Christmas Morning for Little J

I saved $5 per month, for about two years, so that I could buy furnish my "Children's Art Area" and this summer I planning on taking my savings and heading on down to IKEA. But then I thought "Why not wait until Christmas and kill two birds with one budget, I mean stone? " And that is how this magical Christmas came about.

From his reaction I think it was a good idea. The fact that IKEA has recently been lowering prices- which enabled me to get about twice the fun stuff is just the frosting.

Where'd my Little Baby Go?

Last week I made a horrible realization. Little J's Curls are not coming back. I cut his hair a few months ago and as I cut off the precious curls I quietly said to myself, "They will grow back, They will grow back" and I realize now that I lied. This is a picture of J last week. Sure, it has a little bit of a wave too it, and if I work hard and use some product I can coax a few curls out, but it is just not the same.

So on Saturday night, I cut his hair again. Previously I have used the scissors on the top, or maybe I should say "Attempted" to use scissors, because I kind of like a little length, but this time I decided to make it easy on myself and use the clippers for everything. We used the largest guard we have, #8 or 1 inch, for the top and then #4 for the back and sides.

The first thing I realized it that J's hair didn't want to be cut that short. It would willingly flow right into the guard on the clippers and then somehow manage to get out without being cut! I guess I need lessons. I fixed the situation by holding on to the chunk of hair that I intended to cut so that it couldn't get away. Soon, my little baby looked like a scared little sheep that had been sheered for the first time.

When I went into his room the next morning I did a double take. Even worse when I picked him up from nursery I looked right at him and didn't recognize him. I guess I will get used to it, unless we start paying for someone else to cut his hair, this is what he is going to look like for the rest of his childhood. I am thankful for the little bit of a wave that his hair has, as my sweet cousin pointed out, that waviness will hide a multitude of his mothers hair cutting mistakes! He really is a Cute Little Boy, isn't he. I guess he is not my baby anymore.

Anyone know where I can find a new baby?

Cold!

Over the past month of so I have been collecting items to make Snow Fun! Last week I bought a Toboggan. In my head I pictured Little J and one of his parents sitting on the disk toboggan together and sliding happily down the small hill next to our house, when I got the toboggan home I started to read the fine print- Max Weight 150 pounds. Well that ruled parents out of the picture and so Baby J got to ride down the hill alone. I don't know if anyone else noticed, but it snowed on Sunday and Monday and so after Ken got home from work on Monday J and I forced him to go play in the snow with us.

We placed J on the toboggan and gave him a push, he quickly fell over.
Then we had the bright idea to lay him on his stomach, and Viola! Perfect Sliding! Down and down he went went with a big old smile on his face.
He was able to slide down that hill so fast that his hood and hat both flew off. At the bottom of the hill he would slow to a stop, usually he was able to keep his face out of the snow.
I think he liked it! I may even brave the cold sometime later in the week and take him out to play again. Maybe if the high temp gets above 20.

Santas and Ladders and Beards, Oh My!

What a fun few days we have had. Our church had a Christmas party. Surprisingly, Little J was afraid of Santa, he was also up past his bedtime and on the verge of a melt down so he may have liked Santa and just not been able to express it.

The Party had a Mexican theme and J really enjoyed his burrito, it was the first time he had ever had one, but I think he will be having more in the near future. He was especially cute to watch as he attempted to get the whole thing into his mouth at once.

After a Nativity program they broke out the Piñatas, they even had one especially for kids between 18 months and 3 years old. I don't think it will surprise you to know that it took quite along time for these kids to break the piñata. It may look like J was about to wail on that thing, but he was all bark and no bite he would approach with a mighty swing and then lightly tap the piñata. It was hilarious.

Ken and I worked together to put Christmas lights up on our house. It took about 3 hours and when we were done we noticed that one of the strands wasn't working. I plugged them in the next day and the strand in question was working, then I checked a few hours later and it was out again- Maybe it is on a really really slow blink....... who knows, at some point this week I am going to climb up the ladder again and push in all the LED's to make sure their connections are good, hopefully that will take care of the problem.
Do you remember last winter when Ken got some strange sores around his mouth and chin? The Doctor thought is was Staph, but it turned out not to be, and they went away so we didn't bother finding out what it was. Well the sores came back a couple of weeks ago. Ken learned his lesson last time, the lesson being, Shaving the sores causes them to spread. So he took a few weeks off shaving, ending up with the good beginnings of a beard. Well the sores were pretty much gone and so Ken decided it was time to shave.....
What do you think? From the nose down he kind of looks like Wolverine. Don't worry, he shaved the rest of it off too, eventually.

This Christmastime!

Last year we put the tree in a corner and surrounded it with furniture facing the opposite direction- this protected the tree well from tiny little hands but made the tree hard to see. Our tree was also a hand-me-down that a kind coworker had given me a few years before. The tree was big and beautiful but my friend was a cat owner and the cats had loved the tree, Ken is allergic to cats. So after Christmas was over I went to Wal-Mart and bought a new- cheap tree and because of a tip from a friend I also bought a few packages of branch garland. I rounded out the shopping trip by purchasing some new Shatterproof ornaments. Did I mention that all of this stuff was 50% off, I loved that. So I brought my Christmas dreams home and quickly put them in the basement storage room. where they would wait for 11 months.

Well it is now CHRISTMASTIME! and today I rearranged the living room furniture, this time with the couches facing the spot where I wanted to put the tree. And then I put up the new tree- the picture on the box was of a beautiful, full, well lit tree. Well when I got the tree up I discovered that it was well lit. But it was not beautiful or full. I fluffed it, but there were still several places that you could see straight through. So I took out the garland and started stuffing it into the bare spots- WOW! It worked great.

Now the Tree is decorated and Little J is learning that he is not allowed to touch let alone take the ornaments off. He is actually doing very well at this. He likes to be praised for obeying-(that was Sundays lesson in nursery and our FHE lesson last night- "I will Obey")- I have plans to buy another free standing baby gate if he suddenly decides that obedience is no fun.

I even found a place to put the Alpine Trees that I got the day after Thanksgiving a couple of years ago. Since the Christmas Tree is upstairs and we spend time downstairs too, I think these trees will help us to feel the joy of the season while we are down there. You can't see them too well, but these trees even have little tiny ornaments.

Happy Holidays to all, and to all a Goodnight!

Telling Stories

A few weeks ago I got an email from Shutterfly offering me a free photo book. I made a photo book for our wedding album and it turned out quite nice and so I jumped at the chance to get a new book full of pictures from the first 18 months of little J's life. I quickly started to upload pictures, then discovered I had no Idea how to upload pictures and gave up. I thought the time limit had past but last week they sent me another email telling me that I had just a few days left to create and order my free book. So I did. I am so excited.

I had an idea, I wanted to make a story book. I asked Ken "If Jared could tell you a story, what would you want it to be about?" Ken answered that he would love to hear a story about Jared and his friends Peter- the Penguin and Griff- the Hippo and how they saved the world from Bad Guys! So I wrote a story- it is called Dad-Napped and it is about a day when J wakes up to find that his Dad is missing, and he, Peter and Griff set about to find him and save him from the Bad Dad-Nappers- because after all if Dad is missing then someone must have taken him, right? They fear that if they don't rescue Dad that they will never have any fun, ever again.

After the story was written I took a few pictures , and then put the book together. It took a few hours but it will be well worth it when it comes in the mail, just in time to give to Ken as a Christmas Present- and yes Ken knows about it, he read and approved the story and even participated in the photo shoot- there are some surprises that I added to the book later though.

Here is one of the scenes from the book- Little J, Peter and Griff are climbing into the loft because that is the last place they remember seeing Dad.

I also told a different and true story to Utah Valley Magazine today. I put in an entry to participate in their annual Fitness Challenge. Every year they pick 4 or 5 Utah Valley Residents and give them a Trainer for a year, then they track their progress in the Magazine each month.

I figured I would put my name in for it, because you can not beat a free trainer, and I feel like I am at the point where I could use some help with my weight loss.

I told them that I felt I would be a good contestant in their challenge because-

1- I have a great need to lose weight- no I am not obese- but I do have a strong family history of Type II Diabetes as well as other weight related issues- high blood pressure, high cholesterol- and that I have been told by several doctors that if I could loose weight and keep it off I had a good chance of postponing the onset of those disease for several years.

2- I have a son who was born with a Congenital Birth Defect, that it was not life threatening but that he needed surgery to fix it. I participated in the National Birth Defect Study and after I was done they sent me information that they had learned from the study. To my Horror the first thing I saw was that one of the biggest risk factors for my Son's Birth Defect was the Mother being Overweight. We have a 10% chance of future sons having the same problem, if I am a normal weight I may be able to lower that percentage even more. If I had known that my weight could affect my sweet baby, that I could have possibly prevented his pain from Surgery, I would have.

3- I have lost and gained and lost the same 15 pounds over and over again over the past 3 years. I need help, I need a Mentor, someone who teach me how to prevent injuries, how to make the most of my workouts- as a Mom you really don't get a ton of time- and how to nourish my body well so that it is willing to give its precious stores of fat. I believe that type of Mentor would call themselves a Trainer and I do not have the resources to pay a trainer.

4- I realize that I am not Obese, but I am overweight, and I consider myself a good example of a Utah Valley Mother, right in the middle of the road, trying hard but not quite getting the results I want. I would be an amazing success story if they chose me. I have been able to lose that 15 pounds again on my own, but I want to do what the doctors have told me I need to do, I want to lose about 40-45 more pounds, I know I can and I know I can do it within the next year with their help.

This is the picture I submitted. It was taken this last summer before I lost the 15 pounds (though I didn't tell them that...I mean I told them I had recently lost weight on my own but not that this picture was pre-weight loss)

So, if you could remember me in your prayers, maybe if it is meant to be, I will be blessed with a trainer for a year.

Sickeys- It should be our new last name.

What a week we have had. A couple of weeks ago I whined about being stuck at home, quarantined, and possibly even sick with the swine flu. Well, I was never quite sure if we actually got it. Little J had a low grade fever for about 5 days, at times he was slightly fussy, but mostly he was just J with a fever. He could have been teething- we have been dealing with the pending eruption of the eye teeth (is that how you spell eye in those teeth? You know, the K9's, or as I have decided, his Vampire Teeth) for a month or two already- so it is hard to tell if he was sick or not. Well I decided that he was better and that he needed to re-learn how to get back to sleep in the middle of the night without Mommy intervention. After all, Mommy needs to sleep at night too.

I think there are a lot of Mom's out there like me, I can not stand to hear my baby cry, let alone SCREAM, when I know the reason he is crying is because he wants me. But I also know that SLEEP is very important and very underrated and so I am having to learn how to deal with letting my baby cry. The Wheeler family is big on White Noise and their favorite kind of White Noise if from a Box Fan. So each night there is a box fan in each bedroom, turned to the highest setting possible. I also place a pillow on top of my head to muffle any other noise that my Mommy ears can pick up. The first couple nights were really hard. I could still hear him, and worse I could hear phantom crying- I hate phantom crying! (Does anyone else hear babies crying when they aren't?) But finally, FINALLY we started to get full nights of sleep again. Then on Wednesday morning I woke up around 2 and I couldn't go back to sleep, all seemed quiet in the house and so I wandered downstairs and watched the History Channel until I was tired again and then slept on the couch for a few hours. Ken came to see me before he left for work and about an hour after that I went to get J up for the day.

As I entered his room I could smell it. Vomit. Yuck. I am not good with Vomit, in fact I call myself a sympathetic vomiter, because usually just the smell or sound of it is enough to get me to join in the Non-Fun. Luckily some sort of Mommy Override kicked in and I was able to help my sick little baby all day with out being "Overly Sympathetic". The poor baby had a fever as well and so he was super cuddly all day long. He and I both had to change our clothes a few times. I did 4 loads of laundry and discovered that I can cover my couch in blankets and protect it from the yuckiness....I didn't think about covering the carpet until it was too late.

It must have been a 24 hour virus, because by 2 am the next morning he was hungry. How do I know? Well he was sick, so I raised my ban on Mommy visits in the middle of the night and when he cried I went to comfort him. As he lay on the changing table I noticed that he was signing. "Milk" he said. "You want some Milk?" I asked "Milk, Milk, Water." came the signed reply. "OK, do you want Milk or Water?" "Food, More Food, Milk, Water, More Food" I am pretty sure there were a couple of "!" in there too. Those little hands were flying and I was laughing. So we got the new diaper and then took a Sippy full of milk down stairs. He had been so forceful about his need for Milk, Water and Food, but in the end he only drank about a 6th of the milk then he turned and put his head on my shoulder. We sat together like that for a few minutes and then I took him back to bed. I went to bed smiling, envisioning those little hands telling me exactly what he wanted. "Food, More Food"

Thursday was a pretty normal day- No Vomit- that is all I really cared about.

Friday wasn't quite as normal. I made a decision about my physical well being that day. My knee has been hurting me the past couple of weeks and I decided that the wait and see period probably needed to come to an end. I needed to make a choice. The first choice I made was that I would have to stop running for a while, and so on Friday I walked....my knee still hurt. I decided that I needed knew shoes, maybe that would help, after all my shoes are too old and they needed to be replaced anyway. So I did some research online and after Ken got home from work we took a shopping trip so I could try on some new running shoes. We hit two or three stores and then it was time for dinner. Luckily there was a Wendy's nearby and so we had a Value Menu Meal.

About an hour after eating, I started to feel sick. I knew then that I should have taken my Chicken Sandwich back when, after taking my first bite, I felt that it wasn't hot enough. So I had what I believe was a very cleansing case of Food Poisoning. No fever, just aches and pains and Non-Sympathetic Grossness! Yuck. I HATE being sick. Luckily Ken was there to make sure I was OK as I sat on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night. On the bright side on Saturday afternoon I weighed 3.2 pounds less than I had on Friday. Too bad that on Sunday I gained 2 of those pounds back, Food, it will do that too you. Anyway, I am feeling fine now.

Ken had taken a bite of my sandwich and all through the day on Saturday he was fine, but when the night came he started having similar symptoms, Nausea, Aches and Pains. Unfortunately for Ken the fan was on High and I had a pillow over my head, so I didn't hear him when he was awake in the middle of the night hoping for an end to the sickness....Sorry Sweetie.

We were both pretty tired from the week of wretchedness at our house and so last night we went to bed at 9:30. This morning I woke up at 5:15! Bright Eyed, and if I had a tail I am sure it would have been bushy. We are happy to be healthy again. Here hoping that we stay that way.

And finally, I want to update you on my exercise and weight loss...After my venting email my Brother in Law, Lets call him T-Dawg, or maybe Mr. Soprano, (hmmm you know who you are, what do you want to be called?) anyway, he sent me a message telling me that he understood where I was coming from and that he was trying to get in better shape- he doesn't need to lose weight, just stay healthy. He invited me to be his Workout Buddy- well his words were "Let's follow up with each other" but that, to me, means that we are Buddies. So anyway, it has been really nice. I always tell Ken when I work out and he always smiles and tells me I am doing a good job, but when I don't workout, Ken doesn't push the subject. But now I have someone who will push me, and I can push him. The fact that we are separated by 500 miles or so will keep us from physically hurting each other if we slack off too much. But so far both of us have done really good I think. So Thanks Workout Buddy, Your Great!

Hopefully I will have new shoes soon, and a few weeks of walking will be good for me. I also need to do more and better stretching exercises, so if anyone has some favorites, let me know. Next month I am going to give running, in my new shoes, a try and if my knee still hurts I will go see a Sports Medicine Doctor. Wish me luck.