Shenanigans

Tripp has been growing lots and learning to do new things. He can sit up by himself for about 30 seconds and is getting better at it every day. He started eating rice cereal last week and has a healthy appetite. He had his 6 month check up yesterday and is 27 1/4 inches tall and weighs almost 17 pounds. He is a friendly little guy and always has a smile on. The hat is courtesy of Per. He thought he was hilarious for putting this hat on Tripp.

Per is also a delight.

He discovered recently that crayons color on lots of things besides the pages of his coloring books, such as the wall, the dishwasher, and the refrigerator. Even on the screen of our Mac. Luckily crayon comes off of computer screens with some water, a microfiber cloth, and lots of patient, gentle rubbing, and Goo-Gone works wonders on all the others.

Yesterday I was trying to get him to be cheerful about something he didn't want to do and I asked him to give me a smile. His response: "No, Mama. I don't want a make a smile."
He is also growing like crazy. He is 36 1/2 inches tall and weighs around 31 pounds. He learns multiple new words every day. And he's not afraid to use 'em.
His first foray into sugar cookie decorating. He would dab a tiny bit onto the cookie and then request "annuzer one." Guess there's nothing like a blank canvas.
Per's Christmas haul. His favorite present is his lair (pronounced "yay-er") which he's sitting in. He likes us to put a blanket over it and play hide and seek. He directs us from the safety of his lair as to where we should look for him. Some favorite spots are: in the closet, behind the tv, behind the Christmas tree, under the couch, and behind the blue chair. It's a pretty funny game.
Per loves his little brover.
"Dis Twippton Max Lewsis."

Today's Affirmation

I am a responsible parent.

I am a responsible parent.

I am a responsible parent.

I am a responsible parent.

Tidbits

Tripp is soooo wiggly. He wiggles right out of his pj's sometimes.

Oh, to be able to sleep like this. Per loves his big boy bed. And his Mickey Mouse sheets.

These kinds of moments make me happy.

An Early Morning Testimonial

I was only recently introduced to this sinus rinse. I have to say, it's probably the best thing to happen to my nose and sinuses ever. I was hesitant to try it at first, seeing as water going up my nose has not ever been and will never be my favorite thing. (Who likes water up their nose? Anyone?) I don't enjoy swimming underwater because water gets up my nose too easily.

BUT.

I was getting a cold earlier this fall and was all stuffed up and having trouble sleeping and I thought, "What's the worst thing that could happen?" The worst thing, obviously, would have been that the sinus rinse did nothing and I continued to having difficulty breathing through my nose. I tried it (and you really do have to kind of get the hang of it--I have to consciously tell myself to breathe through my mouth while I'm using it) and it worked!! I was able to breathe through my nose better and I really believe that my cold was of shorter duration than it otherwise would've been. All that yucky stuff was getting flushed out at least once a day, so that has to help, right?

Now I have a cold again that started a few days ago. My littlest is going through this cold with me, which is all the more incentive for me to get better fast. He doesn't sleep as well with a cold, therefore, I don't get as much sleep either, since he wants to eat every time he wakes up. Can't blame the poor little guy. As soon as I realized that I was getting stuffy, I started using this rinse twice a day. And it is just as helpful this time around as it was the last time. For anyone reading who has ever wondered about using a sinus rinse (or neti pot, I think they are pretty similar, though I haven't ever tried the neti pot), you should go for it!

p.s. One other major benefit to this (at least for someone in my stage of life) is that it is safe during pregnancy and nursing. So no worries about side effects. I wish I had known about this during my pregnancy with Per -- I had sinus infections non-stop!

Early

Just finished watching the movie Ondine with Colin Farrell. Weird. Weird, weird, weird. It was categorized as Sci Fi/Fantasy on Netflix. Huh. (**Spoiler Alert**) This Irish fisherman finds a woman in the sea while he's out fishing one day. His daughter (and he) come to believe that she's a selkie. It turns out that she is actually a drug mule who escaped from evil drug lords in Romania. But she "heals" the fisherman's daughter. Except it was actually just chance that an accident happened and someone was a match for the kidney transplant she needed. And it ends with a wedding.

As I'm finishing this... weird... movie, I hear Per rattling his doorknob. The rattling stops and I think that I have a few minutes to finish up what I'm doing before I go up and get him. Then I hear him coming down the stairs! He has learned to open his door. Oh, joy. When he catches sight of me, he announces, "Mama, I'm done with my nap!"

This day is beginning a bit early for me.


ps Why am I watching movies at 6:30 in the morning? Because that is my sewing time. It's the only time I can find lately to do something I like to do before the day begins. So. I like to watch movies while I sew.

Keep in mind, I don't really recommend Ondine. Too... weird.

Just Watched This.

Now that's funny.

Is it wrong that I find this so funny?

Frances and other sundries

Per is a big Frances fan. He also likes Berenstain Bears, Little Critter, and anything remotely resembling a backhoe. And even things that are really nothing like backhoes, but are big and yellow. Such as school buses. He goes crazy for 'em. Oh. And he loooooves Mickey Mouse.

We were reading Best Friends for Frances (though A Bargain for Frances is still my favorite Frances book) this morning and there is a passage that is so funny to me. Here's the scene: Frances and her little sister Gloria are going on a Best Friends outing, No Boys allowed. This is because her friend Mr. Fat Albert said she couldn't play baseball with him and Harold. Frances is quite put out by that, so Frances and Gloria parade past Albert's house with a wagon containing a large hamper and a sign declaring their intended BF outing. Albert rushes out, quite sure that the large hamper is full of food.

And here's the passage:

"What is in that hamper?" asked Albert as he came running out of his house.
"I don't know," said Frances. "Nothing much. Hard-boiled eggs and whole fresh tomatoes. Carrot and celery sticks. There are some cream cheese-and-chives sandwiches, I think, and cream cheese-and-jelly sandwiches too, and salami-and-egg and pepper-and-egg sandwiches. Cole slaw and potato chips, of course. Ice-cold root beer packed in ice, and watermelon and strawberries and cream for dessert. And there are other things I forget, like black and green olives and pickles and popsicles and probably some pretzels and things like that. And there are salt and pepper shakers and napkins and a checked tablecloth, which is the way girls do it."

Have you ever heard of two small children (though they are badgers, and perhaps they metabolize differently than humans) eating THAT MUCH food in one sitting? I especially like the last sentence where Frances informs Albert that having napkins and a checked tablecloth is the way girls do it.

I mean, earlier in the book, Albert gives a list of what is in his lunch for his wandering day, and it's no small lunch:

"It's nothing much," said Albert. "Four or five sandwiches and some apples and bananas and two packages of cupcakes and a quart of chocolate milk."

Yeah.

Nothing much.

And by the way, who eats cream cheese-and-chives sandwiches or cream cheese-and-jelly sandwiches? I guess I need to have a more adventurous palate, but neither combination sounds very appetizing to me.

It Takes A Village

Now, I know I am not the only person out there who feels the truth of this equation.

That being said, I want you to know that it takes a village to do my laundry. Or, it would. If I had a small village at my disposal. Any takers?

There are several steps involved in the whole grueling, never-ending process.

First:
I have to work up the motivation to actually begin the laundry. This sometimes includes some motivational internal dialogue with myself, and sometimes not. I find it's easier if I don't think about it. I just make myself get started. That seems to work well most of the time.

Second:
The sorting and gathering.
Laundry is generated in every room in my house. Literally.
Okay, so it's not a house. It's a small apartment. But still.
The kitchen generates towels, dishcloths, washcloths for children's faces, and bibs.
The front room... well, let's just say that Per sometimes likes to take off various articles of clothing here. Socks. Pants. Shirts. Depends on his mood.
The hallway is the site of our diaper pail. Since I cloth diaper our two boys, there is a huge amount of laundry generated there.
Per's bedroom and our bedroom are pretty obvious. Laundry central.
The laundry room is the landing place of much of the kitchen laundry that is damp. It sits on the dryer until I am ready to begin a load.
And the bathroom -- towels, washcloths.

And can I just interject here: sometimes the basket in our room gets so full that the laundry begins to climb the wall. Literally. It has been as high as the light switch before, and very occasionally, higher. I am a bit ashamed of that fact, but for the sake of honesty, I thought I'd best admit it. That is one of the reasons I sometimes cringe when it's time to fold.
There. Is. Just. SO. Much. Laundry.

So you get the picture.
Doing laundry requires me to gather all items needing to be washed from these various rooms and to sort them into their proper loads.

Then I have to put the laundry in the washer. Yeah, yeah. You know how laundry works.

Third:
Sometimes it's a Herculean feat to get the laundry started in the washing machine. The washing/drying process usually goes pretty well once I have it started. But sometimes I stall out. Or forget that the laundry is meant to be going. Or whatever. I have two kids. Life happens.

Fourth:
Once the laundry is dry, it generally gets put into a laundry basket and transferred either to my bed (the strategy here is that I will not be able to get in the bed until the laundry is folded and off the bed) or the couch in the front room. Usually the couch wins out, since I am prone to scooping up the laundry from my bed and depositing it on the couch so that I can go to bed without folding it. May as well save myself a step, you know?
It may sit on the couch for a number of days. Or not. Depends on how motivated I am. Usually not very, sadly.

Fifth:
The folding. Grrr. Enough said.

Sixth:
The putting away. This is sometimes the most difficult part for me. It's like, I'm so close to being finished with this load of laundry (or loads, more likely), I can taste it. But I just can't make the time to get the laundry transferred from its clean, folded state in the basket back to the drawers and closets where it belongs. Sigh. I frequently find Zak digging through the basket for socks or pants or whatever. And I've done that myself, too.

One final note:
While I mostly enjoy cloth diapering, the diaper laundering process is something I am still fine-tuning. I recently started hanging all of the diaper laundry on a drying rack which means it takes quite a while to dry. So there're another few steps to the routine -- it comes out of the washer and I have to hang it up. Then I have to wait for it to dry, usually 24 hours or so, in the meantime hoping that I'll not run out of diapers for either of the boys. Then I have to take it off the rack, sort out the inserts for Per's diapers and the inserts for Tripp's diapers, plus the little flannel liners I put in Per's diapers. Then I stuff and fold the diapers. Then they sit in little piles in the laundry basket until I get them put away in their respective rooms.

And, did I mention? As soon as I get a load in the washer, someone dirties something else. Without fail. Sometimes it's me that does it. The piles begin again, ad nauseam, ad infinitum...

So, wanted: A small village with nothing better to do than do my laundry...


P.S. There is a basket of laundry sitting in the front room RIGHT NOW, waiting to be folded. And I could've been folding it while I was writing this post.
To borrow a phrase from Per, "So silly Mama."

Favorite Things

Tripp is a great sleeper. He has been sleeping for 6-9 hours at a time at night! What a lucky mama I am!

Isn't Per adorable? That is my old Raggedy Andy pillowcase from when I was little. I love when he sleeps in til 9 o'clock.

BountifulBaskets.org. $15 gets you all this. It's a co-op that operates in 8 states. I think you save something like $35 per basket. You can't see the green beans and plums since they are in plastic sacks in the back. But they were there. And they were gooood. All of the produce has been really good. It has been nice to have such a huge supply of fruits and veggies without paying grocery store prices.

Finally catching some of Tripp's first smiles on camera. He is so happy first thing in the morning.

King Peregrine. It has a nice ring to it, huh?

It Goes So Quickly...

And now he's two months old...

Worth Your Time

As I sit here looking around the kitchen with dishes piled on the counter, the remnants of today's lunch preparation (bread, peanut butter, jam) still sitting out, the floor that needs to be swept and mopped, the dishwasher that needs unloading... I feel a little stressed. I feel as though I will never catch up. Because the kitchen is sort of the least of what I need to take care of today.
After a morning of my two-month-old needing to be fed and cuddled, and helped to sleep... and my two-year-old laying on the floor sobbing despondently because all he wants is for Daddy to hold him, and Daddy is at work... I wonder if I'll make it. Whew. There are days, and there are days. I am not the only person who has ever felt like this, I know.
Instead of cleaning the kitchen, doing the laundry, emptying wastebaskets and vacuuming carpets while the two boys are both finally (blessedly) sleeping, I hopped onto my reader and checked out what is going on in the blogosphere. And I found this post at my fabulous sister-in-law's blog, which led me to Laurel's blog (who is my sister-in-law's sister-in-law and who I have always admired, though she doesn't know that). And can I just say to each of the excerpts from her new book: Amen and amen. I am excited to read her book -- mostly because who doesn't need a little reminder now and again of these simple truths? I certainly needed it today.

I especially like the quote about individual worth -- because I needed to be reminded of that today. My house will get cleaned, my children cared for -- and that is my purpose right now, my divine mission, is to care for my family. What I do has lasting value.


Here's a place to pre-order if you're interested. And you should be. I think it's going to be fantastic! Here are the excerpts:

FAITH
"The reality is that faith isn’t about me. It’s about Him. And the Lord Jesus Christ has a pretty impeccable past record…not just in my life but in the countless lives and experiences of God’s children. That is why if my faith is really centered in HIM, then I’m always okay. Always."

DIVINE NATURE
"Regardless of who your parents are or how they have chosen to raise you, you have inherited qualities from your Heavenly Parents that are 'in your blood.' It's just who you are."

INDIVIDUAL WORTH
"Trust that God has a divine mission waiting for you and JUST for you. Trust that He, even now, is orchestrating details of your life to help you fulfill what you were sent to this earth to perform."

KNOWLEDGE
"The most important knowledge you will gain in this life will be the knowledge that is put into your heart and your mind through life's experience by the power of the Holy Ghost."

CHOICE & ACCOUNTABILITY
"Every choice has a consequence. But, the Lord loves you enough and trusts you enough to let YOU choose throughout your life. And a daughter of God who understands who she is has the power within her to make good choices and then gets to enjoy the consequences of those choices."

GOOD WORKS
"One of the characteristics of God's daughters is that we have a natural inclination to nurture other people. We want to love them and serve them and help them. It's one of my favorite things about being a girl. And it's one of the things that makes a girl beautiful."

INTEGRITY
"That is the epitome of integrity--not simply acting right when you have the chance to act wrong, but acting right when you have the chance to act...right."

VIRTUE
"The culminating experience for a daughter of God who lives the values is being as close as possible to her Father in Heaven and to her Savior as she enters the doors of God's Holy House--the temple."

On the right track

Zak was reading the Ensign the other morning while eating breakfast and he walked out of the kitchen for a minute. When he came back in, this is what he found.
Notice that in each of these pictures, there are different pages showing. Per was reading.

I love that he loves to read!

Tripp's First Official Bath

We can't leave Trippton out of the "first official" posts. He had his first real bath (as opposed to sponge baths) the other day. He was actually pretty good about it and didn't cry too much.
This is the post-bath picture. I have a picture of Per wearing this same outfit on this same couch, but he was doing bunny hands and frog legs in it. Tripp is all about stretching out and taking up space. No curling up into a tiny ball for him. He is a good little baby!

This is the closest he gets to curling up. I thought this was really cute.

Okay, seriously.

So Per has been needing a haircut for a while. We knew this. It's really cute when his hair is freshly washed and dried, but after he's slept on it... it gets a little crazy.
Plus, it was always hanging in his eyes and bugging him. So we decided this last Saturday to do something about it.

Per was not impressed with the spray bottle of water. This is the only picture that shows that I was present for the event. Look right above Zak's left hand. Or right below Per's left arm. That's me. And Tripp.
Per felt a little more confident once Grandma took over the process. But he still needed Daddy to hold him. He will always be a Daddy's boy, which I think is great.

Add in an Otter Pop, and the whole process actually becomes fun. Look at that cute face.

Per has recently mastered the "thumbs up" and is very proud of his accomplishment. What a cute little guy!
For those of you wondering if he still has a mullet, the answer is ... yes. Sadly (for me), yes. Zak's response to this is: "His mullet is the coolest thing since fried rice." I am obviously not up on what's cool, as I was totally unaware that fried rice falls into that category. Whatev. In a few more days we'll cut off the mullet and he will have a normal haircut.

Per's First Official Haircut

One of these things is not like the other...

mul~let (mŭl'ĭt)

n.

1. pl. mullet or mul~lets

a. Any of various stout-bodied, edible fishes of the family Mugilidae, found worldwide in tropical and temperate coastal waters and some freshwater streams. Also called gray mullet.

b. The red mullet.

2. A hairstyle that is formed by cutting the hair short on the top and sides allowing it to grow longer in back.

Tripp's First Few Days

Trippton and his cousin Seth. Seth is two and a half months older than Tripp. See how fast they grow? I think it's funny that they are both looking the same direction. Must've been something interesting over there.

Tripp on the Bilibed. He was pretty okay with it during the day, but the nights were another story. We are soooo glad that he's off those lights.
What can I say? I love these two boys.
Per loves his little brother. He is always asking to kiss Baby. He can't say Tripp, so he calls him Baby.

So cute!

Introducing Trippton

We are so happy our little guy is here!

There are more pictures on FB, so head over there and take a look.

And naturally, many more pictures will follow as life settles down and we get back to some semblance of a routine.

Tripp has been on the bili lights for the last several days, so sleep at night has been pretty impossible. (Though here I should give Zak credit: he has stayed up with Tripp for the last few nights and only woken me up when he needed to be fed. Zak is a champion!) He was finally taken off the lights yesterday and last night we all got a good (for a newborn) amount of sleep. He is already so much fun as he becomes more alert and Per loves him a lot, despite the few incidents of hitting/kicking/etc that have occured since we brought Tripp home.

We sure love our boys!

My Current Reading List

In anticipation of the blessed event, I find that I am having trouble with any really deep subjects or books that are terribly complex. I am therefore shamelessly resorting to some fluff reading. The first two books I checked out based on the fact that Maggie Stiefvater has them on her Goodreads shelf and gave them good reviews. The last one I just picked up randomly. I have read a few others of Alyson Noel's books and liked them okay. I'll let you know how they turn out!

Waiting

Yep, this is my left foot. I know that I am in dire need of a pedicure. Can't reach 'em to do a pedicure. Sorry if anyone is grossed out. It's here as proof that even though I can't see my feet anymore, the sun still can. Also, you can see that the only shoes I can wear are flip-flops. Nothing else fits anymore.

Um, besides, who wants belly pictures of a nine-months-pregnant woman? That's so last week.
We are down to the last few days before our boy makes his highly anticipated arrival. I am alternately excited and freaked out. Excited for obvious reasons, freaked out because I am a bit nervous about the switch from one child to two. Also because I had such a long labor with Per and am not sure what to expect with this second boy. I am hoping very much that this labor and delivery will be shorter for lots of reasons.
I had a list of numbers that I was going to share. Things like exactly how many days are left til my due date, how large the fetal girth is (has any other pregnant woman actually measured her "waist" size?? DON'T do it, it will not be helpful), my current weight... But seriously, who really needs to know those things? And really, I was never going to share my weight with you. Let's be serious here. The important thing is that I am feeling really good (compared to how I could be feeling) and still usually have enough energy to do the things I need to do, and even some of the things I want to do. So I think things are pretty good, all things considered.
Here's hoping this babe comes soon!