Amazing what happens to your expendable time when you have a kid-- you no longer have the time to update your blog. And before you know it, you find yourself as a one-year veteran of this whole "parenting" gig. Life is funny.
The Rookie is doing, well, wonderful. The winter has been filled with crawling, gabbing, eating, pooping, and cuddling. He's got 4 teeth now (2 on top, and 2 on the bottom), with more on the way... hopefully very soon. He uses said teeth to gnaw his way through Cheerios, puffs, veggies, meatballs, chicken nuggets, and anything else he can pick up and shove clumsily into his mouth. His favorite food, in fact, has shifted from apple sauce to... Italian. His daily regimen of formula has been replaced by whole milk, juice, and water. Yep, Chase eats what we eat, and his diaper tells the tale.
The winter also gave us a scare. Namely, Christmas Eve. What was supposed to be his first annual Frantzen Family Christmas Eve celebration, instead was a day in the hospital recovering from RSV (it's a lung virus, and a particularly nasty one at that). As parents, we were beside ourselves. Chase? Well, Chase was just annoyed. Luckily, Christmas Day (the annual Boer family party), and Christmas Eve Pt.2 (the 26th with Mum-mum and Pop-pop) went quite smoothly with the aid of Pedialyte and a lot of held breathe. Since then, he's bounced back like a champ. He's good at that.
Last month, Chase decided it was time for us to get a new house, so off we went a-house-hunting. After a short search, we all agreed on one. And, by April, Chase will have a new room, and a new play area. He will not, however, chip in for the mortgage payment. Freeloader...
And, well, that's all there is to tell. He's starting to show glimmers of wanting to stand up and walk, but then he realizes that it takes work, and he sits back down. He's developed quite a personality, which includes his raspy little laugh, his insistence on wearing only ONE sock, his fondness for pointing at things with his middle finger (this is fun), and his fiery temper and stubbornness (no idea where that came from). He and Layla are best buddies, and their friendship gets stronger with every Cheerio that Chase knocks on the floor. The Rookie is not a little baby anymore -- he's a little boy through and through. And that, all at once, makes us very happy and a little sad.
Of course, once he starts walking, we won't have time to be sad...Happy birthday, Chase-- Love, Mommy, Daddy, & Layla.
