I'm having a flashback now to when I was 11 years old and every entry of my diary began with an apology for not writing! Of course it will come as no surprise to other parents that the bigger Logan gets, the more demanding of our time and attention he gets. So now here we are two weeks after his 9 month birthday with a lot of blogging catch-up to do! We have been living the jet-set lifestyle lately. In fact, of the past three weekends he's seen all three sets of grandparents, and in the past two months he's seen all three sets TWICE! No small feat considering we aren't exactly "around the corner" from any of them. But this first year is flying by in about a minute and a half, so we want to share the joy as much as possible.
Memorial Day Weekend was Logan's first big road trip. Grandma and Grandpa Winter picked us up in the minivan and we drove overnight to Atlanta for a family reunion at Heather, Andy and Sofia's house. It was a very fun trip! When Sofia saw Logan, the first thing she did was go up to him and take Ducky out of his mouth to try him out for herself. He looked a bit surprised and hurt for a brief moment, until she put her pink paci in his mouth, and then he seemed to figure that was a pretty fair trade. This spirit of sharing continued throughout our visit! We had a blast playing with all of Sofia's toys and chilling at the hotel pool.
Jason's first Father's day coincided with Logan's 9 month birthday. (June 20, 2010) We celebrated with Grandma and Grandpa Winter, Great-Grandma and -Grandpa Winter, and Auntie Beth. There was a somewhat ceremonial passing of the tongs from Jason's Dad down to the new Dad over a hot charcoal grill, and we all enjoyed the meats of their labor.
The following weekend we had another family reunion, this one with the Winsteads at Great-Aunt Kathy's place in Virginia. This was our official celebration of Granny's 90th birthday. Another reason this was such a special trip was because we got to meet the newest cousins, Luke and Isla. My cousin Patrick and his wife have the most adorable twins, who are now four months old. Granny certainly had her hands full!
What I thought was hysterical is that the first thing Logan did when he met them, was go up to Luke and try to take his froggy paci away! Hmmm... Whom did he learn THAT from Sofia?!
It was a short but sweet trip. We wish we could have stayed longer! We got to introduce Logan to the beach for the first time (he likes the pool better), and Granny gave Heather some baking classes in her classic Pound Cake and Italian Cream Cake. She's trixy with her baking secrets, that one. We're still not sure she's really given up the true recipe!
Baby's first Fourth of July was a somewhat terrifying event. Oh it started out innocently enough. Nannie and Bapaw came from Wisconsin to have a cookout with us and spend the night. And we met a new friend in the park this week so we invited her (Anika) and her mommy (Jodie) to join us! The babies are only two weeks apart in age, so we are hoping to have more play dates in the future! We had burgers and dogs on the grill and sat outside as much as possible because our brand new A/C still isn't working! (Wednesday, we are told, it should be fixed.)
After Logan ate just about ALL of Bapaw's Italian Ice, we decided to check out the fireworks. Originally the plan was to go up to Evanston to see the municiple fireworks there... but a neighbor told us about the usual Chicago fireworks at Navy Pier dividing into a northside and southside deal, whereby we could walk a mere 4-5 blocks and see them from the nearby Touhy beach. This sounded good to us! And it was in theory, but not so much in practice. Knowing that the Evanston display was scheduled to begin at 9:10pm, and assuming that the Chicago ones would be in that vicinity, we started walking about about 9:00 and arrived about 15 minutes later to Touhy beach. Apparently we missed the "real" fireworks which were reportedly only a disappointing 15 minute display. (I guess the plan to have two Chicago displays didn't double the budget!) But as we arrived at a smoky Touhy beach we realized there were still plenty of fireworks to see. So long as you could dodge them. Oh yes, this was the biggest display of illegal guerilla explosions any of us had ever seen! We stayed for about 10 minutes before it all seemed a little too close for comfort. It's amazing how the city just turns a blind eye on this craziness! Mom made the comment that it was a blessing that this was
peaceful celebratory anarchy. Imagine the alternative if the crowds were angry about something!
In other news, Logan has decided that Daddy's blueberry pancakes are finger lickin good. His 9 month well-baby visit was fantastic. He clocked in at a lengthy 29 inches but a mere 16 pounds 11 oz. Only the 5th percentile for weight, but the doc says he'll just be long and lean and that he's progressing and growing beautifully. His first tooth (the bottom left) is just starting to poke through today.. too soon to get a picture but that will certainly be a blog post in the near future! He's thinking about walking but can only do it when he's
not thinking about it... if that makes any sense. We caught him twice today taking a single step unassisted, and then he gets this look like "What am I doing?!" and he sits down and starts crawling! I finally heard a distinct "Mama" from him at the city pool on Monday. Not sure yet if he knows what it meant, so we'll keep you posted. We've been working hard on the concept of "No" and "Up" and "Mama" and "Dada" and also trying to incorporate gestures such as clapping, waving, and pointing at things. We'll keep you posted... sporadically. :)
