Bbrring! Bbrring!

Eddie's making some phone calls.


And it wears him out!!!

Watch Out!

He is coming to get you!!!

What a Week!

As of Tuesday, Eddie is mostly a walker. He doesn't crawl very often. I am kind of getting used to seeing him walking around the house, which surprises me. Walking definitely brings new challenges. His horizon has expanded, and he is into more things (like the toilet and the garbage can (pulling out, not just putting in anymore), more into the computer (which makes blogging hard), and even into the shredder (as you can see here)).


Other highlights for the week:


He loves to sweep.


He wore his first dress (I'm surprised I haven't put him in one sooner).


He loves to walk around the house with his hat on.

I will post again when I can.

First Shoes at Church

I am way behind on putting Eddie in shoes, at least according to some. Personally, I don't think kids under a year need shoes. Sure, little baby shoes are adorable; tiny things always are. Shoes make crawling and learning to walk difficult, though. So I have always abstained at putting shoes on Eddie, until this past week. Eddie is more eager to get out of my arms and crawl or walk around in public now. This has led to some pretty disgustingly dirty feet. I figured it was time for him to wear shoes when we leave the house. We bought some cute little brown shoes on Saturday, and he wore them to church yesterday. As he is fascinated with our shoes (he is always having us put our shoes on and take them off) and with his socks, he really liked wearing his new shoes. It didn't hinder his crawling at all, which surprised me. He walked a lot slower, though. When I took them off after church, I was surprised to have his feet feel warm and sweaty!

Eddie was really enjoying pushing his toy "vacuum" (I don't know why we call it that) around yesterday. He would walk with it while holding onto the furniture. I just love that he is smiling one of his really cute smiles in the photo. He is looking older and older.

Sitting on the Couch with Bear

Notice how he holds on to bear and the blanket on the couch. If you look closely, you can tell by the way his eye is crinkled and his cheek is rounded that he is smiling in the picture. He was avoiding looking at the camera. He stops smiling, looks away, and sometimes complains at me when I try to take pictures. It is getting harder and harder to capture cute things.

The picture was taken on Sunday.

Hand Covering Mouth

Lately Eddie has taken to covering his mouth with his hands for various reasons. Today he covered his mouth while he was giggling, which is what the picture is featuring. He was walking back and forth between us. When he would arrive at his destination, he would cover his mouth and laugh. He also covers his mouth, though, every time he gets hurt or upset. I used to think he must have bumped his mouth. Through watching him, though, I have realized that it doesn't matter where he fell or what he bumped. He covers his mouth and fusses.

Walking Hat

This video is going to require some set-up. Eddie is into hats lately. He likes to wear them, and he likes us to wear them. Today we were putting my hat on his head. He would then take-off to crawl around. Soon the hat would fall over his eyes, but he would keep crawling. And he would laugh as he crawled. We assume he could see well enough through the holes. Well, I took a video of it. He didn't end up crawling much in the video, so I decided to take another one. I put the hat on his head while he was standing up against the couch. Instead of crawling, though, he walked down the length of the couch. He stopped at his stuffed animals. And then (drumroll, please!) he walked to the chair! We caught his first time walking on video for you all to see (he has walked back and forth between us; he has also walked a step or two from one chair to the next. Recently he walked from the wall, which he was leaning against, to me, but this is the first time he has walked this far without us being on one end or the other.) ! And he is doing it with a hat covering his eyes. He cracks me up! Later today, he also walked around the house on his own with my hat on. The hat seems to be filled with confidence. Some people need a cane to walk; Eddie needs a hat.


I might as well post the first video I took of him crawling with the hat. You can see how he swings his head back and forth as he crawls. He isn't just doing that because he is wearing the hat. He does that almost all the time when he crawls. It does seem to be a bit much for him with the hat, though, as he falls. Don't you just wish you could hug and kiss him?!?!

"Dop! Dop!"

I was making Eddie a piece of toast. The bread was still in the toaster, but he was eager to have it. He kept pointing at the toaster, looking at me, and grunting. I told him, "Remember it has to pop. Pop! Pop!". Eddie mimicked me by saying "Dop! Dop!" He kept repeating it. I would laugh and smile, and he would say it again. I thought he would forget soon. I left the room. Upon returning, the first thing he said was "Dop! Dop!" While he was eating his toast, he said "Dop!" while pointing to the bread. We will see if he says it again tomorrow while he waits for his waffle to Pop! Pop!.

Hooray for One Year as Georgians!

I thought I would write the story of August 8, 2006. One year ago today we moved to Georgia. Eddie was two days past his one-month-old mark. We had spent the previous night at my mom's house, as all our stuff was already packed up. We got up and said quick goodbyes to my family. Then Mark, my big brother, drove us to the airport.

Okay, so I was a new mom. I had never taken Eddie anywhere besides my mom's a couple of times, Ben's mom's once, and church once (oh, and the doctor's office). I was so nervous to breastfeed him in public. For those of you who don't know, the blanket thing doesn't work too well, especially in the beginning when breastfeeding is hard for the baby and the mom (it also doesn't work later, but that is a whole different post). Right before we boarded the plane, Eddie started crying because he wanted to eat. I didn't want to feed him in the waiting area. So we got on the plane with a screaming baby.

The airplane rides actually went pretty well. Ben held the blanket while Eddie breastfed. Besides eating, Eddie slept. He slept so well, in fact, that I got uncomfortable holding so still for so long. He only fussed once, and it wasn't anything. But I worried the whole time, and I felt tired by the time we arrived in Atlanta.

I had the heaviest feeling in my stomach and throat when we got off the plane. I couldn't believe that this strange place was "home". I was already set to not like Georgia, and I was tired and emotional. I started bawling. Loud, heavy sobs. I couldn't stop. I just sat in the airport bawling with everyone looking at me.

We went outside to catch the shuttle to take us to the car rental place. It was hot and humid, and we had a lot of luggage with us. We waited for the shuttle for at least a half an hour.

The car rental place didn't have a long line, and yet it took more than an hour from when we got in the line until we were handed the keys to our car. The Nancy Grace "news" show was on. I had never seen it before. I assumed it was the local news and felt upset by the negativity. Eddie cried almost the whole time we were there. People there were commenting on his crying, and I felt uncomfortable that everyone was frustrated by him.

We drove to the hotel (we had no idea where we were going to live yet) without any problem. We were starving, so we had a pizza delivered. We ate and went to bed. Eddie wasn't so compliant. It took him a couple hours to fall asleep. Right after he settled in and I finally fell asleep, there was a loud, hard knock on the door. It was 1 a.m. We knew we were in a seedier part of town, and some scary looking people were hanging out outside the hotel. The knock freaked us out. I picked up Eddie and ran to the bathroom with the cell phone. Ben went to the door. No one ended up being there. We figure whoever it was must have realized he had gone to the wrong room. We were still scared to go back to sleep, though.

I think back on that day and can't imagine how we were brave enough to make such a big change. I look around at our home and our little family and think about all the things that have happened in our lives since we moved here, and I feel so happy and blessed. But I am glad today is August 8, 2007, instead of 2006.

First Olive Fingers

Playing in the Play Yard

Eddie never liked his play yard (new name for play pen, for those of you who don't know) until yesterday. If I would try to put him in it, he would get upset. Yesterday he asked to be put in it twice. He loved walking around, jumping up and down, and smooshing his face against the netting! He is so silly!

Friends In Deed

We babysat Eddie's two-year-old friend, Alex, all day yesterday while his mom had her baby. We have babysat him many times. Eddie is getting older, though, and it was interesting to see all the things they do together now. Here is a little list of their fun.

1. They feed each other whatever they have to eat. Eddie puts all of his crackers, for example, in Alex's mouth (one at a time), and Alex puts all of his in Eddie's mouth.

2. They follow each other around. Alex crawls around behind Eddie.

3. They make each other laugh. Eddie would straighten his legs when he was in a crawling position and look through his legs to see Alex. His feet, hands, and head would be on the ground (as if he were about to do a somersault or handstand). They would both laugh so hard at this.

4. They play games together. Usually Alex came up with them. Some of their games were dumping all the books, loading up the book basket with toys, putting toys under the couch, dancing to the electronic drum, and putting the bear in the swing and dancing.

5. They work as a team to be quite the little troublemakers. Eddie crawls to a closed door and touches it. Alex jumps up and opens the door, so they can both go in and cause a ruckus.

6. They cry together. When Alex would be in time-out, which was behind a closed door, Eddie would knock on the door and cry (Alex was crying on the other side). He would then come to me or Ben and point, wanting us to help Alex.

It was really fun to see them interacting so much. Too bad I didn't get any pictures.

Eddie loves cats!

We have a lot of cats running around the parking lot of our complex. Eddie loves them. While I was putting Eddie in his car seat yesterday, he spotted a cat sitting in one of the entryways into a section of apartments. He pointed it out and started talking about it. The cat ran away pretty quickly, but, halfway to our destination, Eddie still had his finger out (frozen in a pointing position) and was talking about that cat. As soon as we got home and parked in the same spot, Eddie pointed to the spot the cat had been (no cat was there) and began talking about that cat. Good memory.


Later that day, as we were standing outside our door, he looked across the parking lot to that same spot and saw a new cat there! He pointed it out and began talking about it! Eddie loves cats!