46 weeks

We're now at 46 weeks.  That means the countdown to the first birthday is 6 weeks!  I just can't wrap my head around that.  I've got everything picked out for the big party.  Now I just need to fork out the credit card and pay for it!  I have a few things I want to make myself, but we'll see if I have time on the weekends to get started on those projects.  I think this party is going to nickel and dime me directly to the poorhouse!  It's like I'm going to be spending $40 here and $50 there and that only covers the invitations and the paper plates and napkins!  I think I'm going a tiny bit overboard, but I want everything to be matchy-matchy and cutsy, so it's worth it!!

Ok, let's go ahead and get started because I forgot a lot of little things I wanted to mention last week.

The big new thing this week is his new tooth!  The upper right tooth finally fully broke through the gum today...THANK GOODNESS!!  That tooth had been causing him so much pain all weekend.  The gum was so swollen and red that I was hurting for him whenever I saw it.  He had been fussy and crying several different times this weekend.  That is extremely unusual for Chase.  One of the many things we love about our little boy, is that he's a sweet, happy boy who rarely cries.  The times he does cry, it is very brief and it's caused by only a few things - he just woke up and is sleepy cranky (he gets that from me!), he's hungry (most of the time), or he just bumped his head on something (this one is becoming way more frequent).  This weekend he was crying for reasons other than those 3 situations so it was kind of a new territory for us.  We spent a lot of the weekend just cuddling him, feeding him Cherrios to distract him from the pain, and popping the legal limit of teething tablets (he LOVES, LOVES, LOVES these!!!).

When Drew picked Chase up from school this afternoon, they asked him if he had seen Chase's new "trick".  Let me back up a little bit and say yes, we have seen this new "trick".  I just happen to call it "Momma's Little Heart Attack".  This "trick" begins as Chase innocently sucking on his pacifier.  Then he grabs the pacifier and plays around with it a little bit.  He'll take it out of his mouth, flip it around, suck on the handle, flip it back around and put it back in correctly.  Then before you know it he has the ENTIRE thing in his mouth.  My heart stops a little bit each time I see this.  We frantically shove our fingers in his mouth to pop it out.  Granted, it hasn't gotten to the point where he's gotten anywhere close to choking on it, but OMG!  I can barely even think about this without freaking out!  I've got to find a bigger pacifier or just start weaning him now, because he's at the point where we can't leave him unsupervised with one anymore!

Other things to remember that are one-off type memories:

These are things that make Chase laugh hysterically these days: 1) Us pretending to eat his food when he's sitting in the highchair, 2) Pretty much laughing at his daddy anytime, but specifically this week when he shakes his pacifier in his face and when he speaks in crazy voices, 3) He laughs at me when I jump up and down and when I move my face near and far from his.

As mentioned earlier Chase isn't much of a cryer, however he is a grunter/hmph'er.  I think he drives some of the daycare teachers crazy because he will just grunt and hmph all day long.  I think it bugs them because they can't tell if he's happy or sad.  It's funny because I don't really ever notice this unless someone points it out to me.  Of course, I think it's precious! :)

He's starting to boycot his afternoon nap at school (his 2 to 3pm nap).  But by the time Drew picks him up in the late afternoon, he's wiped out!  He's usually taking his nap now when I get home in the evenings, which has led to bedtime being a little bit later now (around 8) since he's waking up around 6pm or so.

I don't really have any pictures from this week, but here's a sweet (and sad) picture from this afternoon.  He woke up from his late afternoon nap very sad, most likely due to that darn tooth (and me not paying enough attention to him this afternoon, but I don't want to blame myself for those tears!).  Although the tears were sad, the tear soaked eyelashes were precious!  He's also had a really runny nose recently.  I blame that on the teething too, but in the back of my mind I always think it could be an ear infection too.  I haven't noticed any fever, so I'm just going to blame that tooth!