A Day In The Life

Here's what Parker's day usually looks like:

Wake up: Usually any time between 6:30 am and 7:30 am. He's an early riser. April and I are not.

Breakfast: We usually have a breakfast of mushy cereal, Cheerios, some sort of fruit, and some water from his sippy cup about an hour after he wakes up, so this is any where from 7:30 to 8:30 am. April always tells me to give him a bottle before feeding him breakfast......but sometimes I forget. Don't tell her that, though.

Super Awesome Happy Fun Play Time: When he's not eating breakfast in the morning, we read books (well, flip through the pages), chase each other around the basement, knock things over, pull things off shelves, and climb on things. He loves music, so we usually play his CDs (Hi-5, Raffi) and he can dance around and be happy and stuff.

Nappy Nap Time: Parker is awesome at sleeping, which is great for us! We usually put him down for a nap 2 or 3 hours after he wakes up in the morning. So I usually put him in his crib at around 9:30. He plays with Superman for a bit by himself, makes some cute noises, climbs around his crib, and then he just goes to sleep without any fuss. April swore by the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and it must have worked.

More Super Awesome Happy Fun Play Time: Depending on how he feels, Parker will usually sleep for an hour or two and then wake up at 11 or so. We'll goof around in the kitchen or whatever and then it's time for....

Snacky Snack time: Usually some yogurt, or apple sauce, or some peas or cheese or beans or avocado.

Lunch: We try to have lunch as close to noon as we can, but depending on his naps and when he gets up, it can be tough. Lately he's been sleeping in, so everything is pushed back a bit. Sometimes we won't have lunch until 1 or 1:30. We used to feed him Mother Hen stuff for every meal, but now he likes to feed himself a lot more so we give him lots of little finger foods.

Afternoon Nappy Nap Time: Then Parker goes down for another nap in the afternoon, usually after his lunch and he'll sleep until 2:30 or 3. Sometimes he doesn't actually want to sleep, so we'll go and get him. He's pretty good about not being a grumpus maximus if he doesn't get two naps, so this is usually a good time to do errands or take him places (like Home Depot). He likes riding in the car and going places, and he looooves riding in carts at the stores! If we don't go out, we'll just play more in the basement, give him another snack around 3 or 3:30 pm, and then just relax.

Dinner time: We usually try to give him dinner by around 5 or 5:30. More finger foods and healthy stuff for him. April does his bed time routine 99.9999% of the time while I usually clean stuff up in the kitchen.

Bedtime routine: After dinner, Parker goes upstairs (with help from mommy), gets nekkid, and has a bath. After his bath, he gets a little massage with some powder, has some relaxing quiet time, listens to his mobile play a lullaby song, and drinks a bottle. Mommy puts him in his jammies and he goes to sleep on his tummy by 6:30 pm usually. Yay!

Late Easter Visit

April's parents came over for a nice lunch yesterday and got to spend some time with Parker! Here are some photos:





And here's Parker mugging it up for the camera a whole bunch. Here's a shot of his crazy long eyelashes.

And here's his face being happy.

And here he is doing little baby squats to pick up a coaster. If only he'd vacuum as well.


Here he is jumping around in his Fortress of Solitude (also known as his "crib").

Powering Up

Parker does this funny thing where he'll be sitting in his high chair, eating lunch or whatever, and he'll suddenly flex all of his muscles really hard, bug out his eyes, and stick out his lower jaw, and vibrate a little bit. It's pretty funny to see because he does it out of the blue. And then if you do it back at him, he giggles. Every time it happens, it reminds me of Goku from Dragonball Z powering up to a power level of 120,000 or so. Hopefully Parker doesn't uppercut me into the moon one of these times!

Testing Video

Just testing a video (no sound) that I made earlier today. It kind of looks like old security camera footage, because the frame rate is really slow and there's even some weird distortion built in. I almost expect Parker to rob a convenience store and make a hasty getaway at the end of the video (after reading "My Pretty Kitten" and "My Goldfish Wish", of course).

Little Boy Clothes & Smorgasbord

Here's Parker wearing some of his Christmas clothes (they're still a bit big on him) but it's nice to see him without pajamas on. At least for a day anyways. Parker is getting more mobile all the time, and now that his legs are stronger he can do little baby squats -- he'll be standing, holding onto the coffee table, and then he'll squat down to pick something up and then stand back up without ever sitting on the floor! He has also been doing a lot of dancing (he looooves Hi-5!), so I'm going to try and get some video of it soon.





Here's Parker with his little smorgasbord of foods. He's eating some avocado, cheese, peas, and beans. He followed that up with some apple sauce and a big sippy cup full of cold water. Mmmm! While he was eating the avocado, I started to sing the tune to Frère Jacques, only with the lyrics, "avocado, avocado, yum yum yum, yum yum yum, you like avocado, you like avocado, yum yum yum, yum yum yum," and he seemed to get a kick out of it. Or he thinks my singing is laughable. One of the two.

Parker And Daddy

Here are some photos of Parker and I before we went out for a walk yesterday afternoon! It was actually colder than we thought because of the wind, so we didn't stay out too long, but it's always nice to get some sun and fresh air. Parker is sporting his newly-altered Nana Hat and mittens. April's going to put me out of business with her mad photo skillz.

And if you had a chance to listen to Robot Number One by Hi-5, does the tune remind you of anything? Are Seth Green and I the only ones who remember those old commercials?

If You're Happy And You Know It...

We finally taught Parker how to clap! It's super cute! He just figured it out yesterday morning while we were eating breakfast, and then he did it a bunch of times (on purpose!) today. I think it's the music. He's got the soul.

Speed Demon

Here's Parker having a blast on the scooter-thing he got for Christmas! He doesn't push himself, but I think he has more fun when April and I push him anyways. Plus, we make it go light speed and he seems to really like that.



And here he is being attacked by mommy and giggling.


Here's Parker after a bath wearing a dinosaur towel. He kind of looks like the monster from Cloverfield, but cuter.



He loves to pull on the toilet paper roll and mess it all up. I think all babies like doing that for some reason.

Parker Loves Music

Ever since Parker was a cute fetus we've had music playing in our house. Now that he's a bit bigger and actually has a bit of balance and co-ordination, one of his favourite new things is to bust a move when catchy music comes on. Currently in our CD rotation:

Raffi: Singable Songs For The Very Young

Name Your Tune

And Parker's (and by "Parker" I mean "Garrett, April, and Parker") newest favourite, the greatest children's singing group ever:

Jump and Jive With Hi-5

Parker and I found Hi-5 by accident one morning when he was cruising around the basement and I was flipping through the channels trying to find basketball highlights from the night before. Channel 17 is TheScore, but channel 16 is TLC, so on my way up to 17, I saw a clip of their show on TLC. They have the catchiest songs EVER. We just got the CD a few days ago, and they're already burned into our brains. I woke up this morning and as soon as I opened my eyes I was like, "HIDE YOUR EYES AND COUNT TO TEN!!! READY OR NOT, I'M GONNA FIND YOU AGAIN!!!!" When Parker hears their music, he always shakes his little bum and it's super cute. He can be sitting "reading" a book, or in the middle of crawling around, and he'll stop and break it down. Here are some of their songs so you, too, can have them etched into your brain:

Ready Or Not

Robot Number One

Move Your Body

Dragon Sance (songlet)

P Is For Parker

(The Rentals are awesome)

More Toofies!

I tried to find a video of this specific scene from Family Guy but couldn't. Here's a transcript of a scene where Stewie gets two new teeth, and the teeth just happen to be nemeses:

Stewie: Aaagghh, my teeth!
Stewie's incisor: I'm free! Free! I claim this mouth in the name of Incisor.
Stewie's bicuspid: I think not.
Incisor: (Gasp!) Bicuspid! We meet again.
Bicuspid: Have at you!
Incisor: En garde!
[They struggle to move near each other but don't budge]
Bicuspid: Well, shall we bite the tongue, then?
Incisor: On three. One, two...
Stewie: Aaahhh!!!

Parker's teeth are totally battling it out in his mouth. Although they aren't Bicuspid and Incisor, they're his two big front teeth and he's having a bit of a restless sleep tonight. Every now and then we can hear him make little sighs and noises, which he doesn't normally do. Hopefully they pop out soon (and hopefully the rest follow suit), although he's going to look totally different with teeth!

In lieu of the lack of Family Guy video or Parker photos, here's Lion-O, Lord of the Thundercats.

Snow, Photos And More Photos

Can you tell that we've been stuck inside our house for a few days because of the snow? Here's a million and one photos! These are not in chronological order because of the way that Blogger organizes files. So they're just kind of a mish-mash of the last few days.

This morning Parker had his last swimming class for the Starfish level! After the class he got a little certificate that he promptly tried to rip up and eat. Here he is on the way to swimming class (with his Nana Hat on):

And here he is swimming in the pool at the Henderson Centre (located conveniently in our back yard) with mommy:



And here he is with his little certificate! Yay!




Along with his super crawling skills, Parker has mastered the fine art of standing. As soon as we put him in his crib he immediately climbs the walls and jumps around. Luckily it doesn't stop him from taking naps, which is really cool. We put him in his crib and he plays quietly for a bit until he's ready for a nap, then he goes to sleep! Here are some photos of him goofing around in the crib:

Here's Parker staring out our patio door at all the snow. He was originally licking the window, but we couldn't get the camera in time. He's actually looking at mommy in this photo, because she's so cute and distracting.

Parker is also incredibly fascinated by the new baby gate. He always crawls over to it and pulls himself up so he can shake the bars and stare down the stairs like a hardened criminal in jail for life. All he needs is a little cup to bang across the bars and he'll be all set.

One of the cool things about Parker is that he really seems to love books. There's a little pile of toys behind him in this photo that's kind of hard to see, but he always sorts through them to get the books. Here are are reading a Dr. Seuss masterpiece about Mr. Brown, his ability to moo, and his skepticism towards your ability to also moo. Parker loves turning the pages.

Here's the view from our front door. I think there was actually more snow the next day, but this amount kept our snow shovels busy enough.


We went to Home Depot today, so here's a photo for Grandpa D and Uncle Shawn. Parker loves riding in carts, and he also loves aisles of tools.

And here's Parker mugging it up for the camera in the basement.



Whew.

Wedding Photo!

Man, it is snowing like CRAZY here. April, Parker and I just hung out in our house all day, goofing around and playing with stuff. April made him all kinds of great, fresh food so he's been eating some new things and loving them! He has also been pooping them out quickly, so that's kept us occupied as well.

I was searching through some photos and thought I'd post a wedding photo from 2004! That seems like a while ago, considering where we are now as opposed to where we were then. Here's the happy couple!

Mr. Giggle

Here's mommy making Parker giggle.

He's Just A Little Boy!

For some reason April and I always make reference to Parker and say, "He's just a little boy!" Like, if he was trying to get something and he couldn't reach it, we look at eachother and say it. Or if he gets scared by something, we say it. Here are some photos from my parents' house on the weekend, and now that Parker can pull himself up (and he has more hair) he actually looks like a little boy! Check it out:



And here he is chillaxing with Papa.


He really likes the walker, so here he is motoring around on the hardwood floors.