Stream of consciousness, stream of snot

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.

One down!

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

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!

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

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

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.