Mr. Blue Eyes

When Caleb was first born his eyes were blue. We wondered if they'd stay blue or possibly turn brown like his daddy's.



Pretty sure they're gonna stay blue ...

What I Love About Caleb at 8 Months Old

Once again, I can hardly believe how fast he is growing up.

We went to the doctor this morning, and everything is still great. He weighs in at 19 lbs 15 oz, and he's 27.5 inches long. He only had to get two shots and he barely cried at all. Just for a few seconds after each one.

And now on to more important things... what I love about Caleb at 8 months old. There are SO many things that I love, I almost don't know where to begin, but let me say this. This is the funnest (is that a word??) age so far. He is an absolute joy to be around.

*I love that he is on the move. While it makes my days much busier, it is so fun to see him crawling all over the place. And yes, he is still doing the army crawl, and he's quite fast at it.

*He is such a happy boy. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, but he is just so friendly, and smiles at everyone he meets (well almost... I won't mention any names... it's something we're working on).

*He has become a Mama's boy, and yes I love it. He loves his Mama, wants to be in the same room as me, and preferably have me holding or playing with him. I have to leave the room when he has his "playpen" time because if he sees me, he cries because I'm not in the playpen with him.

*He is a finger food champ. He would much rather have finger foods than baby food, which I love because it makes meal times much easier for me. He thinks he's such a big boy.

*He still loves books and being read to.

*He plays ball with daddy, and actually tries really hard to roll the ball back to daddy after he gets it, and sometimes he even succeeds.

*He is a singer. It's not actual singing, but he thinks it is and it is so cute.

*He's gotten a little bashful. He still smiles at strangers, but only while burying his head in my shoulder.

I'm sure there are many more things I love because really, I love everything about this kid, but it's getting late, so I'll stop here.


Caleb,
You're getting so big and it makes me happy and sad at the same time. You won't be my tiny baby much longer, but I'm looking forward to your days as a little boy. I love spending all my days with you, and can't think of anything I'd rather be doing. Your smiles make me so happy. I love you so much, my sweet boy.

Mama

And now I'll leave you with a few pictures of one of Caleb's favorite activities these days ...

bathtime

A day at the park

actually, it was more like an hour at the park (if that), but "an hour at the park" just doesn't have the same ring to it as "a day at the park" so that's what we're gonna go with ... anyways ...

We finally got some nice (sunny, pleasantly warm-ish) weather around here and we took full advantage of it. I have been dying to get Caleb outside to play, but it has been so cold and/or wet and/or snowy that it hasn't happened in awhile.

But today, with the sun shining bright, we headed to the playground. Leave it to me to pick the most outdated, grungy playground in the city, but oh well ... I'm learning.

The fresh air was wonderful and Caleb had a blast. He rode on the swings for the first time, and really enjoyed it. And then he got to spend a little time by the pond with his daddy, looking at fish and ducks and geese (does that surprise anyone?)

And now a few pictures to document Caleb's first trip to the park ...

Books

I love books.

And I really want Caleb to love books, as well. And so far, he does.

We (actually, I is more appropriate here, but I'll say we anyways), we have been reading to Caleb since he was a few weeks old. At first, he didn't pay a bit of attention to the books. He just listened, and perhaps enjoyed the sound of our voices. But by a few months old, he actually started noticing the pictures, and began to make the connection between what he was hearing and what he was seeing.

Now, I'm not saying that he somehow knows we are reading stories to him from the pages of the books he is looking at, but he knows there is some connection between the animated, often rhyming, words he is hearing and the books in front of him. And he loves it.

Now at almost 8 months old (hard to believe isn't it), he is a wiggly little man. Always on the move. But if I sit with him in our rocking chair and pull out a book, he becomes calm, and sits quietly as I read to him. He is engrossed in the pages of his books, and will often sit and listen to 2, or 3, or 4 books before getting squirmy again.

He even protests if I try to put him to bed without reading a bedtime story first. Sometimes it's late, and I know he's tired so I attempt to skip the story and go straight to the few minutes of rocking we do before I lay him in his crib. But he will have none of it. He looks longingly at his bedtime books on the nightstand, reaches for them, and fusses until I give in, pick the shortest book he has and read it to him. The boy wants his bedtime story, and I love it. Love that he wants to read books, love that we share a common interest (you can't always say that about an 8 month old) and love that he loves his books.

He even has his favorites : Goodnight Moon(a classic) and Cuddle For Little Duck(about a little duck and his mommy, and their day of adventures).

I have my favorites too, the most recent of which is, You Are My I Love You Such a sweet book.

Caleb has a few books that I picked up simply because I vividly remember reading them as a child, and wanted him to enjoy them the same way I did. As Caleb grows older and his life begins to fill with school, sports, friends, toys, and hunting (if Charles has any say in it), I hope his love of books continues because books are something you can enjoy for a lifetime.

A Boy and His Dogs

Caleb hasn't had the chance to spend much time with our dogs. Mostly, because they live outside, and while he's big enough now to "play" with them (if that's what you'd call it), it's been rather cold. But the other day Charles spent a few minutes letting them get to know each other.



Unfortunately Avery (the brown one) is a wild one, and has LOTS of energy, so even though he is a sweetie, we can't let him get too close.



Smokey (the black one), on the other hand, is old and sweet and great with kids, so I look forward to Caleb getting to play with him when he gets a little bigger. Hopefully Smokey will still be around to enjoy that.



A boy and his dogs ... there's just nothing cuter than that.

Completely Together

To the outside world I may appear to have it all together. Completely organized.

That, I'm afraid, is far from the truth, and yet something I strive for. If you come to my house, it will be clean, even if I have to spend all day cleaning it.

But isn't that silly? No one is perfect, no one expects my house to be clean all the time. No one expects me to have every detail of my life organized.

So I just need to let it go. Quit stressing over the details. If my house is a mess, oh well. I'll get to it when I can.

But for today, I'm busy trying to dig my way out of the piles (you wouldn't believe how many, even if I told you) of laundry that I've let build up over the last few weeks. And once that's done I'll attempt to clear out our 3rd bedroom that, in the months since Caleb was born, has become a "catch all" for anything and everything that doesn't have a better place to go. So basically, it's a room of junk, and in a house the size of ours, I can't afford to designate a room for junk. Maybe that's something I'll add to my dream home wish list, ... must include junk room ...

Anyways, that's what I'm up to today.

Have a great Valentine's Weekend!

The Musical Stylings of Little Man

Caleb is quite the musical prodigy, if you ask me ... which you didn't ... but still, he is quite talented.

I apologize

I have done a horrible job on this blog lately. My brother got married this past weekend, so things were busy and crazy, and of course, lots of fun!

I was also busy making a slideshow for the rehearsal dinner. I consider myself fairly knowledgeable when it comes to computers, and technology in general, but apparently I think too highly of myself. The slideshow proved to be more difficult than I anticipated and almost all of my "computer time" last week was spent working on it.

Anyways, I will do better. And you can expect a "real" post at some point tonight. (I hope)