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I finished my first quilt last night.  It’s been quite a process and has taken a while, but I got it done.  And I must say, it looks pretty good.    I have plans for more in the future, but for now I’m just enjoying it.

Ethan continues to work on his standing up each day and has started to move around the table now.  It still amazes me how fast he changes!  He’s working on his balance and is attempting to stand without holding on to anything.  He’s such a sweet little guy.  And “no touch” seems to be going better this week, though I’ve probably just jinxed myself. 

YEAH!!!!!  Ryan is finally done with his school, only 3 1/2 years later.  He turned in his final paper this evening and is now done.  Finally I get my husband back in the evenings!  And his schedule at work is getting back to normal starting next week so we are both going to be much happier.  Now, if only the porch was done…. 

Ethan’s first tooth peeked it’s way through yesterday, I’ll post a picture as soon as it makes its way a little further up since you can barely see it right now.  He seems to be doing fine with it, but it’s going to be even more important to keep him from chewing on people and furniture since he’ll cause more damage now.  I’ve lost my toothless grin, but I’m pretty sure he’ll always be adorable!  I’d like to blame his new tooth for his crabby behavior the past two afternoons, maybe that’s the case, I guess you can never really know though.  He’s upstairs taking a nap now to hopefully get over that.  He does seem to be taking after his momma in the sleep department.  Though he is more of a morning person than I am, at least so far.  He sure does get crabby if he doesn’t get enough.  And he’s blessed me the past two days by not getting up until a quarter after 9.    I really feel sorry for underslept moms and I’m extremely thankful that phase is over, at least until the next one.

Would someone please remind me why I wanted Ethan to learn to crawl? Something about milestones maybe, who knows. I think I must still have momnesia or some form of pregnancy brain to think this would be a good idea. He finally got it down pat last week and now he’s all over the place. I’m trying to teach him “no touch” – sometimes it works, sometimes not so much. I liked it better when I could put him in a spot and be reasonably sure he would still be there in a few minutes. I think he takes after his big furry sissy Trina – she has a fondness for electrical cords, it seems he does too. She hasn’t electrocuted herself yet, so hopefully he won’t either. He’s still working on the teeth thing but I’m not in any hurry for those. Once he gets teeth he’ll never give me another toothless grin (baring any unfortunate dental accidents) and I love that grin! He’s also discovered pulling himself up into a standing position so now he almost can’t stand to be sitting down, no pun intended. I keep trying to tell him that pulling up on a moving footstool isn’t the best idea but what do I know, I’m just mom. We took him hiking today up in the mountains. He had a good time looking at nature over Ryan’s shoulder and then taking a nap on his back. He’s such a cheerful little guy, he just giggled a lot while we walked though I’m not sure what he was laughing at. But he missed his long nap (refused it really) so by bedtime we had one cranky monster on our hands. I’m also glad he doesn’t have teeth because he likes to chew on his crib rails and so far I haven’t put the plastic thingies over them. Thank God for pack n’ plays!

I can’t believe it, just like I can’t believe it every month with Ethan turns another month older.  He’s now 8 months old and seriously growing like crazy.  His crawling has really taken off over the past two days, it’s like something just clicked and now he’s moving along pretty well.  Ryan and I took him to a little park today and let him swing.  It’s hard to find a park with baby swings, but there’s one by the library.  So anyway, he had a good time, though he didn’t really know what to do with his arms and seemed to get uncomfortable after a while.  I did post some pictures today so you can check those out.  I hope you all had as beautiful a day as we did, it was just gorgeous and makes me glad to live here in Colorado!  Of course, it’s supposed to snow tomorrow, but oh well.  Happy tax day everyone!

It’s been a full day.  It’s my little sister’s birthday, Happy Birthday Karen!  Ryan has been working really hard tearing up the porch and doing some other chores around the house.  We put up a baby gate to keep Ethan out of the hallway going to the basement, laundry room and garage.  He started crawling in earnest today so I’m going to have to pay more attention to what he’s doing and where he’s going.  Hopefully he’ll stay out of the litterbox altogether but I have a feeling it would only take one taste to get that point across!  I also found him standing up on his own today for the first time.  I left him by his toy bins and went to cook dinner and next thing I know he’s standing up banging on the coffee table!  I’m glad the pack n’ play is still out, I have a feeling I’ll be utilizing that more often.  We’re working on teaching him signs now so he can tell us what he wants.  It’s slow going, but we’ll get there.  I’m also teaching him how to pick up his toys when he’s done playing.  That’s also going slowly but we’ll get there, hopefully before he’s a teen!

You may think that since I’m a doctor that most things wouldn’t bother me.  Well, most things don’t, but snot does.  I can’t stand it!  And little monsters seem to have it, a lot of it.  Our little one woke up with a face full of it today, gross!  I think this is the one thing that really grosses me out as a mom.  I can deal with poopy diapers, but snotty noses are enough to send me running.  And it doesn’t help that Ethan practically runs away when I pull out a kleenex.  I swear he starts crying as soon as I pull it out of the box.  This precisely the reason I absolutely refuse to check Ryan’s pockets when doing laundry.  I’m completely grossed out by the fact that I could potentially come across a disgusting used tissue, not that he ever sticks them in his pockets, but there is always the possibility.  So he’s had multiple items watched in his pockets through the past few years, but I think it’s his own fault for leaving them there.

Not for much longer.  Ethan started crawling a few days ago, so things are about to change.    He’s not very good at it, but he is starting to get around.  He figured out how to go from all fours to sitting last week so he does that constantly, to the detriment of crawling.  He still lunges for things at the end of his crawl but he’s getting there.  So now it’s time to work on “no touch”.  That’ll be interesting since, in typical boy fashion, he is very curious about everything and grabbing on to anything he can get his hands on.  So while the cats are safe for a little while still, they’d better beware and read the writing on the wall, the little one is up and about to go after them and their tails with a vengeance.

I freely admit to watching Oprah.  Though I don’t necessarily agree with all of her shows, I do find her interesting at least most days of the week.  Today I’ve been watching a heartbreaking episode about puppy mills.  I know many people don’t actually believe they exist, but they do.  I know many people don’t think they matter, but they do.  I always encouraged my clients to get their animals from a shelter, not a pet store or breeder.  You get a great animal that really needs a home and support an organization that is really trying to help and not to profit.  Plus it doesn’t cost nearly as much!  It made me sad when I knew how much an owner had paid for a dog and then balked at paying any more for routine veterinary care to help keep that pet healthy.  Please don’t ever buy a pet from a store, please don’t ever support the puppy mill industry!  And don’t fall prey to the “designer dog” myth: they are mixed breed dogs with designer names and a correspondingly high price tag.  I’m hoping to start volunteering at a local shelter soon and do my part to help control the pet population.  My cats give me so much, and I want to give back in a way that I can while still being a stay at home mom.  Thank you Oprah for devoting some attention to this very sad problem.

Yep, I think sometimes I’m just little nuts.  I spent a little over an hour today with a friend standing outside for a gift certificate as one of the first 500 people to visit a new shopping area just up the road.  At least the snow had stopped!  But we did finally make it into the little kiosk to sign a piece of paper and get our card, which took all of a minute after the long wait.  But by that point we’d exhausted our kids and our morning and had to go home before doing any shopping.  So I saw some of the new stores and a fantastic-looking kids play area while waiting but didn’t get to actually visit any of them.  Poor planning on their part!  They do however have a great family bathroom area complete with nursing rooms, play area, microwave, and changing areas.  We did have to visit that part way through the wait.  I’m really looking forward to going back and walking around, eating some of the great smelling Mexican food I had to endure while waiting, spending my gift card, and actually getting to enjoy the area I spent over an hour in.  Someone should probably think about redesigning this whole process since I don’t think many people were actually shopping, just waiting in line; and is that what they really want for a grand opening?