Thank Goodness for Grandparents!

This week was a busy one. Brandon had something like 25 cases to argue per day, every day. He got up for work each morning even before Anthony woke us up...something that is unheard of in our household. In my corner of the word, sleepy little Key Biscayne made big news not one, not two but three times: superstar Colombian singer Juanes, a KB resident, got death threats on his Twitter account; a water rescue was broadcast live on CNN; and then Ted Kennedy died and the news came out that he spent his last months living in Key Biscayne.

So OF COURSE this is the week Anthony decided to get sick. Not panic-worthy sick (OK, to me every illness is worthy of panic, but that's just me), but the kind of cough that makes you want to buy one of those SARS masks, a low fever and other symptoms that may have caused the other mommies to look at me askance had I tried to sneak him in to day care.

Which gets me to my point. What with all the work craziness, thank goodness Grandma Char was here this week to be with the little guy! Otherwise, Brandon and I would have had to fight it out over who'd stay home with the sick kid, I would have lost, and everyone would be grouchy. Instead, we happily left Anthony in the loving arms of his Grandma so Brandon could go about securing the homeland and I could make sure everyone knew the state of Juanes's Twitter page.

Anyway, to Grandma Char, thank you so much for all your help!

And to Anthony, maybe hold off on any more drama until my mom and dad get here Thursday?

Hitting the Bottle

Anthony was so completely focused on playing with this empty Publix water bottle last night when he got home. And after dinner. And during his bath. And this morning. He grabs the lid (yes it can fit through a toilet paper roll, the kid's happy, leave me alone) and then tries to put it back on the bottle and he's concentrating SO HARD and he FINALLY gets it on and then he gets SO MAD because he can't get it back off even though getting it on is exactly what he was trying to do in the first place.

And then...lather, rinse, repeat, he does it all over again. And again. And again. Keeps him busy for hours.

Empty Publix water bottles. I highly recommend them.

Anthony is 14 months old today!

Fourteen months...if that's not enough proof of Anthony's "big boy" status, last week his daycare gave us the information packet for their "Toddler Room," where he'll be moving in September. Looks like he managed to not flunk "Nursery" - phew!

And, apparently, actual toddling? Totally not a prerequisite for the Toddler Room!

Anyway, the shift across the hall means new friends, new teachers and new activities (yay!) as well as a new one-a-day nap schedule and new germs (boo). Hopefully the little fella will handle the change with his usual good spirits and enjoy wreaking havoc on his new surroundings.

Anthony is also growing up in other ways: "talking" more and more, eating better if not always perfectly healthfully (he can inhale an entire PB&J in about 90 seconds flat), sleeping through the night (more often than not) and even sitting quietly on the bed in the mornings so we can get ready for work in peace. While time and my stellar cooking skills are surely behind the first three, we have only one person to thank for number four:



Ahhh, Kai-Lan. You may be the first step on my child's slipperly slope to couch potato-ism, but you do ensure that I can (usually) get to work with matching shoes, brushed hair and at least enough makeup to cover my pimples.

Candid Camera

We have procured a new camera, which means several things.

First, that our old camera - the one Anthony broke by chewing and drooling and slobbering on it because it proved irresistable to him every time he caught sight of it and I am an indulgent mother who gives into her child's every whim in hopes of filling his young life with joy and discovery (and to not have my bootleg American Idol DVD's drowned out by his whining) - now lies in his toy basket, where it sits, ignored, alongside the retired cell phones and decomissioned remote controls and even a discarded Blackberry, which is, for heaven's sake, an electronic device that Brandon and I have never even owned ourselves, as he lunges toward the new camera, with a "that-other-camera-is-SO-last-week" sneer on his "innocent" 1-year-old face.

Second, that although the new camera is simply the new model of the old camera (the Josephsen household is nothing if not steadfastly brand-loyal!) I am still figuring out the settings and therefore am lamenting several blurry pictures that would have otherwise been good shots.

Yikes!:

Getting better:

Almost there:

And, third, that I'm making up for lost time and therefore unleashing a whole bunch of cuteness all at once:

The mandatory shampoo mohawk shots:

More bathtime fun:

Maybe if I just get out by myself she'll stop taking my picture...

Nope, I guess not:

Superman PJs = Supercute baby

Different night, different bath, same result (by which I mean more photos. But give me credit for the strategic toy placement in this one!)

Finally, time to relax...and to plot the demise of another camera...

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Because I went on a cleaning spree this weekend (and because Anthony broke our camera so I haven't snapped new pictures of him in over a week; I am dangerously close to having my "mom card" revoked!) I decided to share my trip down memory lane.

Saturday I sorted through boxes of photos, clothes and other momentos from the little over a year since Anthony was born. Everything is now organized and labeled (yes, labeled!) in albums and bins, and tucked neatly into my closet, which means several things:

1. I now actually have an answer to the rhetorical question, "If your house was on fire and you could only save one thing, what would it be?"

2. About 10 years from now, I can make Anthony roll his eyes and say, "Mom, you're so lame!"

3. There is a box in my closet that contains a candle, a crumpled smiley face sticker and human hair, despite the fact that I am neither a serial killer nor a Voodoo priestess.

Seriously, I got a lot done, and only teared up once, when I found the newborn-size diaper I had saved and remembered how tiny and helpless Anthony used to be and how frightened and helpless I used to feel. Or maybe I was crying because I actually saved a diaper, who knows.

One of the best parts was sorting through old baby clothes, probably because I love clothes in general and associate them with memories...I may not be able to recall where I put my car keys, but name a big event and I can probably tell you what I wore. Anyway, each time I have cleared Anthony's drawers to make room for the next size up, I have put aside a few favorites...

The outfit he would have come home from the hospital in, had Brandon and I known how to put on a diaper. Do I really need to elaborate?:

A favorite sleeper from the days when the term "sleeper" was largely a misnomer:

The first three-month-old onesie he wore...I remember when Aunt Jenny put it on him and he wasn't drowning in it, it was the first time I realized he really was growing and wasn't starving and maybe, just maybe, everything would turn out OK:

I also saved clothes that say something about the special people in Anthony's life:

My dad, an avid fisherman, got Anthony a "Someone who loves me went to Bass Pro Shop" shirt:

Grandpa Dave gave the little guy a onesie from his longtime employer, Caterpillar:

From my mom, who loves Johnny Cash, the little guy scored this "Crawl the Line" onesie:

From Grandma Char, who has provided Anthony with a number of his cuter outfits, these "What Santa doesn't bring me, Grandma will" PJ's, which match a pair Anthony's cousin wore that same Christmas:

What do I hope to accomplish by saving (and labeling! Seriously! With sticky labels upon which I wrote the memory I associate with the outfit!) these clothes? I'd like to think it's so Anthony can be reminded of relatives who live too far away, but I've already put my money on the eye-rolling response, so I guess it's for my own sentimental reasons.

Which is also why I created a box of momentos from Anthony's first year. Will he ever want to look at the "1" candle from his birthday cake, a smiley face sticker he wore home from school one day or clippings from his first haircut? I doubt it, but I probably will.

Then there are the photos. Boxes of them.

Apparently, when Anthony was tiny, I didn't realize I didn't have to regurgitate the contents of my camera card onto Walgreens.com and click "order all." And that I didn't have to get doubles. So, there are stacks of pictures from early on that look like Anthony just ended a five-day vodka bender. I wasn't sleeping much at the time, OK?

I have since become much better at editing myself (though you wouldn't know it from this blog), and, while I snap just as many pics of Anthony, I now only download and order the good ones.

Anyway, my good snapshots are now in albums and my "why did I take a picture of THAT???" shots are filed in neat, attractive, matching photo boxes.

As for Anthony's professional portraits, of which there are many:

They are in their own "professional photos" album (do you know how hard it is to find a photo album that isn't split into 4-by-6 slots and that actually accommodates 8-by-10's? I did finally find one and immediately realized why they're so hard to find, because it is IMPOSSIBLE to get the plastic cover to lie flat over the photo without a bunch of unsightly wrinkles and air bubbles). Anthony's "head shots" are now in said album, and, because professional photo packages are never based on realistic family/friend group sizes (either that or most people are more popular than me) and the idea of throwing away pictures of your kid literally makes you want to throw up, the 3,520 extra shots are now in a plastic folder tucked neatly inside said photo album.


Anyway, the point of all this isn't to say, "Yay, me!" (well, it kind of is, I do have a birthday coming up. Brandon.) but to give fair warning to anyone who comes to the (clean and organized!) Josephsen household that you will be forced to look at lovingly-constructed photo albums and memory boxes of our kid.


Just kidding Grandmas and Grandpas! Please still come! We need you!