Funky Chunky Monkey

I am in a funk.

Who knows why.

The child development specialist that leads some of my parents groups said adults have mental "growth spurts" (similar to wonder weeks) their entire lives. She said that roughly every six months we all experience some sort of change/brain development.

I have no idea if that's true, but maybe it would explain my mood for the last couple of weeks.Or maybe my thyroid is out of wack. Or maybe work is getting to me. Or maybe life is getting to me. I don't know.

But I want to shake it. I want to shake it off BAD.

Any ideas?

Sleep Diary: See Saw Again..

Benjamin slept like a CHAMP while DH was out of town. It was great. He actually even went the whole night without eating and without needing tending! (He did wake up, but went back down on his own before I responded).

Then DH got back. I am not saying this caused it, there are plenty of other explanations, but now Benjamin has been sleeping poorly for about a week. He has been waking up more, wanting more feedings, harder to put back down...

I assume this is just how life works and he will see saw back the other direction.

Hopefully rapidly because I am getting tired.... Its funny how fast I adjust to his sleep improvements. His "bad" sleep this week is identical to his "good" sleep from a month ago (wants to eat every 4 hrs... etc). But yet it feels SO BAD. haha....

Playing Single Parent

The five BEST things about Playing Single Parent
5. Catch up on "me" time and "Mommy" time.
4. I don't have to feel bad for hogging the laptop all evening.
3. Trying out new Recipes DH would never eat
2. King Size Bed all to myself... no husband to steal covers, no dog to crowd us.
1. Being reminded why we live in Duluth as my awesome family steps up to help me out.

Also, I thought I would take this opportunity to comment on my awesome neighbors, who I hardly know. We really are not very social and I do not know my neighbors well, but we have a trash fairy and a snow Santa. Trash fairy is the mysterious someone who puts our trash out on Monday's when we forget. No idea who does this and its so nice of them!! Snow Santa is a neighborhood man who looks like Santa and occasionally runs his snow blower along our sidewalks, significantly reducing our workload. He did this today just by chance and very much saved my butt in terms of shoveling.

The five WORST things about Playing Single Parent
5. I have to scoop kitty litter
4. I have to take out the trash
3. Benjamin Misses DH
2. No backup for parenting - inconvenient and sometimes feeling unsafe
1. Missing my Husband :(

THAT season...

Its getting to be a time of year I forgot existed.

A time of year that does not exist in Columbus, OH, but is quite prevalent in Northern Minnesota.

It is the time of year where everyone feels like winter should be over, but its not. The time of year when the snow is piling up so much that the streets are little and narrow, and then full of slush on the occasional warm days. When it snows, you are not quite sure where to put the snow you shovel, because there is already snow there. It will warm up for a week, even sneak into the forties, and then drop another foot of snow and have single digit temperatures.

That is the time of year it is. I am thinking, if my childhood memory serves me, we have about another month of this at least before Spring really starts to take hold. I am basing this on Easter recollections of snowy ground. Every year after we searched the house for Easter eggs we would hop out onto the stoop to make sure the Easter bunny had not hid any outside. He never did, because the weather was usually uncooperative.

If you are wondering, no, this post does not have a point. But its my blog so I can write what I want! HAHA

Here. How about some kid stuff to add interest?

Benjamin likes being outside. He is fascinated by the snow and loved to try and pick it up, move it, lean on it. He is out of whatever grumpy period he was going through (whether teething or developmental), and has been very cheerful the last few days. Which is great, since I am playing single mom. I feel bad saying "playing single mom" because I feel like its insulting to real single mom's somehow? But that's how it feels to me. Like a game - Can I do this? Can I keep the house CLEANER alone than with DH here? hahaha. If I do, its not because he does not help, its because I spend my evenings alone cleaning instead of socializing and doing stuff with him. Evenings are pretty easy. Mornings are the more stressful time. Trying to shower, hoping Benjamin does not wake up, making sure I have everything, getting the car turned on (its supposed to be COLD tomorrow, normally we would start the cars 10 minutes before we left - hard to do with a toddler in tow), getting everything out to the car, having my lunch and breakfast packed, etc. Its an adventure! Two days to go....

Growing Boy

Its possible Benjamin is having growing pains. Or teething. Or a developmental spurt. Or all three.

He is fussy and not sleeping well, that is for sure.

And his mouth hurts, that is for sure.

And this morning, when I was done getting him dressed, and he stood up on the changing table to hug me (to get down), I noticed he was tall. How long has he been this tall?? So I stuck him  next to the mark on the wall that we measured him at at 1 year. As DH puts it,. that was a generous measurement (maybe too high), and he is not at least an inch and a half past it. Maybe two inches past it. Crazy.

That also means he has probably officially outgrown his infant car seat for height. He was getting close and we were avoiding using them for the most part, but now I think I have to say that he is TOO TALL for that car seat.

What a big boy....

Recurring Themes

About time for a non-baby post, don't you think?

There are a few recurring themse in my life. I am not talking about deep serious things, though those exist as well. For today I am talking about two things - recurring projects/goals that never quite become permanent, and recurring fiction.

Recurring Projects
- Meal planning! I will do great at it for a couple weeks or even a couple months, but then things get busy, or we go on a trip, or we have a week where meal planning doesn't make sense (like too  much going on, lots of eating out planned), and I fall out of it and "just get by" in the meal department for awhile. This is where I am with this right now! Just scraping by, day by day. I wish I could just stick with it!
- Laundry! I will get a good routine for Laundry for a week or two and then totally fail and just let it stack up everywhere.
- Dishes. Same as Laundry.
- Budgeting/spending stuff. 

There is definitely more, but I can't think of it right now. It can be hard to make LASTING change!! Luckily in the grand scheme these things don't matter too much. Do you have any projects that just keep coming back?

Recurring fiction!!
Duh! You know what they are. Harry Potter and Twilight. Eek! The main reason I bring this up is because Breaking Dawn Part II (movie) just came out on DVD and I am enjoying it quite a bit. And, it got me reading the book again. The writing is SO BAD, but the story and ideas are so addictive I can't help myself. I meant to just re-read one section, but I now have read over 200 pages of it.....


That is all. :)

14 Months Old

I am finding it so hard to grasp that my little man is 14 months old today! I know this is weird, but this may be the hardest month yet. It just does not seem possible that it has been 2 months since he turned 1. When I was at the used baby clothes store I couldn't believe that only a year ago I was in there shopping for 6m outfits. Parenthood changes the perspective on times.

Enough about me though, this post is supposed to be about how Benjamin is doing.

Benjamin does not like to have his diaper changed. Its because he is bored. So, we started giving him a book while we change it, and its both adorable and practical. He sits there and read and we change him! He certainly entering the more opinionated age of Toddler. He is not as tolerant of activities he does not want to do. He is a very cautious child. He doesn't kike strangers and he is slow to warm up to new surroundings. He demonstrated these traits this weekend when we had our first swim lesson of a new session and then again on Sunday when we took him ice skating for the second time. Both days he started out upset and not liking the activity, but ended up smiling.

One thing he does love to do is to walk, run and climb! I am definitely of the philosophy to let him walk as much as possible! We have had him running around the mall, Target, Barnes & Noble, Old Navy, and restaurants. Tonight we had him at a BBQ place and there was a ramp right next to our table that lead to some empty tables. He was just running up and down it the whole time we were waiting for dinner! He is starting to do some climbing. Gma Duluth taught him to climb a step stool so he can look out a window. He was trying to climb a stack of books in B&N, which we stopped of course! He also walks/runs/meanders out of daycare everyday. Its a long path from the door to the parking lot and sometimes it takes us 10 minutes because he is meandering off the path or running back to the door or stopping to watch other people go by.

Language wise, he is still chugging along! Always trying out new sounds, sometimes a new word. We are also doing some animal noises. Words he says or tries to say on a regular basis: Up, More, Out, Kitty, Dog, moo, vroom, baa/neigh. Words he has tried to say/said once or irregularly: Dad, off, eyes, down, cracker,... I know I am forgetting a bunch! As is usual his comprehension is much better than his ability to speak. He understands so much of what we say! Recently we were thrilled to discover he knows some body parts, and he knows a lot of random animals - like elephants and monkeys, etc. He will do some sounds for them too! We are still working on them. I really want to get him to say mama, but no luck yet. He has M but just won't put it together for me.

He is teething. At least two more bottom outside teeth, maybe four. Its hard to tell. He laughs when we try to look in his mouth. He certainly has been grumpy enough the past four days for it to be four teeth.... He also is getting all sorts of new bumps and bruises all of the time. He got his first goose egg at daycare today, right between his eyes! He likes to run and gets really goofy and falls and hits his head. He also loves rocking chairs - adult or kid sizes! He also loves the climbing area at daycare. All lead to pumps and bruises. He also loves to play with cars, and books of course! Always books. Sometimes he lets us read a whole book, sometimes he wants to look at every book, sometimes he wants to look at one page or the cover of a book for a very long time. Sometimes he goes and finds all the dogs in his book, or ducks. Sometimes he just sits and acts like he is reading them all on his own.

He recently started trying to take his shirt off. I think its more of an experimenting thing than a wanting the shirt off thing! He also likes to take his gloves off, even when he shouldn't! He likes to color - both to actually use the crayons, and to put them back in the box. He loves to play with the kitchen utensils - bowls, spoons, etc. He tries to match lids with containers. He likes to put his magnetic letters off the fridge into bowls, or into oven mitts. I took some boots to change into when I got to work the other day and found Go Fish cards in them, made my day. He also has started stuffing things under our buffet - like recyclables.

That is all that I can think of right now. He is the center of our world right now and we love to spend time with him, even when he is grumpy. We love to have family dinner every night. We love to watch him sleep. We love to see him laugh, climb, run, play and read. Its an amazing life! 

Perfect Weekend Day (and Sleep Diary Update)

Benjamin slept really well last night again! He woke up around 10:30pm and needed comforting. Then he slept until around 1am, and then until 6:20am! It was really great only getting up once overnight to feed him! (DH went at 10:30, we were still awake).

Today was pretty great. DH got up with Benjamin at 6:20 and came downstairs and gave him breakfast while I slept an extra little bit, then I played with Benjamin and packed his swim bag. We went to his first swim lesson of this session. It was kind of rough. I did not get in the water because my swimsuit is too big (you know, the one I bought last fall thinking "oh yeah I can get a great nice mommy suit and it will last a long time"... does not work when you keep losing weight and your boobs shrink back down to size...). Anyways, he was a bit fussy and scared, but by the end he was really splashing and having fun. After that we went out and ran some errands, did Target for awhile, which we always enjoy. Benjamin got to run around a little in there, which is new. We got lunch at Noodles&Co (which Benjamin and I love), oh how he digs their pesto. Then we walked around the mall, he tried to climb the books at B&N, marveled over the mannequins and survived a popped balloon indecent in Old Navy. Then I popped into the used baby clothes store while Benjamin and DH napped in the car.

Back home, Benjamin continued his nap for over an hour MORE while DH cleaned up the living room and I watched Breaking Dawn #1 (Twilight #4). When Benjamin woke up he was super cheerful and fun. We colored in his new (dollar spot) coloring book, ate an orange, and he played hide and seek with dad (Benjamin did the seeking). We skyped with G&G St Louis while I made chicken tacos. We gave Benjamin a whole, assembled taco instead of the taco parts we normally do, and he loved it. Since dinner was relatively early compared to a week night, we had plenty of time after for more books, games, and a couple rounds of "chase the dog". Then we got Benjamin bundled up in his PJs and had a quick and easy bedtime.

We are sitting down to watch Breaking Dawn #2 now. I am going to make a nice cup of grog and we will snuggle up and watch. Perfect weekend day.