The Bee's Knees

Those of you who have a subscription to "Martha Stewart Living" may have noticed when your magazine arrived yesterday that Martha TOTALLY RIPPED OFF the Powell Beehive Cake. The cover photo could have been stolen right from the Powell kitchen. Incidentally, the first Powell Beehive Cake was made last year for Mother's Day...and this cover arrives Mother's Day weekend this year. Coincidence???? I think not.

Here is a retrospective of some of our various beehive cakes:







We are considering legal action. Watch out, Martha!

:)

1 Year Appointment

Henry had his 1 year appointment at the pediatrician today. This was actually our first "real" visit with his NEW pediatrician (we had...personality differences with the old one). I was very happy with how it went, and I think our new doctor will be a much better fit for us.

Henry was a model patient - he sat nicely on the baby scale and gave a huge grin to the nurse the whole time. He was extremely cooperative with all of the poking/prodding/ear checking/stethoscope using that went on, and showed off his walking skills nicely. He did have 3 vaccines at the end - the MMR (measles/mumps/rubella), hepatitis A, and chicken pox. He did NOT enjoy that, but only cried for about 2 minutes - as soon as a goldfish cracker was offered he was happy again. The MMR can cause a reaction (fever/rash) up to 10 days after it is given, so keep your fingers crossed that all remains well with him!

Tomorrow we will be beginning the transition to cow's milk, as well as trying yet again to switch from bottles to sippy cups (it did not go that well at last attempt...). We also got permission to give him basically anything to eat except nuts - the addition of eggs opens a whole new world of food possibilities!

As for his "stats":

Height - 30 3/4 inches (75%)
Weight - 23.5 pounds (70%)

So, he did drop in both percentiles (he had previously been strong at 97% for height and 75% for weight), but our pedi was very unconcerned. Him staying at a 97% for height his entire life is unlikely, after all :) I was not surprised that he didn't gain much weight in the past few months. He walks laps around the house all day and since he is teething he has basically stopped eating all food (we think he is getting his next two bottom middle teeth, plus I can feel both 1st year lower molars coming in. Once these 4 teeth pop that will put him at 10 teeth!)

In his 1st year of life Henry gained 15.4 pounds, grew 10 3.4 inches, grew 6 teeth, and had approximately 1830 diaper changes (averaging 5 a day and counting leap year). Not a bad job!

Here is a picture of our boy showing off some of his teeth:




And for those who pine for the views of Boston, here is the view from our sitting room yesterday when the rainy weather FINALLY broke:

Professional Pictures

We finally got around to having professional pictures taken of Henry - it was kind of sad to realize we made it through his first year without having any really good family portraits of the 3 of us. We love how they turned out. The only problem is deciding which ones we are going to get - we have about 200 to pick from! Some of the photos from our session made it onto our photographer's blog - check it out! (we are the April 28th entry)

http://paulaswiftphotography.blogspot.com/

Party!

Today we celebrated Henry's 1st birthday with his 1st birthday party. Despite the fact that he was having a tough day teething-wise, Henry was a party animal and had a good time with all his friends.

The Year of Henry

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Henry is ONE

We can hardly believe it, but the big day is here - and almost over. Henry is one year old.

It is amazing how quickly the year has gone (especially when you think back on those early, very sleepless nights and how looooong they seemed). It is amazing how very, very, very different he is and how much he has changed in the past year. Everything - everything is amazing. There are truly no words.

Henry had a good birthday - it was our first HOT day (interestingly, the day he was born was also the first hot day of spring last year). Henry wore his new birthday shirt:

Then he got to accompany me to the dentist (isn't that what everyone wants to do on their birthday?) and spend some time at the local playground. Mike came home to have lunch with him and help open some of Henry's presents:

Later in the afternoon our good friends Beth and Jess came by to visit Henry and Jess helped me finish putting together his birthday present from me and Mike (thanks Jess!) Once it was determined to be road worthy, we took him out for a spin. He liked it from the get-go:

But once it started moving he got a little apprehensive:

Then he decided he liked it again:

Thank you to everyone who called or emailed birthday wishes to Henry today!

The Jinx

(Warning: this entry involves gross things. It is all way too much information, but I thought I would share. Read at your own risk)

So, I have fallen victim to The Parenting Jinx. All you parents know what I am talking about - as soon as you say something about your child or your child's behavior, that child will jinx you and prove you wrong.

For example - if one were to say "Oh,we are so lucky because little Susie/Johnny has always been easy to put down for the night", the very next night little Susie or Johnny will be up until midnight despite all efforts to get them to sleep.

(it is interesting to note that The Jinx does not work in a positive way - if I were to say to someone "Oh, Henry has never slept past 5:30 AM", Henry will not wake at 7 AM the next day to prove me wrong. This is unfair, but how The Jinx operates. I don't make the rules.)

Anyway, most parents are well aware of The Jinx and therefore rarely if ever verbalize positive attributes of their children's behavior that they are frightened of jinxing. Alas, I forgot this rule.

So, what did I do? The other day while talking to a friend I remarked on how lucky we were that Henry will have made it to his 1st birthday without ever throwing up or having a diaper blowout (the fact that these are the things I talk about in daily conversation is another post entirely). All those extra sheets, Ultimate Crib Sheets, sheet savers, etc. that we have - they are not even out of their packaging. I had heard of all these other middle of the night sheet changes and baths, but we had not experienced it. Obviously, Henry had blessed us.

Now, what do you think happened? Yes - THE JINX. Friday night Henry has dinner, goes to bed, all is well. An hour or so after falling asleep he woke very briefly with a coughing fit, cried for about 30 seconds, and was back asleep - we didn't even need to go in.

A few hours after that as I head to bed, I check the video monitor for a last peek. Something looks funny so I have Mike look at it - yes, it appears that Henry is in the middle of a puddle. We go in....vomit. All.Over.The.Crib. And there is Henry, fast asleep in a pool of it, clutching his lovey (also covered in it), in his PJs (soaked in it) apparently not bothered at all. His entire dinner was on display for us (the child does not chew well). It was horrifying.

So, on we went to our first ever middle of the night PJ and sheet change. Henry was NOT happy - he would have preferred to to stay sleeping in it, I guess (note that Henry is apparently not sick, we think his coughing caused this incident but we have no idea)

I thought that with this, The Jinx was done. I was wrong.

This morning I went to get Henry and at first glance it seemed to he had thrown up again - SOMETHING was on the sheets. Upon closer inspection...Poop. All.Over.The.Crib. And there is Henry lying in the middle, clutching his lovey (also covered in poop), in his PJs (that the poop had soaked through) apparently not bothered at all.

So, on I went to another sheet, mattress pad, PJ change (although this one also involved a bath and subsequent bleaching of the tub). Henry was NOT pleased. In fact, while still clad in his poop soaked jammies, he kept toddling over to his book bin and bringing me books to read, then becoming very upset that instead of reading to him I was trying to clean him up.

I have learned my lesson. I will never again tempt The Jinx - let's all hope that this doesn't happen again.