Week 51

This past week has been......well, I won't say that.  Not very nice.  We managed to skip the shots and reschedule his appointment because the doctor's office realized that they'd set him up for his one year shots before he's technically a year old.  That was fortunate because it was all down hill from there.  

The kid cut SIX teeth!  All three of us have been sleep-deprived and feel like we've been through some sort of cruel and unusual baby-torture-punishment.  Insanity!  So. Much. Crying.  Kid oughta be able to chew nails now.

In other news---

I've been demoted.

Last week, we were eating Greek yogurt and after getting yelled at for not feeding him fast enough I just gave him a loaded spoon so I could eat my own in peace.  He did pretty good, but a lot of it did wind up on his face.

I bought these weird baby spoons (made by Sassy I think) that are bent at a right angle a few months ago, but he's been too uncoordinated to use them for anything other than banging on the tray.

This morning I figured if he was hungry enough he'd figure it out so I loaded one of those weird bent spoons with oatmeal and handed it to him.  Over and over and over again.  Like I said, demoted.  From spoon feeder to spoon loader.

"Bye-bye!"

"Stop taking my picture while I'm trying to eat."

For lunch he fed himself green beans and spaghetti.  He's always liked green beans and they're fairly easy to pick up, but he's been very anti-pasta which is not to be confused with Italian appetizers known as antipasto.

I guess I'm just amazed.  And proud.  And happy.  And working myself out of a job like I'm supposed to be.

Week 50

Last week just didn't happen.  The third week of it snowing in Alabama (thankfully all we got this time was several days of steady rain) and then the sunshine that drug me outside to soak up some Vitamin D while I had the chance, combined with a little road trip, and some house projects was just too much.  I couldn't get it together.  No photo.

This week shouldn't have happened.  Yesterday morning, Mayhem woke up with a fever of 100.5 and spent the whole entire day unhappy because the kid's mouth is releasing FIVE new teeth at the same time!  Agony on us both!  Last night was much the same, except no fever.  I even gave him some baby Tylenol, but it really didn't touch his pain.  This afternoon we're going to a funeral and tomorrow we're going to the doctor for his twelve month shots.  I heard he'll be getting five.  Two in the arm!  Poor baby!

Bye-bye!

Bye-bye!

11 Months

This goofy, little turkey is 11 months old today!

He likes listening to the train as it goes by,

serious banana and Cheerio lover,

Can you clap? (Only when he wants to.)

Can you sing?  (He has a little two-note "aaa-AAA.")

likes rolling "cars" and then banging them on whatever is closest,

calls crows as his Daddy says with this funny, inhale-y gasp,

The lip/facial expressions...gah!

wants to look at and touch everything,

likes looking out windows,

and loves his mama!

Week 48

Mayhem and my dad (and the biggest beard I've ever seen him with) looking at the dog.

He's looking a little Mountain Man-esque.

Angry

  This post is part of the Blue Bike Blog Tour, which I’m thrilled to be part of. To learn more and join us, head here.

   Reading Tsh's new book Notes From a Blue Bike caused some weird feelings for me.  It made me kinda mad, something I rarely feel when reading.  I'm certainly not angry at Tsh or anything that she wrote, but there was some obvious discomfort and discord within my soul.

  Why? Why would a book about intentional living upset a person so? What does it even mean to live intentionally? By definition, "intention" is defined by Merriam-Webster as an aim or purpose; therefore, you could easily say that to live intentionally is to live life with a reason, not just letting life happen on its own. 

  For the past few years, I've done specific things to try to point my life in the direction I'd like to have it go. Of course, things don't always work out the way that we plan, but having a plan that may not work is better than having no plan at all, right? Boots and I worked hard for us to pay down our debts so we would be able to afford for me to stay home with Mayhem because that's important to us. I don't always succeed, but I try to aim for what we eat to be real food and not processed junk because I care about what we're putting in our bodies. I save the bones from chicken and collect vegetable bits to make homemade chicken stock. I line dry most of our clothes, usually because the dryer isn't working, but sometimes just because I'm starting to like it. And I'm cheap.

  I'm angry because I'm comparing the life I have now to the life I want and have imagined. As much as we're doing on purpose to live a life slow and simple, there's an even longer list of what we're not doing. 

  Growing our own food would be even healthier and cheaper so I've tried to have a garden every year that we've lived here and short of planting it in the front yard or cutting all the trees down even with the ground, I just don't think it's ever going to happen. Our lot is just too shady. I'd love for us to have our own backyard chickens for eggs (and maybe to eat and make stock), but my law-abiding husband says that it's against the city's ordinances. Something that's a sore spot between Boots and I is our TV. I wish we could live without it because we have too much screen time, too little outside time.  But if I want Mayhem's life to be different from other kids' I need to start by changing my own, even though I can't throw the TV out.  I read this entire book on a screen as well as pecked out this blog post. I know I need to implement more screen-free days into my life so I will be forced to find other things to do.  This is something I know I should do, but don't, (cue guilt).  I have no desire to live anywhere other than America and the travel bug rarely bites me; however, one day when family vacations become a luxury we can afford, I'd like our pace to the destination to be slow as to allow opportunities to stop and discover whatever we see that catches our eyes instead of just blasting past, "Maybe next time we'll have time to stop." 

  These things are what Tsh describes as "No, not now," not, "No, never." My world doesn't have to fall apart because I'm not able to do all of the things I'd like to be able to do right now. I am a little competitive with myself (sometimes others) so I always want to do more and have a hard time not being in a hurry accomplishing things. Slow and steady wins the race, right? I think I need to reevaluate some of the things I want to do and maybe create a sort of timeline to calm me down. Nothing hard and fast, but specific things I'd like to be doing in five years or ten years down the road and what I can do now to propel us in that direction.

  Do you live intentionally? Are you upset that things aren't progressing quite like you'd hoped?  If you haven't even thought about what that means Notes From a Blue Bike is a great place to start.  Perhaps you'll be angry too! 

  P.S. Though I haven't in years, Tsh makes me want to go ride a bike.

  Notes From a Blue Bike is written by Tsh Oxenreider, founder and main voice of The Art of Simple. It doesn’t always feel like it, but we DO have the freedom to creatively change the everyday little things in our lives so that our path better aligns with our values and passions. Grab your copy here.

Our Weekend

If you saw on Instagram, Mayhem and I went to a friend's birthday party Saturday afternoon.  He was more than happy to sit on my lap people watching and eating pigs in a blanket, but when someone handed him a pink polka dotted balloon he really started to party!  I had to explain (several times) that balloons aren't for biting before he got the hang of pulling the string and slapping it around.  I haven't been that close to a balloon in years and it made me think back to my days of working at the drug store and realizing just how much I hated those latex, helium-filled personal explosion devices.  And that made me think back to figuring out how much I hate Valentine's Day which is coming up very soon.  After the presents (toys!) were opened it was so long mama and he crawled off in a hurry to go play.

Sunday was church day and in the name of saving time I had the not-so brilliant idea of washing us both simultaneously.  That went over like I had imagined (like a bag of hammers), but not like I'd hoped. There must be something terrifying about warm water falling down on you repeatedly.  Or maybe he was still mad about the burning sensation one feels after one has smeared yogurt in one's left eye.  I was just terrified I would drop him.  I kept imagining my smooth-skinned, hairless baby shooting out of my wet arms like a Vaseline-greased bar of soap and cracking his head on the ceiling.  Thankfully, nothing like that happened although he probably has a bruise on those fat thighs from my grip.

Last night when I was trying to get Mayhem to go back to sleep I thought about Jesus as a baby and what it must have been like for Mary.  Did His mother have this much trouble with Him sleeping all night?  Did she pray to God, "Lord, please make this kid go to sleep!"  Was Jesus a "textbook" or "angel" baby?  What was it like to raise a child that did not sin?  At least she didn't have to worry about Him sneaking out going for midnight joy-rides on the family donkey as a teenager.

Happy Monday, y'all!