Bigfoot

A couple days ago I took Micah to the mall to go looking for shoes for him. I want shoes that have a very thin, flexible rubber sole since he's not walking on his own yet, but I think will be relatively soon. I went to Stride Rite since they'd just sent me a coupon and a brochure on their new "cruiser/early walker shoes". They measured his feet (we've never had that done before), and they're a 5 Wide. The salesgirl said he'd probably need a 5.5 W so that he'd have room for growth. Well, wouldn't you know that the cruiser shoes only come in up to size 5's?! So that was a no-go. I tried Nordstrom's next, knowing that they had a good selection of baby shoes. We tried a pair on him, but they had a slightly thicker sole than I wanted, and he wasn't able to push his stroller around while walking normally in them. So that was a no-go too. I've been looking at shoes online and came across Preschoolians a few weeks ago. They seem to be just the right option for us at the moment, after finding out that Micah's feet are just too big for what the normal stores offer! I'm planning to order his shoes soon so that they'll be here for Micah's birthday. I'm just glad I was able to find some that I'm happy with and that will fit him perfectly (since you can order any size in any style!). Plus, they're cheaper than the ones I was looking at in the stores!

In other news, Micah started clapping in the last week or so. It's so cute - he likes to do it when we go to his room to get him out of his crib after naps, or first thing in the morning. :) Steve's next thing to work on with Micah is "Touchdown!" (putting his arms up like the refs do). He kind of does it, but we'll keep working on it...

Micah's first haircut!

Well, we did it! After putting it off for far too long, we finally took Micah in to have his first haircut yesterday. I did well, only tearing up slightly as we walked in the door. :) We knew Micah was going to hate it, since just having his hair washed in the bathtub is an ordeal. But we also knew that he couldn't go on with his overgrown hair forever either. Here's the before pictures (he thought the race car was very cool until she started touching his head...):
Here are the action shots...he hated it, as predicted!!
And here's the after picture (wow, was that traumatic...):
I think he looks adorable, of course, and I'm glad we finally did it! He really looks like a big boy now, much more like a toddler. We took him to Kid Snips, so they gave us a nice certificate for his first haircut, complete with a polaroid and a few locks of his hair. :)

Micah's favorite commercial

I never would have guessed that a baby could have a favorite commercial, but Micah definitely does! I'm going to see if I can add a link to it on youtube here...

As soon as he hears the water draining out of the tub at the beginning of the commercial, he turns his head to the tv and watches the rest of the commercial. His favorite part is whenever the rubber ducky is on the screen! He gets the BIGGEST smile on his face whenever he sees the ducky. :) It's SO cute!

We've since discovered that he really loves anything with duckies or chicks on it. :) He has a crawling toy that he pushes and it rolls on ahead of him that has four ducks on it, which he loves. He loves to play with his rubber duckies in the bathtub. And whenever he sees a picture of a ducky or a chick, he always smiles! That makes me smile too. :)

Stairs!

This morning has already brought a new development...Micah has now discovered the stairs! It actually happened while I was on the phone with Steve (he's in Oklahoma City), so it's funny that Micah chose that moment to do it. There were two bottles of sunscreen on the third stair up, and that's actually what motivated him to get up those stairs! I'm still shocked at how much he has learned over the last two months - it's been such a joy to see him do new things all the time. We are officially one month from his birthday, so we'll see what else he's picking up between now and then...

Sniff, sniff

Micah has been surprising us with his ability to walk behind objects the last few days, making me very emotional! I can't believe my little baby is not really a baby anymore, but a little boy. The walking started over the weekend when I had his laundry basket in our main room, and out of nowhere he was standing up behind it, pushing it along while walking! (Of course, I teared up when I saw it...) He did that for a couple days, then moved on to his walker toy from Grandma. (The laundry basket didn't move as fast and was a bit more stable.) I caught this on video yesterday...

I have a feeling the next four weeks until his first birthday are going to be pretty emotional ones for me!!

A Shout-out to Hawthorne Mall

Steve, Micah, and I all went to Hawthorne Mall (in Vernon Hills) on Saturday, and I was so impressed! Not with the stores, necessarily, since we've been there many times before, but with the kids' play area and the adjacent family bathroom area! It's amazing the things you notice when you're a parent that you'd never pay attention to before... The kids' area was fun, though Micah was really too young for it. But he still crawled around and pulled himself up on some of the little creatures. Everything was soft and padded, so I wasn't worried about him falling. He seemed to enjoy himself! After playing, we needed to change his diaper, so we went to the family room area. It was huge, and full of wonderful things for parents! They had multiple diaper changing stations along one whole wall, a large bathroom (with locking door) with both a regular and small kids' toilet, a sitting area with a tv, a vending machine full of baby/toddler essentials (if you forgot something at home), and 3-4 walled-in/curtained off areas with nice chairs and lamps (where I nursed Micah in comfort and privacy)! I was SO impressed with all of this. It really made our experience so much better, and definitely made me want to go back again!

Jumping on the Bandwagon

Okay, so it seems that everyone I know has a blog now, and though I have some friends that don't like them much, I finally decided to start a blog for the Hall family. I don't promise that it will be incredibly interesting, but hopefully it will keep those of you who are interested up to date with the latest with Steve, Micah, and me. :) Enjoy!