Cool invention

Ok so I talked about the garage sales I hit last Saturday, well the coolest thing I found was an Evenflo backpack that I can tote Wesley around in for $2.00. I saw it, decided against it and went and got back in the car.....this is how cheap I am folks....I then got back out of the car and thought "well for two bucks even if I never use it I can always sell it on eBay for $15". See I thought you had to have two people around to get those things with a baby in them on your back, so I thought there was no way I'd ever use one. I come to find out all you do is set it up on the floor, it has a swing arm leg that allows you to set it up and then sit down and strap it on your back. Then you just stand up and TA DA baby is on your back. He's gone out every morning this week in it to help me feed the animals. Very cool invention.

Showering the bride

I've been helping to plan a bridal shower for my sister for the past month and yesterday my Mom, Wesley and I dove up to Kansas City to throw the shower. It was a lot of fun. There was a pretty decent turn out. We played some fun games including the popular toilet paper wedding dress and a form of 21 questions where I asked the groom, Blake, 21 questions about himself and then my sister, Betsy, has to tell us what his answers were. For every question she got wrong she had to put a stick of gum in her mouth. It was pretty funny when she was trying to crap the 10th piece if gum in there. I was hoping for 21 pieces of gum personally...but oh well. Wesley did great at the shower, he just soaked up all the attention from the other women there. He's definitely a ladies man. He passed out half way through the opening of the presents and slept on the couch for the remainder of the festivities. He didn't appreciate the 6 hour round trip ride in the car but overall he did a great job. Pictures below.

The loot

I drug my butt out of bed yesterday morning at 7:30 to hit the garage sales leaving a sleeping Sean to watch a sleeping Wesley. Boy did I make out like a bandit. I had to be home at 10:30 so I zoomed around buying up all sorts of fun toys for Wesley. I had $45 dollars to spend. I got a whole lot of 18 month clothing, some board books, a Grover and monkey stuffed animal, like 12 different little educational toys, a back pack for Wesley to ride in, a rocking horse zebra (pretty cool), some sort of work bench that has a robot on it (also pretty cool). I filled the back of the station wagon to the top. I took some pictures of Wesley with his loot. Of all of it, he loves the $1.00 stuffed monkey the best. Go figure.

Conversations

Post office lady: Oh your little baby boy is just too cute!

Me: Oh thanks!

Post office lady: No, really hon, he's cute enough to be one of those babies on the cover of a baby magazine.

Me: Gee thanks, but I'm sure every Mom thinks her baby is cute enough for a magazine cover.

Post office lady: Well they might think they are, but we've seen some really ugly babies come in here over the years.

Me: -silence- (with awkward smile on my face)

Life with a 9 month old

Well after nine months I can finally say I think I'm getting the hang of this baby thing. We are officially settling into a reliable routine. Wesley is finally taking a nap at roughly the same time every day. The problem we had with his naps was that I thought he needed two of them, he thought he only needed one. He won. You see he goes to bed at night at 9:30 pm and wakes up around 10-10:30 am....so there is no way he's taking a morning nap when he gets up so late. I've also found the key to him taking long glorious naps is for someone other than myself to put him down for the nap. It's like he can smell me in the house and just sleeps for like 20 minutes. Sean put him down last weekend and the child slept for three hours....then yesterday I leave him with my mother for a hair appointment and she gets him to sleep for 2.5 hours. Not fair. I'm obviously not doing something right. Oh well.

The nursing is finally coming to an end. From the beginning I had decided to breast feed for a year and then wean him. I never took into consideration that he just might decide to wean himself. He still likes to nurse first thing in the morning and last thing before he goes to sleep but every other feeding during the day is just too boring for the little man that always has to be looking at something. It's like there is just too much going on in the world to be dragged down by nursing. He's taken to formula pretty good, doesn't seem to care one way or the other. I'm looking forward to not wearing these damn nursing bras. I think I might burn them.

He's learning some funny new things. If you stick out your tongue and make farting noises at him he'll imitate you. Then we both laugh. It's good to know we have about the same mentality.

Tasty delicious Cheerios

Garage sale season

Garage sale season is upon us once again. The sight of those lovely little signs directing me to someone else's crap excites me. I'm always on the look out for good deals. Now with a growing baby I'm looking even harder. Last year about this time I was six months pregnant and our city had its yearly city wide garage sale. I filled the back of the car with oodles of baby gear. I found stacks of board books, baby toys, clothes and the find of the century....a brand new Radio Flyer Tricycle for $10. My child was still a fetus in my belly but I already found his first tricycle. The city wide garage sale is this Saturday and I'm poised and ready for action. I'm looking for toys for the older baby...maybe toys he can stand and play with, push toys and more books (you can never have too many books). I'm excited, can you tell? I will be sure to share with you all of my lovely loot.

Park through pictures

Wesley and I went to the park today to enjoy the fabulous weather.

Once we arrived we started noticing the ducks....

....ducks were everywhere. They seemed to be stalking us.....

....ducks of every color. Pretty ducks...

...pretty ugly ducks. Ducks that look like turkeys....

....ducks that look like dalmatians....

....ducks, ducks, everywhere....

Wesley enjoyed the ducks....

...and he enjoyed sunning his chubby thighs.

So much to do

What a beautiful weekend it is! Right now it is 84 degrees outside. I've been so jealous of Sean getting to go outside and work while I watch from the window with Wesley on my hip. So today I got to go do yard work while Sean watched the baby. I'm one of those strange people that likes to mow the yard. I find it oddly relaxing. It takes about two hours. I finished up that and came in to find Sean with a sleeping baby on his lap. So I took that opportunity to escape back outside and rake the leaves from the koi pond that we emptied yesterday. That is one of those chores I don't look forward to every year. Cleaning that stinking pond out is a smelly pain in my butt but after it's done and filled up with water, the water fall going and water lilies are blooming it's really quite pretty. I'm looking forward to taking Wesley out there every day to look at the fishies (the fish that are currently in the downstairs aquarium). The big snake that lives in the little pond came out to say hello. I wish he (or more likely she) would find a new home, it freaks me out every time. I wouldn't imagine it wants to find a new home, it has water, rocks to take shelter in, ample supply of fish to eat. Every year there are a few new baby snakes swimming around....them I don't mind.

Sean is making progress on the pool demo. He has over half of the steel walls cut down and is digging up the steel supports. As soon as that is done it's just dirt work...yea! It almost looks like an end in sight. The nice redneck fellow that lives behind us has offered to bring his front end loader over and move the dirt for us. Country folks are so nice, they'll give you the shirt off their back if you asked.

I let the horses out to graze after mowing. They are enjoying the spring weather just as much as I am.

Furry floor cleaners

The little pee pee dogs went home last Sunday. Ahhh it's nice to be back down to only three dogs, three dogs that can normally control their bladders. I knew having dogs and a baby would be interesting but I didn't realize how well they would get along with each other. When Wesley throws food over the edge of his high chair all three dogs are eagerly awaiting it. He's even learned how to take Cheerios and lean over the side and feed them to the dogs. The dogs love Wesley. They even clean his spit up when he chucks on the floor. It's gross but convenient for me.

The dogs are surprisingly gentle with the baby. They will sidle up to him on the couch and let him grab their fur in his kung fu grip. He'll pull and tug at the fur or ears or anything else he can get a hold of. They just sit there. I want to get this shirt for Wesley. It cracks me up.

Cisco, our cancer dog, is still holding in there. He gets Prednizone in the morning along with another prescription drug twice a day called Tramadol. I actually refill that drug at the local pharmacy. When they ask for the name on the prescription I say Cisco and they give me a funny look like "this crazy woman named her kid Cisco"...hey at least the dogs name isn't Rover or Spot. I don't think they fill many canine meds. Anyways, he's still trucking along. I don't think he'll be with us a whole lot longer but as long as his quality of life is still good and I think it is still. He still drops his ball in our laps every evening. When that stops and he can't get around very well we'll think about our next option.

No lead in this one

I bought this old toy at a garage sale last year.




You want to know how I know it's old?




This is the only toy in his entire room that isn't made in China. I'm guessing there's no lead in this one.

Firsts

I was feeding Wesley yesterday evening and the spoon kept scraping something in his mouth. I felt in there and sure enough he cut his first tooth! Yea! His little bottom middle tooth popped through. It's a sharp little sucker.

He's mastered his "D" sounds along with "N, M and B" sounds. It seems like every evening he starts saying some new sound. It's amazing.

I know I've said it before but he's feeding himself. I'll pour Cheerios on his high chair tray and he'll pick each and every one of them up and feed himself. He likes to try and feed me too. Not food mind you, but if he has his sock in his hand he'll try and shove it in my mouth. That's about all that's new around here.

Laundry day

Noodle Man

I am constantly on the look out for perfect little finger foods for Wesley to try and I came across some little star pasta. This stuff is wonderful! It's full of protein and it's the perfect little tiny size. I cook up a couple of cups of the stuff and put it in ice cube trays with a little water. Then I can defrost a cube for dinner and mix it with squash or sweet potato. We had fun last night with the noodles, he decorated the bottom part of his face and I decorated the top half.

Discovery

The kid has recently discovered that he has something between his legs. Lately when I change his diaper he reaches down and grabs hold of his little scrotum and squeezes as hard as he can. I swear he's gonna pop it one of these days. You'd think this would be painful right? Oh no, he laughs. Giggles like a school girl actually. It's good to know that a boys lifelong obsession with his genitals starts at nine months old....and never ends.

Nine Months Old!

Nine months have passed since you came into this world. You have officially been on this earth longer than you were in my belly. That's a big milestone. You are getting bigger by the day. Learning new things constantly. I feel like I'm helplessly watching you grow. I want you to grow big and strong but I also want you to stay small and be my baby just a little bit longer. You are feeding yourself now. Just learned that this week. You are loosing interest in nursing. I feel the days of breastfeeding are drawing to an end. My milk supply is dwindling. I am pumping several times a day to try in vein to get it back, but so far very little change. I suppose you are just growing up and don't need the comfort or security of our nursing sessions. I'll miss it when it's done. Just one more step on your road to being a self sufficient little boy. Happy nine month mark little man!

Welcome to the world Abigail!

Wesley and I got to witness the birth of little Abigail Joyce today. Jessica gave birth at 5:46 pm after being in labor for roughly six hours. Wesley and I were able to stay in the room and watch her make her way into this world and what a miracle that was to watch! She was 8 pounds 2 oz and 19 and a quarter inches long. After her first baby boy was 9 pounds everyone was afraid this little one was going to be even bigger but she surprised us all by being smaller. She's too adorable with her head full of curly red hair. I'm so excited to watch her grow and change into a little girl. I love being an auntie to all these wonderful little nieces!
Here she is fresh from the oven


Here we are all watching her get cleaned up, Wesley was just enthralled at the experience-look at his face and legs


Here is Jessica meeting her wee one for the first time

Bye bye

Crappy dogs

Ok, the countdown timer says 3 days and 20 hours until the crappy little pee pee dogs go home but that's not fast enough. I'm loosing what small amount of sanity I have left this evening. Here I am sitting awake at 3:42 am with thunder, lightning, hard rain and a psycho dachshund. My mother said this little dog might get upset during storms....yeah that's an understatement. The dog completely looses it. Barks, whines, drools, urinates and pants when the weather does anything remotely different. Of course every night since they have left it has rained and thundered. Don't you just love spring? It freakin' rains every day. So every night I drag my butt out of bed and give the dog one of his anti-anxiety pills which knocks him out. I'm down to two pills left. Please let me have enough.

I shouldn't lump the other dog into the "crappy dogs" title. Dieter is a miniature schnauzer that gets along with everyone, sleeps through storms, doesn't try and eat our other dogs and is an all around joy to have come visit. He is welcome back whenever he wants. Ok, I'm done venting...the medicine has successfully knocked out the dog and I'm going back to bed. This has been the longest two weeks of my life I believe.

Shake, rattle and roll

I can stand surrounded by oodles of dogs.

I can act like I'm going to crawl

I can roll with the best of them.

I can sit here looking way too cute for words.

Baby watch 2008

Nine days and counting until my friend Jessica pops. Her due date is quickly approaching and we are all anxious to meet Alex's baby sister. Jessica and I have been friends ever since fifth grade. We've been through a whole lot together....middle school, high school, college roommates, bad dates, weddings and now babies. All of our babies are 9 months apart, Alex was born October of 2006, then came Wesley July of 2007 and now her little girl will make her debut April of 2008. Don't worry friends, that's where it stops! No baby for me in 9 months! We are on the two or three year plan, I need a large break before attempting this hayride again. I will be sure to announce the coming of Jessica's baby with pictures on the blog. I'm anxious to be an auntie to another beautiful little girl!

Don't sweat the small stuff

I find myself more and more frazzled these days. My list of things to do around the house keeps growing as the weather warms up and I find I have no time to accomplish anything. On one hand I enjoy taking care of Wesley and being there for the little guy but on the other hand I wish I could accomplish something......anything. Sean is a big help but he is so busy with all of his man work outside (mainly the pool demo) that I feel bad asking him to take Wesley for the evening so I can go rake leaves or start putting up a fence for the horses. I was seriously thinking of going through a local service to find a qualified person to come sit with Wesley while I get some much needed stuff done around here. That was until I talked with Sean about it and he is very much against the idea of having a total stranger come into our house and watch Wesley. I guess it's better to have a wife that goes utterly nuts. I was talking to Doyle this afternoon about all of this and he was telling me that these babies are only small like this for a short amount of time, the horse fence can wait. He's so right. I guess I need to just chill out and don't sweat the small stuff. Easier said than done.

So bored

There is very little to write about lately. Nothing happening here. Sean has taken off for a gun show this weekend so I am a single mom for two days. I forget how much help Sean is until he's gone. It's so hard to get my nightly chores done with Wesley tagging along. At least the weather is warming up. We are enjoying our daily walks with the stroller. That seems to be the only way (still) to get the little man to take his afternoon nap. He thinks the crib is only for night time sleeping. I don't let it get to me anymore, I figure as long as he gets the much needed sleep I don't really care where he sleeps. At least three times a week I load him in the car and we go driving until he's a asleep and then I park the car in the nearest parking lot and I read. I'm reading Harry Potter again, the sixth book. I'm anxious to read the last book again as it came out 9 days after Wesley was born and that time was just a blur so I don't really remember the book. Anyways, the naps in the car are working so we'll continue to do them....even though with the gas prices the way they are it is an expensive nap.
That's all for now.

Staying at home

The other day I was at the eye doctors for my yearly exam and the doctor asked me what my profession was. My reply was "oh just a stay at home mom right now." It sounded like I was almost ashamed of it. I left the office mad at myself for feeling like that. In our society it is almost looked down upon to not be in the work force making money. It just caught me off guard because it was the first time I've said that that I was a stay at home mom rather than self-employed or artist. The doctor said "don't kid yourself, that's a tough job." He is so right. It is a long, exhausting job that has no breaks or lunch hour....and no bonuses. The lack of a paycheck has been the biggest hurdle, but I've been able to get a fair amount of sculpting done after he goes to bed, so I hope to making a few bucks a month again. I have grown to love being a stay at home mom. It was rough in the beginning. I won't lie, there was a point that I wish I had a job to return to. I do love being home with this little guy that keeps me on my toes all day long. I do know that being home with him I'll never miss a "first." I'll never have to hand him over to a stranger and hear "mama mama" as I leave. I get to be his full time teacher. It works for our family. We do get bored though. I am constantly trying to find fun new things to do. Today I put a rope through an old Huggies box and dragged him around the house in it. Oh what great fun that is!

Weird night

What a strange night. Picture it: it's four in the morning, I'm outside in my bathrobe and muck boots with a flashlight, it's thundering and lightning all around me. You might ask "Why?" Well I wake up to the horses screaming, which if you haven't heard before is a bone chilling sound. In my head it means one of three things: One of the horses has broken a leg and is lying there screaming, there is a predator in their pen attempting to eat them, or they are being stupid silly little horses that are suddenly afraid of lightning. Turned out to be none of the above. Actually two full size horses from down the street were afraid of the lightning and escaped and decided to come find comfort with my two.

With that being said, I thought I'd introduce you to my outside petting zoo. Back in fall of 2005 I purchased Rocky, a baby miniature horse. He's a crappy little horse thats only goal in life is to sink his teeth into juicy human flesh. He sure is cute though. The above picture he's 5 months old. Next I bought Desi, another miniature horse. He's no youngin though. He's 11. He was purchased in the hopes of teaching crappy little Rocky some manners. Didn't work. Next came the goats. Don't ask me why we have goats. I got one as a baby and then thought he needed a pal. It's the Noah's Ark theory, all of my animals are in pairs. My neighbor kept saying "You'd stop acquiring animals if you just had a baby." Boy was she correct. I do think Wesley will have fun with all the animals once he's old enough. That is if the crappy horse doesn't bite his fingers off. We'll have to get the horse a muzzle or duct tape.