Trapped

Saturday morning Gabe trapped himself in his bedroom.

It was actually a little amusing once his crying stopped and my heart rate slowed down.  Here's what happened:

I was in the bathroom doing my makeup and Gabe was hanging out with me while Bret washed the car.  (I assume the rest of you that live in western Washington are now asking yourselves why Bret was washing the car, since it's been raining nonstop for the past week (or longer??).  I'm sorry to say that I can't answer that question for you.  We were driving back from getting Gabe's picture taken with Santa on Friday afternoon and Bret announced that my car was "ridiculously filthy" and that he'd be washing it before we left the house to do errands on Saturday.  It makes no sense to me why he'd want to wash my car in the rain, but then again I've gone for months and months without washing my car.  Quite possibly years, in fact!)  So I'm at the bathroom mirror getting ready, and Gabe is toddling back and forth between the bathroom and his bedroom across the hall.  And since our house is the size of a shoebox (oh alright, I'm exaggerating; it's really the size of a large shoebox), Gabe was at most about 6 feet away from me. 

Except that his bedroom door was between us, and lately he's decided he likes to close doors.  So he's playing in his room and chattering and I'm putting on mascara, and then I hear his door close.  My immediate thought is "thank goodness I moved the ironing board from behind his door".  We used to keep it there but moved it when he started crawling.  My next thought was picturing what's still behind the door, which is this:

A set of wall shelves that we got for our wedding but haven't decided where to put up yet (yes, we got married 3 1/2 years ago...what's your point?) because of our lack of wall space (see previous comment about our shoebox house).  I used to have the box of shelves standing up on end, but again due to the Gabe crawling factor, I decided I needed to change that.  And lo and behold, the box of shelves fits perfectly in the space between the door on the right and the bookshelf on the left.  A storage dream!  And see how the box of shelves is almost the exact width of the molding, allowing the door to open fully without the box getting in the way?  You can guess that I was quite pleased with this serendipitous development.

But I digress.

So Gabe shut his door and I wasn't too worried about it, and after about 15 seconds I went to open the door.  And it would only open about 5 inches.  I pushed harder, it opened a bit wider, but it was still blocked.  And there's Gabe at the opening looking at me like "what's the problem, Mom?".  I had those first moments of panic; the kind where you immediately jump to "MY CHILD IS TRAPPED I CAN'T GET HIM OUT WHAT AM I GOING TO DOOOOOO?" but then I realized that things were not as dire as my maternal panic instincts had made them out to be, and after reaching around the door to see if I could feel anything (which I couldn't), I grabbed the hand mirror from the bathroom to figure out what was blocking the door. 

And yes, I was quite proud of myself for such a logical response.  It may not seem like a big deal to those of you that are of the more laid-back variety, or have a few more years of parenting under your belt, but I don't really consider myself to be the type that's calm under pressure.  So, thinking to get a mirror and find out what was causing the problem was a minor triumph for me.

I saw that the box of shelves was pulled out from the wall and wedged (remember how it fit so perfectly between the door and the bookshelf?) so that the door wouldn't swing open.  Ok, no problem...I'll just find something to push the box back into place and voila!, the door will once again be free to go about its business.  A broom handle seemed like the perfect tool for the job, so I tell Gabe that I'll be right back and run downstairs to get the broom.  Halfway down the stairs Gabe starts crying and by the time I reach the broom in the kitchen he is SCREAMING.  My maternal panic instincts were once again on high alert and when I got back to him, literally 10 seconds later, he was attemping to shove himself through the 5 inch door opening.  So between my mad dash downstairs and my heart squeezing at my screaming baby trying to free himself, I was slightly anxious...and then I had to push Gabe back into his room so I could get the broom handle in there to try to move the box. 

Oh jeez.

After a couple of tries I realized it was wedged pretty good and Gabe was still crying - so I pushed at the door again and felt it give a bit more against the cardboard of the box, making a space wide enough to pull Gabe through.  After a good long hug he settled down and my heart rate began to slow, so I moved back to the task of getting his door open.  In the end, I pushed aside the changing table that's right inside the door (thank goodness it's a lightweight piece of furniture on wheels that we decided to put there), pushed hard on the door and squeezed into the room.  I expected to hear wood cracking at the hinges but never did, so that was good news...I would have hated to announce to Bret when he got back inside from car washing in the rain that his next activity needed to be door repair. 

Once inside the room, I tried to figure out how Gabe had done it.  I put the box back the way it had been in its perfect spot, and Gabe came right in, closed the door, and moved the box so it blocked the door again.  As if he had completely forgotten the trauma (if his screaming was any indication) of moments before, or perhaps just wasn't as concerned about it now that I was in the room with him.

To document the event for the memory books, Gabe and I went to get the camera and took pictures of a re-enactment:

"Hey look!  I can turn this box over on to its side!  Cool!"

 

"Oh, hi Mommy!  <sheepish expression>  I turned the box over onto its side.  ...But I guess you probably remember that from a few minutes ago, huh?"



Shutting the door (I really think this kid has a future as a re-enactment actor...he went right from tipping the box over to shutting the door with just a small pause in the middle to let his #1 fan take a picture.  I definitely see an Emmy in his future.)




Trying to open the door wider to get out.  This is when he started fussing again because he couldn't open the door any wider, and I decided to stop the re-enactment lest I add to his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from the event.

  

Still smiling after our eventful morning (well, I am...Gabe was taking it under consideration).

After the photo session, our next activity was to find a different place to store that box of shelves!

Storage

Today Gabe informed me by example that I've been keeping my shoes in the wrong place. 

Clearly they're supposed to be kept in the kitchen drawer that holds his bowls and cups.

Just think about all the room I'll have in my closet now!

Comparison

Let me ask you something:

If you squint your eyes, and tilt your head to the left, and tuck your chin down to your chest...then do these:



Look at all like these:

??

...yeah...I didn't think so either. 

This was the birthday cake idea I saw in an issue of Parenting magazine (thanks for the subscription, Mandy!) and decided to use for Gabe's birthday party.  Tonight I did a little test run and I have no idea how those wacky folks at Parenting magazine got the food coloring in the icing to turn out such vivid colors.  I used 20 drops of red coloring and still all I got was a deep pink.  I also couldn't make the jolly rancher fruit chews (the candy used on top to make the cakes look like legos) match the icing, so I experimented with gummy life savers.  But the saddest part is that they don't even taste that good.  It's frozen pound cake with pre-made cake icing and way too rich!  So, I'm glad I did a dry run and I think I'll probably end up doing something different for Gabe's cake at his party next weekend.  Cute idea though!

One

Gabe turned one last Monday!  We celebrated with a couple gifts from Grandma in the morning...

"A card?  For me??"



He found the curling ribbon pretty entertaining.



And of course, he was really interested in ripping the wrapping paper...the magnetic animal puzzle book was a secondary attraction.  (Although now that we have it home without wrapping paper for competition, he loves it!)

Awesome truck with jumbo legos!  Gabe likes to push cars and trucks around and make engine noises at the same time; it's really cute.

...And then Gabe and I took a road trip to the Tri-Cities to see Lindsey & Lydia who were in town from WA DC.

Both Gabe & Lydia were not feeling very cooperative for a group picture, so we decided to just take what we could get!

Lydia's Grammy Sherry showing us how to keep two squirrely kids entertained...the talents of a Grandma!

It was an eventful day!

I'll leave you with a collage of monthly pics from Gabe's first year (idea courtesy of my friend Annie!).  I think I already said in a previous post that all the cliches I've heard about parenting and having kids seem to be pretty true (so far as my whopping year of experience in that area goes), and the part about how time flies and how they grow up so fast is perhaps the most bothersome truth of all. 

Then again, lately I've been really looking forward to Gabe walking, getting molars, and being potty trained...so at least in those respects I'm not so bothered by time flying!

Happy 1st Birthday to my precious baby boy, who makes me laugh and melts my heart and teaches me about myself and brings me such great joy - love you love you, buddy!

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth...

One of my favorite poems is High Flight, by John Gillespie Magee, Jr:

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, --and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of --Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air...

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew --

And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Recent high flights:

- Bret and his dad went skydiving!  It was Bret's parents' gift to him for his birthday in April, but they had to wait to go until their schedules and the weather all cooperated.  They went on a beautiful, HOT day in August...perfect blue skies!






Jumping out of a plane...just your average father/son bonding activity.

 


Gabe helping Bret practice the freefall position.





Coming in for landing.




Bret's tandem instructor was a guy I went to highschool with - small world!





- In September, we went to visit Sara in Idaho and her boyfriend Jared took us flying!  We did loops and went weightless and I'm pretty sure I giggled like a maniac for 90% of my flight.  There was even knee-slapping.

Yes, I said knee-slapping.  Because apparently, my spontaneous instinctual reaction to having extreme amounts of fun is to slap my knee like a 1940's grandpa. 

Anyway, I would love love love to get my pilot's license. Bret's dad has started lessons to get his...so maybe I'll talk him or Jared into teaching me someday.  Now there's an idea! 



Landing




That's me in the back.




- In early October, I got to go on my third hot air balloon flight!  Perhaps not the kind of fun that inspires knee-slapping, but amazing nonetheless!  My parents generously expanded their "romance aloft flight for two" and invited the rest of us along for the ride.  (Though really, how romantic could it have been, with the balloon pilot there as well?  It's not like he could step away and give a couple any privacy...)

We helped hold the balloon open in front of a big fan so it could begin to inflate, and Mom and Dad took this job very seriously.  The bottom of the balloon opening was lifting up and blocking the inflow, so Mom went in to remedy the problem.  So cute.

Phase 2 of inflation - heating the air inside the balloon.

I was a bit concerned Dad wasn't going to let go (remember, I said my folks were taking our roles in getting the balloon off the ground very seriously).

The basket turned out to be roomier than we expected...we could've easily fit a few more!

It was an eventful few months for us!

There have been a few times...

...since Gabe showed up that I have had somewhat surreal realizations of my motherhood.  Moments when I find myself in a reality that seems both strange and completely normal at the same time.

For example:  the first time I took Gabe into a store by myself when he was a few weeks old.  From the outside I'm sure it just looked like a woman taking her baby out of the car and into the store.  But on the inside, I felt a bit like a little girl playing mommy with her doll.  I felt like I had a big sign over my head flashing in neon "Rookie!"  I must've checked a half dozen times to make sure I had the pacifier, a burp rag (make that two burp rags in case of emergency), a diaper (make that two diapers in case of emergency), baby wipes, an extra outfit, changing pad, blanket...I think I put pretty much the entire contents of the diaper bag into my purse.  Would've just been easier to put my wallet into the diaper bag!  I worried that I would trip and drop Gabe.  I wondered what I'd do if he started screaming in the middle of the store and I couldn't calm him down.  Up until then, Bret and I had gone out together with Gabe, so I figured that if he was inconsolable, at least I had a buddy to share my public embarassment.  But the first time alone in public with Gabe, I felt self-conscious and suddenly very aware that I was a mother.  And even if I didn't feel like I knew what I was doing, others would look at me and assume I did.

Another example:  the first few times someone asked me about Gabe's preferences.  As in:  "Does Gabe like tummy time?" or "Does Gabe like having his diaper changed?"  I had experienced his reactions first hand (see previous posts regarding tummy time and Gabe's thoughts thereon) but when someone asked me about his preferences, it was a reminder that I was being asked because they assumed that as his mother, I would know these things.  What I felt like saying was:  "<shrug> I don't really know, I just met him too."

Well yesterday I had another of these surreal moments.  I had decided to wash Gabe's stuffed elephant, Mr. Oly Font, because he smelled like spit.  Nice.  So into the washer goes Oly, and out comes puffy stuffing all over every piece of clothing in the load and Oly with a leg injury:

And my first thought is:  "Oh I'll just sew that up." 

And then my next thought is "I'm totally a real mom right now!  I'm gonna perform my first surgery on my kid's stuffed animal!  That's such a mom thing to do!"

This excitement wore off a little as I spent the next 10 minutes cleaning up the stuffing stuck to the clothes in the load so it wouldn't clog the dryer vent.

But still!  I'm very excited about this rite of passage of being a Stuffed Animal Nurse (with apologies to Oly for the sacrifice he had to make to get me here).

Made My Day

Check this out - just made my day!

Cruise People

Have I mentioned that my parents are Cruise People?

In 2003, my parents and Aunt & Uncle took my Grandma on a cruise through the Panama Canal.  She'd been wanting to do it for years but had never planned it, and when she started to show signs of Alzheimer's, my dad decided that they should just take the bull by the horns and plan the trip so she'd really go. 

Departing for their first cruise...love my Gram's pink velour tracksuit!

The start of an era.

This picture makes me miss my Gram. (sorry Laura, it doesn't really make me miss you, because I just saw you...but I think your hair is cute)

Well the Panama Canal turned my parents into Cruise People. 

I think they've gone on something like 10 cruises now, and they're about to go on their 11th.  Or their 20th.  Who can keep track?  (I'm not worried about being too accurate on this because I'm pretty sure my mom will include the correct number in a comment when she reads this post.)

Last fall, Mom called during their cruise to...Mexico?  Hawaii?  Who can keep track?...and was telling Laura and I how she'd gotten called up on stage again during an evening show by a ventriloquist.  That's right, I said "again".  You see, my mom is a volunteer-er.  Always up for a good time or adventure, and willing to help out a ventriloquist in need of a dummy. 

Haha.  Sorry Mom.  You know I love you.  You're the best mom ever.  And actually, I would be doing both of us a disservice if I didn't take the intelligence and wit you imparted to me and use it to make a pun about ventriloquists and dummies.  (have I dug myself out of the hole yet?  c'mon, i thought that last thing about doing both of us a disservice was pretty clever!)

So after we talked to Mom, we decided to have t-shirts made for Mom & Dad's next cruise.  For Mom, an eye-catching pink shirt to aid her volunteer efforts.  And for Dad, a black shirt with gray embroidered lettering to express his slightly more reserved outlook.

Playing their roles for the camera

I'll leave you with this:  a picture I found of Mom on their cruise to Tahiti in 2005.

Mom's the one in the middle.

Haha. Sorry Mom. You know I love you. You're the best mom ever. And actually, I would be doing both of us a disservice if I didn't take the observational skills and wit you imparted to me and use it to make a joke about telling you apart from fruit animals. (what?  that one doesn't work a second time?  dang.  actually, I love this picture of you, Mom.  I think it completely exhibits your sense of humor and love for fun, and I can totally picture you exclaiming over each fruit animal and the creativity of how they were made.  Love you!)

Spidey-sense

Up until fairly recently, I've pretty much avoided character or cartoon themed stuff for Gabe.  I figured that I'm going to be spending enough time over the next 12 years hearing about how cool Transformers are, or how his friend so-and-so has the latest Disney character-themed bicycle and he wants one too, or watching Star Wars 50 times, so why start all the hype before Gabe even knows what it is?  Why become another cog in the marketing machine wheel? 

And then I saw these Spiderman pajamas.  And they were adorable. (As everything is when it's miniature.  This is why little kids look so cute in overalls, and why I should've realized that the overall craze 10 years ago wasn't for me.  Instead, I got a pair and wore them all the time.  Comfortable, yes.  Adorable?  Sadly, no.) 

The first night I put the pj's on him, I immediately notified Bret that we would be having a pre-bedtime photo shoot due to the extreme cuteness quotient we were witnessing.

Spidey-sense on high alert

Heroic triumph

I do believe the marketing machine has now been activated, and I am being assimilated.

Dagnabbit.

10

Gabe is 10 months old.  And yes I am feeling very cliche about it - as in "I can't believe he's almost a year old, where has the time gone" etc. etc.

Doesn't this look like one of those poses they make kids do for senior portraits? 

This is what I know about him right now.  And yes, this is the cliche part of the post where I make sweeping generalizations about the habits and character of my child, based on very little historical knowledge, so that I can someday say things to Gabe like "You always loved Cheerios, even as a baby" and to VH-1 Behind the Music like "Oh I knew my son would be a talented drummer...as a baby he would bang spoons on pans and even then, he could keep a steady beat".  (because, anyone can keep a beat if there are only 2 beats being counted)

• Gabe loves cats.  He squeals and screeches in delight whenever he spots Smedley. 
• Gabe prefers to eat from a metal spoon over a plastic spoon.  My mom and I have done experiments on this and tonight was the most blatant display of this preference of Gabe's I've seen yet:  I was feeding him dinner and bites offered from his plastic baby spoon were emphatically refused while bites of the same exact thing, seconds later, from a metal spoon, were happily accepted.  We think it's because he sees us eating off metal silverware.
• Gabe adores Bret.  But I've mentioned this before, haven't I? 
• Gabe's eating preferences are very urgent (that's the only word I can think of for it).  Once in his chair, he does NOT want to wait to eat.  Once done eating, he does NOT want to wait to get out of his chair.  And once he spots his bottle, he will go from completely fine and happy to whimpering (and screaming, if he has to wait for it to heat up).  And this one's my favorite:  if I'm carrying him upstairs with a bottle in my hand and he spots it, he will contort himself in an effort to get his mouth on the bottle nipple, with no thought to how he might be working himself out of my grasp/arms.  so, calling it my "favorite" is highly sarcastic.
• He now has 5 teeth, and the three upper ones all arrived in the last 2 1/2 weeks.  Good times.  Oh, and his front teeth are growing in with a huge gap in the middle:

I understand that these are only his baby teeth, but this gap has already got me thinking about the costs of orthodontia.

• And finally, I think Gabe probably needs a haircut, because the hair over his ears is long and awkward.  But somehow it just seems too early to cut his hair (see my previous comment about how I'm feeling very cliche about him turning one soon).

Gabe's Blog

Not too long ago, someone said something to me along the lines of:  "I haven't checked Gabe's blog lately {smirk}, because you know it's Gabe's blog, not yours." 

By the way, isn't smirk a great word?

I was reminded of this yesterday as I was blog-stalking and read someone's post about how they had always vowed never to become one of those people who suddenly turns their blog into all about their child, once they have a baby.  While reading the post I felt a wave of embarassment, because my blog is probably 75% about my child.  Okay, 80%.  85%?  99% ? 

Whatever. 

Anyway, I immediately jumped to my own defense because I didn't even start this blog until we found out we were pregnant, so its purpose was actually to be about our baby in the first place.  HA!  Take that, Mr. Embarassment!

Not that I address embarassment on such a formal basis, usually...this case just seemed to call for an official title.

Besides, I'm much more interested in blogging about Gabe than I am in blogging about me.  And I figure other people don't have to read it if they don't want to.

Although I guess if I really didn't care if other people read it, I wouldn't have a map gadget down at the bottom of the page.  Hmmm...

Regardless, I am determined to forge on, and Mr. Embarassment, you can either come along for the ride or go find someone else to make blush.

So there.

41 Weeks and 5 Days

...is how long I was pregnant with Gabe, and is how old Gabe is today.

And even though:

- it was much easier to carry him around in my belly than it is to carry him around in my arms (those kangaroos really have a great thing going),

- I got a lot more sleep when I was pregnant than I have since he arrived,

- the most annoying thing he did in utero was press on my bladder (oh yeah, and refuse to come out near his due date) and now he's discovered whining as a means to an end,

I would much much much rather have him ex-utero than in.

New (and old) friends!

We got to visit with the Brooks family last weekend!  So fun to have them over for the day and introduce Gabe (9 months) and Lydia (just turned 1!).

Gabe's been pulling himself up on furniture, and Lydia is wanting to let go of furniture and stand on her own.  It was funny to see how excited we parents were about their respective triumphs in development (...as in:  I stopped Lindsey mid-sentence to exclaim that Gabe had just pulled himself up on the outside of the playpen and he'd never done that before and I had to get the camera (thank goodness Lindsey is a great friend and sympathetic new mom who understands the importance of stopping all adult conversation to exclaim at something profound and simply earthshatteringly brilliant your child is doing, haha!) and later both Lindsey and Thomas had separate outbursts of proud parenthood as they watched Lydia let go of her handhold on something and try to balance on her own).

Was a great visit with great friends!

Because it's Wednesday.

Reminiscent

This:

Reminds me of this:





...except for the part at the end where Gabe sees a cat on the fence outside the window and the part where Kip tells Napolean they're late for prime rib. Those parts are included just because they're funny.

Carousel

Gabe went on his first carousel ride at this year's Sultan Shindig.

I am concentrating very hard on not letting my kid fall off the carousel.  And I don't think it was even moving yet at this point.

Just when I started to relax and have a little fun, Gabe seems to be over the whole thing.  Could it be that my vice-like grip around his stomach was ruining the experience for him?

Bret took him on the carousel a second time, and even with Bret's more confident (and therefore, relaxed) hold on him, by the end of the ride Gabe's expressions seemed to indicate that he was humoring us and indulging our excitement, yet not really feeling it himself.

And perhaps this is the reason why:  the weekend before the Shindig, we went camping and Gabe had his first motorcycle ride with Daddy.  So maybe it's not too surprising after all...would I be thrilled with a plastic horse going up and down and around and around after learning what real horsepower* was on a motorcycle?  Probably not!

*yes, I am quite proud of myself for this pun