10/27/2006 - Filling Up

Joshua is sitting on the toilet, and has been for a little bit now. He's got his little green matchbox car - you know, the one that's been dropped into the toilet once already (I'll spare you the story about getting it out; mostly it involves me standing there looking at it and chastising Tim to "come on, just get it, it's only water and a little potty" but not actually doing anything to retrieve said car myself) - and is driving it around himself on the toilet seat. He slowly backs it up and moves it behind him "beep, beep, beep" and stops and looks up at Tim. "Car getting gas," he says.
"Really, Joshua, does that car need to fill up?"
"Uh-huh," only it sounds more like an exaggerated and musical "uh-huuuuuuh."
"Joshua, where is that gas coming from?" A brave question for Tim to ask, but he just can't help himself.
"From Joshua . . . Joshua have stinky gas."

Isn't it funny how these little ones think?

I had another checkup this week with the OB, and actually arrived a little early. (Unheard of in our family, when we can't ever seem to leave the house at the right time.) I decided to use the time wisely and pre-register at the hospital, and take a little tour of labor and delivery . . . I cannot wait until it's time to have this baby. When Joshua was born we were in the delivery room, and as soon as he made his debut they shuffled us off to a recovery room (which we'd have had to share if somebody else had been there, too). It was a big and sterile hospital, and there wasn't actually anything attractive about it. I know, I know, it's a hospital, and it serves its purpose. But on my tour I was all but blown away . . . delivery and recovery all in one room, so that you don't have to pack up and move half an hour after the most painful experience of your life . . . hard wood floors . . . beautiful drapes, chairs, etc. . . . a TV with on-demand movies and computer/internet access. Oh, and it gets better - after delivery I'll get an hour massage from a registered massage therapist there at the hospital, and later in the evening they bring a steak dinner for Tim and me, while they take care of the baby (optional, of course) in the nursery! Are you kidding me? It's like a mini-vacation; of course, I have to remember that I'll also be waddling pathetically everywhere I go, with an ice-pack monster of a maxi pad glued to that weird mesh underwear they give you, nursing constantly from what will have turned into rock hard swollen breasts of gravel . . . too much information? I'll remember that next time!

But the way I'm feeling right now is that I need to concentrate so hard, and hold on to this special, precious time with Joshua, where it's just him and me. Where I can hold him in my lap, and push his hair back from his forehead, and whisper quietly in his ear about how much we love him, and how we always will. I feel like I can't get enough of him, and that I need to fill up every part of myself with how wonderful and dear he is, before I have to share him . . . and before I have to share myself . . . with another little one.

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10/16/2006 - High time for an update

I have so much to write about, and so many things I want to commit to paper (ummm, or computer memory - same thing, right?) so that I won't forget them, but I somehow can't find the motivation to do it. Maybe it's because we just moved into a new house, and there are so many things to do . . . maybe it's because we just started potty-training . . . and then maybe it's because I'm just too darn lazy and would rather watch TV and play on the computer in the evenings. In any case, it has to be done.

The thing is, we're expecting another baby! A baby boy, to be born sometime mid to late February. Holy cow, what are we getting ourselves into?! Life is so peaceful and kind of . . . easy, I guess, right now. We sleep for long stretches at night, I'm finally reading books again . . . and all of that will go away again soon. It's not real enough yet to me - the fact of the baby, that is, to get past my own selfish motivations just yet. There are so many things that I was looking forward to. Like life with maybe a holiday jigsaw puzzle. Keeping the contents of each cabinet actually in the cabinets. Things like that.

But I know that the closer it gets, and especially when he's born, all of that will leave my mind, the way the ocean washes away footprints in the tide, like they never were. I'll hold him in his pink newness, and fall completely in love all over again, just like I did with Joshua.

And by the way, if you ask him, Joshua will actually tell you that he also has a baby in his tummy. He'll then lovingly and gently pat himself, like it's his own little secret growing in there.

And if the reality of adding a new member to the family hasn't sunk in yet for me, I wonder what thoughts the rest of the family has about it. Tim tells me how much he loves the new baby already, and will stay awake even when I'm sleeping, just to feel him kick and move. (What a mighty gymnast we already must have in there!) Joshua is . . . well, he's as careful as a two-year-old can be. Which is to say, he remembers not to kick my ever-swelling belly only when I remind him. But he does lift my shirt sometimes to say "hello, baby in Mama's tummy," and then give it a big kiss. How precious and wonderful a big brother he will be! Is it real for them, yet, or will that come later . . . when we're changing poopy diapers every 38 seconds, and the life is being sucked out of me one nursing session at a time?!



Speaking of poopy diapers . . . just what you wanted to hear about, right? Well, I'm hoping that they'll soon go by the wayside. In Joshua's case, that is. We're on day two of potty-training, and I'm ready to throw in the towel. Because the thing is? I'm ready for him to be done. Is it unrealistic for my heart's desire to be for him to potty-train himself in the next day or two? That's what I yearn for, and see creeping away, minute by wet-underwear minute. Because while I expected accidents . . . I didn't really expect accidents. I just am not emotionally stable enough as a pregnant lady for all of this. Well, maybe that's a bit melodramatic . . . Tim and I are both patient, and gentle and kind. (Tim more so than myself at times.) But toward the end a day in which the kitchen timer has gone off every 30 minutes to remind us that it's potty-time - well I feel myself creeping toward the edge of insanity. It's because I'm such a neurotic perfectionist, I know, and I don't want to adversely affect Joshua with that. But seriously, there should be an order to things. Timer goes off . . . run to bathroom . . . pants and underwear off . . . sit on potty . . . do business . . . get down, pants on . . . flush . . . wash hands . . . sticker on chart. Why can't it just be that simple?! Why in the name of all that is good, do we have to play hide and seek with the shower curtain? Why do we have to play with (and subsequently drop into the toilet) a toy car?? Why do we have to incessantly bang the step stool on the floor and yell "bang, bang, bang"?????? AAAAARGH!!!

Whew, I'm calming down. And the next entry I make . . . well, we'll hopefully have a fully potty-trained son. Either that or you can forward all of my mail to the loony bin.

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7/19/2006 - Take me out to the ball game

April? Can it be that the last thing I wrote was back in April?? I guess so, and with technology as it is, I can't even lie and pre-date what I'll write about now. Though maybe after everything is laid out on the table, you'll understand why it's been so long.

We're actually living in Oklahoma right now - crazy, isn't it? We got a call in June that we had about three weeks until Tim needed to start his job here . . . three weeks was what they gave us to move across the country. One of those weeks we used to fly out and look at houses; another of the weeks we used to pack, and the last one to drive. What a miserable experience. The house-hunting trip is a story best left to another time, since it's far too fresh in my mind for me to be completely objective. I guess the long and short of it is that we're blessed to have purchased our first home (yay!!!) and are in the process of renovating, painting and replacing carpet. And though our computer has been set up for several weeks, this is the first time I've sat down with a purpose and direction (other than wasting time futilly on MySpace, trying to be cool and hip).

Through it all Joshua has been really wonderful. He calls our new apartment home, and knows that sometimes we have to go to "Joshua's new house," as he's dubbed it. At least he no longer calls it Kathy's new house - she was our realtor, and he still looks for her when we go over. He's had so many new experiences and learns something new everyday - he's discovered the wonderful world of Dr. Seuss, and will sit through even the longest of stories (Horton Hatches and Egg), then walks around asking about the "Ting of dam-dond." For those of you not fluent in toddler-speak, that's the King of all Sala-ma-sond, from Yertle the Turtle. What a smart little guy he is! It amazes me every time, but he will open one of his books and start saying the words that are on that particular page - unbelievable, isn't it? Not that I want to be one of those moms . . . you know the kind. The moms who must loudly and publicly laud every accomplishment, who don't realize that as smart as their kid is, he's probably just developing normally (gasp!), and might not be solving quadratic equations at the age of 6. We want Joshua to have time and space to grow on his own timetable.

We went several weeks ago to a baseball game - Joshua's very first game - and had quite a time. It was, to say the least, an experience. Though we'll laugh about it someday, the events that unfolded might, in my mind at least, make it one of the worst baseball games of my life! It was a local minor-league team here, so the stadium is not huge, but still had the feel of excitement, and of being somewhere really special. Joshua and I were with Tim's aunt and uncle; Tim was at work.

How neat it was as we walked in, with the crowd, and the vendors, and the little ripple of electricity that you find at those venues. We were having a blast, and Joshua was watching the game with his usual studiousness. He was very excited about the small group of 11 or 12 year old boys behind us, cheering and wearing their baseball gloves. About fifteen minutes after we arrived, with Joshua sitting on Uncle Doug's lap, we heard the crack of the bat, and looked up to see a foul ball heading right at us. Specifically, right at Joshua's little head.

Had I had more time to think, I probably would have taken Joshua from Uncle Doug's arms and moved him out of the path of the ball. Looking back, that makes the most sense. At the time, my only thought was that if I wanted to keep Joshua from being hit, I would actually have to catch the ball. Do any of you know how hard and fast a foul ball hit at a minor league game actually goes? Because I had NO IDEA. Needless to say, my ungloved hand did not actually catch the ball, but acted as a deflector, sending it into Uncle Doug's ribs then into the crowd in front of us. I like to think that the broken bone I suffered was not in vain, but really did change the direction of the ball enough to save Joshua from being the target . . . my wonderful husband fully supports me in this theory. In fact, he's convinced that I actually saved Joshua's life, since the baseball would surely have hit Joshua's head and killed him on the spot (read A Prayer for Owen Meany). That's a little too close to home for me to think about much, so we'll leave it at keeping him from being hit.

The rest of the game was uneventful, except to say that Joshua was frantic and sobbing at every crack of the bat and cheer from the crowd. The lady in front of us who got the ball was very nice and gave it to Joshua, so we have the "heat seeking missle" as Aunt Gwen called it, here in our living room right now. We left about 20 minutes after that, which Joshua was more than pleased about, and still, when we drive by the stadium, he talks about being scared of the baseball game. This too shall pass.

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4/30/2006 - Demanding Toddler

Ugh. I'm right in the middle of trying to switch all of these posts and pictures over to the new blogspot website and it's just dragging me down. I spend so much time (due mostly to my anal-retentive nature) trying to make sure that everything is spaced perfectly, and switched over perfectly, and the posts are all just so, that I lose whatever it is I logged on to write about in the first place. I'm missing the whole point of the journal because of my obsessive need to have things exactly right.

I hope that I don't end up being like that with Joshua. I'm really trying so hard to let him be himself, and do things on his own, when every part of my being is screaming for me to help him, do it for him, at least just show him how to do it. And so Joshua and I are finding ourselves clashing in this way, because he has entered a "Joshua do it" stage.

Joshua shut door. Joshua shut door. Joshua SHUT DOOR. He screams until you open the door again so that he can shut it himself.

We also go through "Joshua brush teeth." "Joshua shoes on." "Joshua diaper off." "Joshua DO IT," and so on, and so on. It would be amusing if he weren't so insistent every minute of the day about it. Of course, there are the variations, because sometimes Tigger actually has to do things for him. The best part is watching Joshua grab Tigger's little stuffed paw, and use it to shut the lid to the toilet, or the door, or whatever else it is he wants Tigger to do.

Also, we've been talking a lot about moving to Oklahoma so that Joshua can get used to the idea. Not that he actually knows what moving is, but I figure that the more we introduce him to the idea, the less foreign it will be to him when it actually happens. Oh, and I guess I should mention that the move actually is happening. Not this month, of course, and maybe not next month either. Okay, so I guess we don't know much more than we did previously, but we've heard that there's a position available. That's the news. Tim's director called him last week to let him know, but didn't have any details. The long and the short of it is that we won't find out until this coming week. But we're excited enough to start looking with real interest at the local real estate there. And what Joshua knows is that there will be a zoo and a backyard.

I get a little nostalgic thinking about leaving the only home that Joshua has ever known. Even though it's always seemed somewhat transitional to me, I know that he will not understand why we have to go, and I'm sure he'll miss our little apartment only the way his big heart can. We'll just have to make sure that he knows that home is wherever our family goes, I guess. And he's a flexible little guy, so he'll adapt and hopefully be no worse for wear in the end.

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4/7/06 - Crossing the Line

So here's a question for the ages - should I actually take a picture of Joshua's poop in his little training potty? Because one part of me wants to run for the camera, social ramifications thrown into the wind. And the other part of me . . . the sane part, I guess you could say, knows that somehow it's just not something that people actually do. I mean really, how would you scrapbook that? But isn't it something we're eventually all so proud of?

And while we're on the topic of bowel movements, I'd like to take this opportunity to say that Joshua has had several in his little potty. Not just one or two fluke poops, but intentional ones. He even tells us that he needs to go to the bathroom. "Joshua poopy . . . diaper change." Only I guess it comes out sounding more like, "Dofwa poopy . . . diap-achange." But he's really not poopy yet, so we ask ever so nonchalantly, "Joshua, do you want to sit on your potty?" And oh, the affirmation that comes with that question!

The thing is, I've known for quite a while now that I don't want to be an early potty-trainer, and push the whole process on Joshua before he's ready. And I'm hesitant to say that we're truly potty-training, because we're not. There are several things that need to happen first; Joshua should probably be able to pull down his pants by himself. I'm just guessing, but I would tend to think that the inability to de-clothe would hinder using the toilet. Just a guess.

But enough bodily function discussion. Isn't it amazing how the littlest things in our lives mean so, so much at the time? A year from now I'll read back over this and laugh at how serious I thought it was.

Joshua's many and random obsessions have switched gears again, and now the only things in life that he cares about are garbage trucks, bulldozers, and Thomas the Train. We were able to visit our annual "Touch-a-Truck" event in March, where Joshua got up close and personal with big-rigs of all types, work trucks, tractors, emergency vehicles . . . you name it and it was there. What a neat thing it was for him to be able to climb on the cement truck, and to sit inside the fire engine! He was especially happy to learn about the Anderson Dairy ice cream truck, since he'd never actually had an ice cream sandwich before. In fact, he still talks about the ice cream truck, and the day that he got to go inside the busses.

Trucks almost take a back seat, though, to Thomas. Virtually every discussion we have revolves around Thomas, or Percy, or how Toby crashed into the flour mill, but it was an accident so he said "sorry." We have these conversations mostly at meal times. I'm not sure what it is about meatloaf that triggers thoughts of trains, but it certainly does, and with unrivalled joy he recounts it over and over and over. And as a mother who loves her growing baby oh so much, I relive it with him, moment by moment. I'm truly the happiest when he's so happy too.
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3/18/06 - Clutter and confusion

Things in our home are not as they should be, and I will breathe a sigh of relief when toys can one day be put where they belong. The thing is, mostly I don’t mind taking a shower with the entire population of Noah’s ark Little People. It’s just that sometimes I’d like to, well, have a private shower, and not have cheetahs, zebras and peacocks as onlookers.

And maybe it would be nice to not find sippy cups behind the toilet, blocks under the pillows, and Little People (yes, there are more, and they’re slowly taking over our apartment) in every nook and cranny you can imagine. Do you want to know something a little ironic? I was worried at one point that Joshua would not have enough toys. That he would be a deprived little soul when we couldn’t buy him this thing or that. And now I’m drowning in toys, just barely able to hold my head above them long enough to catch a breath before I dive back down and join in building more Lego airplanes.

The hard part of the whole situation is how horribly anal-retentive I am about extra clutter. Not to fool you into thinking that I have an impeccably clean home. Or that I, for instance, vacuum the floors or clean the bathtubs quite as often as I should. But there is something about cleaning out drawers and closets (and now toy boxes), that is innately satisfying for me. I like to get rid of things.

It gets even better. Tim hates to get rid of things more than anything in the world. It signifies change, and he is very, very resistant to that. He still has his ratty old baseball cap from high school, every single book he ever bought for college (yes, six large boxes full of them), and Miami Vice style clothes that don’t even fit.

Because of the abundance we find ourselves in, I’m having a hard time organizing us. I am a “get-rid-of” person. My husband is a "keep-everything-from-our-entire-lives" person; we're clashing. I won't go into the details, but it isn't always pretty or fun. We mostly find resolution, and we're mostly learning how to deal with it. I guess I'll spend the next however many years with some extra things around, and maybe Tim will learn to part with one or two of his extra knick-knacks or t-shirts. And we'll continue to drown in toys.

2/25/06 - The Things We Don't Talk About

Joshua is obsessed with hiding. Really obsessed. From toys to bellybuttons, he goes on and on about it. His bellybutton is always hiding underneath his shirt, and so is Mama’s. Strangely, Daddy’s bellybutton is yet undiscovered.

Joshua walks around the house with a towel on his head (reminiscent of Casper), babbling on and on about how he is “idee” . . . hiding. And finally, the clincher – he spends about 50% of his bathtime hiding his penis. How funny is it that, entertaining and innocent as it is, it’s something we just don’t bring up in casual conversation? I can see it now . . .
“Oh, yes, Billy knows his ABC’s now . . . we used flashcards . . . isn’t he so smart?”
“Yes, that’s wonderful – my son hides his penis between his legs.”

Top that.

Also, we bought a training potty the other day, and Joshua loves it. He’ll carry it around the apartment saying “bobby . . . bobby.” But we’re not really potty-training him yet. The thing is, I got tired of washing the bathmat every night. Yes, our nightly ritual included Joshua running around the bathroom naked until he decided to stand square in the middle of the bath mat to mark his territory. Every night does not a coincidence make. So now he sits on his “bobby” before bathtime, strains with all of his might, and manages quite a little bit of potty! We’re just as proud of Joshua as he is of himself, and he’s mighty inflated about it right now, too.

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1/15/06 - Mealtime chit-chat

Seriously. How am I supposed to maintain my composure while saying things like, “No, Joshua, Mama doesn’t like it when you squeeze your pasta?” And even as I’m biting the inside of my cheek to keep a straight face, the aforementioned squeezed pasta shoots from his little clenched fist; he looks at me, eyes wide in surprise, and says, “uh-oh.”

The way Joshua is talking now is amazing. And cute. And only to be understood by a select few. Yes, our dinner conversation often involves more than squeezed pasta, we also talk about many other things. Like busses. Here’s how it goes:

“Butheth? Butheth? Mo butheth?” (Busses? Busses? No busses?)
“Idee. Idee.” (Hiding – the busses have driven away and are now hiding.)
“Ah-dunga.” (All done. Since there are no more busses to see, the meal must be over.)

How wonderful that he's learning to think for himself, and also that he can share with us his innermost passions . . . be it busses or squeezed pasta. Life is great.

12/27/05 - Moving On

I get this feeling every Christmas, after everything is over, that I’m supposed to be doing something. That there is this elusive something that needs to be done, but I can’t quite grasp at what it is, so I wander around the apartment feeling a little lost and disoriented. Oh, I know it’s just the after-Christmas letdown . . . for weeks we’ve been going places, baking things, and we’ve been busy little bees. And then suddenly, in one morning, it’s all done. It also doesn’t help me any that entire cities shut down on Christmas day. No stores to browse through, and you can’t use those wonderful giftcards just yet. There are always the movies . . . Tim and I used to have a Christmas movie tradition, but that disappeared with the arrival of Joshua, and who knows when it will return.

So in my search for things to do I am officially ready for Christmas to be over. I know that technically it is over, but I mean that I’m ready to move on to whatever is next. Take down the garland, pack away the lights . . . I am ready for our home to be back to normal. And this actually presents a bigger problem than one might think. The thing is, my family is decidedly not ready for the holidays to end. In fact, I think that we could leave the decorations out all year long and they would be as happy as clams. Tim loves the holidays, and it feels so warm and cozy to him when our house is Christmassy. Joshua, in his own special way, loves Christmas too. He loves it in the way the lights on the tree are the first thing on his mind in the morning. He loves it in the way he sees Santa everywhere we go, “who, who, whoooo.” And he loves it in the way he’s fallen completely and madly in love with snowmen.

This year my craft for our home was to paint a small wooden snowman. The Christmas lights poke through the back and outline the whole thing, and to my surprise it really turned out quite well. The point is to let you know that we might actually have the snowman still decorating our home in, say, June. I simply don’t know if I can separate Joshua from it without breaking his sweet little heart. It’s not the way he points to it and talks about it nonstop. I could make the break if that was all it was. And it’s almost not the way he likes to hug it every ten minutes or so, but I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t a factor. Really, it’s the way he likes to kiss it if he’s been missing it for too long. Or before we leave the house, he puckers his lips and says “mmmmmmm,” straining to reach out of our arms and just get one last kiss from the snowman. And it might just break my heart to see his get broken. Who knows, we may just find a special place in his room to make the snowman a home.

I’ve decided, also, that my readiness to move on from the holidays is simply my impatience in waiting for what comes next. See, what comes next is probably for us to move from Las Vegas. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been a lot better here than I actually ever thought it would be. We’ve decided, though, that it’s not where we want to stay, and it’s not where we want to raise a family. (Is it okay for kids to grow up thinking that gambling and naked women on billboards are normal? I just don’t think so.) Our state of choice at this time is Oklahoma, and I’ve been looking at Oklahoma City travel brochures online. It seems like such a family-friendly place compared to Las Vegas, and I get excited and a little ahead of myself in planning. But who can blame me when there’s a zoo? A real, live, functioning zoo! The “zoo” here (in the ghetto of Las Vegas) sits on the corner lot of a residential neighborhood, and you can look in through the front gate to see the contents in their entirety. We were utterly disappointed and disillusioned enough to decide not to waste our time, and we’ve since been visiting the local PetSmart to learn about animals. You do what you have to.

So we’ll wait, and we’ll see what happens . . . and I will try to just enjoy the moment and not take it all away from my family too soon. And if you come to visit us in June and the tree is still in the corner – well, you’ll know why.
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11/10/05 - A Balancing Act

Things are just complicated in our home. I mean, much much more complicated than they should be. I don’t know if other people’s lives are like this, or if it’s just me, but I just don’t even see a light at the end of the tunnel. For instance, there’s the organization of all of our clothing. Now, I’m sure that this is easy for most people . . . socks and underwear in one drawer, shorts in another, and t-shirts in another. Can you see me turning green with envy at the simplicity of it all? Because that’s not the way it is in our home. Oh, it starts out that way (and I end up wondering why I wasted the time, but that’s another topic altogether). But then along comes the human tornado-boy. Open every drawer! It’s melee! Throw out every piece of clothing, hurry, hurry, hurry! Let’s bring all of Daddy’s underwear into the living room, so that we can dance around with it on our heads! We find Joshua’s clothes in Tim’s drawers, Tim’s clothes in the living room, and everything basically spread out from one end of the apartment to the other. (I actually cheated on this one, since my drawers are safely up high . . . in my anal retentiveness, I don’t think I could stand to have my own clothes so thoroughly cluttered. It might be the straw that broke the camel’s back.)

The thing is, I like organization. I thrive on cleanliness. Are you wondering how on earth I survive each day with a dirt-magnet son? It’s a miracle; there’s just no way to explain it. Some days I follow after him, trying fruitlessly but gallantly nonetheless to restore order. Other days I give up, and those are the days that the laundry goes straight from the dryer to whatever drawer it will fit in in Joshua’s room. Yes, long-sleeves end up in the third, not the fourth drawer. Sometimes pajamas (third drawer habitants) end up in both the second and fourth drawers, and sometimes are just stored under the crib and on the floor beside the changing table. It’s mind-boggling to neatniks such as us. In fact, even as I type Joshua is walking around clinging to a washcloth that came from one of the aforementioned drawers. Who knows where it will end up: on the bookshelf? Under the TV? In the toilet? I shudder to think.

Also, there’s the subject of mealtime. While it’s not inherently complicated, it just so is . . . somehow. And once again, I’m sure it’s my choleric side showing its ugly face, but I’m really in over my head when it comes to getting Joshua to eat a balanced diet. If a balanced diet consisted of pears and macaroni and cheese, we’d be the champion parents of the world. We would, in fact, be the ones who walk around bragging about how great their kid is . . . “Yep, Joshua ate three pears today, and five servings of macaroni and cheese, can you believe it?!” While others grieved inwardly that their children didn’t eat three pears and five servings of macaroni and cheese. Thankfully this is an extreme exaggeration of his diet, but you get the picture. If it’s not fruit or pasta, his lips are sealed tight. And how many different ways can you find to fix pasta and sneak in vegetables before you’re out of ideas? Trust me, I’ve tried it all.

I really, really shouldn’t complain, though. See, there are other areas of our lives that are ironing themselves out quite well. Take bedtime. We go through our ritual – bath, lotion, and nursing. Then I take Joshua to his room where we sing his favorite song of the month (“Joshua fought the battle of Jericho” is currently hot right now), put him in bed, and say, “Goodnight Joshua, Mama loves you and will be in the hallway if you need me.” Then I . . . brace yourselves . . . walk out and shut the door. Yes ladies and gentlemen, Joshua goes to bed 100 percent awake, watches me walk out, and goes to sleep without so much as a peep; miraculous, you say? Well, we’ve paid our dues and it’s been 16 months coming. He’ll even sleep a solid 12 or 13 hours, which has been wonderful for Tim and I to be able to catch up on sleep. I can sleep through the night myself now, without waking up and wanting to tiptoe into the room and check to make sure Joshua’s still breathing. Yes, in this aspect things are getting easier.

So I guess the easy and the hard balance themselves out pretty well. I’m glad for the reprieve in sleeping, but in a way, I’m glad for the challenges, too. They keep us on our toes, for one thing. And I also think that they help us to not take being parents for granted; without the struggles we wouldn’t learn and grow – we learn that lesson every day anew.

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11/2/05 - Jesus and Stuff

I sat down at the computer tonight to write a little about our lives - but first things first, of course, I must check the TV listings to make sure I'm not missing, say, a surprise episode of "Grey's Anatomy" that the networks have decided to sneak into the lineup, or - oh my, suddenly "CSI" has moved time slots, and is on right now. Isn't it horrible, the way TV sometimes dictates our lives? Okay, I know not everybody plans their nights around their favorite sitcoms, but we find that sometimes - well, sometimes we do. Can we rent a movie? It depends - what's on TV? Can we play a game? But there's a season premiere on tonight that we just can't miss. And the thing is, it sneaks up on you slowly . . . at first it's only one show, one night. Then another, then another. Before long you find yourself flipping aimlessly through the channels, mumbling about how "there's nothing on tonight," but still you sit there. At least that's how it is for us, but maybe we're the only ones in the world? I think not. So now's the time to make the break . . . I hereby solemnly vow to be a more creative, more active, less couch-potatoey person.

Whew. That's done and I feel much better. Now I can focus on the things that really matter - like antibiotics and Jesus.

First things first: Joshua is in the middle of his first antibiotic prescription of his life. We made it 16 months, and then finally had to bite the bullet and go to the pharmacy. I won't go into detail, but it basically involves a diaper rash that's actually a bacterial infection. The doctor we took him to advised us to put Neosporin on before the diaper rash cream, but wrote a prescription "just in case." Maybe he could tell that I was hesitant about the antibiotics - I was raised in a generation that, in my opinion, was over-medicated (amoxicillin for the masses - tastes like bubble gum!), and I don't want Joshua to build up the same resistance that I did. Also, here's the truth - secretly, it's like I was proud of myself as a mom that he had never needed them. I somehow attribute it to his healthy diet and continued nursing, and I know these things help - but they're also not the end all, be all of healthy children everywhere. Anyway, to make a long story . . . even longer, I guess - we were changing Joshua several days after the doctor visit, and we were holding him down while he screamed and writhed in pain. Enough was enough, and Tim and I only needed to experience a diaper change like that once to get us in action. And I was, of course, pleasantly surprised that giving him the antibiotics only made me feel only the teensiest bit like a failure ;-)

And Joshua's newest favorite thing in the world that he just can't get enough of? Jesus, of course. He has a toddler Bible with little cartoon pictures of Noah, Moses, Adam and Eve . . . and Jesus, too. Which is actually the page that he has to turn to, is driven to turn to, no matter how much we try to show him Daniel in the lion's den, or baby Moses, or anything else for that matter. It's actually probably something that we've brought upon ourselves, because, since the title of the page is "Jesus Loves the Little Children," we would sing the song every time the page came around. So Joshua learned the sign for Jesus, and asks us to sing the song approximately 78 times a day. Believe me, I wish I was exaggerating. But it's absolutely so adorable, when he signs and says "Deesh, deesh," all the while swaying back and forth in his anticipatory dance. And really, it doesn't bother us at all that he's so enamored. I mean, he couldn't have chosen anyone better, right?

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UPDATE: Read this article posted Nov. 8: Children still get too many prescriptions for antibiotics

10/13/05 - Winds of Change

Is it okay to call this week 13? Maybe I should change the names of all of the previous entries to read something else. For example, this week could be called "When I get around to it - #13." Or maybe "Oops something really important happened and I'd better write it before I forget - #13?" I'm not even making excuses, really, because I don't feel too badly about the whole thing. If I write at least once or twice a month, I should have a pretty good record of the wonderful days with Joshua. The last thing I need in my life is one more task to stress out about.

Speaking of wonderful days, I feel somehow like our lives are starting to make a transition. It's nothing that I can put my finger on exactly, and nothing tremendous changes from one day to the next. I guess it's the little things that just keep adding up, and when I step back the big picture is pretty exciting. For instance, I'm a bona-fide watch wearer once again! I stopped wearing a watch when Joshua was born because it scratched him. Little by little I just got used to not wearing one, and now having one on even feels somewhat awkward. But I feel proud of it, somehow, because I'm past a certain stage. Look around, and I'll bet you don't see many moms of newborns with watches on. But I'm one of those moms now - you know, the watch wearing kind. It's my own personal milestone.

Also, Joshua and I were outside tonight . . . in the dark. How bizarre and somewhat intoxicating it was. I can barely remember what the outside looks like during the night, and I know it sounds corny, but I was enchanted by the lights everywhere. The store marquees lit up, and haphazard headlights darting around on the freeway, and the skyline . . . the magnificent Las Vegas skyline . . . We only went on a quick errand to drop off Tim's jacket at work, but I felt like I could stay out forever just looking. At a stoplight I looked back at Joshua, and found that he was sitting so happily in his car seat, smiling his little heart away. He's such a music lover, so maybe it was the music and not the lights (can I teach him to love 10,000 Maniacs as much as I do?). But maybe it was the music and the lights, and Joshua was captivated, too. Who knows, maybe he'll be a night owl like Mama someday, and he'll drive out to the edge of town to look at the sea of lights. Maybe he'll remember back and it will even make him think of me and get a little warm and fuzzy inside.

What else, you ask, is happening to make me feel a transition? Maybe it's that Joshua can play so well by himself while I fix dinner. Maybe it's that he communicates with us so well using his signs. I'm not sure entirely, I guess it's just a feeling I get. Like how Joshua just got his first at-home haircut. (Really, who can afford to drop $20 every month or two, just for a haircut??) We set up his booster seat in the bathroom, set the TV where he could watch Dora having another great adventure, and went to work. Of course, he hated every second of it, but what of that? It got done, and in a relatively short amount of time, too. I'm of the mindset that our money can be better spent buying him clothes or food, and a new 'do just isn't as high on my list of priorities.

His absolute and utter refusal to eat anything that he's not craving right at the moment makes me think that Joshua's entering a different era, as well. While we used to be able to coerce him to eat an almond butter and jelly sandwich, he won't be tricked anymore. Joshua is in control (well, somewhat anyway) at the dinner table, and nothing enters his mouth unapproved. This is how we found out that he might be allergic to mustard, actually. After not eating his lunch sandwich, I offered him some of mine . . . lunchmeat, pickles, sprouts and mustard. I think it was the pickles that attracted him - Joshua loves to eat pickles, and will eat them 'til the cows come home, as the saying goes. Several minutes later we noticed bright red splotches around his mouth. Since he'd had everything else on the sandwich, we figured it was the mustard . . .

Okay, I'm being somewhat dishonest. I'll admit it, it was honey-mustard. I thought I could get away with not mentioning this fact, but my guilty conscience is screaming. Yes, in the face of every book ever written and every bit of advice ever given, we gave our son honey before the age of two. And yes, I know there are those parents out there who would say, "We did it for our kids and they turned out fine." I realize that many babies had honey before the experts discovered it could be lethal, and they were perfectly okay. But isn't that doing something of a disservice to those parents whose babies weren't okay? It's a little like the "Back to Sleep" campaign, where you're told to put babies to sleep on their backs to prevent SIDS. My own mother even told me that "we did it that way and it never hurt you," but what about the babies who died?? In my heart of hearts I know that those parents desperately wished they'd known then what we do now.

Anyway, that's my little tirade, and I guess it got me a little off track. The whole point was that Joshua is not just allergic to mustard, but he's allergic to honey-mustard. Tim thought (no kidding) that he was hemorrhaging from his ears. He'd noticed some little spots on Joshua's earlobe and right inside his ear and decided to keep an eye on them to see if they got worse. Several minutes later he brought Joshua to me, brow furrowed, looking very worried. "The spots in his ear are getting worse." I inspected them closely, not sure what I'd find. To Tim's relief (and chagrin!) the spots disappeared when I licked my finger and rubbed on them. My pronouncement? Jelly from the uneaten lunch sandwich. I'm not sure how they actually got worse, but to a concerned daddy, I guess things like that grow.

So day by day our lives change, and the under-the-surface changes that you don't really notice at first add up to seem like such a big deal. Is this what makes parents want to have another baby? Believe me, I'm not there yet, but I think this is how it happens. You let your guard down, and you start to forget about all of the sleepless nights and spit-up caked clothes. You're walking down the aisle of Wal-Mart and notice how cute those teeny tiny baby clothes are, and my, but aren't they tiny? You reminisce about just how adorable those chunky baby legs and cheeks were, and everything becomes romanticized. You forget about the days of walking around like a zombie, being peed and pooped and sucked upon. The memories of trying to stand and nurse a newborn in the middle of the kitchen just to be able to stuff something resembling nourishment (cheese and Twinkies and isn't there any CHOCOLATE anywhere??) into your face seem obscured by the scrapbooks full of first birthday pictures and smiley mischievous pictures and the breathtaking coming-home-from-the-hospital pictures. Yes, I think that really is how it happens, and even though we aren't there yet, I can see us creeping up on it - one teensy watch-wearing step at a time.

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9/4/05 - Finally

So I actually haven't written anything in about three weeks. The thing is, I've been trying to organize and bring some semblance of order to our lives. Chaos, that's what it's felt like. Oh no, I'm behind on the dishes. Oh no, I'm behind on grocery shopping. Making food. Paying bills. Laundry. There really, truly aren't enough hours in the day sometimes. Even though it's such a cliché, it really fits.

But I really had to find time to record some things Joshua's been doing that are so neat. For instance, he made his first joke. Yes, at 14 months he's already such a jokester. He was in the bath, and our ritual has been for him to drink water from his bathroom cup with the fish in the bottom. He'll ask for it (with signs) if I forget, and this night was no different. "Water, cold, water, cold, fish, fish." That's his way of asking for cold water in his fish cup. So I got up and got him water in his fish cup, and he made sure to remind me between sips that it was "water, cold, fish." Somewhere in there, though, he signed something a little different. He looked at me a little out of the corner of his eye, and he signed "Water, cold, tree." Then - no kidding - he laughed so hard his belly jiggled and his little eyes squinted shut. A joke! "No, silly, there's no tree in your water," I replied, to which he laughed a little more, and then that was that. Seems so simple, but was a huge moment it was for us.



And what a sweet little boy he's turned out to be. We get so many hugs and kisses, but I'm a little jealous of . . . well, of Tigger. You see, Tigger gets the bulk of the hugs now, but it's so precious that I try not to be too envious. There's a bear, too, who gets an ample share, but Tigger is the animal to be in our house. I'm thinking that at some point we need to get to the store to buy another Tigger - a spare to have around just in case, you know? It's only because of the horror stories I've heard about Tiggers (or whatever they may be in other households) being lost in the abyss, and kids not sleeping for nights, that I feel we should do this. But doesn't it also seem a little silly? To keep a spare stuffed animal around, and even to switch out every once in a while so they wear evenly? Of course, I say that now . . . hopefully the dreaded day of the lost Tigger will never come for us.

And another milestone that we've reached, but there isn't a spot in the baby book - Joshua will wear a hat now. He's so easy to reason with, and listens so very well, that I decided one day to tell him that he needed to keep his hat on so that the sun wouldn't be in his eyes. Then I put the hat on, and it stayed on! He was even very proud of wearing it, so that he had to reach up and feel it from time to time, and remind me that he was wearing it so that I would say "Yes, Joshua, you look so handsome in your hat." He would shiver with happiness - that little scrunch and shake of the shoulders that they do when they just can't contain the joy inside, and go on watching the birds. Oh what a big boy he's getting to be, my sweet, joking, hat-wearing little one. I wonder what he'll be like when he's older - 6, or 10, or even 16. I hope beyond hope that he'll stay as sweet as he is now, and that he won't be tainted by the world. That his innocence and joy will stay with him, and that he'll always love his mama.

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8/14/05 - Signs of the Times

At what other point in our lives can we stuff our mouths as full as they can get with macaroni and cheese (doing double-fisted duty to speed the process), then yell AAAAAYYYNG at the top of our lungs, while pieces of the aforementioned mac and cheese not only fall into our laps but also spray three feet in every direction? I'll go out on a limb and say that baby/toddler hood is it. (Of course, what you do while eating dinner alone in front of the TV is none of my business.)

Our little guy is asserting his newfound independence at . . . where else? Meal time. It is a complete dictatorship, with a 13-month-old at the helm. What will we eat tonight? Not green beans, not carrots - no, not even ravioli. Pretzels and cottage cheese will be the dinner of choice tonight! Of course, I am constantly questioning his authority over the decisions he makes about what to eat . . . and it helps that I'm bigger and I'm the one that actually makes the food. Lately I've taken to covering most things with cheese in an effort to even get them near Joshua's mouth. But mostly he's not fooled.

Also, Joshua's been telling us lots of stories about, for example, the cats and babies he sees. He's the only one that sees them, mind, so he has plenty of artistic license to make up whatever he wants to. The stories go a little like this: "Cat, cat, cat, baby. Baby cat, cat, baby, flower. Dog, baby, hot. Hot, dog." Really, I'm not making that up - he said (signed) hot dog . . . the highlight of my otherwise mundane day! By the way, you can see all of these signs on this great ASL Browser - they have neat little videos that show you how to do the signs, and there is a huge database of words. It's been such a great way to help Joshua share what's really on his mind. How wonderful it is to know what he's thinking . . . even if it is only cats and hot dogs.

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8/8/05 - Communication at its Finest

Joshua and I have been having conversations lately. Well, okay, not conversations in the normal sense of the word, but still . . . They go something like this,
"Dee, dee, dee" (Which means birdie, birdie, birdie.)
"Yes, Joshua, those are birds. Good job."
"Dee, dee, dee" ( . . . same thing . . . )
"No, Joshua, those are [insert word here]." You have various words to choose from at this point. Flowers, trees, telephone posts and fish would be appropriate. "But I can see how those look like birdies to you," is my typical response. Even in this insignificant, everyday conversation, it's so hard to know what to say. I don't think that Joshua will actually grow up thinking that the fish and flowers really are birds . . . but then again, I don't want to stifle his creativity and inquisitiveness by always telling him that he's wrong. Do kids even attach a stigma to being wrong at this age? Probably not, but since I'm not sure when that begins, I'm wary. Sometimes I'll answer, "Yes, those cicadas do look like birdies, don't they," and even as I say it, I know it's a copout. Fortunately for me, my son doesn't analyze every little thing I say (yet)!

And speaking of conversations, Joshua's vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds lately! Here are the words he can sign now - more, all done, cheese, cracker, pear, milk, cereal, book, home, bath, please, bird, dog, hot . . . quite an extensive list, isn't it? We stopped by the library today to check out a couple of signing videos, since he can watch and recognize some of the signs now. What a neat concept it is, to teach him these words and watch as he attaches a meaning to them. Even neater is that he can tell us things (beyond the normal baby "grunt and point" method of communication, that is). We've been taking long evening walks, and in Joshua's amazing imagination, he sees birds and dogs absolutely everywhere!

Our evening walks are another thing. It turns out that Joshua loves to walk outside. (Holding a steadying hand, of course.) We'll walk for 45 minutes, first on the grass, then the sidewalk, then back and forth again. The time flies, and we don't get very far at all, but it's a wonderful time. We collect rocks, step on cracks just to see what they feel like, and watch as the butterflies hover around the bushes. We try to go up every staircase we come to ("No, Joshua, these aren't the stairs that take us home,") and stand at the pool gate to watch for ten minutes. We play with the sprinkler heads, and collect more rocks, test the rocks as a walking surface, and then it's time to come home. This is the hardest part, since Joshua never wants the walks to end. His poor little heartbroken self wails at having to be inside on the carpet, instead of outside among the ants. He's an outdoorsman at heart, I think, and I can't wait until we can start camping and hiking with him. Then again, that will mean that he's growing up, and I also want him to stay just like he is right now forever, too. It's a catch-22, the hope for the future and the beauty of right now, isn't it? Guess that means we'll have to take each day as it comes and not be too sad when one stage is gone, because the excitement of a new stage is to come. It's easier said than done, though.

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7/31/05 - The Choices We Make

I've been thinking lately that mostly, being happy really is something that you can just decide to do. I know that people won't necessarily agree with me, but it's my theory. (Of course, I mean this in regard to everyday normal things, and not, say, clinical depression.) The thing is, I think that people use so many different things to try to be happy, but if they would just decide, and do it, their lives would be much simpler. You don't have to be the most popular person, or the richest person, or the most beautiful person - and chasing these things is fruitless, anyway. But I look at my life, and the little family I've been blessed with, and the friends I have, and I think, it's so easy to decide to be happy.

Of course, there are so many things that I could choose to be angry or upset about if I wanted to. Joshua decides to skip an afternoon nap, and the whole rest of the day is shot and miserable. My choice . . . to be upset with him, or to be understanding and know that he's only a baby and going to sleep is pretty darn hard sometimes. Tim buys the wrong kind of chicken at the store. Do I get angry with him because he should know what kind of chicken to buy, or do I decide that sometimes husbands make mistakes, and if he knew it was the wrong kind, he wouldn't have bought it in the first place? The easy way out is to get upset, I think. I'm going to try to choose the other way . . . hard as it may seem since Tim really should know what kind of chicken to buy ;-)

This is not all to say that I don't make mistakes. I'll be the first to admit that I do, and that I have to ask for forgiveness from my husband more than I'd like! (Thankfully he's the most loving and forgiving person you'll ever meet in your life.) And I'm sure that down the road I'll have to ask Joshua's forgiveness for something I'll say or do without thinking first. BUT at least I'm trying, and that's mostly all of the battle. And maybe I'm winning, because I sure am raising a wonderfully happy baby!

This past week Grandma and Grandpa Waller came to visit. What a great time they had with Joshua! They have two grandkids, and haven't seen either lately since they've been out of the states for the last 6 months or so. They took Joshua for walks every day so that he could see the birds (his very favorite animal in the world right now), they played "Noah's Ark" with him, gave him snacks of fruit and cottage cheese, and even babysat while Tim and I went to a movie! Now they're on their way to visit firstborn grandson Elijah, and I know they'll have just as great a time with him.

It's so neat to see how grandparents play with grandkids, though. They have so much energy to just play and play, and Joshua's grandparents do everything they want him to, plus some. My parents are coming to visit next month, and they'll spoil him all over again. In fact, that's the only hard part - getting back on routine after the grandparents have gone. All of a sudden, gasp, Joshua has to play by himself for a short time while I'm fixing dinner. Or, and I realize that this really is almost the end of the world, Joshua can't go for a walk at exactly the moment he chooses. He truly does let me know, by the way, that it's going to be the end of the world. His face gets all screwed up, and his mouth forms a little "O" shape, while his eyes plead for mercy, and for me to just open the door, for the love of all that is good!

And even during these semi-meltdowns, I still choose to be happy with Joshua and who he is, and love him that much more.
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7/24/05 - Sickness and Health

Question - is it cheating if I put Joshua to bed an hour early just so that I can have a little extra time in the evening? Okay, well I didn't really do that, only sort of. I actually just happened to let him fall asleep while he was nursing, but I knew that it would mean he was down for the night, and we'd forego bath, lotion, the whole routine. I guess I need to back up, though, and explain why I was okay with this - me, the hard line structured scheduler who won't go out of the house if it's during a scheduled activity such as meal or naptime. The thing is, Joshua had already had TWO baths previously that day. Not just because he loves taking a bath, which he does, or because it's his newest sign, which it is. These would be great, but really it's only because of the projectile vomit we'd been subjected to the whole day. Each time he seemed to get it ALL OVER himself, ALL OVER the floor, and ALL OVER either Tim or myself. How can one little boy hold so much stuff?!

I actually tried not to worry too much about the whole thing, telling myself that he just had a little bug. Which is truly what I think it was - but at the time I was on the internet, discovering that maybe he was actually throwing up because he's epileptic, and it's possible that he also had lead poisoning. Or could it be that he had an appendicitis? . . . Meningitis . . . INTUSSUSCEPTION?!?! I'd never heard of this before, yet I was suddenly worried about it, scrutinizing his every move. And I was aware, via the all-knowing internet, that I must "watch for the signs of life-threatening dehydration" so that we don't end up in the hospital for a week on intravenous fluids. Of course, I also couldn't give him too much water, or he'd suffer from water intoxication . . . it never ends.

Thankfully, though, the throwing up did end, as well as the massive bouts of diarrhea that he got the next day. My poor, poor little boy hasn't been sick much in his life, and so he just didn't know what to do. He and daddy got to watch some Veggie Tales videos, which he loved (and it was a treat since watching TV is something we don't do much). He also feasted on several meals of cheerios, his only food of choice - sick or not. Now it's a battle to get him to eat anything else, since he holds out and refuses to eat anything, trying to make us bring out the cereal.

On a happier note, Grandma and Grandpa Waller are coming to visit this week! They've been out of the states since Joshua was about seven months, so they have a lot of catching up to do. Of course, we've been practicing all of the cute things that Joshua can do, so that he can show them right away . . . how he's learned to raise both arms above his head in a kind of "victory" gesture, which is my favorite thing that he does since his arms aren't long enough to get his hands much higher than his head. Also how he scrunches up his face and sticks his tongue between his teeth, to make a gaspy, snorty sound through his nose. Yes, these are the things that we're brushing up on and that we're proud of. After all, it's those little things that makes our little man so special. What a personality he has!

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7/15/05 - Week Seven-ish

I've officially missed my first week of writing. As I sit here at the computer eating dinner (an open faced peanut butter, honey and banana sandwich - healthy, right?) and mourning the passage of my early bedtime, which came and went an hour ago, there are two million things running through my mind . . .
What do I name this week - seven or eight?? I missed week seven, so this is week eight . . . isn't it??
I hope my fingers don't make the keyboard too sticky - the Lucky Charms keyboard incident is all too fresh in my mind. And how many precious and wonderful things has Joshua done that I've already forgotten in the last two weeks? I hope I can remember it all.

So we were out of town last week when I was supposed to be posting another journal entry, and that's my only excuse. I had grand illusions of writing in the car on the way home . . . which were dashed by my maniacal little son (but I'll get to that later), and then it really did take me a couple of days to recuperate from our adventures. And get caught up on laundry, too.

The first thing I'll say is this - we had a wonderful time. We went to Southern California for Tim to be in the wedding of a friend from high school. He got to relive the "glory days," and Joshua and I got a change of scenery. All in all it was great. I've never in my life seen a more beautiful wedding - this one topped any movie I've ever seen, even. Horse-drawn carriages, lighted gazebos, a serene pond and rolling green hills overlooking it all. I can't do justice to it with words. What an experience, and Joshua passed it up to crawl around in the background, eating pieces of leaf, bark and any stray ants that he found.

The rest of the trip was . . . an experience. My advice to anyone with small children - travel before they're crawling, and travel after they're walking. But whatever you do, NEVER take a long car trip with a crawling infant! The reason I say this is that there were very little options for Joshua as a crawling baby. Either he was 1) strapped - or should I say jailed - in his car seat; thus any writing I might have accomplished was out of the question since I had to ride most of the way looking backward. Or he was 2) crawling on the most filthy restaurant floors I've ever seen. My horror at his completely black knees, feet and hands was only slightly dimmed by the fact that he was actually getting to move, and if we were to attempt any longer in the car, he'd better move around all he can . . . even if it was on the dingy, dirty floors of the only Burger King I've ever been to without a play area. Also, just a side note - you only think that hotel room floors are clean. Each day this theory was shot out of the water by our creeping, crawling boy and his blackened body parts.

On to more positive things, though. How about Joshua's newfound love of birds? The way he says "Dee, dee, dee" and bobs his little fist up and down, trying valiantly to imitate our "bird" sign. Or how he can sign "cheese," and constantly asks for it during and between meals? Cottage cheese . . . string cheese . . . macaroni and cheese . . . doesn't matter to him, as long as it's a little cheesy! Or maybe how he loves to give us hugs now, but he's forgotten how to give kisses in the wake of this? Or possibly just how I am constantly amazed by his little self, learning things every day, and mostly just being the best little boy we could ever have asked for? I think that's what I always want to write about, and that's okay with me. Because maybe when my loving baby is a teenager I'll need to look back and remember the unabashed exuberance, the grins that light up his face, and the hugs like I've never had before, and then I'll remember what it's all about.
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7/3/05 - Several Big Events

It's official, we finally have a one year-old in our house. A precious, smart, sweet little non-walking one year-old. It's funny that a year marks the beginning of toddler hood, but not the actual act of walking. Wouldn't you think that toddling makes a baby a toddler? Semantics.

The big event - the party - was spectacular. Of course, as all first birthdays go, it was more for me and Tim than for Joshua, but Joshua really and truly had fun. We invited several of the moms that I've become friends with from MOPS and bible study, and their kids came . . . we ended up with a pretty big crowd, but it was at our apartment pool, so it wasn't crazy claustrophobic. Joshua loved the Subway sandwiches, and couldn't have cared less about the cake. In fact, he was much more interested in feeding us the cake than in eating it himself! And he watched as the bigger kids helped him unwrap his gifts, since he was ambivalent about opening them himself - the neat thing is that when he watches the big kids, I really think that he thinks he's playing, too! Right along with them, even though all he's doing is watching. So he had a blast and we got lots of loud toys that are slowly driving us insane. It's Chinese water torture, baby-style.

The other big event was less than spectacular. It involved lots of tears as well as some very explosive vomiting. Joshua had his first throwing up episode - not the day of his birthday, thank goodness, but the day after. Poor, poor little man. He didn't know what to do, or what was going on. His questioning eyes broke my heart - "I don't know what's happening and I really don't like it; I don't know what to do so please make it stop . . . " and there was nothing we could do for him. Fortunately it was a one-time thing and not a virus or anything like that, so we cleaned everything up and he had a normal rest of the day. We still haven't been able to completely get rid of the carpet stain, though. We'll keep working on it.

And I'm wondering if the throwing up was a result of stress . . . you might wonder what our little guy has to be stressed out about. I'll tell you - FOUR molars. Only two of the four have come through this week, but the others are so, so close. His gums are swollen and he's feverish, and he can't sleep well at night. Looking back I can see how naive and foolish I was when he got his first tooth at four months. My exact thoughts were "Thank goodness that's over!" Unbelievable. It never ends.

The only other big thing that's happening for us is that Tim has NINE DAYS off work!! It's our first vacation, and I couldn't be more excited. We're heading to Southern California for Tim to be in a friend's wedding, and the rest of the time we'll spend relaxing together at home, going swimming and maybe playing games at night after Joshua is in bed. (My husband loves playing games, and so one of the things I'm working on in my quest to always be a better wife is to set aside time for games. It's harder than you think, since we're not used to it and it's so much easier to pop a video into the DVD player.) Wow - a week off, a trip to California, and the 4th of July (my very favorite holiday, by the way) coming up next week. Does it get any better than this?!
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6/26/05 - Our Day in a Nutshell

I've been so busy lately getting so many things "businessy" done that to sit in front of the computer for something I enjoy seems slightly foreign. That, and I'm thinking of all of the things that still need to be done, but I'm just here wasting time . . . But wasting time isn't right because I truly love to sit and think back on the week, and all of the neat things Joshua's done, and if the dishes sit in the sink for another couple of hours then so be it.

What a great day it's been for Joshua and me. (Poor Tim is slaving away at work and missing all of the fun, but we do appreciate so much that he is willing to work so that I can get these amazing times with Joshua.) We went to church this morning - we've been going to the late church service that starts at 11:30 because we really like the childcare workers at that time. They do such a great job with Joshua, and he seems to do better with them than with workers at any other hour. When we came to pick him up he was smiling and happy, which always makes me feel so much better about leaving him - and now I have even more reason to feel better . . . he's signing to them! Of course, none of them knew what he was saying, but it was pretty neat to pick him up and have the workers ask what it meant when he twisted his little fists in the air ("all done") or pointed the finger of one hand at the palm of the other ("more" - or his version of it, anyway). To me, that means he's comfortable enough there to be his own charming little self. Whew, what a relief.

After church we went by Taco Bell - one of our all time favorite places to eat - to get lunch, and decided that we needed to introduce Joshua to the food there. Unlike every Waller I know, he HATED it! (We ordered pintos and cheese with no sauce, and I thought he'd eat it up.) I guess it was a little too thick . . . my deduction, anyway, from the excessive gagging episodes we had to endure from his two teensy bites. Oh well, he'll learn.

After lunch naptime lasted about an hour, and then one of my favorite things in the world happened. Joshua was still groggy enough from the nap that he fell asleep in bed with me when he was nursing. Oh, how I wish that would happen more often! His sweet little sleep face with sheet wrinkles all over, and then he's nursing and his eyes roll back in his head . . . I lay there and try not to let him notice me looking at him . . . I even pretend to be asleep, averting my eyes so quickly if he looks up at me, faking that sleep-breathing loudness and peering through mostly closed eyelids. Then he falls asleep and we both lay there, cuddled up together and warm under the covers, and he has to be smooshed up against me somehow in order to sleep perfectly peacefully. And I get to sleep, too, and we both wake up feeling so good and refreshed and somehow even more awake than we had been before.

Then we went to the new fitness club that's opening down the street, and found out that it's huge and beautiful inside, with every amenity that you'd ever want - and somehow it's even considerably cheaper than my Y membership. So I signed up and am canceling my other membership, and I feel like a got a really great deal. Like how you feel when you find boxes of cereal on a really great sale at the grocery store so you stock up and buy like 10 boxes, and leave thinking "Man, what a great bargain!"

Dinner was a little more frustrating - it always is for me, since it's getting later in the day, and I think that Joshua should be so grown up and should neatly and completely eat each thing that I put in front of him . . . right. Then I remember that he's a BABY; somehow I'd forgotten that, and I find myself saying the most asinine things that I can ever imagine myself saying - like telling him to stop whining. I'm admitting that I really did say that. I'd like partial credit that it did occur to me to be one of the dumbest things I've ever said, but it came out of my mouth, nonetheless. So mostly dinner consisted of cheerios, with the occasional bite of peas, or bananas, or macaroni and cheese. (The aforementioned mac-and-cheese I thought he'd really enjoy, since he did last night, but somehow it offended him tonight and he decided to drop each piece off the edge of the tray, instead.)

My greatest parenting moment, though, came before bath time. You know those moments that you wish you'd have more of, but they seem to come all too rarely - moments of brilliant insight and patience? Moments that shine in your memory as ones that really make a difference in this little one's day? My moment came after the nightly tooth-brushing battle. When I decided, "Why in the world can't he play with his toothbrush?" So we sat on the bathroom floor, the water in the tub becoming tepid, but during this momentous occasion, I didn't even care. Joshua played in my lap with his toothbrush, mostly brushing my teeth with the wrong end, the "tigger" end, of the toothbrush, but sometimes getting the bristle end in there, too. He laughed and laughed, that deep, chortling sparkly-eyed belly laugh that only babies and little kids can produce, and that makes you feel joyful so deep inside. And he crawled over my legs, from one side to the other and back again, toothbrush in hand the whole time. Bristles all over the bathroom floor, but you know what I decided? The moment was so much grander than me worrying about germs or hygiene and ruining it. We can always get another toothbrush tomorrow.
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6/19/05 - Technologically Advanced

We have officially sunk to the lowest depths of parenthood. We've given our one-year-old son a cell phone. As a former swim coach I used to see my 10-year-old swimmers calling friends and parents on their cell phones and I would think indignantly, "What is this world coming to?" Remember the days of patiently waiting at the front desk so that you could very politely ask "May I please use your phone to call my mom?" and all the time that feeling of utter dread - What if they say NO??? Will I ever get home? Will I have to SLEEP here?? In the cell phone era that's all moot.

But we didn't really get Joshua his own phone. What really happened is that Tim has had an ancient and broken (but still operable) cell phone for quite a while now, and we finally decided to bite the bullet and get him a new one. (And it's a great Father's Day gift, as well - bonus!) So Joshua inherited the old one, and I have NEVER seen him so attached to anything in his short little life. Ever! He doesn't let go of it, and to pry it from his chubby little hands just to do something like - gasp - feed him dinner, or bathe him, or anything else so horrible is pure agony.
And part of me wonders . . . do I spend so much time on the phone that he's put such importance on it as well? In his one year of life all he's watched me do is talk on the phone? No books, no playing, no snacks, just phone. Mostly, though, I know that's not true, and he's just got a weird attachment to a neat new toy. It's just my paranoid side coming out. My first-child-have-to-do-everything-right-or-I'm-a-horrible-mom side. I'm working on it.

More importantly, we're celebrating Father's Day today!! The day where my loving and amazing husband finally gets some recognition for all of the sleepless nights, poopy diapers and spit-up caked shirts. A day devoted solely to him and his heroic father self, and I'm so excited for him. Maybe it's because I'm reliving Mother's Day, remembering the flowers, gift and card (I got a bamboo cutting board, which may not sound very exciting, but I'd been eyeing it at the health food store for quite a while). I know that Mother's Day tends to be the big one - gifts, dinner, etc. I think Father's Day gets overlooked a little. Fathers play much more of a role in the home than they used to, so in my book their day needs to be big too . . . or maybe I'm just overly emotional about it because it's Tim first one.

So what did we wake up to? Joshua calling "Didduh, dadada, didduh?" It would have been sweet and prosaic, but no. Instead he woke up, said good morning to Tigger, and promptly demanded to be held and played with. Like it was HIS special day! Of course, without Joshua there would be no Father's Day (or Mother's Day) for us at all, so I guess every day kind of is his special day.
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6/12/05 - Feeding Fanatic

Isn't it strange how the things that used to gross you out - you know, before you have kids - just don't seem to faze you after you do have kids? This evening Joshua and I spent the better part of an hour locked in the bathroom so that he could crawl around and play naked. What a free-spirited little boy, you might say; and yes, you would be right. The reason for the self-inflicted locking-in-the-bathroom, though, was only diaper rash. And so I let him pee all over the bathroom floor (which might have grossed me out before he came along), following along with a towel and taking care of whatever puddle he was about to crawl through. I even let him crawl up into my lap and sit there, bouncing and naked, but still hoping that he didn't decide "Oh, I need to poop right now." (He didn't.) And hopefully the bathroom frolicking session will help clear up the diaper rash, because I'd hate to press my luck.

But that isn't what I really wanted to write about this week. What I've really been thinking about a lot is food. Not for Tim or me, but for Joshua. One of the hardest things that I've found about being a first time mom is that I am (almost) completely unsure about what I am doing when I feed my child meals. What kind of food should he eat? Will he be allergic? Is this enough? Too much? Is it too hot? Cold? When will he eat finger foods? Use a spoon? Joshua does a great job of eating, but he's always been a little bit of a step behind the books - he choked and gagged when he was "supposed" to be eating finger foods, and we waited almost another two months before he mastered the art. I guess he didn't read that book.

We've been making homemade baby food this whole time, and maybe that's why I am lost. I think that most parents simply go to the grocery store and stock up on jars of apples with blueberries and turkey and mixed vegetable dinners. They don't stress out about whether their kids have had enough protein or whole grains, or whether they have had both green AND orange vegetables that day - enough vitamin C? A? D? Iron? Calcium? Protein complementarity?!

We will continue to make homemade baby food, though, because it is healthy, it costs less, and it just feels right. (If you're interested in the process, Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron is the book we've used, and she does a great job of taking you step-by-step through it all.) As time goes by, I'm sure I'll feel more comfortable with feeding him, and it will seem like a breeze. I'll wonder why I was ever worried about it, because it seems so easy. And hopefully that will translate into whatever new worry I have (sunscreen, or water consumption, or mystery illnesses) and that will someday seem easy as well. It does get easier, right?
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6/5/05 - The Little Things

I have many reasons for keeping this journal. One is that I want to remember the little things that Joshua does, the things you don't necessarily write down in a baby book. Like how he loves to make us laugh. He'll come up to Tim or me and find just the right spot on our knee or leg, the spot where it's the absolute most ticklish, and blow a huge raspberry. Then he'll look up and wait for you to laugh so that he can laugh right along. Or the way he is absolutely devastated when one of us is working on the computer and we don't let him type, as well. Oh, the wails of agony that issue forth from his tiny, tiny body! But pick him up and let him type, too, and he's all better, not a nanosecond later.

Another reason is that I simply like to write. I know I'm not going to be the next Toni Morrison, or even the next Erma Bombeck, but isn't there something great about getting all these thoughts out of your head and onto paper . . . proverbial paper, I guess? And if by chance some publisher comes along and just so happens onto this website, and then just so happens to think that millions of people would pay money what I have to say, then so be it! These are things that happen every day, right?

One of Joshua's favorite things to do is dance. Whether we're holding him and listening to the radio, or he's pushed the little flower in the middle of this toy he has, the flower that makes the music play, he's always jiving. Shoot, I can sing "If You're Happy and You Know It," and he's shaking his little bottom to the beat of my off-tune lyrics. Does this mean that he has a great future in music, because of the appreciation his father and I have instilled so lovingly and at such a young age? Okay, probably not. I sure do like to think so, though.

Or maybe he'll grow up to be a writer. He'll write the next great American Novel, just because Tim and I read to him constantly. Honestly, if we got rid of every single toy we have for him, he'd be happy with just books. Of course, they have to be board books, and the sturdy variety at that. This is because he also enjoys eating books tremendously. So every book that we have for him is tattered and frayed, and very, very chewed-looking. The corners have been worked over until they are bloated from drool, and there are little bite marks - our prodigy got his first tooth at the early age of 4 months - where where he's decided to dine on "Quiet, Loud" or "The Nose Book" (two of his favorites). His grandma got him a book called "Bite Me, I'm a Book," and this has been helpful in calming my anal keep-all-books-looking-nice self. I now know that ALL babies chew books, and am working on dealing with that!

These little things are the most special somehow, aren't they? I mean, it's wonderful for Joshua to know his "firsts" - first tooth, first sign, first step . . . but that's not what life is made of from day to day. I can't imagine a time when I'll have to think back and try to remember what it was like, but I know it will come. And sooner rather than later, probably. It will be good to read back, and let the memories flood in, reminding me of how joyful this little one makes me each day, in all of the little things he does.

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Quick update - Joshua slept through the night, from 7:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. on June 3rd, a week and a day after we stopped nursing him at night. It was fairly painless, and we didn't have to listen to nights of screaming agony. It was wonderful!

5/29/05 - Sleep Issues

Joshua is officially eleven months old today. Wow, eleven months . . . where did the time go? Wasn't he eight pounds of newborn cuteness just yesterday?! Of course, he's still just as cute - even cuter if you ask me or Tim, because we think that he's the most beautiful baby in the world. Except maybe at 2 a.m. Not that we don't love him then, because we do love him SO much. And he's still absolutely precious, but I'm not sure how many more of these sleepless nights we can take. Yes, he's eleven months today and still not sleeping through the night. Of course, every baby is different, and I know that, but isn't it hard when people ask about those things? Like somebody is keeping score? "Oh, how cute! Is he walking?? Is he sleeping through the night??" And the answer to both is no.

The walking isn't an issue for us. It was really just an example of the score-card people keep, and we're not worried about it. He'll walk when he's good and ready, and I don't want to rush him out of babyhood before he's ready . . . Are you wondering why I don't want to rush him in one area, but I do in the other? I know I could say the same thing about sleeping. "He'll make it through the night when he's good and ready." Even as I sit here and type I know the hypocritical nature of what I'm saying. But be that as it may, on we're rushing like a bull toward a waving red flag.

Let me recap. Wednesday night was actually the straw that broke the camel's back. Joshua went to bed at 7:30. He was up at 8:30, and again at 9:30. He slept until midnight, but then was up again until 2:00. Finally at 2 a.m. he fell asleep again until bright and early at 6:30. This is actually a pretty typical night, except for the two hour awake stretch, which he doesn't do too often. (And I know there are other factors to take into consideration, so please, I beseech all three of you who will read this, don't email me asking if he's napping to much or not enough, going to bed too early, or any other sleep concerns. I've done the research and we're doing the best we can!)

So Thursday night comes around and we decide . . . dum, dum, dum - that Joshua shouldn't nurse at night anymore. Big decision, HUGE for our family. We're not weaning him by any means (read about the many wonderful benefits of extended breastfeeding at the La Leche League website), but he's gotten to the point where he will not sleep without nursing. I really truly think he wakes himself up just to nurse, and so we were nursing four, sometimes five times in one night. Since I can't sleep when he's in the bed and Tim sleeps like the dead, co-sleeping is out, and at this point we HAD TO DO SOMETHING!!! It was rough, Thursday night. Friday was a little better, and Saturday about the same. Still waking regularly every two or three hours, but falling back asleep a little more quickly each time. Our family is not of the "cry-it-out" school, either, so we're trying to be as gentle as possible through the whole process. It's Sunday now, so we'll see how it continues throughout next week. We're committed for a week to the process, though, then we'll re-evaluate.

So that's our major life crisis at this point. If that's all that is wrong, we truly have something to be thankful about, don't you think?
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