Baby shower

I was privileged to get to be a part of my dear friend Erin's baby shower this weekend. She's expecting her first, Emery Mae, on (or before :) March 12. Planning and organizing has been going on for months, it seems like, and I'm glad our efforts paid off!

We had a great group show up for the shower and (I think) everyone enjoyed themselves. Erin and Emery got lots of wonderful gifts, and I hope that all of the gifts that have been showered on them in the last few weeks have helped to ease (at least some of) the stress of having a baby. Erin has watched most of her close friends go through this process in the past few years and now it's her turn! Hopefully she's seen all of our mistakes and won't make the same ones! :)

I didn't get a chance to write in the "advice" book yesterday, so here's what I would have written...

Erin, I love you! (I'm getting all teary-eyed writing this and I'm not even pregnant!!) I hope you can relax and enjoy your last few weeks of being pregnant. I know you know you much you (and that sweet little thing in your belly) are loved, but don't forget it. Also, don't forget that this is your baby (ok, and Russell's) to raise. So you do what you feel is right, but don't hesitate to ask any of us ANYTHING. And then decide whether that advice works for you, or doesn't. I promise we won't make fun of you, because chances are, we had to ask somebody else the same question already :)
And it's ok to cry because you don't know why your baby is crying. Sometimes, that's the only thing there is to do. But crying (and even hysterical screaming) hasn't hurt Cade, and chances are good that it won't hurt Emery, either.
PS Cade said he'd be glad to come over and give her a hug and a kiss to calm her down if you can't handle it. ;)

Nine month check-up

Last Monday, I took Cade to the doctor for his nine month check-up. Our pediatrician was very pleased with all of the things he's able to do now. We've been given the official okay on feeding him "real" food, as long as it's mushy or soft. So that's what we've been doing. Last week, he had this beef and potato thing I make, hash brown soup, and last but not least, grandma's chicken and dumplings.

He was a little unsure about the beef and potato mixture. I think it was the texture of the ground beef that weirded him out a little bit (he's definitely related to my husband's side of the family...texture is a BIG deal to Ryan's sisters and dad :). But he ate it okay. Just made some funny faces in the process.

Cade really liked the hash brown soup. Which is good, because I'm pretty sure it's my new favorite thing to make. And Ryan really likes it, too.

But Cade LOVED grandma's chicken and dumplings. Which is easy to understand. My mom actually makes it from scratch, and you really can't beat homemade chicken and dumplings. Especially on a cold night. Which it has been around here. For days. Maybe months. Maybe years. OK, not really. But it sure seems like it!

His stats for his nine month check-up: 18 lbs, 10 oz and 30 inches long. Weight is the 19th percentile and height is the 93rd!! He is definitely a long, skinny baby. And I am definitely okay with that. I have a feeling clothes are going to get harder and harder to find for him, but there are worse problems to have than that!

New dishwasher

Several weeks ago, ok, more like two months ago, I noticed that the dishwasher was leaking when it was running. Not like it flooded the kitchen floor, but there was a definite puddle (that was slowly but surely ruining my rug!). Ryan watched it for a while, and finally, last weekend, he pulled the bottom of the dishwasher off to watch it while it ran. Lo and behold, it was dripping from 5 places. One of which was the motor. Yikes!!

We looked at a couple of places last weekend, just while we were out, and then I began some serious research. I checked out Consumer Reports (I can get to it through the public library...free :) and also looked at the websites for Sears, Lowe's, and Best Buy and read reviews from people who had actually purchased the specific dishwashers Consumer Reports rated highly. (And of course, I also asked for advice on Facebook)

That night, we went by Lowe's to look at a couple I had seen good reviews for, with no intention of purchasing one yet. Of course, they were having a sale that ended that day, coupled with free delivery and haul-away this month. I had narrowed it down to 2 or 3, but I couldn't remember which I had liked the best, so we went home so I could check out my list again. While I fed Cade and got him in bed, Ryan went back to Lowe's and ordered one.

And it came in to the store today so it will be delivered tomorrow morning!! Hooray! And we only had to do dishes by hand once (well, WE only did them once...I did them another time). But that sure will help me appreciate my new dishwasher! Here's hoping I picked a good one!!!!

Such a big boy

It's been a big boy week around here. Cade started off the week with crawling. I think he looks too little to be crawling around by himself, but Ryan pointed out that when someone is holding him, he looks like a toddler who should already be walking. He IS pretty long.

Last night, he had his first big boy bath. As in, he was sitting up in the bathtub all by himself (obviously not without supervision...how on earth can people do that?), without the bath seat that we have been using since he was born. The bath seat is put away for now, until #2 comes along to use it :)

He LOVED his bath. For the most part, he has been pretty tolerant of taking baths since he was born. Just a few times here and there that he was not so much the fan. But let me tell you, last night when he could splash, that was really something exciting. He grinned and giggled and tried to crawl in the bathtub (didn't work out so well for anyone involved), and we were all wet by the time he was done. He's definitely a splasher. I told Ryan that we're going to have to start wearing waterproof clothes for bathtime now.

He's 38 weeks old today, so he has now been out of my belly for as long as he was in it! (Well, technically tomorrow, since he was a day late :) Crazy!

Crawling!

It finally happened! Cade is officially a crawler now! He's been getting around pretty well for a month or so, and it's been pretty entertaining to watch how he does it. Kind of a combination army crawl/sit up and turn/flail on tummy/leapfrog. I'm sure you know exactly what I mean by that :)

But yesterday, he actually crawled for about 8 feet without stopping to flail on his tummy. (He was after Toby's rope...nevermind the 27 toys that were out that were actually HIS)

I guess this means I need to finish the baby-proofing. My guess is that the first casualty will be the Xbox 360 on the TV stand, because there's not a lot I can do about all of the stuff we have out on it. We shall see!

Global warming. Ha!

The school district I used to work for just announced that they are closed for the rest of the week, due to the arctic freeze we are supposed to get later this evening. I am slightly amused by this. I don't know that I ever remember them cancelling school for cold before. But it is supposed to be COLD. Like negative digits cold. Like I feel like I'm in Canada cold. (Seriously, I don't know how people actually live there. It's in the negative 30s on a regular basis. Yikes!)

Snow days used to be one of the highlights of my life. As a teacher, there just aren't that many perks to the low pay, high stress, and don't even get me started on the theoretical summers off and short work days (it would be a fantastic gig if you actually got to leave at 3:00 every day and didn't have professional development expected of you in the summer). BUT there's always the hope of the random, unexpected day or days off in the winter. Which, many times, I think is better than a planned day off. When you don't know it's coming, you don't have a list of things that you have to get done on your day off, making it a spectacular excuse to stay in bed until at least 10 or 11. Plus usually the weather is bad, so you shouldn't be leaving the house anyway.

So to my teacher friends: enjoy your snow days. You earned them. The kids are usually a mess after Christmas break anyway (procedures? what procedures? you want us to get in a what? a line?), so enjoy this brief reprieve :)

And to Al Gore: come visit Oklahoma. Apparently our weather didn't get your memo that the Earth is slowly warming up and the polar ice caps are melting away to nothing.

Games

I love to play games. Board games, card games, even some video games. When I was a kid, I was always the one who had to go beg my daddy to play a game with us. He was not so much the game person. Actually, now that I'm older and wiser (ha!), I think it was more that he would have rather played games with people he could be competitive with. Because a 10 year old and a 7 year old just aren't that good at anything yet. Except maybe Candyland. :)

Anyway, I have married someone who is not a game person. With the exception of video games. He can play those for hours (but he usually doesn't...at least, not now that we have a little mister around). When we get together for holidays and such with Ryan's family, we inevitably play a game. Or three. I think it's fantastic. Ryan and his father do not so much. Apparently he inherited his lack of love for playing games from his father. This year, though, even though we were there for Christmas for 3 days, we didn't play any games. It was so sad. This was the busiest we've ever been while we there. Well, let me rephrase that. This was the busiest we've ever been while we were there for a holiday. We (at least I was) were WAY busier last summer when Ryan's sister got married.

So it was terribly exciting to me when we were invited to a New Year's Eve party. For the sole purpose of having a game tournament. Now that's my kind of party! :) We played 4 hour-long games of Settlers of Catan. And if you haven't ever played that before, you're missing out. It can be kind of a long game (hence the hour limit on each game), and a little difficult to catch on to at first, but it's so fun! It helped that I won 3 of the 4 games I played :) Ryan didn't have quite as much fun as I did. But he puts up with things like this because he loves me. And I love him. Which makes those video games easier to deal with :)

I just need Cade to get a little older so he can play games with me, too!!