Almost One and Some Really Big News!

Yes, I realize it's been a loooong time since I posted. I'm a little sad about it, actually, because now I know I'll forget something! There's just so much to tell!

I'll start with the biggest news of all: we're moving to Arkansas!!!!! Rudy and I had interviews in Northwest Arkansas on Tuesday, April 17th. I interviewed with 3 different districts and Rudy interviewed with one. We were offered all 4 jobs! So, Rudy will be one of the middle school band directors for Fayetteville School District (yes, Fayetteville!) and I'll be a speech path for Bentonville School District. I don't know what school yet, or even what grade-level, but I do know that I have a job!

So, our house went on the market on Wednesday. We've had 5 individual showings and an open house. It is so hard living in a house that is on the market. We have to keep it super-clean and we have to be ready to leave whenever we get a call. Actually, we asked for at least an hour's notice because of what we refer to as "The Caleb Factor." It's just too hard to be ready to run when you have an (almost) one-year-old in the mix. We haven't officially started looking for houses in Arkansas yet. We're waiting until we get an offer on ours so that we don't get into the contingency mess that we had last time when we lost a house that we really liked because ours didn't sell in time. The move continues to be very bittersweet, but we're excited overall about getting back to our roots. Half of our hearts are sad to leave our friends and family here and the other halves are just calling the Hogs!

I guess most people read this blog to hear about Caleb and not Rudy and I, so here's the latest on him:

We went to the ENT for a follow-up appointment on April 19th. I can't stand the ENT that we go to and I'm looking forward to finding someone else when we get to NWA. His first comment was "Well, Caleb, it looks like you haven't missed any meals." I smirked and said, "He's doing great. Let's see how his ears are." The jerk (nicest word I can think of) looked in and said that all is well after his surgery. Everything has healed nicely and his tubes look great. Caleb did a good job, even though he hates having his ears messed with. When the doctor told us to come back in a year, I happily told him that we would be moving this summer and would be transferring to an ENT in Arkansas. He asked me how far we'd be from Little Rock, because that's probably where we'll have to go to find an ENT. I assured him that there would be plenty of doctors in the Fayetteville area and we'll do just fine. Goodbye.

Caleb has been cruising the furniture like crazy. He loves to pull up on the couch and look at Dewey. He also loves to put his toys from the floor on top of the couch. Last week, he also started crawling on his hands and knees. No more wounded soldier! Thank goodness, because that was wearing on his clothes pretty badly. Now, it's just his knees that are in trouble. He even wants to crawl on concrete. I took him outside to enjoy the warm weather one afternoon this week and he took off on the concrete. I had to lather on the lotion afterward, because he had dried out his knees so badly. He didn't seem to mind. On concrete, he puts his right foot down and sort of tripod-crawls wherever he wants to go. He's speedy! His other gross motor development has been going up the stairs. He loves to climb the stairs to his room. He just can't get back down them. When he takes off for the stairs, we stay right behind him, because he hasn't quite figured out that he can't just sit down wherever he is. His method of sitting is to just fall directly backward onto his bottom. That doesn't work so well on the stairs.

Caleb's menu has changed a lot in the past couple of weeks, too. He has started eating more finger foods and less baby food. He loves to eat grilled cheese sandwiches (torn into bite size pieces) and (heaven help us) the child loves french fries. We don't give them to him very often, but when we do he just can't get enough.

Little Man hasn't really learned any new words lately, but he "talks" all the time. Sometimes it sounds like he's really having a conversation with us. He babbles with great inflection and variegation. It's pretty cute. Sometimes it's even hard not to think he's using real words. A couple of days ago, I went into his room to get him out of his crib and he smiled and said something that sounded just like "hello!" He seems to be calling me "nah-nah" instead of "mama." The only time I ever hear a real "mama" is when he's really upset or crying. Otherwise, it's always "nah-nah" or "dada." Honestly, though - as long as he's smiling at me and loving on me, I don't care if he calls me anything at all. He's so affectionate these days. We get lots and lots of kisses and hugs. Those big, open-mouth kisses are so funny and when I pick him up, he just hugs and pats me like it's the greatest thing ever. He has even gotten snuggly at bedtime lately. When I sit down in the rocker to "read 3 books and sing 3 songs" he snuggles up to me like he used to do when he was little-bitty. He even pulls his knees up under him and holds on tight. He doesn't play with my shirt collar anymore, but that's okay - I just love the snuggles. Sometimes, when we're playing, he'll stop what he's doing and take off toward me and crawl up for a big hug. Then, he goes right back to playing. It's so cute!

Caleb has developed a love for books that I hope continues throughout his life. He brings me books to read to him and tries to read them to himself. He'll sit with a book (usually upside down) in his hands and babble on and on like he's really reading it. He gets the biggest grin on his face when he turns the pages and sees a new picture. His love for music has really started to shine too. He "sings along" when we sing to him - mostly humming. He also starts bouncing a little when he hears upbeat music.

Carrie called and said that Drew had developed croup and we needed to come get Caleb. My boss was very understanding and said that it would be okay for Caleb to come to my office for a little while until Rudy could come get him. So, I ran to Carrie's and picked up Caleb. He played in his pack & play by my desk while I worked. Everyone came in to see him and he had a grand old time. Rudy had to take the color guard to a contest in Ohio on Wednesday and wouldn't be home until Sunday. I stayed home with Caleb on Wednesday (oh, darn!) and then my mom and Mr. L. came up on Wednesday night to stay with him on Thursday and Friday. They ALL had a great time! Mom and Mr. L. went home on Saturday. Drew was doing much better by Monday, so Caleb went back to Carrie's and we've been back to normal since then.

Our unexpected whirlwind trip to Arkansas on the 16th and 17th was a little tough for Caleb. It meant 5 hours in the car on Monday night when he's used to being in the living room floor with his toys. He was a trooper until about the last hour, then he let us know he was tired of being in the car. When we got to Rogers, we let him play for a little while, even though it was WAAAY past his bedtime. Jan and the Voises were very glad to see him and had a great time playing while Rudy and I went to take our interviews. We were grateful that Jan took a day off work to come up and play with Caleb!

This has been a fun weekend for us, even though it's been a little out of the ordinary. The house was shown 2 times on Friday evening, so we were banned from our own home until 7:30 Friday night. Jenny, Caleb and I ended up going to Eureka to Monica's. Monica wanted to go get Caleb's birthday present, so we went to Toys R Us and then to Hobby Lobby (another errand). After that, we went to El Nopal for dinner and then took Monica home. Caleb and I were both tired after all of that running! On Saturday, we had showings spread out starting at 1:00 and ending at 5:00. Jenny, Caleb and I went to the mall and had lunch with Monica. We took care of some to-do items and then came home to pick up Rudy. Jenny joined our family on a trip to Grant's Farm and then we went to dinner. We all enjoyed Grant's Farm. Caleb's face was priceless as he looked at all of those animals (roosters, cows, zebras, deer, goats, kangaroos, etc). More than that, though, we all enjoyed the people-watching. That's always an adventure at Grant's Farm!

Today was the Alumni Association picnic. Rudy had a West County Brass gig, so Caleb and I went by ourselves while the house was being held open. We had a good time, but it was hard to contain Caleb for that long. He wanted so badly to get down and crawl around. I let him for a few minutes, but then I got really grossed out and decided that wasn't going to work. I put him back in the stroller and disinfected his hands, then tried to entertain him for a while that way. Nope. We were done. We left a little early and came right home. By that time, the open house was over and we were able to chill out on our own for a while.

Caleb's birthday party is Tuesday and his first birthday is Wednesday. That's so hard to believe! We're looking so forward to what the next few months will bring us. I'll post more after Caleb's birthday and - as always - there will be tons of pictures on Shutterfly.

Caleb's First Easter

Caleb thoroughly enjoyed his first Easter, and so did we. We got up this morning and went to church at 9:00. Because it was Easter, we kept Caleb in "big church" with us. We sat close enough to the cry room to make a break for it if we needed to. Fortunately, he was a big boy through the whole service. He was enthralled by the music and all of the people. The only time he got a a little noisy was when the pastor started talking. I guess he thought he needed to talk back. I gave him a teether and we gave him some puffs and he settled down pretty quickly.

We made it through the main service and then went into the chapel for the communion service. Everything was fine until we went up to the rail to receive our communion. The associate pastor touched Caleb's head and offered him God's blessings. I got so emotional and almost lost it right there in front of everyone.

After the communion service, we went back into the vestibule and took some pictures by the flower cross (everyone brings flowers from their homes and puts them in a big cross made of floral foam). Then we headed home and had an early lunch. We gave Caleb his Easter basket after lunch. He loved his Easter toys and really enjoyed playing with the plastic eggs - even though they were empty! I was really sleepy, so Rudy took care of Caleb and I went to take a nap. When I woke up, Caleb was down for his afternoon nap and Rudy was waking up from his. It was a sleepy Easter for us! Rudy finished the painting job (the whole front porch) that he had started on Saturday while I took care of Caleb inside. After that, we had a nice dinner (Rudy grilled tuna steaks) and then played with Caleb while we made our family Easter phone calls.

It was a good weekend overall. We had dinner with Jerry and Sherry on Friday night. It was so good to see them! We had a lot of fun with Caleb - who has become a real busybody these days. He started crusing the furniture this weekend and is starting to spend more and more time standing up while holding onto the furniture than he does sitting down. He has also started imitating our speech more. Tonight, he imitated "moo" when I said it while we were playing with his Little People farm set. After that, he just kept saying, "ooo oooo."

A Day at the Zoo

After Palm Sunday services this morning, we went to lunch and to Lowe's to buy some flowers for our flower bed. It was such a beautiful, warm spring day! We decided to take Caleb to the zoo for the first time. Apparently, everyone else had the same idea. It was packed! I took a ton of pictures of Caleb with the beautiful spring flowers and we had a wonderful day. Of course, Caleb was too young to understand what was going on, but he enjoyed watching all of the people. He was a little freaked out by the penguins because you get so close to them in the exhibit. He liked watching them swim though.

I can't believe my little boy will be 11 months old tomorrow!