We are in trouble now!

Pulling himself up in his crib, confusing catfood with cherrios, making a beeline for the baby monitor that resides on our bedroom floor, turning cups upside down to see what happens, grabbing mommy's keys at every opportunity, chasing the cats (they're much faster), getting stuck under desks and cabinets, and in general squirming, wiggling, and always in motion. Eleven months. Gosh he's cute. We are so screwed!

Flashback

I'm so excited to see this year's "crop" of surrogacy babies. Perhaps I need to get a real life!

Just the other night, Adam and I were sitting to plan the rest of our summer, and I remembered that this time last year, we were anxiously finishing our packing and planning for our trip to pick up our baby. In fact, I think just about this time last year, I was having my last minute panic, writing tigerlilycat so that she could re-assure me that this pregnancy in India thing wasn't just a huge hoax and that there really would be a baby arriving for us.

Fast forward one year, and we have a real, live, growing, and changing little boy in our lives, splashing in the cat's water dish, crawling after us whenever we leave him in one room and walk into another. "This is our life for the next few years," Adam bemoaned, after Micah upended a glass of water onto the floor for the fifth time in two days. Yes, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

No photos today because Micah's got the snotties, with big puffy eyes and grumpy attitude to match.....poor little boy.

i miss my boys!

I'm away from my boys this week and adam says I'm missing the best week ever, as micah has gone from crawling 2 or 3 steps to circling our whole house. I miss him a lot and know he'll be very happy to see me too. This trip is busy and bittersweet, and I can tell that it isn't going to be as easy to leave home again.

May I now present.....

our own 'lil devil, spawn of Sacks!

This weekend, we graduated to Camping 2.0, featuring our new (17 year old) pop-up camper. Camping 2.0 started off a bit rough, with a long drive to a site I had reserved in advance that ended up being just a parking lot next to a busy road. Luckily, we drove a few more miles down the road and found this lovely (but expensive) site, but not before we also spent another hour stuck on a one-way road from which we couldn't turn around. But, as this photo shows, the story has a happy ending:
Here is camping Alcatraz; Micah's half of the camper. Notice how carefully he's surrounded by cushions to keep him from falling through the cracks? He had so much fun crawling around this big padded space that it was harder than usual to get him to go to sleep, but once asleep he was out until 7 am!
Here's a full view of the camper, with Micah enjoying the little square of astroturf that the previous owners nicely gave us.

And here was his favorite discovery of the weekend:

DIRT!!!!!
Oooh, did he get dirty. Guess I better get used to that with a little boy!

Micah goes camping!

Micah took his first camping trip last weekend to an area in southern Colorado. It was very beautiful, with plenty of lodgepole pine trees, strange gloopy rock formations (including one called Lizard Rock that looked like a giant stegasaurus), and a fast-flowing river nearby. We went with several friends with toddlers, and I for one was glad that Micah wasn't walking yet because I would have been more worried about him wandering off and falling in the river.

This was taken at about 6 am. It was quite cold at night, but got very warm by mid-afternoon -- probably a 50 degree range in temperatures.

Here we are trying to stay warm in our tent. We only stayed one night, because it was so cold and Micah whimpered on and off all night. Not sure if it was because he was cold or teething (tooth #6 is on its way.) We were glad we didn't stay the second night, because apparently it was much colder; our friends reported that their baby wipes froze! After this trip, we purchased a pop-up camper that has real mattresses (so long, air mattress!!) and most importantly, a heater! We're looking forward to many more camping trips this summer!

In other exciting news, there are a lot of new developments this week in Micah-land, although some of them are ones he's come to a bit later than other babies. He's finally crawling for real -- no more going backwards instead of forwards -- and can now seek us out when we put him down and walk away. Watch out, world!!!! He's now figured out how to get from lying down to sitting, and has started thinking about pulling himself up in his crib (but can't quite get there yet.) Another development we're excited about is his ability to hold his own bottle. I know he could do it before, he was just choosing not to. So I finally gave him some tough love and put the bottle down within his reach when he was hungry. How easily babies learn things when they are motivated!
On a final note, a lot of babies are due in India during the next several weeks. I'm overjoyed for each and every one of you, and just want to remind you to document, document, document your tiny bundle. It is hard to imagine, but in just 6 months, you won't be able to remember how tiny they were in their first days, or remember the experience clearly because of the baby brain fog that covers you for a few months. May all the babies wait for their parents to arrive in India, and may all the surrogates have easy deliveries.