Disco fever

My Auntie Barbara made this video on JibJab and sent it to me on Facebook for my birthday last month.

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I will admit that it kind of freaked me out, but fascination and hilarity won out in the end. Enjoy!

Dancing fool

Instead of getting ready for dinner or bed or our roadtrip to La Grande tomorrow, here's how our family spent a good deal of time tonight:


Three clips for a total of about 4 minutes. Enjoy (I know we did!)!

Serendipity and stuff

Today's my 40th birthday. I have had one of the best days of my life! Thank you to everyone for all the kind wishes. I'm so full of life and love and joy that I had to log on to blog about it (I was wishing I kept a journal so I could write about this day when I remembered my blog).

So when I logged on to my blog I noticed I have had 39 posts. Crazy that this is my 40th, eh? Love that stuff.

I promised this photo to Beth a long time ago (it was taken March 15). She painted these awesome blocks for Oscar's Christmas present. We love them. They are beautiful--detailed critters that spell out OSCAR (and some other letters, too).

Oscar and his Christmas blocks from Beth (March 15)

Here's a rundown of my day:

• Got up with Oscar at 6 a.m. and nursed and snuggled while listening to birds chirping outside his window
  
• Got Adam up so I could go back to bed and "sleep in"
• Woke up to coffee and donuts and a flower that Oscar picked for me:

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• Opened a beautiful card from Adam that included exactly what I wanted for my birthday: a gift certificate for a massage. Ahhhh.
  
• Got a call from Beth that opened with the happy birthday song solo--had a great visit with her. Also opened a package she'd sent me that included hand-drawn (and some colored) birthday wishes from everyone in her family, a heartfelt card from her, some festive confetti and a book called The Church of Dog that looks really interesting.
• Adam put Oscar down for a nap, then decided to take one himself. Those boys slept for two hours!
• Talked to my Dad and opened a little gifty from him (I already knew what it was, but waited to open it), Dave Ramsey's book The Total Money Makeover.
• Listened to voicemail previously left for me from Dad and Rebecca, a great rendition of the happy birthday song that makes me smile.
• Got a call from Vicki that opened with the happy birthday song! I walked around in the sunshine while we visited and caught up and made plans to see a Salem Film Festival movie (The Linguists on Thursday).
• Sat on the porch, enjoying the sunshine, reading my new book and eating chips, salsa, beans and sour cream. I couldn't believe what a great day I was having already and it was only like 11 a.m.!
• The boys woke up and I danced around the living room with Oscar.
• Got a call from Mom and opened the beautiful card she sent. Also opened the card from Aunt T.C. Had a great visit with the woman who brought me into this life!
• Met the mailman at the door and he handed me a package from Amazon. It's a book from Auntie Barbara, Stuff White People Like. I only knew about the website!
  
• Started getting ready to head to the tulip festival. Here are some pics from that:

Wow. I felt like I was drinking in the beauty of the tulips, the color, the sunshine. Okay, I'm changing the format here because there's still a lot and my birthday's almost over and I have to go to bed!

We came home, I got a call from Angela and opened an e-card from her, fed Oscar dinner, took a walk around the neighborhood and I put Oscar to bed. Adam made albondigas for dinner and he remembered that the Portland Trail Blazers' second playoff game was on TV tonight. Yea! And then my brother called and we had a good visit. The Blazers won the nailbiter of a game and Adam went to get Blizzards. And then Tanya called and we got to talk about turning 40 together! Our conversation reminded me of a quote she told me, "The days are long but the years are short."

There were a lot of great moments today. Thank you, all.

Haircut

Oscar's bangs were in his eyes...and had been for weeks, now. I took my time thinking about getting those little baby locks cut off, his original hair, the tips that were the first wisps on his tiny newborn head. I would get a little teary thinking about it, but not too bad. And I thought it would be better to mourn in advance than to make a big weepy show of it at the salon or after.

So we headed to Americuts on Saturday for his appointment with Debbie, the owner. Here's how it went.

Checking out the joint.

In our capes, checking out Debbie the hairdresser (and owner of Americuts).

The first cut.

Taking some off the top.

Getting the hang of it.

Clutching the iPuppy that Debbie had for Oscar play with.

Oscar seemed to enjoy getting his haircut.

Mama and baby are happy with the results.

Papa and baby are happy, too.

Time for a celebratory ride in the big boy firetruck chair.

Oscar got a certificate and some of his locks for the baby book.

Oscar crawls!

Oscar's been scooting around backwards and in counter-clockwise circles for weeks now, and he's recently started pulling himself forward with his forearm, one scoot at a time. But this weekend he really went for it, and he was so excited!

If you listen carefully, you can hear a little toot escape, I'm sure from all the exertion.

It's definitely time to babyproof!

Oscar eats "real" food

Oscar started eating rice cereal about 6 weeks ago or so. Here's a video clip of that milestone.



He started eating jars of organic baby food a couple weeks ago. We started with peas. Here's that video clip.



I've missed updating my blog, but can't make any promises about how often I'll be able to. Thanks for checking back!

Rollin' along

Tummy time at Gramma's in August.

Tummy to back
Oscar rolled from his tummy to his back on Sunday morning. He wasn't even trying, he was just playing on his play mat and ! just like that, he was on his back, looking at me with juicy spit bubbles on his lips.

I felt several things all at once: protective (I thought the sudden change might have startled him), proud, excited, relieved I'd been looking right at him, sad that Adam wasn't home to witness it...I felt like swooping him up in joy (and comfort) and at the same time I felt like playing it cool, like I didn't want to further startle him or just generally have a first-time parent freak-out. So I kind of did all those things in the next moment. I said something like, "Wow, look at you, Oscar, rolling over from your tummy to your back, what a big boy you are!" as I calmly dabbed the spit bubbles away with a burp cloth. The next second, though, I had grabbed him up and was hugging him to me, just loving him and being happy with the moment.

Keeping an eye on Gramma. And the camera.

Back to tummy
Tonight, Oscar was laying on his back and ! just like that, rolled over onto his tummy. What the?! I thought it would be a while longer before he could roll from back to tummy. I thought he'd be practicing his tummy-to-back roll first. I also thought the back-to-tummy roll would require much more effort. He did it without any at all. As soon as he was on his tummy, he was kicking his legs like a frog and he was grunting with frustration. He still doesn't love being on his tummy. I eventually helped him roll back onto his back. He continued to throw a leg over and turn onto his left side, but he didn't roll completely over again. Yet.