Water water everywhere

For many years B.A. (before Ashton), Jason and I frequently passed by the Beaver Brook Reservation Spray Deck just down the road. It's a combination playground/picnic area/cool off zone for all the annoying kids within a 5 mile radius. They run around shrieking and screaming. They get hopped up on the sugar from the popsicles their parents buy them at the ice cream truck. They spray totally innocent bystanders with Spongebob water guns. And then they wail when their exhausted moms and dads drag them out by their sticky, damp little hands. In general, a non-parent's worst nightmare. It looks like this:

Kudos to the ones that know they're in for a long afternoon and bring their own chairs. Anyway, this past Sunday, for the first time ever...we joined them. It was a beautiful day, we packed our lunch, and Grandma, Grandpa, Jason, Ashton and I took a walk down there to check it out. Ashton's expression as we arrived on scene:

As you can clearly see, he's spellbound by the little girls in their ruffly bathing suits. When he came to his senses, he was a bit cross with me for making him wear such a dopey sunhat. I wanted to tell him he had bigger problems (hellooo, shrinkage) but didn't want to discourage him from going in the water in case he hadn't thought of that.

With Dad's help, getting the lay of the land:

He didn't actually look that relieved when we told him there were no sharks.

But, in he went. Talk about putting Shrimps class to good use! That water must have been nearly a quarter of an inch deep ;)

He had me take a few headshots just in case Baywatch calls:

Why would he waste such rugged good looks on eTrade?

After that, it was total amateur hour. On my part, not his. First of all, I didn't think he'd get that wet. I honestly anticipated dipping his toes in and that's it, which is why he had a tshirt on and not a rash guard, and a standard diaper vs. a swimmie. He didn't have proper sunscreen, and I had to dry him off in a baby blanket because I hadn't brought a real towel.

I'm smiling because I hadn't figured out what Ashton already knew: horror upon horrors, I didn't have a change of clothes for him! I did have a dry diaper so that's basically all he wore home. He's like, "Great, thanks Mom."

I bought him a Bomb Pop from the ice cream truck to try and make amends for my lack of foresight. No dice. He was still in his skivvies saying goodbye to Grandma thirty minutes later.

Ashton barely spoke to me the rest of the day. I'll never live this down. Looks like I'm going to have to take notes from the other parents at the spray deck. Perhaps a Spongebob water gun is in my future after all. Whoever said bribery will get you nowhere, we'll see about that!

Double Digits

Last Sunday, June 3rd, Ashton hit his 10 month birthday! He now weighs 22 lbs 5 oz, and we are squeezing his little tush into the last of our size 3 diapers before moving on to size 4. I am buying pretty much all 12-18 month clothes, not surprising considering how much this baby eats! He still nurses three times a day, plus an 8 oz bedtime bottle, plus breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus snacks. Oy. [Note to self: buy stock in Cheerios.] I am having a lot of fun with him with food. Being careful of his allergies, I like to give him tastes of whatever it is that I am having. I gave him a spoonful of my key lime italian ice the other day, you can imagine between the cold and the tart how tightly his little face puckered up haha. I died laughing.

Mobility wise he is still not doing the up-on-all-fours crawling; I honestly wonder if his version of crawling is pulling himself army-style across the floor. He can go from his back to his front to sitting up to rolling over...he's all over the place, I'm tired just watching him. He is also starting to try and pull himself up on things- we had to drop his crib all the way down yesterday. We have been walking in to find him sitting there with his hands on the rails trying to stand with an "I'm outta here" expression on his face. We set him back considerably by lowering the mattress.

And the curiosity! Anything he is not supposed to have, he wants. Cords, plants, remotes, phones, vacuum hoses, Tate's stuff, etc. I'm still in denial and haven't babyproofed yet, although I have broached a subject with Jason that I swore I never would: taking down the dining room table and turning that room into a *gasp*... play area. I can gate him in, get some more mats and toys...voila. I'm generally horrified by this thought because I don't do well with messiness or things strewn about. But, I've just about swallowed the very large "it's not about me anymore" pill and I feel like if Ashton would like it, I should do it. In the meantime, I actually have more fun than I should by taking a whisk or basting bulb and putting it on the floor some distance away and making him crawl for it. I also sometimes leave him on the rug in the nursery, walk to the kitchen and call his name for him to follow me. He does :) My little puppy.

General adventures this month, besides his first Mother's Day and his new car, include but are not limited to:

Meeting his uncle Erik for the first time!

Seeing some animals at Drumlin Farm - this is an unfortunate angle but there you have it

We also met the piglets, cows, sheep and chickens. 

Lots of playing! A date with his little friend Brooklynn.

So cute. Until things went south...

Oh dear. Ashton got a good-sized lecture on the way home about how to treat the ladies. 

We visited the ball pit at Knucklebones

And did some general exploration around the house

He likes to end his day with a drive after dinner so we've done LOTS of loops around the neighborhood - again with the oh-so-cool arm drape!

What else? Oh, now when he goes out to restaurants, he sits at the table in his highchair like a big boy

He loves to be the one to walk Tate

Some quality man time:

And lastly, general 10 month cuteness.

I think this shirt might be too small ;) Hope this post gave everyone their picture fix for awhile!

Left right left

After the resurrection of Tate's water bowl, Ashton wasn't allowed near it for quite some time. Right before bed tonight though I let him go for it. Tate stood a couple feet away and watched nervously the whole time. Ashton was more concerned with getting each hand equally wet. He dipped his left, then right, then left, then right over and over again. The original video of him doing this is two minutes long! In an effort to make a long story short (and keep my readers), here is the abridged version.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Pardon the interruption

Excuse me. You can add "hacked into my mom's blogger account" to my list of sins but I have had it. HAD IT. Now, just because I am the family dog (Tate, as if I have to introduce myself) DOES NOT MEAN that I will tolerate such outward disrespect. In the past however many months since the worst day of my life (August 3rd, 2011), I have put up with a lot. A certain someone's tiny little fist just loooooves to grab my fur and pull. And thinks my ears are funny. And finds my tail irresistible. I usually politely leave the room whenever he is around because things usually just don't end well for me. But this time, THIS TIME, I am taking action. My most precious possession, the vehicle for my happiest times...well, it's been desecrated. Fallen into the hands of the enemy. My mom and dad told me I was crazy. "Tate," they said, "Ashton has so many toys, why would he be interested in your food bowl?" I kept insisting that he was, he WAS! And they didn't believe me when I described how, when he managed to get ahold of it, he would [gasp] grab it, shake it, spin it...almost unmentionable acts of cruelty. He just wouldn't leave it alone. See? He's just waiting for me to finish.

Like a predator stalking its prey. But what did my mom and dad do? They sent me to therapy. Here is the drawing that resulted from the "When Ashton took your food bowl, how did that make you feel?" question:

I began to think I deserved this. I have gotten my toys mixed up with his and maybe I have licked spit up from the floor. Does that make me bad? On the flip side, I have endured the noxious fumes coming from the Diaper Genie for ten months! Can no one else smell that? That deserves a medal all on its own, living with that thing. My sacrifices have gone completely unnoticed.

But today, I finally got the footage I have been waiting for. Proof that he goes after it. In a sneak attack, he goes after MY food bowl! Just watch!

What you can't see, because I had to stop taping and avert my eyes, is that he leaves my food bowl and goes after my water dish. My water dish, resting so innocently nearby. That was just a massacre. May it rest in peace.

When Ashton was a bump

A few days ago Jason and I went to AT&T and finally upgraded his old cracked phone to an iPhone 4S (or, as I like to say, 4SSSSSSSSSS. They are so fancy I feel that they deserve the extra SSSSSSS). Despite having two iPods, two iPhones, and a Mac desktop, we, uh, don't have the cloud set up or any back up going on either. Nothing is synced or used to its fullest potential whatsoever. At all. It's like we have two pieces of bread, some tomato, lettuce and bacon; you could eat everything separately I guess, but isn't it better if you make a BLT?  So, "make a figurative sandwich out of our Apple products" is on the project list. In the meantime, Jason finally took the thousands of pictures off of his old iPhone and imported them into iPhoto. I admit I had a pretty good time flipping through them tonight, the whole roll goes back to July 2010 and a lot has happened since then. I came to my first "belly shot" when I found out I was pregnant and realized I had never put the whole series together! Granted, we missed a week here and there and, depending on my outfit, I looked more or less pregnant compared to the one before it or after it, but I thought it would be fun to post what Ashton looked like when he was just a bump :)

39 weeks and the last one...

Oof. I am uncomfortable all over again just looking at those last few. Anyway, I wonder what other fun posts I can come up with by mining some of Jason's photos...we shall see!