Blue Skies for Blue Eyes.

It's been awhile, but this time comes twice a year. After months of misery, we had our first week of beautiful weather.
No rain, low humidity, semi-low temps. You couldn't help but to want to be outdoors. All of the restaurants with outdoor seating have been packed at lunch. The feeling is in the air.

Fortunately, our boy LOVES the outdoors, and we were really able to maximize our opportunity.

Nice fall weather means Downtown Alive in Lafayette. After being canceled three weeks in a row due to weather, the show finally went forward this week. It's always good to get out and see that many people you know, but the music was way too loud and there were way too many people. Riley had fun nonetheless and made lots of new friends.



Saturday morning, we headed out to the nature station to get some walking in and to get Jimmy some free run time. Riley was joined by Granny Lynn, Nonnie, Poppie and their dog Ozzie.
Jimmy and Ozzie were living the good dog life and the adults were able to stare at a beautiful baby in a beautiful setting. I highly recommend treks out there while the weather is good. Surprisingly, the trails were in good shape despite the recent storms, and the mosquitoes were not an issue (and if you know me, you know that mosquitoes and chiggers will travel for miles, upwind and uphill, to feast on me)

After our adventure we headed over to Johnson's Boucaniere (big surprise, huh?) where we were able to enjoy a wonderful lunch on their newly expanded porch. Great food, great people, great setting. It was a very ennjoyable lunch treat.

One bad thing about having such a good time though is that you forget to take pictures. Oh well. Believe me anyway.

Saturday evening, still wanting to enjoy the outdoors we met Joan's parents at Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner on their patio. Mr. Cool spent most of his time trying to show us (unsuccessfully) that he can drink out of a cup.








Sunday was the baptism of Riley's second Cousin Eli. As loyal readers know, Eli is big and, despite being 8 weeks younger than Riley, has handed up many clothes. He presently weights four pounds more than Riley.

To be funny, Joan dressed Riley (6 months old) in the outfit that Eli (now four months old) wore home from the hospital. Riley didn't mind us laughing at his size though, as long as we let him sleep and make cool imprints on his face.



That's about it for this week. We had such a good time that there aren't many pics to share. Solid food is going well, his stomach is getting better and he's consistently rolling in both directions as a means to get to what he wants. He's a handful, but worth it.

Tale of Tails

Our word for the week is "tail."

Around the house, things have been kinda rough because Riley is still having trouble moving things out of his tail-end. It's just a skill he's got to learn, but I'm sure he'll be good at it someday.

He's started moving forward (and in circles) in his walker. He tries to come toward us or toward Jimmy, who is still not really comfortable with the whole contraption.




The second significance of the word tail is that Riley got to go to his first Cajuns game and associated tail-gating this week.

You can see from this pic how packed the student section was.



Even Riley was puzzled by such a weak showing from the student body. (admission, I went to one game in the four seasons in which I was a student)




It was a good game, but he decided we should leave at halftime. That's fine though, because we really go mostly for the tailgating with friends.

We have a sweet spot with shade, electricity, cable, and access to bathrooms (not port-o-lets) The music was goin' and the fans were blowin' keeping everyone in a good mood.



Riley and Gabe got to sport their custom made Retro-Cajuns onesies that match our group's shirts (that are still at the printer.)




It was bright outside and we found out that, despite having a 10 pound second chin, Riley actually has a small head, meaning his sunglasses still don't fit.



But Gabe's glasses do, which gave Riley a chance to eat his own glasses for a while.




And pose so that there would be at least one cool guy in this pic.




Once they were both awake, Gabe and Riley socialized with the traditional "Let's wrestle" greeting





Riley then found out that, no matter how hard you try, there is nothing to eat in Traci's arm.




When it was time for a nap we headed over to the Falgout's camper where Anna was more than willing to make Riley blush with one of her signature open mouth kisses.






The end.

Solids, Liquids and In-Betweens

The title of this blog pretty much sums up our week.

First, the liquids.
The primary liquid this week would be the drool pouring from his face by the pool-full.
The flooding experienced in this area is not from any hurricane, it is from my child's drooling. Surely, with that much drool there must be teeth coming in, right?
Wrong. Still no peek at the pearlies, just miserable symptoms.

The secondary liquid this week would be the goo pouring from his nose by the bucket-full, as he gets over the cold he had last week.
In our quest to clear congestion, we purchased two different battery powered nasal aspirators, aka snot suckers.
He's got something to be proud of though, because neither was any match for his Icky Sticky Mega Mucus.
If Spider Man were real, he could swing from building to building on Riley Wallace Super Snot. This stuff is unbeatable. But he does tolerate the power vacuum better than the traditional bulb, so we'll keep one of them.

No real snot pics, but here he is after just wiping his face on Jimmy's back, so it fits with the theme.




He and Jimmy are getting alot more friendly. And, much to our disgust, he loves it when Jimmy licks his hands and feet, even though licking is outside of Jimmy's rules, boundaries and limitations. (Cesar speak)

The cold he had put us back a few steps on his sleep progress, but he's getting better and relearning to put himself to sleep after a few rough nights and naps.

Now, to the solids.
This week, he ate his first "solid" foods.
First it was a nice mix of oatmeal and breastmilk...mmmmmm.



He did alright with it, but it took him a few tries to learn to swallow.



He quickly got tired of that bland old stuff and graduated up to a nice mix of carrots, oatmeal, and breastmilk.....double mmmmm.



Being an old pro at this routine, he was able to kick back and lounge in his chair while being fed like some kind of Lilliputian royalty.



we've discussed the solids and the liquids, now for the in betweens.
Nah, we'll just skip that section because it has to do with the putrid lava flows that erupt from his diaper every 4-5 days. I gag just thinking about it.
As soon as we hear the rumble we spring into action like emergency first responders, trying to save every piece of furniture and clothing in the vicinity. We'll talk about more fun things instead.

Saturday, he accompanied us to Buffalo Wild Wings to cheer on the Cajuns, who lost by only 3 points to a ranked team, Illinois.
He did really well in what was a very loud environment and got to make some new friends including Mr Lance, and Ms Traci.





Plus, during lulls in the game, we headed outside, where he got his hair styled by Hurricane Ike.




Sunday, he got to wear his custom made Who Dat onesie, courtesy of Cousin Loula.





Here he is modeling his outfit and showing more athletic prowess than dear old Dad (by virtue of simply being able to grip a football.)

Notice his intimidating "game-face."



He should do well when he goes to his first Saints game next month.

We won't discuss the horrible way in which he defiled the clothing only minutes after that pic was taken, but we were able to salvage the outfit to play another Sunday.

That's it for now.
On the docket next week is his first tailgating experience and Cajuns homegame. Should be fun (or a disaster, we'll find out)

Nothing Clever

We're baaaack.

Ok, so we never went anywhere, but aside from hurricane preparations, last week was pretty boring and not worth writing about.

You would think that with a hurricane passing through, this week would have been insane, but it wasn't. Lafayette was not impacted as hard as many of the surrounding parishes. Even better, our neighborhood was, for the most part, much luckier than other parts of town.
We never lost electricity and only lost cable for about 12 hours. We spent most of the storm on our screened in patio watching the trees blow around. Riley seemed to like it, even though he was getting wet while sitting 10 feet from the screen.
We had our yard cleaned before dark on Monday and spent a few hours on Tuesday chopping and hauling branches for Joan's parents.
Our family and friends all fared well, so we ended up doing less helping around town than we expected and were actually able to enjoy our couple of days off of work.

Things picked up a couple of days after the storm when Paul, liz and caroline fled to Lafayette, as BR was almost entirely without electricity. They've headed back now that their electricity is back on (2 full weeks ahead of the estimate published by entergy on friday.)

No break for us though because Riley is now sick. he cant breathe, his face is covered in snot,he's got a fever and he cant sleep. Not many things are more miserable than a teething, constipated, infant with a cold. (See below.)



And now i'm feeling a little sore throat coming on. Good times.

But i'll give you what you came for. Here's some pics taken during the 'cane and the days that followed.


I stole your pillow, Dad.




Just hangin' around






Working the register at Johnson's Boucaniere with Ms Claire.




Choo-Choo




Yaaaawn.




is this sanitary?




Check out Mom's face.




Dad and me getting "a look" because we probably did something fun. :)




Do it with flair.