Howie is Walking!!!

We can't believe it, folks- Howie is walking! It is the most amazing thing!! He came home from his vacation at my parents' house walking like a champ!! This has completely changed our lives, as you can well imagine... suddenly nothing is safe in our house! We used to not worry about piles of stuff sitting around or basement doors being left open since Howie was relatively immobile, but now he's walking, so we've had to pick up piles lest he slip on them or wreak havoc on them. So this is actually a good thing. It's so heartwarming to see him on the move. It seems like overnight he's transitioned into a toddler, and I'm so happy for him. He's loving life in the fast lane. And he's so easy to entertain now!! Just set him loose and let him entertain himself. We're definitely having to keep an eye on him- the other day I saw him casually carrying my cell phone around with him. I have no idea where he found it, but I know that we are not those parents who are getting their 3 year old a cell phone, so that is one toy I made him ditch. We're so happy for him and so thankful to the Lord for this huge development! He's still having frequent falls, so expect to see him looking a little banged up for the next few weeks.

In other news, Howie has had the privilege of hosting his cousin John over the past few days! My sister Emily and little John stayed with us for a couple of days, and it was such a funny thing to watch the two boys interact. They did their fair share of poking and following each other around and taking toys from each other, etc. John is also walking, so there were several times when Emily and I both held our breath as the boys walked around, weaving like drunk people (they're still quite wobbly). You get the point. Today Em and I took the boys to Great Clips for hair cuts. Picture us walking in with 2 toddlers- actually, Howie walked himself in with in his Cardinals shirt, diaper, and bright green Crocs. I asked the man behind the counter if they cut such small people's hair, and he asked me, "Do they sit still?" I thought, "Is this a joke?? Do they LOOK like they ever sit still for more than 30 seconds? Does this man have any contact with children??" I probably stretched the truth just a bit and said that they could sit still well enough- after all, they had both gotten haircuts before, so it had happened in the past... we got all ready and he took Howie first. Howie was supposed to stand up in the chair, and he did not like that at all. I think he thought he was at the doctor's office or something, so I held him and the man started cutting. This was obviously a difficult job since Howie kept trying to alternately crane his neck to see what this stranger was doing and also swat at the man's hands to keep the scissors away. I pinned down Howie's hands and tried desperately to interest him in National Geographic, but that was basically in vain. After much struggle and many attempts at distraction, Howie was done. Now it was John's turn. John was also instructed to stand in the chair, and the barber got out the clippers to start on the back of John's hair. John obviously wanted to look at and hold that mysterious thing making the whirring noise, so needless to say, John's haircut started out pretty rocky. John then decided to start jumping up and down in the barber chair, which didn't help matters. Somehow the barber managed to finish cutting, which was nothing short of a miracle. Em and I left, both amazed that somehow we had loaded everything into the car and accomplished our goal of getting haircuts for the boys. We got dinner at Pei Wei, which is this really yummy Chinese place- that was also a circus, but lots of fun. I'll summarize that by saying that Howie had such a great time that he walked out with 3 pieces of rice on his leg, a sesame seed on his forehead, and some more rice in his shoe to be found later. We had a wonderful time together- the fun to be had with a cousin!!

Howie Pets A Goat, and Other Things

My new haircut: I'm trying to grow my hair out for the 900 millionth time. It's hard to see in this pic, but it actually does look pretty good for an awkward in-between phase.
Our new jogger stroller, courtesy of our neighbors Jen and Chris! I had wanted one so bad, and this practically rolled onto my doorstep! Add this to our stroller fleet, and hopefully my pathetic fitness will improve.
My herb garden- I'm so proud of my little basil plant taking off!
This is our tomato jungle- Josh and I aren't exactly "master gardeners", as it were, but there are actually some tomatoes growing in that mess.

This has been an eventful few weeks! We went to the St Louis Zoo on Tuesday afternoon and had a wonderful time. It's huge and free, so we plan on going back to catch what we missed- Howie didn't have enough energy to see everything since it was so big. He especially enjoyed petting the goats, seeing different kinds of reptiles and amphibians, and lots of other animals.

I think his clear favorite was the meercat exhibit. He couldn't get enough of the meercats. Not sure why, but he kept leading me back over there.

Howie is currently on vacation with my parents in Illinois, where he's been since Wednesday night. It has been so quiet around here!! Josh and I could barely remember a time when we didn't think about grabbing diapers, a cup and snack, and a change of clothes when going out the door. It's so easy to leave the house when you just have to grab your keys and purse. It has been weird to leave the house to do something at 8:00 PM and not think about a babysitter!! No naptimes to think about, no lunches or dinners for a hungry little person, no food getting smashed into the kitchen floor that was once on a highchair tray- we're back to the days when we can basically do whatever we want to whenever we want. Now that we have so much freedom, we can't wait to get Howie back!

A Few Comments

First of all, as we speak Howie is currently ruining our second date night attempt in a row. We had lined up trusty babysitters a couple of weeks ago (Lis and Noel, you know who you are) and got all excited, only to discover that Howie had a raging fever from teething and was miserable. Scratch first attempt. You can't leave your baby at home when things aren't quite right. Take two... tonight we had planned to leave again, lined up another set of trusty babysitters (we were going to put Howie to bed since he normally goes so early and then leave), and what happens? Howie won't go to sleep. If you've been around him at nighttime lately, you know that he's usually a sleeping champ, but of course he won't go to sleep tonight because he has that child's 6th sense that Mom and Dad are trying to leave to get away from him for a while. He keeps horsing around and whining, and I keep having the lingering thought that maybe he's hungry (see below), so I guess the babysitters are currently on hold until we cease to hear things from his room. It could be that we'll be on hold for so long that we'll scratch the second attempt- I hope not.

Here's another thing that happened tonight. For some reason we had a hard time scraping together stuff for Howie to eat for dinner. We didn't cook anything since we were supposed to be at a restaurant right now, so I fed Howie some yogurt, but he didn't seem interested in the other things we tried to give him- chicken, tomatoes, toast, crackers, cheese, etc. Finally I decided to make him a grilled cheese sandwich, but since we have no bread, I went to my neighbor's house to borrow 2 pieces of bread. I slapped it on the grill pan with some cheese and started singing a stupid song and dancing with the spatula to entertain him while it was cooking because he was completely unimpressed with the menu that was offered him and was crying. Finally the stupid sandwich was done and I scooped it off the grill pan with the spatula to let it cool, and lo and behold, I dropped the sandwich into a random pot sitting on the counter next to the stove. The problem was that the pot had water in it. I had left it soaking from cooking rice last night. So there I watched that sandwich sink under the surface with the same sinking feeling inside. I ruined a tasty grilled cheese sandwich in a freak accident. I quickly fished it out and tried to put it back on the grill pan even though the bread was so wet that I could have wrung it out... obviously that was a dumb idea. So Howie didn't get his sandwich. Instead we declared him done and said that dinner was over. Maybe that's part of why date night is swirling down the drain- Howie's still mad about that sandwich.

I guess our date nights are just jinxed. There's always take-out.

The Newest Thing in Our Lives

Drumroll, please...


Yes, that's right- I got my nose pierced!! At the encouragement (and part coercion) of my wonderful friends April and Elissa, I now have a real-life body piercing. We went together and each got a different piercing. Let me tell you, getting my nose pierced rivaled having a spinal block before my c-section in terms of pain. The kind piercing lady told me that it didn't really hurt that bad, but au contraire, my friends. It hurt so bad that my eyes started watering. Then the pain passed- it only lasted a second- and I was left with some vague nausea and a strong feeling that I was going to pass out. The piercing lady handed me a bucket of candy and told me to eat some (this is probably a common occurrence when getting a hole punched in your body) and handed me a cup of water. After a few minutes of sitting still, I was ready to go. It doesn't hurt anymore, and I've already managed to carefully blow my nose. Hope you like it!

We also hope that you like our new blog format- something different to shake things up!

We're Back, and This Time We Mean It!

Guess what, folks, the desch family now has the internet. Before, we were posting when we could. We would duck into a Panera and make the magic happen in only a couple of minutes. We would use the internet at the most random places, because we had to, but now things have changed. Be prepared to see our blog rise to a whole other league over the next few months. Now hear are some pictures, mostly of Howie, because we know that why you really come to this blog to begin with. These pics cover the last couple of months.

A Proud Parenting Moment

I put Howie in his crib for a nap on Monday afternoon, and it seemed like he was pretty lively, so I wasn't sure that he was going to fall asleep easily. I went off to read or clean up or whatever I do during his naptimes (honestly, I'm not even sure usually... I am the queen of putzing). I heard him chattering and then heard the tell-tale THUNK that is his paci falling out of his crib. When you hear the thunk, you can choose to ignore it, but until you go in there and replace that paci, Howie's not going to fall asleep and will usually make enough noise to force your hand into responding to the thunk. So I went into this room to do my thunk duty, thinking all the way that he was awfully cheery and not sounding very sleepy.

Actually, I think I need to give some background for you to fully appreciate the weight of this particular paci replacing trip. Howie went to the physical therapy evaluation last Thursday, and the therapist did several different tests with him. First Howie thought Kate (the therapist) was pretty cool with her slick toys, but as time went on, his opinion of her severely deteriorated. Anyway, we got through the different tests and Kate said that many of his skills were at the level of a 7 month old, and he had a couple of skills at the level of an 11 month old, so in some areas he's pretty behind. Howie was much better extending his back and leg muscles than flexing his trunk muscles, which can explain why he never learned how to sit up when he was lying down and also has never crawled, which requires a lot of flexion. Anyway, that's the basic story. She sent us home with lots of exercises to work on, and we're going to meet with her every other week (Howie will be thrilled). So we've spent a good bit of time since then working with Howie, and by Sunday he had already learned how to push himself into sitting up from lying down flat!! We were so proud and excited for him- now he's able to have more control and doesn't have to rely on us quite as much. Next stop is crawling... we've got a long way to go...

Anyway, back to the paci thunk... I went back to his room, cracked the door so I could see what he was doing before he saw me, and he was STANDING IN HIS CRIB!! That was the first time I had ever seen him do that!! I was sooooo happy for him. He was very happy for himself, too. He was just standing there jabbering and started laughing when he saw me. Since then he's been standing in his crib during naptime and hasn't yet figured out how to lay back down, but the disrupted naptimes are actually wonderful- I'm so thankful that he's passed this milestone. Hooray for Howie!! Hopefully we'll have news of more progress soon!

Finger Update

It looks like two of my fingers are rotting. I think I have eczema pretty bad on both of my ring fingers (random), and it really looks like they're rotting and falling off. It's pretty gross. I can't straighten them anymore and one of them usually has some part that's open and burning. Yuck.