The Hen

Last week my mom complained that she is never mentioned or seen on this blog. She feels like everyone else gets their due, except her. I told her that this was certainly not an intentional slight on my part, but she was still miffed.

So, I thought I would do a little post on my mom...or as we like to call her "The Hen". There are several "hens" in our family and they each have their own quirky little traits. My mom is the original hen though, hands down. I started calling her a hen because she really enjoys clucking and pecking around me until I am driven to distraction. I know that she means well and is just being a mom, but sometimes she just pecks one time too many!

Anyway...she is a great mother (and grandmother) and a hardworking woman. For the last several years she has been taking care of my grandfather. If you know anything about our family, you know that this is no easy task. One of mom's little quirky traits is trying to find the most unique gifts to give to my brother and I...there have been some strange ones over the years. Below is a picture of Collin holding one of those gifts. The mug was a Christmas present a few years back. On the front is a priceless picture of my mother's "mug". It is one of a kind! Welcome to Collin's Chronicles Mom!

Better Late Then Never

I meant to get around to blogging about my Cleveland weekend on Monday. Woops...the week is running away from me. Our 7 th annual trip ladies trip was another smashing success in my humble opinion. I must say that we pretty much did nothing but eat, drink, and sleep (and read). Of course, we also attended the game, which was a total bust. The Browns lost 17-7. This is truly the worst they have ever played since we've started going to the games. That even includes our first trip 7 years ago when the Giants hammered them. They suck even more because they SHOULD be a decent, even GOOD football team. So, our record now stands at 5 wins and 2 losses seen on our trips. Still, not to shabby. It was also, by far, the coldest game we've been to. For once, we packed it up before the game was actually over and headed out to one of the pubs.

The real highlight for me was the time away and the good company. One of the biggest things I miss about my BC (before Collin) days is simply uninterrupted time. Time to just do whatever I want...read, eat, chat, SLEEP. The sleep was fantastic! Two nights of 8 hours plus sleep in my own, extremely comfortable, bed was awesome. We also ate and drank like queens. For me, the highlight meal was the brunch on Sunday morning at Pickwicks and Frolics. Chocolate fountain and mimosas. If you are ever in Cleveland on a Sunday morning, I highly recommend you make this stop!

I admit that I did pine for my little chief the whole weekend, but I didn't let it stop me from enjoying the time away. Distance does really make the heart grow fonder! From all reports he did fine over the weekend, if not a bit baffled. One of my fears was that he would forget who I was. Well, when Collin saw me at the airport on Monday, it did kind of seem like he forgot me. He was more interested in gazing at his Aunty Chau. He remembered me quick enough when it was time to breast feed! I actually think the little tyrant was giving me the cold shoulder on purpose!

Here's a pic of me at the game...

GO BROWNS!

Well, that weekend is upon us and I'm leaving tomorrow morning for a weekend in the glorious city of Cleveland. This will be the 7th Annual Girl's Road Trip to Cleveland. Actually, now that we are all women of more means we fly rather then do the drive. I am a die hard Cleveland Browns fan (to be a Browns fan at all, you must be die-hard) and once a year I drag some very good friends with me so I can see my team play in their home stadium. Many people ask, how do I manage to drag these people to Cleveland, of all places, to watch a football game? Frankly, I don't really know why they keep doing it...the Riccardi sisters are football fans themselves, so that helps. When it comes to Chau...I have no idea. Over the years we have managed to teach her a bit about the sport and she has a good time imitating the refs. She is a good sport and it is a lot of fun. Good food, good drinks, and good company. One of our Riccardi girls just can't make it this year, but another friend, Sharon, is jumping on board to take her place. Wa-Hoo!

The highlight of last year's trip was a 7 months pregnant me standing outside the player's exit with a picture of Collin's ultrasound screaming "Sign my baby's ultrasound...Please!" The tiny pictures below really don't do the moment any justice, but I couldn't re-size them. You get the idea. Of course, the difference this time around is that Collin is here and this is the first time I am leaving him....for 2 whole nights. I don't know if I want to dance a jig or cry. I am prepared to do both the whole weekend. I am bringing a mini-stack of books from my pile of To Be Reads and hope to catch up on my other favorite pastime...losing myself in a book.

My husband is a very good man and one thing I don't need to worry about is how well Collin will be taken care of. But, I am really going to miss the boy and I am a bit freaked out that he will forget who I am! He has become kind of like my little buddy...my constant companion....my shadow!

Not to mention, I am pretty pissy about having to drag the breast pump with me! Look for my post on Monday to see how we all fared.

Updated My Blog Roll

I've been meaning to update my blog roll for a while. Since joining the blogging world I have come across so many wonderful blogs. The list is by no means compete, but these are some of my favorites on some of my favorite interests.

Collin In The Pumpkin Patch

9 Month Stats

We took Collin for his 9 month check-up today and he is hale and hearty. It's been a tough week for the little chief...teeth coming in up top, 6-8 poops a day, corelating diaper rash, and the first injury that actually drew blood. All in all, he's holding it together pretty well. Notice in the picture he is holding a crunched up piece of paper and looking very guilty.This is because he likes to eat paper and that he is not supposed to.

Today he weighed in at 22lbs and 6 oz (75th percentile) and measured 29.8 inches (88th percentile). The one downer is that his head seems to be a bit on the big size (I think this trait comes from Daddy). It measures at 46.7 centimeters which puts him at the 83rd percentile. It's just a big jump since his 6 month check-up when he was at the 56th percentile. The doctor thinks that it can probably be accounted for by a measurement error the last time around. So, she wants to see him in 6 weeks just to check his rate of growth. Just one more thing for this already very paranoid Mommy to worry about! Throughout the check up Collin just kind of stared bug-eyed at the doctor. When I asked about food the doctor said he can basically be eating whatever we eat, just shredded or mushed up. We've been going pretty slow with the whole food thing due to allergy concerns (CJ had some pretty bad childhood allergies), but I'm thinking it's time to ramp it up. Collin is displaying very little interest in baby food at this point. He just wants whatever we have. I gave him some of my Wendys chilli the other night and he LOVED it! The best thing I've given him so far is a honey crisp apple. I just discivered them myself and whenever I have an apple I let Collin knaw on it a bit. Well, when he got his hands on that honey crisp apple he just about lost his shit. He FREAKED out when I tried to take it away. I mean, he went to town on this thing. He kind of looked like a rabid squirrel knawing on a nut. It's about the only food we've tried that has ellicited any kind of real excitement.

The boy continues to learn new tricks at an alarming rate. He is now waving and clapping at will. He seems to know what these things mean as well. He's also standing up on his own more and more. I've been trying desperately to get a picture or videotape him in action, but he plays coy. It's also dawned on him that when we start going up the stairs and head into his room it probably means one of two things...he is either about to be changed or put to bed. He does not care for either of these things and gets his point across quite easily with arm flapping and screeches.

A Couple More Things

There are just a couple more things I want to blog about from our DC trip last week. I discovered a really cool store called Ten Thousand Villages on King Street in Alexandria. I've never heard of this chain of stores before and I don't think we have any in NJ. It's an awesome concept that they've come up with...selling handcrafted items made by people in 3rd world countries. Here's a couple of sentences from their vission and mission statements...

" Ten Thousand Villages provides vital, fair income to Third World people by marketing their handicrafts and telling their stories in North America. Ten Thousand Villages works with artisans who would otherwise be unemployed or underemployed. This income artisans earn helps pay for food, education, health care and housing."

Check out their website to see some of their items. They truly had some beautiful pieces of art, jewelery, and clothing. Not to mention all kinds of other fun stuff. I picked up a couple of things from The Women's Bean Project.

On our way home we stopped in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood to take a peek at a craft fair I found advertised. Crafty Bastards was a unique, alternative craft show with dozens of items I've never seen at the standard run of the mill crafty event. Here's a couple of pics we took...

Holy Moly!

Here are the stairs in our house.....

Since Collin has been born one of my frequent nightmares has been him falling down the stairs or me falling down the stairs while carrying him. About 3 weeks ago we installed a gate at the top of the stairs so he could crawl around the second floor at will while we're doing chores or whatever up there. Until yesterday Collin had absolutely no interest in trying to crawl up the stairs at all. Well, I left him alone in my library (directly to the left of the staircase) for a total of maybe 45 seconds to put something in the dishwasher. My first clue should have been how quiet he got. By the time I came back Collin had climbed, literally, half the staircase all by himself. I was speechless. He turned around and gave me the biggest shit-eating grin you could imagine. It may be time to install more gates.

Collin Goes To Washington

Saturday turned out to be a mixed bag of weather. As we arrived at the book festival it was raining steadily. Pretty miserable. By the time 2:00 rolled around it was still cloudy, but at least the rain stopped. Despite an awful sleep Collin was gung ho for most of the day. He loves sitting up in the stroller and he looks like a little king on his mobile throne. He is constantly looking around, scanning the crowd and checking out everything. As usual he garnered lots of attention as we roamed the festival. He was his usual coy and flirty self. At one point CJ was waiting for me when I was in the book sales tent and parked Collin's stroller next to a little girl in her stroller. Well, it only took him about 1 minute to steal the binky right out of her mouth. CJ told me later that ne needed to get out of there because Collin was all over the little girl!

During a lull in the festival action I finally took Collin on his first carousel ride. I've been wanting to do this for a while. I have to say that sucker went at a decent clip! Collin loved it and insisted on standing up on our bench so he could have a bird's eye view of the action. Here we are...

Later on the boy passed out cold in the baby bjorn.... too much literary stimulation I guess!

After the festival we headed back to Alexandria for dinner. Boy oh boy, this kid does NOT like for his two parents to be sitting down to dinner out. About 20 minutes after we sat down Collin lost his crap and we needed to beat a hasty retreat. Dinner to go once again. The good news is that he did sleep the night through in the travel crib. Our prayers were answered!

We briefly considered a third night, but decided we would be nuts since we were all under the weather. Before hitting the road home though we made a stop at the FDR Memorial. This one is probably my favorite. Here is Collin with FDR's dog Fala...


More trip tid-bits tomorrow!

We're Home!

Well, there's no doubt about it. Collin is truly a seasoned traveler at this point. Our D.C. trip this weekend is his third time away from home since he was born. He has taken to hotel life and actually seemed a bit diappointed to be home tonight! Anyway, there's a lot to say about our road trip, so I'll probably break this down into a couple of posts. We had a great time, but we were struggling...all three of us being under the weather (Daddy was a real trooper). As I said previously, we took a drive down to our nation's capital this weekend for the National Book Festival. I'll post about book stuff over at The Written Word and keep the Chronicles focused on our little kumkquat (latest nickname for the boy).

Day 1 started out pretty hairy. About an hour into the trip I heard a funny flapping sound and smelled burning rubber. Yup, we had a flat. Here is poor CJ changing our tire on a VERY busy highway, with very BIG trucks zooming by.

The tyrant thankfully slept through this part of the trip. The end result of this debacle was about a 2 hour detour to Pep Boys in Newark, Delaware where we secured a new tire. This turned our hopefully less than 4 hour trip into a 6 hour trip. Oh well...we rebounded nicely by the time we got to our friend's home in Bethesda. What a great time! Collin was manic from being in the carseat so long and the second we put him down on their living room floor he was off and running. It was actually pretty funny to see him acting like he owned the place! Our friend's have 4 kids ages 7 down to 7 months. Another couple we're friend's with as well were there with their 2 year old daughter. Six kids all under 7! Total chaos and lots of fun!

It was great for CJ and I to see other parents of little ones in action. This is something we don't get a lot of. Both sets of parents really seemed to have it together and I felt like taking notes on their techniques. It was so reassuring for me to hear from other moms that yes, other babies are breastfed down to sleep at night and yes, the whole parenthood thing can make you want to run for the hills sometimes!

After a great time we headed out for another half an hour of driving to Old Town, Alexandria and our hotel. The Embassey Suites turned out to be a great hotel that we enjoyed staying at. The location directly across from the train station was key. The first night was ROUGH. We packed the travel crib and after exploring his new territory Collin went to sleep without a problem, but this was not until about 11:00...3 or 4 hours after his normal bed time. I think it really through him off because he was up 2 hours later and wound up in our bed. Bad, bad night! Lots more on the trip to come the next few days!