We are finally walking

Pictures today

Here he is today sacked out with a milk sippy cup and a phone that Crazy taped shut so he could talk to his grandmother in LA. It was a warm day. This is Crazy and my makeshift bed. We ordered a new bed, however the mattress still hasn't arrived. In the meantime, this is it. Aren't we lucky?



Creepy American baby is staring at me. Can you see?


This is one after tonight's bath. Like I said, it was warm so this bath was really needed. I just love the pouty look of innocense, even though you can't see that he knocked the hall gate on the floor and was actually sitting on top of it.



New habits, he likes to throw things outside of the cage when he wants attention. Today, he threw the globe that has a "spin a wheel" function. The teachers at daycare also told us that he's one of the meanest kids in the infant room, he refuses to share. He will sometimes play with other kids, however, if they try to take his toy, he gets mad and starts to hit. She assured me it was a phase, however, this is something that Crazy and I will have to deal with. I don't like the fact that he's hitting other babies and want the behavior to stop. He gets frustrated and starts to slap me when he's in the ergo carrier and doesn't want to be, but I hold his hands and tell him NO. Somehow I think he understands it. Although he still tries to test it. Sometimes he will make a break for it and run to the dogs' water bowls, and tries to stick his hands in there. I will see him rushing there, and will immediately say "NO!", he will actually hesitate long enough for me to grab him and remove him from the situation. I told the teacher that I was sorry and that it was probably only child syndrome, Ollie doesn't have to share his toys at home, cause neither Crazy nor I have the inclination to play with his toys. She reassured me it was a phase and they were correcting him verbally when he starts the bad behavior.

Saturday traditions

So this kid refused to walk, and refused to walk. We tried everything. At daycare, they would insist he walk. They would prop him up on his feet and when he would go to his knees to crawl, they would again prop him up on his feet. So finally (I mean it was about time) he decided he could walk. I don't blame the poor kid, he's got a hefty load to balance on those little feet. That noggin of his is gargantuan, he was always bumping it on things when he was unsteady on his feet. So at 15 months Mr. Oliver is finally walking. He's quite good at it now. He's really fast also.

So today's events went a little something like this. We woke up at the crack of dawn, gave Ollie some milk which he gladly took, then I played around with him for a little bit cause he's the bestest in the morning. Seriously. His mood is seriously something to rave about in the AM. I don't know what it is, but he's always dying for interaction in the wee hours of the day. So instead of him needing to curl his little body around my head and neck, I decided to just wake up and give him my full attention. He was satisfied until he realized he was hungry and those little goldfish crackers which he loves wasn't cutting it. We gave him some beef oxtail, carrot, and potato stew/soup which he hungrily ate up. After which we quickly moved to the farmers market and grabbed some ingredients for dinners this week and got some fruit. Gotta love those ghetto summers, where fruit galore is available. YUM! Anyhow we came home and Crazy began his weekend tradition of brunch. But not just any brunch, YUMMY brunch. We had biscuits with creamed honey, vanilla rice pancakes (crepe style), pork sausage patty and turkey maple sausage. Can I say that Ollie LOVES rice pancake days? He also loves biscuits. He wasn't impressed with the pork sausage patties (but I loved them) or the turkey maple sausage. He ate and ate and ate until he couldn't eat any longer. What's strange about rice pancakes and Ollie is that this is something he will not feed the dogs. he will throw out everything else, but not the rice pancakes. I don't blame him, they are super yummy.

I've got some fun videos and pictures coming up. The not G rated ones will be special invites only, so let me know if you want to be invited (Grandma in KS and Auntie A, you will be getting yours shortly so no need to ask).

House hunting galore

Today began extremely early for us (thanks Ollie!). I will need to remember to run around the house in a bathrobe and hair curlers when you are older and have friends around.

Anyhow, we went house hunting in the most hippiest city on earth today. We saw two houses, and coincidentally they were right next to each other. How does that happen? Anyhow, one was a probate sale while the other was an REO. The probate sale was a joke, at waaaaaaay above our budget, it seriously made my day. When we entered, I noticed the front window had a bullet hole. Yessireeee....it had a bullet hole. Unfortunately my realtor did not have any humor about me pointing out the bullet hole, and strangely enough, this was a probate sale. The house was bungalow style stucco home which had a really weird layout. All the rooms were teeeny tiny and just strange. It was almost half a million dollars if you could imagine it. It didn't look like it had been updated much, however it did look extremely lived in if you know what I mean. Some genius decided to enclose the porch, however didn't include supports for the porch stairs, so the floor bowed when you walked across it. What a delightful find! With houses like this, I'd rather live in the ghetto.

The house next door was a REO, and was in our price range. That means CHEEEEEEEP! Anyhow, the porch was cute, I'd get rid of some ugly trees that were "decorative" and put some trees that at least bloomed and did fun things during different seasons. This was also a bungalow stucco style home similar to the one next door, however it was vastly different when you went inside. The porch was freshly painted and despite the heat of the day remained relatively cool. I imagined putting a bench there and sipping ice tea with Crazy and people watching. Although it was a really quiet street, if you can imagine that. We went inside and were disappointed by the carpet, although it was new. I made a mental note that paint on the front door needed to be scraped off and stain needed to be applied to it and the bars on the windows needed to be removed. The carpets needed to be removed, and the heating contraption in the middle of the floor also needed to be removed. What I loved about this place was the HUGE living space. It looked like one room was used for the living room, and open to the dining room. There was a fireplace, the windows could probably be replaced with dual paned windows...and the kitchen was a blank slate. It was a large kitchen, and off the side of the kitchen next to the back door was the washer/dryer area. I loved the layout of this place. I also LOOOOOOOVED that there was so much natural light in the place. Almost every wall had at least 1 window, sometimes more. So all the walls had windows, which gave it so much light and charm. Seriously, I LOVE windows.

It had 2 bedrooms which Ollie happily walked around in and went to every door he could find. Something about getting his little fingers caught and pinched just seemed to make him wander and find EVERY door to open and close. So when I saw him picking up his pace, I'd follow him and hold the door open with my foot. He would get mad, I mean it, MAD that I was obstructing his path to getting his fingers caught in the doorway. Sorry kid, I don't want you to get those little fingers broken and deformed, I've got plans for those fingers, and they will count lots of green one day.

Anyhow back to the story. This house had a bathroom separating the two bedrooms, and they were of similar size. Little to no closet space (geez those people seriously didn't have as much junk as we do today. Something I didn't like was the bathroom was ready to be torn out. I mean it. It was disgusting. The tiles on top of the bath tub faucet had no backing and when you tapped on them, it sounded hollow behind it. I don't know what was holding them up. In the backyard were quite a few trees. Walnuts (HUGE), apple, and lemon trees. They had two tool sheds, which I thought were kind of disgusting, but otherwise, it was totally a workable house for our little family. I told the realtor that I wanted to consider this house, but because of the crappy economy (yeah for me!), I wanted to see where it was in a month or so.

Its a bird, its a plane, its a sippy cup!

If only I had a chance to duck, however, I didn't. It was 6 am, and Ollie woke up SCREAMING and demanding to be picked up and fed. Normally we give him a bottle to give us at least 30 minutes, however, this morning was not one of them. As I was laying on the floor trying to catch the last wink of sleep (remember we are without a mattress because our new mattress is in the process of being ordered?) Anyhow, there I was minding my own business when out of nowhere a sippy cup full of milk hit me in the face. OUCH!

Ollie was hungry this morning, but he did not want milk. He wanted actual food. He was so angry we didn't get it. He didn't intend to hit me in the face with the sippy cup, that was just a side benefit. So I woke up and listened to him cry and demand something, what I didn't know. Its hard to think on your feet in the wee hours of the morning. Finally it dawned on me that he was in need of food, not milk. So Crazy got up and offered him some goldfish crackers and that was when he was finally able to shut his pie hole up. Then to give us a breather, Crazy turned on the disney channel and fell back asleep in the cage while I crawled my tired body onto the couch. Rough morning indeed.

Wut you talkin bout Willis!

Guess who was tired Friday night?

On Ollie news...he walks, but hesitantly. He is starting to imitate so we have to be extra careful about our language, cause there is nothing more embarrassing then a kid telling strangers personal stuff about their family. But Saturday night as we were on our way out to dinner Crazy began to put the dogs away. We keep them in the hallway and so we just point to the hallway and say "Go" and the dogs know to get in there. Crazy pointed to the hallway and said one simple word with Ollie in his arms, we were both shocked when Ollie pointed his fingers and pronounced the first letter of the word. Ollie pointed his finger to the hallway and shouted "Gi" right after Crazy pointed his finger to the hallway and said "Go". We repeated it a few times, however Ollie was too hungry for us to stay and film it. Sorry. He is getting into a time in his life where we don't want to take him out to have meals in nice restaurants because we are afraid to ruin the night for other people. So we choose crappy places to eat and then go home unfulfilled. The second he eats, he starts to act like a holy terror.

He's also entering the stage where he knows "NO" however decides he doesn't care and the consequences aren't bad enough to not follow with his evil little ways. I stared at him when he was about to throw a block out of his cage, I stood there with my hands on my hips, glaring down at him and sternly telling him "NO", he looked up at me, smiled, and threw it out anyway, then giggled. Little punk. So I took his pacifier out of his mouth and threw it. Yes, he's still on the pacifier. Crazy and I need a long weekend to wean Mr. Oliver out of the pacifier. Meanwhile he's growing incisors on the right side of his mouth. He as fussy for a few days, but seems better now. One night, I wanted to throw him out of the window because he couldn't get comfy and was so uncomfortable, we gave him baby tylenol, then put him back in the crib, he slept for 30 minutes and cried for 15 until we went to get him....and this continued all night long until we couldn't take it any longer and brought him to bed, where he proceeded to pound on our respective heads.

Day Trip to the Disneyland for adults

In the back of my mind I've decided to try to get photos of Oliver outside the house. This was one of the first attempts.

We went to our favorite bakery to have some dessert and the best cappuccinos this side of the hippie kingdom. Of course Ollie couldn't share our cappucino's, however he couldn't get his hands off of the apricot and pine nut tart that Crazy ordered for himself. I had the blueberry tart, which was seriously to die for. I LOVE this bakery. Don't worry Auntie A, I relished every single bite just for you. Ollie's t-shirt says "I love hugs". So funny, since he HATES it. When he was born, the doctor said that he didn't trust a quiet baby, so he did something to make Ollie cry, and wail he did, however as soon as the guy stopped, Ollie went silent. It was thoroughly enjoyable, unfortunately it was cut short by the stupid furniture delivery people who were supposed to come after 4 pm, however called at 12:00 giving us an hour's notice. Argh.

Find the kid, I dare you

This inquisitive little brat gets into EVERYTHING he shouldn't. I had to sort of "child proof" the entertainment cabinet just because he would pull all the DVD's, CDs, and random stuff we had in there. He found a new way to get into everything.

He left a ring around the tub

Disgusting isn't he?  Crazy had to scrub the tub with bleach after I gave this kid a bath.  Yuck.

Current Events

Sorry I didn't update the blog last week. It just got really busy in the casa de evil corgi. Seriously. I finished the 2007 books for that little business that I help out and in exchange we will get baby sitting. So twice a month, we will be able to get out and do the things we used to do before Ollie was born. So I'm excited, we have lots of drinking and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes show to go to. Did I say I was excited?! I'm THRILLED!

Anyhow, we've been house hunting the past 2 weekends. Its been a bit rough. We saw a piece of turd in the north part of our city and lets just say that it needed more than just a fresh coat of paint. Then we saw some buttcrack, I mean a house full of characters. What I mean by characters is that the tenant who was renting the house was a sight to behold, however I couldn't stop staring at her buttcrack which was out for all to see. I don't understand how people can walk around with their butt showing, but, I digress.

We ordered a bed that we had been staring at for years, however we were fortunate enough that it went on clearance at the store and I'm thrilled that it is in my house. We sold our bed/mattress set to a lovely family, however I only ordered the new mattress after we sold the old set....so we are without mattresses. So....we are sleeping on the floor. Can I say ouch? Seriously, we are too old to be doing this, however, here we are sleeping on the floor. We originally had purchased an aero bed, however there's a small hole in it and as we lay on the aerobed, the air slowly leaks out. By the morning, the air is completely out and our poor bodies are so sore. I don't think we will get our mattress until next week. Meanwhile please feel very sorry for us. We have a bed in the spare bedroom, also known as Oliver's room, however we would rather sleep on the floor and be extremely sore than sleep in that bed. I guarantee that bed is extra comfy, because I slept in it the entire time I was pregnant when our old bed got too hard to sleep in for my pregnant bones. However, the screaming demanding portion of Ollie waking up throughout the night and peering over to see us then demanding to be brought into bed and screaming and crying until he got picked up....then pounding our heads until want to commit suicide. It is that bad.

So lets move forward to the houses we've been looking at tonight. These are in a neighborhood close to another one that is up and coming...literally a block away. Anyhow, there were 2 houses in that area, and it just so happens they are across the street from each other. One of them is a fixer upper in the roughest of shapes, but with lots of potential. The other is across the street and in much better shape, but smaller. The only redeeming quality of the better condition house is that it has a HUGE yard with fruit trees. It has a pear tree, plum tree and orange tree. If Crazy and I purchased the house, we would plan to expand it, but properly, unlike the house across the street with the weird floor plan. It also has raspberry and blackberry vines and no backyard neighbor but a large business that was just sold to a developer. That hopefully will mean that it is up and coming. Anyhow, there's no price tag on the house yet, the realtor will represent the woman selling the house and last she heard the woman was kinda lackadaisical about selling the place even though its vacant. So we asked the realtor to ask her client how much they would sell the house for. I don't think we would pay all that much for the place considering it still needs a lot of work but its in a better neighborhood than other ghetto neighborhoods in our area.

Anyhow needless to say that I have a lot of things going through my mind right now.

Ollie Babbling

Pictures from the weekend

Friday morning breakfast of rice pancakes and turkey maple sausage. He does this weird snorting thing where he eats something, then puts his nose in the air and snorts. I think he thinks its funny. Don't mind the mess in the living room. Crazy is in the process of rearranging the books for the millionth time.



Don't you just love how they decide what they like and throw the rest on the floor?

While I was making dinner tonight, Ollie wanted to explore.


I caught him off guard.


He's been really good about not fussing when we put him down. I think somehow he understands that when its dark outside or when he's put in there at night, he needs to go to sleep. He still puts up a fuss during the day when we put him down for naps, especially when he feels that we just don't understand that he's not tired. Um....sure.

Anyhow, he still hates my food. But he's actually eating again. We went out to dinner on Friday night, and he had a really good appetite, however the second he finished, he didn't want to wait around for us to finish. Nice of this kid eh? Funny story that I told Auntie A over the phone. I ordered a cubed beef at the Chinese restaurant as one of our dishes. I gave Ollie a small piece, but I miscalculated the size of the piece. So he gummed it for a while, and refused anything I offered him until finally he was sick of trying to chew the piece of beef, he took it out of his mouth and placed it on the table. A day later we were having left overs from the dinner at the Chinese restaurant. I again gave Ollie a piece of meat a little bigger than he could handle, so he chewed and chewed until I got so tired of waiting for him to eat another bite, so I decided to go in. Well, I think he realized what I was about to do and pursed his lips together as I tried to slip my finger between his lips. I knew he would bite me so I went in through the side and fished the piece of meat out, and the second I was out he was inconsolable. He cried and cried, big crocodile tears rolled down his face as he glared at me accusingly. He refused to take another bite, and as he was sobbing for all he was worth, I snuck a spoonful of food in there. He stopped crying immediately and continued to eat as though the entire episode didn't just happen.

On development news, no walking and no talking. He babbles, and not much comes out that you can understand. We can catch when he's cursing at us, cause the babble gets really heated, however, nothing that we can understand. He's also refusing to walk, instead he only chooses to crawl. Can you imagine this?! He prefers to be held instead of wanting to walk. I've tried to coax him to walk, but he wants me to offer him both hands when he walks. His dexterity is a lot better, however still no walking on his own. All the babies in his daycare are walking, except Ollie. My friend's daughter who's also in the same daycare (who's a lot older) told me that the teachers are always holding him. I don't know how much truth there is to that, because whenever we go pick him up, he's never being held. But, we are still waiting for him to walk by himself and speak.

Happy 4th of July

We being the patriotic souls that we are did a whole lot of NOTHING. I mean it. We woke up early, ever the grouchy group, we didn't actually get out of the house until 5 pm. Meanwhile Ollie was oblivious to our grouchiness. He woke us up at 5 am, then proceeded to pound on a head, then another head and over and over again. Anyhow, I woke up and was in a funk all day. And you know what they say. When mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. Except if you are named Ollie. He was oblivious. He had pancakes and sausage for breakfast. I don't remember the rest. Anyhow, at some point, we were all so grouchy, Crazy herded us out of the house. We went to see if we could look for those 4th of July sales, however, by the time we got to the mall, everything was closed. Then we went to do a drive by. Not the ghetto type, just a house hunting type. We went to the most hippiest city on the earth and looked at a house in a probate sale. It was the crappiest house on the street.

I thought long and hard about what it would mean for us to live in the hippiest place on earth and how different our lives would be and I just can't come to terms with it. I love living in the ghetto here and I just wish we could afford to buy a house here. Its condoville here and as much as I want to, I just can't justify putting everyone in a condo if it means that we have to walk the dogs 3 times a day.

Anyhow, we went to two different open houses in a different part of our city and it was just laughable. This area was close to friends of ours who are in the beginning process of having a child. Good luck S & J. :-) Welcome to the dark side. Anyhow, back to my story. One of the houses we looked at was marketed as a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom. One of the bedrooms was the size of a small closet. It made me laugh that they could actually call it a bedroom. Seriously. The place was a total dump. The poor realtor kept trying to play it up. We just weren't in the market to care. Crazy mentioned that at least the ice cream truck would come by periodically, and it would be great because the ice cream truck had its own security bars. He's so funny, like a hole in the head type of funny.

The next house we looked at had no front or back yard. Some genius decided to pour concrete all over the place. That was a 4 bedroom 1.5 bath, they wanted half a million for it. Are they kidding me? The house smelled, and had no backyard and wasn't in a GREAT neighborhood. The realtor said, "we're open to all offers....and totally willing to negotiate..." I thought to myself, this place has absolutely no charm (age wise) and to top if off, they wanted half a million for it. This place was definitely not for me. It just made me really sad. Even though its a buyer's market, we were still too poor to afford anything.

We were originally scheduled to look at 2 homes in the hippie city today, however one of the homes was only available to be looked at on Tuesdays and Thursdays between the hours of 6-8 pm. So....we will look at both of them. The home that is in probate, our realtor said was being occupied by "stinky hippies". Its a really cute 1920s home with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. I hope its not a complete tear down, just a little bit of one. I am somewhat torn about living in this area. I LOVE it here. Unfortunately there are no homes that we can afford. The mansion next to us was sold after being on the market for 2 months. It sold for 1.3 million. I can't imagine that someone bought a mansion in the ghetto, but they did. It was a law firm that was 2 blocks away. Anyhow, house hunting so far stinks.