otitis-induced clinginess

D has been on antibiotics since last Monday for bilateral ear infections. Since he's been sick with them, he's been very clingy, but mostly only with me. Chris can pick him up and put him down, his teachers at school could do the same- not me. I put him down, he screamed. Until today! He was a little fussy this morning before we took M to preschool. But he was great in the grocery store, then came home and took a nap. Then I fed him lunch and we went on a very nice, long walk in the stroller (during which I drowned my cell phone- both cell phone and water bottle were in the bottom of the stroller, the water bottle leaked creating a little puddle- just enough water to drown said cell phone. oh, well, I've been intending to get a new one anyways, this will just hasten my timeline...). When we returned home from the walk, I put him down in the kitchen (nary a peep!) and he toddled/crawled over to the bookcase- and played with M's match-em-up cards for ages (putting them into a box, taking them out of a box, putting them in his push-cart, taking them out of his push-cart). I was able to eat lunch and check email. Yea!

His first birthday was this past Saturday. I attempted yet another cake- this one with much better results than C's birthday cake. Joy made the carousel top for me and Mama & M helped decorate it. I think it turned out rather cute.

It's supposed to be a carousel for D's semi-circus-themed birthday party. There was rather a paucity of circus-themed decorations in the local party stores, so I made do with monkey/giraffe/lion cake candles, Barnum-and-Bailey boxed animal crackers, and lots of primary-colored balloons.
And here's the birthday boy with his birthday-pancakes that morning. He hadn't been eating much sick he's been sick, but boy did he put away some pancakes...



He didn't care too much for the birthday hat.

I still can't believe he's already a year old. I've been having mild coniptions about this for some time. Now that it's official, I'm still a bit amazed. Where did the time go? He's not walking a lot yet, just a couple steps here and there, and this probably keeps him more of a baby boy for me. I know he's going to take off any day now, and that will be lots of fun, but I'm cherishing every 'baby' day that I have left.

I got home early (just after 3am) last night from my night shift and heard baby crying as I walked through the door. So I went into his room to get him back to sleep, but his crying had woken up Magnolia. So then I went into her room to cuddle with her. Her pillows smelled like the strawberry body butter I'd brought home to her as a treat earlier the day before ('gift' from The Body Shop when I made impulse buy of Morroccan Rose body butter for me- heavenly!). I figured she's slathered some on before going to bed. Then I noticed there were hard lumpy things underneath the pillow on which I was lying. She giggled and told me she'd brought the strawberry body butter into bed with her, and had put in on her barbies- all of which were beneath the pillow next to her (and now under me). Oh, well. At least her room smells nice.

The Two Step

Chris called me at work early this evening (okay so it was officially yesterday evening as it's now just past midnight) to report that David took two steps! I wish I'd been home to see it, but was glad Chris was able to witness it. Hopefully he'll give a repeat performance tomorrow. Yesterday he started being able to stand for moments at a time, rather that the split-second-and-then-fall-on-his-bottom that he had been doing. He's growing so fast. In just under 3 weeks my baby won't be an infant anymore!