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12 months of Conrad

Yesterday we celebrated Conrad's 1st birthday! I can't believe it's been a year since this little guy has been in our lives. A year since I walked into the hospital and had a mini-panic attack that 9 months of pregnancy were over and I was about to me a mom to two boys. A year since my epidural wore off, I was begging for a new one and my OB walked in to tell me I was going to have to push and deliver this baby pain-med free. OUCH!

It's been a busy year, full of changes. We've watched Conrad grow from teeny, tiny newborn to crawling, (almost) walking, babbling a few words, toddler. I looked back at his newborn pictures and could hardly believe a year has gone by.

So without further ado....Conrad's first year in pictures:

1 day old

1 month

2 months

3 months

4 months

5 months

6 months

7 months

8 months

9 months

10 months

11 months

1 year - Eating his birthday cake!!!

It's beginning to look a lot like Spring!

Ok, I lied. It doesn't look anything like spring. As this picture shows, there's still 2-3 foot high snow banks remaining from the record breaking January snow storms....ugly, dirty snowbanks. Everything still has that wintery, gloomy, gray luster that I remember from growing up in the northeast. Our backyard still has a 1 inch snow covering (significant improvement over the approximately 3 feet about 3 weeks ago). The kids were still wearing hats and covered in blankets for our walk today. I still had a puffy Northface jacket on. But we were outside!!! And not the kinda outside where we are sprinting through a parking lot before we froze...we were outside taking a walk!!!

A sunny day with a temperature that began with a 5 (forecast says it'll be 55 today), had me racing to pick up Joseph from school, make and feed lunches, get us bundled up and out to the stroller before afternoon naps. The air had the promise of spring and many future walks to the beach. I even had my Northface unzipped and gloves off by the time we got home.

I know, know...March comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion...but I'm hanging on to these mild days in the 7-day forecast. I fully expect a blizzard for my birthday in early April...which hmm....32 days until I'm 30! Yikes!!!!!

Valentine's Day Gifts

Here are a few V-day gifts from my Valentines to you.

Conrad wants to share kisses. This is his latest trick. You say "kisses" and he puckers his lips and makes a little fishy face.

On the eve of his 11th month birthday, he's becoming less baby and more toddler. He's standing all on his own (look, no hands!), he's tearing into every cabinet, drawer and closet we have, he's saying words - bah for ball, uh-oh and ki-ki when he sees the cat, and he throws tantrums - full out kicking, screaming, crying tantrums. 1 month left and I'll be baby-less again.

And the actual toddler, Joseph...he wants to share his sweet dance moves with you for Valentine's Day.

Napoleon Dynamite's got nothing on this kid.

Who needs fancy dinners, roses and champagne when I have these sweet Valentines?

Another Mini-Me

Remember this post?

Strike EVERYTHING I said.

In the last few months, Conrad has become another mini-me. I don't know what happened but this child resembles me more and more everyday. Sometimes I catch of glimpse of him and can place the exact baby picture of mine that he resembles. My mom took this picture over the weekend:

And I immediately knew there was an identical picture of me:

The kid has my crazy, un-tameable hair as well. You can wet it and comb it twenty times a day, but as soon as it dries, it's sticking up all over the place. I've stopped even trying...

and apparently, so did my parents:

Sorry, Rich. It looks like I've got the dominant genetics...at least in the looks department...you've got me beat in the personality department.

Giving Thanks

I'm going to be a copy cat and just hope that my BIFF Mandie truly believes imitation is the greatest form of flattery and is so happy I FINALLY got around to blogging again, she doesn't care. Her Thankful post the other day inspired me to blog about the people I'm most thankful for. Sorry, it's a day late.

So here's the top 5 people I'm thankful for (in no particular order):

1. My husband. I'm thankful to have a husband who is a true partner in every aspect imaginable. Thankful for a husband who gives babies baths with more gusto than an exhausted mama can muster at tne end of the day. Thankful for a husband who in all honesty does more of the late night paci insertions, patting back to sleeps and settling downs after bad dreams than I do. Thankful for a husband who e-mails his boss at 4 am to tell him he's going to be late when I wake up with a 101 fever in the middle of the night (and then loads up two kids in the car and high tails it to the pediatrician's office that morning to get a double ear infection diagnosis). I'm thankful for a husband that strikes just the exact right balance between his responsibilities to provide for our family through a job he loves and his responsibilities to give us all his love and attention. I could go on and on...

2. Joseph. I'm thankful for the way he makes me laugh EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. The exuberance and intensity he brings to EVERYTHING.SINGLE.THING he does. For the hilarious things that come out of his mouth. For providing me, through his antics, with countless Facebook status updates. Thank you for making me a mom and showing me what unconditional love means. For showing me how perfectly two people's genetics can blend to create one perfect, beautiful, vibrant little person.

3. Conrad. I'm thankful for him finally giving me the opportunity to experience the way your heart warms when a newly awake, still sleepy baby greets you with the sweetest smile and baby babble the minute they see you walk in a room (Joseph doesn't really wake up in a good mood). For being a calm, predictable, happy little personality. I'm thankful for the way he watches his brother with an intensity that says "I want to do everything you do". I'm even thankful for those afternoon naps that sometimes don't last so long. Sometimes they make me stop the toy cleanup and laundry doing and dishwasher unloading and just sit and rock a baby while I drift off to sleep myself. I'm thankful for him making our family just a little closer to being complete.

4. My Mom & Dad. They continue to show through example that your job (and sleepless nights) as a parent never really ends. I'm thankful for a mother who on a May morning rushes to you on the first plane she can catch when all hopes and dreams are crashing down around you. A mother who says "I'm coming down there" before you can even get the tear choked request out of your mouth. For a father who spends an entire week of vacation hauling boxes and driving across the country and organizing cabinets and closets when you decide to move 14 hours away with a 2-year old and 2 month old. I'm thankful for parents who love my babies the way I love them and don't mind responding to their 6am wakeup calls so Mommy and Daddy can make the teeniest of dents in the 3-ish years of sleep deprivation we've accumulated.

5. My brother (and Renee too!). For continuing to be my partner in crime in harassing my parents for doing things like wearing bright orange reflective vests when they take walks in the evening and buying TV dinner trays so they can eat dinner in the living room while they watch TV. For being witty and funny and making me laugh with crazy antics. For picking a chica who's the complete opposite of the crazy, psychotic future-sister-in-law I could have ended up with. And for the future nieces and nephews he'll give me (hopefully sometime BEFORE my kids are old enough to babysit for them). I might even be thankful for that sometimes ornery, high maintenance personality that seems to have made it's way into my first born's DNA. At least I know what to expect since I grew up dealing with it (Disney World won't be the most magical place on Earth for us).

And some honorable mentions (again, no particular order):

* My extended family. I'm thankful for countless childhood memories. The glazed donuts at the Star Market lunch counter with Grandma Carras. The collectible crystal pieces I still treasure from Grandpa Carras. The popsicles and special treats and over-the-top spoiling by Grandma and Grandpa Conrad. The girls-day-out trips that my Aunt Kathy, Aunt Pam and Aunt Janice always included me in. I'm thankful for the football games and basketball games that Aunt Kathy and Uncle Larry came too regularly just to cheer me on with my poms-poms on the field. Thankful too for my Aunt Risa with her generous heart (and Uncle Lou too for the countless laughs over the years). For my cousins and built in best friends...for going along with some of the wacky games I came up with (Olympics, Saratoga Race Track) and putting up with my...hmmm...sometimes slightly bossy personality. I love you all and am happy to live closer to you all.

* My friends. The in-real-life ones and the interwebs one. I'm thankful for the times you've been there to celebrate with me and the times I've been sad and disappointed and you've cheered me up. For people like Anne and Erin and Lauren, for the inside jokes and hilarious memories. For Mandie and the e-mails in the middle of the tough afternoon that make me LOL, literally. For Harmony and Mandie who are still some of the only people in my life that completely understand that no matter how long it's been, there's still a tiny piece of your heart that is sad this time of year. I'm thankful for their blogs who make me feel close even when thousands of miles separate us.

* My in-laws. I'm thankful for the way they accepted me into their family without any of the weird jealous "you're stealing my son/brother" dramatics that so many crazy in-laws pull. For the way they'll do anything for us and they way they love my boys unconditionally.

* Sofia, my 3-morning/week nanny who saves my sanity many days. I love the way Joseph yells "Sofia coming today! YAY!" and jumps up and down in the morning and the way Conrad lights up when she walks in the house. I'm also really thankful for her laundry folding skills and the way I leave with 3 loads in process and come home to 2 hampers filled with folded clothes.

* Barack Obama. Despite being part of an ever shrinking group that feels this way, I still think YOU ROCK!!!! I'm thankful for the holidays we'll share when one of my boys marry Sasha (she clearly is going to like younger men) and we share grandchildren.

* Price William and Kate Middleton. Thanks for giving me something to obsess over for the next 5 months. I'm thankful for the fact that your romance can allow me to be naive and believe that yours will be the royal romance that finally lives up to the fairy tale. And of course I'm thankful for the future princess who will marry my other son. I've got lofty expectations for my boys.

So there you have it, my 2010 thankful list. And Mandie, in case you don't subscribe to the whole "imitation is flattery" thing, I'll throw in some overt flattery. Y'all need to check out her blog. It's hilarity in blog form. Seriously, this girl needs to write a book.

Mr. Personality

Oh, yes. Mr. Conrad is certainly starting to develop a personality. He's babbling and laughing, rolling after toys and trying to scoot around the floor. He's started taking baths with his big brother (thanks to this awesome invention) and he loves to kick and splash. Joseph kicks and splashes right back and it's a big old giggle fest in the tub (assuming everyone has napped well and one - if not both kids - are not near meltdown mode by bath time). His babbling is a little bit like screaming...

People ask me a lot if Joseph and Conrad have similar personalities. The answer is yes and no. No in the sense that Conrad is not bat.shit.crazy. Joseph is....oh goodness, it's honestly, hard to even describe Joseph. He's just more. More? What does that mean? He's a typical child but with more persistence, more energy, more passion, more zest for life, more ker-aziness than your average kid. He's just Joseph...and we love him...but we didn't need another just like him.

Luckily, Conrad is calmer. He can be quite content with a couple toys just watching Joseph and I build block towers. While Joseph was at school today, I laid toys out all over the basement, turned on some music and ironed for almost an hour while Conrad played with minimal fussing. I NEVER could have done that with Joseph. 5 minutes in and he would have been telling me in his infant way "Oh hellz no, lady, you best be devoting your attention to me real quick". Conrad wants to crawl - he gets up on his hands and rocks his little tushy - but when he realizes he can't do it yet, he just lays down and rolls. Joseph's failed crawling attempts ended with screaming and crying and utter frustration. Joseph has always jumped in to new things with both feet. He's never been hesitant about new people or places or experiences. New = fun and exciting. Conrad is more hesitant. He's wary of new people and crowded places make him visibly nervous. He does not like little old ladies all up in his face cooing. He's definitely the more cautious child.

How are they similar? Conrad is as perceptive as Joseph is. Joseph's scarily perceptive. My dad put a smoke detector up when he took a nap one day. He hadn't been out of his room 5 seconds and he was like pointing at it yelling "Oh, oh, oh...wuz that?" Joseph has an insane sense of smell. Rich was eating fries one night when Joseph woke up in his crib. Rich went in to settle him down and immediately Joseph starting yelling "FRIES!!!!". Joseph smells everything. He sniffs his clothes, his toys...definitely his food...which equals VERY picky eating. He chokes and gags if he eats something he doesn't like. Conrad is the same way. He completely dry heaved and vomited after getting a single spoonful of peas.

Conrad doesn't miss much either, which as we learned makes traveling and needing to share a bedroom with him slightly difficult. Rich and I couldn't go to bed while in Vermont without him waking up. Almost every night he ended up snuggled in bed with me for an hour before I put him back in his crib....Only to be awakened by him at 3 am pulling down the bumper, staring at us and squealing (as if to say - "Hey peeps, I see you over there. I'd like in on that snuggle action").

He's also quite energetic with his toys....like a certain somebody also was.

Although, he's got some work to do because I don't see him getting THIS crazy with an exersaucer anytime soon.

I did find Conrad like this this morning:

I fed him breakfast, cleaned it up, came back 3 minutes later and there he was...asleep. I can assure you that never happened with Joseph. If it had, I probably would have called 911.