Can I comb your hair, Mom?

I was playing with my son last night in his room.  We were on the floor and in usual boy fashion he was banging, pounding, and playing.  Abruptly, he ran from the room, and returned holding a comb. 
"Dis?"  he said to me.
I said, "It's a comb." 
He walked up closely to me, and began combing my hair.  I melted into a puddle.  He combed my hair for several moments and ran out of the room, returning again with a brush.
"Dis?"  he asked.
"It's a brush."  I said.  He starts the same process of brushing my hair.  Then he alternated, some with the comb, some with the brush.  So terribly sweet.

The Hairbrush

Last night when I was getting my son ready for bed, I was brushing his hair, and he said, "WHASIS?"  which I translate roughly to "What's this?"  I said, "It's a brush." and then I put his hand around the brush, and my hand around his hand and proceeded to show him how to brush his hair.  He yanked his hand away from mine and said, "Idoit."  And commenced to brush his hair.  I was shocked and pleasantly surprised.

New Mom Fortifying Breakfast

My poor baby is teething and cutting his top two teeth, and has an ear infection to boot.  I've been up every 2 hours for the last two nights, and have only had 5 hours sleep last night.  While that's not downright sleep deprivation, I do feel tired... well, that was until I had my fortifying breakfast.  It consisted of the following:

• 2 Tylenol - for aches and pains from carrying a 25 lb child
• 3 fish oil for brain power
• 1 multi vitamin
• PSA--check with your doctor before taking supplements and medications.  :)
• 1 egg, two whites with milk and cheese - scrambled
• 1 serving of cottage cheese topped with blueberries for anti-oxidants, brain power, and flavor.
• water
• coffee to wash it all down.

I'm feeling more ready for the day by the moment!  I tried to keep the carbs low so that I wouldn't be tired.

Sweetest Moments

The sweetest moments in life can fly by you so quickly if you're not paying attention.  It's so easy to get caught up in busyiness... and when you do you get robbed of joy.  This happened to me very recently, and I was reminded by my Creator that life happens fast, and if I'm grumbling, I'll miss the sweetest moments.  I've been collecting sweetest moments for two days now.  My favorite sweetest moment is today, when I took Gregory to the beach.  We played in the sand, we went in the water, and went for a walk.  Gregory took it all in.  I decided it was about time for something to eat, so I took the baby back to our blanket, and gave him a cracker and his sippy cup full of water.  He looked up at me as if to say, "Thanks mom", and then started to eat.  While he was eating his cracker quietly, a seagull came up, rather agressively, and I knew that his goal was to get my son's cracker.  So I surrounded my son with myself as best I could by sitting in front of him, with a plastic shovel, ready to swat away any bird that might steal my sons food.  Gregory sat there, oblivious, enjoying his cracker, with his sun hat on, and his sippy cup near.  It's silly, but that's one of my sweetest moments for today.

The next sweetest moment is when I just put him down for a nap, and he let me hold him and rock him-- these days he's to busy for that.  It was wonderful just to hold my son.

Don't let your sweetest moments be absorbed in busyness or ridiculousness. :)

Portable Fabric Baby Chair Restraint

Since I'm going to Chicago in a couple of weeks, I knew I'd need a high chair, or at least a way to hold the baby down so we could feed him.    So I created this seat out of fabric and sewed it up.  It took me about an hour, so that wasn't bad.  These aren't great pictures -- the lighting was all wrong!  But they show how it works.  Tomorrow I'm going to feed Gregory at the table using this. 

Here he is all strapped in.

Here's my newly created child restraint device.

Here he is again investigating his new system. 

First Trip to the Beach

I don't know why I'm this way, but I dread new things.  Maybe dread is a strong word.  Too strong.  Okay.  I don't dread new things.  I don't like the unknown about something.  Unknown=dangerous for me.  I don't know why either.  I'd never taken Gregory to the beach, but I knew I was ready to take him.  So I decided I was going to take Gregory to the beach when my friend Pam invited us. 

We went to a private beach near our home, and so that cut out on commuting time. 


First he was just sitting in the sand, picking it up with his fingers.  I was nervous he was going to try to eat it, but he decided that he didn't like the texture-- so he didn't try.  Horray!

Then he saw the water, and started crawling towards it.

and stopped to play with the shovel I gave him.

and found a seeweed.

Overall it was a really good visit to the beach, and I'm glad we went.    I'm also glad we did something new.  And I'm thinking we'll have more trips to the beach.  :)  It was definetely fun, and worth the effort!  :)

30 day challenge: Challenge 2: A clean kitchen.

I was rooting around on blogspot today, and found some blogs that I liked.  One woman, had a picture of her kitchen sink, full of dishes, having cooked for 4 hours to create some marvelous things.  Her dirty kitchen sink was cleaner looking in appearance than my clean sink.  I became disgusted!  I rolled up my sleeves and went to work in my kitchen.  I gave my son some cut up green beans to keep him busy-- he's just learning to eat finger foods-- and I went to work!

 I scrubbed and scrubbed my kitchen.  And I decided for my second challenge:  30 days, a clean kitchen.  Now to make this possible, I have to come up with several problem solvers before they start.  I don't want to spend all my time in the kitchen.  SO I made two dinners tonight in order that I wouldn't have to cook tomorrow night.... thereby making my efforts to save money and have a clean kitchen more feasible.  In previous attempts to have a clean kitchen, I would simply stop cooking.  But since this is not an option, now that I have a wiley 10 month old, and it's easier to eat in then it is to go out.  Cheaper too! 

Here are the results of my efforts.

Which were immediately hampered by my son!  Who made me think that keeping a kitchen clean for 30 days with a 10 month old would be more of a challenge than I want to take on!