Baby Q is growing up, not as much a baby, closer to a toddler now. I still BF him, he’s eating more food now though too. So poopy diapers are oh so much more different of late. :rolleyes:

Q is talking a lot now. Sure, only WE can understand what he says, but he says so much. Like a few days ago, he was being cute, running away from something, brother or something he was doing, and he fell down, and as he did that he looked up at me and his Daddy and said, “I fell down!”

One present we got him for his birthday is a Leap Frog musical table called the Learn & Groove Musical Table. It’s pretty cool, and he loves it. He makes things happen and stands there sort of bounce-sway dancing to the music. It’s a nice busy/learning toy that isn’t annoying to parents and siblings at all. We all love to play with him with it.

So basically, I had looked online and checked availability for other stores, like Philly, Long Island, and such stores, just to see, thinking we could maybe gain access to one via talking on the phone to them and having it somehow shipped to us (the item is not available online to purchase, only IN the store itself.)

The thing about it all is, my Hubbie was going to be going to NYC on Thursday Night/Friday, and I told him that there was a brand new store in Brooklyn that IKEA’s website said had just opened the previous day or so. I had also told him that the Long Island store supposedly had availability of the product.

He wasn’t going to have a rental car, but be ferried around by a customer (usually he has his own rental car) and therefore didn’t think he’d be able to do anything about it, and didn’t know if there would be time in any case anyhow.

So on Friday I get a phone call from him telling me that they went to some stores looking for a couple of Wii things that no one around where we live has in stock, nor any online stores, he found nothing there in NYC. He was going to keep it a secret about what he did find though, and ended up telling me anyhow, thankfully, since surprises aren’t usually that good for me, it’s nicer to anticipate for awhile first, that’s half of the fun of something gifted or whatever you want to call it.

They went to the Long Island IKEA store, and said they had at least 20 of my desired item in stock, and that it wasn’t $20 as it was in ATL, but that price was crossed out and it was $15. So he brought one home with him from NYC to ATL (on the plane) and then to our home via our vehicle from the airport.

He got home late Friday night, actually Saturday, and so I got it out and put it together on Saturday morning. It’s very nice now, to have a REAL changing table that is nothing like I had for my other babies 7+ years ago. Baby Q has been changed on the bed and the floor most of the time, his whole first year, until just yesterday. I had originally bought a premium contour pad to use on our dresser, but that didn’t feel good and we just never used it, piled things on it instead, and used the floor on the main level with a travel pad from a diaper bag. Ugh.

I didn’t want a traditional changing table since it’s open to allow cats onto everything (we have cats galore compared to when we last had used a changing table.)

So we were able to get this changing table/dresser/chest thing from IKEA, minus tax, for $135. It’s a piece of furniture for now and the future. It’s nice. The only thing we’ll now do is change the hardware on the drawers, it’s a little fussy to use, LEKSVIK is the style.

I’ll find nice bin drawer pulls that will fit, I hope to, that is.

Once there we found a piece in the Leksvik line, that is small, but not too small, and has an additional piece to put on top that makes it into a changing table.

We liked it more than like. I’ve liked that series of furniture, I like the antique pine look, and the dark hardware, and the basic design of the pieces. We didn’t look any further since it was wood and would work and we liked it better than like.

If you haven’t been to IKEA before to buy something you might not know how it works, and also how frustrating it can be: You pick something out and get excited about it, even talk to the people in the departments about the items you are interested in on the Display Floor: then you go to the lower floor (in our case in Atl.) and search for the right AISLE and BIN for each product in the Warehouse. You find the right spot and … there is nothing there that you are looking for. It’s the right aisle and bin alright, but there is nothing of what you went there for.

Such was the case when we went down into the warehouse searching for the changing table top. It wasn’t there. Found an employee, they looked it up and said the computer says “1 in stock” … which in retail means, “there’s probably none.”

Great. Not. We got a dresser/cabinet specifically to work with that changing top. The dresser top isn’t large enough to use a changing pad, nearly, but the changing top is nifty and makes it safer to use. So if we could have, I’d have gone back upstairs and looked for something else to work, but it was close to closing, I had no time. I did like what we picked out, but there was no promise of ever getting the changing top there … they said the computer said there was no planned shipment of the product …

Here’s what it should look like

This is what we have right now though, the chest without the changing top:

I’ve checked online, other stores say THEY have it, just Atlanta doesn’t. So it’ll be a phoney solution for us, no doubt.

Yesterday I brought the package into the house, and put the dresser together. I had my eldest (12) help me some, and eventually had my Hubby help with screwdriver duty. It was a straightforward plan and went together with ease, for the most part.

He can walk fast, and could run, no doubt, but chooses to usually walk, walk fast. He doesn’t crawl much at all either now. Pretty much just walks.

We got him a real pair of shoes after he started walking, and they are very cute on him. White and navy “saddle shoe” type from Stride Rite. He needed a couple of wearings to ‘get used to them’ and then was off and walking fine in them. We got a cheaper pair of shoes at Babies R’ Us after that, they aren’t real leather, but man-made to look kind of like a suede, camel color. They are cool looking (I’ll get him in some pictures sometimes, wearing both pairs of shoes) and he walking right off the first time he wore these.

He wears shoes when we go out … not in the house, unless we are about to go somewhere, or just came home. Bare feet are best for walking, little baby feet getting shaped for getting older and doing more …

Strong feet take you places.

Baby Q is really taking off. He’s a pre-toddler, practically one, talking a mile a minute, very cute, very much my same baby as always, just growing up a big step-up this past month.

He’ll be One Year Old on June 23rd. Time doth flee us fastly!

So we now have a “walker” – a human baby, walking, stepping his way toward toddlerhood.

When we got back from our Florida trip, he was at home in his pack n’ play and he was crying, I looked at him, and there he was, for the first time standing holding onto the side of the play yard. He does that all the time now, just pulls up and cries standing there, “take me OUT of HERE!” no doubt is what he says.

Not just that though, he’s cruising with more and more confidence, and standing “look Mama, no HANDS!” occassionally too.

I know he’s seriouly into all this stuff just from one perspective: dirt. He’s not just dirty on the knees, hands, etc. It’s now his feet too. Dirty feet. He’s growing up.

He loves the kitties and is getting bolder with them, when they let him do so. The kitten, Clementine, just lays there sedate sometimes and lets him pat her and more. He loves it when they let him touch them. Imitates my petting them sometimes, with great delight.

He loves anything he can get his hands on, especially electronics. Not that he does anything with them but beat, shake, slap, and slobber over. It’s hard to work on my laptop with him around. His other move is this raking, scratching thing, just feeling everything and that is a nuisance with a laptop keyboard. Yanks on cords with great abandon.

In November, when he had just turned 5 months old he got ahold of his sisters birthday balloon and yanked that ribbon like a freak old train conductor yanking on the whistle cord over and over. More than pleased with himself. That’s what he’s like with ANY sort of cord.

He’s a big talker too. “Mama” and “Nigh Nigh” and all sorts of other sounds. He isn’t always talking, but he sure has a lot to say in some situations. Like right now, he’s pulling on my knees, wants me to put my computer down and hold him, so he’s “Mama, mama, mama …” over and over, crusing back and forth trying to get between me and this laptop. So I must end this post. He wins.

A couple of days ago he was in the living area and I went upstairs to tell my DH something, and told A., the 7-year old, to watch the baby while I was gone. I was gone 2 to 3 minutes and did hear the baby crying pretty much right away. I went to go back down stairs then, and found my crying babe on the middle of the steps up … [big brother was missing. A. seems to have forgotten what "watch the baby" for Mama means...] so now he can “climb the stairs” and we have to watch him closely now, more than ever, he’s wanting to climb the stairs often.

He also has been “pulling up” more and more. He did that a long time ago, for the first time, and has done it more and more and now does it anywhere he wants to. He wants to “walk” but isn’t really trying to do it by his-self, you can see that he wishes to do it though. He’s just a pest now with the “pulling up” getting into everything. Writing this post, for instance, is really hard. I never had a laptop with a little guy around before.

Well, we were going to FL the other week, and canceled that trip because of illness. We are trying it again this week, and we seem to be OK thus far. We are still getting over the last part of the illness (the left over cough and congestion that lingers.)

We hope to see some Spring Training, though don’t know if we can see a game anywhere or not. Baseball is starting!

All in all, he is more mobile than any of his sibs were at that age.

He’s getting so big, nearly growing out of his clothing again, so it will soon be a needful thing to go get “more” stuff.

He’s not in his crib yet either. We just got a new hardware kit for it (the one we bought for our 2000 baby) and I need to clean off each piece of the crib and get it ready for putting back together. It was partly together since June, but never completed since a few parts were missing and some things were loose and would need replacing.

It’s a necessity to get the crib done so that I can put him there night or day when needed. He needs a full size crib. He’s no little baby any more But that’s alright. He’s cute still Of course. Growing up so fast. Sigh.

A funny way to look at it, of course it wasn’t THAT long, just too many days long. My hubby ordered them via the internet and we thought he chose Priority Mail for shipping, which in fact seems it would have been faster (from the sending to receiving of the package.) Anyhow, one diaper is on backorder, so that is one thing about the order that wasn’t straightforward, so perhaps there is a reason for the shipping difference. Not that it matters, or that I need to know or am asking to know, no. I’m just rambling on about it since I thought they’d arrive during the first week of the new year, not a full week, or plus that.

I now have enough decent diapers for Baby Q – !!!

Next in line: new covers.

I also need to re-lanolize the two in-service wool covers I have. I don’t have any lanolin though, just the eucelan stuff, which isn’t doing the “trick” I need to be performed.

I have two old Mother-Ease Airflow covers that fit, and a few others in larger sizes for the future as Baby Q grows, which he continues to do, of course.

The wool covers are Stacinators, I really like them, but the ones I have don’t really fit over the Mother-Ease Popolino’s I do have and use along with the Tiny Tush one-size, and also some Mother-Ease Sandy’s (Large). Baby Q isn’t “big enough” for the Large Sandy’s yet, but is. If that makes sense.

Overall I am thoroughly impressed with the Tiny Tush diapers though. The old Mother-Ease diapers get soaked so easily. The Tiny Tush’s hold so much more liquid, and don’t feel “sopping wet” in any situation like the Mother-Ease diapers would be sopping wet. That means, Tiny Tush wins hands down, better for baby, and for “covers”. Happier Mama.