Feeling Better...

I realize these last two pictures look similar. I couldn't decide which was cuter.

I'm not sure if everyone could tell, but in the last couple of posts, Harrison hasn't looked like his normal self. He had been battling a bug or virus of some sort for over a week. I was out of town for a couple of days and Adam took him to the doctor to get some medicine. I'm not sure if the antibiotics have helped or the virus has just run its course, but he is definitely feeling better. He still has a little bit of congestion, but that's no big deal. I'm sure most of you couldn't care less about Harrison's little sickness, but I can't help but celebrating him getting better. It is hard when you can't give them any medicine to treat the symptoms. It makes you feel useless as a parent. I told Adam that I've felt like a veterinarian the past week or so, trying to guess what is wrong with my patient (Harrison) since he cannot communicate with me. I'm sure pediatricians would never compare themselves to veterinarians. Either way, that's how I felt. On that subject though, I wonder if babies grow into their feet like puppies grow into their paws. You know when you have a puppy with big paws, everyone says "wow, that's going to be a big dog!" Well, Harrison has huge feet. I'm wondering if that means he is going to be a big boy?

Just the past couple of days Harrison has found that his ability to stand-up gets him to precarious situations. Actually, I'm not confident that he has realized this, but I certainly have. Just yesterday, he figured out how to pull the camera (for the video monitor) off of the wall by his crib. I can't begin to describe how alarming it is to look at the monitor, thinking your are going to see your son sleeping, instead you get an up close shot of the inside of his mouth. It is too weird. Also, he finds himself standing (holding onto crib, table, etc) and unable to sit. I think he hasn't learned to sit down, so when he gets tired of standing, he sort of starts to panic. Anyway, that is what is going on with Harrison this last day of January.

Domestic Harrison Part 2

Harrison loves to take his bib and wipe the floor. I am wondering if he is sending me a hint that it is time to sweep and mop...

Hiding Spot

Harrison has discovered that he loves to play with his high-chair. He likes to get under it and roll it around on the floor. And yes, he has rolled over his fingers a couple of times and screamed appropriately. But he soon forgets and returns to his fun.

Harrison's Hybrid Crawl

Harrison has found numerous methods of crawling. He started off army-crawling, which he still uses every now and then. He then figured out how to do the traditional crawl. Then it was on to the scooting on the bum across the floor. The most recent one is what we refer to as the "Left-Leg Lopez." All of the fans of the group TLC will know where we got that name from. He switches between all of his methods at any given time. Anyway, we think it is hilarious and you can see a glimpse of it here in the video.

Look At Them Now

Adam, Harrison and I were hanging out on the couch last night. I know, I know...sounds like an awesome Friday night! It actually was fun. We are all three sort of sick. I say sort of, cause I'm not sure what kind of sick we are. But I guess knowing what kind of sick we are doesn't matter; we are just sick. Nothing too bad though. The bad part is that Adam and I can take medicine for it, but Harrison can't. Poor kid. Anyway, we were having a low-key night last night, watching Baby Einstein (so fun). I look over at Adam and Harrison and I was struck by how similar they look. I know this is old news, but Harrison is essentially Adam with cheeks. I'm still holding onto the idea that Harrison has to have something of me in him, other than his big cheeks. Adam pointed out last night that he has my personality in the way that he crawls. How you ask? That doesn't make sense...my thought exactly. Well, Adam explained, just like this "You know, Harrison is going to do it his own way. He doesn't care if everyone else does it one way. I mean, look at him, he moves really fast on one leg. To me, that looks lazy, but he probably thinks it takes less energy and it is a smarter way of doing things. Not to mention, it gets the job done, maybe faster than other infants." My response to him was, "Did you just tell me that Harrison got his laziness from me and wait a second, do you think I am lazy?" You can see where this conversation was going. Anyway, to get back to my original point; I can't believe how much these boys look alike.

Teething Again?

Do you think Harrison could be teething again? He is certainly doing his best to put everything in his mouth...even my nose!

10 Months Old!

Golly Gracious! I cannot believe Harrison is in the double-digit month count. Unbelievable! It is going by SO fast; it is going so fast, that I can't even remember to post on the actual day that he turns 10 months old. Fear not, I didn't forget to take pictures yesterday. He had play date with his friend, Stella, from across the street. If you haven't been following from the beginning, Stella is my friend's daughter who is two weeks younger than Harrison (our due date was two days apart). During the play date I realized that Harrison desperately needs to be surrounded by more kids because he was afraid of everything at first. It took a while for him to warm up to her talking/babbling and the sharing of toys. The night before he played with a two year-old, which was extremely overwhelming for him. After yesterday, we vowed to have more regular play dates.

I also realized yesterday that I have to start thinking about Harrison's first birthday (& party)! I realize that this function may be more for the adults, but I am always looking for reasons to celebrate...especially my little one. Not sure exactly what we are going to do yet, so if anyone has any suggestions, I am open. We thought we might head back to SC for the big celebration, but because of our (mainly mine) crazy travel schedule for the months of February and March, there is just no way to get home. I am happy to celebrate in Colorado, but I am certainly going to miss family and friends in SC.

Hilarious!

My sister gave Harrison a couple of DVDs for Christmas and there is one that he has fallen in love with. I think it is called Baby Newton (one of the Baby Einstein series). It is about shapes and it has really captured his attention. He gets so into it, that if you try to talk to him or move around too much, he glares at you. That alone cracks me up. It gets better. And I am not sure I can do it justice because you really need to see it, but I will take a stab at describing it. So there is a segment on the DVD that focuses on the square. In order to explain a square, they show a jack-in-the-box. There is a clown that turns the handle and then a clown pops out of the box. Every time the clown pops out, Harrison jumps because it catches him off guard. And each time he watches it, he jumps more and more. And every time he jumps, tears come down my eyes because I am laughing so hard. And because I am making noise, he glares at me. It is a funny little cycle that cracks me up. I realize after typing this that it really doesn't sound that funny, but it truly is hilarious. I told Adam that we need to buy a jack-in-the-box for him to play with, but he thought it was cruel. I thought it would be entertaining. Oh well! The pictures above are of Harrison while he is watching the DVD. It took a while for me to get the smile out of him because I was distracting him from the movie and he didn't like that. The first five pictures are of him glaring at me. But my mom doesn't like it when I post pictures of him that aren't that cute (as if there are any like that), so I put the one of him smiling and the ones of him concentrating on the movie.

Motherhood Thoughts

There are a couple of things about motherhood that no one can adequately describe for you until you are actually a mother. Actually, there are a TON of things that you just don't understand until you are a mother. The past two days there have been a couple of things that have really tugged at my heart. Last night, Harrison, Adam and I went out to dinner and I sat across the table from both of them (as the picture above clearly shows). I watched Adam talk and play with him and I found myself falling more and more in love with both of them just over a couple of minutes. I remember when I was younger and I thought about the man I was going to marry, I always was certain that I could never love a man more than my dad. And while that remains true, I love all three of these guys (Dad, Adam, and Harrison) so differently and immensely, not one more than another. I also remember being nervous when I was pregnant with Harrison that I wasn't going to love him as much as I love Adam. I guess I am inflicted with some sort of selfish-love complex. But again, I love him in a way that I never anticipated and in a way that no one can tell you about. And I can't describe it any other way than what happened to Harrison and me today.

We went to the pool (indoor pool at the rec center) where they have a great kiddie section. This isn't Harrison's first dip in the pool, but it has been a while. The pool is about 3 1/2 feet deep, which obviously requires me to hold Harrison at all times. As we got in the pool, Harrison clung very tightly to my arms, shoulders, hair, whatever he could find. The more we explored, the tighter he grabbed. Eventually, he would loosen his grip. But it made me feel so good that he was clinging to me. He knew that I was going to do my best to protect him, and that I wasn't going to let anything happen to him. I couldn't stop squeezing him tight. I just love that he is at the age where he knows that he needs me. At that same time I love this age, because he isn't trying to tell me that he doesn't need me. Anyway, I love that I am getting to experience these new feelings for the first time. I'm sure that I have said this before, but it is times like these that I want to bottle up and pull out when he is 15 years old .

Domestic Harrison

Harrison loves laundry baskets. He must know that laundry is in his near future and is already growing a deep-rooted love for the domestic duty. I do think he has a couple of things backwards. In his room today, he pulled all of the shirts out of his drawer and thought it was hilarious. He also pulls dirty clothes out of the laundry basket in our closet. For those of you who might be alarmed at the thought of Harrison in our closet, please don't fret...our closet is a walk-in closet. I'm not putting him in a deep, dark dungeon for him to survive in (like the closets when I was growing up). I digress. But I think he needs to figure out still that clean clothes stay in the drawers and dirty clothes stay in the baskets. He is still grasping concepts like "mommy," "daddy," and "dog," so I will wait on the aforementioned for a little while. Until then, enjoy these pictures of Harrison playing in a laundry basket from today.

Uh-Oh

Last night while I was doing some work, I turned my attention away from Harrison momentarily and this is what I saw. He was headed up the stairs. Granted, he can't make it up one stair, let alone many stairs, so I had plenty of time to grab my camera (which is always pretty close to me, if you can't tell). He has, however, turned into a quick little booger. He finally does the "real" crawl when he is going somewhere close by, but when he has a long distance to go, he prefers the army crawl. I don't know why. It sure seems like the army crawl takes a lot more effort; especially since he grunts with every motion involved with army crawl. And as if I even have to point this out, check out his drool on picture #2. He truly is an unending fountain of drool. I sure do wish I could bottle it and sell it...

Show Me Your Teeth!

I wanted to show our blog followers Harrison's new teeth, but when I decided to take his picture to try to capture them, I knew that my chances were slim. I brought the camera out and I said over and over again, "Show Me Your Teeth." And he did! But he gave me lots of cute smiles. You will also notice quite a bit of drool in the pictures. As of yesterday, Harrison decided to hop back on the drool train (just a week and a half after the first two teeth surfaced). I guess that means there will be another tooth in our near future, but I won't hold my breath. I can confidently say that Harrison has been drooling for two-thirds of his life. That's a long time. But we have gotten quite comfortable with the slobbery face. We know that he has to wear a bib pretty much at all times while he his awake. I actually took his bib off to take these pictures because I was tired of seeing bibs in pictures. Within 45 seconds, his shirt was super wet. Anyway, here are lots of pictures of "toothy" Harrison. I know that there are a lot, but I just couldn't choose.

For Giggles!

I took this picture from my new phone yesterday (which explains the grainy quality) and I can't help myself from sharing it. I sent it to a couple of people via e-mail and then I realized it was too adorable for only a couple of people. If I remember correctly, Harrison was cracking himself up. He is really into that these days. We will be riding around in the car and he will just be laughing to himself. He also may have been laughing at the plastic bag in his hand. Who knows anymore?

So Cute...

Harrison loves bath time...especially in his duckie! I like the duck too. He can't slip and slide everywhere. He is like trying to catch a wet noodle.

A New Instrument

I had a lot of work to do tonight, so Adam said that he would entertain Harrison for an hour for me. I decided to sit at our kitchen counter so I could watch the boys play together. Two minutes after I turned Harrison over to Adam, Harrison had a pot and spoons in his hands. I'm not sure he had to give him those items when we have plenty of toys, plus we have a piano that makes plenty of noise. Anyway, they were too cute and a BIG distraction.

Cute Doesn't Always Get You a Win

If the outcome of the Clemson game was determined by how cute Harrison dresses on game day, they would win every time. Unfortunately, the outcome isn't decided that way. Either way, Harrison looked great!

New Year, New...

Tooth! Actually, two teeth! I thought this day would never come. The night after Christmas, my mom had just finished putting Harrison down for bed and she said to me, "I wouldn't be surprised if Harrison has a tooth tomorrow." I kind of dismissed that because I have been thinking that for the past four months. Sure enough, the next morning, I rubbed his gums, and there was a dagger just beneath the gum. I couldn't believe my mom was right. I guess that has to happen every now and then. I was really excited to see his tooth, so I thought the next day would bring a little white tooth. Not true...the tooth under the gum, just got sharper. I guess I just thought that it would spring up in the middle of the night and be a full-fledged tooth the next day (sort of like a zit). No dice. Anyway, just over a week has passed and I can actually see two little white teeth. They are still barely out of the gum, but I am so excited to see them. It certainly helps to explain a lot of irritability in my sweet boy.

On another note, we discovered while we were in Charleston that Harrison loves corn on the cob. We made Frogmore Stew for some of our friends in Colorado a couple of days ago and we have a lot of leftover corn. Adam and I would never eat all of it, but Harrison will, certainly do a number to it. It takes him about 30 minutes to lick it clean. It is rather impressive, and messy. Notice the corn in Harrison's neck in the pictures.