Entries Tagged 'The First Year' ↓

disney_xmas_08 014, originally uploaded by bburbank.

Just took a pretty fun 2-day trip to the Wilderness Lodge. The Christmas tree there is 7 stories tall. We rode a Surrey Bike and sung songs from “Hello Dolly” while I clanged a bell at passers-by.  I made you sit through the hauntingly creepy boat-light show (at 9:35pm).

All in all we had a great time on a Disney Resort trip without going to one of the parks!

disney_xmas_08 003, originally uploaded by bburbank.

WATCH OUT

DSC_0345, originally uploaded by bburbank.

We can totally tell how excited you’re getting for Christmas! While we didn’t get you a Nintendo 64, I’m pretty sure you will flip out (someday) as a result of our awe-inspiring gifts.

With Bear Blanket, originally uploaded by bburbank.

…because you are eating it.

What a difference one week makes. Between week 11 and week 12 you have learned to suck just your thumb and not your whole hand, you have grown to be nearly 18 pounds, and you sleep through the night! Yay! For 6 nights straight you have slept eight hours, then you’ll sleep another couple hours after you eat something and you’ll have two good sized naps during the day. I find that I miss you sometimes because you’re sleeping so much!

Tonight you’ll officially hit the 3 month mark and I can’t tell you enough how much I love you and how much fun I’m having watching you grow and learn. At three months old I can already tell what a happy and curious little boy you are. People will comment on just how alert you are when we’re out and about. Your giant eyes just seem to be soaking up everything they see. I feel like I can actually watch your brain learning new things. You follow movement with your eyes and just recently started grabbing for things. The very best new development is your gargle voice. You’ll just talk and talk making funny sounds and then start to gargle. Then you’ll smile your fun crooked smile and it’s the best thing ever.

We’re busy getting ready for your 1st Christmas. We’re going to spend a couple nights at Disney World soon. You just saw your very first fireworks and I was afraid they’d scare you, but instead you stared at them and then flailed your arms and legs really big and smiled at the giant lights in the sky.

Motherhood has an interesting way of making you think about everything a little differently. I’ve felt much more forgiving and empathetic lately. I find myself saying about criminals on TV or people who are rude in line at the grocery store, “that guy has a mother, too” or “that girl once learned to suck her thumb, too”. For some reason, picturing someone as a baby with a mother of their own who once looked down at their child in amazement and adoration helps me be more understanding of people I might not have been otherwise. I saw the moment you first put just your thumb in your mouth and started to suck on it and thought how incredible and strange it is that we all develop the same skills around the same time. Around the world, babies around 3 months old are all figuring out how to hold their heads up, how to make their bodies laugh, how to suck their thumbs. If that’s true, in a weird way I find myself asking how can we not have peace in this world?

Thanksgiving Dinner!, originally uploaded by bburbank.

You slept through most of Thanksgiving, but did wake up long enough to see the turkey, cry during my toast, and then eat right along with the whole family at the table! I also had a first this Thanksgiving. I cooked my first turkey! You can see the three of us in the picture – you, me, and the turkey, Oscar. He looks pretty darn good, if I do say so myself…tasted good, too.

I have a lot to be thankful for this year, but you top the list, Jho!

New Species, originally uploaded by bburbank.

And I’m not sorry. More photos over at our flickr.

You had some extremely strange things to say. Your first words?

Cookie Day!

Which I guess is a holiday that you wish existed. Me too, man, me too.

Whoopsiedoodle!

When you knock something over, I guess that works. That’s really all you could say, actually. “Cookie Day” and “Whoopsiedoodle.” I guess I need to read to you more.

I was recently asked to write down all the things I learn while going through this Mom process. I know I’ll forget everything if I don’t write it somewhere, so I figured here is the safest place. I am sure that other people will have had different experiences than mine, but I thought I’d keep track of some of the things I’ve figured out about this Mom business.

The main impetus for me beginning this post was an experience I just had at the house. All my life I have wondered why my Mom would think of a chore she’d need to do and go off to do that chore and then immediately find herself sidetracked doing another chore and then get sidetracked again until she had totally lost track of the chore she had originally set out to complete.  In the meantime, she would lose all track of time and often not actually finish any of the chores. Today, I grimly realized, that I was doing the same thing. Jhonen had miraculously gone down for a nap that seemed like it might actually last a while (you can sort of sense sometimes how deep a sleep he’s experiencing so you can gage your current activity abilities). I saw him settle into sleep and, wham, I was off and running. I ran down to the garage to refill his diaper supply. On the way to the garage, though, I remembered that I needed paper towels upstairs. On the way to the paper towels, I found my phone which I had misplaced several hours earlier. Finding my phone, I figured I’d check my email on it while I had the chance. Then I looked up and found that the laundry needed to be changed over. Then I couldn’t remember why I’d come downstairs so I grabbed the paper towels and went back upstairs. The minute I got upstairs I realized I had never gotten the diapers from the garage!

As a Mom, there are so many things I could do with any given two-free-handed moment, either for Jhonen of for me or for the house or for work, that it’s hard to figure out where to start or how to prioritize. Hence, the scatterbrained free-for-all chore rampage through the house that, inevitably, leaves me completely exhausted only to hear him starting to cry in his bed. I should have been napping.
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Dear Jhonen,

I am writing this post with one hand while holding your pacifier in your mouth with the other, but I feel compelled to let you know what happened to this country yesterday. Jhonen, for the past eight years our country has been led by President George Bush, a man who misled this country into a war I don’t believe should have ever been waged. Thousands of people, American and Iraqi alike have died because of it. Our country is trillions of dollars in debt and faces the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. I just found out that 22,000 Americans die every year because they can’t afford or have no access to health insurance. Global warming is threatening Earth’s very existence. Our education system is not even close to the top in the world despite the power we hold and the wealth we enjoy.

Worse than that, our nation has failed to live by the ideals of liberty and possibility for all that has always defined  us and set us apart as a beacon of hope to nations across this globe.  In 2004 when President Bush was reelected, beating John Kerry, suddenly being intelligent, well-spoken, honest, or elite somehow became distasteful. Americans voted for a person who, in my mind, represented ugly things: judgement of others to the point of bigotry,  an arrogant, power-crazed view of America’s place in the world as a sort of bullying watchdog for Democracy, and the notion that our leader should be someone we’d like to go have a beer with after work. I’d rather have a leader who can inspire us as a people to better ourselves and to join together to better this nation. To know that change is possible and to dare to believe that politics can be free from corruption, greed, and self-importance. To remember that our power comes from our common  ideals and not from our guns or a stubborn refusal to admit our mistakes. To believe that our country is great but certainly not infallible and not without fault. That being a patriot is about more than flag pins and empty words like freedom, but about the diversity of ideas and the ability to express them. And that, through the free exchange of ideas and beliefs we can all individually and collectively change for the better.
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