Throwback Thursday

Circa 1990

Road trips and other thoughts

Cardinal rule of road trips with a baby...
Pack snacks.

Reason being?
If that cute little baby is sleeping, parents who are hungry is never a legitimate reason to stop for food, risking the eyelid-popping-open trick known as waking up.

Other important tidbits-
I read somewhere recently that the Toyota Prius car has a quieter motor than a breast pump. This is mind boggling and totally bogus (as I type some of this post while connected to this contraption...) and I think the first person to invest some money into a quiet and discreet pump could be a millionaire. 

Tyler eats food!!! And every bite feels like a total victory after trying for weeks before he was ready. Now I know, baby timelines be damned these are human beings with their own brain and I like to think he was just exercising his inalienable rights- life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You go little man!

Kevin & I decided to invest some of our hard earned dolla bills in a little place called the Dominican Republic. Lots of agonizing and number crunching but when its all said and done we'll be heading off on a vacation in November. Tyler wont fit in our suitcases with all those swimsuits so it's also considered an investment in our marriage. Sounds like a win to me.

Wordless Wednesday-Cousin edition

Hockemeyer Cousins- Sarah holding Tyler & Abby holding Makenna. 

*disclaimer- Tyler is wearing pajamas. Tyler peed on his button down shirt and khakis. We tried!* 

Tyler- 7 Months

Tyler- 7 months- this is a few weeks overdue but writing this blog post has to happen after hours (aka when Tyler is sleeping) because otherwise I'm bound to miss something new that needs to be included.

In a nutshell, he does new things All. The. Time.

Likes

• Pulling himself up to his knees- kneeling in front of toys, stairs, parents and using said object to balance
• Shaking his head from side-to-side in a no-no-no motion
• Spitting- not like actual spitting but like pursing his lips together and pushing air through them (and spit always sneaks out). He is VERY good at this. If this was a developmental milestone, he'd be off the charts. My theory is that he thinks he's "talking" because he still never talks but always spits. 
• Vertical blinds- which we have in our main living space which he bee-lines for often
• Turning the pages of the books

Dislikes

• Food! (Still) but actually he may be coming around. More on that, soon?!
• When his mom and dad don't let him play with the vertical blinds. Such a sad protest cry..."Mom and Dad won't let me play with the blinds, they only want me to play with my toys, waaaa waaa waaaa"

By The Numbers

• Getting dangerously close to outgrowing those size 6-9 month clothes and heading into the 12 month-ers. This cant be happening...12 months?! It's just so realllllllllllllllllllllll.
• Need to do an unofficial weigh-in since no doctor appointment this month. 

Worth Noting

• One morning Tyler crawled out of his bedroom and into the upstairs hallway (which he had done so many times and days before) but this particular morning he turned left and found me, after I had walked out of his eyesight, standing at the bathroom sink brushing my teeth. From that day on, he now comes crawling into the bathroom most mornings when I leave his room after setting him down so that I can get myself ready for the day. It amazes me that inside that tiny (actually not tiny at all) little head of his, he can store up so much information. I was reminded of this again this morning when I saw him crawling towards a spot in the kitchen where we have had a plastic bag full of Goodwill items sitting for the past few days. He always liked to crawl over by it and hit it, hearing the sounds of the crinkly plastic. I moved it yesterday, this morning he crawled over to where it was and just looked for a few moments...eventually crawling away to the next best thing (the doorstop!). He totally remembers. It's crazy! 
• Tyler's cousins Maddie and Jodi Bird babysat for him this month while Kevin, my Mom and Dad, and I all went to see Ladysmith Black Mambazo in concert. Tyler did great! Even more notable, Kevin and I did great too! It's somewhat safe to say these were his first real babysitters if you don't count Grandmas & Grandpas or our friends who watched him for an hour way back in August when we decided to celebrate our first anniversary with a quick dinner out before rushing back to Tyler who was just 3 weeks old at the time. 

Throwback Thursday

The beginning of the end of the swaddle

Wordless Wednesday

Well well well, my friends, look what we have here. A cute little boy who found the stairs for the first time. 

Our Latest Adventure

Our latest adventure is....drumroll, please...cloth diapering!

While we haven't actually started yet, we have technically started by purchasing some supplies. But I'm getting ahead of myself by not first explaining how this came to be on our adventure list. 

During pregnancy, I spent a lot of time looking into the possibility of cloth diapering. It's basically something I always wanted to do or at least try but during my researching efforts I came away more and more overwhelmed by the options and the process and just how "hard" it seemed. I thought, "there's no way we can do that." And so, I switched my research to disposables and how we'd go about that process of purchasing, not spending an arm and a leg while still wrapping something around our baby's body that was somewhat decent. (whatever that meant). As is no surprise, we liked Pampers Swaddlers best (even after Tyler was born) and of course, they are pretty much the most expensive "main stream" diaper. So we've used disposable diapers for 7 months and dropped a lot of dollar bills (read about our spending habits here). 

Then one day I saw a friend's photo on Facebook that showed her cute little girl in a cloth diaper and just like that I thought, "oh, maybe we CAN do this" so I sent her a message and the rest is history (thanks, Natalie!). She gave me her thoughts on how to get started- and made it a whole lot overwhelming by narrowing the options down to what she uses and how she does it. 

So I talked to Kevin about it that night, using the budget savings as a significant bargaining tool as well as the idea that we could try and if we hated it we could stop. It worked! He was totally on board and our adventure had begun. Yes! 

So far, I've made a few purchases to start building our "stash" (cloth diapering lingo for diapers, I've learned). I can't wait for them to arrive...I saw the UPS truck drive through our neighborhood today and hoped that the items had magically shipped in less than 2 days even though one of those was Sunday. Alas, I'll have to wait a little longer for the prefolds, covers and pail liners to arrive. But, cloth diapers with Tyler's name on them are on their way to our house and I all of a sudden feel like it seems totally feasible now. 

Next up on the agenda is cloth wipes. And after that, more homemade cleaning supplies. All things I've wanted to do for a long time. Can't wait to see how the upcoming spring soccer season factors in to all of my plans! 

The car we own

Our car title arrived in the mail the other day which means we now own it and the bank doesn't! 

We've set a long-term life goal to consider the last payment we made on this car to be the last car payment we ever make. Ever. Ever. Evvvvvvvvvvvver. And guess what? That doesn't mean we intend to walk or ride the bus. That means we are hoping to use green bills when the need arises for a vehicle purchase in the future. Actually, we are doing a lot more than hoping...we are preparing (by saving) and shooting for the moon because as they say "if your dreams don't scare you, they aren't big enough" or said another way "shoot for the moon, if you miss at least you'll land among the stars".

Also, just so we're on the same page, writing that down- in this blog- is scary! Now EVERYONE knows! Are goals meant to be hidden deep down inside or meant to be shared? The path of least resistance says...deep down inside, tell no one, keep it to yourself, and by all means, HIDE IT. That sounds all cozy and warm, doesn't it? Instead, I guess, I just walked us right out there on that proverbial limb. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

The One-Word Year

At some point in mid-January, I read a blog post with a new twist on the New Year's Resolution concept. This post suggested that thinking about your year in one word would be an easier way to make moment-to-moment changes or to help keep your focus for the long term. What a concept...a new year's resolution that lasts past January 15th!

And so, my friends, I present to you 2014: the year of INTENTIONAL. (being intentional or living intentionally, but those are 2 words). 

January was our first month of intentional spending. Cash not plastic. The benefits have been mind-boggling. We actually have to stop and THINK about what we're buying before we buy it. During one of my first trips to the grocery store during this month, I actually had a mild internal panic while walking toward the register because I wasn't sure if what I had in my wallet amounted to enough to pay for what I had in my basket. I had more than enough, but it was a new feeling and reiterated the importance of this exercise turned lifestyle. 

And yes, we're going Dave Ramsey on our finances. Some friends of ours got us intrigued enough to give it a try, their excitement about being debt-free (minus the mortgage) was contagious. And that's only the beginning. 

Mid-way through January, I also realized that I wanted to be intentionally married too. Not just married but like really, actually, working hard to be loving our marriage (but mostly each other). More on that as it happens, but so far even small efforts make a big difference. 

I also can't wait to tell you what else I've been learning...note to self for a future blog post...Dads aren't Moms and other earth-shattering news. (Intentional parenting? or Intentional marriage? or Both!)

Tyler- 6 Months

Tyler at 6 months old

Likes

• Moving- he's crawling now, an army crawl that really gets him where he wants to go. We have seen him up on hands and knees, rocking back and forth like he knows this is a method he wants to use but can't quite figure out one knee in front of the other. (Picture above!) From this position, when he actually wants to move forward he drops right back down onto his belly and pulls with arms/pushes with toes to get where he needs to go.  
• Sitting up on his own- although he can't figure out how to get down from this position yet so he gets frustrated after he's entertained himself for long enough
• Standing with help- it's actually amazing how much of his own weight he can bear now. We aren't "holding" him as much as we are helping him balance. 
• The bib, the spoon and the vantage point of the high chair but not so much the food (see dislikes!).
• Baths- he is really learning to splash too. We still use the blue tub in the kitchen sink method mostly because it's easier for us but he'll be growing out of this method soon based on the sheer fact that Tyler's bath= kitchen and Dad bath too. Kevin still rocks at giving T his baths. 
  

Dislikes

• Food- although we try! So far he's had avocado (both smashed and in "stick" form), butternut squash, acorn squash and cereal. He doesn't like any. And by "doesn't like" I mean he adamantly closes his mouth and won't let that spoon anywhere close to inside his mouth. He's stubborn (like Kevin! hahahaha) 
• Bumping his (big) head- which he does all day long with his new-found moving abilities. He will literally pull or roll himself directly into hard wooden objects as if he has no clue they are there. Some of this could be attributed to his 96% head circumference (see below- growth!) 

Sleeping

• Bedtime is 7pm, but anywhere between 6:30pm and 7:30pm depending on the day. 
• Wakes up sometime between 6:30-7:30am, usually he eats and goes back to sleep until...Kevin leaves for work and opens the garage door! I don't mind that this tends to be between 8-8:30am.
• Takes 3 naps most days and sleeps anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours- usually 1 hour and 15 minutes like clockwork. 
  

By The Numbers

• 17 pounds, 9 ounces
• 27 1/2 inches long
• Head- 18 inches (see above, Bumping his (big) head!)
• Diaper size 3

Worth Noting

• He's not much of a talker and "failed" his 6 month speech milestone of using one syllable "words" such as ga, ma, ba, etc. We are not worried. Or more accurately, Kevin is not worried and most days I am not worried either but every now and then...you know how it is. (Note to self- future post about talking to Tyler & future post about characteristics he gets from his parents)

• Tyler had his first cold this month. I laughed when thinking back to a time in November/December when I, the first-time mom, thought he had a runny nose. In hindsight, he did not actually have a runny nose which I NOW know because he had a cold and "runny nose" doesn't even do it justice.