The Countdown Begins...

Mason getting a call from Gary, he can't be bothered to hold the phone himself.

Yesterday morning I said to Mason "only 4 more days until your birthday, try not to scratch up your face so you look good in your pictures!" I then cut his nails to do my part in him not scratching his face. Since then he has...1. Fallen down a flight of stairs. 2. Hit his chin on the faucet in the bathtub. 3. Fallen face first over the back of his rocking chair, and 4. Had a piece of glass in his mouth. It's Tuesday.

Update on the kidney stone, it's the same size as a large gumball and there is another one the size of a marble. First surgery is tomorrow, second surgery in two weeks. I am quite excited to be pain and sickness free for the first time in months.

Here are some pics of Mason's first playground experience, which he clearly loved.

Good thing I have a spare...

I have been remiss to blog lately as I have had this fantastic (and not in a good way) kidney pain. If you'll recall, my doctor thought I had kidney stones a month ago but then I got better with antibiotics so he figured it was just an infection. Fast forward five weeks and I have horrible pain again. This time the antibiotics didn't work, so I had to get a cat scan, which is possibly the least invasive medical procedure I have ever had. The results? A gigantic kidney stone that is blocking my ureter, which is causing urine to back up and my kidney has swollen to 10 times its normal size. That solves the mystery of my pants being tighter lately, or at least that's what I am going to blame it on. So it sounds horrible, but I'm not in any more pain than usual and have to wait until Monday to either get the thing blasted with an ultrasound or surgically removed. I think the real pain is yet to come.

Moving on...we went to my Grandma's house for annual cleaning day last weekend. Last year I was a week from giving birth so I didn't have to do any work. This year I had a crazy baby that I had to keep track of so I still didn't have to do any work. What will I do next year? Anyway, we caught all sorts of flack for not blogging more frequently and I promise to make a real effort as soon as this kidney situation is under control. My cousin Jen not only waxed poetic about our childhood on her blog, but she also put up a slide show that has some great old photos. And here's a random shout out to my cousin Chelsea, who posted an anonymous comment on my last post. She's a student at Utah State and a loyal reader.

Alright that's all for now. As promised at our family blog meeting, I am going to add a list of some of my favorite things of the moment on the side.

Mason's triple loves his new trike

Having a snack on the porch with Grandma

Picnic in the Park

It was bitter cold and snowing on Wednesday and this weekend it has been in the 70's. We decided to have a picnic at the park today and it was just lovely. We were marveling at the fact that last year at about this time I was weeks from giving birth. We stayed indoors a lot last summer as baby Mason didn't not enjoy even the slightest breeze. Luckily he has grown out of that and already prefers to be outdoors. He will stand at the sliding glass doors first thing in the morning and yell until we either take him outside or give him something more exciting to do. How fun it will be to be outside this summer!

Mason enjoying his lunch, he thinks he has to tip his head back whether he is eating or drinking.

He Walks...and waves and claps!

This has been a big week for Mason. He actually took his first steps on his 11 month birthday last week but he has become a bit more regular about it this week. He has also started waving and clapping, all in the last few days. I think he really took it to heart when his babysitter Sunny told him last week that he should at least be waving by now. We are sticking to the basics though as my first attempt to teach him sign language (eat) resulted in him grabbing his throat every time he saw his bottle or sippy cup or any kind of food or drink. This earned him a trip to the doctor to see if something was lodged in his throat as we didn't quite put it all together until later.

Anyway, we are trying to film any one of his new tricks but he really hasn't performed for the camera just yet.

A Challenge

I was feeling a bit restless and wanted to challenge myself so I decided that I would single-handedly take the baby to Phoenix for the weekend to visit my brother and his fiance and my grandparents. I bought him some new toys and took his favorite snacks on the plane. He was actually quite good on the flight to Phoenix and I was feeling pretty good about my decision to take him on a little vacation. He was a little darling during dinner at The Country Buffet, at which he ate as much as I did. He was super cute at Great Grandma and Grandpa's house. He was not so cute at 10:00 p.m. when he was refusing to go to sleep in my bed with me. For some reason I mistook him for a baby that would sleep on a mattress with me. Thank goodness Sarah's friend had a portable crib for him to sleep in.

We had a great time visiting the Hotel Valley Ho, where Kyle and Sarah will be married in September. All the beautiful people hang out at the pool there and more than a few bikini clad women found Mason adorable and played on the grass with him. He was loving the attention.

We came home on Sunday morning and Mason was low on sleep and a little cranky when we boarded the plane. We had been sitting down for exactly one minute when he started his high pitched, ear piercing screaming. He has just started this phenomenon and does it when he is not pleased about something. I told the guy next to us that I was very sorry and he said that he was expecting his first child in June and that he didn't mind a bit. Mason continued his antics off and on for the next hour. I was at my wits end and decided to take him to the lavatory. You should know that in over 100 flights, I have never seen an airplane bathroom. I have just never had the need or desire to be in one. Well, the only way I could keep Mason from screaming was to let him put his hands under the running water in the bathroom. We did that for about 5 minutes and then I decided to take him back to our seat. He had other ideas. As soon as I opened the lavatory door, he let out his blood curdling scream which made several rows turn around and caused the flight attendant to laugh hysterically. I asked him if we could hang out in the lavatory and he said that would be fine. So for the next 30 minutes I let Mason play in the sink. I would have stayed in there the rest of the flight had we not been told we had to return to our seat for the initial decent. We took our seat, much to Mason's dismay, and he resumed Screamfest 2008. I was letting him play with anything (my cell phone) and eat anything (pretzels, a cookie some random passenger gave him) just to get him stop screaming. While he was eating he started making really dramatic head gestures up and down. They got slower and slower until finally his little head was resting on his chest. I honestly thought something was wrong with him, so I turned him around to look at him. Nothing wrong, just sleeping exactly 10 minutes before we landed. Instead of being annoyed I thanked my lucky stars that the battle was finally over. When we landed the man sitting next to us said "You did a really great job with your son". My eyes filled up with tears because it was the most frustrated I have ever been as a mother and I just felt so bad. I said thank you and he said "It must have been very frustrating for you but you handled him with such love even as he was screaming his head off". I just said thank you again and wanted to hug this man.

So there you have it, I will not be traveling alone with my son again for a very long time. As soon as we got home we both fell asleep for three and a half hours. Jake said "Wow, I really envisioned our reunion to be more exciting than this".

Since I haven't blogged in forever, here's a whole lot of pictures...

Kyle and Sarah at the exact spot where they will exchange vows in September

Mason enjoying a drink at the Valley Ho. His shirt says "Mi Papa es Macho" So true.

Sometimes Mason doesn't know what to make of Crazy Uncle Kyle

A Real Date Night

Jake and I got a rare treat yesterday, seven hours out of the house without Mason. We try to have date nights, but our choices of weekend babysitters have been two 14 year old girls that kind of freak out if Mason is the least bit cranky. Enter Grandma Cynthia, who told us to take our time and do whatever we wanted with our day. That we did! First, we went to a movie, which we have never done because I refuse to pay a babysitter to go to a movie when 1. The movie might suck and be a total waste of money and 2. We can just rent it later. Anyway, we saw 21, which got raked by the critics, but was actually very good. We both really liked it a lot. Then we thought of all the restaurants we don't go to anymore because they aren't baby friendly, but decided we wanted Red Lobster instead. We then went to Walgreens and bought Mason's easter basket for next year at a nice 75% discount, stopped by Barnes and Noble to read magazines, and then went to Carrabbas for dessert. It was a perfect day, start to finish, and it was so nice to not have to worry for a second that Mason was being taken care of.


Speaking of Mason, he's now standing on a regular basis, but has yet to take a step. I feel we are extremely close though. When he first started standing two months ago, I was opposed to him walking so soon, but I have come to terms with it at this point. Here he is in all his standing glory...

Grandma's Here!

Jake's mom decided to move to Boise much to our delight. She only stayed with us for a week before she found her own cute little place in Eagle. While she was here she cooked us dinner every night, which we are missing now. We have enjoyed seeing her every day and Mason just loves her. We plan on taking her up on her offer to babysit and may even go to the movies this weekend, a luxury we no longer partake of as we can't stomach spending money on a movie and a babysitter. Grandma Cynthia babysat for us on friday while we went to babysit my cousin Jen's kids. We're easing in to this date night thing nice and slow.