Paddy's World

Molars

Just when you think you have it made...he's mostly sleeping through the night and going down with out too much of a fuss....

the dreaded two year molars begin their arrival.

Never a dull moment here, people.  Never.

He eats....with chopsticks!

Last weekend when Uncle Mickey and Aunt Sessy were here, we went to Fire and Ice for dinner.  Here is a shot Jessy caught of the little guy eating with chopsticks!  And yes, he really was using them correctly and getting food in his mouth!

Shhhhhhhh, don't tell Paddy.

Since someone did not want to nap this afternoon, I took the opportunity to do a little baking with the P-man.  Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking either - we don't have central a/c and it was ridiculously hot.  Mostly, I'm trying to expand his palate beyond mac n cheese, hot dogs, peas and all things noodle-related. 

I bought that book "Deceptively Delicious" and have been pleased with the few things I've made out of it.  The hardest part of the recipes is having the veggie purees on hand to do them.  So this afternoon I steamed and pureed cauliflower and spinach.  (Hopefully Tim will notice that the ice cube trays are full of veggies and not water before he gets a drink tonight!)  So, my freezer is chock full of little cubes of pureed veggies.  It's a good start, anyway.

I decided to try the Peanut butter & banana muffins.  Paddy is a huge fan of muffins, so I figured it was a good gamble.  I also like involving him in cooking, so off we went.  The muffins have cauliflower puree and banana puree in them.  (In addition to whole wheat flour, brown sugar, egg white, baking powder & soda.) They are....not bad.  I'm going to be honest and say I can taste the cauliflower a little bit.  But overall, they aren't bad.  I added mini-chocolate chips, too. 

Paddy likes them.  But please don't tell him he's eating veggies in his "cake", okay?

A weekend of firsts.

We had a fabulous weekend, with Uncle Mickey and "Aunty Sessy" visiting!  I have lots of pictures to share & lots of stories to tell....but...someone is refusing his nap, so I've got not time to do either.  If I have time tonight after my yoga class, I will do both.  If not, stay tuned for a few more posts later in the week :)

But, I'll leave you with the firsts:

• Paddy took his first train ride to Boston!  He did fantastic on both the inbound and outboud trip, and he charmed just about everyone on the train.  I'd had visions of him being *that* child on the way home, so I packed a ring pop for bribery, just in case.  To my delight - he was wonderful.  He got the ring pop anyway, of course ;)
• On our trip to the town pond Saturday, Paddy blew bubbles in the water!  It seems we have a little fishy on our hands - he was happy dunking under water, blowing bubbles and splashing about.  I think he would have loved getting on the floating docks,too, if I had let him.  Sorry, bud, probably not for another few years.  Too deep.
• I'm sure we had lots of new words this weekend, too, but I couldnt' tell you what they were.  He's a little parrot these days.  Note to self: watch language!!

Okay, I'd better run before the boy tears the house apart.   

"Happy YAY Pop-Pop!"

Driving in the car with Paddy is always an adventure.  You never can tell if he is going to love it or hate it...in fact, we bought a portable DVD player "just in case."  Add another point to the ever growing column of "things I said I'd never do when I'm a Mom."  It's amazing what a great Mom I was before I had a child, LOL.

Anyway, when I'm in the car alone with Paddy we often sing songs, practice our ABCs or try to learn new words.  In honor of my Dad's birthday, I've been trying to get him to say "Happy Birthday Pop-pop!"  So, the whole way home from Judy's house yesterday consisted of the following conversation:

Me: Patrick, say Happy!

Patrick: Happy!

Me: Birthday

Patrick: No

Me: C'mon Pat, Birthday! (said with ever increasing enthusiasm)

Patrick: No!

Me: Birthday!!  (said like a cheerleader on speed)

Patrick: YAY!

Me: Pop-pop

Patrick: Popppppoppppppppppppp

Me: Happy Birthday Poppop!

Patrick: Happy YAY Poppoppppppppppppppppppp!

So, let me repeat it: Happy YAY Pop-pop! We hope you have a good day!!

Ch...ch...changes....

Big changes are afoot in the O household.  No, we're not expecting any new additions.  Don't even go joke about that...

Tim will be starting a new job in 2 weeks that he's really excited about.  Don't ask me what he'll be doing.  I couldn't tell you.  Heck, I can't even tell you what he does now.  Suffice it to say, he's excited and so am I.  Aside from a nice pay raise, it sounds like he'll have more flexibility AND more interesting work.  All good things.

I'm not changing jobs, though it does sound like I'll be out at a client fairly consistently over the next 3 months.  I'll tell you - for as much as I complain about taking the train to work every day, I'm not really enjoying driving every day either!  I'm trying to focus on the positives: consistently working a/c, no strange people sitting next to me/sleeping on me, no overcrowding, no dealing with the inexplicable delays - and heck, lets face it, even WITH insane Boston traffic, my on time performance beats the paltry performance of my line.  (58%)  But man, I'm beat.

The final new thing is that we are FINALLY having our bathroom gutted and remodeled.  Construction comences on August 12th, and we couldn't be more excited.  Buh-bye ghetto pink bathroom!

Language explosion!

Okay, so I'll just put it out there now - I'm posting today because really, a month shouldn't go by that I don't post here!  I somehow feel like I need to have pictures to go along with every post - hence, since I haven't downloaded pics in a while, no posts.  Sorry.  Surely I am witty enough that you'll continue reading even with out pictues?!  I'll try to do another picture dump soon.

It's hard to believe that my "baby" is now 20 months old.  Numerous people have noted that he looks a lot more like a "little boy" these days then a baby!  As much as I hate to admit it, they're right.  To go with his big boy looks, we're continually amazed at the words that come out of his mouth.  Much to the delight of most of our family, he's got (almost) everyone's names down pat.  Even Momma!  (However, I guarantee you that I will never let him forget that he said "cake!" before Momma ;) ) 

Unfortunately for Nana, Paddy has yet to get her name.  Although, she's not alone in that...Oma comes out sounding a heck of a lot more like "Elmo" than "Oma!"  Hopefully, my Mom will not forever more be confused with a hairy red monster!  We're working on it though, and hoping that by the next time he sees them Nana and Oma will be as clear as cake!!

The boy loves his books!

It's no secret to anyone that I read a ridiculous amount of books. Or that I'll read just about anything.  So I don't know why I'm surprised that my little guy loves being read to.  And, now that he's a little older and A LOT more verbal he likes to pretend that he's reading them.  I hope that his love of reading will stay with him for a lifetime - a love of books has certainly served me well.

A couple weeks ago we were having a beautiful early summer late spring day, and I decided to take my book outside and read.  I thought Mr. P would be happy playing on his climbing structures, but you would think I'd know better by now.  He insisted on reading Mommy's book.

The book that I was reading, by the way, was Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time.  I really enjoyed it - though it was difficult to read at times.  Patrick thought there weren't enough pictures, so he eventually gave it back and returned to his Where's Wags?  Wiggles book.

Happy Father's Day!

We had quite an auspicious beginning to our day today - both Paddy and Daddy slept in until almost 9am!  Paddy is not, as they say, a sleeper.  No, not our boy - he fights sleep with all of his 25lbs being.  So of course he chooses Father's Day to sleep in.  Mother's Day?  Up at 6am.  Ah, such is life.

We had a lovely afternoon with Tim's side of the family.  Mark, my brother in law, grilled some mighty tasty steaks.  We contributed wine :) 

A picture with the guests of honor:

Aunty Diana recently started working for a major toy company, so of course Mr. P got new toys.  This is him meeting TJ Bearytales for the first time:

Even though the adults found TJ a bit, well...freaky, Paddy seemed to love him.  In fact, he fell fast asleep on the way home while TJ told him a story!  Oh, and do you see the little red car next to the bear?  Best.purchase.EVER.  Tim picked it up yesterday at a yardsale in our neighborhood for $1.  P LOVES it.  Of course, if I hear Toot toot chugga chugga big red car... one more time I might stab my eardrums!!

Papa's birthday is next week, so we had a cake for him today too.  Of course Patrick thought the cake was for him and was very excited.  He helped Papa blow out the candles:

He then proceed to get frosting and cake everywhere.  No, really - everywhere.  I found some in his diaper later on!!  We also learned that he knows how to say "Cake!"  He proceeded to run around yelling "Cake! Cake! CAKE!" for the next 1/2 hour or so.  We can finally, definitively say he is my child.  He loves his cakes, cookies and ice cream just as much as Mama :)  In fact, he says cake and cookie with more clarity then Mama!!

Thank you to all the special Dads in my life - my wonderful husband, my lovable father in law and my amazing Dad.  You all embody the adage "Any man can be can be a father -but it takes a special man to be a Dad."  Love you!

I've joined the blogosphere!

I feel as though I should say something profound...

Um, yeah - it's Sunday morning, I've only had one cup of coffee, Tim is at the gym and Patrick is entranced by Little Einsteins.  (Quality parenting right there!) Nothing profound can be said under these conditions.

If you're reading this, you probably know me.  I've been reading (and laughing at! in a good way, of course!) my friend Rebecca's blog since she set it up, and my other friend Lara joined the blogosphere recently too.  What can say except Baaaaaa.  Yup, that's me, following behind.  Yes, Mom, if they jumped off the bridge I would say "Hey looks like fun!" and jump too!

This blog is my effort to keep up with Paddy's childhood.  Yeah, for as much crap as I gave my Mom for not having a baby book for me OR even a baby album...Paddy is 19 months old and has neither of those.  Yeah, I have his first words and other important first written down somewhere, but I've been woefully lax in officially recording them.  I also wanted a place for our friends and far away family to keep up with our adventures.

So, with that thrilling introductory post -I'm off to try and figure this thing out. 

Welcome to our insanity!!