5 on Friday

As always, here are 5 special reasons I am loving my boy this week:

5. Marino's speech evolves so much from week to week. Lately, he has been saying "my back"- asking me to pat his back at bed time. This week he busted out with "Mommy, want to give me your hand on my back?"

4. For the past couple weeks, Marino had been complaining about "my bugs in my ears", which we interpreted as an extended swimmer's ear infection. Evan took him back to the pediatrician to check and it turns out "the bugs" are actually his two year molars. She said they can cause pain in the ear (as well as to the external jaw). This means the boy will FINALLY be done cutting teeth (and hopefully drooling!!)

3. Wednesday night Marino started to say his prayers without me. He said, "Now I lay me..." and when I didn't chime in, he looked at me and said "DO IT, BABE! DO IT!" (as in "say it with me"). Evan calls me "babe" 90% of the time, but it was hysterical to hear Marino say it.

2. Evan converted Marino's crib to a toddler bed this week. We showed it to him and asked him what he thought in the afternoon and his only thoughts were "I don't want to go sleep!" :) It hasn't seemed to effect his sleep at all. Such a big boy now!

1. Last weekend, out of no where, Marino gave me a "big hug" (and announced it as such) and said "Mommy, I love a you".

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 2009

Whew, I have a lot to catch up on here on the blog! Wednesday night after work, Evan, Marino and I drove to New York for Christmas. Marino slept most of the way there, but when we arrived at 1:30am, he was ready to play! We didn't end up getting to sleep until 3am, with all 4 of us (including Max) in one bed. Luckily, my mom was up and ready to play with him when he woke up at 6am, so Evan and I were able to sleep in. Here's a picture of Marino hanging with his Grandma.

Later on Thursday, we headed over to my Dad's house to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with my father and stepmother. All of my parents (all 4 of them), really went out of their way to make Christmas special for Marino. Both houses had lots of special new Christmas decorations and of course lots of presents and new toys for Marino to play with. He's such a lucky boy to be so loved.



Christmas morning started off with a bang. Marino woke up at 4:30am and I guess either his teeth were bothering him or he just got scared because he didn't know where he was. Whatever the reason, he had a full blown temper tantrum for a good 40 minutes. Evan, my dad and I were all trying to calm him down, but nothing would work. Finally, he tired himself out and drank a bottle, watched Yo Gabba Gabba and went back to sleep. Needless to say, we got up later than we expected to open gifts!

My dad and Barb went all out with gifts for Marino (and Evan and I!) but Marino really wanted to watch Yo Gabba Gabba! Here he is checking out all his gifts...notice he has the remote in his hand...

Here's Max wearing his snuggie that my dad and Barb bought him.

Marino and his Pap

Getting gifts out of his stocking
He loved these jingle bells!
Opening his Little People farm.

This was his absolute favorite gift...the Yo Gabba Gabba CD. Mind you, he cared nothing about listening to it, he just liked the CD case. I'm sparing you all the photographic evidence of his love of this CD case and just sharing a few of the pictures of this love affair.

He laid down on the couch with the CD and said "night night" (I have not let him take it to bed with him).

Barb was nice enough to take him outside to play and calm down a bit after opening presents.

I am very excited about all of my gifts! Evan got me this special necklace I really wanted (its a mama and baby bird). My Dad gave me a digital SLR camera, so I am looking forward to learning how to use that and improve my photography skills. He also got me a crockpot, so I am looking forward to cooking to new foods (starting with gluten free "fried" chicken in the crockpot this week).

After breakfast, we drove up to my Aunt Mary's house in Saratoga (2.5 hours from my Dad's). Yes, we are insane, but it was really nice to see everyone.

Here's Marino and my cousin Clare playing. Unfortunately, I think he wore on her nerves by the end of the day, but she was initally very patient.

I love this picture of Clare! She was named after our grandmother, and she looks so much like her, especially in this picture.

Here's Marino cuddling with my cousin, Kim.

Mama and Marino snuggling

Love this picture!

4 generations: me, (sleepy) Marino, my grandfather and my mom

Daddy and Marino on Christmas

Clare getting excited about her gifts

My mom and my Aunt Carol (who will be a first time grandmother within the next couple weeks)

My stepfather Ray, Marino and my mom

This whole trip was not as easy as our last trip to NY, when Marino was 11 months old. He's certainly a lot more opinonated now, and seems a lot more thrown off balence with schedule changes. With it being Christmas, and travelling back and forth between my parent's houses, with new toys and presents everywhere we went, I think he was also really overstimulated. He also had a tooth cut through on Sunday, the day we came home, and he has two more pushing through on the top (incisors). It certainly could have been worse, but it was definately a bit of a challenge.

5 on Friday

5 special reasons I'm loving my boy this week:

5. One of Marino's few self-soothing techniques is to stroke hair when he's sleepy. He'll stroke his own hair or mine. Last weekend, Evan was giving him a bottle, and since Evan's hair is so short, Marino couldn't reach it...so he was pulling on his facial hair instead. It was sweet (ok, maybe not for Evan, who was uncomfortable).

4. He started saying a new word this week! He now says "duck." I noticed him using it yesterday to talk about his favorite puzzle piece (now that the hen is missing) from the Melissa and Doug puzzle I told you all about. I think it's really a goose, but whatev.

3. He is FINALLY getting his 3rd tooth! Wednesday night he was miserable and I told Evan I thought he might be teething (since he usually sleeps through the night now). Well, today he was laughing and I saw the top left tooth is cutting through! It's been 4 months since his last tooth, so this is a big deal!!

2. The boy has a sense of humor. On Monday, we were in the car on the way back from NJ and Marino was not happy about being stuck in the car. After whining for a while, he started saying very loudly "DADA DADA DAD!!!" Evan was driving and said "Yes, Marino?" Marino looked at him in the rearview mirror and said "up?" very quietly. It was pretty endearing (but he still had to wait until we got home for up).

1. Marino now sings "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." He only sings the "row, row, row" part, but it's pretty adorable!

1 Week Before the Big Birthday...

The title of this post has nothing to do with the content...I am just excited Marino is turning 1 on Friday!!

We had a good week...on Wednesday, we got to see our friend Lauren (she and I had some girl time to celebrate her birthday). Marino showed her all of his new tricks, including tackle:)

On Saturday, we met some of our internet friends at North Beach. It was a really beautiful day and Marino loved the beach, including the water this time! I think he felt more confident seeing other babies go in the water, but he played in water up to his chest and did lots of splashing. He even lunged forward and went under for a couple of seconds but still came up happy!

It's funny to me that he actually looks "chunky" in the picture below:) I had to buy these crab trunks from Gymboree...they have a whole "crab" line of clothes for toddlers right now (we love crabs in our family since we all share the zodiak sign Cancer). I resisted the urge to buy them all but I had to get him these trunks (I currently justify all Marino expeditures as "birthday presents").

And here is Marino playing with his new friends Nicholas (15 months) and Natalie (18 months).

On Sunday, we had lunch with Sarah and Claire. We hadn't seen Claire in a couple of months (!) so it was great to see them. She is getting so big...it's amazing how babies change month to month. I meant to get a picture of the 2 of them but forgot...I'll get one next time we get together.

Marino is cutting one of his top teeth currently and it seems to be bothering him a lot. I can feel one corner cutting through so hopefully it will be out soon enough and Marino will stop biting everything in sight (his current favorite teething toy is Mama's toes).

I can't believe my little man will be a TODDLER on Friday. He's getting so big and continuing to vocalize more and more. Over the weekend he started putting his hands in the air and saying "YAY" when he's happy (which is, um, pretty much all the time). He's also started dancing where he waves his arm up and down with the music (it reminds me of 90's hip hop videos...see "Nothin But a G Thang" circa 1993; I told him yesterday he was born in the wrong era:)) .