My Silly Boy

Caden is 11 months old now and we are approaching his 1 year birthday very quickly. It is crazy to think that our little baby man is not going to be a baby much longer. He looks like a little boy now and is starting to do some very silly things. Cory caught him on video last week playing peek-a-boo behind the curtains. It is hilarious and I think having that video to watch was the only thing keeping me from going insane without my baby in New York. Here is the link to the video... I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=rUHBT9q7M9k
More on NY later...
Sarah

Ready to Walk

Our little baby man is 10 months old now and he is ready to walk... almost. He tries very hard everyday and gets a little closer each time. He walks around the furniture and uses his walker like a champ. His newest walking experiment is to grab onto mom and dad's clothes and walk behind us. He's pretty good at it, but it does lead to a lot of falling and baby bruises. The video should explain it all.
Caden is just getting over his second real illness... a double ear infection and a ruptured ear drum (yikes!). Last week was really bad for him and Mommy had to miss the very last day of school to stay home with the sick little man... in total I missed 3 months for my maternity leave at the beginning of the school year and a whopping 13 sick days! Needless to say I think that this wasn't my best year teaching (but I love being a mommy so it's ok). Actually, Cory, Caden and I have all been sick this past week so we didn't get a great start to our summer vacation. But, at least we have 2 more months to make up for it (one of the perks of being teachers). :)
Well, enjoy the "walking" video and hopefully we will be posting more photos and such while we are on vacation.
Ta ta for now....
Sarah

9 Months

Well, it's been a busy past few weeks. With the school year slowly coming to an end we are all ready for summer to start. Caden has been growing like crazy, doing something new everyday. He finally got his first tooth about two weeks ago and he hasn't stopped getting teeth since. He now has two little stubbs on the bottom and his top front two are right on the edge of breaking through. Needless to say, he's been a bit fussy with all of this sore gum business. I am on a mission this weekend to buy his first toothbrush - can't waste any time with his personal hygene. :)
Caden and I went on our first trip alone together last weekend. We flew up to Reno to visit my mom for mother's day and to see her new house and help her get settled. We had a lot of fun and Caden got to meet lots of new people. He finally got to meet his uncle Nathan and spent some time with his cousins, Lilly and Keagan. He also got to hear the uncles play in their band (Mick and Charlie) and he loved the loud music almost as much as he loved hanging out with his cousin Carlie all night.
We got to spend some time with the Pinks too so Caden got to see his Aunt Leslie again while Rick helped fix some odds and ends at mom's house. We left to come home on Monday but had to stop in Carson City to meet up with some more friends (Becky and Jessica) for lunch. We flew home that night and we have been trying to catch up on sleep ever since. All in all it was a great trip and we are very glad we were able to go.
Cory has had an exciting couple of weeks as well. He finished the first semester of his Master's program with flying colors and even got 100% in one of his classes. Pretty impressive. He was invovled in presenting a "webinar" online this week on the social networking he is doing with his high school students. He is making lots of connections and moving up in the world of online education.
Until next time...

Remote Control Video Plus Bonus Update

Caden loves "playing" with an old remote control we gave him. Thing is, when he plays with certain things its a love/hate situation. He demands to play with his remote then once he gets it he has no idea what to do with it so he gets mad at it. Wonder where he got that from? He does the same things with books. So, with remotes and books he has a very short love span and an even longer hate span. Wonder how long that will last. Those two things are very important we can't have him getting so upset in their presence :)




In other news, I'm at home with Caden for a couple days this week while Sarah is back at work. She stayed home with him all last week because of the RSV. Caden is better now, but the daycare lady's daughter is sick and Sarah didn't want to expose Caden to anymore possible illnesses. After going cold free for the first 6.5 months of his life, seems like he has been sick for almost the entire last month or so. He was okay in Costa Rica, but besides then he has just been a mess.

We are still reeling from the CR trip. The ear and respiratory infections Caden has are from the plane ride, according to the doctor. I took a big hit in one of my college courses because of a missed assignment. We are both still really tired and because of his colds both really behind at work. That "vacation" set us back about a month. As I told my college professor after she wouldn't accept my late work, "thats the last vacation Im taking during my Masters." We'll see, still got 2 planned over the summer, San Luis and NYC, but neither of those require disconnecting for a week. In fact, just the opposite, will need to have computer on those trips since taking full-time summer school courses. I went through my schedule with my advisor yesterday and it looks like I will complete the Masters program in Spring of 09. So this time next year will be taking Comprehensive Exams and wrapping up last 3 classes.

I'm doing an informal presentation, called a poster session, at one of the biggest education conferences in the country over the summer. The conference is called the National Education Computer Conference and is in San Antonio at the end of June. There were over 20,000 people at last years conference so its a big one. Look forward to the challenge. Im in the process of putting together student samples and will make a video with my students to show the unique types of Web 2.0 tools kids are using in my classes. I wrote a proposal to lead a group at the Virtual Schools Symposium in Fall of 08, so if that gets accepted will present for the 2nd time there. All in all, work is going really good. Kind of feels like I've hardly been there with all of the missed days because of the baby.

Speaking of the baby. He is crawling like mad right now. Mostly he just crawls to stand on things. He is pulling himself up onto everything right now, including the rails on his crib. We have had to lower the crib to the lowest setting but his head still reaches over the top when he stands up. Hopefully he wont get strong enough to pull himself over anytime soon. From what I understand, I used to get out of my crib, then get out of my house, rip off my clothes and run down the street naked when I was little. Ahh, good times. I also bit my tongue in half falling out of my crib once, rumor is that I had to get it sewed back together. Hope the same fate doesn't lie in the wake for Caden, have a feeling that hope is just a pipe dream though. He is a maniac (Sarah is trying to wean me off the word monster) and is quite the handful. Wish us luck.

Cory Playing with Flickr Slideshow Tools

I've been playing with a slideshow program called Slideoo that connects to your Flickr account. Its pretty clean.




This one is called Flickr HTML Badge. You can create horizontal or vertical slideshows with up to 10 photos.

mrplough's Not Caden photoset

Caden Crawls and Costa Rica

Here is the newest video of Caden, crawling and attacking. Enjoy





The Kids in Costa Rica.

My Sicky Boy

Well, we returned home from Costa Rica on Friday and ended a great trip with a torturous day traveling. We arrived at the airport in CR at 4:30 in the morning and did not return home until 10:00 p.m. Needless to say, the 18 hours of airplanes, airports, bad food, and no sleep left us and Caden a bit grumpy (the 2 1/2 page letter that Cory wrote to Delta airlines provides the happy details of the adventure).
Although the trip was exciting and relaxing, we were glad to be home and settle in over the weekend. We were back to business as usual on Monday (just a little more tan) and things were going well. Yesterday Caden got a little cough and throughout the day it got progressively worse while he was at daycare. By the time I got home from work he was at home with daddy and he looked like a baby zombie. His eyes are puffy and red, he's got a raspy cough, runny nose, congestion, sore throat, fever, and to top it all off he had some projectile vomit last night all over the couch, floor, coffee table and mommy (yuk.). So, I took the day off work today and brought the little baby man to the doctor. Apparently he has an ear infection and RSV (some respiratory virus). Now he is on amoxicillin and 4 albuterol breathing treatments a day, which as you can see by the photo he absolutely loves. The doctor says he has to stay home from daycare for two weeks! So much for teaching this month - Cory and I will each miss a week of work.
Anyways, this update was meant to say that we really enjoyed our trip to Costa Rica... however, life has quickly shocked us back to reality. So, no more walks on the black sand beach or margaritas by the pool. Now it's naps between coughing fits and vapor treatments morning, noon, and night. Welcome to parenthood. :) I'm off to get my poor sicky boy to bed.