For those who haven't heard the news, Reid is going to be a big brother! That's right, I've got a bun in the oven. Below are answers to some Frequently Asked Questions.
FAQs When are you due? Next April.
How did this happen? In the usual sort of way.
How old will Reid be when the new baby arrives? ~22 months
How do you feel? I've had some nausea and insomnia. But things are looking up.
Will you find out the sex? Yes, soon.
Do you want a boy or a girl? Either will do nicely.
Do you have names picked out? No. But we find a lot of inspiration watching football games and reading US Weekly.
Are you excited? We are thrilled.
Is Reid excited? He is. He just doesn't know it yet.
Reid has a number of little blankies that help him to sleep or sometimes just to chill out. We call them snuggies after his tendency to snuggle up to them. He's not particular about any specific one, so for the sake of variety he's acquired about five different ones over his lifetime: a lion, a horse, a frog, a giraffe, and of course, a monkey. Here he is cozying up to his frog and giraffe snuggies.
On Halloween, we took Reid trick-or-treating for the first time. We left the house, our little monkey Reid with his beloved monkey snuggie clutched firmly in hand. Unfortunately, when we returned home I couldn't locate the monkey snuggie but he's always leaving them all over the house so I figured I'd find it somewhere.
So off to bed Reid went with a couple of his other snuggies and we dealt with trick-or-treaters for the rest of the night. I hadn't dressed up, as we'd had a busy day and I wasn't inspired enough to put my Nurse Gore costume together. But then Ted reminded me of my super-duper all-purpose-easy-on-easy-off-spookywear that I wear almost every year in anticipation of trick-or-treaters that we've never had until this year. It was getting late, but I ran to my Halloween chest of fun and donned the scary get-up.
And then I waited. It was getting late, but I hoped for just one more trick-or-treater. And I got two! A teenage couple rang the doorbell, a princess of some sort and a scary goblin type. As I made my way to the door I giggled in giddy anticipation of how scared they would be when I answered the door and they were greeted by this:
It worked! They looked genuinely alarmed. Frightened even! I smirked beneath my dark black mask. I could see them but they couldn't see me - teehee! Oh, how I love Halloween. So without speaking a word - because it's scarier that way - I slowly reached my hand into the candy bowl and went to drop it into the princess's pumpkin candy container...and then, I saw it. But no, it couldn't be! Could it? But it was (I think). A monkeysnuggie curled up in her pumpkin!
I started to inquire about it...really, I almost did. But I was in character! I was scary! And asking "Excuse me, but is that a monkey snuggie you have there?" would have been decidedly unspooky. Why would she have Reid's monkey snuggie anyway? Maybe it was her own monkey snuggie and I had no right to take it from her. And what if it wasn't a monkey snuggie at all? What if my eyes were playing tricks on me through that hazy mask? What if I just looked like a foolish middle-aged lady in a stupid black mask and cape asking about a monkey snuggie that wasn't even a monkey snuggie?
Please understand that this all happened very fast and these thoughts went through my head pretty quickly. I was very confused. Then I shut the door, turned slowly and said to Ted, "I think she might have had Reid's monkey snuggie..." And then it came to me in a rush as I realized that he must have dropped it on the sidewalk, and she must have picked it up somewhere out there and dropped it into her little pumpkin. And in that moment, I knew that I should have ripped off my mask (spookiness be damned!) and done everything in my power to reclaim my son's beloved monkey snuggie. But it was too late. They were off down the street by now.
And then the self-doubt set in. Why didn't I put aside my vanity in the pursuit of spookiness and fight for my son's monkey snuggie? What is wrong with me? And how can I make it right? Should I replace it with a new monkey snuggie the way mothers everywhere sneak a new goldfish in the bowl when the old one dies? Or would he know the difference when he didn't smell his slobber on it? What kind of mother am I? Will he need therapy for this? Do I need therapy for this?
I guess only time will tell what the effects of this experience will be on all of us. In parting, I'll leave you with this bittersweet video clip, the last known footage of Reid with his monkey snuggie, as he set out trick-or-treating on Halloween:
Well, it was bound to happen. With me as a mother, Reid was destined to find himself in a monkey costume sooner or later. (For those who don't know, I'm a bit of a monkey/primate enthusiast.) So on Halloween, I loaded him up with bananas at every meal and dressed my little monkey.
He seemed happy with it.
Which is good because more than likely, this won't be the last time.
His legs are a little on the long side, so I should probably upgrade to the next size for his next monkey appearance.
I made the mistake of buying the Halloween candy a couple of weeks before Halloween. Bad idea. Reid's gotten a nibble here and a nibble there, and quickly learned the location of the candy bowl. He doesn't say much, but he's got pointing down to a science. The little man knows what he wants and he's not afraid to point at it.
And if that doesn't work he'll make like a monkey and climb up after it!
He started walking and celebrated his first birthday just as we moved into a new house. The walking thing has not made the settling in process any easier. He's now pretty steady on his feet and even does something resembling running. He's into everything he can get his hands on, which is more and more everyday given his increasing height - gotta keep the countertops clear! He's just a whirlwind of mess and it's a real challenge to keep this big house clean with him in my wake.
He enjoys the pool, though it's been too hot this summer to spend a lot of time out of doors with his sensitive baby skin and eyes. Forget about a hat and sunglasses - he's not having either!
Harvey has a much larger domain which allows him much more room to romp, and we've seen him kick it up into a new gear which we didn't even know existed.
I've been having some trouble dealing with pictures on our computer - it has issues. Hope to have it fixed soon so I can share updated shots of my boys!
Well, the little man's been working on those baby steps, and we've seen great improvement in just a week. As you may know, we're in the middle of trying to move. We were supposed to have been moved last week (long story), so a lot of stuff is packed away. And wouldn't you know it, the fancy camcorder - the one I spent the extra money on since it would be for capturing very special memories like Reid's first steps - is packed away. And I'm not exactly sure where or I would just open up the box and retrieve it. Oh well, c'est la vie.
I was, however, able to capture a little bit of the action on my regular camera. Of course, Harvey saw attention being given, so felt the need to get in on that and tripped the baby up in the process, but all is well.
Wow, Mommy sounds like some kind of high-pitched creature you'd hear at the zoo.
For the record, Reid usually does wear pants. He was just fresh from a diaper change here. And besides, this way you get an unobstructed view of those chunky thighs in action. Here's another quick snippet.
He gets a little bit more accomplished each day. And in other cute news, he waved and said "ba-ba" when Daddy left for work this morning. (That's "bye-bye" for those of you requiring infant translation.) Say it with me: Awwwww.
Reid has been "cruising" - walking along while holding on to furniture - for a while now, and has recently started standing on his own for increasingly longer periods of time.
Today he surprised us by taking his first couple of wobbly baby steps unassisted by any other object or mommy or daddy. It was just a couple of very quick steps, and a very shaky effort, but we fully expect to see improvement over time! We're very proud of the little man's progress, and from the looks of it, he's pretty proud of himself too.
Let's play a little game I call "Find the Schnauzer" (hint: it's kind of like Where's Waldo? - only it's Where's Harvey?):
Did you find him?
There he is! Our little schnauzer has taken to very cat-like behavior lately, taking residence not just on the sofa, but way up on top of the sofa cushions.
We think he may be heading for higher ground in an effort to avoid the yankings of a certain little blue-eyed baby, which he has dealt with quite admirably.
He's a little peculiar, but we love him. Harvey was a rescue, found wet, skinny and scared on a Houston street in the rain. He fancies himself a bit of a tough guy, so don't tell him I told you he was scared, but he was seriously scared - shaking like a leaf the first time I saw him. So we don't know when his actual birthday is, but we decided to celebrate it on Easter since we officially adopted him on Easter Sunday, two years ago. Based on the vet's estimation, this year marked his third birthday.
We took a whole bunch of shots of the birthday bunny...er, I mean schnauzer and his little (big?) brother Reid. He was thrilled.
I guess he knows things could be worse, because he sure does put up with a lot.
Today, I mourn the end of an era. Reid is moving on from "Swaddlers New Baby Diapers" to "Cruisers Diapers." That's means he's no longer a new baby. *sniff* That means he's getting bigger and he's moving around a lot more (the Cruisers diapers have some sort of special flex that allows for better movement blahblahblah).
So while I'm glad he's sleeping better and crying less and more easily entertained these days, I'm not too excited about this whole getting bigger and moving around a lot more thing,'cause that means a) mama's back hurts from lifting the boy and b) mama has to move around a lot more too, and mama doesn't like that. Why am I talking about myself in the third person?
He's progressed from scooting to all-out crawling and after a long period of wobbly sitting followed by the inevitable topple and head bonk, he's now sitting well unsupported and moves comfortably back and forth between sitting and crawling.
I've really gotta keep an eye on him these days. A few weeks ago, I was getting him ready for bed and I set him down in his crib and walked across the room to do something. A moment later I saw his nearly-bald head bobbing out of the corner of my eye and turned to see him standing at the edge of the crib, about to launch himself over the side to get to me. With a big smile on his face, naturally.
Now, I should mention that prior to this moment, I had not seen him stand, nor do anything that came close to standing or pulling himself up. (This was before he was even sitting well.) Leave it to Reid to pick the most dangerous place to practice this skill. (He has an affinity for dangerous situations - more on that later.) So I screamed "TE-ED!!!!" and we had an emergency mattress-lowering pow-wow.
Good thing I caught him trying that move while I was in the room. I now walk into this each morning and after naps:
He's now perfected the pull-up operation and the wobbly stand. Which is so cute.
But which affords him many new opportunities to bring harm upon himself. Here he is (in a new Cruisers diaper) pulling up on the bathtub.
I had to stop the camera and snatch him up before he attempted to launch himself into the bathtub, headfirst, as I have seen him attempt this maneuver several times lately. The bathtub seems to be one of his favorite places to practice his new moves, probably because it's just the right height and provides the excitement of bath toys and other stuff just over the ledge.
So now he's onto cruising along the couch (or bathtub) and from one piece of furniture to the next where possible. There have been many head bonks - and I expect there will be many more - but a cuddle and a kiss seem to do the trick and he's back on the move!
It is a good idea to wait at least an hour after baby's mealtime to play the flying baby game. Unless you want a milk, oatmeal and banana facial and hair treatment.
Reid is feeling much better, but still not completely dried up after going on two weeks of the snots. He still wakes up a lot coughing in the night and I'm still on clean-up duty after every sneeze. We've both gotten a little better with the nasal aspirator, but it still doesn't seem to be very effective. Perhaps it's providing some relief as Reid sort of tolerates it now. Or maybe he just figured out that it's a whole lot easier to stay relatively still and deal with it going up his nostril than struggling against the inevitable and getting it jabbed all over his face as he writhes around.
Other goings on in the world of Reid include increasing baby babbles. Sounds from the Hamilton household: AAAAAAAAGH! Aaaaiiieeeeee! Mmmma. Mamamamama. Gah! Dadadadada. Bababababababa. Aaaaah! Aaaaaa! AAAAAAHHHH! WAAAAAAAH! Blah. Blah. Blalablaba. Ted is certain that he's heard him say Mbah a Moute (the name of a former UCLA basketball player) a few times. Could be...
Despite the temptation to believe that mamamamama and dadadadada actually holds meaning for him, I think it is completely random at this point. But very, very cute.
His two teeth continue coming in strong. I've been trying to capture them on film, but given that he's usually so mesmerized by the appearance of the camera that he just stares at it in awe rather than smiling in delight, it's been a little challenging. He's also growing some hair, but very slowly. Which is fine with me as I like my babies a little on the bald side.
With all the aspirating and wipeddowns, I haven't done much picture-snapping lately but hope to be back soon with pics of a snot-free baby boy. And a much-loved schnauzer as well!
Around 1 o'clock this morning I was summoned by my master (WAAAAAAAAH! Wah!Wah!Wah!). Upon arriving at His Majesty's crib, I discovered the biggest, slimiest, nastiest snot mustache I have ever seen on any human being of any size. In all fairness, I suppose that is probably because I haven't been around many babies and thankfully I think all the grown-ups I know would wipe their own snot mustaches before they got that bad (I mean, at least on their hand or something).
But anyway, I was alarmed to say the least. Then I quickly realized that little Reid has his first cold. Poor little guy. I suppose we (and he) are pretty lucky to have gone 7 months without him getting sick. Now it's time for him to exercise that immune system.
He was up a few times in the night coughing, sneezing, crying... when necessary, I provided a brief wipedown and attempted nasal irrigation, which made him scream like a little girl. All things considered, he's dealing with the discomfort pretty well and was fairly happy all day in spite of the profusion of mucous coming out of his nose.
Anybody know how to clear a babies nasal passages with a nasal aspirator? I keep trying to use one on a very disgruntled and uncooperative Reid, but I can't seem make the thing work at all. I mean, I preface it with a little saline solution spritzer. Then I squeeze the bulb syringe thingie, stick it up one nostril, and release the squeeze... but I just don't seem to be getting a lot out of there, and there is quite obviously a lot up in there. I hate to keep torturing him with it when it is clearly unproductive. But neither one of us is going to get much uninterrupted sleep until those nasal passages get some clearance. So if anybody has had success with this, please enlighten me.
Tonight as I was nursing him before putting him to bed, he pulled back and looked up at me with the saddest eyes and said, "Aaaah ba ba baa baa baaa." I'm pretty sure that means, "I don't feel very good, Mommy." My poor little sick baby.
Reid is not quite crawling, but he is increasingly mobile and true crawling is surely imminent. Right now, he is doing a little scooting motion, so his nickname of the week is "Scooter." Here's a little video of him demonstrating his scooting skills as well as his preference for consumer electronics over colorful baby toys.
December 25th was, of course, Baby Reid's First Christmas!
I insisted we get a tree this year so that he could enjoy his first Christmas tree at our house in anticipation of the big day. I don't think I did a very good job of decorating it, but while it may not have been the prettiest Christmas tree ever, but I figure it was still the prettiest one Reid had ever seen ('til he got to Nana's house anyway). He seemed alright with it.
We spent the actual day of Christmas in Dallas at Nana and Grumps' house where the Christmas elf got to make his final appearance of 2008 with Santa Schnauzer.
He got to spend some quality time with Nana, Grumps, and his adorable cousin Ian
as well as Auntie Ling and Uncle Michael.
Christmas morning was a blur of toys with two kids around. They made out like bandits! I hadn't seen a Christmas morning like that since... well, since my brother and I were kids. Reid enjoyed checking out his new presents
And of course, tasting them.
Harvey got a beautiful new Christmas collar
but apparently that wasn't enough for him. He wanted to be in on the toy action.
The only downside to our Christmas in Dallas was that Reid's sleep was once again disrupted by the change in environment, and he woke up every couple of hours. Often with babbles and squeals of delight signifying his mistaken perception that it was time to play at 3am. Which meant Momma was exhausted the whole trip. So much for those friends I wanted to catch up with and those movies I wanted to see while free babysitting was available... I was too tired!
Oh, well. Maybe next year, Momma will catch a break... this year, it was all about the boys. With faces like this, how could it not be?
Ooooh, so much to catch up on! Let's start with the weeks leading up to Christmas. I got a special Christmas outfit for Reid (natch) and we had to do a dress rehearsal (or two) prior to the big day.
At first he wasn't too keen on his new outfit.
Harvey (seen here, last Christmas) had to give him the "suck it up" pep talk again.
And so Reid warmed up to it after a while. Here's our precious little elf preparing for his debut with Santa:
Reid was a champ when it came to posing with Santa. No fear of bearded fat men in furry red suits for our little guy.
He hammed it up for the camera (aided by a rousing rendition of Pattycake), fully embracing his temporary existence as a Christmas elf.
I paid good money for that elf outfit so I maximized its use during the month of December, by having him wear it again when the whole silly family participated in the Jingle Bell Walk. (Harvey wanted to do the run instead, but he was leashed to us walkers. He was a good sport though.)
Already a little overachiever, Reid earned his first medal for finishing the walk - even though he can't yet walk. Oh, the irony!
By the time Christmas rolled around, he was a pro at this elf thing and ready for action. To be continued...
For months, Reid has been drooling, gnawing on everything he can get his mouth on, sleeping poorly and intermittently very fussy. Everybody has said he must be teething since he was 12 weeks old. He's continued to drool and gnaw, but for the last few weeks he's been sleeping exceptionally well (at least when he's at home) and generally a delight to be around - smiling, laughing, and just as happy as can be. So I was very surprised when he gnawed on my finger this morning and I felt what seems to be a little tooth poking through. Go figure. New year, new tooth! I'm sure that 2009 will be a year of many more firsts.
I just couldn't resist.
Obviously, he's pretty excited about them too!
He got to spend some quality time with Nana, Grumps, and his adorable cousin Ian
as well as Auntie Ling and Uncle Michael. 
