A Few of Our Favorite Things...

With 4 first-time grandparents, Dash received his fair share of first birthday presents. His favorite, hands-down, is his toy house. He has spent 50% of his awake time in the past week going in and out of the door, moving his stuffed animals in, throwing them out the window and repeating the game. He also loves riding in his wagon while listening to his iPod. (Note: when purchasing electronic toys, which I try to limit, but couldn't resist since Dash loves Mr. Incredible's iPod so much, check the VOLUME...the iPod has Very Loud and Extremely Loud). He also loves his new book with mirrors in it. With the addition of measuring cups, shape sorter, keyboard, lots of books and balls, and a whole wide world of dirt, rocks, bark and twigs, we can easily entertain ourselves all day long.

Next on the toy list is to invest in some wooden puzzles. But for now Dash is happy playing with the ones at the library, and it helps me chase him down the aisles as he leaves a trail of wooden puzzle pieces behind.

The One Who Makes the Noise

Our Church has a "Birthday Blessing" for all who are celebrating their birthday's during a given week at the end of Sunday masses. Dash eagerly went up to receive his recently. After Mass, our priest, who is a missionary from another country, came up to Dash to wish him a Happy First Birthday. Then he added to Mr. Incredible, "He is the one who makes the noise at daily mass." When he saw my mortified look, which easily translates between cultures, he added, "I like the noise." Well, good to know. We are blessed to have two priests who are very encouraging of small children at mass, despite the occasional babbling.

While he does make lots of sounds and noises, Dash has not yet said his first word (at least that we have fully understood, although sometimes he seems to be speaking in complete sentences to himself). He does comprehend an amazing amount. Some of our favorite words that he understands and responds to are:

Bathtime--Followed by Dash getting his towel from the Pack'n'play, putting it on the ground and sitting on it until Mr. Incredible gets him for his bath.
Upstairs--Dash runs to the gate and pulls on it.
Fishy--He will be happy to hand you fish in a variety of colors and shapes, which he can distinguish between a...
Ducky, a Puppy and a Seal.
Book--Dash gets his favorite...right now almost always "A Christmas ABC."
Donkey--He attacks his giant donkey on command!
Nose--He will point to his nose, though occasionally misses and pokes himself in the eye.
Also...Binky, Blankie, Milk, Hungry, Sippy, House, Cookie (courtesy of Momo), etc.
And whenever he hears car keys he starts off in a panicked run to find Mommy to make sure he is not being left behind! How could I leave such an adorable little guy! For one thing....it would be too quiet!

Dash has a little...

BROTHER!!

We are not quite ready to disclose his name, but he is very cute! He appears to have a completely different personality than Dash already. He was very mellow...I thought he was asleep until he lazily started waving at us. Dash, on the other hand, was literally boucing off the walls so that it took forever to find or measure anything, and he has been in constant motion ever since.

On another note, I have only just realized that wonderful people have been leaving comments on the blog, but that I had it set up so that I had to moderate them. In discovering this, I may have deleted some of the comments. I will have Mr. Incredible get it set up better later. I didn't want blogging to take up a lot of time, so I guess I never learned any of the details. Sorry if I never responded to your encouraging and often very wise comments!

One Year Stats

Height: 31 inches
Weight: 24lbs, 15oz

We are missing mass today since Dash is taking a super-long nap after his shots...and he thought being one just meant cake and presents!

I was asked by both the nurse and doctor where Dash gets his height from! But at least we know which side of the family he gets his carpentry skills from...

Dash is 1!!!

Pictures of the cake destruction!!!

Home cooking

I've been meaning to share with friends one of our best money saving tricks of the last few months. I have been making our yougurt with a Salton Yougurt Maker. It costs almost exactly one half of buying yougurt in cartons (the big ones). It is super-simple, just heat, stir and leave for 5-6 hours. I buy organic whole milk and it looks and tastes just like Stonyfield Farms Yogurt. The Salton Yougurt maker cost under $20 with shipping. My only regret is that the more expensive ones like Yogourmet can make twice as much at one time. Dash goes through a quart about every 6 days. I usually mix it with spinach or brocolli and do not add any sweetener. It is quite sour, but he likes the taste. But it is very easy to make a milder tasting yougurt by leaving it for less time, maybe 4 hours instead of 6.

I failed to submit any photos of our kitchen to the Fair of Simple Elegance because I made homemade pasta this weekend and our kitchen was covered in flour. It was the first time I had used our pasta maker to make pasta, which just proves that there are many uses for everything.

Next on the homecooking front...I suspect I will be baking some loaves of whole wheat bread after my birthday next week (and maybe even getting a "pea in the pod" massage!)

Establishing Pegs

Yesterday was the day during which I had planned to start thinking about establishing pegs. With an almost one year old and another baby due in January, we are hardly juggling lots of schedules, schoolwork, etc. that so many moms do every day. But I guess it is never to early to start thinking and experimenting and will help me organize my time better. However, trips to two doctors (one planned, one not) left me far short of my goal. After driving almost an hour for little baby and mommys' check-up, sweet Dash fell asleep on the ride home. Thus, Nap # 1 was not good, so we had a fussy afternoon.

Nap # 2 was interrupted by a feverish screaming fit with sweating and shaking for the 2nd time in 24 hours, which prompted doctor visit #2 after the nurse on the phone told me to bring Dash in asap. When it is 4:40, it and it takes 15 minutes to get to the pediatrician with no traffic (they close at 5), you leave the house in a rush, realizing only at the very last second that your son has no pants on. Since we were the last ones there, Dash had the run of the waiting room, an occasion of which he took full advantage, only pausing from running briefly to look at the fish.

So my pegs so far consist of:
Classical music at breakfast time (how often does your day get derailed by breakfast?), which Dash enjoys. If he's on the ground, he starts dancing the second I pick up the ipod, even before I get it to the speakers and turn it on. Very amusing and everyone needs something to put a smile on their face in the early morning.

Nature/outdoor time immediately after breakfast. The timing is mostly because of the heat...we try to be inside my 9ish. We go for a walk or jog to a park and I set Dash loose to explore (within reason, as in we cannot follow the ducks into the pond). He likes to sort through the mulch and rocks and pick out a piece to hold in his hand for the duration of our visit. If we are lucky (like today!) we see a puppy and if they have a nice owner (like today!) they interrupt their walk to let Dash pet and giggle and pet their doggy some more.

Reading before nap times. This ensures two good chunks of reading at a time when the constantly moving, never settled Dash has at least slowed down to something below the speed of light. I also give him his blankie to settle him down a bit and we read in his room. We read many other times during the day, but these are our "scheduled" times.

Prayer before nap times. We say three Hail Mary's before Dash's naps, and then mommy rocks him for just a few minutes in the dark to calm him down. This is obviously a natural time for Mommy in the dark snuggled with her baby boy to have two minutes of prayer, but I sometimes need the reminder so as to not being going over the lists of things-I-want-to-get-done-while-Dash-is-napping in my head.

Time for preschool?

With so many wonderful posts from Catholic mom bloggers about schooling little ones, I can't wait to start doing preschool activities with Dash. (I also attribute this surge in motivation to reading Elizabeth Foss' book Real Learning and a second trimester energy boost.) Given that Dash turns one in a few weeks, we may have to hold off on sandpaper letters and cuisenaire rods, but this Mom fully intends to have a diligent school year.

My plan is to maintain two binders (or "notebooks"). One is for the Liturgical Year. And as we go through the coming months, I hope to include thoughts, craft and recipie ideas for Feast Days that are important to our family that we want to highlight and celebrate. There are tons of resources to help plan unit studies for vaious liturgical seasons, which will be helpful, as well as blogging moms who share their craft projects and recipies on-line. I want to create an easy reference manual so that I can find and use/implement these ideas when the time comes.

The second binder is to contain cirriculum ideas and resources for everything from nature study to art to math and science. I have stared taking notes from the books I am reading from the library so that I can glean ideas and resources without having to buy tons of books.

What is a Spray Ground?

Here is your answer:
Dash (with blue hat and green spf shirt) is heading for the big water buckets....