What We've Been Up To In Pictures

We've done a lot of stuff lately that I haven't made time to post about. So instead of doing several different posts for the varying topics, I'm going to tie them together with the theme of pictures. Here goes:

Sensory bins:

Playing with his sensory table bin full of dyed cooked spaghetti

 

Making piles

Swoosh!

We made up a big batch of cloud dough (flour and oil) for a play date

Making it snow

New Truck:

We bought Ethan a Power Wheels at our church's youth yard sale for $15. Unfortunately, the battery was dead. Enter Ethan.

4 days and one $50 battery from Amazon later, he was good to zoom!

Our neighbor of course came down to race

They spent a lot of the afternoon staring at one another as they drove

Nathan hopped in to ride shotgun

Random Moments:

Ethan dragged his rocking chair onto the screen porch to watch a thunderstorm

It's horribly blurry, but Ethan loves wearing his daddy's shoes around the house

Playing in a plane at a local organic farm

Pinterest Crafts:

Felt mail

Repurpose a wipes container with scraps of cloth for wipes! Ethan loves it, and he's no longer throwing away good wipes!

It takes a bit longer to reload, but if you take the time, you can even make it feed automatically like real wipes.

The past few weeks have been chock full of play dates, baking, errands, and play, but this should get us slightly more caught up, at least!

Chemical Purge

I haven't shampooed my hair in over a week. It's been almost as long since soap has touched my face. And that Seventh Generation cleaner I always used on my kitchen counters? Well, it's been over a year.

While you're on hold with CPS to report the squalor I'm allowing Ethan to live in, let me assure you that my house (and body) is perfectly clean. I've just been gradually removing chemicals from my cabinets in favor of more natural remedies. It started around the time Ethan began crawling. Even though the Seventh Generation cleaner I'd always used is supposed to be natural, I was looking for something totally baby-proof. So I went old-school. Starting with the kitchen counters, I began using a 1:1 solution of white vinegar and water. Then I began using it in the bathrooms, too. With the addition of my new steam mop, all of my cleaning agents are now homemade, and my home is even more sparkling than before!

Then I discovered coconut oil. I was looking for a lotion/diaper cream for Ethan, and it became a fixture in my bathroom cabinet as well. This stuff is an amazing moisturizer, it smells divine, and you can use it in the kitchen to boot! I slather it on my hands every night, and it's cloth-diaper safe, so I can use it on Ethan without fear.

My most recent switches have come in the past week only because I wanted to wait until after graduation since there is a bit of an in-between time where you can look a greasy mess. I first heard about going "no-poo" from a blog written by a local mommy friend of mine last November. I decided then that I wanted to try ditching the shampoo but decided to wait until the pony-tails of summer allowed me to hide my greasily-adjusting hair. Y'all, this method is amazing! My hair already feels healthier and silkier. It's definitely still adjusting as the oil levels regulate themselves (it takes a couple of weeks), but I don't foresee going back to shampoo.

While I was already greasy from the no-poo plunge, I decided to try out the Oil Cleansing Method (OCM). Using the science of "like dissolves like" this involves washing your face with a mixture of castor oil and olive oil. After the first night, my face felt silky and smooth, and it's such a relaxing process! I had heard there could be an adjustment period with this method as well, but I honestly haven't noticed any difference. The breakout that was starting when I began the OCM was stopped in its tracks. We'll see if it passes the test of hormonal breakouts or not, but I have high hopes for this method as it avoids any need for facial cleanser or moisturizer, and, at the very least, it seems to work just as well.

So what started as an attempt to keep chemicals out of Ethan's crawling environment has become a process of detoxing the house entirely. I have a feeling there will be more changes over the coming months as I discover new ways to ditch the chemicals in favor of more natural methods. But there are still some things I'll hang on to. Most notably: store-bought deodorant, more specifically antiperspirant. In just the past week, two different recipes for homemade deodorant have come up on blogs and forums I follow. My husband has been trying to get me to stop using antiperspirant since we met, but I've just told him it'll be his job to care for me when I'm struck by the aluminum-induced Alzheimer's. I may not know who I am, but at least I won't be sweaty.

Graduation Weekend

I'd planned on getting to this post much earlier in the week, but apparently that didn't happen! It was certainly a whirlwind weekend, though quite enjoyable! I'll try to summarize briefly and of course include some pictures.

Everyone came to town on Friday evening. Ethan went nuts over seeing his BeBe (my maternal grandmother) in person, and even though this was only the 4th time he'd seen her, he was calling for her all weekend long (and all of this past week, too!). On Saturday, after breakfast with my dad and a trip to the farmer's market, my mother-in-law came over in the morning to build me an herb garden for my graduation gift. It's amazing! Then we spent some time playing (mostly with water balloons) before Ethan's nap:

After Ethan's nap, I was able to nurse him quickly before my dad and I headed off to get seats for graduation. We got there right when the chapel was supposed to open, and yet we still ended up in the 3rd to last row!!! I headed off to the div. school chapel where all the graduates were to gather, and there were some mighty pissed off people whose parents were stuck in overflow seating already! After an hour catching up with friends and enjoying the moment, it was time to process in.

The graduation itself was full of mixed feelings. While I was trying to focus on the moment, my mind kept getting distracted by all the crying babies. "Was that Ethan? It sounded too young. That couldn't be him. Could it?" I did hear a laugh that sounded a lot like him (and indeed it was) and found out afterwards that he was as happy as could be, sitting in Grandma's lap and playing with her iPhone. I'm quite proud of how well he did, in fact, especially considering graduation lasted 30 minutes past his regular bedtime!

It was also full of mixed emotions for other reasons. In part, one of my friends from my first year spiritual formation small group passed away last fall from cancer. As we were seated, I asked the person next to me (also from our year) if that was our friend's wife sitting across the aisle. I'd only met her once or twice, but I was pretty positive. Sure enough, it was, and there was a very moving ceremony in which they awarded him a posthumous degree. I (and many of my classmates) couldn't hold back the tears thinking about what an amazing person he was and how much he's missed.

It was also full of mixed emotions because it was the end... but not quite. In a way, I'm actually thankful that I have to go back for one more class next fall because it allowed me to keep it together at graduation. This place has been so wonderful, and I hate to think of leaving. So while I was proud to have (almost) made it through, I'm so glad I don't have to say goodbye yet.

The dean of the chapel gave an amazing sermon, and then it was time for the hooding ceremony. After that, there was a time of community celebration (read: cheering), and then we recessed back up the aisle. I cannot describe how incredible it was to see Ethan waiting for me. He was just beaming, so excited to see his mommy. Seeing him, everything was worth it. And so I couldn't help absconding with him for the rest of the recessional!

We headed to our pre-determined meeting spot. Everyone soon joined us, and then it was time for pictures. By then, Ethan was quite sleepy, so we didn't get a lot of smiles out of him (save for when he started sticking his finger up his nose... he'd outright giggle every time I playfully yanked it out). Finally Ethan couldn't wait to nurse any longer, so we said our goodbyes as I nursed Ethan on the bench.

 The plan had been to change him into PJs, let him fall asleep on the way home, and stop at a fast food restaurant to pick up some dinner. Well, Ethan decided that was a bad plan. Instead, he spent the drive back laughing at his phone, talking away, and just celebrating the evening. I tried to quiet him down, and even recited his favorite book to him from memory, but by the time we got close to home, he was still wide awake. So Ethan and I were dropped at home so I could get him to bed while Daddy went to pick up Chick-fil-A (Everyone else in the family had the same idea, funnily enough!). Ethan went down almost immediately as soon as he got in his crib and slept just fine all night.

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend, and I'm so glad Ethan was there to share it with me! Now I just need to actually finish earning my diploma!

My Smart Boy!

This is a total bragging post. I make no appearance otherwise. But bear with me because it has a cute video.

A week or two ago, I told my husband that Ethan knew a letter: "O." He has one of those magnetic letter sets with Scout from VTech, and he likes to play with them sometimes during lunch. On one such occasion, he exclaimed "O!" picked the "O" up, and threw the rest on the ground. My husband was unconvinced.

This morning, he was playing with his letters on the light table. He handed me the "O" and said "O." Then he handed me the "Y" and said "Y!" I was so excited I ran and got the camera to collect proof. I have no idea if he knows any of the others (so far "D" and "M" were busts, though he did identify a "V" as a "U" and called a "B" an "E" so maybe he just knows vowels), but I'm quite impressed as it is since we've never formally attempted to teach him any letters!

Sorting Colors

One of Ethan's new skills is sorting things on the light table by color. He initiated this entirely. I noticed one day the other week that he was picking up all the yellow jewels. Then he began handing me all the green ones. So I got down some containers, and he got to work. He's done it several times since then, but I finally decided to grab a camera after he started doing it this morning:



So far he seems to like it best with these jewels as he won't sort the pony beads as easily (he ends up getting distracted and just making shakers out of the containers!). But it's definitely a first step towards color recognition!

Twenty Months

Dear Ethan,

I can't believe you're 20 months. No longer in the single digits, no longer in the teens. In just four short months, you'll be 2!!! Now I understand what people meant when they said the second year goes by faster than the first!

It's been a fun and eventful month, and even this weekend attests to its busyness what with my graduation (post to come), all our visitors, Mother's Day (happy Mother's day!), and your monthly "celebration" all within two days! I feel like you've come so far and grown so much this past month, and yet I can't think of specific changes to list. You are so independent, yet you love to follow us around and mimic us. You love playing with your neighbors, yet you can also go off and do your own thing. You're learning words left and right, yet you stubbornly refuse to say certain words we know you're capable of. You are a blur of boyish energy, yet you have the focus and concentration to sit down with a task to its completion. You amaze me every day, and I feel so blessed to be your mother!

Not much has changed from last month as far as your eating, sleeping, and pottying. Naps are still fairly unpredictable in length. You are trying more foods and textures all the time, but you still make your mind up about something and refuse it no matter what I try. If your daddy and I put a little more energy into the whole potty thing, I bet you'd have it down in a few weeks, but, honestly, we've been lazy about just letting you tell us when you want to go. As quickly as you're trying to grow up, maybe it's our unconscious way of hanging onto the little remnants of "baby" as long as we can!

We've entered the months of play dates, so the coming month will see lots of socialization and fun! In fact, we're hosting one at our house tomorrow, my first since last August. Other than that, we don't have much planned! Daddy will take some time off from work with the close of busy season, and I'm sure we'll just spend our days enjoying one another and exploring. While it may not sound eventful, I feel sure I'll still have plenty of tales to tell!

Thank you, Ethan, for making me a mother. I can't imagine anything I'd rather be!

Love,
Mommy

This Weekend's To-Do List

Saturday, 5/5:
[X]Go to Farmer's Market
[X]Go to Lowe's to get toilet handle (Ethan broke off the toilet flusher in his bathroom)
[X]Go to Target to look at curtains
[X]Mow lawn
[X]Prune bushes in front
[X]Repair toilet
[X]Sweep and steam mop front room
[X]Go to Big Lots and look at curtains
[X]Go to craft store to get things to make wreath?
[X]Make wreath?

Sunday, 5/6:
[X]Go to church
[X]Hang curtains in master bedroom
[X]Preschool Advisory Board mtg. @ 2 PM
[X]Clip coupons
[X]Deadhead plants around pond
[X]Label and store bins of baby clothes in attic
[X]Meal plan


It's been busy, and that doesn't even include a lot of what we did this weekend! Since this was my first free weekend after the semester ended, I decided to tackle all of the domestic odds-and-ends (beyond basic cleaning and laundry, of course) that had been neglected while I was in school. I honestly didn't expect to get everything done, especially since I had to run a meeting at church this afternoon and my husband and our neighbor went to the shooting range this morning. But despite these interruptions, we managed to cross everything off my to-do list. And I'm quite thrilled with the results!

On Saturday, I went into "PRUNE ALL THE THINGS!!!" mode. I cut back some very overgrown bushes in front of our garage back to the size they were when we moved in. I cleaned up some other bushes in the front and cleared tree branches from over our front walkway. I wish I'd taken before and after pictures because the difference is quite noticeable. The front still needs some work, though, but that will have to wait for us to buy some mulch and pine straw. Our curb appeal got a final boost in the form of a wreath I made last night. I've been thinking about making one for months, but just never had the time to get around to it. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, all for around $10!

In the back, I finally did something about all the dead plants around our pond. We have several plant varieties that need to be cut back every winter, but we've never done it, so all the fresh greenery arises amidst the brown dead stuff from the year before. It had gotten bad, and I finally tackled them this afternoon. One variety proved more stubborn so most of that will have to wait until this winter, but overall, it looks much better! Our massive rosemary bush that didn't survive winter 2010 also went today, and we discovered a bit of brick walkway that we never knew existed.

The other major changes happened inside. I finally labelled and got stored away in the attic all the bins of baby clothes Ethan's outgrown, in addition to a bin of bibs, bottles, etc.

The other big change was we FINALLY got and put up curtains in our master bedroom. As I posted here, I made roman blinds back in January, but the room was still pretty plain, mostly shades of white and brown. I discovered this color scheme on Pinterest and found these curtains:

 The room just feels so much more put together already, and we haven't even added any pillows or artwork yet!

A productive and fun weekend, indeed!

Sweet, Unnecessary, and Yet Inadequate

Ethan received a free toy today from a store manager hoping to avoid a lawsuit.

We had decided after several minutes of shopping to go back and get a cart. It was raining outside so the concrete floor was slippery, and there was a wet floor sign right in front of the carts. Ethan's daddy was trying to get a cart, stumbled over the wet floor sign, and bumped right into Ethan who had sidled up behind him, sending him crashing to the floor, where he hit the back of his head. Now, when Ethan falls, he usually doesn't react in the slightest. But when he hits the back of his head, he absolutely loses it. So of course, he began his ear-piercing scream that is punctuated by silence as he ceases to breathe in between cries. We grabbed him up immediately, and I held him to my shoulder as I comforted and shushed him. He burrowed in, I checked his eyes for signs of a concussion, and he calmed down when we offered to let him push the cart. So within minutes, he was happily charging around the store again, but his fall and subsequent screams had drawn a fair bit of attention.

While he was still screaming, a manager came up to us, having been alerted to the events by a cashier. We assured her that he was just fine, mostly just scared, and that we appreciated her concern. Assuming that was the end of it, we continued our shopping. A few minutes later, the manager returned again and extended Ethan two cars, one with Cookie Monster driving and one with Elmo, telling him to pick one. Well, you know you can't offer a toddler two of something and expect him to just reach for one, but he eventually settled on Elmo and happily began vrooming him around on the floor. We thanked the manager profusely and assured her again that he was just fine.

As we continued shopping, my husband turned to me and said, "I know she's just doing what she can to be nice and ensure that we don't start thinking about filing a lawsuit, even if they could be held liable for his fall. But if we were of the mindset to sue, does she really think a $3 Sesame Street toy will make up for a million-dollar settlement?"

And that is how Ethan's new Elmo car is sweet, unnecessary, and yet inadequate, all at once.

The Most Important Meal of the Day

I tend to get into breakfast ruts. For most of my grade school days, I started the morning off with a strawberry Nutrigrain bar, hastily grabbed as I ran out the door. In college, I ate the exact same dining hall breakfast every morning from my first day of orientation through my final year: scrambled eggs, grits, and a biscuit/wheat toast. From the beginning of my pregnancy through the first year + of Ethan's life, I ate a Bruegger's rosemary olive oil bagel almost every morning. Then when I discovered the overnight slow cooker method, I switched to steel-cut oatmeal to help boost my milk supply. As an added bonus, Ethan loves it, too, so every morning for the past several months, he and I have split a big bowl of oatmeal. Until the past few weeks.

Maybe it's the warmer weather, maybe it's just not the sort of breakfast you can have for months on end, but I began to get positively sick of steel-cut oatmeal. I had seen a few interesting breakfast oatmeal recipes on Pinterest (for those of you who aren't "in the know," it's like a virtual corkboard/pinboard), so I decided to take advantage of my breakfast boredom to try them out. And I'm so very glad I did.

I began with overnight refrigerator oatmeal since I thought something cold might break my breakfast rut. Oh man was I right! This stuff is fantastic!!! I've tried almost all the flavors she writes about (the only exception is the banana-cocoa since I didn't have any cocoa; I also did a variation of the raspberry-vanilla using strawberries instead since that's what I had on hand). While I've loved them all, my favorite by far is the mango-almond, followed by the raspberry-vanilla or maple-blueberry. The apple and the banana-peanut-butter are both good, but the cinnamon and peanut butter, respectively, are a bit overpowering, and I prefer the lightness of the fruit-centric varieties. In this morning's, I decided to add some coconut to the mango-almond, and it was absolutely divine!

 I think I could happily eat this every morning for quite some time. Plus, it's really healthy with the protein from the greek yogurt, the fiber from the oatmeal, and the Omega-3s from the chia seeds. Unfortunately, Ethan is not remotely impressed. I don't think he likes lumps in his yogurt because he spits it out every time.

So now I needed to find a breakfast for him since I'm not making the steel-cut oatmeal anymore. Enter Pinterest, again. I saw this recipe for individual baked oatmeal, and since Ethan loves muffins so much, I decided to give it a try. I took all these pictures of the process, but then Ethan did something to my iPod, and I had to reset it, thereby losing 3 weeks worth of pictures. Very sad. So you'll have to settle for a picture of him scarfing one down for breakfast this morning, even though it doesn't show all the varieties we made:

He absolutely loves them and would (and has) eaten one for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I love that it's a balanced breakfast in one little muffin cup, plus it's so easy to pull one out of the freezer and just heat it up for him. They're pretty tasty, though I don't know that just one would satisfy me for breakfast. They do make good snacks, though.

Now my only issue became not having the steel-cut oatmeal to boost my supply. In looking back at the baked oatmeal recipe, I realized she had derived her recipe from another blog. When I went to the original source, I saw that she had just the day before posted a recipe for individual baked oatmeal with steel-cut oats! So this morning, we did some more baking, and this time I stuck with plain (Ethan didn't care for any of the toppings on the others) and coconut (my favorite of the toppings we did):

I think these are just as good, if not better, than the originals. They are definitely a bit crunchy, which could be off-putting to some, and they have the nutty, hearty flavor of steel-cut oats. But they are also slightly sweeter (there's much more honey in these than there is maple syrup in the others, and even though I didn't use all the honey the recipe called for, I still could have backed it down a touch and had it taste fine). Ethan didn't seem to notice much of a difference, and I am happy to have a handy, healthy snack to help with milk production.

One of the best things about all of these recipes is that none of them require any real work in the morning, which has been really great lately since I'm flying solo most mornings due to busy season. If you try any of them, be sure to let me know what you think!

Busy Day = Hyper Toddler

It's been quite a day! Even though I finished my classes over a week ago and finished my final papers this past weekend, I still had some things that needed to be done on campus. So I decided to load up Ethan and take him on his first trip to campus since he used to come with me to class a year ago. All in all it was a wonderful day, though there were definitely a few hiccups.

We left at 9 to get there in time for my 10 o'clock meeting. Somehow in setting this up, I didn't think about the fact that we'd be traveling due west mid-morning when Ethan is most likely to try to fall asleep for a morning nap (even though he dropped it months ago, he still gets sleepy and has fallen asleep in the car as a result). So I spent the whole drive there trying to keep him awake and happy as he squirmed to get the sun out of his eyes. Once we finally made it to campus, I loaded him up on my back, and we climbed aboard for Ethan's first bus ride.

We started our day with a meeting with one of my professors to do my senior review (a graduation requirement in which you go over your senior portfolio). Ethan was a bit shy at first, but before long he was convincing the professor to get down on the floor with him to do a puzzle, and by the time we left, he was sitting in the professor's lap! This is the same professor who let me bring Ethan to class with me a year ago, and I'm so grateful to have such amazing teachers!

After the meeting, we headed down to the Cokesbury to get my rewards for taking the graduating senior survey: a new Common English Bible and a $40 gift certificate. I finally purchased my Book of Common Worship and had enough left over for some beautiful prayer beads. Then we headed to the chapel basement to see some of my old co-workers. No one was there when we arrived, so Ethan examined the nursery and nursed for a bit, and we caught up with two of my former co-workers as we were leaving. For our last errand, we headed to the university bookstore to pick up my graduation hood!

We chose the foot of a statue in the chapel quad as our lunch spot. Ethan scarfed down a Chick-fil-a grilled sandwich and was rewarded with his first try of a local popsicle shop's wares (this place has been featured in gourmet magazines, so this was an important milestone =P). After lunch it was time to head home. Here's where things got interesting.

The bus circle was closed down because there was a funeral at the chapel for some big shot in the community. As a sidenote, why in the world would it be necessary to have 4 hearses, a horse-drawn carriage-hearse, and 5 limos for one dead body?!?!? Anyway, rather than just moving the buses to the lower circle like they usually do for big events, they moved the bus stops all over campus. So we had to walk almost halfway to the parking lot just to get on the bus. I considered just walking the rest of the way, but with a toddler on my back and my arms loaded with bags decided it would be easier to just take the bus. I was wrong. As a result of the weird routing, they ended up skipping my bus stop. So the bus ride that should have taken 3 minutes ended up taking 30 as we had to go the entire length of the route.

Ethan was a great sport about all of this, even though we didn't get to the car until 1:00, 30 minutes after his usual nap time. I changed him, loaded him up into the car, and told him to have a good nap. I had decided to drive past our old house to kill time since I'd have to keep driving around as long as he slept. And Ethan decided not to nap in the car. By the time we could have been home if I'd gone straight there, Ethan had lost all patience. He began screaming just like he used to do on those long commutes home after class. I finally managed to calm him down by holding his hand, and when we were 10 minutes from home, he finally drifted off to sleep. So now I was almost home but had 2 hours to kill driving around. Awesome. It all ended up working out OK, though, and Ethan got a nice nap in.

Apparently all of the events of the morning coupled with his good nap led to Ethan being in overdrive. While I cooked dinner, he just ran laps around the house, chasing the kitties, laughing, and babbling non-stop. In fact, he continued to do the babble/run for the rest of the night, and I finally grabbed the video camera to capture the cute. Apologies for the nose in need of wiping... He was running around so much that I didn't notice it until afterwards.



I have no idea what type of toddler-ese that is, but it was cracking us up. Oh, and before I get a frantic phone call from my mom, that window has a toddler lock on it, and he's never unattended around it, so we're not going to have a Conor Clapton on our hands. Shockingly, he did end up going to bed with no problem! So despite a few issues, it was a very productive and enjoyable day!