Today was show day at Little Gym. I got to show Mommy all the things we learned over the semester, including doing a forward roll on the balance beam and flipping over the parallel bar. Then at the end, I got a medal and a certificate.

Sometimes, I’m a really busy baby. Today, I had not one but TWO birthday parties to go to. The first was for my friend Natalie. Her mommy and daddy threw a barbeque in their backyard. I got to run around the house (literally!) but what I really liked to do was climb up and down the steps in their yard (Mommy and Daddy helped).

Later, Mommy and Daddy took me to Gymboree where Ben was having his birthday party. I got to play on the equipment. Mommy helped me do a back handspring on the hot dog and a forward roll on the mat. I also liked to play with all the wiffle balls, especially putting them back in their bucket. But I wasn’t too fond of the parachute; I didn’t do that very much.

Then Henry and his mommy and daddy went to dinner with me and Mommy and Daddy. We ate at this very nice Irish restaurant and Henry and I both got macaroni and cheese and ice cream! It was really yummy.

Whew, today was a busy day. I woke up about 5:30, like I usually do, but Mommy didn’t come in to get me until 6. She saw that I had a really messy diaper, so she asked Daddy to help her. I got a bath, and then I had my breakfast. I kept slipping on the milk I spilled from my bottle. That hurt and made me cry. Then, when eating my cereal, I got very messy so Mommy took me into the shower with her.

Then we went to get Mommy’s car’s oil changed. While we waited, Mommy took me to a playground where I got to run around. There was a slide with a staircase that I like to go up and down on the steps (with Mommy’s help).

After the car was done, Mommy took me to the mall where I got my very first haircut. The nice lady saved some of my hair and gave it to my mom. Then she took some clippers and cut my hair really short. I didn’t mind getting my hair cut that much, but I cried when they tried to take the blue comb I was holding away!

You ever have one of those days? I did, and Brenda isn’t going to like this story about life with a one-year-old…

Sammy rarely sleeps past 5:30AM anymore. This morning I hear him babbling over the monitor, but I’m too tired to get up yet. Ah, he’s not crying and besides, he brought a book to bed with him so he can look at the pictures until I’m ready to get up. At 6 my alarm goes off, and I drag my sleepy butt into his room.

As I put him on the changing table, I notice that his back feels wet. Hmm, I think. I take a look, and see the great big mustardy brown spot in the middle of his back. I yell for Mark.

He comes in and we peel Sammy’s footie pajamas off of him. When I take off his diaper, there’s poop everywhere. Everywhere. Mark suggested something, I forget what it was, and instead we plopped him into the bathtub. I had to fill the tub, drain all the poopy water out, and fill it back up again to rinse him off. In the meantime, he splashes the poopy water all over my nightgown. And it’s not even 6:30 yet.

So we get a clean diaper on him, and I put on new pajamas. I take Sam downstairs and give him his bottle while I mix up his breakfast. While I’m doing that, he’s getting milk from his bottle on his mat and slips on it. Every time he tries to stand up, he slips again and starts crying. I get him off the mat and chuck it outside. Mark comes down, gets his breakfast and I get mine.

But the fun doesn’t stop there. He gets cereal all over his hair, his arm, his chest and of course his face. So after breakfast we all head upstairs for a shower. I take Sammy into the bathroom and take off his diaper. While I’m waiting for the water in the shower to heat up, he pees on the floor next to it. And of course, slips on it. Since he’s already getting his pee-covered hands on my pajama-pants legs, I pick him up until Mark comes and helps me. After I get my now-dirty pajamas off, I take Sammy into the shower and give him a good rinse while I get washed myself. Then I wrap us both in towels and take him back to his room to get yet another diaper on him and put on his pants. Then I finally get dressed myself. It’s been a long day already, and it’s not even 7:30.

I spend the next hour running around the house getting stuff together for the rest of our day. We go over to get the car’s oil changed and while we’re waiting, I take Sammy to a toddler playground in King Farm. He’s obsessed with steps, and so he climbs to the top of steps for a slide. Then he uses the bars on the rails to help himself down, stumbling a little bit and not quite knowing where to put his feet. Of course I’m there the whole time, keeping him from falling and killing himself. At one point he discovers some bird poop and starts playing with it. He tries to hand me some which I just bat away. This, he finds hilarious. I cringe, but thank G-d he doesn’t try to put any in his mouth. When we’re ready to leave I douse his hands in hand sanitizer.

After that, we head over to the mall for Sammy’s first hair cut. The cut itself goes fine, until Sam gets a little fussy. I suggest to the woman cutting his hair that she let him hold a blue comb (because Sammy has this obsession with anything blue; heaven help me if he ever finds a set of blue steps, I’d never get him off!). He handles getting his hair cut just fine, but of course he started screaming and crying when we tried to take the blue comb away. sigh

Finally, we had lunch, and on the way home from the mall he alternated between falling asleep and throwing a tantrum. I sure hope this afternoon goes better.

Now that I’ve got this walking thing down, I’m onto running. The thing is, when you fall down running it hurts more than when you fall down walking. Take this morning for example. I tried running into Mommy and Daddy’s room, but I tripped over my toes and fell into their door. That hurt a lot and I cried. Then I was running in the living room later, and I did the same thing and my face hit the floor. Ouch. But I’m feeling better now.

I used to have this game I played with Mommy called “Get These Things Off My Feet.” Well, Mommy’s kinda thwarted that game by putting shoes on me which makes it really hard to get my socks off. So I started a new game called “Get These Things On My Feet.” I take the socks which Mommy leaves lying around the living room and try to put them on my feet. After all, I’ve seen her do it to me a bunch of times, how hard can it be, right? Well, it’s harder than it looks and I never get my socks on very well. But when Mommy comes over and tries to help me I throw a tantrum because I want to do it all by myself.

Today was “Music Together” class which meant that we met with Daddy for lunch. We went to a Tex-Mex restaurant that was a lot of fun. I love tortilla chips and soft tortillas. We had a bunch of food left over so Mommy took it home for dinner.

I got really messy at dinner eating the leftover beans and rice and Mommy and Daddy had to give me a bath. Mommy used the wash cloth to get soap all over me and when she was done that, she left it in the tub with me. So while she was rinsing me off, I thought I’d return the favor. I picked up the wash cloth and started washing her with it. She got very wet!

Today Mommy took me over to Ben’s house and Henry was there two. We all played and had a lot of fun. I liked to pet Ben on the head because his hair is all fuzzy.

Today Mommy took me to a park that had a lot of cool things to play on. Mostly though I just liked roaming around the playground. It was very hot though and after a little while I didn’t feel so good. Mommy took me to a restaurant for lunch along with Ben, Henry, Sarah and their mommies. Mommy let me have some of her potato pancakes. They were yummy.

Mommy and Daddy took me to a garden store today. There were lots of pretty flowers all over. Mommy and Daddy picked out two pretty red roses and took them home. While I was taking my nap, Mommy went outside and planted the roses in front of our house.

Today at lunch, Daddy gave me crackers to eat. I took it and dipped it into Daddy’s dip and ate it. The dip had horseradish in it and it tasted funny. I didn’t like it so I spit it out. Also for lunch Mommy and Daddy gave me sticky rice. I got sticky rice all over me and Mommy had to give me a bath to get it all off. For dinner we had hot dogs that were really chewy and yummy potatoes that Mommy made from a recipe from Grandma Wendy.

Today Mommy, Daddy and I went to the gardens for a walk. Mommy and Daddy let me out of my stroller and I get to walk across a big grassy area. That’s a lot of fun.

We did some shopping, and then we went home. I took a nap and then after my nap I played with Daddy for awhile. I like to bring Daddy things, like my blocks. I just keep bringing him more and more blocks and he keeps taking them. Sometimes he builds a little tower out of them, but then I knock it down.

Sometimes I bring my blocks to Mommy, but I like bringing them to Daddy most of the time.

Today Mommy and Daddy took me to Henry’s house. He was having a birthday party and Calvin and Brendan were also there. It was a lot of fun. Mommy fed me some of Miss Donna’s really yummy macaroni and cheese. Daddy fed me pizza toppings which were also yummy. Then we had birthday cupcakes. I liked to run through Miss Donna’s house and take Henry’s toys and throw them over their baby gate. It was a fun day.

Oh, and I run into things a lot. Before we went to Henry’s house, I was running in our kitchen and I ran into the stool. I gave myself a boo-boo on my mouth, but I feel better now. Mommy calls me “crash.”