the entire road was completely washed out for at least 1/4 of a mile. Below are several pictures and a video of the damage (compare to the above).

(On a side note - the guy to the far left of this picture is crazy. He's our neighbor and something is seriously wrong with him. We suspect OCD. Every year at our street picnic - the picnic to which everyone is asked to bring a side dish to share - he brings half eaten food, like 1/2 of a turkey sandwich or a snack pack of 4 cookies, except 2 have already been eaten. He also picks single blades of grass from his lawn for hours on end - sometimes in the pouring rain after church when he's still in his suit).

Below is a picture of Joseph assessing the damage. You might think that he is a typical 1-year old just watching the other people nearby and the debris float by. However, you would underestimate Joseph. This future actuary was actually calculating in his head the amount of property insurance claims that will be filed as a result of this flood. He reported an approximate damage total of $1.5 million. He reported to his father potential real estate arbitrage opportunities as well. All this before pooping in his diaper...which actually may have occurred during the taking of this picture, given the look on his face.

How I met Joseph's father

9 years ago today, I met Richard. It wasn’t the first time I had seen him. I was VERY aware of his existence long before we actually spoke. Today I am going to take a little break from the Joseph-focus of this blog to tell you how we met. After all, if we hadn’t met, there wouldn’t be a Joseph to blog about.

Our “story” actually begins several months before May 2000. I can’t tell you specifically the date I first saw Richard (I know it was sometime in the 2nd semester of my freshman year at Georgetown and I know I was dating someone else at the time…so it had to be January or February of 2000) but I can see the moment in my head like it happened 10 minutes ago. I was eating dinner at New South cafeteria (WARNING to my non-Hoya readers: there will be a lot of G-town references that will be meaningless to you) with my friends when I looked up and walking straight towards me was this incredibly handsome, impeccably dressed guy. Georgetown is a preppy school but even with its preppy standards, he was really well dressed – dress pants and shoes, collared, buttoned-up shirt. Anyone who knows me knows I am a sucker for a well-dressed man. I vividly remember thinking in my head “If I wasn’t dating someone else, I would be so interested in that guy.”

Flash forward to say early March and I am now single. I continued to see Rich constantly at New South cafeteria…..we were clearly on the same dinner schedule and I often saw him at late night (the cafeteria re-opened at night from like 9-11pm and would have pizza and desserts). Somewhere in this time frame I became slightly obsessed with him. I told all my friends that I was going to marry him and he would be the father of my children. We would sit at dinner and make-up stories about the life that he and I would have together. I didn’t even know what his name was. The only thing I knew was that he was on the track team because he often came in his practice uniform with the rest of the team to dinner. My micro-econ binder that semester had “I love Track Boy” all over it with hearts around it (I was 18 ok…that’s a perfectly normal behavior for an 18 year old).

At some point I decided I needed to remedy the fact that I did not know my obsession’s name. I just want to state that this is the point in the story where Rich tells people my crush veered off into the stalking classification. The only piece of information I had was that he was on the track team. I went online and looked up the track team roster. I was working at the housing office on-campus which conveniently had filed away every freshman year facebook (like a year book for each class of incoming freshman). I took out the 1996-1999 freshman facebooks and started cross referencing with the track team roster until I found him – his name was Richard and he was from Charlotte, NC. A Southern boy…despite the fact that Georgetown boasts having students from every state and like 63 countries enrolled, its still about 75% Northeastern and a southern boy is somewhat of a rarity.

This wasn’t really enough information for me and I proceeded to look up his housing information using my access to the housing database at my job. Things got a little tricky here because Richard is actually his middle name but his housing information was filed under his first name, Joseph. After a little creative digging, I discovered this and was successfully able to find out where he lived on campus. It was conveniently located in Village A apartments, which was next to New South cafeteria and made it very easy for frequent trips walking by on our way to dinner every night.

Somewhere between the staring at him in the cafeteria and walking by his apartment on a daily basis, Richard got the idea that I might be interested. At some point Richard obviously decided he was interested in me as well. (I will leave it up to him if he would like to re-tell his version of events leading up to May 4th).

On May 4th, we were in the midst of our 5 day no-class break to study for finals. It was gorgeous weather and I cuted myself up and headed out to Healy lawn with my accounting text book (I know – accounting text books will turn on a guy on!) and my best friend, Erin to get my study on. “Study” is a term used loosely during spring study break. It mostly involves girls in tiny tank tops (and the occasional bikini top) sitting outside tanning, some volleyball playing, some Frisbee throwing, but not really much studying. But of course I was studying VERY, VERY hard. At some point I looked up from my super-cool textbook and saw Richard walking in my direction. I never expected he was actually coming to talk to me…I simply thought he would walk right past me. So imagine how my heart nearly fell out of my chest when he stopped in front of me, introduced himself and sat down to talk. We talked for nearly 20 minutes about randomness before he had to leave for track practice. In my flustered state I never even introduced him to Erin or asked for his number.

(Healy Lawn)

However, the next day I headed back out to the lawn and luckily saw Richard again. I think we spent most of the day together…as we did every day afterwards. Of course, we only had a week before we were both headed home for the summer. We had our first official date a few days later. Dinner on the waterfront at Sequoias, ice cream at Ben & Jerry’s and sitting on a roof in Village A talking and looking at the monuments. We spent every possible moment together that week. I studied very little for finals (That accounting class I was studying for when we met….went into the final with an A, ended up with a B+. Which to this day I remind Rich of the fact that that downgrade was the difference between the 3.67 Cum Laude I graduated with and the and 3.70 Magna Cum Laude I could have graduated with).

(Sequoias)

At the end of the week, I headed home. We talked on the phone or via AOL IM everyday that summer. He even came to NY and went to Cape Cod with my family for our summer vacation and I headed to Miami/Palm Beach for a week for his family’s summer vacation. By the time we got back to Georgetown in late August, we were officially a couple. We spent the year together and then Rich graduated and we were forced to do the long distance thing for 18 months while I was in DC and he was in Charlotte. I made frequent long weekend trips to Charlotte. In the summer of 2002 I came to Charlotte for the summer and he popped the question that July. I went back for my senior year with a diamond ring and a wedding planning binder. I graduated a semester early in December 2002 and continued with our wedding planning all spring. In May, I officially walked and graduated from Georgetown and 2 weeks later we were married at the Hall of Springs in Saratoga, NY.

(Hall of Springs)

And of course, the rest is history….

(I have a lot of pictures of Rich and I and our early dating years and from our wedding but none are digital. Given Rich's unemployed state, we don't have access to a scanner so I had to go with some stock internet photos).

Birthday Boy

So the original plan for Joseph's birthday party was a casual event in our backyard - invite some of our friends, some of Joseph's friends, get a cake and grill out. That is basically how it turned out - except with a few more decorations that originally intended, a much more elaborate and expensive cake than originally planned for and ...

These are the invitations and decorations for our monkey-themed party:

I also went a little over board with favors for all the kids. I had bought the little monkeys a few months ago and decided to do a monkey-related book as well, but couldn't figure out what to put them in. Then one day Joseph and I walked by Michael's and found these cute little pail and shovel sets for $1! I also had a creative moment and thought "Wow, I could paint each kid's name on the pails!". That night Rich came home at 10 pm from NYC only to find me with 10 pails, stencils, paint and paint brushes across the entire den getting all crafty. I think they turned out pretty cute though (I added a toy truck and bubbles to the monkey themed-gifts).

Joseph also got a monkey outfit for his party:

Joseph had a pretty rocking time at his party, despite the 9o degree weather. He played with his friends, ate some hot dog and really enjoyed the bubble machine.

By about halfway through the party, the kids (including Joseph) were losing it quickly and we hauled out the cake.

We weren't really sure what Joseph's response to his cake would be - he doesn't really eat too much table food, but he does like to make a mess with his food. He pretty much slammed his hands into the frosting, but once he got a taste of the icing, was done with his cake. He did enjoy chewing on the candle, though. Here is the video of everyone singing "Happy Birthday" to him. I think he was sort of confused as to why everyone was standing around, looking directly at him.

After he finished with cake, he got really upset that we made him continue to sit in his seat while we got pictures while his friends continued to run through the yard.

So that pretty much sums up Joseph's big 1st birthday party. Until next year...we are already brainstorming theme ideas.