swing-a-roo

9-7-07
Here he's just a little older but still so much quieter then he is now. I may have mentioned this in a much earlier blog but if you have a new born a baby swing is an absolute must, they seem expensive but please splurge if you have to I actually had a little quiet time and could eat with my husband it was amazing.

Our hospital stay

Our second video from the hospital and again there is more inappropriate commentary from my husband, apparently I was too tired to realize what he was saying when he was doing it.

Early Hunter

Hey I thought that leading up to Hunter's birthday I would post some video so that my mom can watch and cry. Sorry about the somewhat inappropriate commentary from my husband.

Enjoy!!

A little bit of magic

9-6-07
Hunter has discovered the mirror that is one of the shower doors. The bath tub is the perfect height for him to pull up and then he can look in the mirror. Yesterday I was in the bathroom reading a magazine because Hunter was having a great time sliding the doors back and forth and I was having a great time actually reading a magazine. I happened to look over just in time for him to look up and see his reflection, he smiled at it like he was meeting a long lost friend. It's this really cute wrinkle nose smile that he gives his dad when he gets home from work. So any way I thought that was so funny, the way he touches the reflection and looks from it to me like "mom have you seen this kid he is so good looking?"

Then that evening I was in my bedroom across the hall taking care of my clothes when I heard him babbling and talking to himself like crazy. He would croon and babble and then giggle like "that is so clever" I went to see what he was doing and there he was standing in the bathroom just having the best conversation with himself!

That made me think about how my reflection used to seem almost magical when I was kid. It was like my own secret friend, or a part of my self that lived in a different world and only the two of us could meet. She was always just like me but a bit more brave and tragic. While I always felt like a little kid she had a destiny to fulfill something that the human race depended on. I had to battle little sisters but she had to battle dragons and evil Lords and all sorts or mystical creatures. There were all these secret portals that brought us together; mirrors, car windows on long trips, lakes, and puddles. And even though her world was so much more exciting she couldn't conquer unless I was able to give her strength and advice from here in my own world, and that at least made me important. It's sad really that as we age we can't seem to find the magic any more, but it is exciting and beautiful watching it take flight in my son.

How stubborn can a baby be?

8-25-07
It is amazing to me how stubborn a little baby can be? I think we must have pulled him off the television a million times, we even slapped his "patties" and then he would yell at us and right back to it he would go, amazing. And why does he love the things he shouldn't have. For instance in the kitchen I have moved all dangerous and breakable things off of the lower shelves and replaced them with cook books that he can pull down and look at (wet his appetite to be a connesure of fine foods) tupperware, spatulas and plastic cups all things that he can play with and bang on and roll around. And he likes them all right but they don't hold a candle to the amazement that is the dog's bowl of food and water. What wonders those containers hold how incredible it is to splash in the drooly yucky water and is there a food that tastes better then those round dry dog bites of glory? I would contest that there isn't at least not to an almost one year old. I've taken to keeping the baby gate cornered over the dogs food (which annoys the dog when hours later I've forgotten to remove it).

Even outside where there are new and dirty things every where the first thing he crawls to is the dog's outside dish of water, the one with floating dead bugs in it. Don't get me wrong he loves sticking leaves in his mouth and can always find the path with the least amount of grass and the most dirt, but he's always making his way to the water dish. And yet when I put him in his sand box, he just looks at me like I'm crazy, "Hey mom why am I sitting in a box of dirt?". He does like to swing though, we have this outside baby swing rigged up to the clothes line (at least we're using the clothes line for something) and I'll push him and make up rhyms and tickle his feet while I also throw the slimy frisbee to the dog. It really is multi tasking at it's best.

It's fun though, He's so cute even when he's naughty I sometimes have a hard time not laughing at him.

Ranger, Hunter, and I

8-23-07
Sorry it's been so long, it's like I don't have time to even take a breath!! Summer's are always busy for Brian and I and now they're even crazier.

A lot of things have been happening. Hunter is pulling himself up on things and taking very tottery steps around things. It's a little scary because he is always doing face dives into the floor. I hate it, but I know he has to practice to learn and go further he is getting better at it, he can get back down on the floor if he's careful and I've been trying to teach him to sit on his butt, not crash into his face. Every time he falls even if it's not bad he cries because it scares him and my first reaction is to gasp, which I'm sure doesn't help at all. So now it takes all my power to say "oopsie" and clap not jump up all frantic.

He's also discovered the wonders of screaming, not crying just all out screeches and man are they loud. He does it when he's excited and he does it when he's frustrated (which when you consider his lack of communication and all the things he's trying to do but can't is practically every other second) and of course when he's mad at me because I won't let him do something or grab something etc. Brian put it best when he said "I know we have to teach him no, but it so much easier just to give him what he wants" you may think that sounds weak but it's true and at the time we were both gulping pain killers because our heads were throbbing and I was seriously looking for some ear plugs. He has four teeth now (Hunter not Brian), two of which are just coming in. As you can see things are changing.

Most of the day it's me Hunter and the dog, one of them is usually whining at me, until I can't stand it any more and the dog has to go out (poor thing life is certainly not fair for him). But today something really funny happened. You have to know something about Ranger for this story to be amusing and that is he's a whiner but he's never really howled before. We were all sitting on the kitchen floor, Hunter crawling over my legs like they're giant cliffs to be scaled (they are chubby but come on) and I had a plastic ice cream cup and was talking and singing into it, because Hunter thinks it funny and will make his own noises when I hold it to his face. Ranger was sitting beside me begging to go outside when I started copying his whines into the cup (which drove him crazy) I kept doing it until I suddenly realized that Ranger has switched from whining at me to actually howling. He had his head thrown back and his lips in an o, it was so funny and cute, and Hunter was just starring at him like he'd lost his mind.

I think Ranger was feeling so left out that my making fun on him sent him over the edge and he began crying out into the wilderness of our subdivision for compassion.

I Am Not Pregnant!

1-2-07
In my pre-pregnancy life my body was very very regular. I mean I started my period the day I turned twelve and never missed a month, never came a day late or a day early so you can see how if I missed one completely I would know somethings up. About a month and a half ago I became fertile again. Well at that time I was still nursing, but soon after Hunter weened himself so now I can go back on the pill. When you start birth control you're suppose to take it the sunday after you start your period. So we go on vacation I can't start the pill yet and well we never did find a form of birth control that worked for us and you can't be completely relaxed on vacation with out a little lovin.

So now it's been well past a month since my last period and I'm thinking "holy crap I can't believe I'm pregnant!!" how ironic, unfair, scary. I was in shock and just freaking out there were so many reasons why this was bad but then I made myself sit down and think of some things that could be good about it. I would get all the baby stuff over at once, I mean it would be nice to get everything done with at once the night feedings the diapers the clutter, it would be nice to be able to purge everything at once, to know that they're ready for new things and trips and experiences at once. Heck we're already tired lets just keep it going for another year or so. There would be no waiting for the younger one to be "old enough". I've already started changing into a healthier life style so I would get done with the pregnancy already programed to loose the weight. I wouldn't have that "I lost all this weight and now I want another baby" dilemma.

And of course it would solve Brian and I's problem of never wanting to make a big decision. "Should we have another baby or not?" there you go decision made. Brian could get a vasectomy and we never have to worry about birth control again.

So I buy a test nervously take it, and wait. The last time I took a test (for Hunter) it came back in an instant. So imagine my surprise when nothing happens. I think weird I'm 99.9% sure I'm pregnant but we'll see it come up in three minutes. And nothing just a big negative sign.

It took me by such surprise and I've been living the last week "knowing" I was pregnant that my first response was disappointment. Then utter relief and peace washed over me. To celebrate we had brownie sundaes for dinner.