Cade's First Haircut

Pics from hair trimming at Visible Changes.

Cade LOVES to run around in a mall, here he is showing off his new haircut. (Curls intact)

While I didn't shed a tear, I was holding my breath. Luckily Mary Jo can cut baby hair extremely well and just flows with him turning his head to check out everything around him. He even got layers! :)

Fireworks Pics

I can't do this entry justice with the severe lack of coffee in my system..So enjoy the pics from Cade's first Fireworks!

Parade Pics

I'm so excited to say it did NOT rain on our parade. V excited seeing as though it was Cade's very first. Being true Patriots, we just HAD to have his first parade be the 4th of July parade. The same parade my parents took us to each year. Mom even made sure we took Cade to our exact parade start. (Close enough to the beginning of the parade to get all the candy, but far enough away to avoid too much crowds)

(Yes, being a good mom means posting the pics where your child looks cute, even if it's not your own personal best pic).... Okay, okay, Nick and I look presh in the pic below, even though Cade' face is blocked...but I was referring to the previous pic...just to earn good Mommy points)

Cade showed off his High Five skills AND his Fist Bump skills with the fire dog. Yay, Cade!

So, I only have one complaint about the parade...there were definitely less creatively-decorated floats than advertisement floats. I'm guessing there were no auditions to make getting a spot in the parade an honor. Nope, more like "If you have a car wrapped in ads, feel free to parade with us".

Okay, complaint time over. It was a blast, I totally loved being there with Cade. He danced, waved his flags, and I even got a tear in my eye singing "Proud to be an American" with him as we waved at the Vets. One even said "Hi Sonny!" and he waved right back. I love, love, loved it!

sorry for lame post. Going to get more coffee and put down Cade for an early nap, so I can snag a nap too! wish me luck.

Today = FAIL

Almost everything I've attempted to do today has been a failure. In fact, when I first typed the title of this blog entry I typed "Today = FIAL". To highlight what a loser I am today, I will admit that I just googled "fial" to see if maybe on the off chance it meant something more, I dunno, meaningful or hopeful.

I got this hit from Urban Dictionary defining "fial" (very convenient, what the chances, right?!)

FIAL - a way of expressing an even more epic fail. The misspelling serves to exemplify the great magnitude of fail that the person is commenting on.

And the website goes on to list 6 different version of this very same definition. Epic. So...how have I failed today?

1. Went to gym. Before I even started on the treadmill (by which I scoped out the tv's to find channels that might interest me.... btw--wtf do they ALWAYS play Charmed for?? it's like I get MSNBC, ESPN, ABC, and CW..... have you ever heard of Fox or NBC?? Regis. Anyone?) So picture me finally choosing a treadmill and programming my Nano and selecting my treadmill program..Then imagine me flinching as I get a tap on my shoulder at 60-something dude is standing 2 inches behind me, ON MY TREADMILL WITH ME. I didn't even hear his question because in my head I had 2 real quick thoughts...#1 Are we doing this now? Do people share? #2 What is this guy saying? Because to me, I heard "Good evening Clarice Starling" Anyways, he wanted to know if the black workout glove on the floor was mine. Um, Seriously sir? Do I look like that kind of girl? And could you not have gotten on either treadmill beside me to ask me that? And can you back up so I don't feel your breath on my neck? FAIL.

2. My first mommy & me playdate at random park. I thought I could find random park. I thought it was at most 10 mintues from home. I thought I could trust the hostess' directions. Turns out the cross streets don't cross. Teachable moment for Cade about parallel streets, I think not. So I called her... Bitch has a voicemail that says "Hey it's x, please leave a message if you have an emergency, otherwise I'll call you back soon. Thankssss!" Um, I decided this was not an emergency, so I hung up and waited as I drove around. Looking for a park with a "rocket". (It's a Rockets for 4th of July party at the Rocket Park) No, Google maps and the city parks & rec guide do not recognize a Rocket Park. Had I followed Google maps I would have been at Lockheed Martin. Literal rockets. I drove for 50 minutes before deciding I was in a bitchy mood and needed a happy meal. FAIL.

3. I thought Cade might like to play in the McDonald's playroom. Oh yeah, it has tunnels that go up 20 feet high. I'm hungry, don't feel like food getting cold so I can chase him up there. FAIL.

4. We came home, had lunch and enjoyed our McDonald's smoothie (super yummy!). I was so proud of Cade drinking it THROUGH A STRAW that I let him walk around the living room with that. He took the straw out and twirled in like a baton. Cute! Uh-oh, mixed berry splats on the carpet. FAIL.

5. Grocery store. Drove there, it was sunny. Get to parking lot, it starts to sprinkle. Decide to get gas first, it starts pouring rain. Go back home FAIL.

6. As soon as we get unpacked and Cade has a quick snack of pears and frozen peas it stops raining. I quickly load him back into the car and we drive to Kroger. We smugly walk into the store, thankful we missed the rain. All the shopping carts are wet from the rain. Not a single dry cart. Smug single girl says "I'm not picky if it's wet" and goes into the store. I won't lie, I wanted to slap her.... My precious BABY can't sit on a wet seat!!! I go back to the car for my handy dandy seat cover.

7. We checkout and cart boy puts groceries in the baby seat. FAIL. We walk outside and it's POURING RAIN. Duped my Mother Nature.... Yet does anyone offer to help us? Where are the cart boys? We've been ditched by the cart boys! FAIL.

FAIL, Fail, FIAL. That's my day. Hopefully I took all the bad karma today so you, faithful bloggie, could have good karma.

Love you, mean it!

Baby Teeth

If you had asked me 6 months ago if I ever wanted Cade to get teeth my answer would have been "no". The whole teething process didn't really make sense to me. I didn't understand "cutting teeth", that just sounds too gross and painful for me to grasp that process would happen to MY baby. On the other hand, I don't remember my own "cutting teeth" period growing up, so can't be that bad. Really though, the thing for me was imagining my little gummy bear with pearly rocks in his smile. I couldn't imagine the cuteness in that. A gummy smile unexpectedly sealed itself in my heart as an irrestible charm. How special to get a smile from this creature that doesn't even have teeth yet? I would think. I would sit for hours holding him when he was a newborn and wait for the moment he would give me his first gummy smile. It's just too precious a thing, so short-lived in the grand scheme of things. And so sweet when he would mistake my pinkie finger for a binkie and soothe himself by sucking on the tip. That gasp he does when he smiles fills me up. It's a little inhale and his mouth opens wide into the biggest grin. The innocence of his gummy smile took my breath away and I feared the day it would be lost to me forever.

Last July



December 2009 - bottom 2 teeth only

The teeth growing process for Cade has been a trip. His teething pain hasn't been that bad....probably thanks to Hylan's Teething tabs and baby Orajel. (Come to find out teething tablets have trace amounts of belladonna in them...a hallucinogen or something. So for Cade, he's really been tripping out while teething. Oops)

So we lived through most of the spring February till just after his birthday with Vampire Child. His top center two teeth did not make an appearance until about 12 months old. I'm SO glad that Twilight has been a hit this year, my vogue baby rocked that vampire look for quite awhile.

April 7, 2009 His birthday...He was graduating from fang boy and had the beginnings of "real" boy teeth.


June 2009 - we've got 6 top teeth (4 center and 2 upper molars) plus 4 bottom teeth (2 center and 2 lower molars)... .Um, yes molars at 14 months old. And the crazy thing is that they came in in pairs... insane, right?! So THAT explains his 5:30am wake-up call this month. Such a beating, it was early bird month for the Lamb household. When Cade wakes up, the world better be ready to play for him. Waiting until 7:00am Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and then Special Agent Oso was grueling some mornings. Toys that sing and talk should have a setting that prohibits anything above "mute" before 7:00am. I digress.

So how have we worked through teething?
1. Hylan's Teething Tablets (these little suckers dissolve in the mouth and calmed him INSTANTLY when we were traveling last summer)
2. Baby Orajel (though now that he's a fighter when it comes to my finger in his mouth I question the point. I'm probably just numbing his tongue and it's going to cost me years of therapy later when he thinks mommy messed with him when he was in pain).
3. Teething rings (on occasion he'll suck on them for 10 straight minutes, howev he hides them in couch cushions and in his toy baskets, so again, I question the effectiveness. I'm sure one day I'll catch him giving them to Izzy, the dog loves ice!)
4. Frozen blueberries & frozen peas. The frozen peas are like CRACK COCAINE to this child. He can't get enough these days. He points to the fridge, walks over, hangs on the door until I open it and digs around the drawer until he finds the peas bag. Then he squeals, laughs, stomps his feet really fast and claps his hands all at once --- so I don't resist. Healthy addiction I suppose.

Nap Hair...reprise

Nap is a silly thing to blog about...but this was pretty noteworthy. It was a hot summer day last week, so Cade got pants off nap time. (What??!! Act like you don't love pants off nap time.) Anyways, we got into the perfect cuddle groove, napping together with him on my chest and Sex and the City playing after the perf mommy snack of butter popcorn with peanut butter m&ms ?& DDP. The nap lasted forever and ever, we were so comfy. After a hard nap you either have one or other: drool puddle or nap hair. This kid had mega nap hair. I was in awe of the cuteness and yet kinda scared when I realized he looked like Frat Boy Cade. Take a look...




Front view

Back view

Proud of his nappage.

little reminders

One of the perks of motherhood is finding yourself equipped with totally unnecessary baby items at unexpected moments... It makes me so proud and giddy to be at a wedding reapplying my lip gloss in the ladies room and pull out a binky. It's so exhilirating to do a little shrug of the shoulders and smile at the lady next to me. Like Yes world, I'm a mother. Some little gorgeous being loves me and needs me and I'm his whole world. Yep, all I need to do in this life is go home to him and feel those soft fingers grab my neck and hair and pull me in tight. But I don't. Say that. The shrugging and big beaming smile as I look at that sweet little binks warms me every time.

I was starting a big presentation at work and as I pulled some notes out of my bag also pulled out a baby sock. Kinda bizarre, because Cade was 13 months at the time and it was SO an infant sock that I had in my hand at that moment. And in the middle of my intro, I stopped and did the sappy beam at the tiny little blue socklet in my hand. It felt like a 10 minute little coffee break, just looking at that sock and thinking of my baby. I'm hoping in hindsight it was just a few seconds, but I felt proud. The knowing chuckle of my coworkers was also a little reinforcing to this, I'm sure, obnoxious habit of mine of finding Cade artifacts and getting sap face.

So I was a little surprised when I was digging for my badge going into summer school this week and pulled out baby nail clippers instead. Briefly I thought "Ah-ha! Manicure day at summer school! Yesss!" but decided against it.... Side note: why must all special ed students have either creepy long fingernails or grossly chewed to the root nails? Special ed manicures aren't too much of a bad idea.

Anyways, I ditched the idea since I don't want to get sued for clipping Junior's claws, and I sappily smiled and tucked the baby nail clippers away. (Safely tucked away, that is. I had to go to two Targets and two grocery stores and one Babies R Us to find these perfect replacement nail clippers.) As much as I didn't want to be at summer school or go to work some days, it's finding the Cade artifacts that makes me appreciate my mommy-ness so much. Maybe absence makes the heart grow fonder and the mommy grow crazier in her baby love habits. It's worth it, they took my shame card at the hospital last year. So, warning to family and friends, the sap face will live on. Deal.

more firsts!

After passing Cade's first birthday I wasn't sure how frequently I'd get to do more of his "firsts". I've chronicled (um, okay, mentally noted) his firsts...first car ride home, first bath, first tooth, first steps, first lunch at Chili's. So now that the firsts have slowed down I was majorly pumped today to have THREE firsts all in one week!!!

The first first o' the week: playing in a mall indoor playground. We went to Collin Creek to walk around and hang out with Grammie. I was a little sketched out by all the kids playing around and the signs to remove shoes...so we followed the rules but left on socks. My child pretty much ran from one climbing object to the next. He walked up slides backwards and slid down stairs on his butt. He was screaming with delight, it cracked me up. I was, howev, NOT impressed with the 9 year old who insisted on jumping from the top of the tall slide onto another bridge with a 4 foot leap. Um, I gave him my best pissed off face but it was probably a blur because psycho kid was a damn 70 lb flying squirrel. So I went to plan B which was to give disapproving looks to the parents sitting along the sides until I found Spiderman's mom. I saw what could have been his grandmother so I looked from her to him with my best dirty disapproving "are-you-going-to-discipline-your-spawn" look....but no dice. Cade was definitely the littlest boy playing there, and he totally rocked it out with his cool tricks of sliding down slides on his tummy and walking down slides. I'm sure one day I will regret my pride at his amazing gross motor skills as I sit in an ER with him.

Second first: The rear-facing car seat is now a forward-facing car seat!!! I did my "Safe Kids" car seat installation inspection with Nick a few months ago and learned how to tighten the hell outta a car seat. And use a pool noodle to increase balance of car seat! Can I say my mom and I switched my car seat tonight in less than 15 minutes and you cannot wiggle that thing more than 1/4 inch each way AND the balance ball is perfectly in the middle of the "green zone" on the built in balance? Score!!! Forward facing car seat riding is awesome. I can actually give Cade's little leg a love squeeze without dislocating my shoulder. (cool party trick, I could fish a binkie from any depth of the rear-facing car seat while keeping eyes on road. Sometimes having long gorilla arms is good for something, aside from keeping away high school potential homecoming dates) Also Cade could notice when I pointed and waved to our neighborhood alpacas and see exactly which dance moves we do for Lady Gaga and which ones are better suited for Carrie Underwood. I think he's gonna like it. ALSO (follow me as I head off on a tangent) I think it's cooler to brag about staying rear-facing as long as you can than breast-feeding as long as you can. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. I'm just saying...

So for those of you still reading, thanks for not breast-feeding your preschooler, and lets continue to Cade's third first of the week. The first HAIRCUT!!! Before you cry that his little ducktail of curls is missing, it's not. It was more of a first hair TRIM situation than a first hair CUT. In fact, this should make you rest easy, it was technically a bang trim. Only reason I call it a first haircut is b/c we got a certificate with little attached baggie to insert the locks of hair that were trimmed. So his bangs are looking rockin and we took a little off above the ears. Grammie insisted on adding some layers to make his hair look fuller. He did not cry, he was so involved with checking out the stylist's technique (he's well trained) that he sat still enough to get the job done.

Pics to come soon...

ps i'm aware of the picture failure this week. got to pay up my Google storage account and we'll be good. thanks for imagining the pics of last 3 posts as you wait. you're a good faithful bloggie.

Crayola-ole!

Cade is finally showing an interest in coloring. We have the Crayola tadoodles or whatever they're called, but he wasn't a fan. So I took out some of my pretty, very finely sharped crayons (hello, I'm a teacher!!!) and let him have a go in his coloring pad. I showed him the colors first, then let him pick! He did good! It was more of a "color testing out" situation then a "creating a materpiece" situation, but he gets the gist-ish.

So he's taken his skills on the road and done it at our favorite breakfast spot now....

Okay, fess up #1: the first time he ate the green crayon.

fess up #2: He's very into taking out every crayon and coloring with each one for .5 second then tossing it to the side... (hopefully he doesn't get OCD like me and insist on using each color so the leftover ones don't feel sad)...so then after each crayon has been tested then tossed, he puts them up. Yay for me! My son's favorite part is "clean up" (fess up #3, yes I sing the clean up song) Please don't give him a 4 pack of red, yellow, green, blue. No, no, no, no....this guy likes to see a variety of colors and then put them all back in the cup one by one. He's so ready to graduate from the 12 pack to the 64...maybe Mommy will let him use hers one day soon.

Consider yourself informed.

The Walk

So my days of being a stay at home mom (temporarily) have begun. One of the things I despised --I mean I dreamed about being a stay at home mom myself was the long morning walks. If I wanted a long morning walk during the school year it would be at 4:30am. Not exactly ideal. Today I got to walk early enough that I could still enjoy a morning coffee and morning show (okay, morning Disney channel, but whatev......turns out Cade doesn't like the View since Meredith left, just like Mommy...even though Rosie's gone, it still kinda sucks)

So I packed up for the walk, you can't tell from the pics, but there was a a water bottle for each me, Cade, and Izzy, some Crunchies, baby hat and toys, tennis ball for Izzy, cell phone in case of emergency and extra SPF. Only minus that I chose not to bring and regretted was my iPod. I thought it would make me a rude mommy to Cade, but I think I would have been able to carry on a one sided convo with him even with some music. But then I could have sang something to him, which could have been good for him too.

We took a super long walking/biking trail by our house, took us 80 minutes total...I SO should have sported the pedometer, but I didn't want to look hardcore in case there were some cool potential mommy friends on the trail. But just in case, Cade was in a super cute seersucker romper WITH matching hat. Nick thought it was a little gay, but he can suck it, Cade was presh...Again, had there been a baby model scout we'd have been prepared. Had there been Clinton & Stacy to see me make-up free, I would have been prepared for that as well.... none of that happened.

Cade was a trooper. He loves being out and about and v. cutely pointed at squirrels and bunnies and dogs we saw on the trail. He v. preshly waved people we passed and v. appropriately pointed and did "What the?" with his upturned hand and gaze upward at me when the dude hand-pedaled past on his incumbent bike.

What I didn't expect was that the dog would wimp out before the homestretch. Like after we'd finished 65% of the trail she just slowed down and sat. I didn't even get a chance to throw a ball for her at the park on the last leg of the trip!!! Thank GOD I bought the super stroller, so I popped her in the basket underneath and convinced her it was a good, safe idea and continued. She was kinda sketched out at first, but got comfy after a few minutes of successful strolling. She didn't even jump out to save face in front of the 2 big dogs we passed....atta girl! Mama's Diva!

Izzy Girl in the basket

Cade wondering "wtf, Izzy?!"

I guess people on the trail are used to seeing this, or she was camoflaged enough they didn't notice. But I was a little alarmed that the lady we passed early on in our trip didn't ask where my dog went the second time. Anyways, super shout out to the makers of the Chicco. Love the stroller more every day!