summer!

me and peanut. crappy cell phone picture.

Isn't he sweet? You should see him at 9PM. It has come the time in the peanut's life which sleep has become quite a challenge. Once asleep, he stays asleep. But getting there is a fight. No, a Fight. A big fight with a capital F. At naps, we wear him to sleep, and we do this for the night-time too, sometimes. But he wants to fight fight fight. Tear off my glasses, scream bloody murder, flail, cry. And this is with me singing him gentle lullabyes or to the gentle sounds of Baby Tad.

On the up side, he's proving to be a very physically active kid. He can climb most things in our house, and he knows how to use one thing (like a bucket) to boost himself up to climb on something else (a bookshelf). SO I guess that means he's smart and knows how things work.

he climbed up this slide about 45 times

He likes to stand on odd things, like a bucket or a laundry basket turned upside down. Also his potty.

Oh, speaking of the potty, and TMI moment...He actually did #2 in the potty last week. Kind of not on purpose...but still. It was awesome. Since we cloth diaper, I have lots of moments in which I feel completely grossed out by poop. I look forward to at least having the poop happen in the potty.

Being in a 2 mom household means that we split lots of chores. But being generally more butch than J and also being a different kind of worker than she is, I am in charge of all things gross. I do the diapers, I scoop the litter box. I train the dog. I walk the dog and pick up the poop. I clean up pewk from said dog, cat and baby (if I'm home when it happens). I do all the rodent, dead bird in the yard, spider killing duties. Some nights, I feel pretty grossed out. But I'm glad we cloth diaper. I'm glad we have pets (though i wish the cat would stop peeing on the darn floor.

Not sure where I'm going with this. Oh well. We've been pretty busy and are gearing up for vacation. I love vacation, but my mother who is generally unsupportive of my happiness doesn't and I anticipate some turmoil. This will be especially true since the vacation is with J's family. We go to a cabin on a lake in northern MN every year. I end up feeling a world of guilt for going every year, but enjoy myself while there. We're driving. It's about 10 hours. 8 to St Paul and another 2 the next day to the lake we stay on.

Last year my mom gave me a hard time about it and I just am not looking forward to that. This is one thing that I know peanut will look forward to and treasure as he gets older. a week of family time with many cousins and his grandpa and his moms.peanut at the lake last year with mommy

This post is all over the place. Anyone have any ideas about family balancing acts?

Finally, it's pride weekend here this weekend and I unfortunately have to work. But I'm proud of my life and I'm proud of my family that makes me a better person every single day! Speaking of pride...one thing I'm doing for pride is trying to discover new gay family blogs. I stumbled upon this one called It's Daddies Plural and found they are having a giveaway. Check it out! And I found them through John and Steve are having a Baby. They have a great post on a bunch of gay families in honor of pride. One of my favorite bloggers is there, which is how I found John and Steve. It really pays to surf surf surf!

mama, mommy and peanut summer 09

B

Well, it seems like forever since i logged in to blog in and that makes me feel a bit overwhelmed now. Catching up is hard to do. You can't catch up on sleep for instance, and if you miss a dose of meds, you should wait till the next one is due, and though you can make up time if you leave late by speeding, this is dangerous and unlawful :)

But as a mom reporting about my life with the baby, i suppose i can maybe so some catching up, if I can remember at all what has happened since my guy returned from his trip to MN with Mama. MN was fun for my peanut, he enjoyed seeing his grandma and grandpa, and his little cousin. But I guess he didn't sleep as well, and he nursed more, and as a result, we are still getting back into a sleep routine that works and he gets sad in the morning if he doesn't get to nurse (which is most mornings). He gets over it, but asks often even as we go about our morning, eating breakfast and taking care of the dog.


This is what a calm moment in our typical morning looks like. Notice Winnie waiting for yummy food to drop.So what's going on for the baby? He's running faster than ever, has dropped down to one nap a day. wants to be outside all the time, and calls almost everything that starts with the letter "b" (and even some tings that don't) "B?" or "B!"
For banana, he says "B!" and signs for banana....but for other words we have to interpret what he means. B is for baby, balloon, boob (though we don't call them that), belly (though lately, he's calling it a "bee be", um, what else, window, bird, book, bed, bath...you name it. it's um, a bit of a challenge. A good one that i love, but a challenge none-the-less. Especially since this guy is very active, spirited and busy. Oh, and most of you who read this know very little about me, but the truth of the matter is, I'm slow...I take my time. So he gets his speed from Mama and his donor. Not from me or my nurturing influence. He gets annoyed and screams sometimes if we don't know what "B???!!" he means.

on a side note, mamas, mommies, babas, memes, mimis, and dads out there, I recommend a great singer we recently discovered. Check out Justin Roberts. Man is he fun. As I've been blogging this, I've had his "everything else starts with e" song in my head.
Other language victories are his mastery of the word "no". He says it, and knows what we mean when we say it AND he knows that yes or "ya" is the opposite of "no". We've been trying to say no less, since he says it so very much now, but it's hard when he's getting into everything to remember how to talk in full sentences.

Well, I've taken up enough of your time.

what's that in the grass

I'm a little sad because J and peanut are out of town for the next five days. I'm trying to stay upbeat about it, but it is hard to do. At least they will have fun with grandma and grandpa and p's cousin.

here are some recent cute pictures of my peanut. Oh how I miss you little guy!

with my wonderful partner.

swinging with his unfriend e. They fight all the time.

yep. chewing on a truck.

off topic

I don't know if I have a topic, but this is off if I do.

Feeling Better, but WAY behind

Thanks all for your comments! It's nice to feel like I'm being read these days. Blogging is something I've aspired to do for a while, and I guess the whole mommy thing made it even more important to me. But I find it less motivating to blog if no one reads but me...i mean, I know what's going on. You'd hardly believe it if I told you I got my MFA in poetry writing. I have a whole unpublished book of poetry that no one but a select few have read.

So, I am feeling good. AND the pink eye is gone. I'm way behind at work though (not evident by the fact that I'm doing this from my work desk during business hours...bad worker, bad). Today is college commencement. So I have a lot to do. I'm taking Peanut out tonight to celebrate the graduation of one of my students. That should be fun.

I'll try to post more in the coming week. As things settle down. Thanks again everyone who reads and comments. It makes my day when you do.

Peanut proving that yes, he does need a little chair, as this one has a hole in it.


Peanut throwing the ball to Winnie.

Spring Illnesses

So usually I consider myself to be pretty healthy. We are a healthy family overall. Peanut has had some coughs and colds, and some ear infections, but nothing big since a heart scare early on which ended up being pretty normal and not scary. Anyway, the point is, and maybe as I write this I realize the very fact that I'm in denial here, the point is, healthy...that's us. Well, as the post title hints, not so much just recently. I've been down with sinusitis and my very own (and very first) ear infection. I've actually missed two full days of work. And I don't do that. Plus I had to cancel my dog training class. It was terrible stuff. I think I'm on the upswing though. I've not coughed but a few times in the last hour.

So that's me, and though sick, I still made time to do this with peanut:

I'm trying to get in shape for summer and shed some of these extra lbs. So I walk with him on my back. Carrying an extra 23 lbs on your back is a workout. I just put him in the er;go and um, go! (note: if your little one is big like ours, get an er.go. They make baby carrying much easier) And it's been so nice being home with him so much. J and I noticed today that he's really getting so smart and aware of things. It's awesome.

Speaking of Peanut....Peanut had...wait for it....

Pink eye. I know! try putting eyedrop medicine in a squirming and noncompliant 14 month old. It's crazy fun. Another thing to be greatful for my partner for. Another reason to be glad I'm not alone.

We are watching with amazement the leaps P is taking in his development. He knows things now. He knows what he wants and knows a lot of the time how to ask for it. Language is still creative. He has some really clear words, like tickle, tea, hi, and ball (though he drops the ll sound). But then he also says dog, tree, teeth, head, banana, balloon, and tries to say other things. He's still signing, though he uses the same sign we taught him for potty for outside. That's my fault...oops.

In addidtion, if he hears the word "head" or "toes" he tries to break into the Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes song...pointing at each part...but he waits for us to join in keeping his little hand pointing to his head until we do. Sound cute? It is. Other songs he sings are Irish Lullabye and Itsy, Bitsy Spider.

Ok, and when I say he knows things, I was getting him dressed and we needed socks and shoes. So I said, what else do we need, and so he walked to the sock drawer *(which is on the other side of the room) and pointed at it. He knew what came next!

My smart boy.

Easter Pictures at Last

I don't have much to say right now. We had a great weekend because the weather finally warmed up. We went for a long walk together and enjoyed playing at the park on on our walk home from visiting a local baby store and a local toy store. We are shopping for a Tea set for peanut. He likes to pretend things and he loves his mama's tea. We didn't end up getting one, as they were all a little spendy for us right now, but we did get the polar opposite of a tea set (in that you throw it and spike it and we'd prefer he not do that with a tea set), which is a toy football in Chi.ca.go Be.ars colors. We had fun tossing it from stroller to street all the way home.


Easter Craft, we made lots of cute things, including a couple of felt "chocolate bunnies:"