Tommy's Starfish and A New Kitchen!!

Tommy LOVES his starfish bathtoy - it's the first toy he grabs for when he goes in the tub, and he carries it with him out of the bathroom and holds onto it some nights until he has his last bottle. Sometimes it ends up in the living room because he just enjoys its company as you can see in this first photo below:

Tommy shows everyone his starfish when you ask him to!

He also has a "stuffed" starfish - a small one, about the same size as the one in the photo. It came with a toy aquarium that someone sent us as a gift. It actually squeaks. He likes to play with that one too, but the bathtoy is his favorite.

Now, about the kitchen. For those who have been to our house, the kitchen is the one room that other than painting and putting in a new deeper sink, we have not done any updating to as far as cabinets, appliances, etc. Other than the bathrooms, it's the only room that we did not replace the flooring after we moved in, as the laminate was (and still is) in good shape. We have white cabinets, which, while I liked them when we were looking at the house, they are not really very practical. They are also the basic cheap builder's grade cabinets. One of them actually is peeling - thanks to my husband peeling an area off to see what was underneath so he could see what we could do about changing it up with some stain perhaps. I was so upset with him because I just knew we weren't going to do anything soon with that, and here we are, over 3 years later, and that one cabinet is still peeled. We've also talked about a new stove as well as getting one that has the microwave above it, which would give us more counter space and eliminate the ugly and what looks like a dirty (but it's not) fan/light unit above the current stove. Apparently someone who lived in the house before us did a lot of cooking for their catering company - I actually remember crying while I cleaned so much grease off the cabinets when we moved in...definitely should have hired a cleaning company to do a deep cleaning before we moved in. We left our townhouse spotless when we moved out for the new owner, but the former owners of this house definitely did not do the same for us.

Anyway, getting back to the NEW kitchen - here are photos to show you what it looks like. We've actually had everything since Christmas, but with Tommy being so young we didn't have it high on our priority list, so everything sat in our basement until last Monday, when John managed to get everything set up as a surprise for Tommy and I. I hope you like it as much as Tommy does!

Checking out what's in the fridge

This pot also serves as a good teething tool

Looking to see what Mom made for me...don't you like the faucet on the sink?

Cooking Mommy and Daddy up some dinner

Toast has popped up, but something has distracted the cook....

Sunny days, sweeping the clouds away! On my way to where the air is free! Can you tell me how to get...how to get to Sesame Street?

The kitchen was a Christmas gift for Tommy from our friends Denise and Mike and their kids, Caroline and Jackson. We held off setting it up until he was a little more mobile, and since we are probably about ready to put the Jumparoo into retirement, decided it was time to set it up. Tommy still plays with a lot of the activities on it, but from OUTSIDE of the jumparoo. I don't recall the last time we put him in it! Same deal with the bouncy seats. He likes to crawl in one of them upstairs and sit backwards - apparently all the kids in daycare like to do that too I found out. He did spend a few minutes in the Exersaucer in the past month when he was into too much stuff while I was drying my hair one morning, but he's been pretty good lately, so we haven't used it. All I do is move the stuff up onto our beds for when the cleaning people come every 2 weeks - it's all just taking up room, but I'm having a hard time parting with the stuff, even though it will be nice to get some room back - temporarily, I realize, since something else will replace those items, just like the kitchen!

And yes, based on the caption from the last photo, Tommy is now a Sesame Street junkie! As soon as he hears the song come on at the top of the show, he is completely mesmerized! I just started taping it on our DVR because it's on at 10am everyday, when we are obviously at work and daycare. So we watch a little after we get home, and then some in the AM while Mommy eats breakfast. He isn't into every segment, but he does like Elmo's World, and most of the things with the muppet characters.

Tommy is spending more and more time in the Rose Blossoms based on his daily sheets. When Miss Stacy walks by in the morning, if Tommy sees her, they tell me he goes flying over to the door (there is a gate) yelling after her that he's ready to go with her. And he loves Miss Rae, the other teacher in there. Apparently he could not stop laughing at her doing the Hokey Pokey the other day. Yesterday his sheet indicated that he did a great job putting pipe cleaners in a cup. He was very intent about it, and in such deep concentration, that he was hardly breathing! Today he went in his first moonbounce, and really enjoyed it, bouncing around on his butt. He is taking a few more steps a lot more frequently as well - I saw him take at least 5-7 steps 5 different times earlier tonight.

He is doing well with his food; using the plastic tubs that the Gerber purees come in has definitely helped in getting him to eat some other things that are a little chunkier. He also eats an entire piece of Melba toast in a sitting. This weekend we will try regular toast with a little cream cheese I think!

More good news on the sleep front - Tommy has spent 5 out of the last 7 nights in his crib the entire night without me having to go in there to him. I think he is exhausted from all the activities they have him doing in the Rose Blossoms. He did wake up around 5:30 today, so I brought him in with us, and while he usually snuggles in with me, he actually did so with John, which was so adorable. Made getting up to get in the shower a bit easier too so I didn't have to maneuver him onto John while trying not to wake him

Still NO teeth either. 4 weeks since we went to the doctor who said "any day." But Tommy is definitely feeling something because he has been moving his tongue on his lower gums a lot, and some of the faces he makes just seem to make it look like he feels something there.