Another Robbie report

Well, another week has passed and things are going fairly well. Robbie will be turning 2 months old on March 1st (since there is no 29th day in February this year). We had another baby shower this past weekend that was put on by some good friends. One of the gift he received was a very soft, fuzzy bunny. He has slept with it a few different times and actually has grabbed it to hold on to it. Pretty amazing! We has some other friends come up from southern Pennsylvania to see Robbie for the first time. We had a good time with them and have dubbed them as Robbie's adoptive aunt and uncle. Of course, he will most likely have many aunts and uncles (as well as any other children we add to our family) so he will not be able to get into too much trouble *grins*. He goes for another regular checkup later this week. I am sure he will get a good report since he is pretty healthy and gaining weight too. Although, Cindy felt his mouth and it seems there are some nubs about ready to break out. We shall see if this is true or not. He also is getting pretty chatty as well. Both Cindy and I have been "talking" with him and he is getting pretty animated with us when we talk. He seems like he wants to actually carry on a conversation with us, but he doesn't know the language of how to do it. But he is getting cuter each day. I was able to have some daddy time with him as well. Cindy was helping to host a children's conference this past friday evening and saturday morning at church. On Friday, he pretty much slept most of the time since he did not sleep for Cindy very long that day. He would take "cat naps" that would last anywhere from 10 to 25 minutes in length. Thus, Cindy could not take a nap either. But he was back at it on saturday doing the cat nap thing a few times for me. But he did sleep pretty well that night and sunday night as well. Can't figure this boy out at this point. But we are learning!

Hopefully, we will have some more pictures coming soon that will be posted on here. I hope you enjoy the nature scenes!

Until later!

It is beginning to feel like Spring!

Greetings once again folks. With baseball camps opening up in Florida and Arizona and March Madness getting ready to jump into action as college basketball teams around the country attempting to finish long & strong which may translate into a championship for their team (GO BUCKS!!), it is a sure sign that spring is right around the corner! And with the advent of spring, it means that we will be able to take walks in the park with Robbie! Of course I might be a bit premature in hoping that spring happens real soon! (Since I am sick of the snow already). But with the arrival of spring, things come to life! For Cindy and I, it will be the first of many springs with Robbie that we will be able to get him (and ourselves) out into the outdoors and allow him to discover a whole new world. So far he has discovered his fingers (and no, they do not taste like chicken), his nose, mouth and that Chloe really likes to give him kisses. And he will be an intelligent child too! Cindy and Robbie have began playing a game that is pretty cute. I will call it the Tongue game. It basically has Cindy poking her tongue out of her mouth and then telling Robbie it is his turn to poke his tongue out. For the most part, he follows through, which causes Cindy to laugh. It is repeated a number of times until either Robbie stops doing it, or something else happens. Earlier this morning (at around 4:45am) while feeding Robbie, he decided that he wanted to play...... He would flash his smile a few times and for the first time (at least with me) he giggled! It was a very cute giggle and I did commend him on what a fine giggle it was too. However, being the slave driver that I am when it comes to feeding time, I told him it was time to eat and not play. He responded with his smile, with a slight gleen in his eye. This boy knows how to work it. And he will not turn 2 months until this friday!

This past weekend was an adventure as well. I woke up sunday morning to a very chilly house and thought "Man it is cold in here!". Upon further investigation, I found that our furnace was not working properly. So after some looking around and testing out a few things, I end up calling our service people that we have a contract with to work on our furnace. Cindy and Robbie went to church without me as I awaited the service man to arrive. After some time, he showed up and promptly took apart the furnace. Turned out that one of the ports that lets the unit know there is a sufficent draft to get rid of the carbon monoxide, was clogged up due to moisture. That was a relief! Later that evening, we went out for dinner with 3 other families that used the same adoption faciliator that we did to get Robbie. She had placed about 7 kids between the 4 families. It was quite fun hearing the other stories from the families and how they were able to get their children. God sure has a very creative nature (and quite funny too!) on how things like this work out!

Well, time to go bask in the sun!

Yup! Winter is here!

Greetings everyone!

As some of you may have seen, we got hit pretty good with some snow recently. As the picture above shows, it can look pretty, but looks can be deceiving. It would be nice to have it in pictures, but not in real life. The official measurement of the white stuff was a bit over 9 inches. While we can not compare to the fine folks over in upstate New York and their 11 FEET of snow, it was a mess here. So for all you snow lovers, allow me to quote Bill Cosby...." I hope you are satisfied" (from the dentist skit on one of his cd's). I did get into work and had it pretty easy since most of NW Ohio was under a Level 3 emergency (which means only certain folks can hit the roads) and it was late in the morning, which gave the snowplows plenty of time to clear off the major roads. Of course there was some drifting as well that made travel interesting in some areas. Our backyard looked like a white desert with all the drifting (which makes for an adventure with our dog Chloe, who is a small dog-a beagle/dox mix).

Robbie is continuing to get bigger and sleep is getting a bit longer. Last night, I put him to bed around 10:30pm and after some fussing, he went to sleep. Well, he did not make a sound (at least crying wise) until this morning at 5:30am! So, he had a nice 7 hour sleep (which means mom and dad also enjoyed their sleep!) and he is slowly getting into a schedule that will make like a bit easier for him and us. Also, as far as I am aware of, he has begun to get a bit more "vocal". There were times last night he would seem to make comments and good facial expressions to match the comments. I can't understand how some people think we came from some cesspool and evolved into our current status. Some of them must not have had children.

This weekend, there is a group of folks from our church that is having a get together with the lady who helped us (and them) adopt infants. There are about 3 or 4 families (counting us) that were blessed to have Christa help us bring a little bundle of joy into our lives. We will be presenting her with something special over dinner here in the area to thank her for her ministry in bringing birthmothers and prospective couples together. I sure hope she is available when we have Robbie dedicated later this summer. It should be fun!

Well, I hope all going good in your neck of the woods, no matter if you have snow or not.

Until next time!

Heeerrrreeessss Robbie!

Well, as I have promised for the last few days, here is the picture that was taken of Robbie at 1 month old. As you can see, he has THE CUTIEST smile! This is the one Cindy had professionally taken about a week ago down in Levis Commons, which for you out of towners, is in Perrysburg. This coming week will be an interesting one. Our case worker will be coming to our home to do a follow up visit to see how things are going. I am not sure how many visits are required by the state for local adoptions. But I would figure there will be a few every so often to make sure the transition is going smoothly. We have a great case worker that was very good with the whole process of our adoption of Robbie.

We had fun last evening. Robbie was being ornery ( at least that is my story) most of the day with Cindy. He would be awake for an hour or so and then acted like he was getting tired and fall asleep. Well, about 20-25 minutes later, he would wake up. This went on most of the day and Cindy was not able to get a nap or any house work done because of him. But we have developed a way to keep him awake that might tire him out as well. We simply make him "run"! This involves either one of us laying him on his back and holding his feet while we make a running motion with them. Of course we have to have a song to go along with it too! We have found it calms him down if he is crying or about to begin to cry. And it is a great way to play with him as well!

Hopefully this will work long term with him and something that he will enjoy too!

A bit cold

Well it was a very nice weekend. Due to the Arctic blast we received over the weekend, we all stayed indoors to keep warm. I can honestly say it has been awhile since we had this cold of weather. We did have a good time just hanging out and playing with Robbie. He continues to grow and is quite healthy as well. He is also getting into a nice pattern of sleeping and eating. He is sleeping on the average of 5 hours during the night (which is very nice). Although he might be a tough customer when it comes time to put him into his crib, he usually calms down in a short time and falls asleep. It is amazing that this little guy is developing various traits (like stubbornness, orneriness (if that is a word) and others). This past week we received a great gift from some dear friends from Pennsylvania. They purchased a Ohio State mobile for his crib! It is great too! Plays the Ohio State theme song and has 5 Brutus Buckeyes that hang from it as well! You can say that dad likes it too! LOL Speaking about the Bucks. On Saturday, the Bucks were playing some basketball on TV and both of us watched the game. He did a pretty good job rooting for them (at least I believe he was) as they beat Michigan State to remain tied for the Big Ten lead with Wisconsin. I tried to tell him the various foul calls and all the other important things that make a good sports fan. I am sure he will do fine once he gets a bit older. He also did watch a little bit of the Super Bowl. I think he was cheering for the Bears. Most of the time when the Colts had a good play, he would cry some. Well he has some years to figure out who he might cheer for and make his choice of who will be his favorite teams. But I will make sure he is well informed! That is our weekend in a nutshell. The picture at the top is of Cindy and Robbie at the hospital in the nursery a few days after he was born. Don't they look adorable!

Until next time.

A light at the end of the tunnel

Well, last night was the first night that Robbie slept the whole night through! While 5 1/2 hours may not seem like much, for an infant, that is great! He is getting bigger each day it seems and just as adorable. Cindy took him to a local photography place and had about 100 pictures taken of him. Of those, we were able to select the picture we wanted to keep for our package. It is a nice shot of him laying on his side with the cutiest little smile he can muster at this point. At his last doctor's appointment, he had gained 2 more pounds (which now puts him over 10 pounds) and grew 2 more inches (which now makes him over 21 inches in length). While Cindy and I are still in the adjusting mode with this little guy, it is getting a bit easier for us. Cindy has been a great mom to him and is enjoying her new role. I too have been enjoying my time with him when I get home from work at night. We have had some nice "chats" while feeding him or just simply playing with him. Chloe (our adorable dog) is adjusting very nicely as well with Robbie. She will bring a toy to him for him to toss. While I have informed her that he is not old enough to play with her at this point, she tries to get him involved in playing with her. She has been a nice help for Cindy in keeping him awake during the day by either nosing his hand, licking him on his feet or on his hands. She is quite the character.

The picture at the top is one of me holding him for the first time. While it looks like we are nose to nose, we were just having a nice little chat.