Roseola

Poor Cheeks has is first "real" illness. He had a fever that fluctuated between 99 and 103.2 for about 3 days. Now the fever is gone, and he is COVERED in a red, spotty rash. Doc took him to the doctor this morning and it turns out he has Roseola (I had it too as a baby). Nothing we can do for the poor guy until it goes away.

It's horrible when your baby is sick and you can't do anything about it :( Perhaps I will have to buy him a new book today. He sure does love his books.

Disney Play Date!

One of the excellent things about living in Central Florida is that we are so close to a children's wonderland - Walt Disney World. On Monday, 2/7, my friend A invited Doc, Cheeks, and I to join her playgroup at a play date at the Magic Kingdom. Of course we jumped to go! Cheeks enjoyed it well enough. Including Doc, Cheeks, and me, there were 10 mommies and 13 kids. A huge group to go to Disney, but oh so much fun!

The best part of the day to me was when we got home. Cheeks isn't yet walking, and he obviously couldn't crawl around the park, so he was relegated to his stroller for most of the day. Now Cheeks is not one to be confined! He needs his freedom to move and stretch and play. When we got home, he was SO excited to be free. He found his Chuck the Dumptruck (his favorite toy at the moment) and kept saying "AHHHHH" with a huge grin on his face. I wish I would have videotaped it - definitely a moment to remember :) I don't think Cheeks is ever going to get rid of Chuck - I can see him holding on to it for his children because he loves it so much. My child is a truck man!

11 Months!

Cheeks is 11 months old today! Has it really been that long? Seems like yesterday that I was itching to get home from the hospital with him. I wish I would have taken pictures throughout the year of him holding up a sign of how old he was at that point. Too late now - perhaps with the next baby.

Another exciting event happens today - Cheeks' future wife is being born via c-section at 12:00! My best friend from college is scheduled to have her little girl this afternoon - we joke that she will be Cheeks' future wife. I'll need to come up with a blogname for her. Haha - ok - she is being referred to as "Girl Baby" from now on. Story behind this - my best friend has a cat - she never named the cat - the cat is now referred to as "Girl Kitty". Girl Baby it is :) I am very excited to meet her later today!

This blog entry is all over the place, but wanted to document the funniest thing that he started doing. He has the Fisher Price Lil' Zoomers race track.
He knows how to put his cars in it and turn it on so they spin 'round and 'round. Lately, he has been putting everything and anything in it and then trying to turn it on - rings, cars, books, sippy cups, bottles, and the list goes on. If the track doesn't start to spin, he removes items one by one to see if it will start spinning. Very analytical! Maybe we have the next engineering wizard on our hands. The other night, when cleaning up, I found his bottle just sitting in the track. I got a good chuckle out of that :)

Pancake Pancake!!

After listening to this several times, I swear he is saying "pancake pancake"!!

Regression

So Cheeks has met the inevitable regression that I have been reading about on other blogs. My perfect night time sleeper has begun waking up for a bottle around 11:30 pm each night. At first, I thought it was just a one night set-back. We have gone three nights now where he will not even take a second glance at his pre-bedtime bottle, then starts crying at 11:30 because he is hungry. I am trying to nip this in the bud - suggestions welcome to anyone out there who may be reading this!

Weekend!!

I so look forward to my weekends. Even though sometimes they are more exhausting than my weekdays, they mean family-time. And I love family time. Sometimes we spend the weekend at home, and around town running errands. Other times, we go to Disney World for the day! (One of the perks of living in the Orlando area). No matter what we do though, it is a full two days and nights with my wife and son.

This weekend's agenda - hanging around the house, running errands, and possibly looking at a couple of rental properties. We are going to have to move eventually to accommodate our growing family as time goes on. I figure it's never too early to start perusing. The sad part is that we are going to have to find homes for some of our animals. Right now, we have 4 cats and a dog. No one is going to rent to us with that brood - so homes we will have to find. This makes me sad - but I know that having that many pets AND a baby makes it difficult to give them the attention they need. I will be happy knowing that they are going to loving homes - the hard part - finding those homes. I know we will though - just need to expend the energy to do so. And that is what weekends are for :)

Developments

I want to make sure I don't lose track of things I want to look back on and remember. So here are some bullet points:

• Cheeks is now pulling himself up and furniture cruising all over the place. He still lacks the confidence to let go and stand - but I don't think that is too far in the future.

• The boy LOVES rice! He will gobble it all up - and ate an entire bowlful last night.

• When he is enjoying food, he gets a closed mouth smile on his face and goes MMMMMMMMMMMM!!

• All Cheeks wants to do is stand in the bathtub - it's making bathtime quite difficult. We tried a tip from Grandma G - the letters that stick to the side of the tub - that seemed to increase the amount of time sitting - we'll see how it progresses!

• His favorite way to conversate at the moment is "YA YA YA YA YA YA".

• He has begun to give kisses! He is selective in who receives them though. Always Grandma G on the phone, and himself in the mirror LOL

• His hair has begun to curl :)

• He still loves when we sing to him.

• Last night, I started a new tradition - he now picks out what stories he wants to read before bedtime. I lay out a few for him to choose, and he definitely has his wants when it comes to storytime.

• He would rather feed himself than be spoonfed; however, when it comes to the bottle, he has regressed, wanting his Mama or me to hold it for him.