Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Boo-boo

A couple weeks ago, Liam took a face plant in the parking lot at the mall when he attempted to climb out of his stroller himself. He had a nice little scrape on his chin. Of course, we went to the grocery store right afterward and ran into a retired couple from church--big fans of Liam--and they were all concerned and looking at me like, "what did you do to your child? and why are you taking him and his poor scraped up chin to the grocery?". Like I should neglect him by feeding him pop-tarts, the only thing in our house, after letting him fall out of his stroller? I had to get the kid some lunch!

But I digress. Ever since he got his "boo-boo" as he calls it, he has taken to touching it while drinking out of his sippy cup. And now the boo-boo is totally gone, not even a scar...but he's still touching the spot on his chin, and still calling it his "boo-boo". I swear the other day I caught him banging his chin against the crib to get another boo-boo in the same spot. I was able to capture his new little quirk today, along with a few other cute ones.

No pictures during breakfast, ma!


Okay, just one more...


On an unrelated note, this ends my 30 days (okay 29, I skipped one day) of blogging. It has been a bit taxing, but not as bad as I thought. I think you'll be hearing more from me in the future. It's actually kind of relaxing and helps me to express myself, which I'm sure I'll need in the coming months. Thanks to all of you who have tuned in each day!

Monday, September 29, 2008

Check this out

Even you Sarah Palin fans have to find this one funny:

http://rickyvanveen.com/post/51748798/after-hearing-matt-damons-brilliant-comparison-of

In the words of my sister, "let's hope it's just something we laugh about now and are not crying about later..."

Sunday, September 28, 2008

AR

Tonight was the season premiere of the Amazing Race, aka the "AR" to Mark and I, which has always been one of our favorite shows. It makes our Sunday night awesome because it's followed by Entourage. We love it! Tonight Liam watched the AR with us because he's all out of whack from the combined sugar intake/late night involved with yesterday's block party. Though he's not very good at sitting and watching TV, he enjoyed dancing around and intermittingly commenting on the modes of transport on the AR: "aowpwane! bus! choo-choo!".

Here he is cheering on the teams: "go! go! go!".


For the record, we were sorry to see the hippie married beekeepers get eliminated tonight. Our hippie teams usually fare much better!

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Block Party

Today was our court's annual block party. For those of you unfamiliar with our neighborhood, we are really lucky to live in a place that is amazingly child-friendly. Our street is not actually a street, as all of our homes are accessed behind by alleys. The only thing between our neighbors across the way and our house is a sidewalk. At last count, there were close to 40 kids on the court, which makes for fun every night of the week...but it makes the block party extra fun.
I didn't remember to take pictures until it was too dark (okay, Mark was the one who remembered to take pictures), but here is part of the group that settled down for a jam session after the potluck...

And here is Liam, participating in the jam session himself. He can't get enough of the drums! We think that we have a pretty musical kid on our hands. When not drumming along with the music, he was dancing like crazy!

Friday, September 26, 2008

Boy Friday

Fridays have become my cleaning day so I don't have to deal with it over the weekend. I get everything cleaned and dusted, wash sheets, etc. and then Mark vacuums the house over the weekend. It's our new routine. And it works for everyone but Liam, who gets really bored while I'm tidying the house. Today, he played in my closet, which is a new favorite venue for peekaboo.


This one he actually posed for...I told him that we were going to send it to Aunt Allie, so he gave a grin.


Once again, note the Elmo shirt. This one is a fan fave...it's not only Elmo, but he's holding a football, which is Liam's new favorite sport. He's obsessed with all things football, including helmets. Mark's school is well-known for football...they are often the state champions. Each year, they play a huge game against their other all-male Catholic school rival here in Louisville. The game takes place at University of Louisville's football stadium, and there are usually 25000+ people there. FOR A HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL GAME. And we don't even live in Texas! It's next Friday night, and we have been considering whether or not to take Liam. With his sudden interest in "Rocks! Football!" (Trinity's mascot is the Shamrocks), it might be a good idea. If so, I'm sure you'll see some footage right here on the blog. I've only been once...early in our courtship. With my young son's newfound interest, I don't even want to think about how many more times I'll have to go in my life! :)

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Assistant Baker

We had some friends over for dinner last night, so Liam and I baked cookies for dessert yesterday after his nap. He clearly enjoys eating batter! (Don't worry folks, I unplugged the KitchenAid before he did this.)



This is what a small global village we live in...Sarah (aka Yoga Sarah, pictured below with Liam) that I met through teacher training has become a great friend to me. We go for walks, out to breakfast, work on yoga homework, etc. One day several months ago we were walking and talking, sharing life histories when she mentioned that her dad lived in Micronesia. You may remember from a post over a year ago that Mark and I have good friends that spent the last year in Palau. Long story short...Sarah's dad, Keith, ended up not just living in the same city as Ben and Erin, but they all worked at the same place as attorneys!



Since that time, Ben and Erin have returned to the US and are making their new home here in Louisville, which is super exciting. Keith is home this week to visit Sarah, so Ben, Erin, and Keith (pictured below) were reunited last night in our home for dinner. What a fun night!




Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Lunchtime



Liam was quite the cutie during lunch today. He's really getting good at feeding himself with a fork and spoon, which will come in handy in a few weeks when I'm holding a newborn and trying to feed Liam at the same time. He was enjoying his rice and beans, but then he noticed that I had broccoli in my leftover stir-fry. He started pointing, saying "broccoli! broccoli!", so I put some on his plate. He scooped it up with his spoon, ate it, rubbed his belly while saying "yumm" and then said, "thank you!". A grateful vegetable eating kid. What more could a mommy ask for? I'm a lucky lady.
p.s. note the Elmo shirt...one of two. Each morning, he points to his closet and says, "Elmo, Elmo!" I imagine there will be lots of photos in the Elmo shirts in the coming weeks, since he's wearing them 4 of 7 days (if I'm on top of laundry!)

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Cloth Diaper Rash

To any and all of my cloth diapering friends...now Liam is getting diaper rash from the cloth. I think it's because his NASA-quality Pampers have always wicked away any drop of moisture from his behind, so now he's getting irritated from urine. It's mostly overnight, I believe. Any ideas?

p.s. Don't let this be fuel to the fire for those of you who think I'm crazy to cloth, like my Grandma Weez :)

I forgot to blog yesterday!

No worries, I haven't gone into pre-term labor. I just forgot, which is a side effect of being 36 weeks pregnant.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Alone time

I went to the grocery store today all by myself. It's the second time this month, and I don't think I'm ever going to take Liam (or any future children, for that matter) to the grocery again. It's twice as fast and so peaceful it's almost relaxing. For real.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Nap Skipper

For the last two weeks or so, Liam has been skipping his nap every second or third day. This makes me incredibly nervous for when new baby arrives, as I was becoming accustomed to Liam's three hour afternoon nap. For the most part, he just jabbers to himself with the occasional yell of "Mommy" or "out". Today I let him jabber away for 2 hours, hoping that he'd fall asleep, which he never did. I still got some time to take care of household stuff and put my feet up for a bit, but by 6, he was not much fun, which makes evenings a little dicey in our house.

One theory is that his curtains are not dark enough for his room, so I'm going to take care of that this week with some new, room darkening curtains. Any other ideas would be appreciated.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

I Dream of Genius (bum, that is)

So we've been trying the cloth diapering thing for a couple days, and both nights, right before bed, I get online and do some more research to see what options are out there. I've decided that I am likely reading/researching too much. The nighttime research has led me to dream about cloth diapers for the last two nights! I dream about the different brands/types...and the worst type of dream...I dreamt that a hybrid of my two favorite types of diapers actually exists when it doesn't.

Mark's home again today, so I discussed my dreams with him this morning and we FINALLY made a decision and went ahead and ordered our diapers. For the curious, we went with bumGenius one-size so that they will work for both Liam and the new baby. As with anything in life, nothing's perfect and hardly any product will meet ALL of our needs for the right price, so we are happy with our choice.

The funniest part of my diaper dreams? I've been getting up 5 times a night to pee, and then I dream about diapers in between. Maybe they should make them for pregnant women...

Sh*t

It finally happened, and not like I thought it would. Liam repeated a bad word. And it was my bad word, not Mark's, like I'd always envisioned. We came upstairs tonight to get ready for bed and I realized that I had a load of laundry in the wash that I forgot to change earlier, and I said, "sh*t! I've got to change the laundry!" All of a sudden, Liam started saying, "sh*t! sh*t!" over and over again. And we couldn't help but laugh, which just added fuel to the fire. So for the rest of the night, he keeps saying it over and over again. Mark is tickled pink that it was me instead of him.

I wonder if he's going to wake up tomorrow saying, "Mommy! Sh*t, Mommy!"

I think the hardest part of parenting is not laughing at inappropriate times, thus reinforcing behavior you'd rather they'd not repeat.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

"Moo"la

Liam has two coin banks--A piggy bank given to us by some old colleagues of Mark's at Lex Cath, and a cow bank from my Aunt Ginny, Liam's godmother (aka "Ninny" to Liam). We put quarters in the pig and dimes in the cow. Each time Ginny sends Liam a card (which is quite often...she's a very involved godmom), she fills it with dimes. Yesterday Liam came across a dime and we showed him how to put it in his cow bank. He became obsessed with finding dimes and putting them into the bank, shouting "money! more!" after he finished with each dime. Mark was able to capture his concerted efforts:



On another note, Mark is home again today. It's been nice having him share our regular activities. This has also been the first day of cloth diapering, so it's great to have him around to compare notes! Rumor has it they'll be out tomorrow, too. A nice treat.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Another Windy City

We had a crazy day of weather yesterday in Louisville...though hardly a drop of rain, we experienced residual weather from Ike in the form of 75 mph wind gusts. We lost a tree in our backyard, but we have been really lucky compared to others, as we still have power. As of this afternoon, only 50% of the city had power, and they are estimating that it could be up to two weeks for some. School was out today and tomorrow and potentially the rest of the week.

Obviously, we here are experiencing nothing compared to those in Texas, but it has been a wild ride here the last 24 hours. I've taken these pictures off the Courier Journal web site to give a little taste of what it looks like around our neighborhood.





Sunday, September 14, 2008

Entourage

Mark and I spent the summer watching old episodes of Entourage on Netflix. We are hooked! Season 5 started on HBO last Sunday, and it's the highlight of our week to watch the newest episode (along with Project Runway on Wednesday...which Mark totally loves...for real). If you haven't seen Entourage, put it on your queue!

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Cloth Diapers

By writing this post, I am committing myself to the fact that I am going to switch from disposable to cloth diapers, both for Liam and new baby. I wanted to do it with Liam from the get-go, but I fell into the easiness of disposables, and never really looked back. Now I've determined that it will save us $1500-$2000 over the next couple years to cloth diaper, so I'm taking the plunge. Plus, Molly sent me several to get me started with the new baby.

For those of you that think I'm crazy (I know you are out there), it's actually gotten a lot easier since to cloth diaper than when we were kids. There are so many different types to choose from...it's not your basic prefolded diaper anymore. The real issue is that there are so many options. It is unbelieveably overwhelming to decide which brand/method/type of diaper I'm going to use. I ordered a variety pack from Cottonbabies.com and have spent countless hours reading review after review on Diaperpin.com to decide which ones to go with. It is so confusing that I'm not even going to include Mark in the decision until I've made it. For that he is, of course, grateful.

So, I've received my variety pack in the mail. Monday I'm going to pick up some basic pre-folds and covers from our local natural parenting store, and I'm going to experiment on Liam and get this down before new baby arrives. As I said before, just writing about it means I'm committed, so I've got to stick to my plan!

Any thoughts, suggestions would be appreciated...except if you tell me that I shouldn't do it. I won't like that. :)

Friday, September 12, 2008

Computer Whiz

Liam loves the computer. We like to look at pbskids.org and his absolute favorite is kneebouncers.com, which we found out about from some friends at the library. It helps to keep him busy while I'm doing other stuff like cleaning up toys! I'm sure that it's probably sending him subliminal messages that will one day cause him to need extensive therapy, but right now, it's great!



Thursday, September 11, 2008

Shopping

Some of you may or may not know that I've become quite the bargain shopper...I've always been a coupon clipper, but I've definitely started taking it to new levels now that I'm a mommy, particularly since I've quit working (outside the home...have to put that in there). I've also become quite adept at shopping consignment, both stores and seasonal sales. I just participated in my first consignment sale as a consignor. Though we are having another boy, we had WAY too many clothes for his first year of life, so I decided to sell some of them. One of the perks of participating in the sale is that you get to shop early, before the general public, which is a good way to grab up great deals! But it is an absolute madhouse...these women are like hawks! It's hilarious. Here's an idea of what the sale looks like (it spans two regulation basketball courts)...



And I couldn't even get everything into the frame of the photo! It's wild. But I got some great deals on clothes for Liam now that he's outgrown all the cute things people got for him as an infant. I'm pleased to report that for $80, I scored 9 pairs of pj's, 9 long sleeve t-shirts, 6 pairs of pants, 2 sweaters, and 2 hooded sweatshirts! And of course, most of them are Gap, Gymboree, etc. that I'd never pay full price for. He's set for the winter. Mark thinks I'm nuts, but I'm super-pumped. I can't wait to see what I make from the sale...I'm hoping to break even, but if I make a profit, you'll definitely hear about it!

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Happy Belated Birthday to Grandpere

Liam wasn't in the mood to hold a "Happy Birthday" sign and be photographed yesterday, but he did enjoy dinner out with Grandpere to celebrate his birthday. After practicing all afternoon, he was even able to say "Berfday!" to show his enthusiasm. I think it made Paul's day.



Liam was also happy to help GP eat his berfday brownie sundae!



Happy (belated) Birthday, Paul! I wish you many more.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Ellen

Liam loves watching the Ellen show, and dances with her almost every day if we're home when she's on. Here he is yesterday clapping for Ellen and the Jonas Brothers. He really rocked it out when the band performed! He loves music and we've started to have a "dance party" almost every day while we cook dinner and wait for Mark to come home.


Monday, September 08, 2008

Yoga weekend

This weekend was my last for yoga teacher training, although in my largely pregnant state, I really only participated in the pot luck on Sunday. But it was still great to see all my fellow trainees and spend time with them. Yoga teacher training has been a great experience and I look forward to actually teaching yoga one day when I get some time! Thanks to all who helped to make this dream come true for me.
Here are some photos of my fellow teacher trainees and our teacher, Shelli. Clockwise from me (1 o'clockish): Me, Chance, Raj, Nancy, Sarah, Anne, Skylar, Shelli, Pam, and Julie.

Thanks to all my fellow trainees for an amazing, life changing experience! Namaste.

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Millions of peaches

We headed to Huber Orchard to pick apples and peaches yesterday. We got a bunch, as you can see. I don't think I have it in me to teach myself how to can this year (next summer, for sure), so I'm not sure what to do with all of this! I made fried apples this morning and some peach salsa last night. I'm open to suggestions...please!



Saturday, September 06, 2008

Happy Birthday Allison!

Here's my attempt at a birthday greeting...





Happy 29th! Hope you have a great day!

Friday, September 05, 2008

New Phone

Yeah! Although it still has icons (apparently they are the wave of the future), I like this phone much better. It's much less flimsy and will do a better job of standing up to two children and their phone antics...or at least I hope so. Since I refuse to pay more than $50 for a phone, I'll have to take what I can get, right?

Liam thinks it is very user friendly, and told me that he prefers the icons.


Now if I can just find a reasonable ring tone...

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Thanks, Capri Sun!


Now I not only know what kind of mom I am, but I've also figured out what kind of Capri Sun I should buy for Liam! Phew!


Wednesday, September 03, 2008

I hate my new phone

Well, it finally happened. After 20 months of drooling, biting, opening, closing and doing Lord knows what else to my phone, Liam finally managed to break it last week. I took it in to see if I could get it fixed, and the people at the AT&T store looked at my lovely phone and had to hold back their laugh at my dinosaur of a flip phone. They told me it would cost more to fix it then to just get a new one, so I started shopping around. We always get our phones at Radio Shack (tip: much better deal than the AT&T store), so I got Mark and I both new phones. He hasn't even switched over to the new one yet, so he doesn't understand when I complain about the new one. I have never done this before, but I seriously think I'm going to return it for something lower tech. You can see from the picture below that my old phone (left) was pretty simple, but the new phone (right) is sleek and weighs close to nothing and it just doesn't seem right to me.


It also uses icons instead of words, which I can't stand. I'm one of those people who has my computer files as a list instead of icons. I despise icons and love words. And the new phone does not have any words. So I think I'm headed back to Radio Shack tomorrow to see if they have a more basic phone for me to purchase. It will probably cost more, which is ridiculous.
Maybe I should get one of those phones marketed toward senior citizens...the Jitterbug.
The bright side of all of this? I now know that I never want an IPhone, which I had been drooling over for the last year. Mark's thrilled.
On a somewhat related note...seeing as I'm clearly technologically slow, does anyone else worry about what life will be like when our toddlers are teens? It freaks me out!

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Cookies!

At the beginning of each school year, Mark does a "cookie lab" with his students. They watch an episode of Good Eats that demonstrates three different methods for baking chocolate chip cookies: thin & crispy, chewy, and cakey. He then splits them up into different groups and sends them home over a weekend to make the cookies. They bring them to school and taste test them, choose a winner, and then they get to write their first lab report of the year about making cookies. What does this have to do with science, you ask? Well, there are different ingredients in each of the three recipes that change the chemical properties of the cookies. For those students (like me, for example) who aren't science savvy, it's a helpful way to learn how to write a lab report that will meet Mark's standards...which are high. Actually, this lab was my idea several years ago and has been a popular item with the students ever since. And the other teachers don't mind, either, since they end up getting to eat a bunch of cookies.

Here's a sample of the selection Mark brought home for Liam and I today (in case you're wondering, the ones on the right were my fave):


Unfortunately, cookie day fell on the same day that I went to visit my midwife and got weighed. I was doing so well...had kept the weight gain under twenty pounds...and then BOOM! I gained 4 pounds in two weeks. And then came home to a boat load of cookies. Guess what? I ate them anyway. Not all of them, of course. Liam had some, too:

And much to his disappointment, we stopped eating them so we'd have some in the next few days. Here he is with a "where's my cookies" look on his face...

Hopefully he'll forget we have them and not ask for cookies for breakfast!

Monday, September 01, 2008

A Blog a Day

Inspired by some of my fellow bloggers, I have always wanted to pick and month and blog daily. I have chosen the month of September to do this for a couple reasons: 1) there's only 30 days and 2) it will (hopefully, unless this baby's really late) be my last month with only one child to tend to.

I'm not going to say much else today because I don't want to waste any of my material for the rest of the month. Oh, and I'm open to suggestions, in case anyone has any prompts or ideas for me.

There will be photos of Liam, for those of you who just visit to see him, but probably not every day.

Stay tuned.