Thanksgiving Blues and Surviving the Plague

Let's just say Jude's first Thanksgiving wasn't quite what we'd expected it to be.

First there was the Monday before T-day: we literally walked in the door from his 9 month "well baby" appointment, and the vomiting began. 6 times in four hours, to be exact. After the second time, we were on the phone with the 24 hour nurse line and Lindsay was off to Walgreen's to pick up some Pedialyte. It certainly wasn't fun, and that's definitely the most vomit I've ever had on me in my life, but we made it through the night. I stayed home with Jude the next day and we thought that was the end of it. But Wednesday, Lindsay woke up throwing up, too. So far, Thanksgiving week was promising to be awesome.

We got ourselves together, and by Thursday were good enough to make the 7 hours drive down to Illinois. It was great to see the family, and Jude had his first official "kid table," complete with cousin Quentin picking up his sippy cup every time he dropped it.
But by 3 am, I'd been hit by the plague, too. So I wound up spending the day on Friday eating Saltines and ginger ale and trying not to get too grossed out by all the things you can do with leftovers they were showing on TV.

And while the week really hadn't been much fun so far, it all got worse on Saturday morning when we woke up to SEVEN more members of Lindsay's family with the same thing. We'd totally brought the plague to Thanksgiving. So what did we do? We packed up our things and drove back to Minnesota a day early.

Here's hoping our Christmas in California will be better....

Jude was feeling better and had so much fun with the family

Layli and Jude, munching their turkey dinner at the kids' table

9 Month Check up

It's official - I gave birth to a giant. They took all the usual measurements at Jude's 9 month check up and it turns out he's HUGE! Here are his stats:
Weight: 21 lbs, 13 oz, 75th percentile
Length: 31.5 inches, GREATER THAN 97th percentile
Head: 18.25 inches, 75th percentile

A few days later, Lindsay and I were in Target where there was a sizing chart. 31 inches means he should be wearing clothes for an 18 month-old! I mean, most of his pants do fit like capris, but we've had to dig in to the 12-18 month clothes that we've been handed down. Good thing we have such generous friends!

Hot Saturday Night.... Redefined

Earlier in the day today, Lindsay said, "I feel like we never do anything fun anymore."
A little piece of me dies each time she says something like that because..... I know it's true.  We were never big partiers, didn't really like to go out to drink, and though we loved eating out, we probably wouldn't go to any place fancy unless it was some kind of special occasion.  Lindsay's been in school for the past three years, afterall, and truth be told, I'm really more of a homebody.  But I think the thing is that we *could* have gone out and really whooped it up if we'd wanted to.

So now that we have responsibilities and a baby that takes consistent naps (I seriously never thought the day would come), our weekends are planned in 2-3 hour increments and spontaneity has been sitting on the shelf, collecting dust.  And then there are our weeknights which are... ... hectic and highly routinized, to say the least.  

But tonight is daylight savings, so we were trying to keep Jude up a little later than normal in hopes that he'd sleep until a more regular time in the morning (you moms who have done this before - don't laugh).  We let Jude have a little naked time and somehow we found ourselves in the kitchen - all of us - hanging out on the floor.  I've got to say, I never really imagined we'd be hanging out on the kitchen floor, but there we were.  Jude was playing with his favorite toys of the moment - a small wooden bowl, one red linker ring, a book, and a small squash (don't all kids play with vegetables?) and guess what?  We were having so much fun.  Jude was being so funny, clowning around for the camera, smiling at Sully, and making funny noises with Mommy.  I plopped Jude in my lap to sing one of his favorite songs, Lindsay busted out the video camera and.... well you can watch the video.  Let's just say I may have let a little pee come out, I was laughing so hard, and Lindsay claims that her sides now hurt from the hilarity that ensued.

A fun Saturday night, indeed.

So I wanted Lindsay to film it again and......