Sunday, July 28, 2013

Bo’s (Actual) Birthday

I didn’t have time to be weepy or nostalgic during Bo’s birthday party and really mostly just felt grateful and happy to have our friends and family there celebrating.

I woke up in the wee hours of Sunday morning to let Buddy out for his usual middle of the night backyard frolic and when I came back to bed, I clicked on my phone to see what time it was and gasped.

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I smiled to myself remembering 3:18 am exactly one year ago. The rush of emotions that had come over when the doctor announced “he has blonde hair!” and I glanced up at the clock to see how long I had been pushing. It was 3:18 am. Seconds later, my son was here.

I laid back in bed and closed my eyes, relieving as much as I could of the rest of that day before I drifted back off to sleep.

The rest of the day was a pretty normal day, although we celebrated with dinner at one of our favorite places, Wen Hwa, where the servers always trip over themselves to dote on him. Then we kept the sugar rush from yesterday going with a trip to Wolfie’s Custard and strolled around downtown for a bit.

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Happy Birthday, Bo! Here’s to another wonderful year ahead.

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Twelve Months

Bowen :: Twelve Months Old

Weight: 23 lbs 7 oz and 30.5 inches long. He’s in the 75th percentile for weight and grew 3.5 inches from his 9 month appointment! Explains why we’re flying through clothes lately. He’s mostly in 12-18 month clothes, although he’s still wearing 12 month footie sleepers. As he’s gotten more mobile, he’s starting to lose some baby chub and look more and more like a toddler.

Eats: A few weeks ago, I swapped out the bottle for the sippy cup and we haven’t looked back. I do so miss our snuggle time, especially first thing in the morning, but I’m super thankful the bottle weaning wasn’t a huge issue. So, now he’s pretty much eating 3 meals with a glass of milk. He eats pretty much everything, although he shows definite preference for bananas, watermelon, strawberries, grilled cheese, butternut squash, sweet potatoes and PB sandwiches. He does eat everything, but I often have to be strategic about the order that things show up on his tray. He recently learned to sign “eat” and “more” and he’s pretty enthusiastic about using them.

Sleep: He’s still taking two naps, and they’re both right around an hour (45-75 minutes). He’s still sleeping from about 7:30pm-6:30am, although there’s been a few mornings we’ve crept back towards the 7:00 am wake up. We still use some cry it out and he’s a good self-soother as long as he has long sleeves on!

Milestones: Crawling, crawling, crawling, fast, fast, fast. He sits up on his knees to play (no pulling up yet) and loves to walk around holding the hands of anyone who is willing to sacrifice their backs! He makes “vroom vroom” noises when he drives cars and trucks, and has a few animal sounds thanks to Peek-a-Boo barn. (His "oink oink” sounds a lot like someone clearing a throat…) He says “bye bye” and “ni ni” (for night night), tik-in (chicken) and na na (banana.) I love the sweet sound of his little voice! He signs “eat” and “more” but never all done. (He’s never all done.) He mimics a lot of things he see us do, like holding a phone next to his head or brushing his hair. He has become well-acquainted with the word “no” this month, and often repeats it back to me when I say it “no, no!” and then giving me his little sideways smile to try and make me laugh. (I sometimes have to turn around to keep him from seeing me break out into laughter.)

Likes: giving kisses, hugging Buddy, zooming his trucks, music, grilled cheese, pancakes, bananas, the Itsy-Bitsy spider song with hand motions, football (“foo-bahhh”), cake, reading books (favorites: Hello Bugs, The Fuzzy Duckling, The Easter Bunny)

Dislikes: being told “no”, being tired, spotting an iPhone and having it be moved out of his reach (ditto: laptops, remotes, cameras, Buddy), having shampoo rinsed off his head, sitting still for more than the length of time it takes to read 2 books

Twelve months! I can’t believe I’m writing this post already. In the first few weeks of his life, I remember so many people telling me how quickly the year would fly by and my sleep-deprived, routine-missing self did not believe one word of it. How can a year go by quickly when you don’t even know if it’s day or night? And just as sure as can be, a year has flown right by.

I’ve written, deleted and rewritten a final paragraph for this final month of this first year but nothing I say does justice to what the experience of being this boy’s mother has been like. It’s been exciting, hard, fulfilling, exhausting, funny, joyful, surprising, challenging, peaceful, reaffirming, fun, confusing and wonderful in so many quiet, small magical moments. I am so full of gratitude and love for this little boy and Matt + I both feel so blessed to have had a healthy, happy and memorable first year with him.

Happy 1st Birthday, sweet Bo!

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Saturday, July 27, 2013

Bo’s First Birthday Party

All morning as we got ready for his party, the rain came down relentlessly. Puddles were forming in the backyard and we had to pull away the furniture from the edges of the porch to keep it from getting wet. But an hour before his party, the sun came out and the birthday boy woke up from his nap smiling and we were ready to celebrate this sweet little guy’s first year.

I thought I might start boo-hooing when we sang him Happy Birthday and he eagerly dug into his cake. One! How has a whole year passed? But later on I came inside to get something and looked out the window on to the porch, and saw a room full of people who have loved my child this last year and supported me and Matt and I just felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude. This boy is so loved – not just by us, but by our little village of friends and family.

My friend Megan made him the most beautiful smash cake, a big cake for the grown-ups and the cutest little dinosaur cake pops. We had a huge spread of cookout foods and a dangerously good Sweet Tea Spritzer. The rain put a halt to my plans for backyard fun, but the littles seemed to find ways to stay entertained between loving on Buddy and breaking in Bo’s new toys and helping out with the smash cake. 6 kids under 2.5 in my house! Organized chaos and lots of Goldfish. Such a fun and happy day for our little family.

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Thank you to everyone who came to celebrate with us, and those who sent their wishes from far away!

Friday, July 26, 2013

1998 Called…

Subtitle: The One Where I Lose my Mind over How Much I Love 90s Music

I kind of geeked out when I saw that Ben Folds Five (Five!! not just Ben Folds), Guster and Barenaked Ladies would be touring together this summer. I love music. But I love 90s music most of all, and I especially love these three bands. If only Ani DiFranco had been thrown into the mix, it basically would have been a soundtrack to some of the most formative years of my life.

I mean, how many lyrics from a BF5 song made it into my AOL profile quotes section? “All I know is I've gotta be where my heart says I oughta be… It often makes no sense, in fact I never understand these things, I feel I love you, goodbye I love you, goodbye…”

Ugh. I mean, really. 1998 called and it wants you to come this concert and bring all your memories of your emo-for-no-reason 17 year old self there. It was even better that Anne + Locke could come with us, because they’re both huge BF5 and Guster fans and then one of my best friends from high school, who just so conveniently moved down to Columbia, SC after years of living in Michigan decided to make the trip up for it.

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The icing on the cake though was that my sister-in-law saw me post a picture on Instagram of the tour poster and my comment that I really wanted to go and reached out to let me know she would get me tickets. It turns out her fiancĂ©'s sister used to be the website designer for the Barenaked Ladies. Not only did she get us tickets to the show, but also an opportunity for a meet and greet with the band! I’ve loved and listened to BNL since the days of Gordon and had seen them in concert in high school too, but Matt + I did feel a little out of our league with the diehard fans who were over the moon excited to meet the band. They were all super nice though (the band, that is) and we snapped a quick picture with them, got an autograph and headed back to our seats because BF5 was starting up.

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All three bands put on great shows – I only wish Guster and BF5 had played longer! Guster is still as amazing as they were years ago, and I have no idea how Brian Rosenworcel’s hands are still intact after almost two decades of bongo drums. Incredible. They played a lot of their older stuff, like Satellite and Airport Song. Ben Folds Five was awesome – I am so happy that they are playing together again. He played a few newer songs, but plenty of older stuff too including Philosophy, Alice Childress, Brick, Narcolepsy, Underground and Army. (There were lots of happy cheers when Chick-Fil-A was mentioned during Army and also when Charlotte was mentioned during Brick, which I found a little weird given the context. But hey, it’s nice to have Ben back in his home state. Can we get him up to Winston pretty please??) I loved that he opened with Philosophy. And closed with Army. And any ballad that involves him hard jamming on the piano, like Underground. Sigh. I think I could have groupie potential.

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I felt a little disappointed when BF5 was over, but Barenaked Ladies put on a seriously legit show. They are talented musicians but they are also performers. They know how to keep a crowd engaged. They sang all the favorites, like One Week, Pinch Me, and If I Had a Million Dollars. They also sang Brian Wilson and Yoko Ono which are two that I love from Gordon, and they had Brian R from Guster come back out to play. (If you’re ever listening to Brian Wilson and listen to the drum section at the end, just imagine how amazing that was with Thundergod going to town on it.) When they came back out, they played Old Apartment (looooove) and Alcohol and a cover of the Violent Femmes Blister in the Sun.

As a bonus, before the BNL set started, Anne and I had walked over to the restrooms and on our way out, realized that Guster was playing in a little corner off near the concession stands. Just standing under a tent with some amps and jamming out. A small crowd had formed, but we were able to push our way towards the front and see them. Definitely one of the highlights, seeing them up so close.

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If you can’t tell by the excessive amount of positive adjectives I’ve used to describe this, it was a pretty awesome concert. I’ve always said that seeing Better than Ezra and Hootie & the Blowfish in one show together was my highlight of my concert going attendance, but this bumped that down to a #2 slot. It was a smaller, intimate venue which was perfect for these bands and all 3 sounded amazing and played a good mixture from across their music careers. It was also great weather and we were there with friends who loved these bands as much as we do. I don’t know if it can get much better than this!

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Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Haircut

From baby to little boy, just like that. Bam! He did great for his first haircut. He was very curious about what was going on (especially the clippers) but he never cried.

The same cannot be said for his momma.

Before: the shaggy “Southern boy” look

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During & after: trimmed up toddler!

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Afterwards, we went to Blue Ridge for some celebratory ice cream. Nothing like a little pink lemonade square ice cream to put a cap on a great little Monday! This smile just does me right in.

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Monday, July 22, 2013

Asheville

On our way down the mountain, all of us just kept saying “why haven’t we come here more often??” I’ve always heard great things about Asheville and we actually did come up once to run a race but didn’t really visit the city much. We and Zac + Jamie had an opportunity for some grandparent babysitting the same weekend, so we were just looking for a nearby weekend getaway and settled on Asheville. We all loved it! Jamie has been a few times to visit a good friend who lives there, so we had a little more guidance than when Matt + I had come before and now we could easily make a few more weekend trips to keep working through the list of recommendations of places to eat and things to do.

We had really, really yummy beer at Wicked Weed Brewing Co. We had some seriously delicious meals: Salsa’s on Friday night (awesome blueberry mojito), Tupelo Honey for Saturday brunch and Nine Mile for Saturday dinner. Tupelo Honey is one of those places that everyone tells you to go and you think it’s going to be totally overrated, and then you get there and there’s fifteen things on the menu you want and your meal is every bit as good as was promised and you sort of consider coming back again the next day. (In other words, I recommend it.) Saturday night we saw a cover band at the famous Orange Peel. The same band covered Poison, Motley Crue and Guns’n’Roses and they not only covered the songs, they were completely in character for each band. It was fun and sort of funny, but it also turns out that we are approximately one decade too young for these bands and actually only knew one or two major hits by them.

The highlight of the trip was our zip lining experience with Navitat. I’m not exactly a thrill-seeker… in fact, you could probably call me a safety-seeker. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into and I decided not to do too much research ahead of time so I wouldn’t psyche myself out. On Friday night, we were having drinks at this rooftop bar called Skybar and Matt said “well, we’ll be about three times as high as this” and I almost lost my cookies right then and there. But, it turned out to be way less scary than I thought and way, way more awesome than I thought. Our tour guides were great and I felt super safe the whole time, and it was totally exhilarating to step off a plate form and literally zip from one tree to the next for four hours.

There was one zip that went over this really deep valley and all of a sudden the treeline below just dropped off, and I happened to look down just then. It was this half second of utter terror when I realized it was just me and a really heavy duty cable hanging out over all these trees and I literally thought to myself “what am I DOING, I am a mother! This is ridiculous.” And then that thought passed as quickly as it came when I then realized I was probably more secure in the triple-locked zip harness than I am in my car most days. It was overall really fun and I was giving myself internal high fives the rest of the day for not chickening out when Matt had first brought it up and just making myself zip outside my comfort zone.

We had a blast and it was a great getaway with our travel buddies, the 4-C’s. I know Matt + I are both so thankful that we’ve had such great help with Bo this year, and that we’ve been able to do these kind of trips. I always feel reluctant to go at first and miss Bo terribly, but I come back a more refreshed and recharged mama, and it’s a nice reminder that we’re still Matt + Meghan and not just Momma + Daddy. (Thanks Mom for babysitting again!)

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Wednesday, July 17, 2013

College Roomies Visit

Last weekend, my 3 college roomies came to visit! Over the last (almost) decade, we’ve had enough bachelorette parties, bridal showers and weddings to keep us visiting each other at least once a year but with all of us married off, starting families and one of us on the West coast it’s been harder to find a time to get-together. When our west coast dwelling Anna said she was coming east for a month this summer, we seized on the chance to play. It was a fun reunion both to see my friends but also to have them back in our college town (which I sometimes forget my now “hometown” is.) We revisited some of our old haunts – Village Tavern and campus, of course – and I took them to some of my new favorites – Camino Bakery, of course. It was also everyone’s first time meeting Bo as well as Britta’s little girl, 5 month old Isla. A weekend wasn’t long enough to catch up with these lovelies, but it will have to tide us over for now and I’m just thankful we did have the opportunity to spend time with each other again.

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