one year ago today

Daniel's due date was one year ago today - August 1, 2007. I was still at work, since Daniel hadn't made any attempts to leave his comfy home yet. Mike and I decided to meet up for lunch, under the pretense of celebrating Daniel's "hypothetical" birthday. We met at a little Asian restaurant a couple of blocks from my office, and sat down to a nice lunch of Thai food. About halfway through my Chicken Masaman, I felt something. Something warm and wet. Yes, that's right, my water broke as I sat there eating my lunch.

I must have gotten a pretty funny look on my face, because Mike immediately said, "what is it? Are you okay?" I replied, "I think my water just broke" and we realized that we were about to have a baby! Luckily, there was no embarrassing gush when I stood up - I don't think anyone in the restaurant realized what had happened. We left our meals half-eaten, and Mike ran the two blocks to my office to get the car, while I sat on a bench outside and waited (I wasn't about to walk that far). Apparently, Daniel had realized the party was for him and decided to try to make an appearance. We thought for awhile that he might actually arrive on his due date, but he ended up missing it by an hour and 52 minutes.

So, jumping back to the present from that little trip down memory lane, we decided to commemorate the anniversary of his almost-birthday with a trip back to the same restaurant for lunch. Boy, was it different this year! We did manage to sit at the same table, but this time we needed a highchair for the amazing little boy who's grown so much in a year I can hardly believe it.

Here are a few photos. As you can see, Daniel really wanted to eat with chopsticks. Daddy tried to help him, and that satisifed him for a little while.
But he really wanted to try it himself. He made a valiant attempt, but I don't think his hand-eye coordination is quite up to the task of chopsticks yet.
We also re-visited the bench where I waited for Mike to get the car. Hard to believe that Daniel fit inside me a year ago!

early birthday

Daniel's Papa and Grandma, along with Great-Grandpa, came to visit this past weekend so we had a little early birthday celebration.

All this for me?

Hmmm, what have we here?

Frosting, you say? Well, it's fun to play with!

Tastes pretty good too! Yum!

Happy birthday to me!

I get presents, too?

Now I can be an engineer like Daddy and Mommy! Oh wait, you guys don't drive trains?

he's walking!

Daniel has started walking! A few steps at a time, and he tends to face-plant if no one catches him, but at least he thinks the falls are funny. Oh, and apparently I annoyingly shriek, "Good job! Good job!" every time he walks. I'm going to have to work on that...

thisclose to walking

Daniel is finally starting to get brave enough (with a LOT of encouragement) to let go of the safety of the furniture and venture out towards Daddy and Mommy. He usually only makes it a step (maybe two) without falling into our arms, but he's trying! We're attempting to get some video, but so far that just distracts him and he tries to crawl after the camera. He also thinks it's a pretty fun game to just let go and fall straight into our waiting arms. Wouldn't it be nice to have so much trust in the world that you knew someone would always catch you?

Anyway, lots of fun and laughter here! I have to admit, though, the first time he let go to head towards me, I teared up a little as I cheered and hugged him - it's yet another reminder of how big our baby is getting! Stay tuned, hopefully we'll have some video of Daniel's new adventures soon.

a giant frog in our backyard

And it's trying to eat my son!
We're trying to beat the heat so we bought a fun little kiddie pool for the backyard. Daniel wasn't sure what to think at first, especially the sprinkler on the front.
But he decided it might be kind of fun, and definitely better than sweating in 90-degree-plus weather.
But eventually he was ready to be rescued from the jaws of the giant frog.
And he settled in for a snack of animal crackers - take that, froggy!!

feeling left out

The poor kitties. Ever since Daniel was born their lives just haven't been the same. Lately they've been complaining that they never get any blog time - it's all Daniel, Daniel, Daniel. And they're right, they're pretty great kitties and they deserve some attention too. So here are a couple of the latest kitty photos (yes, once in awhile I do still pull out the camera for pictures of the cats!).

Here's Licorice perfecting his yawn. He's had lots of practice at this over the years.

And here's Taffy, relaxing in one of her favorite spots.

summertime

Just a few photos of our cool cat rockin' his sunglasses on the 4th of July. He managed to keep them on for all of 5 minutes, a new record. You can see how he felt about it though!





He also got a haircut this past weekend (as you can see in these photos it was getting kind of long again), but I don't have any photos of his new clean-cut look yet.