First Haircut

After a frustrated attempt to trim his hair in the front, I finally took Sawyer to the salon to get his first haircut. He didn't like it one bit, especially when she used the electric trimmer around his ears. He still has his little curls in the back; I couldn't bear to let her cut them off! I'll keep them for as long as Eric will let me. Here are some pictures.

Welcome Baby Benjamin!

Congratulations to my good friends Becky and Matt, who just had their first baby! Benjamin Matthew was born on August 8 and is such a cutie. Check out their blog. http://mattnbecky.blogspot.com

It's a Jungle Out There

A few weeks ago we had torrential rains like nothing I've ever seen before. In one night it rained 8 inches, which is more than the state of Utah gets in an entire year. As a result the plants in my garden seemed to double in size in just a couple of days. If you don't believe me, here's a picture.



We've been eating green beans and tomatoes for a couple of weeks now. It is such a good feeling to have grown them myself. I've always thought self-sufficiency was overrated, but now I'm starting to understand why people at church harp on about it all the time. Maybe I'll even start storing wheat in plastic buckets in our basement.

My husband remarked that this blog has evolved from an infertility/pregnancy blog into a gardening one. I wonder what that says about me: Do I have an innate desire to make things germinate and grow and bear fruit? And more importantly, once we get into cold weather again and I can't garden anymore, does that mean I have to get pregnant again? Geez, I hope not. I'm going to need at least another year before I start poking myself with needles again. Not to mention the nausea, fatigue, sciatica, and did I mention the nausea? I'll have to find another means of creation.

The Answer's in the Music

Ha ha, this was fun. I copied this from Michelle. Some don't make any sense but a few are really funny. It also shows the lack of variety of artists I have on my iPod. I need to do some serious ripping from my CDs!

Directions: Put your music player on shuffle.Press forward for each question.Use the song title as the answer to the question. No cheating.

How am I feeling today? Tori Amos "A Sorta Fairytale"

Will I get far in life? David Brent "Free Love Freeway" (from The Office! hee hee)

How do my friends see me? Beth Orton "Carmella" "Ain't nothing very funny 'bout a man making money off a blond haired blue-eyed girl" - apparently they all think I'm a whore.

When will I get Married? Tori Amos "Wednesday" Actually I got married on a Saturday.

What's my theme song? Oasis "Roll With It" good one!

What is the story of my life? David Gray "Freedom"

How can I get ahead in life? Beth Orton "Central Reservation" The most enigmatic song ever.

What is my best feature? MXPX "Chick Magnet" Apparently women are attracted to me! Cool.

How is today going to be? The Sundays "I Can't Wait"

What is in store for this weekend? Rob Thomas "Now Comes the Night" Oh no, I'm going to die!!!

What is my life like at the moment? Ryan Adams "The Shadowlands" Now that's depressing.

What song describes my secrets? Death Cab For Cutie "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" - doesn't really make sense, but a great song nonetheless.

What is my current lover like? Jack Johnson "3 R's" from Curious George - "Reduce, reuse recycle!" (I swear Eric, I didn't plan that!)

What song will they play at my funeral? Indigo Girls "Ghost" That's appropriate, because I definitely plan to be there to see what everyone says about me.

How does the world see me? Ryan Adams "Jesus (Don't Touch My Baby)" Hmm, an overprotective mother?

Will I have a happy life? Tracy Chapman "The Promise" Oh, that is a happy song.

What do my friends really think of me? Ryan Adams "Carolina Rain" It's about a murderer. Nice!

Do people secretly lust after me? Beth Orton "Worms". "Now I'm your apple eating heathen, the original sin." I guess that's a yes.

Will I accomplish my goals in life? Duncan Sheik "Mister Chess" So I have to work on my strategy maybe.

Will I find true love? The Sundays "Joy"

How do I treat others? Puddle of Mud "Control" Ha!

Still Growing

The garden continues to grow. Since the last picture I've put in three types of tomatoes, basil, more beans, thyme, and summer squash. The flowers I planted aren't doing too well thanks to some negligence on my part - we had a dry, hot spell and I forgot to water for a few days. The green leaf lettuce bolted a week ago and the romaine is almost done too since it's been so warm. We'll miss having fresh lettuce from the garden - back to buying it in bags. My next project is to construct a trellis for the tomatoes and squash. I can't wait for that harvest! I'm also planning on putting some mint plants in the planters where the strawberries were supposed to be since I've been unsuccessful at getting two different batches of them to grow. Here are some more pics.

Standing Man

Right around his first birthday, Sawyer started cruising. He's been pulling up since he started crawling (about 7 months) but has just now figured out that he can get from place to place by holding onto things. It's just a matter of time now until he's walking solo.

Signs of Life

Here are the latest pictures of my veggie garden. So far I have two kinds of lettuce, carrots, bush beans, marigolds and a geranium.




It's going really well so far, this square foot method is so easy! I just water every couple of days, which takes about 2 minutes since it's such a small amount of space. I've pulled exactly 3 weeds - the seeds blew in from our maple tree.

Happy Birthday Sawyer!

Sawyer turned one today! I can't believe he is a year old. It sounds so cliché, but it really has gone by so fast. My dad was in town so he and Grandy came over for cake. Sawyer had a great time mashing his piece into a paste and then throwing it on the floor. I'm not sure if any made it into his mouth, but it was definitely on his face!

Congratulations Mom and Erin!

Last week Sawyer and I went out to Utah to celebrate the graduation of my mom and my sister Erin from BYU. Erin graduated in English and is planning to move to the DC area soon, so you know what that means - instant babysitter! My mom had to drop out when she got pregnant with me, and so now almost 30 years later she finally had the chance to go back and finish. She is now a college grad with a degree in Family History. I am so proud of her! Here are some pictures from our stay.

Grandma Sue and her grandbabies after the ceremony.


The graduates with me, Sawyer, Tanne, Caroline and Megan.


The two water babies. Sawyer and Caroline both love their baths!


On this trip we discovered that Sawyer loves dogs - even 75 lb. Jack, who has huge teeth! Luckily there isn't a sweeter dog in the world and he put up with Sawyer's abuse without complaint.


On the swing at Grandma's house. The house my parents are renting while they build their new one has a fantastic back yard.


The two cousins with Erin and Megan. Sawyer better grow, Caroline is catching him up!


Sawyer's favorite greeting for Grandpa - the Head Butt.

Garden

Here's a picture of my garden before planting. So far I've put in lettuce, carrots and parsley and when I get back from my trip to Utah I'll plant everything but the tomatoes and basil. Stay tuned for pictures once things start growing! Assuming of course, that I can actually get things to grow...

Funny Boy

Sawyer has picked up some funny habits in the past few weeks. One is rolling his tongue, like he's trying to pronounce "R" in Spanish. He is amazingly adept at this and can do it in any pitch or tone of voice. He has also started babbling all the time - before he made lots of noises, but now you can tell that he's imitating speech sounds. He makes "sentences" and obviously knows exactly what he's saying, even if Eric and I don't. We're still signing with him, but so far he still only signs back to us when he wants to go to bed. The other night I was nursing him to sleep and as he was drifting off he signed to himself "bed" over and over again, like he was saying "ahhh, I get to go to bed." He understands when we sign "bath", "Daddy", "eat", "bird", "light", "fan", "up", "more", "book" and "kiss."

My favorite funny thing he does is head-butting whoever is holding him. It seems to be his way of saying "I like you" (maybe he's part goat?)



We went to the beach with Eric's family for Easter and had a great weekend - the weather was fabulous. Sawyer had his first taste of sand. He was unimpressed. He then rubbed some all over his face and cried to be picked up.






This is how he's learned what "up" means. Eric will say "want to go up?" and he'll throw his head back in the air and clench his fists to get ready. There's nothing that makes him laugh harder.

Gardening

Now that I'm sleeping at night and actually have energy during the day, I've picked up a new venture: gardening. My mom is an extremely gifted gardener, but sadly I was never interested enough as a kid to learn from her. My project this year is a square foot garden. I learned about this technique from a friend of mine in college who had just returned from a trip to Haiti where he taught people how to grow their own vegetables more efficiently. The standard method of vegetable gardening is to plant in long parallel rows, which takes up a lot of space and usually produces much more than a typical family can use. A square foot garden is arranged as the name implies, in squares. The idea is to plant one crop per square foot - then when that crop is harvested you plant a new one in that square and you can continuously have vegetables growing. I'm doing a 4'x4' one this year and I'm planting: tomatoes, cantaloupe, cucumber, carrots, romaine lettuce, green leaf lettuce, parsley, rosemary, basil, strawberries, green beans, and some flowers (nasturtium, sweet peas, and marigolds). I have planted a few of the cool crop seeds (the lettuce and carrots) and they are growing beautifully. I am really enjoying this so far. Who knows? Maybe some of my mom's talent is genetic.

Ahhh, Sleep!

Sad that I've gone back to once a month posting...

BUT that may change soon since my life is completely different now! After lots of trial and error, I discovered that Sawyer has an allergy to cow's milk. That's why he was waking up screaming several times every night - the milk proteins from foods I consume pass into my breastmilk and he can't handle them. So I've been off dairy for a month and oh my goodness! What a difference. He is a changed baby. The dietary restrictions have been hard as I'm something of a dairy freak - I used to have milk on my cereal for breakfast, yogurt with lunch, cheese with almost everything, and ice cream for dessert. All that's changed now! I substitute rice milk with cereal in the mornings (which is kind of gross, but I'm getting used to it.) And it's totally worth whatever I have to do to be able to sleep at night - I can't believe how much energy I have!

I am also feeling totally vindicated in my parenting choices. I was getting a lot of pressure to let him "cry it out" to get him to sleep through the night. I am so glad I didn't give in! My poor baby was in pain and leaving him to cope by himself wouldn't have accomplished anything positive. Yay for parental instinct!

If I Was a Superhero...

Sara posted this neato quiz on her blog so I thought I'd try it too.


Your results:

You are Supergirl
Lean, muscular and feminine.
Honest and a defender of the innocent.

---

77%
Wonder Woman

---

77%
Green Lantern

---

65%
Spider-Man

---

60%
Batman

---

55%
Catwoman

---

50%
Robin

---

49%
Superman

---

45%
The Flash

---

45%
Hulk

---

40%
Iron Man

---

Click here to take the What Superhero Are You? Quiz

Pictures for Grandma Sue

For my mom's birthday (which is the same day as mine) I took a bunch of pictures of Sawyer and put them together in a little scrapbook. He is turning into such a ham and smiles as soon as he sees the camera pointing at him. Here are a few of my favorites.

Signs

As I think I've mentioned before, we are teaching Sawyer sign language. We're using the book Signing Smart With Babies and Toddlers. This is his first sign: "bed". It's an approximation (he should have his hand flat against his head) but he definitely knows what he's trying to say. Every night after Eric gives him his bath he starts signing "bed," "bed" until I put him down and sometimes he signs it as he's falling asleep. Some of the other signs we are working on are "Daddy", "bath", "dog", "music", "hurt", "wake up", "more", and "kiss". He understands several of these, so it's a matter now of getting him to sign back to us. It is really cool to see him putting things together in his mind and for him to know he can communicate with us.

"Yes, I'll have the Big Wong Special, please."

Please, oh please, let this place be for real! Big Wong

Edited to add: Even better. Fat Wong

Changes

So a lot's happened in the past several weeks. I had a birthday and turned 28. Sara and Michelle came over to celebrate with us by having a BBC The Office marathon. We ordered takeout from Maggiano's, ate yummy Lindt chocolates provided by Michelle, decadent chocolate birthday cake which Eric made from scratch, and did pedicures while we lounged on the sofa and laughed ourselves silly at the antics of David Brent. Eric took care of Sawyer and didn't let me lift a finger all day. He gave me a docking station with speakers for my video iPod and a coffee table I've had my eye on for a while. I feel pretty indifferent about turning 28 (it's just one of those "in between" ages where I forget how old I am sometimes) but it was a good birthday.

The really big news is that Sawyer is now crawling. It's amazing how much this has changed my life. Gone are the days when I can set him on a blanket on the floor and let him play quietly with his toys. He's on the move and into everything as soon as his knees hit the floor.

A little while ago, Sawyer said his first word, "Dada." He seems to know what it means sometimes, and other times he seems to say it indiscriminately (he'll say it to me, his sippy cup, or his giant Nemo stuffed animal.) The other word he likes to practice unfortunately sounds a lot like "ass." This has caused some amusing situations in public places; shoppers at Target don't quite know how to respond to a chubby-cheeked 9 month old waving his arms in the air and yelling "Ass! Ass! Ass!"

SLEEP

It's been a crazy few weeks since Christmas. Sawyer is teething, so our wonderfully predictable routine of naptimes is totally shot because he has trouble staying asleep. He's also learning to crawl, so he doesn't want to go to sleep in the first place because he's so busy trying to figure out how to get around and rip our house to shreds. It's like we have a newborn again and we are both exhausted.

It's amazing how sleep becomes the most important thing in your life when you're not getting any. (It's similar in that way to sex; no one thinks more about sex than someone who can't have it.) All day long I think about when I'll get to lie down for a nap. I fantasize about it. And when the magic moment comes when I see Sawyer's eyes finally go out of focus and close I have to restrain myself from screaming "Hallelujah!"

Since I've been up so much in the night I've been able to listen to Eric talk in his sleep, which is always fun (although not as fun as sleeping.) The other night I believe he topped the cowboy comment. He looked at me and said "Point that thing somewhere else!" I asked him "What thing?" and he smiled and said "Your ding-a-ling-a-ling!" and giggled hysterically. I pointed out to him that I don't have a "ding-a-ling-a-ling" as such, and he said "In this picture you do" and kept laughing. I don't even want to know where that came from!

Merry Christmas

It's been a really nice Christmas here at our house. For the first time we had Christmas with just our little family instead of travelling to be with our parents, and I'm so glad we did. Not that we don't like our families - we actually missed them a lot - but having just the three of us at home together for Sawyer's first Christmas was a cool experience. Megan, Ryan and baby Caroline (who is starting to fill out and get some adorable chubby cheeks) came over on Christmas Eve for dinner. I attempted to make the dishes my mom traditionally serves: roast beef, mashed potatoes, candied yams, green bean casserole, fruit salad, and her incredible homemade rolls. It turned out pretty well I think. Of course, it's never exactly the same as when mom makes it! But it was a lot of fun to spend so much time cooking and putting it all together.

Christmas morning Eric and Sawyer got up early and played while I slept in until 8:00. (If that had been my only present I would have been happy!) After I woke up we opened our gifts. Saywer had a great time tearing open packages and playing with whatever he found inside; even the safety covers for electric outlets were a hit. My amazing husband gave me a new iPod, complete with engraving on the back that says, "Happy Wife, Happy Life". After all the packages were opened we had a big breakfast and went to church (for only an hour - woohoo!) When we got home we had leftovers for lunch and took a long nap. We talked to our families on the phone and then spent the evening watching our new DVDs of "Scrubs" and "Everybody Loves Raymond" while munching on Christmas candy.

Today we stayed in and played with our new toys, and Eric studied for the written part of his CCIE exam, which he's taking in a few days. He's taking this whole week off from work and it's so nice to have him around. I'm realizing how much I like my own family, and how lucky I am to have them.

Merry Christmas everyone!