Bye, Bye, Baby...

Shortly after River was born I signed up at babycenter.com after talking to other moms about some of the benefits. One of my favorite features is that weekly you receive emails with articles and activity suggestions appropriate for your baby's age. Each week the email is titled with your baby's age. Up until the week before River's first birthday this was the title for each weekly email, "My Baby This Week - Your 'A'-month-old: Week 'B'." However, on River's Birthday, the days of "My Baby" ended... Now they arrive with a new title, "My Toddler This Week - Your 1-year-old." For some reason this hit me much harder than I expected. Yes, I know my son is a year old now but I wasn't ready to start calling him a toddler! He still isn't toddling around yet and if things continue the way they are now he probably won't be for another month or two. babycenter recognizes the stress this may cause and states:

"Many view the first birthday as the toddler turning point. Others consider your baby a toddler as soon as he starts walking — or, as the case may be, taking his first tentative steps. However and whenever he crosses the line into toddlerhood, it's a bittersweet transition — you miss your little baby even as you delight in your amazing child."

Perhaps to prove he is growing out of the baby phase and asserting his independence River has taken on a pretty interesting new... um... "habit." River has always had amazing bladder control and as a result he has spent quite a significant amount of time nude after his morning diaper is removed or after his bath at night. Perhaps as a result of watching Cory often enough when he goes to the bathroom, River has taken to peeing whenever he is standing up! And yes it is only when he is standing up and has something to pee against that he lets fly. The first time he peed while standing up on a chair. I assumed that it was an accident, cleaned it up and didn't think anything about it until a couple days later after his nightly bath. He pulled himself up into the standing position on the outside of the tub, looked very purposely at me with a mischievous grin and promptly began to pee on the tile! A few days ago after a diaper change he wriggled out of my grasp and headed strait for the screen door. He pulled himself up to a standing position, stared out into the neighborhood beyond and relieved himself. He looked down several times perhaps checking out his wiz trajectory? Ah, good times, good times.

A touching Birthday story

Wouldn't you know all three of us ended up sick this weekend! Even though this is a big day for River, his very first birthday, we are all still nursing ourselves back to health. I wanted to have a big blog event to celebrate but the need to rest and maintain basic order around our house has limited the amount of time I have had over the past few days. So, I will keep it simple for now and share a very touching story from our adventures today.

On our way to the mall to let River climb to his heart's content in the children's play area we stopped at the ARC Thrift Store because Cory needed to get some work pants. While browsing through their children's Halloween costume section a very cute little old lady came up and started talking to River. He was very responsive and full of smiles for her. During our conversation with her I mentioned that it was his first birthday. She then asked if she could give him a dollar to help celebrate. She said she didn't have any great grandchildren yet and her grandsons were all grown. She was also very impressed with how interactive and happy he was to talk to her.

Cory and I were both touched by this act of kindness from a complete stranger. Initially I had planned on putting the dollar in the savings account we are going to start for him with the money he received from Gigi Holladay and Papa Lynne (my grandparents on my dad's side) but Cory had the idea (and so did my Mom) to instead put the dollar in his baby book along with the story of the cute little old lady who was so impressed with him on his first birthday that she wanted to celebrate with him, too!

More pictures to come but in the mean time here are my two favorite.

Playing in the play area in the mall.

Seriously, how can you not laugh hysterically at this picture? Kudos to Cory for capturing this gem :)

Happy Birthday, River! You are one loved little boy. Loved by family, friends and even little old ladies at the store.

On a lighter note... Casa Bonita!

Though River's birthday is still 4 days away, we joined family last week in Denver for a big celebration of 1st birthdays for River and my niece Tessa who's first birthday was August 26th. My sister and I contemplated and debated for a month or so where to hold this momentous occasion and in the end only one place made the cut. None other than the infamous Casa Bonita. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Casa Bonita, it is a true Denver landmark. It is a very large entertainment style Mexican restaurant with a 3 story waterfall that cliff divers jump from and where they have little skits every 30 minutes or so. The skits always center around Black Bart the outlaw or a gorilla that always manages to outsmart its trainer. Generally in either skit SOMEONE ends up falling into the pool at the bottom of the waterfall. Here is a really bad picture of the gorilla skit we watched just before we left.

I tried several times with the flash on our camera but the lighting on the little stage conflicted with the flash. It may be difficult to tell but the trainer is in the middle, his assistant is on the left with the blonde curly wig and the gorilla is on the right in swim trunks. In this particular skit the assisstant ended up in the water and proceeded to splash all of the onlookers. That was until my mom scolded her! Oh my, did my sister and I get a good laugh out of that one!

In addition, there is a live mariachi band to create atmosphere. There are arcades, puppet shows, magic shows, a place where you can get your old time photo taken, and my personal favorite Black Bart's Cave which is a "haunted cave" you walk through. It is quite an eventful restaurant and growing up in Metro Denver it is inevitable that you will have at least ONE birthday party here! Some people love it, some people hate it but you can't deny the impact of the place. It even has an entire episode of South Park dedicated to its glory. (click here if interested in watching the episode)

Here are the pictures of The Official Casa Bonita Birthday Party Experience.

Standing in line to get our food
(Mimi, River, Tessa, Kristen)

You don't go for the food... except for the sopapillas
(Me, River, Shawn, Papa)

1st Birthday Party, 1st sopapilla... not so much of a fan
(Cory and River)

One.Happy.Family
(Cory, River, Me)

River opening his presents
(Mimi, Gigi, River, Me, Kennedy)

Tessa's turn :)
(Jenny, Tessa, Abby)

River's new truck
(River, Mimi)

I want to jump off the cliff now!
(Cory, River)

One.Loved.Little.Boy
(Kennedy, River, Collin, Abby)

To illustrate the exhaustion that comes after an over stimulating, fun night with family, sopapillas, gorillas, and Black Bart, here is the first thing River did when we got home. I wish I would have snapped the picture in time to catch him with his thumb in his mouth!

In the Casa Bonita episode of South Park Cartman convinces his friend Butters that the world has been destroyed by a commet and that canibal zombies now roam the earth just to keep him hidden in a bomb shelter so that he can go to Casa Bonita for Kyle's birthday instead of Butters. Butters' parents are a mess, the community is in upheaval and Cartman almost gets away with it. In the end the police chase Cartman through Casa Bonita while he does everything he had been dreaming of... eating sopapillas, watching the cliff divers, getting his old time picture taken, going to the puppet show and going through Black Bart's Cave. When they finally catch him one of the officers asks him if all of the trouble he had caused was worth it. Cartman's response? "Totally."

Plan B

Hoping to apply some pressure (and a whole lotta guilt) on our lawyer I called him up during one of my more emotional moments yesterday. I gave him an ultimatum complete with tears. I laid everything out for him in my emotionally constricted voice hoping that tugging at his heart strings may be an effective motivational tool.

I hoped above all hopes that I would receive a call from him first thing this morning. When I didn't, I called him again leaving a message this time taking the "we are on a team how should we tackle this?" approach instead of a tearfilled one. I will continue to bother him every few hours through the end of tomorrow. If I have not heard from him by then I will fill the forms out and submit them on my own.

Thank you for all of the comments of support in my previous post!! And if you don't mind, please keep all of the prayers and positive thoughts coming as I am afraid it is going to take a miracle to pull this off :)

Frustrated, exhausted, jealous, upset, you name it, I'm feeling it...

A couple of weeks ago we hit "The Zone" in our adoption process. We FINALLY got a hold of the right people in the County we live in to answer our questions on home studies, FBI fingerprint background checks and all other items remaining to be addressed in our adoption process. Our lawyer was available on the phone, responding in a timely manner and actually following through with what he said he would do. We received the wonderful news that we wouldn't have to complete a home study unless requested by the judge saving us lots of money and time. We sent off our fingerprints to the FBI and sent in our pertinent information to the Colorado Department of Human Services for another background check. To top it all off our lawyer indicated that he could submit our petition THAT WEEK because the results of the remaining background checks could be submitted separately. I was cautious yet ecstatic over the prospect of finally being able to get things moving.

Unfortunately, the following week "The Zone" kicked us back into that no mans land of adoption purgatory. Our lawyer never sent me the confirmation email indicating that he had filed the petition and he has not returned my phone calls in almost 2 weeks. Then, when I called to check on the status of our CDHS background checks I was told it would probably be 4 weeks before they would be completed. This after being told by our lawyer that the process should take a week at most.

Our guardianship expires on River's birthday and that only leaves us 4 business days to get the petition submitted. We have felt the pressure heavily this week. Our emotions are raw from the waiting and not knowing. Just this week our friend's finalized the adoption of their son who was born in February. Today they were able to have him blessed in church. We've been waiting for the day that we could officially call River our own since February 2, 2008 the day Angie asked us to adopt him. It seems now like we've been stuck in this no man's land forever waiting with our faces pressed up against the glass separating us from that wonderful land of green grass, bunnies, puppy dogs, and finalized adoptions.

As my friend Lori and I often say when exhibiting frustration in writing, "a;lskdjfalskdjflaskdjf laskdalksdjf alskdjf laskdjf asldkjfalskdjfalskdjf!"

Parenting Humble Pie

I once read in one of those funny emails you send to fellow parents about the joy, exasperation and never ending slew of surprises of parenthood that you should get all of the judgement of other people's parenting skills out of your system before you have kids because once you have them you will inevitably fall into the same trap as those you judge. This hit me because I know I have been guilty of this from time to time. Case in point: I always looked down on parents who would carry their children around without shoes in public. I considered it a sure sign of neglectful parenting verging on trashiness. I will NEVER do this I had convinced myself.

Then along came my beautiful, happy, all around PERFECT son, River. And of course from day one it was obvious that the kid had ginormous feet! And by big I don't mean really long, but wide and thick. You know those cute little tiny shoes you can buy for newborns? The ones that are so tiny you can't help but say "Awww" when you look at them? Yeah, those may have fit his feet a month or two prior to his birth while he was still in utero but "out utero" there was no way. Over the winter we relied heavily on socks (generally for ages at least 6 months older than he was) and slippers. But once spring and summer hit is was too hot for either of those and if we even dared try they would promptly be removed somehow by the wearer. We tried sandals because they had more give to accommodate the width of River's feet while providing more air for those little pups to breathe. But again, it was next to impossible to keep them on. He loved to chew on them and they fell off easily even when not provoked. We've tried cute shoes that seem to have flexibility but alas the size we have to buy to accommodate the width and breadth of his foot ends up almost twice the length of his foot making it look like he has clown shoes on. And so, with my head hung in shame I gave up on any form of footwear and let my child go barefoot. At home, at his nanny's and yes, even in public. I learned that day that sometimes, when the weather is appropriate, there are valid reasons why babies must go barefoot even in public. And when they do it is not a sign of neglectful parenting but a sign that, like me, their parents have resigned themselves to the reality that shoes are not always practical.

On occasions when I see "shoed" babies River's age or younger I get that pang of regret that I cannot do the same for my son. But mostly I have grown so accustomed to my nude footed son that I think it is really cute and give fellow parents of barefooted babies an extra big smile because perhaps they are feeling as self concious as I...