One Year Old

Happy 1st Birthday, Simon--we love you!

(and happy 28th birthday to Andy!)

Holiday Visiting, Part 1: Pre-Christmas

We have survived hours of travel, lots of snow, slush, and ice, and many wonderful days visiting with friends and family! We have about a week more of visiting ahead of us, so we thought we'd better update the blog on our holiday visiting thus far, before round two starts!

Before leaving the Cities, we were able to visit with the Kalizabs and Zippy T. Here's the whole gang--the little ones all ready for bed.

The drive to Madison was, thankfully, uneventful. Andy drove us the whole way, Simon kept us on our toes with alternate laughing, sleeping, and fussing, and Jess fulfilled her navigator duties by pouring coffee refills, playing DJ, and providing toys in the backseat.


It was Simon's first ride forward-facing! You're allowed to switch kids to forward facing carseats when they are at least one year and 20 lbs--Simon has the 20+ lbs, and was just a week shy of a year, so we thought we'd try it in hopes that it might help him enjoy the car ride a little more. Hard to say if it worked...he does like pointing out stoplights through the front windshield now!


In Madison, we got to visit with Grandma and Grandpa, play with new toys, and generally relax!

We were also able to nurture Simon's budding pianist tendencies with Grandpa John's electric piano. Here you can see a typical 20 seconds of Simon engaged in any activity--from very excited/interested, to distracted, to interested again, to signing "all done" as he's ready for a change.

Piano Man 2 (21 seconds):




Andy and Simon even got a chance to play in the snow, as Madison had over a foot of snow waiting on the ground.

I think Simon tackled Andy, if I remember correctly :)

Christmas Eve and day were spent in Madison with Grandma and Grandpa, going to church, eating yummy food, and hanging out.

Next post: opening gifts and after-Christmas partying!

Merry Christmas from the Gubbins Family!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Getting Ready...

We are getting ready for Christmas--we leave for almost two weeks of holiday traveling on Tuesday morning.

A few weeks ago we picked out a Christmas tree, along with Alex, Erica, & Elsie...

...and decorated it a few days after that. In among the ornaments was a sparkly, curly bow from some past year's present--Simon loves it, so much that it has lost several of its ribbon strands, already.

Simon thinks the tree is great fun, especially pulling on the baby-friendly ornaments we hung from the lower branches, and pointing out whenever it is lit up. (Pointing out lights--on OR off--is his new thing, and he's amazingly good at it. We'll go to a place we've never been, where there is some lamp that looks totally different from any he's seen, and which is turned off (so it isn't necessarily evident that it lights up), and he'll still point it out in his survey of the room's lighting fixtures!)

Simon has been encountering the Christmas story in various forms, though of course he doesn't realize it. When playing with this plush nativity scene with Grandpa, his favorite thing to do was put the hay in and out of the manger (he's becoming quite skilled at putting things in and out, and likes to practice by putting his pacifier places and then retrieving it, and by taking socks out of his sock drawer and putting them in other drawers). He is fascinated by lit candles on our Advent wreath, too, though he thinks Advent devotions take much too long and has little patience for sitting still while Mom or Dad do something as boring as read from a non-picture-book! In future years, we're hoping of getting an Advent calendar--or of Jess knitting one...either something like this (simpler) or this (more complex, but we like it a little better)--to add a more fun, child-friendly aspect to our Christmas preparations!

All of this preparation is exhausting! Its a good thing Christmas is almost here!

Winter Knitting

Although the cardigan I started for myself almost a year ago hasn't made much progress, I have recently gotten some knitting done. First, there was a finishing touch to add to Pickle's stocking, in order to make it Simon's: his name.

Gubbins' Family stockings

If you recall, I was also working on a hat for Simon. I finished it a couple weeks ago, and am quite happy with how it turned out--and it fits perfectly! For the crafters out there: I used this pattern for "Ian's Chullo," but shortened it by an inch to make it a more snug fitting hat (so you can pull his hood over it for those true Minnesota winter days!) and added ties to the earflaps.

We had quite the little photo shoot:

hey! Mom's making goofy faces at me and I don't really know why :)

I wasn't sure at first about using two accent colors, but I think I like it

a nice view of the top

don't be fooled--this is what Simon really thinks of it!

11 months old, 2 weeks ago

Our little boy is 11.5 months old! Here's a quick glimpse into five of his current habits...



1.) Simon loves to move...and does NOT like to lay on his back! We usually see this evidenced in diaper changes and trying to get him dressed--but he also demonstrated it nicely when I was trying to get his 11-month posed photo. (These weren't taken in direct succession; between each one I went and retrieved him and tried to entice him to lay still again!)


2.) Simon still loves to flail things. We can't exactly go out in the leaves anymore, but he gets ample opportunity with all of the laundry we do around here!

3.) Simon is very good at communicating his wants...less good at understanding that he can't always get what he wants. It has been mostly wonderful that Simon can now generally communicate what he wants, be it through signing, pointing, grunting, etc.--but we do sometimes miss the days when we could pretend to not know what he wanted and instead offer something more appropriate for him to play with!


4.) Simon loves to stand! This is definitely a new development that started over Thanksgiving. He's become quite agile at pulling himself up on almost anything that is even relatively stable--a moving glider ottoman, a nearly-empty basket of laundry that would tip if he put too much weight on it, etc. This means we have finally joined the many parents who walk in to find their infants standing at the rail of their crib--luckily, he hasn't discovered that he can throw things out of the crib yet :). He has just started cruising a little bit this past week--more by accident than anything. I'm sure in no time he'll be cruising all over the place! (Cruising is when infants 'walk' around while holding on to things for support.)

5.) Simon's learning new tricks all the time. Recent tricks include turning light switches on and off, and putting things in and out--rather than just empty his bucket of blocks, he can now also fill it back up! (This is an example of a typical developmental sequence, actually. Learning to release muscles intentionally or reverse an action usually takes a while to develop--so picking something up voluntarily comes before being able to let it go or place it somewhere voluntarily--also why infants can get 'stuck' sitting or standing when they have figured out how to get into a position, but cannot yet get out of it.)

Oy

Family check-in:
Jess--was sick, still recovering
Simon--was sick, still recovering, we think...also teething, we think, so at this point its hard to say how much is recovering and how much is teething
Andy--feels like he's just getting sick

Some days are just longer than others.

Thanksgiving with the Kalizabs

we played at an awesome playground near Katie & Alex's house the day after Thanksgiving

We had a lovely Thanksgiving trip. We spent Thanksgiving in Illinois with our good friends, the Kalizabs*. En route to Illinois, we stopped in Madison to see Jessica's folks both on the way there and the way home. Simon did quite well, and after the first night didn't even sleep terribly as he has on some past trips--which gives us hope for all the time we'll be spending away from home over Christmas!

Abbie (3 yrs), Simon (11 months), & Izzie (15 months)

In Madison, we all got a chance to catch up with my folks, and Simon enjoyed showing off his crawling in the much-more-spacious layout of their house. In Illinois, Simon enjoying having some playmates and a whole house of new toys! Here you can get an idea of how well Izzie & Simon hit it off:

Best Buds (37 seconds):




We must say that we feel like when we left here, Simon acted like an infant, and when we came back, he was suddenly acting like a toddler. As we like to say now, when Simon does something that seems toddler-ish, "it must have been those Kalizab girls!" We're pretty sure that Simon's own developmental timeline has very little to do with it, and he may have stayed a charming, agreeable infant forever if Abbie & Izzie hadn't shown him what fun it is to be a toddler ;-).

And with that, we here in the Gubbins household are turning our attention towards the end of the semester (crunchtime!) and, more enjoyably, Christmas!

See, Simon has already turned his attention toward Christmas...

*and yes, their last name is as much Kalizab as ours is Gubbins...you know, the Kalizab's...Katie, ALex, IZzie, ABbie...if they have another one we'll have to change their last name!

Post-Thanksgiving Craziness

As predicted, life post-Thanksgiving is a crazy rush of finishing up the semester and getting ready for Christmas, which means we've been too busy to post about our great Thanksgiving trip, and Simon becoming an 11-month old! Perhaps in the next few days I'll find some time.


Until then, a little musical entertainment to cheer you up in your own undoubtedly busy lives--Simon learned to play the piano at Katie & Alex's house!

Piano Man (50 seconds):