Life of Wilder: Week Nineteen

Wearing his MS State onesie in honor of Super 

Bulldog Weekend going on in Starkville this weekend...

Wish we could be there! Go Bulldogs!

(And thanks, Amanda, for the cute onesie!)

This week has been fairly busy for us. Wilder is still teething pretty hard but it seems to help take his mind off of it when we get out of the house. On Saturday we took him out to eat with us for the first time in a couple of months. It was easier when he was just a few weeks old because he would sleep through the whole meal; but now that he's more alert and active we have to gulp down bites of food between bouncing him on our laps/making faces at him/giving him the paci/giving him Sophie/giving him toys/wiping spit-up, etc. I can't imagine what it will be like when he starts being mobile and talking, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. After lunch we took him to the beach for the first time. We just stayed about half an hour because it was sort of a last-minute thing and we didn't have chairs/towels or anything. Plus, even though I put sunscreen on him, he's so fair-skinned I'm super paranoid about him burning. We went to the Ocean Beach dog beach and he loved watching all the dogs run around. It was fun to do something different and the smell of the ocean and the feel of sand between our toes banished the bad memories of the Tooth Monster for a while. 

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Sunday we went to a friend's barbeque and got to hang out with some of Paul's school friends. It felt good to socialize and talk to people who can talk back and Wilder had fun watching everyone as usual. 

Someone brought mini-hamburgers to grill

that were just Wilder's size, haha :)

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On Monday Wilder and I finally made it to Gymboree and, let me tell you, the boy loved it. I thought he might be overwhelmed by everything going on. To be honest, I kind of was a little bit -- I mean there's so much singing and clapping and puppeteering. But Wilder absolutely ate it up. He laid there really paying attention to everything and kicking his legs the whole time. He was so excited to see the other babies. We sat in a circle with the babies on their backs in front of us facing us but Wilder kept trying to roll over and look at everybody else. I think it will be really good for him so I signed up for a month and will probably keep going back after that. The only bad thing was that he was so jacked up afterwards that he was pretty much a little hellion all afternoon and, even though I know he was worn out, he refused to take a nap the rest of the day. In a totally inappropriate but hilarious analogy Paul said Gymboree is like meth for babies. It so is! I think he was just overstimulated and he'll calm down once he gets used to going (hopefully). Oh, and, if you recall the hippie baby names from my Mommy and Me yoga class, there was one in the Gymboree class that definitely beat out all of those: Sunset. Hahaha, wow. 

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On Wednesday I took Wilder and the dogs to the dog park and saw the girl we met a couple of weeks ago there. The dogs love when we meet up with her because we end up staying for like an hour and a half. It's nice to get some one-on-one time with another mom my age and we seem to have a lot in common. One of the movie theaters in town does a Mommy Movie Morning on Thursdays where they show a current movie, provide changing stations and stroller parking, and everyone there has a baby with them so it's not a big deal if they cry. My dog park friend and I made plans to go next week -- I'm so excited I have a mom friend out here finally! :)

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I joined a moms meetup group like a month ago but so far all of their meetups have been more focused on activities for older kids. Finally this week they set up a play group at Liberty Station and I saw that several moms with babies were going so I decided to check it out. Even though it was a little overcast and chilly, Wilder and I had a great time. The other moms were so nice and all of the babies were at least a couple months older than Wilder so he was fascinated watching them crawl and toddle around. 

We hung out on blankets next to the playground at first and after about an hour he started getting a little antsy. I was about to call it a day but some of the moms had drifted toward the swingset so I decided to see if Wilder would like to swing. "Like it" turned out to be quite an understatement. Oh. My. Gosh. He was in heaven. By the first push his cranky, I-need-a-nap and Oh-yeah-I-just-remembered-I'm-teething mood did a 180 and he looked like what I imagine the first people who rode in a car must have looked like. His face said, "What is this glorious contraption? I'm never getting out of it!" He stayed in there happily for 30 minutes kicking his legs, watching the ground rush by underneath him, and smiling so big. To tell you the truth, I was actually a little afraid of the consequences when I finally had to take him out to go home but he was in such a good mood by then he complied nicely. He loved everything about it and it was amazing and so so fun to watch him experience that for the first time. 

And yes, I took about 57 pictures and a video because it was the cutest thing I've ever seen (this week) and, hello, I have to document all of his firsts. 

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So last week I talked about how badly Wilder wants to move himself. He's been doing the swimming motion and pushing up on his arms for a while and now this week he's been pushing up on his legs (see picture below) but he just can't get the movements coordinated together for transportation purposes. I think it's really frustrating to him and, I don't know for sure, but I think that is the cause of the new noise he's been making. Every so often for the past week he's been making this awful, gravelly/screachy, pterodactyl-ish sound that scared the crap out of me at first. It sounds like he's dying or being tortured but his face is totally normal while he's doing it so, even though I hate to laugh at his vexation, it's actually kind of hilarious. It's even funnier because Posey is super-sensitive and she gets so concerned about him when he does it but she can't decide how to react to it -- half the time she goes off and hides and the other half she feels compelled to stick close by and support him in his crazy baby rantings. 

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Now that I've made your ears bleed with that clip, here's a sweet one of Paul making him laugh. We've sooo enjoyed having Paul home on break these last two weeks and I soooooo am not looking forward to him starting back to school on Monday but hopefully the home studio he created last week will allow him to be here more because, like I've been saying and like you'll see here, Wilder absolutely adores him...

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Wilder has also started doing this other thing this week with his tongue. That's what he's doing in his 19-week picture at the top. I guess he's just discovered that it can be used to make sounds so now he constantly looks like he's trying to say something that starts with "th". It's so cute because he really concentrates hard on it. I can't wait till he finally gets out what he's trying to say, haha :) I got a video this morning but it was almost his naptime so he's a little cranky while doing it, but it's cute anyway. And yes, I have my phone halfway hidden behind the alligator in his room because as soon as he sees it he always stops whatever he's doing. This boy better not turn out to be camera-shy because I already have several hundred pictures of him and I don't plan on stopping any time soon!

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Alright guys, hope you all have a great weekend! A friend asked for my chicken salad recipe the other day and it reminded me that I hadn't posted it on here yet, so look for that in the Midweek Minute. I promise you, it is the BEST chicken salad you will ever make! Oh, and speaking of recipes, check out my sister-in-law's new blog, Chewing the Fat. She's an amazing cook and is going to be posting lots of delicious and healthy recipes.