Good Morning!

Now that Topher is able to pull himself up, this is how we most often find him in the morning:

He loves to explore his crib and push all the buttons on his mobile:

He's such a big boy! We desperately need to baby-proof the house, but we are trying to wait until we are in our new house before we make all that effort.

Good morning, Topher!

On housing news, the buyers for our home had a little hitch with their underwriting company going bankrupt, so they had to resubmit their loan and it has now been conditionally approved as long as they produce some minor documents by the end of tomorrow (should not be any problem at all.) Our new closing date should be this Thursday, Sept. 3rd. Then we close on the new home on Tues, Sept. 8th. It's very hard to believe that in 9 days we could have all our things packed, moved, and into the new house. It's even harder to believe that in 4 days, we'll be signing this house over to someone else and that it will never belong to us again. It will be incredibly strange to drive by this house once it belongs to another family. We're very, very excited about it, though.

--KC

Poor Man's Walker

In the absence of a "real" walking toy that normally would help a baby learn to walk, Topher got creative last night.

He's getting mobile in a hurry. And we're just trying to keep up.

--KC

10 Months

Today Topher is 10 months old. Just for fun, I'd thought we'd take a photo journey back to the beginning. And let me tell you, it feels like this journey has been a LOT longer than 10 months. Seeing Topher's newborn pictures feel like looking at myself a lifetime ago. He has changed in some very dramatic ways. NEWBORN: 1 MONTH: 2 MONTHS: 3 MONTHS: 4 MONTHS:

5 MONTHS:

6 MONTHS:

7 MONTHS:

8 MONTHS:

9 MONTHS:

And today, at 10 MONTHS:

Ah, Topher, we love you more than we can even verbalize. Even though you don't sleep through the night and even though you're incredibly messy and rough sometimes. You are really something special, and we're glad that if we had to endure these last 10 months, it was with you. It was all for you.

Love, mommy and daddy

Goodbye Truman

Last weekend our ferret took a sudden turn for the worse and we had to say our goodbyes. We've had him for six years, so it was pretty sad. Such a little rascal of a boy. Unlike other ferrets we have met, Truman never even attempted to bite a single person, not once. His favorite past-time was tipping over trashcans and going through the contents that spilled out. Once he stole a Hershey's kiss and became so excited by the shiny treasure he had taken that he couldn't even decide what to do with it (normally ferrets stash their treasures in a corner somewhere). Instead, he just hopped around and did a little dance with the chocolate in his mouth. Our favorite Truman memory was the day we brought him home. Ferret cages cost a small fortune (especially since we were full-time college students) and so we had the ingenious idea to buy a small dog crate at a fraction of the cost. We hung a hammock in there and a little litter box, scattered some toys about and gave him food and water. Then, when his "house" was just perfect, we put him in and welcomed him to his new ferret suite and closed the door, waiting to see what he would do. He walked in, sniffed around, seemed pleased, and then...he walked right out. Through the bars. We had totally underestimated how skinny he was. He was so nonchalant about it, too. He didn't have to squeeze through or expend any effort at all. We felt so stupid. Needless to say, we had to upgrade to a real ferret cage, and he loved the attached tunnels. He also loved his hammocks (he wore one out so we got him another one and he would just go back and forth between the two, he loved them so much) and slept for the majority of his life. But his waking hours were full of mischief, snuggles, tumbling around with the cat, and playing hide-and-seek with the dog. Sometimes he would squeeze under the furnace or behind furniture and the only way to get him out would be to squeak his little hedgehog toy. He always came running to the sound of that toy squeaking, no matter where he was or what he was busy doing. It was his siren song. Truman, you were such a good boy and we miss you very much, stinkies and all. Taking a bath...we LOVE that little face --KC

Wave at Daddy!

Guess who learned how to wave last night? Every morning I sit Topher in the window and I wave his hand at daddy, but last night, we were just sitting there and Topher started waving all by himself. We'd wave at him and he would wave right back. It was sooo adorable. He also showed signs of pulling himself up yesterday for the first time. He was crawling all over his high chair (which we have to lay flat now because he lifted up one side of it the other day and then let it fall back down on himself. He was fine, but he got a little mark on his head and we realized that he's getting strong!) And if I help him up just a little he can stand (a bit unsteadily) using the coffee table. We can tell he's right on the cusp of some big changes. He'll be walking before we know it. Thank goodness our new house has a lot more carpet than this place because it will hurt a lot less when he falls. Only 2 weeks from today we'll be rid of this house forever! Wave bye-bye, Topher. --KC

Capturing My Baby

We just have a point-and-shoot camera, but it's 8.2 mega pixels, so it's not too shabby. Even still, it's hard to capture the perfect, real-to-life picture. I capture a lot of blurry pictures of Topher (mostly because he never sits still for a moment) and a lot of unflattering-angle pictures, but every once in a while, I take that perfect picture that captures Topher exactly as I see him now. These are the pictures that are going to make my heart ache once Topher gets big and turns into a little boy, I just know it. When I look down at my little boy, this is exactly what I see. He's always climbing all over my legs, tugging at my shirt, and giving me that beautiful, wide-open stare. We don't know if he's in another growth spurt (I think his entire life has been a growth spurt) but he's back to waking up several times at night to eat. We hope that once we get him into his new house, we can establish a new routine at night that will help him sleep better. We're also going to train Sassy to sleep in his room and watch over him. Maybe her breathing/snoring will be a comforting sound for him. But we're sure all this waking up is just a phase that will pass. For now, we'll just keep chasing down that gorgeous face and trying to capture every detail of it. --KC

WE GOT IT!!!

We negotiated back and forth all morning for that townhome, and we got it! We even stuck to our goal and got it for just under 100k, even though the sellers were already having to write a check just to get out of the place and weren't budging much at all. We are thrilled. Beyond thrilled. I can't really articulate just how stressful this whole process has been. In the past year, we have completed the rebuilding and refinishing of this house, listed this house, sold this house, found and bought a new house, and gave birth to/raised a very energetic boy. We've hit our maximum stress limit a number of times, and yet...look how well everything is turning out. Finding a new house makes me so happy! There is a bigger plan out there that we can't see, I'm sure of it. When I was a teenager, someone in church compared it all to a quilt. As mortals, our view is so limited. When things are going wrong in our lives we look up at the quilt and see a jumble of threads and it all looks like a gigantic mess with no rhyme or reason. But God can see the quilt from above and all those threads are making a beautiful pattern that we can't even comprehend yet. I've always loved that imagery. We go in tonight to sign the papers, turn in our earnest money, and get the ball rolling. Today is a good day. Break out the sparkling cider. :) --KC