Theo at 5 1/2!

Theo loves school. He is officially in a kindergarten spot nearby in a classroom that is mixed between pre-K and kindergarten. He absolutely adores his teacher and the feeling seems to be mutual. He's made loads of friends there and most mornings, he waits outside on the porch while we finish getting ready to. He likes to be the first to arrive and quite often asks to stay for an extra three hours after the official six hour school day ends. The school studies based on units and he's been very interested in the subjects as they are presented. He also very much enjoys the field trips which range from skiing to theater productions and releasing the salmon the school has raised from eggs.

At five and a half, Theo has finally dropped his nap for good. He will still occasionally pass out unexpectedly in the car or maybe once a month in the afternoons, but overall he's going all the time for the full day and doesn't like to slow down. He goes to bed around 7:30 or 8 and wakes up around 6:15 most days. He's been sleeping overnight in the nook in his sleeping bag since March when we got back from our long weekend trip. He still sleeps with jez every night in addition to other lovies.

At home, Theo is most interested in building things. His number one request is to build a new wooden train track. He will start the new layout by lining up his stations with straight track on either side and splitters to make multiple sidings or a yard. Then it's my job to connect them all somehow with various other attributes included, like crossings or tunnels. He likes building houses with Legos and magnetic tiles as well and will often accessorize his wooden track with structures made from other materials.

Outside the house he's totally still obsessed with trains. He loves seeing them, crossing train tracks, riding on any kind from a trolley or streetcar to a full-blooded passenger train, and reading in depth books on the subject. He wants to be an Union Pacific driver when he grows up.

His favorite meal is cheese tortellini and peas in pesto sauce. He asks for it regularly, though he also loves cereal, and yogurt and bananas. Lately at restaurants he's been asking for hot dogs over macaroni and cheese or chicken nuggets but I never know. He won't eat a cheese quesadilla but loves tortilla and cheese served separately. He likes mayo and cheese sandwiches best for his packed lunches. And fruit bunnies. Fruit bunnies never go out of style it would seem.

Theo loves to tell knock knock jokes though he hasn't quite perfected the humor portion. The best one yet has been like so:
Knock knock. Who's there? Horned goat. Horned goat who? Honk honk coming through. But it's a vast leap from his previous jokes, for which the answer to who's there was always "ketchup."

Theo is reluctantly learning to read and ride a bike, mostly because those have been major focuses at school this spring. He has little interest in reading to himself when we can read to him. And he loves the trailer bike where he's attached behind one of the adult bikes but doesn't have to do any of the work.

He still has massive meltdowns. Most often the cause is not getting his way, and when he's upset or injured it's impossible to tell the difference between a slight injury and say, falling out of a tree. He's definitely got a future in drama if he so chooses, but lately he's gotten really good at naming more obscure feelings like shy and left out.

Theo is still mesmerized by anything electronic, particularly kindle. He watches a lot of train based documentaries along with a smattering of cartoon shows. Nemo is a popular movie as well as shorter shows like Postman Pat. He also loves the game crossy road, and several games like dots and bejeweled on my phone.

In the case of art, Theo's most interested in things like mazes and dot to dot activities. He does like to draw or stamp or color on occasional but those activities are not a huge draw for him.

He finished two sessions of ski lessons and can now ski down green (and blue?) runs unaided. But he's also declared he's done with ski lessons, which is true since the season is over, though he means that he won't take any next year either. He's decent enough in the water that I don't worry about him drowning but I doubt he could swim across a pool that was over his head, and like most things, including dressing himself, that require independence, he shows zero interest in gaining that ability.

He's very charismatic and interacts well wth both kids and adults. He appears to be very popular at school and the kids flock to him when he arrives and ask him to join their games and activities. We love our special Thursday afternoons where I walk down to school to pick him up and just the two of us take the bus and the train home. We usually stop on the way for a smoothie and macaroons and often pick up old friends at the co-op preschool to bring home for a play date. Imaginary games like pretending to be chickens and chase oriented things like hide and seek are popular when the kids are at our house.

What the heck is one of his favorite sayings now and it's super fun to hear how his mind works. "Ireland is in Georgia because it's in the Atlanta Ocean." He and his brain are going places at paces I can't begin to fathom and it's a complete joy to watch him grow and develop his own personality and interests.

Xavier at 18 Months

Xavier is a year and a half old! He's such a charmer.

Xavier is obsessed with balls, footballs in particular, but any kind will do. He will throw them and chase them, and if there's no one else around he will do those things all by himself and laugh and laugh. It's super entertaining to watch.

He loves vehicles and things that go. The little chuck the truck fire truck (wee ooo wee ooo) is his second favorite toy. The first is his taggie lovie, which he absolutely can't live without. He will fiddle the tags, rubbing them between his fingers endlessly. He's clearly identified the actual tag because it's already in tatters.

He likes to drive wooden trains down the hills and watch them roll and push them through tunnels. If we ever had a circular track, he would sit in the middle of it and push the train around and around for hours.

Xavier eats four to five times a day. He starts off with breakfast between 7:30 and 8. The start time depends largely on how long he lays in bed with me nursing after he wakes up in the morning. That's usually at least half an hour and often more. He will ask to nurse before nap or bed but those are much more flexible, and I'm not certain he will ask each time. Because our afternoons are crunched trying to get home to get to nap, I often skip the afternoon nursing sessions because it draws out the nap time routine a lot.

For breakfast he mostly wants to eat what the other kids are having, but he does enjoy frozen waffles, honey, blueberries and strawberries, and feeding himself yogurt - which is down to only a moderate mess but definitely still requires a bib or outfit change.

He takes a soft spout sippy cup of milk before nap, typically the full six ounces. His next meal is lunch after he gets up. It's usually cheese quesadilla or macaroni and cheese. Cheese quesadilla used to be the favorite by far but now macaroni and cheese has pulled ahead. He often a eats leftovers too, especially as I've increased my efforts to get more protein into him. (I never cook meat at breakfast or lunch. Heck who are we kidding? I never cook for either meal unless you count heating water, which I do not.)

We pick up his sister at 2 three days a week, and his brother at 3 five days a week, so afternoon snack usually happens in the car. It's almost always goldfish or baby food pouches (which all three kids eat) because I can stash them in the car and not worrying about them going bad or getting smelly. I throw food at them for the seven minute drive home, and they are all tired and cranky so they gobble it up, usually before we are halfway home.

There's more milk to be had before afternoon nap, which ideally starts before 3:30 but depending on how the day is going could be later. He typically sleeps an hour and ten minutes at nap, with an hour and five minutes on the short side and an hour and a half being a long nap. :-)

Dinner is around six and except for nuts, Xavier eats whatever we are having. He is most interested at any meal in eating off someone else's plate, even if the exact same food is in front of him.

He's still sitting in his booster seat with tray, though we just moved him from the end of the table to the side. So now we are much less likely to put the tray on and he eats for the table often, which he loves because that's what everyone else does.

Xavier is most likely to use his signs at mealtimes (or during meal prep when he is often in the kitchen underfoot begging for scraps). He can sign for milk, drink, eat, water, fish (as in goldfish), cheese, more and all done. Outside of the dining room he can sign for book, ball, and hi and bye. Of course he can actually say all those things too, so that helps a lot. Otherwise his communication is limited to pointing and grunting, unless he's playing with trains or cars. Then he makes super cute vrooming type noises and can also say "car" and "truck" though even I am hard pressed to tell the difference between those two words. He will also "read" to himself, babbling and flipping pages.

His favorite book is a picture book called Farm. There's one page with three chickens on it and he's obsessed with that page of "boc bocs." He can pretty much say anything that starts with a b, like box and ball and bird and book and boc boc. The only books that can compete are the Thomas the Train look and find book (which has Thomas and chickens!) and any book with a ball which he can find and name incessantly.

Xavier sleeps ten to eleven hours at night, which is awesome given his obstructive sleep apnea. To get that amount, his bed needs to be propped up at an angle and have a humidifier running. He's still napping in our room in his crib but since Vivian vacated her toddler bed more than a month ago, we put the crib side back on that and moved him into the kids' room overnight. So far everyone is still thrilled with that arrangement.

Xavier is also still on nasal steroids to reduce size of adenoids, but the good news is that so far we've managed to avoid surgery. He stays on the meds for another month. After that, we wean him off and see what happens.

Xavier started walking at fifteen months and a week old, just in time for the new year. We were visiting friends and their son, who's a few months older, was walking. So Xavier set off across their kitchen like a pro. Now he's running around in circles without pause. He loves to grab some random toy from his siblings and run screaming back to me to rescue him as they chase after him yelling. He can go up stairs on his own on all fours, or with a hand or handrail, and down as well. I wouldn't be out of reach near stairs yet though. He can climb with the best of them. He can do almost any steps at the playground and loves to go down the slide. Until very recently he's been good about going down feet first on his belly. But in the last ten days he's started going down sitting up. That's not a problem unless he's on the big kid equipment where the slides can be more than ten feet up at the top and I can't reach him. And he can fly up the stairs on all fours so it's hard to catch him on his way up.

He still loves swinging at the playground and riding just about anything. He's equally happy going for an hour long walk in the stroller as he is to get out and explore. He absolutely loves to pick flowers, and he cannot resist any rock. He has a pile of rocks at every door in our house where I make him park them when we come inside, and now there's a pile in the car too.

He moves the little green stool around the house, particularly in the kitchen, and climbs up to reach pretty much whatever he wants. He loves to climb up in the bathroom to the sink and has been doing that for months. He is addicted to brushing his teeth, even without toothpaste, and will do it five times a day given the opportunity.

He has a mouth full of teeth - sixteen at last count since all his canines have come in.

He wants to do whatever his siblings are doing, and what's more, he can usually do it surprisingly well. His sister rode a three wheel scooter at the tot gym the other day. So as soon as she got off, he hopped on and had a go at pushing himself along. It wasn't a huge success so he just walked straddling it and called it good. He also loves doing art, whether it's markers or stickers or stamps - whatever the other kids are doing.

By far one of his favorite things to do is to ride in a toddler car. Anything will do but his favorite are the kind with a roof and a door that opens and closes. He will get in and out and go back and forth between them if more than one is available. He cries when we leave his sister's school, where they have four of those cars and I am known for going to pick up early so he has time to ride.

He loves his ball pajamas, so much so that we took his eighteen month giraffe photos in them. They have footballs, baseballs, soccer balls, and basketballs all over the pants. He's so pleased every morning when I take off his sleep sack to see all those balls. And in the evenings he asks for them by signing and saying "ball" when I change him into pajamas.

Xavier was very very into hunting and gathering Easter eggs or filling any container. He would hunt and find eggs long after the other two quit and sat down to eat the candy. He likes the candy too, for sure, but for him it was all about hunting and collecting. He often raids the dresser drawers and puts clean clothes in the dirty laundry bin. Luckily I can tell which socks are clean because they are still rolled together.

Overall Xavier is such a fun character with an infectious laugh and irresistible cuddles. His sister can't get enough of him, and loves to hug and kiss him as well as help him with his shoes or anything else. He loves her baby doll so much that I finally got him one of his own, and he is so sweet with it. He's fascinated with the magnetic pacifier but also cuddles his baby frequently and loves to push it around in the baby stroller.

I can't believe how big our baby is!

Tulip Festival

On Thursday I took a half day off work, Theo was on Spring Break (and Vivian doesn't have school on Tuesdays nor Thursdays) so we went up to Mt. Vernon to look at tulips. While the weather has been quite warm this year and the tulips were reported to be past their peak, it felt perfect to us. Check out all of Michal's Photos on Google Photos, or Sarah's Photos.

Model Train Show and Leo's Birthday Party

Last Sunday we attended a model train show in Monroe, Washington and afterwards went to Leo's first birthday party. Experience all the joy.

Skiing

Here is a video of Theo's ski lessons yesterday. It includes some scenery shots which I took while skiing independently so don't worry -- Theo's not skiing that terrain (yet). Here's a Google Photos story with more photos and more videos, including a four minute video of Theo skiing down the Holiday chairlift to his ski school. That video is particularly important, as the school is annoyingly high on the hill -- we've hiked up to it every Saturday so far, but riding the chairlift and skiing down to it is so much nicer (and takes roughly the same amount of time).

One Was Johnny by Theo

I have zero photos from the show itself mostly because I was handling Xavier and Vivian (who shockingly survived the almost hour long elementary school production). But here's Theo singing the song his "beginning room" class performed (by himself in the car on the way home so audio isn't great) as well as a couple photos featuring him. The production was Really Rosie by Maurice Sendak, and Theo was one of two dogs (each role was assigned to two kids) in his twenty kid classroom. They performed the song "One Was Johnny" and acted out the motions. Theo re-used his coyote costume for his dog role in his first-ever performance in a play. (He also performed in his holiday concert at preschool at age 3, where he was one of three kids out of twelve willing to talk into the microphone to introduce songs then.)

Skiing: Day 4

So what do I do while Theo has ski lessons from 10am to 2:30pm (and often later, as his class rarely returns from the slopes until nearly 3)? I ski! Here are my stats from today's session (the fourth day so far this year; three Saturdays during Theo's lessons, and one Monday night ski):

Christmas 2015 (and Theo's Ski Lessons)

We had something like 5 Christmases this year (although just two days ago Theo took issue with the count and feels he only got four) there's a lot of updates which we should cover. I won't do it justice at all. So check out the Google Photos Story. (For the record the four -- or five -- Christmases are: Cincinnati, Atlanta 12/24 evening, Atlanta 12/25 morning, Atlanta 12/25 afternoon, and Seattle.) Here's a Google Photos Story. We got to see everyone, and the kids got to ride ponies. What's not to love?

Theo's taking ski lessons again this year (really just picking up after last year's disaster of a ski season) -- check out this brief Google Photos story. He's out of the corral and doing the magic carpet routinely. He was extremely resistant to going -- he's rightfully noting that he only gets two non-school days away (go self-awareness!) but after the first lesson he told me "I might have been wrong about how much I like skiing" -- that is to say, he had a fabulous time. To make stuff even more awesome, Theo's new school apparently does a "Winterirm" where they take 3 Wednesdays in January and February and take the entire school on a ski trip to Crystal Mountain!!

Vivian at 3.5

Vivian turned three and a half and we forgot to tell her for a couple of weeks. The kids have been into their half birthday marks for the last nine months or so, since Theo could claim to be four and a half. He overheard me saying that to other adults and adopted it for himself. This year marks the first time Vivian's observed her halfway mark herself, and she's very pleased. She's already making big plans for her fourth birthday. Those include inviting all her preschool friends and getting a big boy bed like Theo's.

Vivian is a hoot. She is extremely independent and once she makes up her mind, it's hard to change it.

The biggest change for Vivian - which had not happened at the official 3.5 mark but did shortly thereafter, was that she's fully potty trained. She wanted to wear underwear so much and I had a giant bag waiting for her to switch from diapers. Finally I pulled out the bag where she could see it and that seemed to be enough to push her over the edge. Plus, her teacher at school said we could send her in underwear and that helped tremendously. She's in school three days a week this year, so every other day I had to put her in diapers or a pull up to send her to school safely. Once we switched to all underwear she did great. I let her run around the house without pants a couple of days and reinstituted her potty sticker chart with purple box rewards and we were off to the races.

Vivian is in school on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 9-2. She is still napping every afternoon though it's getting tougher only because we have to pick up her brother at 3, and that pushes nap well beyond the point where she is tired. She used to nap from 2:30-4, but now there are days where I've barely gotten her in bed by 4. That means it's often 5 or after when she gets up, and it skews bedtime later as well. Since she sharing a bedroom and her brother is an all day energizer bunny, she's getting shafted on morning sleep too. She's sleeping in her toddler bed with the small sides and green gate to close the open space between them. The gate isn't to keep her from falling out. It's to keep all her lovies and blankets and pillows in. She sleeps under five or six blankets which are described as warm, cold, or "with holes" which means hand-knitted.

After many months and one very useful teacher conference, Vivian is finally settling in at school. This is her second year there. She started the summer of 2014 and had been going ever since. Her favorite friends from last year didn't return this year, though, and that really threw her for a loop, it seems. For the first several months she would only speak to the two teachers but never a kid. She refused to take part in most group activities except snack and lunch and would even bury herself under a pile of blankets in a corner instead. She spent a lot of time sitting in a chair for refusing to clean up and she gave the teachers her full tantrums at times when she refused to have her diaper changed. She is only the second could the teacher has ever had to physically restrain because she refused to stay seated in a chair and was often closed into the bathroom (which she didn't seem to mind) because it was the only space where they could contain her.

All of which sounds very familiar. Her mother had a similar effect on preschool teachers. :-)

Vivian has an unerring fashion sense and loves to pick her own outfits. She puts together things I would never dream of combining. And it works! I don't know if her small stature helps but it's always so super fashionable and trendy. She wears leggings almost every day but sometimes adds a skirt of shorts to mix it up. She is often cold and layers tops to keep warm and adds socks and dresses to the mix as well.

She's still very much a lightweight. I think she's around 28 lbs and 37 inches tall these days. She loves shoes, pink and green are her favorite colors, and if she's not stubborn she is the sweetest most polite child I know. She's so nice to both get brothers and absolutely positively cannot get enough of her baby brother. She loves him so much. She likes to help change his diaper, pick out his clothes, feed him her food, read him books she's memorized, and give him hugs and kisses galore, especially before bedtime.

Vivian is extremely pleased that she's a big girl now and takes every opportunity to point it out. She adores swimming and fireworks, garbage trucks and diggers, and anything sparkly. She's very very good riding her balance bike now and goes faster than I can walk to keep up with her. She can bike a mile round trip most days no sweat. She's getting better on her pedal bike which has training wheels and, well, pedals. Her biggest issue is it's a very heavy bike and she doesn't have enough weight to get it moving well.

Vivian is an excellent finder and can count all the way to thirty. She knows most of her letters and almost all her numbers until 20 something by sight.

She's finally got enough hair that I put in pigtails for her for the first time today. It was so cute I couldn't handle it.

Vivian's favorite meal hands down is macaroni and cheese, preferably shells and cheese. She will horde and savor any treat, like candy or dessert. Her Halloween candy lasted until Christmas despite her brother's best efforts to help her out with her stash.

She loves her leappad and is very very good at the maze puzzle game all on her own even though the electronics are reserved for long travel trips. Her favorite shows are Bob the Builder, Calliou, Curious George, and Daniel Tiger who is by far the best.

Vivian loves her baby doll. If I had to pick one toy as her favorite (besides Ryba the clownfish who we cannot live without), it would be her baby.

I wish I had the right words to sum up her sunny sweet stubborn personality but she is an individual unto herself and words don't do her justice. Luckily she's still small enough I can pick her up or tickle her out of a recalcitrant mood, but I'm certain that won't last much longer.

Happy halfsies Vivian!

For all the giraffe photos:
https://furchin.smugmug.com/Vivian-35-Years/

Theo Turns Five!

Well I wrote this at the correct time, but never managed to post it. Surprise! Fall was awfully chaotic, well beyond the norm here. So....

Holy crap, Theo is five years old! Can you believe it? I am having a hard time adjusting to the concept. It does not seem like five years since he was a newborn.

Theo turned five and he was super excited about his birthday. He's pretty much been counting down to his birthday since Vivian's birthday in late spring. He's already got a long list of what he wants for his sixth birthday, too.

Interestingly, Theo did not want to have any kind of party or invite any friends to celebrate with him this year. He was very adamant about both those things. He wanted exactly what and who Xavier had for his birthday just a few short weeks ago. (We had a very quiet low key celebration for Xavier.) These requests are a dramatic departure from the last two years when Theo was very excited to have his party at school and invite all his friends. (Though in all fairness his school has been super chaotic this fall and perhaps that's contributed.)

Instead we had a very pleasant day mostly at home. We started the day off with our usual traditions of balloons tied to Theo's seat at the table. He had four balloons this year: a giant silver 5 he calls an "s", a Spider-Man balloon, a Thomas the train cube balloon, and a happy birthday cube balloon.

Theo also had a big stack of presents waiting for him on the coffee table when he woke up. He zeroed in on those, though he had to wait a bit. (With my recent foot surgery I am very slow to get out of bed and upstairs.) He tore through everything while we Skype and FaceTimed grandparents in to watch the excitement.

Theo got a Spider-Man hooded sweatshirt, a George t-shirt, a wooden track drawbridge, fingerpaints, a big kid two-wheel scooter (in blue, his favorite color currently), a stealth airplane, an SR-71 airplane, a marble run set, a Spirograph set, a Berenstain Bears train book,

Vivian scored a my little pony coloring book and a carrier for her babies. Xavier got two new airplanes - one small blue one and one larger one with a door that opens, three people, one piece of cargo, and it talks and sings.


VIP day at school

Buffet and eats five hot dogs

Weight and height

Dr visit drama

Surgery Postponed!

We had Xavier's pre-op appointment today and he's improved enough that they postponed Tuesday's adenoidectomy surgery indefinitely! He's put on almost a pound (from 22 lbs 5 oz to 23 lbs 1 oz) in slightly less than a month. His last biggest weight gain was six ounces in six weeks and growth only goes slower as he gets older. It's just enough weight gain for him to cross back over a percentile line. He's sleeping 9-10 hours consecutively most nights which is a huge difference from previously. While the sleep improvement could be the humidifier or the pillow we added, it's enough of a difference that they can wait and see.

Since it takes two weeks for the nasal steroids to kick in and he's only been on them since Dec. 11th, the doctor wants to give it another couple of months to get the maximum benefit. We have another check up in a mid-March to see how he's doing and re-evaluate him for surgery if needed.

Model Train Show

We attended the annual holiday model train show at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma as we do every year. This year we went on the very first day it was open and we arrived minutes before the museum opened. Most of the model trains weren't even running! Check out the Google Photos story, or watch the brief video below:

Vivian's Holiday Concert

Vivian's preschool puts on a holiday concert each year (Theo's concert was two years ago!). This year Vivian was one of three soloists! Given the auditory nature of the performance, there are no photos of the performance itself, only videos. You can experience the Google Photos Story, or see the after-party photos and some of the videos on Smugmug, or see the entire set of videos on YouTube. I've embedded the playlist below for your convenience as well:

Holidays 2015: Pacific Place Snow

Last night we took the kids to Pacific Place, a mall which does indoor (fake) snow nightly at 6pm.

Halloween 2015

This year for Halloween, Theo wanted to be a Sounder Train, and Vivian wanted to be a digger. Fortunately Xavier's and Theo's birthdays in the preceding month provided a lot of raw cardboard material. Coupled with a $50 trip to Lowe's which would make any graffiti artist proud, we had proper outfits -- complete with glow-in-the-dark paint for headlights and windows!



Xavier had a costume too!



We did tons of Halloween-related activities. First we had Vivian's friends from school over to decorate pumpkins on Friday (since Theo had his friends over to do the same the prior week). Afterwards we went to Jefferson Park Community Center to partake in their Halloween Festival.



Then on Halloween (Saturday) we went trick or treating in Greenwood...



...followed by Amelie's 5th birthday party. Then we headed home for a quick 2.5 hour nap before hitting up the neighborhood for trick or treating.



See the entire collection.

Halloween Hoedown

Lake and Park, Theo's new school (and Kindergarten!) which we started attending this past Wednesday, had a Halloween Hoedown. Amazingly, Theo took off and danced on his own with complete strangers while the rest of us ate. The entire collection is available here.

Theo's Day Out

Theo's new kindergarten had a teachers' in service day so there was no class. I'd already booked a sitter for my co-op working shift, so instead I got to spend a large part of the day with Theo. Here's what he wanted to do with his exclusive time:

Go to the neighborhood park and ride the zip lines. (I pointed out we could do this anytime so he moved to option number two.)

Stay at home building train tracks.

And finally settled on option three: ride the light rail to the stop with the water fountain and buy lunch from the coffee shop to eat there. Sold!

The coffee shop we planned to patronize had gone out of business but luckily there was another one open very close by so we went there instead.

Theo refused to take a jacket so he got cold at the water fountain almost immediately and crawled back into the stroller (which he hasn't ridden in the front of for quite some time). We spent most of our time inside the coffee shop then went joy riding to the airport to watch planes and eat our lunch.

Theo's Last Day at Coop

We withdrew Theo from coop, and today was his last day. His classes made a super-sweet farewell card for him.

Ola Visits Seattle

The radio silence on this blog doesn't indicate abandonment so much as incredible business. For instance, my cousin Ola came from Poland to stay with us for almost the entire month of August ahead of my sister's labor day wedding in Boston. We did so much, from hitting Seattle's tourist hotspots like the Space Needle to traditional summer favorites on Alki and the fairs, and we even snuck in trips to Mt. St. Helens and Los Angeles. You can check out all the photos as usual, but there's so many of them that I had Google auto-arrange them into a coherent story (which of course misses a lot of individual items, but it's a good starting point.)

Xavier's First Birthday

Xavier turned one last week! We celebrated his big first birthday in several ways. First, as is our custom, we got him balloons and tied them to his chair at the table so they would be obvious as soon as he woke up and went into the dining room. He had a first birthday balloon in baby blue (the only color they had), a red happy birthday balloon, and a new kind of ball shaped mylar balloon with Mickey and friends on a clear background. He very much enjoys batting at the balloons and watching them spring back and bounce around.

We laid his presents out on the coffee table and had several things set aside in separate places for his older siblings. Xavier was singularly unimpressed with the concept of gifts. I thought he would be interested in taking things out of bags and boxes as he likes putting things in and taking toys out of containers very much now. But he looked at all the stuff and moved right along.

Earlier in the week I had taken Theo and Vivian to the toy store and let them pick out presents for Xavier. Vivian in particular debated long and hard but settled on a red water bottle with a rocket ship on it for him. She had gone on hoping to find a red dish, though there was a surprising lack of red toys suitable for toddlers. Theo of course wanted to get Xavier a train, though once we got to the store and there was an actual train table set up to play with, he couldn't care less about shopping for presents. After he ran out of time at the train tracks, he got serious about selecting a gift. He stumbled across a brio train starter set marked for ages one and a half (instead of the usual three plus) and we were all set. Theo got Xavier his own track so he would stop messing up Theo's creations.

Back at home the kids decorated some packing paper and wrapped their gifts. So on the actual day, they were both super excited to "help" Xavier unwrap the gifts they had chosen for him. Theo then proceeded to help him unwrap everything else.

Because it was a school day for Theo, we had to rush a bit. After presents we took all three kids to the local bakery to select breakfast goodies. Xavier got a cream puff, and Theo and Vivian both selected cupcakes. We lit the one birthday candle and sang to him. Xavier was intrigued by the fire on the candle but had no idea about blowing it out. He did enjoy the cream puff though. He ate mostly the cream parts until I broke off some smaller pieces of the bread for him. It was large, though, and difficult for him to manage on his own.

Xavier has been pulling up to a standing position for about three weeks before his birthday and he's very stable on his feet. He's also remarkably good at getting back down to his knees and then his belly so he can army crawl around the house. So he was at the perfect height to reach presents on the coffee table despite his lack of interest.

He got the gifts from his siblings as well as a wilk (flat wolf lovie), a zutano blanket with a forest friends theme, a big yellow dump truck, a rocking horse (which is actually a giraffe) that talks and sings, a red car, a stuffed badger, a small red barn toy with wooden doors that open and close, a new shirt and jacket, a remote control car that makes music and noise, and a waterproof octopus with three rings that can be hooked onto its legs.

Vivian scored a stuffed digger ( she declared that's all she ever wanted and asked if she could keep it "for all the days"), a new hat and booties for her baby, and a magic pen coloring book. Theo was less impressed with his spider man raincoat, but liked his volcano book and magic pen coloring book.

Xavier is still napping twice a day, so by the time we dropped Theo off at school and returned home, he didn't have any time to enjoy his new things. He went straight to nap. When he woke up, I fed him cheese quesadilla for lunch as that's by far his favorite food right now. He's willing to sign more for quesadilla but not for anything else. I've also started giving him a sippy cup with whole milk in it at meals and he likes that a lot. I think the cup is just as intriguing to him as the contents though. He's mostly mastered the art of tipping it up to get milk out.

He also loved the sloppy joe we had for dinner one night and is still a big fan of beans. He likes cheese more than he used to, and loves to have an entire apple to chew on. Watermelon is definitely one of his favorite foods followed closely by blueberries.

He's not quite cruising along the furniture yet but has enough upper body strength he can pull himself up onto the coffee table if he wants. He still loves to play "ball catch" which is just Theo's way of saying roll a ball back and forth while sitting on the floor.

Xavier's still nursing about four times a day (upon waking in the morning, before both naps, and at bedtime) but gets formula or breast milk in a bottle after three of those sessions as well. He generally has about 24 ounces of supplemental fluids from the bottle per day. If he's nursing I give him four ounces. When I'm not available, he gets six ounces in the bottle and generally empties the bottle.

He's eating three solid meals and an afternoon snack. He loves these Gerber baby vegetable flavored poofs we discovered during our recent trip to Massachusetts. He would eat the entire container if allowed.

Sadly both Michal and I had a meeting we didn't feel comfortable skipping the evening of Xavier's big day. I left him a container of the veggie poofs with the sitter and let him gorge.

To make up for the birthday dinner we normally do, we invited friends over for Sunday evening. Oliver (3.5 and one of Theo's best buddies) and his sister Pearl (exactly a month older than Xavier) came over after to nap to play and have dinner. They brought Xavier a new touch and feel book which he loves, though I have since been unable to locate it. (I suspect older siblings in this disappearance.) Then we had a birthday dinner of steak with tomatillo salsa, black beans and rice, and cheese turkey dogs for the kids. Xavier ate his half a hot dog and rice and beans and Theo devoured five hot dogs!!!

We followed dinner with a small chocolate cake with raspberry filling and chocolate frosting with raspberries and chocolate swirls on top. It was about the size of a bocce ball with two layers and split amongst us all quite nicely. We put a blue candle in and sang to him again and then let him at the cake.

Xavier is still hit or miss on sleeping at night. We haven't had his twelve month check up yet because I scheduled it simultaneously with Theo's five year check up. But I suspect Xavier has a mild to moderate case of sleep apnea since most of the advice for that condition (colder air, inclined surfaces, side sleeping position) seem to result in much better nights for him. On a good night he's up around four a.m. and several times in the last month he's gone ten and a half to eleven hours straight. He's usually in bed by 7:20 something though now that he's pulling up he sometimes spends time playing before settling down to sleep. He likes to throw things overboard but doesn't fall asleep well without his favorite Taggie brand lovie, which is a small pale green (well it used to be pale green - now that he's dragged it along the floor multiple times it's closer to a dirty gray color) fuzzy blanket with ribbon tags sewn around all four edges.

Xavier loves airplanes. It's the only thing he signs for consistently. When we are outside, whenever he hears one, he swivels his head and signs until he spies it. He recently discovered that on clear days he can see them from inside the house at the big front picture window and I think that rocked his world. He stayed standing by the window watching and signing for quite a while.

He's still the happy go lucky guy who gets so excited to see all of his family members when they come back. Whether we've just been in the other room or gone all day, he kicks his legs and grins and hustles over with his army crawl to greet us. He still pats my back when he wants me to pat his back for comfort and it's pretty much the sweetest thing ever. He's got that big toothy grin with eight teeth in the front and at least one tooth coming in further back. His smile is enough to light up any room and strangers often stop us outside when we are walking to comment on what a happy baby he is.

He's growing up so fast and we are blessed to have Xavier as part of our family and to celebrate his first birthday together!