I'm just saying...

Older Son, Newer Tricks

2011-11-16T00:35:00.000-05:00

Daniel commented recently that when Ben goes to school, all his teachers will know that his mom used to be an English teacher. I have no idea why he would say that:

He is really proud of how well he can hold up two fingers. I honestly think he practices when he's by himself.

I know I owe the whole world pictures of baby Isaac. Unfortunately, our camera's flash exploded or something, so I can only take decent pictures when there is plenty of light and my subjects are completely still. That happens exactly never. This is the most recent non-blurry picture we have of the little guy:

See how he's swaddled, indicating that he should be going to sleep, but instead he's making weird faces? That pretty much sums up my life right now. Except that he's smiling more and more. Oh man, I love baby smiles.

And I'm posting one last picture just because I find it amusing. We took the boys to the Denver Firefighters Museum on Monday. Ben loved it and learned the important message seen here:

He now likes to pretend that various items in our house are on fire, and then he makes them stop, drop, and roll. Hooray for fire safety and funny little boys!

Baby Isaac's Birth Story

2011-10-05T16:44:00.000-04:00

When you have a scheduled C-section, this is how your birth story should go:

39 weeks, September 22, 4:45am

Daniel and I woke up very, very early on Thursday, September 22. Per our instructions, we made it to the hospital at 5am (my parents arrived the day before to take care of Ben), and everything proceeded smoothly from there. My surgery was scheduled for 7am, but they were ready for me a little early - so precious Isaac Miller Wiginton was born with zero complications by 7:07am. He was 20-1/4 inches long and weighed 8 lbs, 7 oz. Besides having the exact same hair, I don't think he looks much like newborn Ben. Like Ben, though, he is ridiculously cute.


Maybe he looks so unlike Ben because he is WAY bigger?

My recovery went really smoothly. I knew what to expect this time, and I was determined only to spend 48 hours (the minimum stay following a C-section) in the hospital. I was also determined to look like Halfway Normal Mommy when Ben came to visit us, which probably helped me will myself to recover quickly. By Friday night, I was feeling really good and expecting to go home the next day. Then Isaac and I were discharged on Saturday morning, and we all lived happily ever after - hooray!

I love his fuzzy hair! It might even be a little redder than Ben's was.

And that's exactly the way my story went... until that last sentence. At 7:30 on Saturday morning, my OB came into my hospital room. I thought it was just a routine check-in and that he was going to clear me to go home. Nope. Instead, he informed me that my blood counts were pretty frighteningly low (normal hemoglobin numbers are 12-16, and mine was 5.8) and that I needed to have another procedure to figure out why.

I quickly fed Isaac, and within a few minutes, I was being wheeled back down to the operating room. It's not safe to operate with hemoglobin levels under 10, so I had to have a blood transfusion before anything else could be done. Then my doctor (who, by the way, was amazing and is my hero) made a few extra little cuts on my abdomen and checked out my innards laproscopically. He was hoping to find a blood clot somewhere that he could just remove laproscopically. No such luck. What he actually found was about a liter of blood just hanging out inside me. Apparently there were two tiny pin-prick holes in my organs that were slowly pumping blood where it ought not be. So he had to re-open my C-section incision (gross, I know) and get rid of said blood and close said holes.

100% worth all the trouble :)

Before this second surgery, I didn't have much time to worry or even process what was going on. After it was over, though, I realized I was starting the recovery process all over again. I ended up leaving the hospital the next afternoon (Sunday), feeling okay... but by Sunday night, I was not having fun. I learned that insane swelling is normal after a blood transfusion -- and I was so swollen Sunday night that I weighed 10 pounds more than I did at my most pregnant. And all of the swelling was from the waist down, so you can imagine how comfortable that is. "Cankles" doesn't even begin to capture it. I lost 30 pounds in my first six days back at home - of just fluid. Yikes. All that digging around on my insides also gave me some crazy bruising all over my hips and legs, so I was pretty sure for a day or so that I was going to die. And I had plenty of time to worry about it because - remember? - I was up multiple times a night with a newborn. Those were good times.

I'm not usually very good at looking at the bright side of things, especially when I have actual reasons to be frustrated. In this situation, though, God was so merciful and protected me from getting depressed about my physical state. After one or two breakdowns early in the week, there were only a few moments here and there when I felt upset that this whole thing didn't go the way it was supposed to go.

It has now been 13 days since Baby Isaac was born and 11 days since my second surgery, and I am feeling much, much better. My parents stayed with us until Isaac was 10 days old and basically kept our household running during that time period (THANK YOU, Mom and Dad!). I was scared to see what happened after they left. So far, Daniel and I are surviving the difficult new territory of having two sweet boys (he's working from home this week, which is a huge help). And we are so incredibly thankful these angels!

Little Linguist

2011-08-07T17:30:00.000-04:00

As Ben gets closer to turning two (less than a month to go! how did this happen??) and shows more of his big-kid personality, I can see some characteristics that I've passed on that I wish I had spared him: he's not easy-going, he wants things the way he wants them, he has some irrational social anxieties. However, I am not at all sad to see that I've passed on the Word Nerd gene. My boy loves language. I try to write down some of the funny things he says every day, but we really need to follow him around with a camera to document it fully. But just to give you a little sample, here's another edition of Bragger's Corner with some of my recent favorites:

Yesterday, he was eating a snack in the car, and he made an important discovery. He very excitedly told me out of nowhere, "Actually, those Teddy Grahams are BEARS!" (Not sure what he thought they were before?)
Roughly one thousand times every day, he points out that one word sounds like another word. Last night, he told me fabric sounds like brakes (a stretch, but I'll give it to him). This morning, Daniel jokingly told Ben that his coffee was tar. Ben declared, "Sounds wike car! And Target! Sounds wike Target and car!"
When we read books, he turns the pages and asks, "What happens next?" An English teacher's dream.
He is a tiny bit obsessed and knows the names of quite a few big machines/trucks. Our neighbor Juan used a skid-steer loader a few days ago to do some work in his yard, and Ben is still beside himself about it. He wants to walk down to Juan's house and look at where the skid-steer loader used to be. Several times, the very first thing he's said when I go get him from his nap has to do with "Wand" and his "skid-steer woader."
For some reason, we were talking about street names while running errands recently. I told him that we live on Slickrock Drive. Without missing a beat, he said, "Slickrock Drive. 'Cause we're driving!"
The only thing he wants to watch on TV anymore is Wheel of Fortune (thanks to my friend Elizabeth for reminding me how much I love the wheel). He will hand me or Daniel the remote and say, "Wheel of Fortune time!" One time when the show ended, he demanded, "More Pat Sajaking!" I'm not sure what he thinks is going on while he watches, but he always notices when the audience makes disappointed sounds and says, "Aww! She wost all her money!"
I read him the following lame joke from a kids' yogurt cup: Why did the rabbit wear a hat? He was having a bad hare day. That sort of humor is way over his head, but for some reason, he wanted me to repeat the joke multiple times anyway. After several repetitions, I asked him to tell it to me instead. He had to think for a minute, and then he offered this interpretation: Why did he wear a hat? 'Cause he was having a bad time. Close enough.
He has started composing compound sentences (like today's, "Daddy was at church, but he came back!") and occasionally some sentences with "if" clauses (like last week's explanation of an activity he made up, "If you stand on it, it spins around and around and around!"). My mouth basically hangs open all day because I can't believe how smart this child is.
In spite of being incredibly smart, he still has me and you totally switched. So he might say "Mommy, pick you up" when he really means "Mommy, pick me up." We've made some half-hearted attempts to straighten this one out, but I'm really not too worried about it. It's kind of comforting that he doesn't understand everything just yet. I probably only have three of four more years to enjoy being smarter than he is, so maybe I'll just let him figure this one out on his own.

I've said this about every age, but this one is the best yet. Yesterday, I got a little misty-eyed because I suddenly realized that he is going to keep growing and changing, and this precious toddler stage will just be a memory. I know that sounds melodramatic, but it's TRUE! And sometimes it's pleasant to remember that this stage is fleeting because this stage also includes whining, tantrums, boundary-testing, and the never-ending growth of two-year molars. Motherhood is tiring these days (and have I mentioned the baby brother who constantly plays pinball with my internal organs?), but it's so, SO much fun!

Stolen Photos

2011-07-19T17:50:00.000-04:00

Daniel's brother and his family have been hanging out at our house for a few days on their way to their real vacation, and there has just been way too much cuteness not to share. Five incredibly cute children in one place. Prepare yourself. My photo-happy sister-in-law let me steal the pictures off her SD card, so I'm going the extra mile and posting them online before she can. Thanks for sharing, Steph! And you're welcome for sharing, grandparents ;) As always, you can click on any of the pictures to see a bigger version.

We dressed them alike for church and tried desperately to get a good picture of all of them.

L-R: Samuel, Asher, Ben, Katherine, Elizabeth

Clark with Ben and Asher

We took them to my favorite playground and splashed in a fountain.

Katherine, age 5

Fountain at America the Beautiful Park

You know this cutie by now :)

We ate delicious grilled pizza and delicious ice cream cones. And stole some delicious nuzzles and hugs.

Elizabeth, age 5, with her pizza creation

Asher, age 2

Daniel and Elizabeth, BFF's

Me with my favorite Ben Boy

We spent lots of time in the backyard since the inside of the house was 85 degrees.

We spent this morning having fun and getting all smelly at the zoo.

AND we even snuck out for a grown-up double date one night.

Dinner at the Garden of the Gods Trading Post - definitely recommend it!

Mini hike at Garden of the Gods

Thanks for a fun few days, other Wigintons!

28 weeks down. Way too long to go.

2011-07-07T17:40:00.000-04:00

Remember that last post, when I went on and on about how much I love summer? I changed my mind last week when the temperature inside my house started reaching the mid-80's. I now rely on the basement, the water-hose, and air-conditioned public places to stay alive.

This is not my first summer to be pregnant. In fact, my due date now is three days off from my due date with Ben, so this is basically the exact same pregnancy timeline I had before. However, I do not remember feeling so incredibly hot last time. Is this just me? Or the fact that I have a toddler to chase? Or is it legitimately hotter this summer? Somebody help me out here.

Before I move on to the happy stuff, I'm going to add the following pregnancy complaints: My wedding rings are officially off (after one scary night when I feared they would require surgical removal). Certain things hurt more with the second pregnancy (you're welcome for sparing the details). My daily heartburn onset has been moving earlier and earlier in the day. Okay, I'll stop. Because it's much more important to tell you this:

THIS BABY NOW HAS A REAL NAME!!

The gestating child formerly known as Baby Moses will henceforth be called ISAAC MILLER WIGINTON. Isaac fit our criteria of being an Old Testament name that we liked, that isn't already in use by little boys close to us, and that doesn't have any really unfortunate associations in the Bible (though the whole laying-him-on-the-altar story is going to be much tougher for me to read from now on). And Miller is my mom's maiden name, so it is a tribute to her side of the family. I especially associate the name with my Grandpa Miller, who passed away when I was in 3rd grade but was pretty much everything you want your sons to grow up to be. I so wish my children could know him this side of Heaven.

He looks like an Isaac, don't you think? Today was our 3D ultrasound, so we were able to get a sneak peek at the little guy. I think he looks a LOT like Ben, but maybe all babies look the same in ultrasound form? What do I know? Ben came with us, and he immediately pronounced Baby Isaac to be "cute." The ultrasound tech gave him his very own picture to keep (he calls it his "Baby Isaac card"). He insisted on taking said picture into the grocery store with us, and within minutes he had applied a banana sticker to Isaac's face :)

I know this post is supposed to be about my other baby, but come on. How cute is that child?

Everything looked good at today's check-up. Assuming Baby Isaac has more patience than his brother and stays put until his due date, he will be delivered via C-section on September 22. That gives me exactly 11 more weeks of Summertime pregnancy to go. I can do this!!

And because my friend Angela will cease to be my friend if I don't post a belly picture, here you go:

SUMMER!!

2011-06-22T16:43:00.000-04:00

I really did not enjoy Spring this year. I was sicky pregnant, Ben was just plain sicky waaaay more than normal, and it was violently windy every day. But it is officially Summer in every way: the heater is off (yes, Southern friends, my heater runs for most of the year), the windows are open (no, Southern friends, I do not have air conditioning), my garden is struggling to produce veggies under my negligent care, and the grill is seeing a lot more action. I love Summer in Colorado.

And so does Ben:

What's not to love about ice cream cones on the back deck?

And helping Daddy with yard work? (I'm willing to wager good money that his interest in lawnmowers disappears around the time he's old enough to use a real one.)

And falling asleep in the hiking backpack?


And $2 Mini Golf?


And running through the sprinkler in your diaper?

My little water baby especially loved that last activity. He took a break at one point and requested that I take his picture. However, he was too excited to be a good photo subject. He would say "cheese!" for about 0.5 seconds, run away around the time the camera clicked, look at the picture I took, and declare that he wanted a "gooder one." We made several attempts...

... before we ended up with one that I think is pretty gooder:

Happy Summer to you all!

Two-parter

2011-05-19T23:35:00.000-04:00

Part I: Baby Moses
My big 20-week ultrasound was Monday morning, and we learned that Baby Moses is a BOY! I realize the odds were roughly 50/50 that this baby would be male, but I was still shocked. As in, I didn't know how to react, I asked the ultrasound tech to look again just to make sure, I still have trouble calling the baby "he." I was just very convinced this one was a girl. My intuition regarding pregnancy seems to be worthless.

Daniel and I can't decide yet what we want this little guy's name to be. We looked at a list of Old Testament names online the other night, and it was just comical. We were trying to find some fresh options in all seriousness, but we ended up in fits of laughter multiple times. You know how sometimes you're in situations at church where you have to read some weird biblical name out loud, and someone makes a joke about how you should name your kid that? It was like that, except we're actually trying to figure out what to name our kid. We still have plenty of time to decide, but I am a psycho and want this baby to have a name yesterday.

Baby Moses, if you read this someday, please know that my thinking you were a girl and failing to have a name ready for you is no indication of how I feel about you. I love you just as much as I loved your older brother when he was "in my tummy."

Part II: Baby Ben
It's that time again -- time for a new round of Funny Stuff Ben Says and Does!

For a little while, Ben knew Daniel's and my first names. But now when you ask him what Mommy or Daddy's name is, he answers, "Honey."

He has a freakish memory. We can read a book or sing a new song once or twice, and he can suddenly fill in the blanks if you ask him to.

While reading a favorite book about a visit from Nana, he showed extra interest in the page where Nana gives the little-girl protagonist a nightgown. I usually call the nightgown "pajamas" to keep it somewhat relevant to my non-nightgown-wearing son, but I explained it a little further this time, and the following conversation ensued:

Micah: That's a nightgown. Girls wear nightgowns.
Ben: Giwls wear nightgowns.
Micah: What do boys wear?
Ben: Boys wear... shirts.
He states both of these facts several more times, then out of nowhere...
Ben: Giwls wear... nuffins! (hysterical laughter)

I had no idea this sentiment was one boys spontaneously created before age two. I am in big, big trouble.

He's started calling things "cute." Mommy is cute, Baby Moses is cute, a random baby at the library was cute, animals are cute, etc. And he raises the pitch of his voice when he says it.
He thinks it's really funny to say that things smell like pepperoni (which sounds extra cute when you can't say the letter R).
We took him to Lowe's recently, and he is in love. He talks about the "tool store" alllllll the time now. The morning after the Lowe's trip, I loaded him in the car to go to Wal-Mart and told him we were going to the store. He excitedly asked, "Tool store?? See jigsaws? Miter saws?"
On that same special trip to Lowe's, we bought him a pink sprinkler - an item he dreamed up and has specifically requested for weeks. Apparently our green sprinklers weren't cool enough for him. I didn't even know pink sprinklers existed, so we pretty well had to get it when we saw one for under $3. Maybe someday it will get warm enough to go outside and play with it.
Have I mentioned before that he is insanely opinionated? And bossy? He will tell you to sit on the floor, and then get upset because he actually wanted you to sit one foot to the left of where you sat. He also tells us frequently, "No say that!" I considered it a milestone tonight when he, without being told to ask nicely, said to me, "No say that, Mommy. Pwease."
He sort of has an imaginary friend? Her name is Goggy (which is all the more bizarre because I had an imaginary friend named Coggy when I was a kid). Goggy started out as a nonsense word that Ben made up to amuse himself. So we might ask, "Ben, what do you want for breakfast?" And he would reply, "Goggy (hysterical laughter)!!" Somehow over the course of a few weeks, Goggy has morphed into a person that he randomly talks about.
One of his new favorite play areas is a "cave" I made him on our loveseat. The cave is really not that awesome, but crawling in/out and throwing items in/out of it entertains him for long stretches. We're talking minutes at a time, people! He also cleans his cave with an ear thermometer, which he calls a "dust-buster" (the handle part really does look like a dust-buster -- props to my clever boy on that one).

Parenting at this stage is quite an adventure. It's more and more fun all the time to see the sweet, cute, witty parts of his personality develop. But I have to get more and more creative to manage the strong-willed, whiney, stinkery parts that are also developing. I complain too often about those latter parts because they sometimes take up a lot of the day, but I honestly LOVE having a toddler. He is a gift that I do not take for granted!

Surprise!

2011-05-15T22:14:00.000-04:00

One of the 30 Before 30 items I've been most excited about is paying a surprise visit to my parents. I started realizing, though, that if I waited much longer, I would either have to fly by myself with two kids or pay for an extra plane ticket to make Daniel come with me. So when some of my oldest, dearest friends tried to convince me to pop into central Arkansas at the end of April, I (very, very excitedly) agreed.

me, Rebecca, Whitney, Angela

These are my girls :) We try to get together and go to a major-league baseball game at a different park every summer, but two of us didn't stagger our pregnancies very well this year. So we settled for a minor-league game in Little Rock, followed by a little sleepover. We also got to celebrate Whitney's daughter's first birthday and go to a baby shower for Rebecca (who is expecting baby Caroline at the end of June). Have I mentioned that I love these girls? Because I love these girls. I'm beyond thrilled that I got to spend some time with them and celebrate fun things in their lives.

My girls knew I was coming, but they were just about the only ones. But even with all my secrecy, I didn't quite get to surprise my parents. I knew I would have to call my dad before I got there because I needed a ride from the airport from someone who had a car seat. Then he had to spill the beans to my mom because she kept trying to make plans that interfered with our arrival. So they both knew a few hours before Ben and I landed in Little Rock.

His hair was almost this curly the whole trip. That Southern humidity is crazy.

I mentioned here that I was nervous about flying with Ben. I wish I had wasted all those valuable minutes worrying about something else because he did soooo well. I'm still in shock. Everything about flying was the coolest thing he had ever seen. The wings! The machinery (he still talks about "machine-wee") inside the wings! All the people! With suitcases! Different colored suitcases with handles! The air conditioner things above our heads! He was hilarious. And never shed a single tear while we were flying (I gave him raisins or jelly beans during take-off and landing, just in case).

He was also pretty excited about seeing Nana, Granddad, and the rest of the familial crew. So excited that he barely slept the entire trip. We never managed to get him to bed on time, and he would wake up around 6am and talk, talk, talk to himself. For at least 30 minutes, non-stop. I guess he had to review all the fun things he had been doing? Who knows.

A smooch from aunt Mindy (my big brother's wife)

We were there Wednesday night through Monday morning, and we squeezed in time with all my siblings, both sets of my grandparents, and a handful of aunts, uncles, and cousins. I can't really remember the last time I went home when it wasn't a holiday, so it felt kind of nice to see everyone without having crazy holiday rushing-around. I'm counting the trip as a success all around. Thanks to all of you who made it possible and made it special!


Could they BE any cuter? Cale and Jude (big brother's sons), Ben

PS - I did a terrible job of taking pictures (I was having too much fun to bother), so most of these were stolen from my mom. She has more pictures and stories on her own blog here and here.

He knows me so well.

2011-05-08T17:39:00.000-04:00

Daniel took Ben to Target this week and let him pick out a Mother's Day gift for me. According to Daniel's account, Ben understood that he was picking something for Mommy, and he was adamant in his choice. All I can say is, that kid has my tastes pegged:

You can't tell here, but it has a purple leopard-print design on the other side. It also has a companion cup with a more masculine dog and the message "King of My Castle." After this home run, I think I'm going to let Ben do all our Christmas shopping this year :)

As excited as I am about that cup, I'm a teensy bit more excited that I've trained Ben to give me "special kisses" on command (excuse his pre-nap crankiness, please):

We are having gorgeous weather here this weekend, and I am maybe a little too excited to wear some of my favorite Spring clothes before I'm too spherical to fit into them. And since I'm rather fond of the dress I wore this morning, I made Daniel take Baby Moses' first official belly picture. Here he/she is at 19.5 weeks:

I am indescribably thankful for Ben and Baby Mo. They are treasures, and I can hardly believe I get to be their mom. I'm also more and more grateful all the time for my own mom. It's fun to be at a stage of life where I still need her support/advice/wisdom/mothering, but I can also call her just to talk as friends. I can't do my mom justice in a few sentences here, so I'll just sum it up with a big ol' I LOVE MY MOM!

This year on Mother's Day, I'm also doubling up my prayers for sweet friends who are remembering babies they've lost and for sweet friends who are waiting and hoping for children. Love and BIG hugs to you!

Happy Mother's Day!

An update that uses actual words

2011-05-04T18:01:00.000-04:00

This requires a post of its own (which I hereby vow to compose within the next week), but I crossed another item off my 30 Before 30 list! Last Wednesday, Ben and I made a surprise visit to my parents in North Little Rock. I think my parents were excited, but they kept commenting on how they wished Ben were a little bit cuter. You can't please everyone, you know?
Ben is hilarious. I don't even know where to begin talking about the funny things he says and does these days. Some of my favorites:

He says he is "medium-sized" and that he is a "person" (not a baby, a girl, a monkey, etc.).
He routinely says "Oh my!/Oh goodness!/Oh my goodness!" at appropriate times.
He likes to attempt to juggle.
He loves girls of all ages (any female, including our 70-year-old cashier yesterday, is a girl to him) and points them out, sometimes creating awkward moments with strangers.
I think he tries to plant subliminal messages in our heads -- sometimes he'll lean into me or Daniel and whisper "ice cweam" (or something equally delicious) while making a hopeful, mischievous face.
He tells me to do things "differently" -- with the -ly at the end.
He randomly recites parts of books, even ones I didn't realized he liked.

The flip-side of all that cuteness: he has started throwing impressive fits. Usually about something very minor and illogical. I haven't quite figured out the best way to handle him when these happen because he is usually a pretty logical kid, and I can reason with him to some degree. Note: I am NOT asking for your advice here -- I'm just being honest about what's going on in my household. I'll gladly accept your commiseration or encouragement or prayers, but I'm not asking the Internet how to parent my child. Yet ;)
As of today, I am 19 weeks pregnant with the child still known around here as Baby Moses. I'm counting this as my halfway point because my doctor indicated that I'll probably deliver around 38 weeks (I don't think I've ever posted the story of Ben's delivery here, but he was kind of a booger, and after his extra-special surgical removal from my innards, I am not supposed to do the whole labor thing. Like, at all.)
We'll find out on May 16 if Moses is a boy or girl. It's weird how differently I think about this pregnancy. With Ben, I could barely wait to find out. And I'm still plenty excited this time, and it will be fun to have a real name for the baby and start to prepare a little better, but I guess I think more this time about the baby at the END of this pregnancy. In some ways, having Ben around makes me marvel more at this new baby -- because I see concrete evidence that what starts as a little baby inside me turns into an awesome little person outside me. In other ways, Ben's presence is so very tangible that Baby Moses almost doesn't seem real yet. I'm really not explaining this well, so I'll just add one more disjointed statement: On a pretty regular basis, Daniel and I laugh about something Ben has done and say, "Can you believe we get to have another one of these?" We're pretty excited for September.
I guess my belly has started sticking out more because I catch Ben looking at it and talking about Moses more often. He tells me what Moses likes (today it was purple trees). And yesterday he threw a ball (a very soft one) at my belly and said, "Toss it to Moses!" We've read a couple of little books about baby siblings/big brothers, and he likes the idea of a baby in our family. However, he is definitely still clueless about what it will really be like (I'm not sure I can process what it will be like!). I'm gearing myself up for a tough adjustment period, but I am so thankful for both of my babies and can't wait to introduce them to each other!
This never, ever happens anymore, but I actually have something new going on in my own life. Whoa. I'm starting to volunteer at our crisis pregnancy center in town. I'm in the middle of a 21-hour volunteer training right now, and despite how intense that seems, I am loving it. After every training session, I come home more excited about being involved there. I'll probably be working with their Life Steps program, which provides ongoing support/education for women who have decide to keep and parent their babies.
Anyone who has read this post deserves a reward. So... Mom, let me know when you've read this, since I'm quite sure you're the only person who will make it this far :)

This will have to do.

2011-04-26T00:30:00.000-04:00

Oops. I kind of stopped blogging there for a few weeks. I have a lot to say, but I'm watching TV with my husband right now, so none of it will make any sense. Therefore, I give you some pictures and videos from the last week or so:


Ben likes ice cream. Like, a whooooole lot.


We tagged along on our college group's Spring retreat and got to play in a hot spring pool.


Then it was Easter, and there was snow. And a toddler who didn't want his picture taken.


I don't look this hugely pregnant in person. Yikes.

And, finally, here is Ben's explanation of why we celebrate Easter:

Springtime, you've been a bad friend to us.

2011-04-01T22:42:00.000-04:00

I thought it was really sweet that Ben liked to sleep with Pippo the sock monkey. Until this morning, when I had to clean puke off Pippo's surface-wash-only body. Poor Ben can't catch a break this Spring. He just got over RSV (his case seemed very mild, so it wasn't the end of the world), and now he has some sort of stomach nastiness. And, naturally, he is growing another canine tooth. Few things in toddler-parenting are worse than the canine teeth, but having stomach nastiness on top of teeth-growing most definitely qualifies as worse.

Ben seems to get sick most often on Fridays, when I have to decide whether to take him to the doctor immediately (and find out it's nothing) or take my chances over the weekend. I'm opting to take my chances this time because I think he just ate something that didn't sit well with his little tummy. Namely, "fluffy stuff" from the deli counter at King Soopers. Every time I buy lunch meat lately, the fluffy stuff looks so good to me -- this would be some mysterious combination of Cool Whip, fruit, marshmallows, and pudding mix that is generally disliked by everyone except retirement-home dwellers and me. So I bought a container of orange fluffy stuff yesterday and shared some with Ben at lunchtime. After seeing how it looks in diaper (again and again and again) and vomit forms, the fluffy stuff no longer holds any appeal for me.

Ben gave a few indications last night that he wasn't feeling great, but I mostly blamed the pesky tooth and thought he would sleep off anything else that was bothering him. Incorrect. I heard him whimpering several times last night (not uncommon when he's teething) and finally gave in and checked on him around 2:30. When I walked into his room, he was standing with his head laid on the top of his crib rail. He looked up at me and said, "Sad." And my heart immediately melted into a puddle of I'll do whatever is necessary to keep you from ever being sad ever again ever.

Unfortunately, that included cleaning poop off of 75% of his horribly diaper-rashed body and pajamas AND changing vomited-upon crib sheets. On two and a half hours of sleep. Motherhood is very glamorous, in case you haven't heard.

Maybe this is selfish, but there is a teeny bit of silver lining in this for me: my active little man is suddenly all about snuggling with Mom. When I finally got him cleaned up and ready to go back to bed last night, he just wanted to cuddle in the rocking chair with me. And when he protested going back in his crib, my puddle heart couldn't take it. So I held him the rest of the night. I eventually gave up and took him to my bed, where I slept with him curled up on top of me. Best two hours of bad sleep I have ever had.

Even as an adult, I totally sympathize with the need to be close to your mom when you feel crummy. Being on the Mom end of that feeling, though? It's pretty amazing. God is gracious to use the especially un-glamorous parts of motherhood to remind you how precious it is to love your child.

I tried to give Ben some silver lining, too. If he has to be naked and air things out anyway, he might as well get a little messy, right?

(He looks very neat here, but don't be fooled.)

I'm asking for your advice.

2011-03-26T18:48:00.000-04:00

I usually avoid putting myself in situations where people will give me advice because I don't like advice. However, I'm hoping some of you will have a little expertise to offer me on this one:

Have you ever flown with a toddler? What did you do to make it bearable for your kiddo and for you?

In particular, I'm worried about take-off and landing (I feel reasonably capable of entertaining him and keeping him happy otherwise). I flew several times with Ben when he was a baby and never had any trouble. I was nursing then, though, so I just fed him at the beginning and end of each flight (the kid never refused to nurse, hungry or not). We're past that stage now, but I think he's still too little to let him have a sucker on the flight. Should I just give him a sippy cup and try to convince him to suck on it for a couple of minutes at a time? I don't see that working, but I haven't come up with a better plan. Help! How do I keep his little ears from hurting too much?

I'm really jumping the gun here because we're not actually flying until this summer. But I was thinking about it today and wanted to ask before I forgot :) In case this matter to anyone, Ben will be 21 months old, and he will not be in his own seat. I'm relishing this lap-child thing while I still can!

Benisms

2011-03-19T00:13:00.000-04:00

I know every other post around here is about the funny things Ben says. But, you guys, he says so many funny things. And I don't have a good place where I write them down, so if you don't like it, you don't have to read it. I mean that in the nicest possible way.

Let me start by saying that Daylight Savings Time is my new best friend. Ben had gotten in the habit of waking up around 6:30 every morning, which made for some verrry long and trying days. Now that the sun comes up later, though, he has been waking up at 7:45 or later. One morning he slept until 8:45. I probably should have gone in to make sure he was still breathing, but honestly, I didn't want anything to ruin the sheer joy I was experiencing. I realize that sounds cold-hearted, but a quiet house at 8:30am? It makes me too happy to think clearly.

Anyway, Ben and I are both much better off and like each other much more this week than we did last week. And in my current state of being enamored with my child, I give you some of my favorite funny things Ben says at eighteen months old:

When he does something he thinks is impressive, he claps and tells himself, "Good job!" However, he pronounces it, "Joo Bod!" Cutest. Thing. Ever. Sometimes he changes is up and says, "Niiiice."

He has fully mastered the appropriate usage of "bummer" (which he sometimes replaces with "ratsos") and "woot!"

He asks everyone and everything what they are doing. When he pretends to talk on the phone, he says, "Woh (Hello)? Doin'?" He also asks the cat frequently, "Justin? Doin'?" Justin is a jerk and never answers.

One day this week, the TV was on, and there was one of those scrolling news bars across the bottom. He pointed to it and said, "Wetters (letters). Going by." Umm, genius. This is not something he has ever seen and certainly not something we have ever talked about. So I think his description was pretty spot-on.

For a couple of months, he has liked to review randomly the things he is not allowed to do. Apparently we tell him that boys aren't allowed to do certain things because that's how he phrases it. For instance, he might say, "Wamps? Knives? Boys [shaking head]." Translation: Boys aren't supposed to touch lamps or knives. Now he adds the word "dwown-ups" to indicate that grown-ups can do these things.

The boy loves tools. Here he is holding a "dwiver."

He has quite the imagination. He decided recently that there is a moose living in our dishwasher. I really have no clue where that idea came from, but he thinks it's hilarious and talks about it all the time -- "Moose! Dishwasher!" And he opens the door to talk to the moose -- "Moose! Are you (where are you)?"

Sometimes he walks into my legs or Daniel's and says, "Tunnel!" If he does this to you, you're supposed to spread your feet out and let him walk under you.

He loves to talk about Jesus but toooootally doesn't get it (of course). We have several Christmas and Easter books that he likes, and he knows these holidays are for Jesus. However, he thinks everything is for Jesus, which is sort of true and sort of not true. Like when he gets mad and hits me (hello, strong-willed child). I'll sometimes ask, "Ben, what are you hitting me for?" His response? "Jesus."

He also likes to "sing Jesus," as he says, referring to "Jesus Loves Me." He thinks the last word of the song (so) is "soap."

He asks us all the stinking time for fruit-flavored Tic Tacs, which he calls "tweats (treats)."

He loves to help me with laundry. He's especially good at standing next to the dryer and putting in the clothes I hand him. He was a little traumatized, though, when he saw me washing one of his favorite blankets. Lesson learned.

With Pippo, his beloved sock monkey

We recently bought him a play kitchen, and he is obsessed with it. Sometimes he asks for it before I even get him out of his crib -- "Kitchen! Basement (the location of our playroom, and thus the kitchen)! Pwease!" He always wants to make chocolate cookies, and today Daddy taught him to make tea on the stove. He also puts various toys in the microwave, which is just above his head, and he says, "Weach up high! Mike-wave!"

This one comes to me second-hand: In the church nursery this weekend, his teacher Mrs. Bernice showed him a little figurine and told him it was Moses. He informed her that it was, in fact, Noah. He was right.

He says that anything he can't see is "hiding." Friends who go back to their own houses? No, they're just hiding. He also likes to cover things up and tell you they are hiding. This concept is endlessly amusing to him.

It's worth noting that all these things are said by an incredibly cute child with bright orange hair. So he's pretty irresistible. I'm sure I've forgotten some of the best things he says. Fortunately for me, this is my blog, and I can just make another post like this whenever I want. So there.

Crossing two more off the list

2011-03-07T22:23:00.000-05:00

I'm a little (a lot) behind with this, but I crossed two more items off my 30 Before 30 list in January. If you're keeping track, I have roughly 23 more to complete in the next three years. Yikes. I thought I was doing pretty well, but those numbers are rather daunting.

I don't think I've mentioned this here, but my darling husband Daniel is in school again to get his Doctor of Ministry (oooh! aaah!). The program is set up differently from most school programs, and he does all of his reading/writing on his own and then spends one week on campus at the end of each semester. In practical terms, this means he does some reading for several months -- and then does TONS of work in the last few weeks. Those last few weeks are brutal for both of us. When the hubby doesn't get a break from working, I don't get a break from the toddler (who is precious and wonderful... but sort of exhausting).

So when Daniel finished his semester in January, I decided that I should have a spa day. Sounds fair, right?

I had already bought a Groupon to a local salon/spa called Serenity Springs. I thought it sounded lovely, and their website made it seem lovely. The reality of Serenity Springs? Well, it wouldn't be my ideal place to have a spa day. It feels a little strip-mallish. But it was expensive enough even with the Groupon that I doubt I'll be paying for another spa day any time soon, so I'm counting this as a completed list item:

~~19. Spend a day at a spa.~~

I got a haircut, a massage, a facial, and a pedicure. And I have no pictures to show for it. Oops. If anyone feels the need to sponsor me for a re-do on this one, I promise to take pictures. Anyone? Anyone??

The next finished item has plenty of photographic evidence:

~~23. Participate in the Great Fruitcake Toss in Manitou Springs~~

The Fruitcake Toss happens every January, and it is sort of hilarious. The majority of participants, myself included, just line up and throw a fruitcake as far as they can. Here's my throw:

At this point, my dad is surely hanging his head in shame because, um, that's not how you're supposed to look when you throw something with all your might. I think that's how you look when you do the Charleston. It goes without saying that my fruitcake did not fly the farthest. I did, however, almost become famous because some reporter took a picture of me and wrote down my name. Alas, I never saw myself in print, but here I am spelling my name for him very slowly:

I had some pretty awesome company at this little event. My dad drove into town the very morning of the Toss, so he got to participate in the fun and help me keep Ben entertained.

And some of my very favorite people, the Slack family, also joined us.

The Slacks saved this post from being even lamer than it is by lending me their camera. I discovered when we arrived at the event that my camera batteries were dead, so they shared their camera. Which is why a handful of the pictures turned out like this:

Below my blurry finger, you can see some of the fancy contraptions other people use to compete in the Fruitcake Toss. Some people really meant business, and they came with giant catapults and trebuchets to aid their tossing. As previously stated, the Fruitcake Toss is hilarious. I am so glad I put it on my list, and I will most certainly be going back in future years.

Baby Moses?

2011-03-02T15:15:00.000-05:00

Since my last post left quite a few unanswered questions, I thought you all might appreciate a little FAQ post about Wiginton Baby #2:

Is this an announcement?
Yes. I am having another baby.

When are you due?
September 29, so I am about 10 weeks along now. This one will be another C-section, so he/she will probably be born in mid-September, shortly after this baby turns two:

Are you really naming the baby Moses?
Nope. We will use an Old Testament name, but Moses is one of those names that is just a little too out-there to pair with our last name :) We are calling the baby Moses for now, though, thanks to Ben. When we ask him what the baby's name should be, he always says Moses. Actually, he said Jesus the first time, but he's stuck with Moses since then. Clearly, Ben has a firm grasp of what it means to have a little sibling -- since the only babies he knows are the ones in his favorite storybook Bible.

Why does your stomach squish so much when Ben pokes it in the video?
Shut up.

How are you feeling?
Umm... I could be feeling a lot worse? I feel worse than I did with Ben, but I still don't have the insane nausea or vomiting lots of people have. This is silly, but my biggest complaint is that I can NOT get full. You know how, when you're really hungry, you can eat a snack to take the edge off your hunger? The edge never leaves my hunger. Most nights, I eat a bowl of cereal and a bowl of oatmeal between dinner and bedtime, and I still go to bed hungry. This might be completely awesome (I usually do love to eat), except the general idea of food is unappealing to me right now. Other than that, I'm just tired. Daniel is doing a very nice job making sure our house is still livable while I spend most of my time on the couch.

How did you get your adorable child to announce the news so well?
I tried all night to get a good video and failed until right before he went to bed. There are some pretty amusing outtakes, though. Like the one where he spins in circles saying,
"Pirouette!" (Thank you, Elmo, for that vocabulary word.) Or like this one, in which he accidentally touches the cat's bottom (which he pronounces "bobbin") and then demands to hold the camera:

Baby "Moses"

2011-02-23T22:26:00.000-05:00

A nice little list of ten things about Ben

2011-02-03T00:10:00.000-05:00

1. Ben got his VERY FIRST HAIRCUT last Friday night. I said I wouldn't do it myself, but then I did it anyway. I also said I would wait until he started to look like a girl, but I gave in early because he looked too much like a street urchin. Here he is before, during, and after:


Can you see that? MULLET.

Notice how I am attempting to wield scissors, and he is completely rejecting me.

I keep forgetting to take a good AFTER pic, so here he is at the zoo with our friend Jenna.

2. Speaking of the zoo, we have gone a LOT lately. I used some of Ben's Christmas money to buy a zoo membership, and we've already gotten our money's worth several times over. If the temperature is above 40 and we don't have plans, we go to the zoo. It's awesome.


My dad visited a few weeks ago. Guess where we took him.

Ben got to touch Timmy the "tow-dis." He talked about it all day.

3. Again speaking of the zoo, Ben talks about the zoo ALL THE TIME. Last week, Daniel took him to the park. When they got home, I asked Ben where he went. He very excitedly replied, "Zoo!! Daffs (giraffes)!! Monkeys!!" He totally lied to me. In detail.

4. Ben wants to count everything. He points to things and tells me, "Tount!" a million times a day. He fills in two, three, four, six, and ten. Occasionally at the right time. He can also tell you what comes after uno, dos... "tres!!"

This picture has nothing to do with anything, but look at that cute face.

5. When he is feeling silly, he says, "Get you!" Translation: "Say, 'I'm going to get you!' and then tickle me." He requests to be chased fairly often, too.

6. Ben is growing the last half of his last molar AND two canine teeth. AT THE SAME TIME. Not cool. This results in some interesting diapers. Two weekends ago, he had the worst diaper blowout I have ever seen, and we were at the zoo (seriously, we love the zoo). To give you the full picture: Our zoo is on the side of the mountain. We were at the grizzly bear exhibit, which you access by going to the highest point of the zoo and then taking an elevator up a little farther. This blowout soiled both shirts Ben was wearing, his coat, his jeans, and later MY jeans. And I quickly realized that I had ONE WIPE left. So I got to clean him up with toilet paper. In the smelly zoo bathroom. Joy!

The ride home after the worst diaper of all time.

7. Recently, he started holding out his hand to Daniel and/or me and saying, "Pay!" (pray). He usually cuts us off mid-prayer by saying, "Men!"

8. I'm really not sure where he got this, but when I'm in his way, he pushes me and says, "Way! Way!" I'm pretty sure this isn't something he has observed from me or Daniel? Who knows.

9. We had our windows replaced about a year ago, and one of the workers dropped a window and took a chunk out of our wood floor. Ben has become obsessed with that spot. He goes over to it and says, "Happened?... Window... Dwop... Bummer."

10. A couple of weeks ago, Daniel and I took Ben to the Bass Pro Shop in Denver. We told him beforehand that we were going to see buffalo and fish. He fell asleep in the car on the way there, and he woke up saying, "Zoo! Buffo! Fish!" He, of course, loved all the animals there, but his favorite part was the elevator. He asked to ride it over and over - "Vator! Up high!"

Check out those disgustingly huge fish.

This age is SO MUCH FUN. I am so lucky to spend my days with my sweet baby Ben!

Three cheers for nonfiction! Hip, hip...

2011-01-05T23:07:00.000-05:00

No one's joining in my cheer? Nonfiction is way more exciting than it sounds, you guys!

It seems harder to compare nonfiction books to each other because they all have such different objectives. So in an effort to simplify my self-imposed task of ranking these books, I've divided my nonfiction list into two categories: Parenting and Nonparenting (which is a nonword). They are still listed in order of favorite to least favorite.

Ben still likes to read, too.

NONFICTION - Parenting
Shepherding a Child's Heart (Tedd Tripp)
Every Christian parent should read this book, and I am stating that as a cold, hard fact. Tripp's main thesis is that our goal in disciplining is not to produce well-behaved children but godly men and women. So our conversations should address their hearts, not just their behaviors. There isn't a ton of how-to here -- it has more of a big-picture focus. Useful even if your kids are very young, like mine.

Adopted for Life (Russell Moore)
This doesn't really belong in the parenting section because every Christian should read this one. Sort of a theology of adoption. You will have a richer appreciation of your adoption into God's family, and you will probably want to adopt a child into your family. At the very least, you will want to find ways to promote adoption within the Church.

Treasuring God in Our Traditions (Noel Piper)
Great ideas for honoring and pointing to Christ in your family's "everyday" and "especially" (holiday, etc.) traditions. Helps you think through what you're already doing and make sure the rituals that anchor your family life have an eternal purpose.

Parenting the Fussy Baby and High-Need Child (William Sears)
If you have an easy baby, ~~we can't be friends anymore~~ this book is not for you. But if you have a baby like Ben, who has opinions and is not afraid to share them, this book might help you regain some of your sanity. Sears is more into attachment parenting than I am, but his counsel really did make me feel like Ben and I would survive.

Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other: In Praise of Adoption (Scott Simon)
The narrative of how awesome it was for Simon and his wife to adopt their two daughters from China. With other people's hooray-for-adoption stories mixed in. This one is very different from the other adoption book on my list, but it will probably still make you want to adopt. You've been warned.

NONFICTION - Nonparenting
Three Cups of Tea (Greg Mortensen & David Oliver Relin)
American Mortensen started as a hard-core hiker, but now he builds schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where many kids' opportunities for education come only from Islamic extremists. I didn't expect to love this book (because my knowledge base about this part of the world is pretty pitiful), but I LOVED this book. Mortensen is doing some amazing work.

Radical (David Platt)
The subtitle here is "Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream," and Platt points out ways in which American Christianity looks more like our culture than the Bible. Then he wraps it up by issuing specific challenges to implement for one year. This is good, convicting stuff.

Travels with Charley (John Steinbeck)
Steinbeck drives across the country in a pimped-out truck with his dog Charley. Plenty of insightful observations about the America of 1960, but it's also just an enjoyable read. This book will make you love John Steinbeck, and it will cause serious wanderlust.

The New Kings of Nonfiction (Ed. Ira Glass)
I really like This American Life, so I was looking forward to reading this collection of Ira Glass's favorite short nonfiction. Maybe I read this one at the wrong time? I don't know. But it took me forever to get through some of these pieces, and honestly, I probably would have stopped reading it if I hadn't been determined to finish the whole thing. I think you would fare better with this book if you just read a piece here and there over a very long period of time.

The Heavenly Man (Brother Yun with Paul Hattaway)
I am totally confused about this book. I know reasonable people who love it (and when I added the link above, I noticed that Amazon reviewers gave it an average of five stars), but I am not in that camp. Brother Yun was one of the prominent figures in the Chinese underground church in recent decades, and is the detailed story of his life and ministry. I really do believe that God does amazing and miraculous things in/through the persecuted Church around the world, but I had a hard time believing everything I read in this book. There was just one account after another of, "I said, 'Believe!' and 5,000 people believed." Or, "I told this man to be healed, and he was healed. And then he wept and believed in Jesus even though I never actually told him about Jesus." Maybe I'm being unduly harsh because I thought it was poorly written, but I wouldn't recommend this one. Please don't hate me for saying so.

OOPS!
This last book gets its own heading because I accidentally left it off my fiction list. If you're keeping track, I actually read fifteen fiction and ten nonfiction books this year.

Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro)
A science-fiction book that doesn't feel too science-fictiony. There's something unusual about the narrator and her fellow students at a special British boarding school, but you have to figure it out as they do. For all you young adult lit fans out there, this one reminds me a little of House of the Scorpion. It's not one of my new favorites, but I did enjoy this book and find it interesting. It's worth checking out from the library but not buying.

And that concludes my 25 in-depth book reviews ;) Once again, tell me what you think! And happy reading to you all!

I like to read fiction.

2010-12-19T20:48:00.001-05:00

As of today, I have completed one more item on my 30 Before 30 list:

#8. Read 25 books in one year... DONE!

I started in April and intended to read 25 books in a twelve-month period. 2010 was a good year for reading, though, what with all those hours I spent nursing a baby. So I'm giving myself bonus points for reaching my goal in eight months.

I tried to choose a fairly wide variety of books. Some were on my always-wanted-to-read list, some were parenting books I read out of desperation (ha!), some I stumbled upon because the library didn't have what I really wanted. I found several new favorites and a few duds.

Soon I'll feature the nonfiction, but below is the list of fourteen fiction books I read this year. I've listed them in the order that I would recommend them -- the first one was my favorite, and the last was my least favorite. I ranked them strictly on how much I enjoyed them as a reader (not as an English teacher or literary critic). Check out my list and tell me what you think. Have you read any of these? Do you agree with my assessments? Have I convinced you to read/not read any of them?

FICTION

Day for Night (Frederick Reiken)

Includes multiple plotlines (some involving the Holocaust) and multiple narrators. Could be a disaster, but it's brilliant. Loved it. I'm pretty sure I cried because I loved it so much.

The Help (Kathryn Stockett)
Set in pre-Civil Rights Mississippi. Tells the story of several black housekeepers, the women who treat them heinously, and the women who don't. Multiple narrators again.

Girl with a Pearl Earring (Tracy Chevalier)
Fictional story behind the Vermeer painting by the same title. Told from the perspective of Griet (the Girl in question), who has just become a servant in the Vermeer house. Period fiction is really not my genre, but I loved this book.

The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath)
Sure, Sylvia Plath was all kinds of crazy, but she could sure write. Assumed to be autobiographical, this book follows a young woman as she goes insane.

The Pilot's Wife (Anita Shreve)
Newly-widowed pilot's wife learns all sorts of terrible things as she looks into her husband's death. Drama, drama, drama. But in a good way. Definitely skip this one if you are actually a pilot's wife, though.

Belong to Me (Marisa de los Santos)
City girl moves to the suburbs. Chaos ensues. I'll admit it has a predictable, chick-lit vibe, but de los Santos gives her characters really amusing, relatable voices. FUN read.

Water for Elephants (Sara Gruen)
Old man flashes back to his younger years, when he was part of a shady traveling circus. Entertaining stuff.

Clay's Quilt (Silas House)
I had an idea in my head of what the hills of eastern Kentucky are like, but there is some messed-up stuff going on there. At least in the picture this book paints. Good read. Definitely not cheesy like some hill-country novels.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (Mark Haddon)
Told from the perspective of a teenage boy with autism. Sort of a murder mystery? Really funny, but not in an offensive, making-fun-of-this-boy way. Quick read, worth your while.

Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules (ed. David Sedaris)
Compilation of some of Sedaris's favorite short stories. I'm a sucker for a good short story, but don't expect these to be funny just because David Sedaris likes them.

The Bean Trees (Barbara Kingsolver)
Young woman heads West to start a new life, and ends up having to care for an abandoned baby. A little on the sappy side, but I enjoyed the book overall. I loved Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible when I read it several years ago. Read that one if you haven't.

Girl in Translation (Jean Kwok)
Chinese girl and her mom immigrate to New York and face all the hardships you might expect, including work at a sweatshop. Not a bad read, but feels like an unrealistic American Dream story.

Birds of America (Lorrie Moore)
Another collection of short stories, but all by Moore. I picked this one because I loved her story "People Like That Are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk." I was disappointed in most of the other pieces in this book.

All Families are Psychotic (Douglas Coupland)
Crazy, far-fetched story of the mostly unlikable members of a dysfunctional (to say the least) family. Entertaining, but way too crass for my taste. If you can't peel your eyes away from the tabloids in the grocery line, this might be up your alley.

I love late-onset winter.

2010-12-10T00:56:00.000-05:00

At Ben's fifteen-month checkup, our pediatrician told me that being outside for 30 minutes a week in Colorado Springs gets you all the Vitamin D your body needs. I have no idea whether that is actually true, but I pay him to tell me things, so I guess I'll choose to believe this one. And I'm happy to report that it has been warm enough lately that I can actually stand to be outside! For more than 30 minutes a week!

We've hit two different parks so far this week.

Okay, yesterday morning was a little cold. But not frigid.

Then today was the perfect day to rake leaves and play in them. I'm guessing tomorrow will be the perfect day to re-rake leaves.

All this Vitamin D makes us very happy :)

My Favorite Things: Ben Edition

2010-12-05T18:03:00.000-05:00

Fair warning: This is one of those baby-book posts that contains way more details than most of you care about. Ben is at an especially fun age right now, and I honestly think multiple times a day, "This is what I hoped motherhood would be like." For my own sake, I wanted to record some of the things that I'm loving about Ben at fifteen months.

*He calls our Christmas stockings "boots."

*Sometimes he talks stream-of-consciousness style. And sometimes he says one word, then says other words that sound like it (rhyming or alliterative words, usually). He recently learned the word "berries," but he pronounces it "boo-des." Several times lately, he has said, "Boo-des... Stooges." He learned who the Three Stooges are at my parents house, and they apparently made quite an impression on him.

*He will randomly say "boo!" to scare us.

*He LOVES a seventh-grade boy at our church named Graham (Graham helps his parents in the nursery on Sunday mornings). Any mention of church, friends, or favorite anythings makes Ben say "Graham!" A few days ago, Daniel asked Ben, "What's your favorite thing about Mommy?" Ben's answer? Graham. Then last night, we were headed to a Christmas parade and were trying to get Ben excited about it. I said, "Do you know what we're going to see at the parade?" Ben got a sweet, hopeful look on his face and said, "Graham?!"

*He gives excellent snuggles, hugs, and kisses. Sometimes I don't even have to ask :)

*He thinks any beverage not in a sippy cup is coffee. Even if I have a water bottle, he calls it "taw-hee."

*He likes to pretend to eat and drink things, complete with fake smacking noises. Then he shares with us or the cat.

*His favorite thing in the world right now is to play on our bed. He has two favorite games there: 1)He lays his head down, pretends to sleep, then pops up and says, "Hi!" 2)We give him two coffee cups and a stash of pens, and he transfers pens from one cup to the other, hands pens to us, fake-drinks from the cups, etc. Yes, this is totally weird. But some mornings he even requests this game while he eats breakfast - "Bed! Pen! Taw-hee!"

*He puts everything (seriously, everything) on his head and calls it a hat.

*He still loves Justin the Cat. However, he now thinks Justin's name is Midget (his cousins' cat in Abilene).

*At naptime and bedtime, I hand him a little fleecy blanket before I lay him down. Even if he is upset about going to bed, he snuggle the blanket up to his face and lays his head on my shoulder. Ohhhh, it is so sweet!

*He calls his grandparents all the time on anything that resembles a phone. One day this week, he called Nana on a calculator.

*He says "please" a lot. If he demands something, I can say, "Ask nicely." And he adds a "peas!" He doesn't know he's being polite. He just knows he's more likely to get what he wants when he says "please." But it sure sounds cute.

*He is a full-time walker now, and it kind of blows my mind. Walking has done wonders for his moods and my moods (it was time for him to be less mommy-dependent, I promise). Everyone told me that once he started walking, I would wish he were crawling again. That has totally not been the case for us. In fact, my only complaint is that he carries things from one room to another and puts them in strange places. I have to spend a few minutes every night relocating small objects.

*He is still not an easy-going kid, but his feisty temperament is sooo much easier to handle now than it was even a few months ago. So far, toddlerhood suits him quite nicely. I am so thankful to spend my days with this precious BIG boy!

On walking

2010-11-11T23:25:00.000-05:00

Having Ben has taught me a lot about what not to say to other mothers. So much of what people say to you as a new mom makes you want to kick them in the teeth (or maybe that's just me?). Therefore, as a public service to anyone who ever comes in contact with a woman who has a baby, I want to offer two pieces of advice regarding what to say:

1. Tell her that her baby is absolutely perfect. Then tell her that you can't believe she ever gave birth to a child because she looks so smokin' hot.

2. Rather than asking if the baby has reached a specific developmental milestone, ask, "What is he/she doing these days?" Mom still gets to brag, but you spare her the awkwardness of admitting that her absolutely perfect child has not, in fact, reached that specific milestone.

In my own case, the current milestone is walking (I seem to be talking about this a lot here -- I'm really not as sensitive about it as I'm making myself out to be). When your child turns one, that is all people ask you about. "Oh, he's a year old! Is he walking?" Then when your child turns fourteen months old, it morphs into the question I got this week: "He's still not walking?!" (This is where the teeth-kicking urge comes in.)

No, he is still not walking. Not on his own, at least. He's awfully fond of walking with a parental finger for support, but he drops to the ground (intentionally) if we try to let go.

Let me reiterate: we really are not worried. Lots and lots of perfectly fine kids with perfectly fine parents don't walk until later. And it's obvious to anyone who has seen Ben walk that he could do it without support. He is just scared or stubborn or trying to keep his mama humble.

He has also given us some glimmers of hope recently by taking a few independent steps. He totally ignores our attempts to coax him into walking and just randomly decides to take steps on his own terms. Then when he's done, he doesn't seem to realize that he accomplished a major feat. He just moves on like nothing happened. He is a mystery, that one. For the grandparents, here is the little mystery in action (turn your volume down -- I'm talking reallllly loudly):

Last weekend

2010-11-07T00:29:00.000-04:00

We have lived in Colorado Springs for two years, and this is the first time we've experienced a Fall here that lasted longer than five minutes. I am loooooving it. I'd forgotten how nice seventy-degree weather is. This cutie is enjoying some extra time outside, too:

He had better enjoy it because next year he's responsible for raking all those leaves.

My Aunt Cheri sent Ben a super cute shirt for Halloween, and I made some valiant efforts to get a good picture of it last Saturday. I failed. This was as good as it got:

His arm is inside an empty puffs container. He's been really fascinated by sticking his arm into things lately. We call this move "RoboBen."

On Sunday, Ben finally got to wear his "Happy Reformation Day" shirt that we've been saving since before he was born. Are we dorks? Yes, we are. But you knew that. Again, I tried and failed to get a good picture of the shirt. You can't deny that he looks awfully cute, though:

On Sunday night, we changed into our Halloween costumes to go to our church's Fall Festival. I had the brilliant idea that we would dress up together as Andy Griffith, Aunt Bea, and Opie. Unfortunately, my execution of this idea was a bit flawed (because I was lazy and cheap), and it was sort of a flop. Only a few people knew who we were supposed to be. And I know you'll be shocked by this, but we only got really terrible pictures of ourselves:

For real, these were the best ones.

Despite the stupid looks on our faces, we had fun at the Fall Festival. Ben got to play in a ball pit, and he got a balloon. In Ben's world, it really can't get any better than that unless Gogurt consumption is involved.

And finally, my favorite bizarro little man decided that the best place for his upper lip was inside his lower lip. He spent several hours making this face. He is so. so. weird. But man-oh-man do I love him.

Don't worry!

2010-10-23T19:33:00.000-04:00

Based on the response to my last post, it's probably a good thing I usually only post about good things. Because now most of you either think I'm crazy, or you're worried that I'll never post cute Ben things here anymore. I would have a hard time convincing you that I'm not crazy, but I can certainly put your mind at ease about sharing Ben's cuteness.

We took Ben to his first football game today. Our new friend at church plays for the USAFA Prep School Huskies, and we wanted to go to one of his home games before it got too cold. I forgot that it's always cold at the Air Force Academy (what's up with that?). We lasted an hour and a half, which I count as a huge success. And Ben LOVED it. He ate some snacks and made some new friends. He managed to keep his hat and gloves on almost the entire time we were there, and he looked INSANELY ADORABLE in them:

If you want to tell me that's not the cutest thing you've ever seen, I'm going to make you prove it.

To quote our president, "Let me be clear."

2010-10-21T16:36:00.000-04:00

I went to a MOPS meeting at church this morning, and our speaker was fabulous. She reminds me a lot of my own mom, in that she really seems to get it. She has the wisdom and perspective that years of motherhood provide, but she in no way pretends to be an expert sprinkling her vast understanding on those of us who are too stupid to know things already.

Something she said today, though, made me think about the way I have presented myself and my family on this blog lately. She cautioned us to be careful about bragging on our children because the very trait you are so proud of may be something another mom is insecure about in her own child. And since my very last post here was about how brilliant I think Ben is (and since I hate hate HATE the silent competition that seems to exist between moms), I just want to clear the air:

Yes, Ben is very verbal. That's just where he excels. But he is thirteen months old, and I don't think he'll be walking any time soon.

And he is still way more clingy than a kid his age probably should be. He cries A LOT every time I drop him off at the church nursery. Sometimes he's still crying when I pick him up. He usually wants me or Daniel close by even at home.

He really doesn't like to be told "no." If he doesn't flat-out ignore me, then he throws a fit about it. There is a lot of crying in our house. And I'm not even very good about sticking to my guns every time I tell him "no."

His sleeping is somewhat inconsistent. Sometimes he wakes up at 8:30 in the morning, and sometimes he wakes up at 6:30. I got so tired of guessing every day whether he would take good naps that I only put him down for an afternoon nap now. He probably still needs the morning nap some days, but I know he'll be exhausted by the time 1:30 rolls around, and I can count on two hours of peace. So in case I make myself seem like I have it all together on this blog, you can rest assured that I don't.

In fact, motherhood makes me feel more incompetent than anything else I have ever done. And that includes teaching middle school, which I will freely admit kicked my butt.

I care way too much about what other people think of my mothering, too. I come home from church crying most Sundays because of some off-hand comment that I took personally (Ben isn't walking because I carry him too much, I shouldn't be weaning him already, his crying makes the other kids in the nursery cry, I need to suck it up and stop worrying about him in the nursery, and on and on). I wish I weren't so sensitive, but I am SO SENSITIVE about the job I'm doing as Ben's mom.

And sometimes I'm legitimately not doing a good job. Like the times I forget to change his diaper for hours at a time and he ends up with diaper rash. And I have to let him run around naked and he pees on things.

And maybe you missed it a couple of posts ago when I had to take him to the hospital because I let him play with a Tylenol bottle. That should clear up any misconceptions that the Wiginton household is running like a dream.

I usually choose to post about the fun, happy things that happen around here because this blog is closest I'm ever going to get to a scrapbook (there's another area where I don't have it together). Also, my natural tendency in life is to focus on the negative, so this blog helps me remind myself what an incredible gift it is to be Ben's mom.

So I hope you'll understand that what I post here is only part of our lives -- usually just the better part.

No, seriously. He is a genius.

2010-10-17T22:26:00.000-04:00

Ben is obsessed with books right now. Really, really obsessed (I can't imagine where he gets that). We easily "read" 30 books every day, and quite a few of those feature animals. Apparently he's actually been paying attention because he suddenly knows all sorts of animal sounds:

We intentionally taught him most of these, but he caught on to the owl and dolphin sounds on his own. I know, right? My experience with 13-month-olds is a little limited, but I'll just go ahead and assert that this one is a genius. Yet he doesn't seem to understand when I tell him not to throw things from his highchair...

Molly Maid

2010-10-07T22:35:00.000-04:00

First, a little back-story: On Tuesday morning, Ben was playing in my room while I got ready. I'm not in the habit of leaving medication on the floor, but there was a box of various medical-type things on the floor of my closet that day (Mistake #1). Ben discovered a couple of pill bottles and decided they were fun shakers. I saw they had child-proof caps and let him shake away (Mistake #2). To avoid an inevitable meltdown, I let him continue to shake a bottle of Tylenol while he ate breakfast (Mistake #3). Then I stopped thinking and left him alone in his highchair while I got my own breakfast. Roughly two minutes later, I made the panicked realization that HE STILL HAD THE TYLENOL (Mistake #4). Of course, he had managed to open the bottle. Of course.

Based on my frantic forensic analysis, I was about 95% certain that he hadn't taken any pills. However, when you call the pediatrician and they tell you that even one extra-strength Tylenol can kill your child, you do not rely on 95% certainty. And it seems the only people who can determine if your child has taken Tylenol are the kind-but-not-so-efficient doctors at the ER. So we spent Tuesday morning at the ER -- my patient husband, my slightly bored baby, and his mother who felt like the scum of the Earth.

Now that we have those minor details out of the way, let's discuss the real story here. While attempting to entertain Ben at the ER, we took several walks down the halls, and Ben took a bizarre interest in the janitor's cart. I pointed out the broom to him, and he latched right on to that. He would point at the cart and yell, "Broom!" (pronounced "boom") - over and over and over - every time we went into the hall.

Then the next morning, I pulled out our broom, and it got the same reaction.

I thought it would be another couple of years before Ben would be good slave labor, but I have hit the baby jackpot with him. Maybe I can teach him to clean a toilet before he learns how to use one! Score!

30 Before 30 Check-In

2010-09-27T00:00:00.001-04:00

Happy six-month anniversary to the original 30 Before 30 list over at emyselfandi.com! To celebrate, E herself is asking for an update on our lists. Here's where my list stands today:

1. Get totally out of debt, except the mortgage

2. Save six months' worth of living expenses

3. Run a half marathon in a cute running skirt

4. Run a shorter, family-friendly race with Ben in a stroller - (Daniel and I walked a 5K with Ben, but I'm thinking that doesn't count.)

5. Take a family vacation (just Daniel, me, Ben, and any future babies) to a fun city

6. Finish Ben's baby quilt - (I am totally ashamed that this one isn't done since my baby is barely a baby anymore.)

7. Take some sort of class just for fun

8. Read 25 books in one year - (I'm up to 17 since April.)

9. Get a makeover and buy the makeup

10. Shoot a real gun

~~11. Clear the junk out of our back flower beds and replace it with something edible (tomatoes, peppers, piles of Snickers bars? I don't know)~~ - DONE! My garden was a mild success. I harvested bunches of squash and zucchini, several Roma tomatoes, and a few green bell peppers. I have three cantaloupes that should be ready any day now. The strawberries and blueberries were total failures.

12. Paint the inside of our house -- no more white walls

~~13. Have a bright red front door~~ - DONE! And I love it. See it here.

14. Make a surprise visit to my parents

15. Memorize a book of the Bible and still remember it a year later

~~16. Eat out zero times for a full month~~ - DONE! We ate all our meals at home in May.

17. Beat my friend Susanna at a game of Scrabble

~~18. Take Ben's picture by something pretty at my alma mater~~ - DONE! Check out some of the pictures here.

19. Spend a day at a spa

20. Pretend to be Donna Reed for a day

21. Organize the garage to my satisfaction

22. Go snow skiing

23. Participate in the Great Fruitcake Toss in Manitou Springs

24. Make a pretty cake from scratch

25. Host a tea party (the scone-eating kind, not the political kind)

26. Climb the Manitou Incline

27. Come up with an acceptable system for organizing my recipes (I've tweaked my system, but I'm not thrilled yet.)

28. Throw my husband a spectacular 30th birthday party

29. Complete another 100 Thing Challenge

30. Watch the Balloon Classic in Colorado Springs - I'm calling this one at least 50% DONE! I didn't make it to a morning balloon launch this year, but I did go with my fam to a Balloon Glo one night. It looked like this:

Clearly, I have quite a ways to go, but I'm happy I have any progress to show at all! By my very accurate calculations, my list is 18.33% complete. Check out other folks' updated lists and post your own here.

Cute one-year-old boy

2010-09-22T18:28:00.000-04:00

Right after Ben's birthday, he started sleeping incredibly well. He's never been a horrendous nighttime sleeper, but the past couple of weeks were just heavenly. And even his naps were easy and long. But this week? Well, once again, he's lucky to be cute. "Protective coloring," my mom calls it. Here's some evidence:

Last Wednesday we went to Happy Apple Farms. I let Ben sample an apple and was shocked that he went right to work and ate the whole thing.

We didn't end up getting a pumpkin (because I didn't want to carry it all the way back to the car), but here he is sitting by one, still eating the apple.

Then last Friday, we went to an open house at a place called Little Gym. It's exactly what it sounds like: a gym for little kids.

Ben loved it until one of the workers tried to help him do a forward roll (this is apparently something a twelve-month-old can do?) and he started losing it and we went home. This was also the first day I stopped nursing him at lunchtime, so that probably contributed to his moodiness.

On Saturday, Daniel and Ben and I went on our favorite easy hike - Mt. Cutler. I thought we would make it home before naptime, but I was wrong.

And just for fun, I want to share two videos. Ben is hilarious these days and is gaining new skills all the time, so I'm trying to do better at catching some of it on video. This is my favorite new trick:

And this one isn't so new, but I still think it's adorable to watch a tiny person climb a giant staircase:

I haven't forgotten that I owe you, my loyal readership, a post or two about Ben's birthday.

Summer Catch-up: Part 3

2010-09-06T23:23:00.000-04:00

For the sake of getting on with blog-life, I'm just going to put a few pictures and a few captions up from our last trip of the summer. In mid-August, went with Daniel's brother and his family (same fine people from the previous post) to Estes Park, Colorado, for a few days. Our cabin, which had a hot tub on and hordes of hummingbirds around its deck (both got two thumbs up from me), was just barely outside Rocky Mountain National Park. We drove around the park every day and saw loads of pretty scenery like this:

And this:

We took multiple family pictures that ended up looking about the same every time:

This one looked a little different:

And this one included the whole crew:

We did some mild hiking (five young kids necessitate mild hiking only):

We toted Ben around in the hiking backpack, which he loved:

We had a superb time all around. Thanks, Clark & Steph & kids, for sharing your vacation and your s'mores with us!

Summer Catch-up: Part 2

2010-08-28T13:45:00.000-04:00

We got home from our Great Louisville Adventure on a Monday, and the following Friday (July 30), we were on the road again. This time we drove to Abilene, Texas, to visit Daniel's family. Colorado Springs to Abilene is a long drive. A loooooong drive. But we entertained ourselves by making Ben repeat funny sounds -- this was a new trick at that point.

Daniel grew up in Abilene, and his parents are still there, and his brother/sister-in-law/nieces and nephews recently moved there, too! So it was a big ol' family affair.

This time, we stayed at Clark and Stephanie's (the brother and sister-in-law) house. They have four insanely cute kids, and Ben was in cousin heaven. The three oldest cousins were really sweet to play with him, but Asher, who will be two in December, usually wasn't much of a fan. Probably because Ben constantly poked him in the face.

Whilst in Abilene, we had an early birthday party for Ben because the Wiginton side of the family won't be here for his big birthday bash next week. I think the pinnacle of a first birthday party is watching the baby smush cake in his face, and I didn't want to jump the gun on that special moment, so we had donuts instead of cake.

He loved the donuts (poor kid has his mama's sweet tooth). And he got all sorts of fun toys. Thanks, Grandmommy & Daddo and Clark & Steph!

Despite valiant efforts, we never managed to get a good picture of our little family of three. Ben's sugar high was probably not helping matters.

Clark and Stephanie live on a lake, so we spent lot of time playing outside and enjoying their backyard and its nice view.

And as if that weren't awesome enough, Clark bought a kayak while we were there, so we all took a few turns row-row-rowing the boat gently down the lake.

And when the 500-degree weather proved too much for us, we came inside and played with fake mustaches:

This trip also included a fun double-date with Daniel's parents. We went to a cute, girly restaurant AND a fun little gift shop with local stuff AND a candy store, all in downtown Abilene. That's pretty much a run-down of my favorite things, so I had a great time. But I don't have any pictures to prove it :(

I do have a few pictures of the zoo, though! We went to the Abilene Zoo! The zoo was mucho fun, until Ben started melting down a little around naptime. We had to cut our visit short, but we still got to see some good exhibits.

The whole trip was quite enjoyable. And even though Stephanie destroyed me in several late-night games of Nerts, I think we will probably go back again :) Assuming our Abilene hosts will have us.

*I'm almost caught up now! Just one more trip (to Estes Park, CO) to cover, and then the blog will be devoted to a sappy post or two about baby Ben's turning the big oh-one!

Summer Travel Catch-up: Part I

2010-08-21T12:50:00.000-04:00

The last month or so has been a bit of a whirlwind compared to our normal (admittedly boring) lives. And I have been so very negligent when it comes to blogging all our adventures, but no more! I hereby vow to make three posts this week, catching the blog up on our recent trips before I start making sentimental Ben's-first-birthday posts. Hooray!

Part I: Louisville/Southern Indiana with My Girls

I already wrote a little bit about being in Louisville with Daniel and my mildly tragic side trip to Nashville. We were in Louisville together as a whole family for about a week, but then Ben and I stuck around for an extra week of fun with some of my favorite girls in the whole wide world.

Oh yes, we did take a "prom picture" on the stairs. That's (left-right) Rebecca, Whitney, me, and Angela. The four of us have been close friends since high school. After graduating, we started a tradition of making almost-annual trips together to different major-league baseball parks. This year, we went to Cincinnati (such a cool ballpark!) to see the Reds play the Washington Nationals.

None of us are die-hard MLB fans (sorry, Dad), but the baseball trip tradition gives us a nice excuse to get together in a fun city without the pressure of staying for a long time and doing everything you're supposed to do when you go to a fun city. Our only stated objective is to see a baseball game. But the only actual goal is to spend some time together.

This year, we got to spend more time together than normal, which was perfect since our last baseball trip was two years ago. Whitney and her hubby live in southern Indiana (right across the Ohio River from Louisville, and a short drive from Cincinnati), and they were kind enough to let three extra girls and a baby invade their house for a week. We couldn't all fit in the one car we had access to, so we just got to bum around Whitney's house most of the time. It was glorious!

Whitney has a beautiful baby girl named Norah, so we spent a lot of time staring at babies. And sitting around and eating and not getting dressed until the middle of the afternoon.

And reading to babies and dressing them up all young Hollywood-like. Ben doesn't usually like anyone to play with him except me and Daniel, but he took to my girls very quickly. I think he might have developed a few little crushes. Smart boy. If he marries a girl half as wonderful as one of these, I will be a happy mama.

I am incredibly thankful for these girls' friendship, and I'm so happy we make a point to see each other and stay invested in each other's lives.

As if that weren't enough fun, Angela and Rebecca and I sat by the Doobie Brothers at the Louisville airport at the end of this trip. One of them talked to Ben, and then Angela got an autograph. The End.

Boy Wonder

2010-08-19T17:32:00.001-04:00

DISCLAIMER: This is going to be the sort of post that is really uninteresting to everyone except me. And possibly my mom. If you choose not to continue reading, you should at least enjoy this cute picture:

In the last few weeks, sweet baby Ben has magically started to get what spoken language is all about. It's amazing (especially to a mother who may or may not be a language nerd)!
So far, his vocabulary includes:

ball - He says this one allllll the time now. It started out as "bop," but now he says "baa" in a funny, nasal way.
cat - He pronounces it "dat," with special emphasis on the "t" at the end. If he hears me or Daniel say something about the cat, he starts looking around for Justin and saying, "Dat? Dat?"
meow - This one is particularly impressive to me because I didn't try to teach it to him. He just started saying it (pronounced "mih-now") on his own. He chased Justin yesterday while saying "mih-now" over and over.
no, no - Hmm... I wonder where he got that one? He seems to be better at saying it to us than he is at obeying when we say it. Little stinker.
uh-oh - Usually when he drops/throws something on the floor.
pat - He really loves to pat things (anything, really) and say, "Pat, pat, pat."
mama - My favorite, of course :) Sometimes we'll be in the middle of playing, and he will point at me and say, "Mama." But he is especially good at saying "Mama" when he is upset. Often, he adds an extra syllable - "mamama."
bye-bye - His Southern roots come out with the pronunciation of this one. It also takes him a little while to realize that it's appropriate to say bye. He'll watch someone leave the room and then wave and tell them "bah-bah."

Other language-related tricks include:

correctly answering the question, "Where is Mama's nose?"
clapping on command and when we say, "Yay!"
answering "aah, aah, aah" when I ask what any animal says
making valiant efforts to imitate any sound effects Daniel and I make with our mouths
obeying when I tell him to "pat, pat, pat" anything
laying his head on my shoulder (briefly) when I tell him to "love Mommy"
attempting to blow kisses -- he rarely gets all the components right, and sometimes when we blow a kiss to him, he makes the noise in this video:

Vanderbilt, All Hail!

2010-07-28T13:34:00.000-04:00

Remember that last post when I gushed about how great Ben was on our trip? Care to guess how he's been now that we're home? Yeah, not awesome. There hasn't been a lot of sleeping in our house this week. I've uttered the phrase "I'm glad you're cute" many times. So to remind myself just how cute he is -- and to document one more item crossed off my 30 Before 30 list -- I give you pictures of Ben by pretty things at my alma mater.

Here we have the lovely, oft-photographed Kirkland Hall.

These are some pretty, growing things outside Furman Hall (I had to look at a campus map to remember what the name of that white building was).

And this is a statue of some lady in the Branscomb family reading a book. Behind Ben is my sweet friend Melissa, who kindly kept my boy from falling to the ground.

These next pictures don't exactly qualify as pretty things, but they are places on campus that have sentimental and/or comedic value to me:

Kissam Kissam. This is the building where I lived my freshman year and where Daniel lived his freshman year. It looks a little like old-style housing projects. But check out those fine ladies surrounding Ben. Thanks to Mackenzie, Susanna, and Melissa for making our 24 hours in Nashville so much fun and for running around in the 1000-degree heat to take these pictures!

Baseball Glove Lounge. Perhaps you can see why this room would have that name.

BCM building. This is perhaps the ugliest building of all time, but I spent many important hours of my life here. And I met some of my dearest friends and my husband because of the Baptist Collegiate Ministries. So, yay! (Also, notice how Ben won't put his leg down in the grass.)

I really loved being back on that campus with Ben. My life would be very different without Vanderbilt, and my life would certainly be very different without Ben -- so it was fun to bring those two important parts of my life together for a couple of hours. Almost makes me feel guilty for throwing away all those alumni support letters we get in the mail.

All in a fortnight's work

2010-07-25T00:03:00.000-04:00

We're home! I plan to make a post or two about all the fun we had in the last two weeks of travel (don't I always say that?), but first it's important to note that Ben is suddenly becoming a big kid. Allow me to offer as evidence all the changes he has made recently.

In the last two weeks, Ben has:

*cut two teeth -- and should get two more any day now.

*started making more sounds -- including an s sound and a motorboat sound -- and imitating more of what we say to him.

*figured out (finally!) how to go from his belly to sitting up.

*gotten pretty darn good at pulling up to standing.

*started saying "pat, pat, pat" when he pat-pat-pats things. This one is particularly adorable.

*eaten several meals of just table food (instead of baby food).

Honestly, I expected this trip to be a little bit miserable since Ben is... um, not easy-going. But suddenly he was so easy-going! There were still some less-than-pleasant moments, but I'm in shock that he was such a champ during our travels. Go, baby Ben!

One more piece of evidence that he's a big boy now: he pooped in the toilet tonight. For real. I stripped him down in his room and was walking to the bathroom to put him in the tub when he started making his (unmistakable, trust me) "poop face." I wasn't sure what to do -- putting a diaper on for a few seconds seemed dumb. So I sat him on the toilet, and he went right ahead and did his business there. I don't know why everyone acts like potty training is so hard. That was a breeze. ;)

With a capital S

2010-07-16T23:36:00.000-04:00

I grew up in the for-real South, but apparently two summers in a place with reasonable temperatures and low humidity is all it takes to make me soft. The fam and I have been in Louisville this week (yes, we're our of town - go rob our house!!), and from the moment we stepped off the plane, I've been pretty convinced I'm going to die at any moment. I feel like I'm in the rainforest.

Despite the inhumane weather conditions -- and sharing a room with Ben, who is two time zones off his schedule and has to nap in the car most days and has grown 1.1 new teeth this week -- we've had a really great trip. Our adventures have included walking in a park by the Ohio river (with shaved ice to ward off my imminent death) and petting painted metal chickens:

And taking a picture on the bench where Daniel asked me to marry him:

We also had a playdate with some friends we know via the worldwide web, but I failed to push the memory card all the way into my camera, so I can't figure out if I actually have any pictures from that evening. Sadly, that was not even close to being the stupidest thing I've done on this trip. Today I did something truly Stupid.

Ben and I drove down to Nashville yesterday (more on the good parts of that trip later), just for one night. We were two hours into the three-hour return trip today when I realized we were driving on a few tablespoons of gas. So I pulled over into the next gas station I saw and reached for my wallet. Which wasn't there. Or anywhere else in the car. That's right. I left my wallet in Nashville. That meant I had no cash, no cards, not even a driver's license. My closest ally was Daniel, who was in class an hour away and didn't have a car anyway. Pretty Stupid of me, right?

I felt like a con artist when I told Debra at the counter my sob story and asked if I could pay for gas by just giving her my credit card number. Nope. Ben's cuteness came in handy, though, and she felt sorry enough to buy me $10 of gas.

The whole situation got me all flustered, and I made the Stupid decision that it would be rude to nurse Ben at a table in the air-conditioned gas station since I wasn't exactly a paying customer. No, no. I should instead sit outside in the car, in which I couldn't run the air conditioning and risk not having enough gas to get to Louisville. Have I mentioned the heat yet? I had the windows and a door open, but that doesn't do a lot when the heat index is 103.

Bless Debra's sweet heart, she came to my rescue again. She saw me in the car during her cigarette break and ordered me to go inside. I have never been so happy in the dining area of a gas station before.

The rest of the day has passed without incident, and my wallet will get here before I need my ID to fly home (theoretically). Really, as far as colossally Stupid moves go, this one didn't turn out so badly. It definitely reminded me, though, that I am sometimes a total idiot, and I need to pay better attention to what I'm doing. Or maybe I need to slow down? I don't know what the lesson should be here. The one thing I know for sure? Debra from the BP station off I-65 in Elizabethtown, if you're reading this: I love you.

Another predictable post. But with a great many pictures.

2010-07-09T18:22:00.000-04:00

My former colleague Elly wrote recently about making her blog a place for something more creative than just a recap of her life. I have no such aspirations. Thus, I give you another week-in-review post, in two parts. But to take my blogging laziness to the max, I'm not even going to write anything except headings and captions.

Part I: Micah's Aunt Cheri and Uncle Brent Come to Visit, and We Do Fun Tourist Stuff

Palmer Park, the best place to take out-of-towners

Glen Eyrie castle

Dinner at Flying W Ranch

Riding the cograil up Pikes Peak

Full of mischief on the cograil (ohhh, man)

Giving Cheri some good lovin' on the cograil

Top of Pikes Peak

This is what we got on the 4th instead of fireworks: giant hail.

Part II: Cheri and Brent Leave, But We Try to Do Fun Stuff Anyway

Fountain at America the Beautiful Park

Standing at the coffee table (aren't you glad I captioned this one?)

Duet with our buddy Nathan

More fun than you can shake a stick at

2010-07-02T23:36:00.001-04:00

I know some of you who read this blog do really exciting things with your time. Things that involve getting dressed and leaving your house. So when I say that Ben and I have done something fun every day for the last week, you might laugh at me. But by my standards, Ben and I have done something fun every day for the last week!

Last Friday, my friend Jenna (really our friend because she and Ben like each other an awful lot) came over for dinner and some hanging out. Ben pulled himself up to standing for the first time ever, while Jenna and I watched and cheered. And we ate yummy spinach quiche.

On Saturday, we went to a cookout for a friend who retired from the Air Force.

This picture isn't from the cookout, but it's from the same day, and I think he looks really cute and big.

On Sunday, we had a cookout at our house for some wonderful Sunday School teachers who are retiring from their teaching gig. I don't have any pictures from that either, but I made this yummy chocolate chip pound cake and would recommend that you make it ASAP.

On Monday, I finally took Ben to baby storytime at the library. I've wanted to go for a long time, but it's always during his morning nap. This Monday was no different, but I just decided to suck it up (it's only 30 minutes), and we both had a great time.

Ben slept really hard that afternoon and woke up with serious bed head.

On Tuesday, we went to playgroup with girls from my Sunday School class. Again, something I never do because of naptime. Apparently I was feeling very brave this week. Ben had lots of fun, even though we stayed an hour into his normal naptime.

Then on Tuesday night, our whole family of three participated in a 5K with a "running" club downtown. This group meets every week, and they welcome anyone -- even out-of-shape people who walk the whole route with a stroller! It's a really fun route, past Colorado College and fabulous old houses that I covet severely.

Please overlook the fact that Daniel and I both look ridiculous in these pictures. We felt too silly to stop and actually pose for pictures, so this was as good as it was going to get.

On Wednesday, we had a couple of friends and their three cute kids over for dinner. No pictures of that either. We were just trying to keep everyone alive and the house intact. :) We also went to Target, which I am ashamed to admit I consider a fun outing.

On Thursday, we broke in Ben's brand-new (purchased at Target the day before) baby pool. He loves being outside, and he loves taking baths, so this was like a dream come true for him. Plus, I'm too cheap to buy swim diapers, so his regular ol' diaper expanded to comical proportions, and he thought it was funny to play with:

He lasted about 30 minutes before he started trying to crawl out, and we had to call it quits.

This morning, we pulled out all the stops and went with a pair of fabulous friends to the zoo! I never really liked the zoo when I was a kid, but what was I thinking!? The zoo is the bomb. Ben wasn't quite sure what to make of the whole experience, but based on his complete lack of crying (and he skipped his entire morning nap, mind you), I'd say his impressions were pretty positive.

I did a terrible job of taking pictures, but seriously? Does a zoo picture get any cooler than this one? He was nuzzled by a giraffe, and we have documentation of it.

Despite the fact that we are both tiiiiiiired, the fun isn't stopping yet. My aunt and uncle are on there way here at this very moment, so there will certainly be more Colorado-style fun ahead of us this weekend. And then next week, I plan on staying in my pajamas for several days at a time.

Progress

2010-06-29T14:19:00.000-04:00

I am on fire with this 30 Before 30 deal. In the past few weeks, I've knocked out two more items from my list:

~~11. Clear the junk out of our back flower beds and replace it with something edible (tomatoes, peppers, piles of Snickers bars? I don't know)~~

~~13. Have a bright red front door~~

Instead of being an overgrown mass of weeds, the garden area in our back yard is now an actual garden! With actual produce living in it! My apologies to those of you who hoped I would really put piles of Snickers bars back there.

The garden runs the length of our back yard and is about two feet deep (from the fence to a brick retaining wall thing), so we had quite a bit of space available. With the help of a very kind person who knew what he was doing, we planted strawberries, blueberries, cantaloupe, red and green bell peppers, Roma tomatoes, yellow squash, and zucchini. Hooray!

I thought I would wait to post about this until I could take some pictures of nice, thriving plants. But I'm sort of scared they will never reach that point. I've kept them alive for almost three weeks now, and that alone is a record for me, so I'm counting this as a success as far as the 30 Before 30 list is concerned.

The front door, however, is quite picture-worthy. Even Ben is a fan:

I'm making strides toward the goal of reading 25 books in a year, too. I'm about halfway there, but I wanted to go ahead and share my reviews for those of you who are looking for some good summer reads. I'm too lazy to post real reviews (plus I don't think any of you would actually read them, now would you?), so I'm just giving you the advice of "READ IT," "read it," or "don't bother." I'll elaborate if you ask nicely, but here's what you get for now:

1. The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver - read it
2. Clay's Quilt by Silas House - READ IT
3. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath - READ IT
4. The Heavenly Man by Brother Yun with Paul Hattaway - don't bother (and I feel bad for saying that because I promise I am in favor of evangelism in China, but I really did not enjoy reading this book)
5. Parenting the Fussy Baby and High-Need Child by William Sears - read it (you know, if you have a superbly clingy child and need some encouragement)
6. Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck - read it
7. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Relin - READ IT
8. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon - read it
9. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen - READ IT
10. Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos - READ IT (this one was surprisingly good - don't be fooled by the cover art)
11. Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules edited by David Sedaris - don't bother (with a few notable exceptions - I loved the short story by Lorrie Moore)
12. The Help by Kathryn Stockett - READ IT

Stream of consciousness, stream of snot

2010-06-22T21:04:00.006-04:00

Today's post is dedicated to the constant river of goo that has connected Ben's nostrils to his upper lip since Friday. Wiping said goo with a tissue is a joke, since he gets so mad that he snorts out a fresh batch of it immediately. And don't even get me started on trying to use the bulb syringe. He's handled his sort-of sickness like a champ, though. I think it's starting to drain down his throat now (which I always think is the worst part when I get sick), and that's not fun, but maybe it signals the end of this yuckiness?

Last week, Daniel and I helped with the 5th grade class at our church's VBS. Our group of kids was fabulous, and three of them became Christians. Woot! I have to admit that I had been dreading the week because of Ben. He had to be in the nursery for five nights in a row from 5:30-8:30. He is usually asleep by 8:30. And historically, he doesn't love being in the nursery, as being there means not being with me. He's maybe a little clingy. Just to add to the fun, he was teething. But that little man surprised me and actually had a good time. He wasn't even crying when I picked him up at the end of each night. I know that doesn't seem like a big deal, but it was a major breakthrough for us.

Ben is trying reallllly hard to crawl. He has all the individual mechanics down -- pulling with his upper half, propelling with his lower half, getting up on his knees, lifting his tush -- but can't quite figure out how to time everything. He can usually still get where he wants to go, but not always:
Oh, the perils of near-mobility.

After last month's amazing adventure into frequent cooking, I have fallen off the wagon. I've hardly cooked at all recently, yet I've still managed to deplete my grocery budget. Oops.

On Sunday night, a youth choir from Texas sang at our church. We housed two seventh-grade girls from the group, and they were hilarious. They talked a lot but never got on my nerves even a little. If you've ever spent more than a few minutes with seventh-grade girls, you understand my surprise. And they both had red hair. I think red hair is pretty cool :)

And finally, I leave you with Ben's newest trick:

The resemblance is a bit disturbing.

2010-06-14T23:57:00.000-04:00

One down!

2010-06-01T17:17:00.000-04:00

When I went to bed last night, I successfully completed an item on my "30 Before 30" list. Now numero sixteen looks like this:

~~16. Eat out zero times for a full month~~

This was one of a few items on the list that Daniel was not so excited about, but certain life circumstances made it seem like a good one to tackle ASAP. Namely, the Tax Fairy (who used to leave nice, fat refunds for us) ran off with all our money. Apparently we weren't letting the government withhold neeeeearly enough of Daniel's paychecks (am I the only one who is clueless about this stuff?). Between that and the fact that Daniel has recently gone back to school, the Wiginton family's budget has taken some serious hits.

But what do you do when life hands you lemons? You look online for a recipe that calls for lemons!

At the beginning of the month, Daniel and I had a little back-and-forth to determine what exactly constituted eating out, and the most reasonable definition I could think of was paying someone else to prepare food for us. That still leaves room for debate -- like when nice Mrs. Mollie at church learns what you're doing and says, "What if I buy you dinner and bring it to your house?" But since I wasn't exactly sure what "the principle of the thing" was in this little experiment, I just tried to stick to every possible principle of the thing. If it seemed questionable to me, I didn't do it.

According to my meticulous records (weekly menus written on Post-It notes), I cooked 22 of the 31 days in May. The other days, we ate leftovers. And for the sake of full disclosure, I should confess that we did go to a cookout one night where we were served food from a local BBQ restaurant, and there were several different occasions when Daniel went out to lunch or dinner without Ben and me (not as cruel as it sounds -- it's just part of his job sometimes).

All month I felt like I was spending ridiculous amounts of money at the grocery store, but we ended up saving about $160 on food, compared to previous months. That alone is worth the hassle to me. But there was the added benefit of having to develop more self-control. Most of the time, I plan to cook dinner, but if I don't feel like it or don't get around to it, I send Daniel out to pick something up for us. That wasn't an option in May, so I actually had to plan ahead and be slightly less lazy. Probably a good thing, right?

So what's for dinner tonight? Pizza. I know that seems really lame, but it's the one thing I have craved all month. I tried pretty hard, and we ate pretty well in May, so I didn't miss restaurant food for the most part. But homemade pizza just isn't the same as the cheap, greasy stuff from a pizza chain.

Just for fun, here were a few of my favorite dishes during my month of eating in:
Pasta, Pesto, and Peas
Beef Enchiladas
Garden Vegetable Crustless Quiche
Curry Chicken Salad
Tangy Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Learn from my mistakes: a PSA in two parts

2010-05-28T17:40:00.000-04:00

1. Do not make the family-sized box of brownies when your husband is going to be spending more time at work than normal. Unless you want to be the size of an entire family.

2. Neosporin and Baby Orajel have very similar containers and should not be stored near each other. (Don't worry -- this was just a close call for us.)

Hooray for nice weather!

2010-05-24T00:03:00.000-04:00

When we first moved to Colorado Springs, I expected the winters to be brutal, but the two winters we have spent here were great. Just what winter should be -- lots of pretty snow that melts before it interferes with your plans. Spring, though, has been a different story. Despite the fact that Spring is in its name, Colorado Springs really doesn't seem to understand this most important of seasons. We just have Winter, more Winter, then Summer(ish).

Now that it's almost June, we are getting some glimmers of warm weather around here. I don't want to jinx it and claim that Winter is over, but I've been wearing short sleeves outside for several days. Yesterday, we even turned off our heater. Can you believe it?! It's been fun to introduce Ben to the wonderful world of fresh air:

Our first Mother's Day together was pretty, pretty, pretty. It snowed the Sunday before this, but on Mother's Day we could take a family walk (in short sleeves!) and snap a few pictures in the yard.

The next Sunday? Another walk!

This week? More walking! And a few trips to the neighborhood park! We've tried to put Ben in the baby swings before, but (am I harping on this point too much?) it was always too cold for his tastes. It's been fun to see him enjoying the swings lately!

Yesterday morning, we drove to Palmer Park and took a quick family hike...

and wore Ben out :)

Then Ben and I wrapped up this gorgeous weekend by sitting outside tonight and sharing a popsicle. It was delicious and messy and perfect. Hooray!

The story behind the name

2010-05-07T17:03:00.003-04:00

Today, for the first time ever, I am participating in "Show Us Your Life" over at Kelly's Korner. If any of my regular readers aren't already following Kelly's blog, you should be. She is addictively cute and the mother of an equally cute miracle baby. This week she has asked her bajillions of readers to share their baby names and the stories behind them, and I am complying.

This is Benjamin Eager Wiginton.

Since the hubby and I both have Old Testament names (Daniel and Micah, for those of you who don't know us), we always thought it would be fun to give our kids good ol' OT names. Daniel lobbied forever for Abraham, and while I think Abraham is a really great name, I vetoed it for us. Our last name is Wiginton. Abraham Wiginton? That is a pretty heavy-duty name for any kid -- but especially for a kid who already has the disadvantage of inheriting all of Daniel's and my weirdness. So I insisted on a more "normal-sounding" Old Testament name.

We settled on Benjamin. We actually settled on Benjamin long before our Benjamin existed. In fact, we had to beg my sister-in-law NOT to use that name for our nephew (who was born nine months before Ben). Yes, we fought for the name of our not-even-conceived child. Lame, I know, but the options for acceptable OT names are slim.

Ben's middle name took longer to nail down... sort of. We liked the idea of using a family name that was significant to us, and not long after learning I was pregnant, we picked Eager as our boy middle name. Daniel's paternal grandmother's maiden name was Eager. She had bunches of siblings (Daniel's great-aunts and uncles), most of whom were born and raised on a farm that Daniel's brother now owns. That farm and those Eagers were important to Daniel, and there are no relatives left with the Eager last name. Giving our baby the name Eager felt like the perfect tribute to a special family.

The problem with Eager was that no one seemed to like it except us. We told a few people Ben's full name before he was born, but they usually looked at us like we were crazy. Then we would have to repeat the middle name ("Yes, Eager. Yes, like the adjective."), and they would still look at us like we were crazy. I waffled for a while (after a co-worker told me that kids would make fun of him), but I finally just started pretending that we hadn't decided on a middle name yet and assumed people would be less vocal about their opinions of Ben's name after he was actually born.

As it turns out, Eager is the perfect middle name for Ben, which makes his whole name awesomely Old Testament. He was so eager to be born that he arrived a full month early. And these days, he is eager for everything. Eager to be mobile. Eager to be fed. Very, very eager to be held and loved. Sometimes I wish we had named him Benjamin Mellow. But as exhausting as that boy can be, I am learning to be thankful that God gave him such an intense personality. I am learning to pray that my Benjamin Eager will grow up to be a man who is eager to live fully. Eager to be fed spiritually. Eager to love people and hold fast to his God.

In lieu of a substantial post to commemorate the fact that Ben is eight months old

2010-05-05T16:19:00.004-04:00

He bathes and makes faces to indicate that he doesn't want us to take his picture in the tub for the millionth time!

He wears hats and sits on porch swings!

He reads the classics!

He's pretty great.

This is how his laugh sounds this week.

2010-04-26T22:50:00.004-04:00

Ben's laugh seems to change all the time. Last week, it was a high-pitched squeal. I'm a fan of this week's version (see video) -- I think it highlights his husky little voice nicely.

Another (very) recent change: he's dropped his evening nap the last three nights. I don't know if this change will stick, but I'm liking it so far. He goes to bed earlier this way, and so far he sleeps later in the morning. Plus, he's excessively cute, so it's fun to have some extra playtime at night :) Again, I refer you to the video above.

I'm sorry I keep posting low-quality videos that we take with our still camera. I'll try not to make this a habit, but it's the easiest way to share the boy with the grandparents.

Heavy heart

2010-04-23T13:30:00.000-04:00

This isn't the kind of post I normally make, but I am having trouble thinking about anything else and feel the need to put this in writing.

Our youth minister and his wife, David and Lisa, have a precious ten-year-old daughter, Jenna. They never thought they wanted another child until a couple of years ago, when God gave their family a profound desire for another little one. Months and months passed with no pregnancy. So you can imagine their incredible joy to learn in January that Lisa was pregnant! Situations like this always make me think of a line from one of my favorite hymns: "Hast thou not seen how thy desires have been granted in what He ordaineth?"

Then on Wednesday night, we learned that Lisa, now eighteen weeks along, is having some complications and is leaking amniotic fluid. Instead of leaving for vacation this week, Lisa is now on bedrest. She prayed for so long for this sweet baby to come, and now she is praying that this sweet baby will wait and continue to grow and thrive inside her until the time is right.

When I woke up this morning, I was surprised to see snow on the ground. And as I watch it continue to fall, I can't help but think that this snow is just for Lisa. What a perfect reminder that our God is sovereign over all of His creation. Sometimes His ways are unexpected, but He makes all things beautiful in His time.

Please pray for David and Lisa and Jenna and their precious baby!

Hold me closer, Tony Danza

2010-04-20T16:48:00.000-04:00

Ben has pretty much forgotten how to roll over (or he at least chooses not to these days), but he has recently acquired the ability to dance. That's probably a more important skill in the long run, right?

30 Before 30

2010-03-30T23:52:00.002-04:00

In some of my blog-wandering this week, I ran across this lovely and witty blogger (and she's an English teacher! Of course I like her!) and her list of 30 things to accomplish before turning 30. Chronic list-maker that I am, I jumped right on her bandwagon and started making my own 30 Before 30 goals.

Unlike most of my lists, though, I actually want to complete this one, so I left off "become the American Idol blogger for CNN," which is my real heart's desire. I also tried to keep these goals observable and measurable (woot, education terminology!). Some items are a little wild and crazy for me, some are little things I've meant to do for a long time, and some I shamelessly stole from other people's lists. Without any further yammering, I give you, in no particular order, my 30 Before 30 list:

1. Get totally out of debt, except the mortgage
2. Save six months' worth of living expenses

3. Run a half marathon in a cute running skirt
4. Run a shorter, family-friendly race with Ben in a stroller
5. Take a family vacation (just Daniel, me, Ben, and any future babies) to a fun city
6. Finish Ben's baby quilt
7. Take some sort of class just for fun
8. Read 25 books in one year
9. Get a makeover and buy the makeup
10. Shoot a real gun
11. Clear the junk out of our back flower beds and replace it with something edible (tomatoes, peppers, piles of Snickers bars? I don't know)
12. Paint the inside of our house -- no more white walls

13. Have a bright red front door
14. Make a surprise visit to my parents
15. Memorize a book of the Bible and still remember it a year later
16. Eat out zero times for a full month
17. Beat my friend Susanna at a game of Scrabble
18. Take Ben's picture by something pretty at my alma mater
19. Spend a day at a spa

20. Pretend to be Donna Reed for a day
21. Organize the garage to my satisfaction
22. Go snow skiing

23. Participate in the Great Fruitcake Toss in Manitou Springs
24. Make a pretty cake from scratch
25. Host a tea party (the scone-eating kind, not the political kind)
26. Climb the Manitou Incline
27. Come up with an acceptable system for organizing my recipes
28. Throw my husband a spectacular 30th birthday party
29. Complete another 100 Thing Challenge

30. Watch the Balloon Classic in Colorado Springs

You can be sure that I'll keep you posted on my progress over the next three years and eleven months.

EDIT: Making this list was so much fun -- you should all play along! You can pick any milestone you want. Go here for more details.

Lately

2010-03-18T01:00:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I just can't stand how cute that kid is. His routine for a long time has been to fall asleep while I nurse him at night, so I was surprised the last two nights when he finished eating and was wide awake -- and extraordinarily happy about it. It didn't feel right to put him straight in his crib, so I read him a story from his baby Bible, then I rocked him and sang him a couple of songs. Rather, I tried to sing him a couple of songs, but I had some trouble containing my laughter. He was staring at me, smiling, and reaching up to touch my mouth. And he made me so very happy that I had to laugh.

Everything goes straight to his mouth these days. Everything. Even things that do not come close to fitting in his mouth, like my giant Nalgene water bottle. The picture above doesn't quite capture it, but I put him in his Exersaucer one morning while I got ready, and when I looked back, he had each hand on a different toy and his mouth on that steering wheel.

Last week, his favorite face was the old-man-with-no-teeth face.

This week he prefers the stick-out-your-tongue-like-a-crazy-person face. He has probably spent fifty percent of his waking hours making some version of that face this week. All the weirdness he inherited from Daniel and me is already starting to come out.

We took a family day trip to Estes Park on Tuesday and had a chance to use our baby hiking backpack for the first time. Ben was definitely a fan. Doesn't this picture make us look outdoorsy? You would never know that we only hiked about a quarter of a mile, including the walk from our car to the trailhead. Behind us is a lake that was so frozen people were making snowmen on it. Pretty impressive destination for such a measly hike. That's my kind of outdoorsiness.

Ben rolled from his back to his tummy for the first time today (the picture above is an action shot of tummy-to-back rolling, which he has fully mastered, thanks to his disdain for tummy time). It was really entertaining to watch because it required so much effort and concentration. He made several failed attempts but eventually managed to hoist his body weight over his arm, flop onto his belly, and finish with a big grin. He was pretty proud of himself. I might be pretty proud of him, too.

Good enough to share

2010-03-10T12:34:00.001-05:00

A few weeks after Ben was born, I decided to start cooking one new recipe a week. You know, because I had so much more time. Ha! No, really I was just tired of cooking the same handful of main dishes I always made, and I have roughly ten million recipes on hand from cookbooks and magazines. Plus, the sudden disappearance of my income motivated me to make more of our meals come from the grocery store than from Chili's.

So far, my favorite part of this little experiment has been picking the new recipe each week (usually I get excited and end up making two or three new things). I apparently have a knack for picking duds, though, because none of the new dishes have been blog-worthy yet. Some of them have been fine, but about half of them make Daniel say, "This is good, honey. I'm just...um, not as hungry as I thought I was." Right.

But last night! Last night I found a winner with Three-Bean Vegetarian Chili (that's a link) from Cooking Light magazine. I was pretty sure going in that Daniel would not be a fan. It's healthy, it contains vegetables that are not cooked in butter or wrapped in bacon, it doesn't have any meat, etc. And I was even more sure it would be bad when the preparation took me for-stinking-ever (prep time seems to be inversely proportional to tastiness in my kitchen).

My, how wrong I was! This chili was so good that I couldn't talk about anything else at dinner except how good it was. It has tons of flavor, and the texture is really nice (my mom is laughing at me now because I always have issues with the texture of food). It's really filling because of all those awesome, fibery, proteiny beans. And it's pretty, too:

You should do yourself a favor and jump all over this recipe before winter is over. Be warned that if your cooking expertise is where mine is (read: low), it takes a little time to roast and peel red peppers and figure out how to peel and cube a butternut squash (I would tell you how, but I'm pretty sure my method was not worth imitating). But seriously, this chili is worth the hassle.

Happy Half Birthday, Ben!

2010-03-04T00:20:00.000-05:00

Dear Ben,

In the last few days, I began the downhill slide out of my twenties, and you began the downhill slide toward being one. I still remember when my own crazy mother sent me to school wearing an "It's My Half Birthday" ribbon when I was in kindergarten, so I deemed it necessary to acknowledge your first half-birthday in some official capacity. Fortunately, your half-birthday is very close to my actual birthday, so we were able to celebrate with a half-eaten cake topped with half-melted candles.

Well, your Daddy and I celebrated that way. You celebrated with applesauce, the very first fruit ever to grace your sweet little taste buds. You're much too young to realize that applesauce is a sorry substitute for cake, so you enjoyed it thoroughly.

You also got to play with a cool new toy, which the kind UPS man happened to deliver on the very day you turned half a year old. Even though playing with toys is not a new trick for you anymore, I'm still amazed that you can do it. Your fascination with the world in general is really fun to watch. I understand how you feel, though, because I'm pretty fascinated by everything about you. I don't think I've quite gotten over the fact that you exist yet. Just tonight, I was getting you ready to take a bath, and you were laughing and babbling, and I was taken aback by the fact that you are a full-on person with stuff going on in your brain and the beginnings of a personality coming through. And it is so very wonderful to get to know you while you're in the process of becoming you.

You've come a long way, baby, since the day I first met you. For one thing, you've gained over ten pounds in the last six months -- a feat I didn't accomplish until my freshman year of college. It's hard for me to believe that you were ever small enough to live inside me. You're figuring out how to handle that big ol' sixteen-pound body of yours these days, too. Just in the last week, you've started to get pretty good at sitting up. Fortunately for me, you're still small enough that I can make you snuggle with me while I rock you to sleep. I can already tell when I look at your squishy sleeping face in my arms that I'm going to miss those sweet moments soon.

A few months before you were born, I was struck by a verse from the song "In Christ Alone" that says, "From life's first cry to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny." It seemed really neat to me at the time that I would know you from your very first cry. And that part is definitely still incredible to me. But now, six months out from that first cry, it's the rest of that line that gets me. I like to think that I have some control over what you do, but you are a full-on person. So whether my parenting is perfect or not (it's not), a lot of your life now and a whole lot of your life in the future is out of my hands. What a blessing it is that you are securely held in the hands of a perfect Father.

Happy half birthday, baby boy!

For those who are interested, a long post about baby food

2010-02-25T23:49:00.001-05:00

For some reason, I really thought that introducing my baby to real food would be an area of parenting that had hard and fast rules. Wishful thinking, I guess, since EVERY other aspect of baby-raising is pretty subjective, and every expert, parent, and annoying (um... well-meaning?) stranger has a different opinion on how things should be done. Unfortunately, the whole baby food deal is no different. So I will preface the rest of this post by saying that this is just the way we did things, based on some reading, some advice from our pediatrician, and some trial and error -- and you can probably find a dozen other blogs out there that detail why what we did was wrong and will ruin our baby. So it goes. And with that out of the way, we continue.

When we took Ben for his four-month check-up (actually at four-and-a-half months), I asked our pediatrician about starting solids. He said that he looks for three things to determine if a baby is ready:

1. He drools.

2. He puts his hands, toys, etc. in his mouth (showing an awareness of his mouth).

3. He has been sleeping through the night but starts waking up again.

Check, check, and GIANT CHECK for us not long after that appointment. I arbitrarily decided that we would wait until five months to start solids anyway, but Daniel ended up with a night off from church stuff because of snow, so we took advantage of that extra time to give Ben cereal for the first time a few days before I planned.

Per the instructions on the box of rice cereal, I mixed up 1 Tbsp. of cereal with about one ounce of pumped milk. I had already been putting Ben in his Bumbo chair for a few minutes every day to get him used to being in it, so I thought he would be fine to eat in that. However, he usually played in the Bumbo on the floor of his room, and I (very stupidly) put him on the kitchen counter to feed him. He was waaaaay distracted by this new setting. So despite the fact that he seemed to like the cereal pretty well, he was kind of annoyed that we kept making him eat it. And this is what he looked like about five minutes into the process:

The next night, we moved him to his bouncy seat on the living room floor. Same 1 Tbsp. of cereal but with just 1/2 ounce of milk this time (this is the ratio I've stuck with). Success!

From there, we just increased the amount of cereal a little (maybe a Tbsp. at a time?) every day or so. It took Ben a few tries to get the hang of having food arrive on a spoon, and there were some pretty humorous moments early on. The first time, he would fake cough when the spoon was in his mouth. Then for a few days he couldn't figure out to keep his mouth open until the food got there. But he caught on, and now it's easy to see when he is enjoying eating and when he just wants to quit (he sticks his hand in his mouth and either fusses or turns his head away).

In the past few weeks, we've added carrots, squash, and green beans to the menu. He LOVES all of these. Our routine lately is to eat veggies at lunchtime and cereal at dinnertime. He likes the veggies more than the rice cereal, so I usually mix a little veggie goodness into his cereal.

A few other feeding notes:

*The only consistent "rule" I've seen about feeding is to wait 3 days after you've introduced a new food. Then if there's no reaction, you can add another new food.

*Our pediatrician told us to start with veggies first and then fruits (so the baby doesn't get hooked on sweet flavors and reject vegetables).

*I started out feeding Ben before I nursed him because of something I read in What to Expect the First Year. That was fine at first, but then I was afraid Ben would fill up and not want to nurse (and most of his nutrition should be coming from milk at this point). So I started nursing and then doing solids, and he still eats a good amount of "real food," but it's easier for both of us to know when to stop.

*I gave Ben oatmeal for a few days, but it didn't seem to agree with his little tummy. That could be all in my head, but I decided to lay off the oatmeal for a little while anyway. No rush at this point.

*Ben was back to sleeping through the night pretty immediately after we started giving him cereal (yayyayyay!).

That's all I can think of right now. For the handful of you who are interested in all these details, feel free to ask about anything I've neglected. For the rest of you, just comment on how cute the pictures are.

You just go ahead and try to resist him.

2010-02-14T19:27:00.001-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day! Sorry, ladies, but this cutie is already taken.

Confession

2010-02-11T23:57:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I stole something from Target.

I got out to my car, loaded Ben (who had just fallen asleep, it's important to note) and his carseat into the back, and noticed a file box at the bottom of my cart. A file box that had been at the bottom of my cart for most of my shopping, including the part where I paid for everything else. I knew immediately that I had technically stolen this file box, but I also knew that in my heart I hadn't really stolen it. Therefore, I convinced myself that it was okay to leave (did I mention my kid had just fallen asleep in the carseat?) and pay for my stolen goods the next time I was going back into Target anyway.

My squeaky-clean husband disapproved of that plan. When I told him the story, he insisted that I go back last night and make amends, which I did (after much grumbling). All the way to Target, I mentally rehearsed the amusing way I would recount this story to the clerk (the manager? the security guard? I didn't know how this thing would go down). So I was a little taken aback when I walked in with my shameful file box... and went right up to the check-out counter with it, just like everyone else was doing with their merchandise. It was a total let-down. I did tell the clerk my story, though, but he really didn't care. Maybe next time I need to steal something bigger, just to make it worth my while.

Now it's your turn. Anything you need to confess to the dozen or so people who read this blog? (And everyone can participate now! I changed my settings, so you don't have to have a Google account to comment.)

Sneaking up on half a year

2010-02-08T16:32:00.001-05:00

My precious offspring, the reason you come to this blog, turned five months old last Tuesday. At least a dozen times a day, I am struck by how much he has changed in five months. Yes, I know that is an obvious, cliche thing to say, but for reals! There is nothing quite like watching your baby figure out new things from one day to the next -- or even better, thinking back on what he was like as a newborn blob of baby and comparing that to the present. Babies are amazing.

While Ben still doesn't have any particularly impressive skills (he's not speaking in complete sentences or walking... or even rolling over at this point... and he can only tell you the value of pi to the first five decimal places), he seems to become more and more aware of the world around him all the time. Sometimes this is really funny. Like the day he realized that Justin the Cat exists.

He really thinks Justin is cool and will squeal and wave his arms around when he's nearby. He also likes to "pet" Justin, an act Justin will only tolerate for a few seconds because Ben ends up with fists full of cat hair.

One major part of growing up is, of course, growing. I noticed yesterday that my arms look stronger from carrying that kid around because that kid is much bigger and totally over his initial runthood. And he can fit into some clothing we have been excited to put on him:

This whole process of growing up has also reinforced that I don't really know what I'm doing as a parent. And when I finally figure something out, Ben changes and forces me to figure him out all over again. I'm slowly getting better about being okay with my cluelessness, and I'm really trying to enjoy even the areas of motherhood that I find the most frustrating. And if that doesn't work, I cheer myself up by taking silly pictures of my child.

Practice

2010-01-28T12:12:00.005-05:00

Can you tell what major step toward big-boyhood is just around the corner?

He found his giggle box

2010-01-22T18:13:00.004-05:00

Sometimes Ben thinks I'm funny:

And sometimes he thinks Daniel is funny:

Where has Ben been?

2010-01-20T22:39:00.000-05:00

In general, Ben and I are homebodies. I am quite content to stay holed up in my house for days, and, let's face it, Ben is pretty much stuck going (or not going) where I go. But in the past couple of months, we have taken a break from our home-staying to travel all over the known universe. Or at least all over the country.

We started with a little jaunt to Daniel's parents' for Thanksgiving.

This was the first time we violated Ben's parole, taking him across the Colorado state line into (as you can see) New Mexico.

And then we hit up the Lone Star state. This was our first road trip with a baby, and oh my did we ever learn a lot. So we were much better prepared for all the miles we clocked on our Christmas journey. An epic journey that included:

Kansas! (My apologies for this terrible photo. If you look at the sign on the overpass, you can confirm that we really did go to Kansas.)

And Oklahoma! This is where the state-line picture thing fell apart because we crossed over into OK after dark. But this picture with my great-aunt and uncle and their Tulsa license plate is a suitable substitute, no?

And then came Arkansas!

And Tennessee! That would be the University if TN section of a Cracker Barrel, since we crossed this state line in the middle of a bridge over the Mississippi River.

And then Virginia! Woot, woot!

And Kentucky! (Yes, a gas station was the best we could do this time.)

And finally, Ohio! Yay, buckeyes! You are so very yummy :)

In case you lost track, Ben has been to 10 different states (when you count Colorado, which is not pictured here since it is his place of residence). I have no idea how many road miles the little guy has traveled. I do know that waaaay too many hours of his life have been spent in a car seat. And just to keep things interesting, we threw in two separate journeys by plane:

Ben is a good traveling buddy, but I am super relieved to have our trips behind us and to revel in my homebodiness for a little while. Many thanks to all of you who chauffeured us and gave us places to stay along the way. We would love to return the favor and have you stay at our place sometime. We'll be here :)

This one's for the lurkers

2010-01-18T13:48:00.001-05:00

Then (September 2009):

And Now (Christmas 2009):

Look for more pictures of baby Ben and cousin Cale (along with all manner of other exciting subjects) in the near future. We got back Saturday night from 3 1/2 weeks of travels, so there is much to show and tell! But first I need to unpack and take down my Christmas tree.

During said travels, several of you told me that you read this blog, so I am demanding (or politely requesting, if you would prefer) that you give up your blog lurker status and comment on this post. Please :) Don't make me call you out by name.

Thanks, Gran and Papa Don!

2009-12-21T18:30:00.003-05:00

Last Friday night, for the first time since Ben was born, my hubby and I went on a date. Woohoo! And we went all out, too, which you sort of need to do when you haven't gone even a little out in three and a half months.

For the past two years, my grandparents (hi, Gran and Papa Don!) have sent us grandkids our Christmas money in advance, and we are supposed to have "show and tell" time when we're all together. Daniel and I decided to use our Christmas money to go on the above-mentioned date. And since we don't have any tangible evidence for show and tell (besides our slightly larger waistlines), I thought I would show some pictures here.

Unfortunately, that's the only one we remembered to take. But as you can see, we got all fancied up. What you can't see is that we went here:

That would be the Mona Lisa fondue restaurant in Manitou Springs. Allow me to take this opportunity to say how kind my husband is for taking me there, as he is not such a fan of the institution of the fondue restaurant. I, however, could happily live the rest of my life on nothing but cheese fondue and small bits of real food to dip in it.

Despite our lack of photographic evidence, we had a great time and ate lots of yummy food. So, once again, THANK YOU to Gran and Papa Don for this treat! Any Christmas gift that allows me to eat cheesecake dipped in melted chocolate gets two thumbs up from me :)

(If you were expecting to see Ben pictures in this update, don't miss the post below.)

You're never fully dressed without a...

2009-12-21T18:29:00.000-05:00

SMILE :)

Ben has become a rather proficient smiler, but those buggers are really hard to get on film! I have to be sneaky with my attempts to catch them because as soon as he sees the camera, he stops smiling and just stares like this:

Supah-stahh

2009-12-14T23:09:00.000-05:00

Baby Ben began his illustrious career as a child actor last week by portraying the most important person of all time. That's right. He played baby Jesus in our church's Christmas program.

Here he is at dress rehearsal (though the "dress" part was inaccurate, since it snowed that day, and the costume lady couldn't make it), his first taste of fame. Look at him, handling it like a stud.

He trained very seriously for the demands of this role -- the wearing swaddling gear, the being held, the looking cute. It's tough work being a miniature thespian. There's the wardrobe process:

And handling all your adoring fans and co-stars:

And trying to stay awake and fall asleep at the right times (he never quite mastered that one, since he slept though two of the four performances):

But what a way to celebrate your first Christmas!

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." -Isaiah 9:6

Which do you prefer?

2009-12-11T22:39:00.002-05:00

Reindeer hat (purchased from the $1 bin at Target -- woot! woot!)?

Or pants hat (borrowed temporarily from the lower half of his body)?