Oma and Opa came for a visit during the Memorial Day weekend, spreading wisdom like “Move to Colorado”, “Buy a ski boat”, and “Move to Colorado.” Of course we had to put them to work painting our new bench (thanks Randy), putting together our new table, and walking 40+ miles a day. In between all of those activities they somehow found some time to play with Murrow.

Murrow’s growing so big that he now gets to sit at the big boy table…complete with big boy high chair, big boy harness, and big boy crumb catcher. He’s taken to his new position in the house with style, kicking his feet onto the table whenever he’s eating. It makes it really difficult to grab food, but he likes to keep it casual.

By the way, he looks so weird in the picture because he’s in the middle of his new trick (see the next video).

It’s always reassuring when, at your son’s 12-month visit, his doctor expresses that, my, she’s never seen a kid with so many allergies.

Despite this, yesterday’s appointment went pretty well. Murrow actually managed to put on some weight since the last visit, something he hasn’t done in a long time. He was happy as a cute little clam when they poked his finger for the blood draw. (The bandage they used to cover the poke was bigger than his finger.) It helped, I think, that the lab tech was a woman. Our little guy does like to flirt. There were more opportunities for flirting with the front desk people, the doctor (of course), the nurses and an entire waiting room full of people. How two people who hate social interaction as much as Gary and I do managed to spawn such an outgoing baby is beyond me.

It came too late for Mother’s Day, but he’s finally gotten that “mmm” sound down. And, boy, has he! He’s been taking this new sound for a ride, throwing out everything else from his non-vocabulary. Of course, I don’t really think that he’s actually saying “Momma”. But it’s fun to think so.

Just think, it was only a year ago that they wheeled me into the operating room and cut the little bugger out of me. Back then he couldn’t walk on his own, eat on his own, talk on his own… OK, so maybe he hasn’t changed all that much since then.

Murrow woke up today to find that Birthday Santa had left him his very first Radio Flyer, a walker wagon. Super cute. Liam gave him his very own Safari wagon that Murrow likes to chase around. It comes with an action-grip giraffe that makes a really odd sound. Trust me, it’s pretty cool.

Murrow loves to crawl so much that it has been hard to get him thinking about standing on his own or walking. But Valerie had the bright idea of using Murrow’s fear of grass to get him to stand…which works suprisingly well. His hatred of putting his hands on the grass keeps him upright and balancing, long enough for an over-eager Poppa to snap a few (meaning 45) shots.

We had a follow up with the allergist today, and another round of testing, this time focusing on fruits and vegetables. This time, it went pretty well. Of the 20 things they tested for, only 4 came back positive, and even those seemed to be pretty mild reactions. So, Murrow, there’s no excuse. You gotta eat your fruits and veggies.