Happy Halloween

I could not figure out what to do with Chanc

e for Halloween but today I heard about a parade that the local roller derby girls were going to be in. It started right by the house, went around the Quarter, right past the house and back to the beginning again. It was perfect. We took all the candy Chance can not eat and I should not eat and passed it out while we walked. It was a lot of fun and Chance loved it. He was laughing and talking and bouncing to the music the whole time. He also was given a lot of candy and beads and a stuffed animal. Also lots of people took our picture because he is just so darn cute. I took lots of pictures of the parade and posted them in all our pictures to the right.

In other news. We closed on the house today. It was long and hard and now my list of things to do seems even longer. My hand hurts because I had to sign my name as well as Scott's name to everything because he is out of town and I have his power of attorney. But we can move now whichI will start packing any day now. We should be actually moving in the next three weeks. I mean with the movers and all. I will send out the new address soon. It was a long night my hand hurts from writing and my feet hurt from walking so I am going to turn in early especially since writing starts tomorrow!!!

A little slip

Today Chance had his first real accident. I am sure it is but one on a long list of accidents he will have in his life this one was not so serious. This morning I was walking out of his room with him hot on my heels when I heard a bump and then a cry. He slips and trips and slides all the time so when I turned around to find his face flat on the floor I did my best not to freak out as I walked back to him. All the while talking to him in a calm voice and telling him he would be ok and I was coming to get him. Then he looked up. He looked right at me, still crying, there was blood all on his mouth, his nose and now his hand and part of his arm. I grabbed him thinking the worst. I did not know where the blood was coming from or what had really happened. I picked him up and walked into the bathroom to get a wet cloth to clean his face and stop the bleeding. By the time I got into the bathroom Chance had stopped crying and was wiggling around like nothing had ever happened. Iwiped the blood away which had pretty much stopped on it's own. I think his new little teeth cut his lip when he slipped. He pulled away when I wiped his mouth but I think that was just because he was ready for me to stop bothering him and put him down already. He ate breakfast, lunch and dinner with no problem as well as some crackers and a bottle not to mention sucking on his pacifier so I do not think there was any real damage done. All of these pictures were taken after the fall and as you can see he seems fine. We are out on the balcony in these pictures. In the first one he is making beautiful music on the top of my compost box which is his new thing to do when out on the balcony.

National Novel Writing Month

Next month I will be participating in National Novel Writing Month. The chalange is to write 50,000 words in the month of November from 12:01 am on the 1st to 11:59pm on the 30th. I encourage you to check out the website. I will try to keep you posted on how many words I have writen as the month goes by but you can check it out for yourself here. There isn't much there yet but check back after the 1st of November. If there aren't as many posts in November you now know why. I have wanted to do this for a few years now but I finally have what I think of as 'the time' to do it.

Pumpkin Carving

Saturday night we all carved our pumpkin. Using Scott's design Chance and I scraped out the inside and then Scott carved out the face. Chance watched while I scraped. He didn't really want anything to do with the icky innerds at first but then he dumped the bowl or pumpkin guts out onto his lap. Still he wasn't too keen on getting down and dirty so after inspecting everything that was going on he would crawl away and then come back every few mintues to check on everything. In the end we have a very nice pumpkin to set on the balcony. We discovered that if we put a maglite inside the pumpkin we get a brighter light. It's also a lot safer with Chance in the house than a burning candle would be.

Pumpkin Patch

Today we went on two playdates. One was supposed to be yesterday but the weather was bad so it was rescheduled for today and so we had two playdates in the same day.

When we bought Chance's Halloween costume we thought it might be a little warm for him but with the cold weather rolling in behind all the rain we had a cuple days ago it is perfect weather for his skeleton costume. He wore his costume today to the playdates. First we went to a Pumpkin Patch at a local Church. There were a lot of people there that we knew and Chance had fun playing in the pumpkins. The people who ran the Pumpkin Patch were very nice and read our group a story. We got a little pumpkin for Chance and a big pumpkin to carve this weekend while Scott is home. Chance climbed all through the pumpkins and we took lots of pictures that you can find on Flickr by following the link to all our pictures on the right. Chance even helped pick out the pumpkin we ultimately brought home as you can see in the third and forth pictures he said that was the perfect one and we had to get it. We had just enough time between playdates to grab some lunch and head over to the park. This park is about 15 minutes form the house and is a big beautiful park called Audubon park by the Zoo of the same name and Loyola University. It is nice because it has lots of open green space as well as ponds and bridges and a junggle jim and a gold course. We just took our strollers over to a green spot, laid out our blankets and talked and let the kids play. The oldest of the group today was 18 months and the youngest 11 weeks. That is a very good age range because no one is so old that they are way over the heads of everyone else and the youngest was awake and seemed to be enjoying all the otehr ones being silly. Chance is crawling very well now and pulling up so he can hold his own well among the walkers. He even pulled up on a stroller (not our stroller) and ate some crackers that did not belong to him. The crime was caught on camera along with his friends Zachary (in blue) and Kaleb (in orange) who are both 14 months old. They were born on the same exact day. Kaleb's mom Liliann is the organizer of our group. While at the park today Chance got a couple ant bites. It is strange how I can tell the difference between his cries but I could tell something was wrong and ran over to find ants on him. I brushed them off and he got away with a couple bites on his hand and one on his leg. I put some neosporin on them and he is going to be fine. He doesn't like anything on his head no hats and no hoods, as soon as I put his little hood up to get a picture he started trying to take it off. I had to help him in the end because he was trying to pull it down over his face but I did get this one cute picture in the proccess. I know this post is full of pictures but I have one more I have to get in, Between the pumpkin patch and the park we had a long day and on the way home Chance just passed out, so here is one of him asleep in his car seat after his long day.

10 Months Old

Chance is 10 months old today. He is active and happy and I think generally a wonderful baby. The months have flown by but I have done my best to enjoy every minute of it. Chance and I have grown comfortable with each other and that makes things easier, I feel like I know him now and he is not jsut a little stranger in the house. He does such funny things who needs television, as a matter of fact we just got rid of our cable, seriously with a baby at home the only station I need is PBS.

We watch Sesame Street pretty much every day, Chance loves it. Other than that and an occational Baby Einstein we don't watch much TV. He is so active he crawls around everywhere and plays by himself a lot now. When he becomes bored with something he doesn't cry, he crawls away and finds something else to do. He also loves the bathroom so we try to keep him out of there. He recently learned that there is water in the toilet and he loves water so... enter baby gate (AKA guitar amp) We are going to upgrade to a real baby gate in the new house because this one will not work for long.

He also makes a B-line for the refridgerator any time it is open and gets upset when we don't let him play in it but he is getting over that.

He has moved to just one nap most days now but he is sleeping in between an hour and a half hour more each morning so it evens out. Somedays when he is cranky I put him down for a second nap and Baby Tad ( a frog stuffed animal that plays music and games) helps with his soft bed time music. In his efforts to always move more he has climbed up on the couch a couple times all by himself when he masters that it will be a whole other type of baby proofing. He still likes to take everything out of anything, purses, boxes, shelves it does not matter.

He is getting better at putting his rings back on the stick though. Every night before we read our books before bed we pick up all our toys. I do most of this but I am trying to teach him we pick up at the end of the day and hopefully he will get it in the future and help pick up.

Now that he has two teeth we brush his teeth every day. He first time He didn't want to let me keep the brush in his mouth but I showed him what to do on my own teeth and then he let me brush his two little teeth and his gums. He used to chew on my fingers a bit but now I have to be careful because it hurts, his little teeth are sharp.

He is a professional cruiser now, he can pull up on anything and walk all around that thing just barely holding on. Sometimes he only holds on witht eh tips of his fingers. When I try to hold his hands and let him walk though he doesn't seem to interested yet he wants to get down and crawl around. He doesn't understand what walking can offer yet.

He claps and does high fives but he doesn't wave goodbye, I think that most babies say bye to at least one parent almost every day and so they get the opportunity to learn and use the gesture a lot, but Chance sasy bye to Daddy once per week and bye to me less than that. We see the occational person to say bye to but I don't think he gets as much exposer to it as other babies. He will clap on demand I think he understands the word Clap. He will play Patty Cake with me. He also understands his name and No and Outside (I think) and Bottle. He says Dada but we still aren't 100% sure he means Scott we also think he said No once but as for a first word that we are 100% sure about that hasn't really happened yet. He responds to No most of the time.

He uses his finger and thumb to grasp thing with no problem at all and can use his sippy cup well now, he has started drinking apple juice and white grape juice and some water.

He doesn't really indicate what he wants without crying. Well, he crawls over to get what he wants instead of crying for you to get it for him but he doesn't point once he gets there if he can't reach it. So I guess that one if on the fence.

He doesn't stand alone well or take a few steps he isn't interested in walking yet. Everything else he does to some extent. I used this milestone list this time because it isn't quite so cut and dry and I like that.

In the first picture, no the car isn't moving. We are just hanging out because we were early for an appointment. These last two pictures are so cute. It's his Bad Ass outfit and pose. You can see Baby Tad in these pictures. In the beginning we likes Baby Tad more than Chance but now he helps with naps and with Diaper changes which have become a lot more pleasant with him around.

Most babies should be able to . . .
1. Stand holding on to someone or something
2. Walk holding onto furniture
3. Pull up to standing position from sitting
4. Wave goodbye
5. Crawl well
6. Use thumb and finger pincer grasp to pick things up

Some babies will probably be able to . . .
1. Say mama and dada to the right parents
2. Understand the word no but doesn’t always obey it
3. Respond to own name
4. Indicate what he or she wants with gestures other than crying
5. Stand alone momentarily

Some babies could possibly be able to . . .
1. Drink from a cup independently
2. Stand alone well
3. Play ball and patty cake
4. Walk for a step or two
5. Say one word other than mama or dada
6. Put toys or object into a container

Christmas

That's right I said it. Christmas!

It is over two months away but they are already putting decorations up in the stores. As a matter of fact I went to a store the other day and they were already taking down their Halloween stuff and marking down the price too, yeah! I have been asked what Chance wants for Christmas. Let me tell you something Chance will be one year old this Christmas the only thing he wants is your undying love and lots of cuddles. Does he need anything? He grows so fast that he almost always needs clothes, he would need 18 months and larger. Other than that I don't think he really needs anything either. He likes Elmo, just today we were in the bathroom and had left Sesame Street on in the living room, when the Elmo's World theme came on he perked up and crawled as fast as he could out of the bathroom to watch Elmo. He likes being outside and his pacifier and Mommy's cell phone too but I don't know if that will help. These pictures document the bead mess. He pulls out the bag and tips it over then pulls out all the beads one or two at a time. Then after he has a good mess going he decides to crawl around but the beads hurt against his bear knees so he has to move them out of the way so he can get through. Moving them means slinging them one at a time over his shoulder and across the room. Quickly one little pile becomes a huge mess spread out all over. But everytime you think about stopping him he gives you a killer smile (see first picture)

Sippy Cup and More

Chance is learning what the camera is for or

at least that he should ham it up in front of the camera. He is learning that when I pull out the camera he should look at it and sometimes it seems that he is trying to act funny for the camera. He is not still of the camera because he does not understand that but he does clap and smile and do funny things for the camera. Most of them are not very good pictures since he is moving so much, oh well.

He is learning to drink from his sippy cup pretty well now. He drinks juice but so far only White Grape juice he does not like apple juice even though he likes apple sauce. He also is not terribly fond of water but I am going to try to get him to drink more water in the future.

The last picture with his hands on his head is a new thing he has been doing just the last couple weeks. At first I thought he might have an ear infection because pulling at his ears would be a sign of that but as you can see form the picture he does not look like he is in any pain. He doesn't seem to do it for any reason other than for fun and yesterday he took my hands and put them on the sides of his face and laughed. He thinks it is funny. As long as he thinks it is funny he can wonder around all day like that if he wants to.

Bath after Jello

These are pictures from an after Jello bath. You can see the Jello remains still on his chest. He still really likes taking baths. He now crawls around in the bath tub after his toys. He has started pulling up on the sides which we have been trying to teach him not to do. This is a slow learning process. He is learning that his little toys fill up with water and squish out when you squeeze them. He thinks it is so funny when I squish them and then he tries to sqeeze it himself but he doesn't quite have it down yet.

This last picture is of Chance trying to climb out of the tub. I take this as a sign that he is ready to get out of the tub. So we start draining the tub and get him out.

Playdate

We went on a playdate this morning to Barnes and Noble where I used to work. Every Tuesday at 10:00am they have a storytime just for the littler kids in mind. So we went with our meetup group today. It's also fun for me because I get to see all my old friends. They read a story and then had some coloring pages. Chance didn't color he tried to empty all the crayons out of the bucket and then eat them but we had a good time anyway. He crawled around and I talked to Carly, a friend of mine. We also got a new book - we get a new book almost every week - Curious George's A,B,C's. We haven't read it yet but I think he will like it. We watch Curious George sometimes though it doesn't hold his attention very long these days. He's got too many more important things to do.

On another note: We noticed Rosco had a swollen place on his neck last week and so I set up a vet visit for today. The vet makes house calls so when he came over he told us that it is either a little infection and will go away with antibiotics or it is lymphoma and won't go away at all. We are all hoping for the former, he is on antibiotics and steriods right now and we have another vet visit next week to see if it is helping we should know by then if he is going to be ok or not. He is seven years old which is getting up in years for an English Bulldog. He is such a good dog.

J-E-L-L-O

Who doesn't love Jello? Some people might not like it but don't include Chance in that bunch. We gave him Some Jello the other night after dinner and he loved it. At first he was not sure if it was food. Should he eat it, it was squishy and jiggly. But after we showed him that yes you do eat it he started having a grand ole time. Playing and eating and playing some more. He got very very messing and even though it wasn't bath night he got a bath anyway. His hands and face were red from jello and he even got some on his leg. He had a good time though and we plan to give him some more jello again soon. The great thing about Jello is that it is sugar free so he can eat it for dessert a lot and he doesn't get overloaded on sugar. Yeah!

The Yard

I am so excited that we are going to have a yard. A place to

play and have fun. To plants things and get dirty. To B-B-Q and relax. It will be so great. We also have parking which is going to be really nice. We do not have to worry about what time of day we come home or what time of the year it is

(Mardi Gras). We do not have to worry about

parking close to the house when we have groceries or something else to carry

inside. The yard looks like it has not been mowed in a little while but there are a few great plants

already in the yard and I can not wait to clean it up. It will

be so cute. The yard is pretty big for

a house in this area. The house is on a corner. The tenent's side is on the street and our side is surrounded by the yard and has the parking. There is also a sidewalk next to the house that you can see in the first picture which I would love to take out and maybe have stepping stones instead. The bush on the left in the first picture is a Rose bush and there is another smaller one closer to the road that is hard to see in the pictures. The first picture is looking out the back door toward the road and you can see the sidewalk and part of the parking also if you walk straight down the walkway there is a people gate

in the fence so we do not have to open the big car gate everytime we walk out of the fence. In the second picture looking back toward the house you can see the palm tree on the right side. All the doors have metal screen doors which are very nice because Chance can push on them and we do not have worry about him putting a hole in them. Also this winter it is going to be nice to open the doors and not worry about bugs getting in or Chance getting out and have the nice breeze moving through the house. The third picture is of Chance standing up at the screen back door. The fourth picture is just another picture of the yard from the parking area. You can see all the bushes (can you tell I am excited about the bushes and trees?). Also the privacy fence goes all the way around. The fifth picture is of the chili pepper vine. The last picture is the walkway at the back of the house again a little over grown but a cool little place anyway. At the end of the walkway there is another gate that is hard to

see in the picture. Also the tenent side has a backdoor that opens onto this walkway down on the end next to the gate.

The House

We went for the inspection today at the new house which turned out very good.

There is no structural problems and only a few little things they recommended that we do and nothing that should in any way keep us from buying the house. I took a few pictures, the ones here and then some more on Flickr which you can get to by using the link "all our pictures" at the Right side of this screen. This first picture is looking from the livingroom out into the Parlor and then out the front door. The second picture

is

the same set of rooms looking into the house

from the front door into the livingroom and down the hallway the bathroom is located on the right in the hallway and the room at the end of the hall is the 1st bedroom which we think will be Chance's bedroom. The next picture is standing in the 1st bedroom looking back toward the front door. I never got a really good picture of the 1st

bedroom, now that I am looking at them I didn't

get a good one of the 2nd bedroom either but the fourth picture is of the 2nd bedroom the one we think will be our bedroom and the doorway is

going into the Kitchen. Then there is the Kitchen itself, there is a lot more of the Kitchen but again with me and the bad picture taking. The last picture is yet another bad picture taken in the Kitchen showing the backdoor to the yard on the left and the door into bedroom number 2 on the right with the fridge. All the appliances stay which is awesome. I took a lot of the yard too but I have to go to sleep now and will post another entry for the yard pictures tomorrow.

Chance had tons of fun crawling around everywhere. He didn't like the furnace grate very much but we were planning on buying a nice carpet to cover it up anyway since it is just for show now and is not hooked up. We will have central air and heat.

Playdate

We went another playdate at the Louisiana Children's Museum. Chance was really moving around this time. Last time he just hung out in the baby area and had fun this time he wanted to get out of the baby area and crawl all around the toddler area. He crawled up in this play car they have. I helped him by setting him in the driver's seat and after he got there he loved playing with the stering wheel. There are a few ride on toys there he couldn't quite understand sitting on them yet but he pulled them all over just rolling them around and scooting on his butt. He got along very well with the other children again but this time he wanted to play with every toy so I had to tell him that he couldn't take everyone's toys. He was very good with it though and was easily distracted with other toys. This second picture is with a little girl that is 10 months old who we have seen a couple times, Eva.

In the Cage

Yesterday I was washing some dishes while Chance played around nearby. Rosco was out of is cage and I could hear Chance playing with Rosco's cage door opening and closing it like he does with all the doors in the house these days. When I looked over he wasn't just playing with the door, he was sitting in the cage. It was so funny. He fits right in there with no problem at all. Before Chance was born we both wondered how long it takes for a baby to get as smart as a dog. We have decided that it takes about 9 months. He knows his name and what 'No' means. He tests things and lets you know when he wants to do something. So now that he is just as smart as Rosco, everything from here on out is just gravy. haha.

New House...Almost

We are in the process of buying a house. It took us a while to find one but finally we did. It is about 5 blocks out of the French Quarter in the Marigny which is where we used to live before we moved to this apartment. It is in a really good area. There is a coffee shop on our block and we are about a block from a beautiful old cathedral. Three blocks from a little grocery store and restaurant as well as a tapas bar and another coffee shop and a laudrymat but that doesn't matter any more because we have our own washer and drier now. Or at least we will. It is a duplex which means we can use it as an investment and the rent will help pay our rent and Scott will have more flexability in his job so he is not traveling any more. It is a corner lot with parking and a yard that has a couple rose bushes and a chili pepper vine. We are getting the inspection on Thursday and hopefully will close by the end of the month. This one little picture doesn't do it justice at all. It has been renovated in the last couple years with new roof and new cabinets in the kitchen. It has hard wood floors everywhere except tile in the bathroom and kitchen. It is a shotgun style with the Kitchen off in an L shape. I am excited, I hope everything works out with the inspection and this is the one.


http://nom.mlxchange.com/Pub/EmailView.asp?r=425101840&s=NOM&t=NOM

Teeth for Real.

We have Teeth!!

Chance has been a little extra cranky the last couple of days but nothing seemed wrong so we just thought he was having a couple of off days. Turns out he was getting teeth! He chews on things a lot and gets my fingers in his mouth a lot too. Yesterday he chewed on my finger and he did not have teeth but today he chewed on my finger and it was sharp. I was so supprised. I never suspected that he was getting teeth. We pulled open his mouth and there they were. Not one but Two! Both bottom front teeth. After we got home we got this picture, if you make it bigger you can actually see both little teeth. They are only about half way out right now but I am sure they will come out more soon. They are so cute. He was a really good sport with me
taking his picture and this second picture is just one of him while I was trying to get a really good one of him.