Off to Key West!

Our internet is back!

However, there aren't new pictures or videos. One big part of this is that we really need a new computer at home. Because we've always had laptops that were both personal AND for work, we've never gotten a "family" computer. Chris keeps all the pictures, movies, etc. on his laptop, but also takes it to work every day to analyze data and write papers. I have a government laptop that is bereft of personal stuff, which mostly stays at work. My old computer (the one I used to write my thesis) is basically a piece of cr*p. So, we're saving our pennies for a new computer to use at the house, which will hopefully facilitate optimal blogging frequency.

Now back to the title of this blog post: Chris and I are taking our first vacation WITHOUT Julian. We will have fun. We will miss Julian. But mostly we are glad to finally be getting some much needed R&R. After months of being told that I make faces at work when my co-workers announce vacation plans (and by this I mean penetrating-glare-death-faces), I figured I'd better find a way to get to a beach before people stop talking to me.


We're spending a few days down in Key West, hanging out with friends Adam and Danielle as a subset of their much longer vacation. It's a short trip, only three nights, but it gives us some time to unwind, be completely irresponsible, and dip our toes in some sand. And Julian will be spending some quality time with Grandma T. (Grandpop also helping.) It's win-win! Well, Julian is still too much of a Mama's Boy to see it that way, but we know it's good for him to bond with his elders. (Hmm...Mom may not like me referring to her that way...)

We'll report back on how it all goes in the next post.

Still Here

Since our last post, we've had Grandparents visiting on the weekends and our internet connection on the fritz, none of which has been conducive to blogging. I put up some new pictures on the Baby Julian Picasa page, and we'll try to get some more stuff up here once the internet is back on (I'm doing this post at work, so I'm trying to keep it quick). As you can see, his mobility is increasing all the time. I think he can already outrun me.

'Spring'ing back and forth

We're having a true Spring this year, in which a few teaser warm days (70s or more) are interspersed with many more cool rainy days.

Seasonal changes are upon us: The daffodil bulbs I planted last spring are blooming. (My first effort as a gardener is a success!

Morrie is begging to get out of the house at night.

I even started running, true to my word, now that there are a few pleasant sunny days in the week. Thanks to Jeff's recommendation, I'm doing the "Couch to 5K" program, which is easing me into running with a lot of jog/walk intervals. So far I like it, and I'm using a handy-dandy app to tell me what to do when I run. The app is very buggy, but when it works properly I'm a big fan.

For a few days there I thought that I was going to have a lot more free time in which to jog and garden, but thankfully the Federal Government is still functioning and I didn't go on furlough. Which is all for the best, of course, although its made me think that I shouldn't wait until the whole government shuts down before I decide I have time to go to the dentist.

In Julian news, he now goes by the title of "Super J", and when you say this to him he will start humming the Superman theme song. He passed his swim class with flying colors, and is well on his way to becoming a lifeguard. And here is a little video of him helping out around the house:

To Blog or Not To Blog...

...that is the question. When, on a given weekday night, we have run through the gauntlet of chores to be done to put Julian to bed and clean up from dinner and prepare for the next day, and we finally collapse on the couch for a few precious moments together, we must decide if we will muster the energy to attend to ONE MORE THING. This is why I can't do laundry on weeknights, why the bathroom cabinet still doesn't have a lock on the door, and why Julian's Baby Book is still woefully blank. And why we often fall off the horse with regular blogging.

Apologies.

But, ever the optimists, we'll keep at it as often as we can.

We had a good St. Patrick's Day with Bangers and Mash, and Julian was properly decked out as the (unquantified-but-likely-more-than-half) part-Irish boy that he is.
In this photo, it looks like he's combined St. Patty's Day with Mardi Gras...

J is also walking all over the place. Below is a video of him roaming the backyard, letting loose in the (temporary) Spring weather and navigating some obstacles. My favorite part is how he pumps his arms when he starts going fast or needs help with his balance.



And a few more hodgepodge pictures below.

This is how Julian likes to ride his tricycle. He'll stand on the front and wait for one of us to push him. Apparently he's more of a scooter guy.

Ball...still one of his favorite toys.

He also likes to climb up his slide. Oh, that boy!

He's already a better golfer than Dad.

Single Parenting

Julian has gotten a lot of quality time with each parent since last time. I was gone for a conference for 6 days last week, returning on Friday evening. Melissa left for a conference of her own on Sunday morning and won't return until Wednesday. So, Julian got 6 days alone with Mom (well, with a few days of Grandma Trainer helping out, too) and is in the middle of 4 days alone with Dad. He seems to be coping pretty well so far. I was shocked at how much he'd changed in 6 days. He's in the middle of one of those spurts of development he seems to have from time. When I left, he was tinkering more and more with walking but was still primarily a crawler, but after I got back he was walking as his primary mode of transportation. Likewise, in the time I was gone he developed names for all his favorite books. For example, he calls "Go Dog Go" "Dog-go," as you can hear in the video below.



I've also noticed as he gets more verbal that he can conceive of things that he can't see. Last night, he asked me for water (he usually pronounces it wha-TEE, although he says it more like wha-tuh below) even though we were in the basement and there was no glass of water within of a flight of stairs from him. Likewise, today at dinner he started asking for Mommy even though she's across the country. Fortunately, in the latter case he let it drop before he got too sad about it.

I posted a couple of other videos this week. One is Julian having some water and walking around, where you can kind of hear him whisper the word "water" and see the improvement in his walking.



The other one is more than a week old. It's kind of tough to describe, but it's basically J being J. He likes to take things off of our "Mormon shelves" and make toys out of them. One of his favorites is an aluminum roasting pan that he takes down and climbs into. On this occasion he decided to wield a box of tin foil like a Samurai warrior. If you listen you'll hear him counting to two as he swings it around. I have no idea why he felt it necessary to do any of these things, but it was funny to watch.

Walking Video

I also put the video that Melissa alluded to in the previous post onto YouTube, so you can check it out there or just watch it embedded here:

Llama-lama-ding-dong

Linus had his blanket, Christopher Robin had Pooh, and now Julian has....Llama.

In parent-speak, this is known as a "lovey", and is considered a helpful aid in learning to feel secure as he ventures out into the big bad world. Supposedly more than half of all toddlers do have a special blanket, doll, or stuffed animal.

I've been told that I had Night-Night Baby when I was J's age, but I have clearer memories of Freddy my stuffed dog. Chris had Hug the Bear, which is still known to be seen around these parts:

Julian calls his new special friend "Hi Llama" or "Llama", and it is very cute. It's lucky that his name is Llama, since he is in fact a llama. We can't brush J's teeth unless Llama is with him, and they go to bed together every night. Llama was a birthday present from Uncle Mark and Aunt Kelly (thanks!), but it was only in the last month that Julian has become so attached. We're not sure what triggered the friendship, but one evening Julian just walked over and picked him up from a chair and that was that. Now he thinks Llama is the cat's pajamas. Below you can see Llama in his role as Comforting Companion.


We look forward to years of Llama's friendship, the only question is....should we get a "spare" now to avoid possible future meltdowns due to loss/mud baths/washing machine destruction?

P.S. Check out recent uploads to Picasa album (should show teaser at left) for some new pictures and a good walking video!

Happy birthday Dev!

Julian is sad to miss his cousin's first birthday (2/15), but he's trying to give him a call. We did get to see Devin and his parents via video chat on Sunday. He's getting to be a strapping lad.

Note: the lump on his head is not my fault. Well, okay, it is a little. J and I took a walk yesterday, and we managed to get two houses down the street (he was holding my hand, but doing it under his own power). He took a little spill on the pavement en route, from which I failed to save him. He got back on the proverbial horse and kept playing outside for another half hour, so I don't think I broke him.

And the Walking Man walks....

Julian is taking to his feet! Watch out world, here he comes. At almost 16 months he's finally decided that he'll try out this whole walking thing.

So far he reminds me of Frankenstein's monster



but we know he'll be running all over the place in no time.

He wasn't too big a fan of the big game on Sunday, and decided not to let me watch more than 30 seconds or so. It's funny, because he spent all morning getting geared up for kickoff:



I guess he'd rather play himself than watch the pros.

JD Phone Home

It's been quite a week here in the post-snowpocalyptic wasteland of the DC area. We had ~8 inches of heavy, wet snow during the PM rush hour on Wednesday, which completely crippled traffic. My car battery died while I was stuck in traffic, and I had to push the car to a parking lot and talk a McDonald's patron into giving me a jump. It took me more than 5 hours to go the 10 miles from work to home. And I was one of the lucky ones. Our neighbor took 8 hours to make a similar trip. Lots of people ended up abandoning their cars for the night because they got stuck or ran out of gas.

Oh, and the power went out all over the area. For 50 hours at our house. This is the third time in the last 7 months or so that we've gone more than two days without power and had to live like refugees. We stayed with some friends in the city for 2 nights while the house got down to 40 degrees before the power came back on late Friday night (thank goodness we know nice people!). I hope Julian didn't learn any new vocabulary words from our conversations about the power company's "response" to the outages.

In happier news, Julian has figured out how to talk on the phone, and practices regularly:



We're trying to get a video of him walking, but he's taking a bit of a sabbatical from practicing. We'll catch him one of these days.

Why the long face?

So a pony walks into a bar and tries to order a drink. The bartender says, "Speak up! I can't hear you". The pony says "Sorry - I'm just a little ho(a)rse".

Julian is sick again, this time with a cold that has left him with rivers of snot and a hoarse baby voice. I feel bad saying this, since it's due to illness, but his voice is super cute. Because of the cold, though, we ended up mostly housebound this weekend with no fun stories to report. We did get to listen to the Prairie Home Companion - Joke Show Episode twice (yes, we listened again when it reran a mere 18 hours later), which allowed me to greatly expand my repertoire of excellent knock knock jokes.

Here's a gem for you:

Knock knock
Who's there?
I like Herbie.
I like Herbie who?
I like Herbie Hind.

(Say it out loud. Trust me, it's funny)

Clean cut!

Last week Julian was sick with a stomach flu that, by all accounts, is plaguing the land from coast to coast. One of the many unfortunate consequences of this (aside from the 10+ times I got puked on) is that he had to skip his first "Waterbabies" class. But, thanks to the magical healing powers of time and jumbalaya, his strength was up enough to hit the pool this week.

Since I had just had some highlights done, and didn't want them to immediately turn green, Chris was the designated swim partner. I felt really guilty about this until I saw the four other mothers sitting by the side of the pool while their husbands got in the pool with the tots. I managed to catch the photo above before I got kicked out of the pool area to stand behind a glass wall waiting area. Dad reports that Julian liked being in the water, but not necessarily the swimming part. Next week I'll get in the pool with him and he'll be doing his flip turns in no time.

In other J-Wow news, our little Goldilocks got his first haircut! Stylist was Mommy, and the primary objective was to tame the mullet. The kid had started to grow some dreads, and people were beginning to ask him to go around back. I think I did an OK job, and thankfully the hair that was left on his head started to curl again. Here you can judge for yourself:

Before: The wild mane


Why am I making that face?

After: It's subtle, yet effective

We'd better teach this kid some control before he kills somebody

Look at the arm on this boy. Much to the chagrin of Grandpa Downey I'm sure, it looks like he's a righty.

We're back baby!

Having neglected this blog for too long, we've made a New Year's resolution to dust off the old blog and start the music up again. Sorry it's been so long. We got behind and then it kind of ended up getting away from us. Since last time, we went to Colorado to visit the Downey side of the family, celebrated Julian's first birthday, took J trick or treating for the first time, had Thanksgiving at our friends the Orwigs, did Christmas at the Trainer grandparents, and lots of other things that weren't on holidays.

Our goal is to get back to doing this every week or two, so if we have any friends left that read this look for it this year!

Some additional New Year's Resolutions for 2011. It's going to be another busy year!

Chris
1. Resuscitate the lawn.
2. Explore the region more.
3. Get my knee fixed up and rehabilitated so I can get some more running in this year.
4. Take J to visit Washington (the state, not the federal district).
5. Resuscitate the golf game.

Mel
1. Grow an herb garden
2. Yes, it's a cliche, but....get more exercise. Actually, any exercise.
3. Spend more time in my resuscitated backyard.
4. Clean/organize the basement and garage.


Julian:
1. Walk.
2. Grow another tooth, so my one is less lonely.
3. Face forward in the car.
4. Perfect dance moves. You can see on my way with this one: