Here's Oscar helping me water his grandma and grandpa's backyard. He is so determined to grab EVERYTHING he can and eat it. Here he is picking his own strawberries and then squishing them in a tight fist all over his shirt before he decides to eat them. Amazing how he plays with food and doesn't eat it, but puts all non-food items in his mouth immediately.
Here is baby destructo screaming for joy being able to play in the daisies. Just so you know, I only let him grab that one plant because I saw his grandma let him do it. Otherwise I wouldn't have let him go so nuts. Notice the huge smile on his face the entire time. I hope grandma and grandpa aren't upset about this!
so far the best thing about us going to brazil (cause we haven't arrived yet) has been these two conversations that happened separately to Nate and I with people from church:
1) Nate- "Yeah we'll be leaving for Brazil in about a month."
Gentleman that does Boys scouts with Nate- "Oh, so is that where your wife is from then?"
2) Me-"We'll be leaving for Brazil in about a month."
Lady that plays piano-"Oh so is that where you're from then?"
Oscar has just been speeding to his own independence and fast tracking all of his daily learned milestones. It took him a long time to figure out crawling, but once he did, he realized he wanted nothing to do with it anymore and wants to start walking.
We've never let him see that we had stairs in the house so that he wouldn't go near them. He hadn't discovered them before this past week, even when he started crawling. We wanted to hide them from him because they were uncovered, uncarpeted, rickety, splintery wood stairs with pieces of jagged wood poking out on certain stairs. Our basement also had a nasty concrete floor as of last week, so we steered Oscar clear of the stairs and basement until now. We got some carpet on the stairs and basement and set Oscar free down there in his own personal carpeted toy heaven, vacant of all adult furniture and knick knacks.
The first thing the boy spotted was the stairs. He booked it towards them and just started climbing up the whole flight of stairs for the first time as if he'd done it a million times. Now his #1 priority in life is to climb those stairs over and over again. Here he is climbing like it's his full time job. Sorry it's so dark.
The other thing he started doing immediately after crawling, is pulling himself up onto his feet. He will see anything with a little height to it, a wall, a parent's leg, an ottoman, a toy, and he'll try to use it to pull himself up to a supported stand. Now he does it to the wall and gets stuck there, he doesn't know to just sit himself back down on the ground, he just crys for help.
Standing cousins.
Always standing on his toes. His favorite new buddy the pound puppy.
He also has started licking the wall to death when he does this. It's hilarious. I don't know why he does it. Watch the first few seconds of the video cause I caught him doing it for like 2 seconds.
He also just got his front facing carseat! I don't know if other parents have looked forward to this as much as I have, but I have been DYING to put him in one since he was 5 months old. He has been WAY to big, heavy, and long to be in his infant rear facing carseat for far too long. It's been hard lifting him and angling his long body into that tiny carseat. Not to mention, Oscar really has never liked being reclined. He LOVES to be upright. AND, we get to see him and he can see us while we're driving! We are all just sooo happy about this. You're not supposed to put them in these until they're 1, but he's one month away from his big birthday party! Neither Nate, nor I, can believe we have a child whose age we count and say in years and not months. This was his early birthday present from his great grandpa and namesake. We love you papa, thank you! Here's Oscar in all his front facing glory!
Our time has finally come! Nate and I have been missing our loved ones in Brazil and in Argentina for years. We both had very similar experiences with certain people who we felt were probably our best friends before this life. It's hard to explain to other people how much our hearts ache to see these loved ones of ours and we're happy to announce we will be leaving to see them all on May 16th!
Our plan: Rio de Janeiro to Iguazu to Buenos Aires. Plus add the cities of Rosario and Porto Alegre, which aren't on the map.
Aside from being able to hug everyone, we're most excited for a serious spiritual reality check that I think we are both in need of. Our lives have become so busy and Nate has been stretched so thin for quite some time that it's taken a toll on our gratitude, positivity, and on our commitments to keeping our lamps full. I think we're both looking forward most to the spiritual rejuvenation we'll feel being able to spend time with some of the biggest inspirations in our lives. Nate and I have already talked to some of our loved ones down there about our plans, and we remember so clearly now how some of them really have been sent to us as our angels in life to help us out along this long path. It's easy to lose perspective sometimes, and these Brazilian and Argentine friends/giants among men, really help us to check ourselves before we wreck ourselves.
So we'll be on our way in less than 6 weeks and we've got a lot to do. We'll be gone for 3 weeks and Oscar will be coming with us. Bringing him will be an adventure in itself, but it will be worth it to be able to show off our little pride and joy with everyone who's dying to see him and kiss him to death. This has been a huge decision, and a very emotional one at that. There is no reason financially we should be going on this trip right now, it's been a very risky decision, bordering on completely irresponsible. But we know we have to do it now for so many reasons, and when push came to shove, emotion triumphed over sensibility. Sound like the recipe for financial ruin? We've got good intentions though! Ha, we all know where the road paved with good intentions leads to.
Nate being sung to on his birthday right before he finished his mission.
