Sunday, October 12, 2008

Art-house Oliver


Only time for a few photos today, couldn't resist... we're packing up to leave for England tonight, so there's LOTS to do!! The first photo I call "Art-house Oliver," since he looks so artsy in his black turtleneck!! The second one is from the beach at Lake Mohawk on Friday afternoon - a gorgeous fall day.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

The good and the bad, but no ugly

Hello again! Sorry for the delay, I do get grief about it... :-) Oliver is doing great, despite his trip to the ER a week ago!! Yup, he had some bad cold symptoms so I took him to the doctor, who was very concerned with his breathing, so he had to endure some inhaler thingy, and steroids to open up his airways, and had to go to the ER for a chest x-ray! Andy and I took him together, around 6:30pm, and after about three hours there and more treatments, including the oxygen feed for a good hour or more (as seen in the photo), we were told the xray was just fine, and he has a respiratory infection/virus. The next day he was in SUCH good spirits, I wonder if I should take him to the ER more often!!

On a lighter note, Oliver has a new good friend! Her name is Anja, and I met her mom, Kara, at an indoor play place nearby - since then, she and Oliver have been playing together every week! She's only about 3 weeks older than Oliver (unfortunately, we'll be in England during her birthday party, bummer!), and they get along really well. Anja is already talking quite a lot (come on already, Oliver!), and she is really good at saying Oliver's name. The day this picture was taken, she and Oliver and his other good friend, Georgie, were having a great time at a playground in Chester, NJ - gorgeous fall weather and good friends, a perfect day for a boy.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Good times

I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that Oliver's eye is healing well... so far he hasn't tried to climb up that table again! It's been a funny few weeks with the weather - we've had a few days that were so cool we had to wear long sleeves and slippers (imagine!) and others, like yesterday, that were so warm and humid that I barely stepped outside. I hurt my knee a while back, and it's still giving me trouble, so yesterday Andy braved the sun with Oliver and they went to a local park to play. Down the road from the park is a little beach on Lake Hopatcong, and they decided to go there, too - Oliver came back soaking (tshirt and shorts) from head to toe, happy as a clam. That's the difference between moms and dads... dads don't worry that they don't have a swimsuit with them, they just point the way to the beach, anyway!!

So, that's why you see Oliver's fancy new bear slippers in some of these photos -- I got them from Beans right after the big bear "event" (see March 19th if you missed it!). Oliver thinks they're really cool and he doesn't even try to take them off! Notice the chic hand in the pocket, too... he's started doing that sometimes, too cute. He also puts his hands on his hips sometimes - I wonder where he got that?! :-)

Another new hit is his favorite Sesame Street video (well, at least it's my favorite, and he seems to like it, too): http://www.sesamestreet.org/videos see Feist 1234. His cousin, Saul, sent him the link a few weeks ago, and we've been enjoying it ever since. Oliver now knows how to start and stop the video using the mouse buttons; the other day I was washing dishes and he played that video about 12 times in a row! That's when I took this photo.

What else is new...... we're planning to go to Guilford this weekend for the big Guilford Fair - a nice agricultural fair that also doubles as an excuse to go back to Guilford! We'll probably stay over Saturday night so we can go to the Ikea up there on Sunday. No other big plans until our trip back to England in October... not looking forward to the flight, but being there will be nice!

The last few photos are of Oliver enjoying a "banana milkshake" this morning (milk and banana, a drop of honey) - you can tell from the second photo that he likes it a lot! Plus, he likes to ham it up for the camera now - he loves it when I show him the photos of himself right away on the little camera screen. How things have changed from when we were kids!!

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

September Daze

Quick update here... not too much to report, really. We're enjoying the cooler weather, and might even go camping this weekend when Andy gets back from Latvia. Nothing like sleeping under the stars to help with jet lag!! Our big excitement this week was on Sunday night... we were having dinner, and O was running around as usual, and before I knew it, he had attempted to climb up our side table (the one with all the stuffed animals on it) and it had FALLEN ON TOP OF HIM! So I ran over and pulled it off him - the top edge was right at his neck - and I think the radio had hit him in the eye, hence the swollen gash.... it was NOT FUN! Andy had left for his trip that afternoon, so it was just me at home, and I was a worried mom!! But Oliver just cried for a few minutes, coughed a lot, and then was back to running around. The picture you see here was taken the next morning, when his eye was more swollen. Poor guy! I don't know how he manages to look so cute when he's all banged up, plus he had a fever still from sometime on Sunday.
Anyway, he's back to himself now (gash is healing). On Monday night I even still managed to go to my first choral rehearsal for the new group I've joined - he had a sitter for 3 hours, and she did the whole bedtime routine with him and he was FINE - what a boy!! Very proud of him!!! The choir is great, I'm so excited - imagine rehearsing the Messiah all fall, not just one night at Christmastime! I met some nice people there, too, so that's good.

Ok, lots to do before he wakes up from his nap - I'll try to write more soon!

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Summer photos!

Just put together a little slideshow of the second part of Oliver's summer - lots of photos from Maine, and a few from here at home. Enjoy!

Monday, August 25, 2008

Sunny days

Sorry it's been forever since I've written... we've been having a very quiet August here in NJ, and the weather's been surprisingly mild and pleasant! I was bracing myself for hot and sticky, but we lucked out this summer. Oliver's been enjoying lakefront beaches, playdates with his pals, lots of trips to different playgrounds, and other fun stuff. A few weeks ago we went to Guilford for the day, visited with Sharon and Lisa and played on the green with Rachel and cousin Saul! Dad had a big long kayak ride.

Just the other day Oliver was telling me why he thinks Barack Obama is so much better than John McCain... I think he summed it all up by explaining that he doesn't want another four years of a Bush presidency. I thought these were very mature sentiments coming from a 22 month old, but then he showed me this article so I better understood their origin. Very clever boy!

No really, Oliver's still not talking! Lots of lovely sounds and sort of words... especially "uurdn" which repeats with regularity and gumption!! We're wondering if it's a variation on "Aidan" (his cousin). Who knows?!

No new wildlife sightings, just our usual backyard groundhog and some very vocal foxes waking us up with their crazy screams at 3am a few nights back. Will keep you posted!

Friday, August 1, 2008

Oliver's new friend

So here's the latest installment of "Wild Kingdom in the Backyard..." - we had two raccoons on the deck the other day, one of whom dashed away pretty quickly after we started watching them, but the other one was very, very tame. He basically acted like a cat, stretching, yawning, sniffing curiously, even lying down and lounging around - all right on the other side of the glass from us. He even played in Oliver's little kiddie pool (eww, I know, we washed it out afterwards), pushing the toys around for a while. He was SO not afraid of us, even when Oliver banged repeatedly on the glass -- I think he was outside there for at least 40 minutes. He was still there when Andy got home from work, and he managed to chase him away, although I think the raccoon pretty much thought Andy came out to play with him. Weirdest raccoon ever! But very well groomed and happy, as far as I could tell. One of these photos shows Oliver blowing a kiss to the raccoon, and you can see his little friend peeking out from under the grill cover. Who needs the zoo when you live in Landing, NJ?!