Bye bye babyhood

I remember reading an old newspaper clipping that said "Once your child can walk he/ she is no longer a baby, they are a toddler". My response was " oh no, he will still be a baby!" and he always be in my eyes. This was such a sobering thing to read and I was in denial about it for a good long while.

Bryce took his first steps at 10 1/2 months and by the end of the week he was walking. Didn't matter, he was still a baby to me. Then, as his birthday approached, talks began about him moving out of the "baby room" and into the older class. At first I was excited about this new life that Bryce would have. Playing on the playground, doing art, having circle tim, having a classroom full of more age appropriate toys, it all seemed legit. Then I started thinking about him only having one nap. One nap on a cot, not in a crib. No bottles, drinking out of a sippy cup all day. No formula, whole milk and juice. 2 scheduled meals a day and a snack. His first lunch tray! Would he be ok without a bottle in between meals? Would he even drink milk out of sippy cup (he won't at home). Would he stay on his cot? Would he behave in circle time? I was so so nervous. And even more nervous about all these changes making him less a baby and more a big boy. I wasn't ready!

Well life doesn't sit around waiting for you to be emotionally ready to let your child grow up. On his first day, he got right down to business with the toys and didn't even notice me leaving. I kept peeking in the window throughout the day checking on him. At circle time he was standing up in front of the whole class trying to grab the book out if his teachers hand (he just wants to turn the pages I'd tell myself) he went right to sleep his first day on his cot and slept all through nap. He ate every last morsel of his first school lunch and was just fine drinking milk out if his sippy cup. I saw him climb up the stairs on the playground and he slid down the slide backwards. Everything I had worried about seemed so silly since he was just acting like he'd been in this class his whole life!

I don't even want to think about him starting Kindergarten... Because he will always be my baby!

Spring Break (kinda)

So for those of you who don't know, I work for a wonderful company named Pediatrics Plus. It is a privately owned company that provides outpatient therapy (Speech, Occupational Therapy, and Physical Therapy) for children with delays and special needs. I work in their Developmental Preschool teaching Pre-K. My students are technically "patients". Medicaid funds our whole operation basically. Medicaid says we can only close school 2 days a year (non holiday). Tear. So I got 1 day off for Spring Break! I can't really complain I guess since anyone in a non teaching field gets zero days for Spring Break.

I had all these wonderful plans in my head of spending a day with Bryce and Scott doing springy things like going to the park, going out to lunch, pushing Bryce along in the stroller in the sunny 70 degree weather wearing flip flops and sipping a Sonic drink. Well that didn't happen, not even close.

First, Scott had to work, so it was down to just Bryce and I. Of course we were both up at 530 out of habit. I decided to make pancakes with Bryce for breakfast. He wanted to stick his hands all in the eggs and the batter and the hot skillet. He actually succeeded at putting his hand in the skillet, but luckily he touched the pancake and not the pan. He entertained him self by pulling out every spoon and spatula we have and banged them on the counter. He loved the pancakes! Had a stack of 2 and screamed for more. I see many more pancake stacks in our near future!

For lunch, we headed out in the cold rain to eat lunch with La-La. We picked her up at St. Vincent's and went across the street to Pei Wei. Bryce was awful! Like never-going-out-to-eat-ever-again-awful. First, he would not sit in the booster seat while we waited on our food. He screamed and was physically fighting me and my mom to get away from the table. Then when the food came, he screamed because we weren't cramming food in his mouth fast enough. He would actually scream for food when I could still see food in his mouth he hadn't even chewed up. He even chocked at one point because he had so much food in his mouth. Then he lost interest in eating all together and wanted to throw his plate. Lets just say we go out of there as fast as we could. We went straight home for a nap.

I enjoyed the break while he napped for 2 hours. When he woke up, we headed to Target for a few things. Scott met us there since he just got off work. Then I headed over to Lauren's house for dinner and time with friends. It was much needed!

Saturday I had the pleasure of going to my Pre K Ella class. Ideal for spoiling a 3 day weekend.

When I got out of class I went and picked up Bryce and Grandma and Grandpa mentioned he had a little fever, but seemed to be over it. Well about 5 pm, Bryce was crawling up and down the stairs having a good ole time. He walked over to me, wanted to be picked up, and literally collapsed in my arms. He was burning up to the touch. Immediately got the thermometer and it his fever was 104. Its so scary when his fever gets that high. After a dose of Tylenol it came down to 102.

Sunday morning Bryce slept until 11. As much as I LOVED sleeping that late, it was very concerning. We headed to the urgent care clinic at St. Vincent West. I was so excited to find out it was only a $20 co-pay and not the $100 "urgent care" charge. Believe me, we have racked up some major bills since Bryce only believes in getting sick on the weekends. I was convinced that with a fever that high it had to be an ear infection or the flu. He had neither. The Dr. said a fever virus with no other symptoms is going around and that it lasts for 3-5 days. Great.

And that was my Spring Break. Then End. Maybe next year...

I took this picture just to remember how skinny he is. All muscle.

Wrestling. He wanted to jump up and down on me.

Giggling wildly

His 2nd favorite wrestling move. I think he thinks if he lays on my arms like that I am incapable to get him.

12 months

Height: 31 inches = 81%

Weight: 21 lbs. 10 oz. = 30%

Head circumference: 19 1/2 inches = 97%

Sizes: mostly 12 months, a few 18 months things

Shoe size: 3 1/2 or a 4

Diaper size: 4

Milestones: He has finally learned how to get down off of things! He can now turn around backwards and slide down feet first. He is now climbing anything he possibly can. He is saying "bye" more frequently now and it sounds more like "bye" and not "bah". He is just starting to TRY to imitate words. It is only when he wants to and is very sporadic. He is on all table foods now. One of his favorites right now is dirty rice and sausage (also his daddy's favorite right now). Is drinking really well from a Sippy cup now. We are slowly taking him off formula since it constipated him when we went cold turkey to whole milk. He holds a book right side up and turns the pages from front to back. When he gets to the end of the book, he will shut it and start all over again.

Firsts: First birthday party! First day with no paci! I'm sure there are more, I just can't think of any right now.

Mommy's Favorite Moments: This month he has really started to make connections. He took my keys out of my purse, walked to the door, and started banging them on the door. He tried to put his foot in my shoe, it was so funny to watch him get frustrated b/c he lacks to coordination to do it! He picked up Daddy's comb and combed his hair. When I grab his shoes and socks he will lift 1 foot in the air and then when I'm done with that foot, he will lift the other.  He tries to open a shut door my trying to wedge his tiny fingers in the crack and when that doesn't work, he will reach for the door knob (Thank God he can't reach them yet!). Every time I see him do something like this is makes me so happy to see how much he is learning everyday!

Big Top Fun

Last day in the baby room! 3-15-2013

                                             

 

One of his teachers. He is gonna miss them!

So La-la brought cupcakes for his class in the afternoon. I couldn't post any pics with the other kids in them, but I got a lot of really good ones of him trying to steal their cupcakes.

On Saturday, the day of his party, I sent Bryce over to my parents house so I could devote all my time to setting up for the party. When I went to pic him up for his party, he was strolling around in his "new" car! It was Cody's when he was about 2.

Once I learned how to download fonts, I fell in love with this font. I used it on practically everything!

 

I feel so lucky that I was able to use the multi purpose room at work for his party!

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Such a labor of love. I bought some plastic table cloth on the roll at Party City to make this. The banner was also bought at Party City. It came with 4 banners and stickers to customize what you wanted it to say. I used red and white streamers to create the stripes.



I baked his cake and cupcakes the night before and then frosted them myself a couple of hours before the party. I used a pastry bag with a tip on the end to create the simple design on the cupcakes. I bought white icing and dyed it yellow. All of that I bought in the cake decorating section at Wal-Mart. The cake I also did myself (haha you can't tell right? lol. My hand was cramped up so bad from squeezing the pastry bag and I was in such a hurry that I didn't care that it looked awful). Cupcake liners, toppers, red and white stripped trays all came from Hobby Lobby. I used a red bowl from my mom's house and turned it upside down and used it as a cake stand.



Shout out to the Bug Man for letting me use their popcorn machine! Happy Birthday Banner came from Hobby Lobby.

More of the plastic table cloth on roll came in handy here. For the letters I just free handed them on poster board and cut them out. I then covered with scrapbook paper. Shout out to Chick Fil A for filling our balloons with helium.



Got lucky again because these glass containers belong to Peds Plus. I made the 1 for his photo shoot. I bought it at Hobby Lobby and glued scrapbook paper on it.



Cone Snow  Stand. I would have liked to do more here but time just didn't allow that.

Photo Booth. I saw the twisted streamer idea on Pinterest. It was not easy. You have to twist it just right to make it look like that. It was very frustrating and I'm sure I said a few curse words trying to do it. If you plan to use this for anything I suggest practicing it first. Once I got in a rhythm and figured out how to hold it just right, it went pretty past.

I bought these little tiny ducks in the party favor section at Wal-Mart. They were a disappointment as they only float bottoms up. That kinda defeated the whole purpose of the game, but whatev. The kids still liked it so that's all that matters.

There used to be a game like this a "Show Biz" aka "Chuck E Cheese" when I was a kid and I was addicted to it. So of course I had to have it as a carnival game! Got the cute red buckets at the Dollar Tree as well as the whiffle balls

I saved up some veggie cans and set them aside. I had originally planned to spray paint them red, but who has time for that? So I cut some scrapbook paper and taped it on! I bought the balls a the Dollar Tree. I wanted a ball heavy enough to knock the cans down, but one that wouldn't injure anyone or put a hole in the wall. The red basket came from my moms house.

So this was so simple to make. Would you think I was crazy if I told you at one point the whole thing looked like a circus train complete with "The Greatest Birthday on Earth" written on it? I tore it up a couple of hours before the party because I wasn't in love with how it turned out. This works too.

This is one thing I loved how it turned out. I ordered the collage from Walgreens.com at 11 pm on Thursday and picked it up Friday afternoon! I'm sorry Shutterfly, but you can't beat that. Its so easy to make. You just upload the pics you want, choose what size poster you want, and place them in the collage. I was so afraid that the picture quality wouldn't turn out great or the color would be off, but it looks amazing! I can't wait to frame it and put it up in our bedroom! Shout out to Christy Chance Photography for taking such amazing pictures! Red and white stripped box came from my moms house. It was holding the party favors.   

Bean Bag Toss. Shout out to Aunt Shelia for loaning this to us.

The hat was a gift from my mom. This is another one of his teachers, Miss Meagan.

Again, I love to download fonts! It relaxes me to make stuff like this. Shout out to fontspace.com for making this so awesome. The borders and banners were from http://www.fontspace.com/kimberly-geswein/kg-flavor-and-frames

As previously mentioned on the blog, I bought these pop corn holders in the dollar bins at Target. I cut the number 1 out of cardboard and covered with scrapbook paper. Yellow tissue to make it look like popcorn.

I bought these awesome paper straws at Target. I used a veggie can and covered it with raffle tickets. I bought the tickets at the Dollar Tree

The clown straw toppers came from Hobby Lobby

 

Printed off some of my favorite pics of him and arranged them into the letters. I taped them down onto some foam board and added the ribbon to add color.

What can I say? He is my son!

In the eye

Ms Stacey, his second momma

He loved this toy! He cried when I tried to set it aside to open more!



Hadley helped open some presents!

Faith helped too!

I love this pic of Bryce and Uncle Cody