Happy birthday, beautiful boy.

You're a whole year old today. It seems like forever, but at the same time, it's like, "Wow, a whole year." And I can't get my mind around the fact that you ever fit just right on my forearm and couldn't even turn from side to side. Now, you're such a big guy. You can climb a full flight of stairs (though I won't let you) and you can walk all around the house (provided there's something to hold onto) and you can eat orzo with pesto and sundried tomatoes and clap your hands after every bite. 

You the most beautiful boy. Only those who have never met you would say I'm biased. And you're growing up nicely. You're willful. And opinionated. And you pitch a fit when you don't get your way. But, oddly enough, that makes me think you're even cooler.

I can't wait to see who you become. 

The exercise thing

So NYD has come and gone, and as with every year, I've promised myself a more active, less fatty 2010. But I'm sorry, I do not know how working moms manage to get the whole exercise thing in. At the end of the day, all I want to do is play with Max. And by the time he goes to bed, that's pretty much what I'm ready to do. So anybody have any tricks? Especially to motivate me in this stupid winter weather? Ways I've tried to make it work:

- Getting up at the crack and working out in the morning: This does not work because it requires me to be gone while DH is getting Max ready for daycare. It just takes two of us to wrestle that kid into his socks and shoes every morning. It's an epic battle, and it would be totally unfair to abandon Josh to fight the forces of shoe tantrums alone.

- Going during the day while I work from home: This operates under the assumption that I take some sort of break during the day. What I more typically do is work through lunch, answer emails on my blackberry while peeing and skip the morning shower so I can get a head start. Perhaps I need better boundary setting skills? 

- Going after work: No. Wanna play with Max. It's the only time I have all day.

SOOOO...it sounds like I'll never make it to the gym and have to learn to live with this very yucky number that keeps showing up on the scale. Blech.

Or, I can just suck it up and go on my work-at-home days and on the weekends and quite being such a whiny, excuse-making sloth.

I guess we'll see which one wins. 

Cold days. Warm hearts.

So we're enduring our third crippling snow storm in, like, a month. I'm a lucky woman that I have a job that allows me to work from home, but when I'm stuck here so often I get scared they'll think I'm slacking off.

I'm not.

I'm desperate to get to the office in Omaha and be around people for more than one random day at a time. But it looks like I'll be housebound for the rest of the week.

THE GOOD PART ABOUT BEING HOUSEBOUND

My freakishly adorable son! He'll be around the house tomorrow and I'm so, so glad. Every second we spend together these days is a blast. Tonight at dinner, he discovered how to click his tongue while attempting to eat organic puffs (which he seems to hate). So he was just sitting there, smiling, clicking his little tongue like it was the funniest thing in the world.

So, we're all snuggled in against the -40 degrees and snowfall, and it's a warm feeling to have such sweet guys in my life.

So 2 months later...

And it's 2010. I apologize for my long absence.  Would you care for a quick recap? Too bad, cuz you're getting one anyway:

- Max's 9-month appointment: He's growing beautifully. He weighed in at about 22 pounds and 28 inches. And he's doing all the things he should be doing. 

- Mom's jewelry business: After thinking to myself, "Hey, a full-time job, sweet baby boy, hyper-demanding book club and rigorous attempts to lose weight are just not enough to fill my time," I decide to restart my Premier Designs jewelry business. I used to do this in grad school, and had way too much fun. I've been missing my bling and needing to feel extra girly some days. It's been a blast and I'm glad to be back.

- Max in the hospital: On his third ear infection and 5th antibiotic, Max woke up one night with a raging fever and insane projectile vomiting. We took his shivering, grey little self to the ER and he was admitted. After much poking and prodding (including 6 attempts at an IV and 2 LPs), Max was resting comfortably at Bryan LGH where he stayed for 5 days until we could figure out what the deal was. While he was there, he got his ear tubes (yay!) and started feeling much better. It turns out all the badness was caused by an ear infection and an ugly stomach bug, which Josh contracted a few days later. Max was THRILLED to be home. I didn't know babies could get cabin fever.

- The Christmas trip - Josh, Max and I hopped a plane for Chicago just before Nebraska was buried in snow. We missed the worst of it, and spent Christmas with our families, who just doted on the sweet boy and oohed and ahhed at all his fancy new tricks. He can stand up now! Yay! And he loves to clap. You have no idea how much this makes me smile. 

Whew. So that's all that's been happening. I resolve to be a more consistent blogger. Will post photos at some point as well.

Happy new year. :)

Hey there, Monkey Boy

Won't you please enjoy some video of our sick, sad little monkey on Halloween?


It was an interesting first Halloween, to say the least. The day before we were all supposed to fly to Chicago to share the monkey fun with the grandparents, the wee little boy got a wee little cold...and a wee little ear infection. And a wee little upper respiritory issue. So, the Gulicks were grounded. We still forced Max against his will into a monkey costume on 10/31 and dragged him outside in his stroller, where he promptly passed out. Not much of a trick or treater, that one. He did, however, crawl for the first time. That was cool. :)

Food overload

I really do love making all of Max's food. Whether it's veggie purees, fruity desserts, organic grains or the newly introduced chicken and lamb, it's been a lot of fun. 

The only problem is that he eats SO much more than he did just a few weeks ago. It's hard to keep up! I went to the freezer at one point last week to discover that all we had left was barley, asparagus and some zucchini-millet medley that he gags on every time I even get it near him. Oy.

For the last two days, I've dropped a collective 8 hours on making food for Max. I've made more carrots, some chicken, sweat peas, butternut squash and potato casserole, sweet potatoes, peaches, apples, pears, rice and barley (phew) and I still need to make his plums, lamb and cauliflower. 

Now the normal me would throw in the towel at this point because it's a little overwhelming. But, I think I just need to be supplementing. It's too important to me to make sure Max is eating healthy to totally give up, so I've decided to keep some jars of Earth's Best organic on hand. That way, Max will still get the variety of food that he needs (even though all that I'll have left in the freezer is millet and cauliflower at some point, I'm sure) and I'll have emergency stores for when I don't have a chance to get to pureeing. 

It's a win-win, people. And the boy seems to like it, so we're all good!

Missing Max

So I'm missing my little boy more and more these days. I find myself thinking about him a lot during the day, much to the detriment of my concentration. I think it's because while he's been sick, we got to spend a lot of time at home together. Now, he's back at daycare having fun and I'm missing his sweet little mug and all his fun giggles and noises. 

*Sigh*

It's not a sad feeling, though. I really love my job. But I'm just a little Max-sick today, methinks. And I can't wait to see him tonight.

My legacy - laundry baskets

So as a child, I had a strange fixation with laundry baskets. I loved to play in them. As I grew up, I would still always want to put my feet in a laundry basket if it was nearby. Yeah, weird. I know.

It seems that Max may have inherited this, um, quirk from me. Witness:

It's crazy. He laughs his head off when we hold the basket over him like it's a cage. And when he's sitting in it, all of his toys that were boring before become suddenly interesting again. This kid LOVES him some laundry basket.

Oh, the sick little boy.

Max was sick all week. All. Week.

It started Sunday with the sniffles and a little cough. By Monday, he was a blue-ribbon snot generator and the cough sounded like that of a pack-a-day smoker. Did I mention that baby cough is the worst sound in the world? By Tuesday, I had him at the doctor's office because he was wheezing ("He's my first wheezer of the season," said the nurse. I was brimming with pride.)

So... he has the flu.

And bronchiolitis.

AND

(wait for it)

An ear infection that is causing him obvious pain!

Normally, when I tell people Max is sick, they're all like, "Oh, that's rough. Is he OK?" This time, they're all like, "Is is H1N1? Are you sick, too?"

My answer? Maybe. They're not testing anymore because of all the hysterical parents who think that H1N1 is something other than just the flu. It's. Just. The. Flu. The reason it's dangerous is because no one has immunity. The regular flu will kill just as many people . . . and for the most part, those people will be immune compromised.

So quit acting like my kid has the plague, asshats.

Anyhow, it was probably just seasonal flu anyway, because if it were H1N1, Josh and I probably would have gotten sick.

But this spell of illness went down a whole lot different than the last. There were no sleepless nights and hysterical crying on my part. Just a nice, disciplined schedule of medication and soothing songs, and lots of home time with mom for an uncomfortable, feverish guy. It's nice to be able to handle this stuff calmly.

Yay Aunt Jeannie!

This past weekend, my wonderful sister flew in from Seattle to hang with Max. He fell instantly in love with her. Every time Jeannie would come into view, Max would smile uncontrollably. There were raucous games of peekaboo that had Max's sides splitting with laughter. There were long jaunts through the farmers market. There were long floats in the pool. And there was plenty of feeding and snuggling.

It was SO wonderful to see my sister. I always forget how hard it is to have her live so far away from us. But when we're together, I just have so much fun. We went to see Food, Inc. on Saturday night after the wee boy was in bed. And after it was over, we just walked around downtown Lincoln with hot tea and talked for a while. She's my favorite person in the world (besides Max and Josh) and it's always hard to see her go away.

That's especially true now, because I think Max loves her as much as I do.