11 months

My baby, you are quickly becoming my little boy. Your turning a year old is still surprising me for some reason. This year has just flown by and too quickly if you ask me.

Here's what you've been up to in the last two months

~ 1 more tooth (8 total)
~ first fever - 102 was the high
~ wearing primarily 18 mth clothes
~ still wearing size 4 diapers during day and size 5 at night
~ first unassisted steps were taken on Nov 13. You were so proud of yourself! You took about 4-5 steps from the coffee table to the couch. Mimzy, Pops and I were your witnesses.
~ cruising (practically running) up and down the length of the couch and just laughing and grinning! So proud of yourself!
~ cruising the house pushing your Tonka truck. You sure get frustrated when your way gets blocked!
~ eating a pretty good variety of food. A few favorites are avocado, bananas, mac n'cheese, noodles, carrots, sweet potatoes, oatmeal, yogurt. I try to feed you from our plates first before switching to jar baby food. Still working on the green veggies!
~ drinking from sippy cup (note: you finally started holding your bottle around 10 mths, but only when the highchair is fully reclined)
~ drinking 24-26 oz milk p/day
~ blowing raspberries when you don't like something
~ waving bye-bye (started around 10 mths). I am convinced you said "bye-bye" today. Maybe not, but it sure sounded like it!
~ jabbering a lot - you are working on your M's today
~ shaking your head sideways sometimes when we say "no, no"
~ crawling up the stairs (and you are quick!) There have been several times you are halfway up the stairs before we even know it! You are undettered in your efforts in that you will repeatedly go back to the stairs every time we take you off the stairs and even put you in another room!
~ 2 naps a day (about an hour in the morning and around an hour and half in afternoon)
~ playing with your brother
~ following your brother and running away from him (I'm convinced you are scared of him sometimes, but I can't really blame you!)
~ baths with your brother
~ playing with blocks, rings, balls, pop-up toys
~ being a happy, social and friendly baby! Everyone loves you!

I love you sweet boy!

Top 10 lessons learned from the weekend

In no particular order...

1. it's best to not do projects around the house with children present
2. wood stain is not compatible with carpets [see #1]
3. it takes 4 adults to hang a light fixture (one holds baby, one chases other child from ladder, one works the wires, one holds the light fixture) [see #1]
4. it's important to watch where you are walking or you could break your nose (almost) on a hanging light fixture that usually has a table underneath to block you from walking in that area.
5. wood floors and dogs are not compatible
6. after over a month of not having mowed and having just had recent rain, it may have been a better idea to bag the first mow before lowering the blade to mow again.
7. it's better to finish a project once it's started than to wait another day, such as trying to finish #6 in the rain the next day because you were tired (and hungry) of the mower cutting out the day before because the grass was so high to start with.
8. it is always easier to go to the grocery store without children; however, if you were to accidently unload an entire grocery cart on the conveyor belt only to then be told that you were in the '10 items or less' aisle and then look up at the glaring sign you really should've noticed in the first place, at least if children were present you could blame it on them distracting you.
9. taking dinner to a family that just had a newborn always makes you contemplate having a baby just so you wouldn't have to cook, if just for a while.
10. it might be worth buying oven cleaner and using a little elbow grease to clean that 7 yr old oven instead of using the 4 hour self-clean feature and having to smell/breathe, for 4 hours, the intensity of the disintegrating caked on droppings from years of cooking.

Letting Him out of the box

And even though my problems seem typical
Nothing for you is ever too difficult
You never have reservations - love without limitations

And I don't wanna box you in
You've been doing big things since the world began
Sometimes I just don't wanna believe
That you're big enough - but you're big enough
-Ayiesha Woods, Big Enough lyrics

As we continue down this road of putting our house on the market, regardless of market conditions and area home prices being less than expected (from a seller's perspective) I have to remind myself that even though selling our home is a trivial matter in the grand scheme of things I feel are more important to God that it's still something God can handle if He so chooses. Is it His will for us to move? I don't know, but I don't see a reason to not try. I trust He has a plan for us and believe He will not put us in a harmful position. So, if we don't receive an offer based on what we need, we stay put. We are making an offer on a home contingent on selling this one.

Why do I put God in a box? Why do I limit what he cares about? Do you do that? In my mind, does God really care about our desire for a bigger and newer home? I mean, I hate to have Him focus energy on my mundane desire. Regardless, He does tell us to pray about everything. That means EVERYTHING. So, I will continue to thank him for all he's done for us and tell him what we think we need and want. We'll ask him to guide the steps we take and give us peace along the way and as we approach decisions. And, I'll ask Him to remind me that "no one puts Baby God in a corner."

One, two, three strikes bites you're out...

My heart always sinks when I get a call from daycare. I never know what to expect from the voice on the other end. Is he hurt or sick? What happened? I quickly tell myself to stay calm and be open-minded.

Yesterday I received one of those calls. Two days ago I also got one of those calls. Same child. The call two days ago was to tell me that One (I've got to think of a blog name for my kids!) had fallen on the playground and scraped his nose and bit his lip. He has 3 scabs on his nose and upper lip. He kinda looks like Rudolph now. Anyway, when I received the call yesterday, I was wondering how he got hurt this time and was shocked to find out that he was the attacker, not the recipient.

Apparently he was aggravating another boy and then bit the boy (pretty hard too). Excuse me? Here's where I say I try to be open-minded. While my first thought was "What? Not my child? What did that other boy do?", I had to say how disappointed I was to hear that and ask for more information as to what led up to him making the decision to bite another child. Accept responsibility and recognize that he was in the wrong, regardless of what may have prompted him.

Truly, this is the first time ever that he has bitten another child. I kid you not. Even when he was younger and was the recipient of bites, he never reciprocated. The caretakers always commented on that. He never tried to bite me or Coach and he's yet to try it with his brother. Even after 1.5 yrs at this school, he's never had an incident where he bit someone.

Turns out though that the boy he bit has had a history of biting others - to the point where the school made his mother keep him home a few days as a result of it. (News to me). So, I guess my child decided that was how to handle relations with this other boy since that is what this other boy does. Great. But still, he's over 2.5 yrs old. I guess I thought that since it's been a non-issue up to this point that he was old enough to not start that behavior.

When I picked the kids up from school I had a good talk with One's teacher. We'll see what happens going forward.

Next, I went to the Infant building to pick up Two. The caretakers told me that he had been bitten twice, once on each arm. What? Ugh. He's been bit before. And it's by the same child that bit him twice yesterday! The caretakers have talked to the mom, keep trying to move the child away, give him teething rings, a rag to chew on, whatever, but he keeps doing it and they aren't sure what else to do now. Hello? My child is not your personal chew toy. The caretakers said that Two did not cry and that he continues to go on and play. Seriously this kid rolls with the punches (no pun intended). He's such a good-natured guy. However, next bite and I'm going to suggest they send that child to at-home-suspension as well. Maybe I won't wait til the next bite.

Creature of habit

As I was entering the bathroom stall earlier, it dawned on me that I gravitate to the same stall every time I use this particular bathroom. I had to chuckle. What is it about this particular stall? The lighting isn't exceptional, it's the very first stall and everytime I walk into the stall I remind myself to not snag my pants on the corner of the shelf over the toilet paper. I've tried other stalls, but I keep coming back to this particular one. Wonder why?

What are your peculiar habits?

I certainly need to change some current habits, namely sitting on my tush all evening when I need to be walking on the treadmill. Crazy talk, I know, but this weight isn't going to come off by me wishing it away. I am still doing Weight Watchers, but got off track for the summer months and now am refocused on getting to goal weight.

I was good about exercising for a while and then we travelled and I got off schedule. Mostly, I just got out of the habit and man is it hard to get it started again. I use my son as an excuse.

After dinner the kids get baths and then pretty soon thereafter Two is going down, usually around 7pm, so the last hour is spent snuggling with One. That last hour of his day he will sit still, all snuggled up beside me with the blanket Grandma made for Two, while we watch Dancing with the Stars or PBS Sprout nighttime programs for kids. How can I give that up?

Then, when he goes down, I essentially have one hour to myself to watch TV or play on the computer before I need to go downstairs, clean the kitchen, make bottles and get lunch ready for the next day and start my bedtime routine. I'm usually in bed by 10 pm. Somehow I need to get exercise to be part of that hour to myself, but I so love to mentally veg out. How do I train myself to see exercise as another way to unwind and appreciate it as part of me time?

I guess until exercise becomes an acquired behavior pattern I regularly follow, until it has become almost involuntary, I may never see exercise as an enjoyable part of me time.

Tips? Thoughts? Encouragement?

Some things are just not right

It's just not right to hear a grown woman talking like a middle school cheerleader. I guess you become like those you are around most.

It's just not right to apply for a position where a former boss of yours (who taught you everything you know) would be reporting to you, especially when said boss is more than qualified for the position.

It's just not right to have to buy a house at a pretty high price point and still have to put a good bit of money in it to get it to where you want it.

It's just not right to feel like the one always left out.

It's just not right when friends only call when they need something.

It's just not right for someone else to win the lottery.

Some things are just not right. What's not right for you?

To do or not to do, that is the question

We've been going back and forth for over a year on buying a new home (or new to us). Our current home is almost 30 years old. Now that we have our two boys, if we are ever going to move, I would like to do so within the next 3 years so that we are where we are going to be once the boys start school. I love our home, but with two growing boys our home is getting smaller. and older.

We've found a couple of homes we like but just need to spend some time crunching numbers to see what we are comfortable with. Not to mention figuring out a price point for our current home. It's definitely a buyer's market right now which isn't that great for selling. We've put a lot of money into our current home in upgrades and we have it where we like it, for the most part. I wish I could take our bathroom with us - especially since we had the opportunity to remodel it and design it specific to our wants. I really dislike all the master bathrooms we've seen. So. blah. There also the fact that no matter how "perfect" the home, there is still stuff we want to do to make it more "us." If that even makes sense.

We struggle with the logical thoughts of how long are we cool with staying in a house that is getting older and older and is going to need more and more as it ages with the emotional want of a newer home, younger neighborhood, updated styles, etc, then back to the logical thought of the nice lower house payment now. So on and so forth. Back and forth. To do or not to do.

Do we press on and see what comes of putting our house on the market? What are your thoughts?