Chapter L: In Which I Shall Tell of Curious George and Boo-Boos

Happy birthday to me! (Mama)

My baby is 50! The big 5-0. Eh, well, weeks that is. And for those of you keeping track, as I am, that means that since I am writing about his 50th week, he is now 51 weeks, which in turn means that NEXT WEEK he will be one year old! MY BABY WILL BE ONE!!!!!!! And shameless me hasn't even the grace to be the least bit sorry about that monumental fact. Sometimes I sit and wonder about myself. Why am I not more sorry to see my baby grow up? The only thing I can guess is that either I am not terrible sentimental, or I am still running on adrenaline from him being in the NICU and again from him having to have a blood transfusion at 3 weeks old. Somehow, life becomes an adventure and you look forward to every day with wide open eager eyes. Always waiting in anticipation to see if he will out perform the medical experts expectations. I think I sat back with enormous satisfaction at his 9 month appointment when they double checked his stats before declaring, with incredulity, that he was the size of the average one year old already. Ha! Isn't God SO GOOD?!!!!!!!!!

Back to the week at hand. "In Which I Shall Tell of Curious George..." He began this week in true Raylerian style. Fast and furious. Acrobatics galore and keeping me in a constant state of wondering where he had disappeared to and for goodness sake! hoping he hadn't injured himself again.

What?! You mean I'm *not* supposed to climb in every chair I can?

Whoa! weeeeeee!!!!!

Haha! That was fun! Can I do it again Mama? Pullllleeeeezzzzzz?

He will roll or scoot anything that can possible be maneuvered into rolling or scooting

He was investigating the feet of the ottoman.

Aauuunnnddd away we go!

One of Rayler's favorite things to do is open and shut doors. We didn't have a working knob on our bedroom door so Rayler could get in and out as he pleased. And then this happened...

Needless to say, we switched out knobs after that so now we have a working knob. And that was only the beginning of the boo-boos. He scraped up his fingers on one hand when he smashed them in the door. The others he scraped when he tried to see how many fingers he could stick into the floor register in the bathroom at one time. And who knew that the simple art of standing could be so painful? His legs gave out on him one day and he smashed his right eye into the edge of the coffee table.

I really thought that he was going to have a black eye after that but the red spot is already gone and he just has the slightest bit of yellow bruising left now. I'm so glad it wasn't as bad as thought is was going to be.

Bugs is really getting more independent. He can help me when I put his shirts on. I put it over his head and hold it out and he puts his arms through the correct holes all by himself.

Along with the added independence he has begun to let us know that he doesn't appreciate being told "no". He doesn't throw a big fit, sometimes he "cries" a bit, and sometime he wrinkles his nose, throws his head back and lets out a little yowl. Very unconvincing, very naughty, and very funny. I never had been good at hiding my feelings when I want to laugh. And he makes it SO hard to hold a stoic face when he's trying his hardest to be willful.

I know that toddlers are messy eaters, but I never thought that I would be wanting to give Bugs four baths a day because of it!

He LOVES spaghetti-o's!

So I have developed a system. I keep a clean rag on the kitchen counter and when he's done eating I just plop him on the counter and give him a quick sponge bath. Voile! Dilemma solved.

Rayler is so silly. One day I made him some toast and buttered it since we're back to no peanut butter. I was puttering around the house and when I went to check on him I found one very greasy boy happily licking the butter off the toast. He did eventually eat the toast too, but...he keeps me laughing!

Saturday was my birthday.Tyler had to work, and I had hurt my neck so my plans for a nice dinner that night were canceled. So Tyler and Rayler took me out to Denny's for breakfast on Sunday and then Tyler and I went out to Mi Torios for dinner that night. It was perfect, I didn't have to cook! Yay!

Rayler wasn't too happy about having to wait for his breakfast so the waitress brought him some goldfish crackers

Yum yum!

Eating half of Dada's pancake

 In the big, BIG news this week, Rayler has been a walkin' fool this week. The most he's managed has been four steps at a time, but he happily makes the furniture circuit in the front room over and over and....every day. It goes couch, coffee table, recliner, coffee table, rocking chair, and back. With a few side trips up the furniture every once in a while. He's even attempted to start out from the coffee table to get to a toy on the opposite side of the room, but he doesn't get too far. But he just keeps trying. It won't be long now!


Random(er) fun things:

Kiwalski is evil. (punching bag musical penguin) It doesn't matter where in the room I have placed him, I still end up tripping over him every night when I go to lay Rayler down. And of course, Rayler is almost asleep and I trip over Kilwalski and he starts merrily singing away and wakes Rayler up. I think the thing moves on its own. Like he hides and then makes a bee line for my feet when he sees me coming. Not really. But...

Rayler's favorite book is his touch-n-feel firetruck book. The first page "Scratch the firetrucks scratchy metal grill" is his favorite. He makes me scratch it over and over again. When I stop he grabs my hand and puts it back on the page.

Mr. Stingy-with-his-kisses gave me three voluntary kisses on my birthday! Made my day so much better!

He can say "bubble", it just comes out "bambo?". So cute! And yes, the question mark is supposed to be there because he says it questioningly.

Rayler has no fear when it comes to climbing, sitting or standing on anything. Which makes for some heart-stopping acrobatics on the ottomans and window sill.

He is beginning to grasp the concept of chasing and being chased. He chases me around and around the kitchen with his push toy. And if I say "I'm gonna get you!" he'll grin and run away, for a minute. And then he turns around and runs right to me.

Rayler has a funny habit of "singing" while he eats. It's just a monotone hum but it's quite amusing. He's started doing it at night too. If he wakes up in the middle of the night he'll sometimes "sing" himself back to sleep. Which means him humming tunelessly to himself at 3 in the morning for 45 minutes and me wide awake because I can't sleep through that.

Random pictures!

Blurry "bambo" fun at the fd. It was too windy outside so we had to blow them in the bay.

On a bambo prowl

Checking out the lights

He had been hugging Rusty but as soon as I grabbed my camera he let go

We had to go pick Tyler up from his construction job one day and take him to the FD because they needed emergency help. It was Rayler's nap time and the poor guy just wiped out.

I gave Rayler some cheerios in a bowl and he dumped them. I guess he thought they needed some milk too because he  put his milk jug by them. 

I was trying to get him to put some chocolate chips in the batter but he just sat there looking at me as if I had sprouted horns.

Lastly...here are a few pictures of Rayler this time last year.

Week 49:Orneriness and Allergies

Very unwilling model

Rayler can clap now! I've only been trying to get him to clap for...oh a couple of months. I decided to try to teach him to put his own toys away this week. I called him over and asked him to "put ____ in the box!" And he did. So I clapped. Every time he put another in I clapped and clapped. He now loves to put his toys away, and he randomly claps about things. Of course, the monkey refuses to clap when I try to video him. Here are a few videos of the antics he pulls instead of clapping when the camera is on.

This one cracks me up. Watch how he loses the ball and tries to find it.

Bugs's preferred method of viewing the world nowadays is upside down. Sometimes he manages to turn a crooked somersault, but mostly he just looks around.

Bugs now knows how to climb down off of couches and chairs safely. That is a blessing since he spends most of his day either upside down or climbing on the furniture. He's not lacking for energy, let me tell you! There's been a few times he's misjudged how close he was to the edge and fallen, but fortunately for us both I've been able to catch him.

He has also started bringing me books so I can read to him. I love that. Also it's nice to be able to just hand him a book in the car and keep him occupied for the better part of the drive.

I had some 8x10's printed this week for display at Rayler's birthday part in a few weeks. One of them is a picture that was taken the day before he left the NICU, he was 6 days old. Tyler had the idea to dress him similar to the outfit in the photo and get him to pose with it for an "11 months later" photo. I guess we could have waited until it was exactly a year later, maybe I'll do another then. Anyway, he wasn't much interested in being a compliant model for our photo shoot. He kept climbing off the couch and turning upside down. It took some rapid shooting and fast maneuvers but we did manage to catch one or two good ones. And a bunch of ornery ones.

Who's this Mama?

I want to get down now.

I'll just climb over the arm of the couch

Getting down...

Decent photo finally!

Best photo of the lot

And now down to brass tacks. Here are the incriminating photos.

Peanut butter

Strawberry

So he had peanut butter on Monday and Friday and strawberries on Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday. Both of which he has had before. But my guess is Strawberries. Between Saturday and Sunday he had them four different times in three different foods. And this is what happened.

At first we thought they were bug bites

This was about silver dollar size

And then...

He had two "bug bites" on Saturday afternoon. They faded in just over an hour. He got two more Sunday afternoon around 3 and they were gone by 4. I found 4 more at 6, and they were gone by 7. But when I went to check on him around 9:30 I realized that this was no bug. I think my heart almost jumped out of my chest. And Tyler was working so I had to freak out on my own. Not recommended. But by two this morning all those splotches were gone and he just a few small spots this morning which were gone in the hour and he hasn't had any since. At least they never seemed to hurt him or itch. And he never ran a fever and didn't have trouble breathing. So we will hold off on strawberries and peanut butter for a while. When he's a little older we'll try them again, separately to see if we can pinpoint which one is the culprit. And I know your going to ask did we use any new lotions/detergents/soaps, the answer is no.

Enough of the heavy, let's see some fun!

He has fun finding as many places to smear his food as possible.

He discovered that he can bypass the safety latch on the entertainment center and get to the CD's and DVD's.

Playing with Uncle Sam at Allen and Cole's birthday party