Chris - 10 month update

Chris turned 10 months old last week. I'd say he's not in the happiest part of his life for a few reasons -

1) he's teething which means he's biting on EVERYTHING and when he bites on people he gets a stern "Chris, no biting" that makes him frown or outright cry. It's really painful though and a habit I can't let him continue. He has gotten to the point that after he kisses me (dozens of times a day) whether he bites my cheek or not he immediately shakes his head 'no' after.

2) He wants everything Nicole has and I'm sure you can guess how well that goes over. He hears lots of "No, Chris!"'s with her running away from him.

3) He can't make up his mind if he wants to be held and cuddled or down and crawling. So we're in a constant flux of him moving and then pulling on me and whining to get picked up. 30 seconds later he changes his mind again.

His daycare was excited to tell me how smart he is though. "He's figured out how to get the toys he wants! He crawls over to the kid who has a toy, pulls their hair until they cry and then when they let go he takes the toy out of their lap." Great.... so glad he's clever like that. :P

He is totally on solid food now and, like his sister, he's not a picky eater. He eats whatever we eat for dinner - nothing special and no babyfood except for cereal or organic yogurt for breakfast. We've also exposed him to all the major allergens - egg, shrimp, crab, wheat, and milk (via yogurt)-with no issues.

He continues to battle ear infections even with the tubes. He was tugging again last night and we're watching him to see if he needs to go back to the doctor again to have it checked out.

We love him a lot and hope that he moves from being happy 80% of the time back to 99% of the time once these teeth come in and ears settle down.

Cleaning House

Cleaning House - well, there are several former bloggers who aren't very diligent about maintaining their sites so this morning I cleaned up my blogroll (list of blogs I read to the left). I don't feel guilty yet (until someone complains/gets their feelings hurt- if you do just tell me so I can put it back up!). I did stumble on someone's blog I used to follow but even she hasn't posted in a while so I didn't "re-instate" her.

My Bad Habits

1. Accomplishing something: I have a somewhat overwhelming urge to be productive. My most recent near-obsession is checking my email at red lights. I can't stand to just sit there. Even when I'm watching DVR I get satisfaction of knocking a show off the list.

2. Biting my chapped lips: I can't not do it. I am probably making the situation worse, I know. I bit my cheek last night and I can't stop messing with that either....

3. Calling people right away with news: Jim obviously gets the brunt of this. Here's an example - I got Chris's ear drop prescription at the pharmacy. There was no generic so OUR cost was like $33. It literally took me zipping my purse so I didn't call to tell him. "You'll be home in 6 minutes and can tell him then! It's not important anyway!" I had to keep reminding myself or I would have been on the phone right away.

4. Feeling like I DESERVE sweets: I rationalize in my head that I do good things like be productive at work, pack my lunch, not eat any at work so I deserve a big scoop of cookie dough at home.... [Un]fortunately this happens every day.

5. Checking people's blogs who are private/remote: It's because they don't update in my blogroll! I have to remember to read Tom's, Martha's, Lisa's, etc. and it drives me crazy because I just plain forget it won't update on the side so when I look I'm always like "eh, nothing new with Tom" when there was! ACK!

6. Making sexual innuendos at work: Somehow this happens all the time. I think it's because I work with all men but the subject comes up constantly it seems. Not about what any of us do, per se, but just the concept. Like if I take a late lunch with the kids one of the guys will tease "you're in a good mood, did you have a quickie over lunch?" and I'll be inclined to answer something like "Yeah, in the park near his work. It was awesome."

For Carole

Tonight was in the mid-sixties so we spent some time playing with chalk outside. Nicole is learning to draw actual pictures. Here's a rainbow:

I won't post the picture of Chris trying to eat the chalk because that might imply some bad parenting (or at least slow reflexes) on my part. ha ha.



Last night my aunt and uncle's dog died. I took the opportunity to explain to Nicole why she won't see Jasper anymore and that Jasper is in Heaven playing with Jesus but that makes Aunt Mary feel sad because she misses him. That drew out an explanation of the fact that Heaven is above us and God watches us.


Here's Nic taking said lessons and applying them to her favorite thing to draw - smile faces.

We made Aunt Mary and Uncle Tom a "feel better" card too. I think it'll make Aunt Mary cry though. :(

Tonight's art lesson was trees- "one big stick and swirlies at the top". I think that even without knowing in advance what it was you could guess "tree". 2-year old level tree of course, but still, not too bad.

Yes, I'm still alive...

Been so busy with work (ugh) that I have had no time to blog or read other's blogs. I'm beat by the time I get home so I'm way behind.

Chris

• Crawling as of last Monday- he's gotten pretty fast
• Wants whatever Nicole has, regardless of what it is
• Got ANOTHER ear infection last Thursday- sees the surgeon for a follow-up appointment on Friday

Nicole

• wraps a blanket around her and over her head an announces "I'm Jesus". Where does she get this stuff?
• is in a huge running phase. She wants to run EVERYWHERE we go and never seems to tire
• Is big into her "marker book" - a book that has an associated dry-erase pen she uses to trace letters, match pictures, etc. She's got the numbers 1, 9 and 10 down pretty well as far as writing (notice a theme in the shapes she can draw?). She's also very big into drawing "smile faces" - either two dots or two lines for eyes and a U for a smile. Strangely all things that require multiple parts (like the number ten or the smile) start from the right and go left. I mean that she'll make the 0 first and then the 1 when she writes 10.

The Adults

• Bought 8 tons of rock to make a natural stone retaining wall around the deck (project starts Sunday)
• Bought the first 3 cubic tons of mulch to spread - ahhhh work
• Jim's first softball game of the season is Wednesday
• Karen is VERY eager to have this semester of school over and done with
• work for both of us is crazy busy
• patio furniture decisions will be made by Sunday of this week. THANK GOD. a 15 month process finally finished!
• We grilled at our new house for the first time this weekend! wahoo for spring and the new grill!
• Karen THOROUGHLY enjoyed Martha's wedding on Saturday for a MULTITUDE of reasons. Mart- you looked beautiful! hope Hawaii is fabulous!

Political Views

I took a 10-question political test and here are the results:

LIBERTARIANS support maximum liberty in both personal and economic matters. They advocate a much smaller government; one that is limited to protecting individuals from coercion and violence. Libertarians tend to embrace individual responsibility, oppose government bureaucracy and taxes, promote private charity, tolerate diverse lifestyles, support the free market, and defend our civil liberties.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Big Weekend!

This weekend was full of excitement! Jim was off all day and I had a half day on Friday so we ran errands, looked for patio furniture, and got a Costco membership ($209 was our first trip- yikes!). We spent time cleaning up in preparation for our big weekend of hosting.

First, on Saturday, the Bostons from NC came for dinner and chatting. It is amazing how big their son Alex has gotten since the last time we saw them.

Sunday morning we got up, ate French toast and looked around for what The Bunny brought. Nicole, with a little suggestion finally found both her and Chris's baskets hiding in the tent.

Nicole got new sunglasses, nail polish, candy, stickers & princess socks.

Chris got some eggs with Cheerios in them, a pirate book, some NumNum crackers & a toy

We kept checking in with my parents and brother on Lindsay's progress. Her water broke the night before and she was in labor all night. We ultimately decided to go to Church and visit her at the hospital after (she hadn't had the baby by the time we left). Here we are on our way:

When we got to the hospital Lauren Elizabeth was getting a bath so we had to wait a little bit to meet her. She was worth the wait though. :)

When we got home we ate lunch and the kids went down for a nap so we could clean up for Easter (we were hosting dinner). Here are the kiddos in their Easter outfits:

Chris is so close to crawling. He technically did move in crawling fashion last night at the party but didn't go very far. I'm sure today he'll have lots of practice at the open play area at daycare. :)