King of the Crib

Daniel has discovered how to stand up in his crib, so he thinks he is hot stuff now. Unfortunately, he hasn't quite figured out how to sit back down, so he just stands there, crying, until someone (me) comes into rescue him. Guess it's time to move the crib bed down another notch, just in case.

How could I ever get mad at this little face:



Helping Layne sort the dirty laundry:


Ready, set, crawl:

Danold Trump

Maybe we should do a DNA test on the little man. Could this man be Daniel's real dad?

You make the call:

Nope. Dan's way too cute to be related to The Donald!

Exersaucer update

Still no clue how he climbed out, but here's Dan, plotting his next move:

He looks so innocent. Who knew he could be so sneaky?

Behind that goofy grin and drool-covered chin lies a brilliant mind:

It's a mystery

The little man is already getting himself into sticky situations and I can't even figure out how...

When I was at work today, Layne put him in his Exersaucer in his room so she could make some breakfast in the kitchen. She heard a little thump, but just thought it was Daniel dropping a toy on the ground or something because he wasn't crying or anything. When she went downstairs to check on him, he had somehow managed to climb out of the Exersaucer and was sitting quietly on the floor beside it. I can only think that somehow he managed to get his feet up into the seat (but it's not a hard plastic seat, more of a cloth sling seat) and then he hooked his arms on the side and pulled himself out. I guess he did it slow enough so he didn't propel himself straight onto his head, which is a good thing. Who knows? Guess I need to install a Nanny Cam in his room--not to watch Layne, but to watch how Dan gets himself into predicaments.

Layne did adjust the height, so hopefully he'll stay put. For this week, anyway......

In the Exersaucer, before he knew how to escape (these are from December, right after I put it together--Daniel looks tiny!):

Great weekend!

From the fun trip to the beach yesterday to wonderful naps today to getting a start on spring cleaning, this has been a very good weekend! Sometimes the weekends are hit or miss for Daniel's naps, but today especially was very good. Which allowed me to give the master bedroom a good cleaning from top to bottom (I tackled the master bath on Friday night--exciting times!).

Daniel also got to try teething biscuits for the first time. They are delicious! Kind of like a graham cracker but not as sweet. He also tried using a sippy cup for the first time, with mixed results. Behold:



A boy and his biscuit:

Fun in the sun

Layne, Daniel and I decided that today would be the day that Daniel took his first dip in the ocean. What a lucky guy--I was 6 years old the first time I saw the ocean, and it was on a gray Atlantic day during a winter trip to Disney World. Dan got a beautiful Hawaiian spring day, with blue skies and puffy white clouds and turquoise water.

Lanikai Beach, consistently ranked one of the top beaches in the world:

The water was pretty warm, but maybe a little chilly for someone who has only known fairly warm bath water his whole life. So Dan voiced his displeasure at the temperature early on, but quickly got over it. I've found that all I have to do is start singing "Baby Beluga" and he will usually come down off the ledge. So I sang and we floated and he was okay with the whole situation. Dan'll be our little water baby before we know it!


I'm kind of obsessed with limiting his sun exposure because he already looks like he has a tan. I think he just has my coloring, but he does look pretty dark compared to most other haole (white) babies:

He was asleep in the car before I'd even gone one mile:

Everything except crawling

Daniel's been getting himself into crazy positions, leading me to believe that he is thisclose to crawling. He'll get on all fours or into a pushup position, but he won't actually go anywhere. He's so, so, so close! And he's also started to pull himself up on his keyboard toy, so maybe he'll just skip the whole crawling phase and go straight to walking. What a funny guy!




And continuing the thought from the other day, here's Dan playing with toys that are not technically toys:

Who needs toys?

I think I'm done buying toys since Daniel seems perfectly happy playing with any old thing that we have lying around. To include the nose-snot-sucker-outer thingy (that we have not used yet to suck snot out, so don't be grossed out).

In other news, Zach's car broke down today. I've had to have one or both of the cars towed on every deployment, so hopefully this was the one time for that occurrence this deployment. I was taking Daniel to get some immunizations when the low coolant light came on and the engine temperature needle started inching toward the red. I was planning on ignoring those warning signs when smoke started coming out from under the hood. Time to put on the hazards and pull over. Dan was very good, staying quiet while I googled a tow truck company, gave them a call, and figured out how the two of us were going to get home. A huge thank you to Kim T. for coming to our rescue!

Turns out that the plug or seal or something in the coolant reservoir was leaking, so all the antifreeze had leaked out. The Grand Aint will be good as new tomorrow! We will be rollin' in late 90s, Jersey style soon (that's for you, little Deirdre).

Halfway done!

Just a quick post to say that today is the halfway point of Zach's deployment! He left on December 29th, so if the deployment is 7 months long, today is the 3 1/2 month point. Very exciting! Not too much longer now....

Happy Easter

Easter Sunday started out well and then deteriorated rapidly! I usually take Daniel to early church (7:15) so we're normally home in time for a good morning nap, around 8:45 or so. But since today was Easter, I wanted to go to the main service with all the music and pageantry (and brunch!). The service started at 9:15 and we didn't get home until close to 12:30 because I had to go the grocery store afterwards. Needless to say, Daniel's nap schedule was all kinds of messed up. By my calculations, he had three 20-minute naps. Total. All day long. Not a fun day for Dan or Mommy! Back to early service next week, that's for sure.

On the plus side, he looked adorable in his little Easter outfit! It's probably a good thing Daddy is gone, because I don't think he would have let his son out of the house in this outfit. Ha! How cute would it have been if Zach was here and I could have dressed them both in matching clothes?! Next year.....




One of his 20-minute catnaps:

Our new house

Here's our realtor going through our new house in North Carolina. This isn't our exact house because ours isn't built yet, but it will be this same style. It has three bedrooms and two bathrooms, plus a deck, a big front porch, and a two-car garage. And it comes with underground sprinkling and landscaping.

We decided to move to a little town called Holly Ridge. It's about 20 minutes from Marine Corps Air Station New River, where Zach will work, and 25 minutes from Wilmington. It's also just three miles from the beach!

I'm very excited to start picking out colors and finishes and everything else. Our home should be done at the beginning of September, right when we get there. Dan's very excited to have a big yard to run around in!

Scooter McGee

If Daniel was a pilot, he would have two call signs: Wrong Way Dan or U-Turn. Why, you ask? Because right now, he can only move backwards. It's pretty funny actually--he tries so hard to crawl forward to grab a book or a toy, but he just ends up scooting backwards, moving farther away from the thing that he wants. Frustrating for him, hilarious for us!

Banana extravaganza

I've been experimenting with a lot of different foods and Daniel really seems to love bananas. So I tried to let him feed himself a banana, with mixed results, as you'll see. A very small percentage ended up in his mouth, so the floor, his high chair, his bib, and his pants got their fair share too.

Zach's new email address

Zach's now in Afghanistan and has a new email address: zachary.j.rashman@afghan.usmc.mil

If you send him something and it gets kicked back as undeliverable, try again in a few hours. It seems like their service is a little sporadic. Email is pretty much his only link with the outside world, so send him a note every now and then. Believe me, even if you think you have nothing interesting to say, he will eat it up (he wanted an hour-by-hour account of a Day in the Life of Dan, so I gave it to him--eat, sleep, play, repeat). And if you find anything interesting in the news (he's always begging for Buffalo news), cut and paste it into the body of the email because HTML links don't work too well. This is the Marine Corps that still uses donkeys to transport things, so cut them a little slack. Ha!