AHHHYEAHfirststepsYEAH

If you weren't able to read the blog title then you're blissfully ignorant of Jersey Shore :) I've only seen the second season (which of course didn't even take place at the Jersey Shore), but when Samantha comes over there's a significant increase in shore-speak.

To get right down to the point of the post, our little guy is taking steps! I was folding laundry and eating pretzels in the living room, and of course the baby wants a pretzel if I'm eating one. I don't give him junk food so I thought about just putting the bag away and getting us all a better snack when this kid just lets go and takes 4 steps from one couch to the other in order to get to the fabulous pretzel bag that he just had to have.

I screamed and kissed him and hugged him and cheered! Then I ran for the camera and used a pretzel as bait to get him to do it again :) We only got a couple steps on video, but he was taking more steps at random times this morning so I think full-fledged walking is on its way! (This video is from yesterday, in case I didn't mention.)

Untitled from Amanda Hagood on Vimeo.

Here he was eating breakfast that morning looking all normal, lulling me into thinking this was just another day, no milestones about to burst out of him...




In between breakfast and walking was a little time out in the midday sun enjoying good temperatures. Notice the baby's toy camera :)











































(Note: The pictures where I make an appearance were taken by Samantha!)

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to eat some pretzels....they're magic you know.

The Dryer

Guess what I'm doing? DRYING CLOTHES IN MY OWN HOUSE! I used to take this absolutely 100% for granted. But after all this time (about 6 weeks), I'm finally drying my own clothes, yippee! Sears had the dryer fixed as of Tuesday last week, only for us to discover that the cap was never put on our outside vent that the dryer hooks up to, and one of our sprinklers just HAPPENED to be pointing right at it and filled it up to the top with 12 gallons of water, rendering our dryer useless again. Our builders finally got a plumber out here yesterday, and Anthony washed and dried our new sheets last night while I was at the Jasmine Star seminar in College Station.

I'd like to note that on my trip I saw a car that was clearly made out of several garage doors glued together....that my COUSIN! helped me get through the rough areas only to have my phone drop her right when I get to my destination...and that the whole trip, upset stomach, killer headache, and short short night of sleep was worth it. I had a great time, heard from a photographer I love, met new people, made connections with other photographers that will hopefully blossom into friendships, and lots more that I'm too tired to think about :)

I'm happy!

And excited my parents are coming to visit this weekend!

Back to editing...

The Hole

HOW did it get there?? WHEN did it get there?? Nobody knows. (Imagine this in Chuckie's voice.) Since we don't have cable in the new casa, I've been catching up on my classic Rugrats episodes :)

Anyway, the hole. Seriously. We don't know how it got there. This is a hole, or should I say two slashes (?) in our sheets. We got to the new house, put the sheets on the bed, and there are two long holes right about where your feet would be. And the spot where they're at looks extra worn and thin. I've never seen this spot before, so how could it look so aged and worn?? Weird. Anthony's feet must have magically eaten through it the last night we were in the house, and then he conspired to cover it up by offering to move everything out of the old house while I went to Houston. Yep, something fishy is going on here.

In any case, we needed new sheets. After an extensive search today, we found 800-thread count Egyptian cotton sheets ON SALE! that match perfectly :) LIFE IS GOOD. On the bad side, there was some stench over Round Rock that would creep in and out as we were perusing the stores. It is definitely from the bog of eternal stench. There's no other explanation. It was so bad that we had to forgo setting up the stroller and strapping the baby in at the parking lot. We put him on our hip and made a mad dash for the doors. And this happened a couple of times in the same general area (La Frontera). DISGUSTING. I don't see how that smell could come out of a person without the words, "You only have a short time to live" not being far behind. *shudder*

Moving on! You've all been patiently waiting for FOUR MONTHS....so here's another video of my baby doing nothing but being cute on our patio :)

Untitled from Amanda Hagood on Vimeo.

Play Time

Anthony has become quite the little ham, and I think this first picture proves it :)




Since we finally had some nice weather, it was patio exploration time.









I would like to note that the only use that Mega Blocks dump truck (in the top picture) has had is as a walking aid as he crashes around the house :)

Today was exciting (ahem, *sarcasm*). Sears left a comment on my previous post and said they wanted to get in contact with me and gave me some info. I answered them about 5 hours ago, and I've received nothing since. On the other end of things, Anthony called back now that our old ticket is closed (don't get me started), and they said they can send someone back out, but they won't be able to fix it....just do diagnostics again. AAARRGGGHHH!!! So, I spent some of my time driving wet diapers over to my in-laws' house to borrow their dryer. And this evening I'll be driving back to pick them up and throw in some more clothes which I will then have to run over and grab tomorrow while I'm supposed to be sitting here from 8-5 in hopes that a Sears guy will come do diagnostics for me and learn the source of the real problem.

Also, our post office workers out here are having miscommunications. We weren't receiving mail, and when Big A saw the actual carrier out he asked her what was going on. She handed him a bunch of mail and said we had the wrong keys. I drove to the post office and tried to exchange our keys today, but they tell me I have the correct ones and the carrier is the one who is confused. Not to mention that we ran into our neighbor trying to track down his own mis-delivered mail, and he said they've been "investigating" his issue too, but they've never called him or sorted it out as promised. What happened to customer service, people?

In other news, my baby is cute cute cute! All is well :)

Why I Hate Sears

Sears. I hate you. Wanna know why? READ YOUR CUSTOMER NOTES!

1. You've made us trouble-shoot over the phone several times, redundantly.
2. You advised us that the problem MUST be our ducts and as such you could make no further recommendations because that isn't the actual dryer. You said hire a duct cleaner. We get the ducts cleaned. Still broken.
3. You tell us you can't come in the week before we move so we'll have to call back.
4. We move and call back. You can't see us for a week.
5. You come out and say that the heater is broken. NO, REALLY?! I told you over the phone countless times that it turns on but doesn't heat up. Geez, that was a difficult diagnosis. Don't hurt yourselves wielding all that brain power at once.
6. Parts need to be ordered. AFTER they arrive you may call back and set up an appointment, but it's going to be about a week after that.
7. One. Nice. Thing. Happens. The actual guy (hi, Bruce!) who is working on our machine (note: we like him, just not Sears) goes ahead and makes an appointment for the day after he believes our parts will arrive so we don't have to wait that additional week.
8. Guy comes back out and installs parts. Says it's working fine. He leaves.
9. DRYER IS STILL BROKEN. 2 1/2 hours of drying, and the clothes are so wet that water actually splashes out when I open the dryer door!
10. We call Sears. They said they'd have our guy call us back right after the job he's currently doing. (12:26pm)
11. I get home from shooting (6:00pm). Sears hasn't called or come by.
12. We call Sears. We get transferred over and over and are re-asked our story. These are lateral moves, mind you, not escalations up to management.
13. They can't find the dispatcher, he's off duty for the day.
14. Ok, send someone out tomorrow first thing, right? NO. They can't even guarantee to get him here within the next couple days because someone has re-opened our ticket. And you can't open a new service ticket if the old one is still open so by the time the old one closes tonight at midnight in the system, everyone will be gone. Tomorrow morning they will see it, but it will probably be too late to schedule anything anytime soon. We have been transferred again.
15. I tell the bored sounding lady who answers the phone about our plight, and she reiterates the way the system works as if that will make me feel better. It doesn't matter how it works or what red-tape you need to get through, SEND ME SOMEONE!
16. She says she can't do anything for me and gets upset. I hand her to my husband. She promptly HANGS UP ON HIM. And mind you he is being entirely civil because he works in customer service. She even had the nerve to tell me earlier in the conversation that her Customer Solutions group IS the management and it doesn't get higher than that. So we HAVE to deal with her. BLEH.
17. We call back after she hangs up on us. They tell us there's no way to track who rude lady is. So we promptly ask her an employee identification number on the guy currently talking to us. After giving it to us he is sure to be very nice, doesn't hang up, but still can't do anything for us.
18. We still have on dryer. We have no prospects. WE HATE SEARS.

P.S. I suppose I should be mad at Kenmore for making this bunk dryer that was so expensive, but come on, Sears. Don't offer a one-year warranty with your "fabulous" Blue Crew if you're not going to get me service!

13 Months or 1 Year, 1 Month :)

Dear Anthony,

Son, you fared well over this last crazy month. The day after your birthday party we went to Houston for a week to stay with Granny and Grandpa through Christmas, and then we stayed with your Gigi and Papa for two weeks while we waited for our new house to be ready. You lived with 6 different people you aren't used to (including another kid!), and you handled it so well. Although I'm sure you were thrilled when you arrived in your new room to see that all of your old things had returned. Your crib was back, all your old toys, the furniture...and your sleep sign :)

While we stayed with Gigi and Papa you suddenly turned around and signed "more" one day. I was amazed and excited for you to be able to tell me what you need! Mother's intuition is pretty strong, but to get a clear signal from you of what you wanted was so awesome! Over the next couple of days you signed "washing hands", learned to clap, and wave hello/good-bye. When I get ready to leave you give me one or two waves, but then your sad little face realizes that I really am leaving, and you dissolve into tears :( I hate it when you're sad, but I love that you love me so much because you're the best little guy in the whole world!

You cruise really fast now, and you love using your little walking-aids. You got a dinosaur from Gigi and Papa that sings as you push him, and that one seems to be your favorite. You stand up by yourself when you're involved in something, but usually once you realize what you're doing then you drop down to the ground again. You've taken one independent step if you think you're really close to me, but you aren't walking yet. Your dad says he can't wait for you to be walking, but I'm sure he'll come to regret that statement :)

This morning you sprouted your 7th tooth! I believe the 6th one came in when we were at Gigi and Papa's, but today was definitely the first appearance of the 7th...your bottom row will be even again!

I think you enjoy baths now more than you ever have, and I was thankful I got home in time to give you one tonight. You are a splishy, splashy little cutie pie from head to toe. And it helps that you think I'm REALLY funny :)

It's been really cold and wet since we moved into the new house, but I promise to take some pictures of you very soon, good weather or bad. We may be doing it inside the house next to the mountains of boxes that we haven't had time to unpack. Yikes!

I love you more than ever,
Mom

Follow Through

Here are a couple birthday pics I said I would try to post. As you can tell, he got upset pretty quick with 50+ people singing at him, and I don't think he liked the fact that he was "dirty" (frosting). He knows mama doesn't like him to be unclean :) He never ate a single bite of cake; he was simply too upset after this. But he was suffering some serious allergies, maybe even a cold, the doctor wasn't sure. But presents cheered him up, hooray!







Photos courtesy of Whitney!