Ten Minute Tuesday (Episode 1)

Last week Rachel Balducci of Testosterhome hosted her first "Ten Minute Tuesday." I thought it would be fun to do, so I tried it today. Rachel's been busy and didn't end up hosting today, but I figured I'd go ahead and publish what I wrote anyway...because I didn't feel like editing it and making it into a "real" post. The idea is that you set aside 10 minutes and just write whatever comes to your mind. Here's what I came up with.

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Ten minute Tuesday starts right here, right now. I’m currently seated with Joseph in his booster eating lunch. We had a lovely morning. We went to mass and Joseph hardly made a peep! Amazing. He’s been much better at mass lately. I think it has to do with us praying the rosary with him each night. We just started doing this about a week and a half ago.

*break to hand Joseph another Pringle*

Will holds him on his lap from the beginning of the rosary through the first mystery then we let him get down and play. He usually stays right by us and plays with his rosary and my husband’s rosary case. The first few days were rough. He screamed and fought Will almost the entire time, but now he sits there fairly calmly. And we’ve noticed a HUGE improvement in his behavior at mass.

Not only does he rarely fight us at mass anymore, but he also somehow began to understand that he should be quiet and not jabber the entire time.

*break to hand Joseph another Pringle*

He still talks a little, but it’s hardly noticeable anymore. So, if you’re having issues with behavior at mass I would recommend this technique. Will learned it from Steve Wood’s book – I don’t remember the exact title…something to do with fatherhood.

After mass we took a short walk to the park near our parish. Our church has a nice little walking path just behind it that goes…

*break to give Joseph another Pringle…*

…through the neighborhood behind the church.

*break to hand Joseph his water*

…There’s a park that’s only about a 10 minute walk. I had never taken him before, but we found ti just the other day and I wanted to check ti out. Joseph seemed to enjoy himself and I let him walk part of the way back, which he LOVES doing because he can pick up sticks and leaves and pine cones and and and.

*break to give Joseph another Pringle + water only to have no idea what he’s asking for. He eventually settles for the Pringle.*

After our short walk and park excursion we headed home. It was almost nap time and I needed to get the laundry started.

7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 44)

1) Will and I officially started budgeting this month. I've been meaning to do a full post on it, but just haven't gotten around to it yet. I haven't done a very good job with the food/household budget. I managed to spend about 80% of the budget within the first 2 weeks. Sooo, these last two weeks I have only been able to buy what we absolutely need at the grocery store which has been a good learning experience for me. It has definitely kept my impulse buys in check. And I have avoided Target like the plague. It'll be interesting to see how this last week of our first month with an actual set budget goes.

2) I've noticed recently that I have a horrible habit of interrupting people when they're talking. This is particularly the case when I'm talking on the phone. I don't know where I learned this habit (maybe it was just not corrected enough as a child) or why I do it, but I'm starting to get annoyed with myself - and I'm sure my friends are, too. My dear friends - I'm working on this. Please be patient with me :)

3) The whole napping situation is getting better. We've been working on getting Joseph on more of a set schedule and I think it's helping. I am at least able to get him to sleep in his crib now (after falling asleep in my arms or the car). This is a huge improvement from a couple weeks ago. Hopefully the situation will continue to get better and maybe one day he'll let me put him in his crib to fall asleep like he used to do.

4) Joseph is starting to love basketball. We got him a little hoop for his birthday and he loves to put balls in it. He also really enjoys playing basketball with his daddy. It's pretty adorable to watch.

A boy can never have too many balls.

5) We had our anatomy ultrasound this week and found out we're having another boy! We're very excited for Joseph to have a brother. Now all we need is a matching onsie that says "Little Brother."

6) Now that we know we're having a boy I spent the past couple days going through baby clothes trying to figure out if we had enough warm stuff for baby #2. It was a little overwhelming trying to think about what exactly we would need. Joseph was born in the middle of summer and I was worried we wouldn't have any warm stuff, but he had a fair amount of clothes that we can reuse. And today I went to a baby sale and filled out the winter wardrobe for both of the boys on the cheap. Man I love those baby sales.

7) Joseph's new hangout is under the changing table. He pulls out the drawers then crawls inside. The funny (irritating?) thing is he can get himself in there but can't get himself out, so I hear him yell for help getting out many times a day now.
Last night my husband thought it would be fun to leave him in there and just play with him. Joseph seemed to enjoy it....

Daddy stacked a bunch of toys on me!

Have a lovely weekend, and go see Jen for more Quick Takes!

"Dirty" Associations

Joseph recently learned the word "dirty." Well, he learned to say the word "dirty." We're still working on connotation. He knows that if I tell him that something is dirty he isn't to touch it (and he generally doesn't). But, if I say "yucky" he says back "dirty." Which, as we all know yucky and dirty aren't synonyms.

When I referred to his hours-old, browning, disgusting-looking, cut-up banana from breakfast at 3 o'clock in the afternoon (which he asked to eat) as "yucky" he immediately responded "dirty." All I could think was "weeeeeellll, not exactly, but I'll take it. And now I'm going to clean your tray."

When he began to grab at the lamp I said "don't touch that, you'll go directly into time out" he said "dirty." Again...close, but not quite. At least he associates "don't touch" with "dirty," right?

While we continue to work on his understanding of the word dirty I'll just revel in the fact that he has become so proficient at another new and exciting word.

The New Normal

Today marks day 1 of Operation Daily Routine. Joseph has been having serious issues with (not) napping for the past few weeks. It hasn't been pretty. He pretty much refuses to nap in his crib anymore. In my arms, the car or his stroller? No problem. But most definitely not the crib. I'm really unsure what caused the sudden change, but I sure want to fix it.
After consulting Facebook, my pediatrician sister and Dr. Ferber we decided he desperately needs a consistent daily routine. So, beginning today he has a set schedule that we're going to follow for a few weeks and see if it helps. If after a few weeks it still isn't helping we'll re-evaluate the situation.
And because I know you're dying to hear what this schedule is I shall post it below.

7:30am - wake up
7:30-7:45(ish) - breakfast
12:00 - lunch
12:30-1:00 - Joseph goes down for a nap
4:00 - snack
7:00-7:30 - dinner
9:00 - bedtime

Before coming up with this schedule the only consistent activity we had for him was bedtime. Hopefully this will help.
So far today has been - eh. He wasn't particularly happy about being woken up at 7:30 then didn't eat his breakfast very well because he isn't used to eating that early so he kind of munched on his breakfast for an hour or so before finishing it. Lunch and nap time have been ok, but he ended up sleeping on our bed again. I hope to nix this starting tomorrow, but wanted him to have at least one day getting used to going down at 1pm.
Snack is going swimmingly. But, the kid loves to eat so I wasn't worried about any of that.

Did I mention that it's just lovely outside today? We might go hang out outside for a while after snack.

7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 43)

A friend of mine sent out a family update email today which has inspired me to write this post. I originally started this blog with the intention of keeping a journal of our family - I wanted something I could look back on to remember the little things that happened. Unfortunately, I've only been posting about major events lately and neglecting to record some of the more mundane and, to me, interesting parts of life. I'm going to try to do a better job of keeping up ... we'll see how it goes.

1) Joseph's naps have been very erratic lately. He went from taking two naps a day to not wanting to nap at all. I did push the two-nap thing a little through my 1st trimester, but he didn't seem to mind and would take two good naps for me. But literally the day I entered my 2nd trimester is when he started fighting his naps. And this past Saturday he went on a nap strike altogether. He tried to strike again on Sunday, but ended up falling asleep with me on the couch in the late afternoon. This week has continued to be a little rough on the nap front. And the fact that Joseph has been a little sick (just a runny nose, really) hasn't helped the matter. The only way I've been able to get him to nap is by holding him and singing him to sleep or having him nap in the car. Neither of which are very good options. He has even started rejecting his before-nap books. He'll let me read the first few pages then he shuts the book as if to say he isn't interested in napping.
He generally needs at least one nap or he gets super clingy/cranky. I'm just not sure what to do about it.

2) Joseph has recently started saying "mama." I think he quasi-associates it with me which is super exciting. He also tried to say "ok" yesterday a couple different times. It's very similar to "uh-oh" which is why I think he likes it. I also taught him to say "dirty" today. As in, "The dustpan is dirty. We don't reach in to grab the dirt mom just swept up" or "The trash can is dirty. We don't reach in to pull out used diapers."

3) Joseph has also been teething like crazy lately. Starting right around 13 months I noticed he was getting his baby molars in on the bottom. Those were soon followed by the top bi-cuspids (the teeth between the incisors and baby molars ... I think that's what they're called) which are still working their way in. But in the mean time his top baby molars and bottom bi-cuspids have started coming in as well. All but the bottom bi-cuspids have broken through the gums. So, within the course of one month he's gotten 6 (soon to be 8) teeth. Crazy!

4) My belly grew last night. It's so weird how that happens when you're pregnant. I mean - not that it's weird that it gets larger, but that you'll wake up and feel that it is larger than when you went to sleep the night before.

5) I've been on the hunt for a couch this week. With it being Labor Day weekend I figured I'd be able to get a good deal (and I can), but I can't seem to make a decision. I've found a few that I like, but for some reason I just can't take the plunge. I feel like it's a lot of money to spend and ever since Will and I came up with a yearly budget for me to spend on stuff for the house...well...I've been much more cautious with my spending. Pretty much all these couches would eat up the remainder of the budget for the year, and I'm not sure I'm ok with that. I'm leaning towards putting off the purchase until next year so I can just roll over some money from this year and combine it with next year's budget. That way I won't eat up my entire budget 4 months before the year is over. And this way I can buy a few other more necessary things before the baby arrives (ahem, a crib). There will be more sales, right?

6) Joseph has been obsessed with the book "Good Night, I Love You" lately. He'll have us read it anywhere from 4-10 times in a row. He's also still fairly obsessed with "Llama, Llama, Wakey Wake."

7a) Two of my mommy friends (you might know Lisa) moved to TX this week (one last weekend, one this weekend). I'm sad to see them go, but it gives me a liiiiiiittle more leverage for convincing Will that we should move to TX (like that's ever going to happen...). I can dream, right?

7b) I'm super excited for the long weekend. Yay for having my husband home for 3 days in a row!!!

Aaaand this basically turned into a 7 (errr...8) Quick Takes Friday, so I guess I shall publish it as such.

Joseph's First Birthday

Joseph turned ONE (!!!) last month. Yes, I realize this post is super tardy, but it took a while to get the pictures and then other stuff happened and yadda yadda yadda. I'll stop making excuses now.

Joseph's birthday was tons of fun. We are so fortunate that many of our family members were able to come into town to help us celebrate. It was so nice to be able to share the weekend with them, and I was delighted that Joseph was able to spend some extra time with family that he doesn't see very often. 

The general theme for the party was initially basketball then sort of morphed into a blue/orange/ polkadot/basketball party - all of which are awesome. I used the same format for the day of the party that my sister used for my neice, Clare's, 1st birthday. I especially liked that it allotted special time for family to celebrate before the chaos of the big birthday party. The day of the party format was: lunch and presents with family starting at noon then a cake party with both friends and family starting at 2.

I am so grateful to my family for their help with setting up. I had so many big plans and got waaaay behind. For some reason I thought I could do everything on my own - what was I thinking? Thankfully they were able to help me pull everything together and the party went really well. 

I "made" Joseph's basketball shirt for the party a few days ahead of time by painting his name and the number 1 on the back so it looked like a basketball jersey (sort of). The front already had a basketball on it. I tried to make his cake match his shirt, but I'm not sure how well I accomplished this goal. You be the judge (it was the first time I attempted to ice a cake....after my first disastrous attempt earlier in the day....so maybe you can cut me some slack).

Joseph didn't have too much interest in opening presents (sadly), but he did do a little. Tearing paper he understood and enjoyed fairly well, but pulling tissue paper out of a bag he didn't understand quite as much. He got lots of neat books and really enjoyed looking through them. About halfway through opening his presents he got tired and ended up having to go down for a nap.

(yes, I realize the 1 is crazy crooked)

After his little nap, Joseph geared up for the rambunctious part of the day.

The balloons were a huge hit. I didn't actually mean for them to be entertainment, but I think I'll just fill a room with balloons next year and call it a day. The kids went crazy over them!

After playing for a while it was time for some cake. I made a little basketball cake for Joseph while the big basketball jersey cake was for everyone else.

We gathered everyone in the kitchen, put Joseph in his high chair and everyone began to sing. I was surprised when Joseph nearly cried. He looked absolutely terrified. He's usually a little ham - always looking for attention from complete strangers. I think he was just shocked by everyone singing together and looking at him all at once??? Anyway, he survived.

It took some time, but he eventually ate his cake - and loved it!

After getting all sugared up the kids played a little more then everyone headed home. The family then spent some more time hanging out.

Notice the birthday banner - that I made with the help of my
sisters - at the top. This is the only picture I have of it.

We finished the weekend with a "photo shoot" of Joseph and Clare.

7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 42)

1) I haven't been blogging lately because I've been tired. So, I've pretty much been sleeping any time Joseph has been sleeping. Which means I get very little done online or around the house. Also, I feel like our life has been fairly boring. So, there's that. (Yes, I have posts on Joseph's birthday and my sister's wedding coming soon!)

2) I've been tired because...

...I've been busy growing another child.

3) We're super excited about it, and it's been killing me not telling anyone. But we prefer to wait until the second trimester to tell the big news. (A post about why we wait to tell is also in the works...)

4) Yes, we're going to find out whether we're having a boy or girl. We get to find out next month.

5) Since becoming pregnant I've seriously considered giving up on my new years resolution. Sweets seem to be even harder to avoid now. I very often just want a chocolate chip cookie. Or a brownie. Or anything chocolate-y.

6) I finally decided today at mom's group that I'm at least altering my resolution. Now I'm only giving up sweets Monday-Thursday. So, I'll treat myself on weekends and try not to go overboard on those three glorious weekend days.

7) We can't wait to meet this sweet baby around February 13, 2013!!

Happy weekend, ya'll!