Just My Luck

Before today I have only won three things in my life. The first was when I was in third grade when I won a Blue Bunny stuffed animal. Then when I was in 9th or 10th grade I won the official Movie Book for Spiceworld (I know you are jealous!) Then there is the Disney Celebrations Lithograph I won from a peanut butter company.

Well, tonight when I went to workout at Curves I found out that I had won a Mary Kay Gift Basket. Every time I win something the prize gets better and better. Maybe one day I'll even win a years supply of Rice-a-Roni from the Price is right. For now I am content with my basket of beauty loot.

Dear Lucas (57 Weeks),

There was no hitting this week which is a GOOD thing but there was also less sleep. For some reason you have decided that napping is evil. No matter how tired you are you will REFUSE to take a nap. I will still try to put you in your crib for a while hoping that you will lay down and snooze. HA HA HA! Instead you stand up in your crib and throw EVERYTHING out. I think there must be a black hole in your room where all of your Pacifiers go. I am seriously thinking about weaning you from your paci this weekend. That way you won't be able to toss it out of your crib and then cry because you don't have it. I think this is the millionth time I have said we were going to wean you from your Paci so we'll see if I really go through with it or not.

Once in a while you will get tired of fighting sleep and you will take a nap. This always happens when we are in the car. This wouldn't be a problem except for the fact you always fall asleep three minutes from our destination. Today for instance you fell asleep on the 10 minute ride to physical therapy even though I spent the two hours before we left trying to get you to take a nap. When I pulled in the parking lot I found you asleep and clutching a plastic 1/4 cup measuring cup. I also spent the two hours AFTER physical therapy doing the same thing. You finally took a nap at 3PM. I was worried that would mean you wouldn't be able to go to bed at 7:30. Luckily you are still an awesome sleeper during the night.

You may be taking a break from Physical and Occupational therapy until I can get your insurance straighted out. It turns out that due to a typo with our address that we didn't get a form we needed to verify that you still qualified. You are doing wonderful though and I know you will just continue to thrive and we will get everything straighted out. You know crawl on your knees 90% of the time. If we see you crawling on your belly we just say "up, up, up" and you get back up on your knees and repeat "uhhp, uhhhp, uhhhhp!" When you crawl on your knees you also always look to see if we are watching and when you see that we are you get this big smile on your face.

You no longer eat any baby food and you generally feed yourself all of your food. This is nice because we are able to have a family dinner every night. There is one problem with you feeding yourself though... and she is named Jadie! She is no longer satisfied to clean up the random cheerios that fall on the floor. Instead she tries to stand on her hind legs next to your highchair while you sneak her food from your tray. We have started to put Jadie in her kennel while you eat to make sure that you actually do eat your food.

When we catch you slipping food to Jadie you give us this big grin like "what? I wasn't doing anything!" Sometimes I think you like to share your food with Jadie specifically because we tell you both NOT to. If you are already testing the limits at 13 months I can just imagine what 1 years is going to be like.

You are always climbing on something. If we sit down in the floor with you to play you end up climbing up our bodies so you can get on the couch so you can explore even more. By explore I of course mean reach the stuff on the end tables that would other wise be out of your reach.

Anything you find to pickup ends up being a phone. You love holding things up to your ear and pausing to see if it will "talk" to you. If you get a hold of our cell phones you no longer try to eat them. Instead you hold them up to your ear just like you see us do and wait. You give us this look like "how come everyone wants to talk to YOU and NOT ME! Don't they know I am so much more exciting then you are? I can put my feet in my mouth and make growling sounds all at the same time!"

Your new favorite game is playing peek-a-boo with your door. You will crawl behind it and close it. You laugh until you realize "crap I can't open this thing back up," then you start to cry. So we have to open it back up for you. Instead of crawling our of your room or leaving the door open you push it back closed and cry again. It makes me feel good that you instantly stop crying whenever we open the door and you see that we are still there on the other side.

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Bugga, I love you to the moon and back,

Mama

Happy 2nd Birthday Hunter

Hunter, We love you and miss you!

Happy Birthday Grandma Valeri

We love you!

Completed Working Out Week 2

Today marks the second week of my new life as a gym junkie. Out of the 6 days the gym was open this past week, I worked out 4. Originally I thought I would be weighed and measured this week but instead all the trainer did was count the number of reps I did on each machine to compare it to my first workout. They only weigh and measure once a month. I still have 2 more weeks to find out if I have lost anything. I am hoping for a pound a week so on the 15th of September I hope to weigh at least 4 lbs less. So far I don't see a physical difference but I can tell that I am more relaxed, more energized, and more motivated then I was two weeks ago. I am very happy I decided to get my lazy butt off the couch and do something healthy for myself, and my family.
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Even Curt is happier since I started working out. He enjoys the extra one-on-one time he gets to spend with Lucas. He also gets a few minutes all alone to himself once he puts Lucas to bed. Well, at least usually. Tonight, I walked in the house to find Curt trying to calm down a very upset Lucas. Evidently Curt heard him cry out and he went in to check on him. He found Lucas hysterically crying but still asleep. Lucas had his arms up almost like he was protecting himself. He picked up Lucas to calm him down and Lucas woke up and kept crying. I walked in at this point and walked outside with Lucas to calm him down. When he seemed okay I walked him back into his room and handed him his baby and his paci. He laid down and went right to sleep. The only thing we can think of is Lucas had a night terror epidsode.

Way to Grow Lucas

Lucas had his follow up appointment at the G.I. Doc today. He originally saw him at 11 months. The Doctor was impressed by how well Lucas is doing. He said he looks great and to keep doing what we are doing. He also said that Lucas is finally on the "normal" curve for babies his age for height and he projects that about in a month and a half he will place on the curve for weight. Today according to their scale he was 18 lbs butt naked and is 28 3/4 inches long.

Chicken and Mozzarella Melts

This Wednesday the Moms from our Playgroup are getting together for a new recipes night. We are all bringing an Italian dish with copies of the recipes we make. We will have dinner together sampling from all the dishes. Everyone leaves with a mini cookbook of all the recipes everyone brought. Since there are sure to be a lot of pasta dishes I decided to try something different and make a chicken sandwich. I got the recipe from a cookbook I borrowed from my Mom. Tonight Curt and I tested them just to make sure they were edible and we were both pleasantly surprised. They tasted like a sandwich you would have at some fancy little cafe where they put mint leaves in your tea.

• 2 cloves of Garlic, crushed
• 4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves (3/4 lb)
• nonstick cooking spray
• 1/8 tsp of salt (I didn't use)
• 1/8 tsp of pepper (used but didn't measure)
• 1 TBS prepared pesto sauce (used classico brand from the spaghetti sauce aisle)
• 4 small hard rolls split (I used Ciabatta rolls)
• 12 fresh spinach leaves
• 8 basil leaves* optional (didn't use)
• 3 plum tomatoes (used vine ripe tomatoes b/c we had them already)
• 1/2 C. (2 ounces) shredded mozzarella cheese

Makes 4 Servings

*Omit Basil leaves of fresh are unavailable. DO NOT substitute dried basil leaves.

1. Preheat Oven to 350*F. Rub Garlic on all surfaces of Chicken (I crushed the garlic with a knife handle and then used a Ziploc bag as a glove while I rubbed the chicken so my hands wouldn't smell like garlic when I was done.) Spray medium nonstick with cooking spray; heat over medium heat until hot. Add chicken; cook 5 to 6 minutes on each side until no longer pink in the center. Sprinkle with salt and pepper (I only used pepper and sprinkled it on while the chicken was cooking)
2. Brush pesto sauce on bottom halves of rolls; layer with spinach, basil*, and tomatoes Place chicken on rolls; sprinkle with cheese evenly over chicken. (If desired sandwiches may be prepared up to this point and wrapped in aluminum foil. Refrigerate until ready to bake. Bake in a preheated 350*F oven until chicken is warm about 20 minutes.)
3. Wrap Sandwiches in aluminum foil; bake about 10 minutes or until cheese is melted.

Peaceful Sunday

Today Lucas and I went and visited a church. I really liked it and think we will keep going. It is a really small nondenominational christian church. Right now they are holding services in a meeting room of a hotel downtown. Church starts at 10 AM which is nice. I had already met the Pastor (he is the husband of one of the mom's in our Playgroup) and so I didn't have to deal with that "everyone is looking at me because I am new thing." Also, nobody asked me "so where is your husband?" Even the actual meeting room is perfect. The floor is carpeted so Lucas and crawl, cruise, and scoot around all he wants. I just felt really at peace there.

When we got home we just had a nice quiet day at home with Curt. Lucas played all day long with Jadie. Lucas ended up getting accidentally scratched in the face.

Lucas is 13 Months Old!

Look Mom! I have NO Fear!

Mom, Sitting is for Babies!!!

See I can touch nicely WITHOUT hitting!

How come I don't have one of these?

Or these?

Hey Jadie, let me teach you how to stand up on two legs.

Good Job Jadie. I knew you could do it!

Another one of Lucas' firsts... but not in a good way.

I didn't update last night because yesterday was a HARD day and all I wanted to do was watch the disk from First Season of Lost that came in the mail from Netflix yesterday, eat dinner, and go to bed.

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Now that I have had a decent nights sleep and have been able to unwind a bit I can get back to posting. Yesterday started by finding out Lucas' insurance will be canceled at the end of the month (yeah that is less then a week away.) So now I have to fill out a bunch of paperwork and hope and pray it all gets fixed. Until it does get fixed Lucas' last day of PT or OT will be Thursday because we can not afford to pay the $2,000 a month that it costs out of our of own pocket. His Occupational therapy appointment went OK except all I could do was think about his insurance. I couldn't go try and get it straightened out since Lori was going out of town for some school thing and I had to stay with my Grandma all day.

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I love my Grandma, but it can be VERY challenging to try and take care of her AND Lucas. Neither of them seems to understand when one of them needs attention. Trying to be in two places at once I think I've gotten a small taste of what it would be like to have two kids. I'm not so sure I'm up for the challenge. I was so frustrated at one point I put Lucas in his playpen screaming, and my Grandma inside asking me over and over "Do you love me? Why are you so mean to me?" (I made her change the channel on the TV with the remote herself instead of me doing it) I went outside to have a few minutes alone while I cried, took a deep breath, and came back inside. When I came back inside my Grandma wanted to know where I had been. I told her I had to roll up my car windows because it looked like rain.

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When I didn't think the day could get much worse (I'm leaving out a bunch of things because then this post would be too long) grumpy little Lucas smacked me in the face for the first time. At first I was shocked and thought he was playing but then he reared his hand back and "smack" again. I held his hands and said "we do NOT hit" of course he burst into tears. I honestly think he was tired and frustrated with not having my full attention. Now of course I have to teach him that hitting is not a proper way to vent frustration.

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A few minutes later he was crawling around in the floor towards something he shouldn't have. I picked him up to take him back to a place he could safely play and SMACK again. I had to hold his hands again while I told him "no" because he was still trying to hit me. Again he started to cry and I took his hands and showed him how to touch nicely. He put his head on my shoulder and cried and I did too. I'm really starting to think Lucas is going through his terrible twos 11 months early!

The last time I mention my boobs... (well at least for a little while)

Today was the first time in over a year that I have not nursed Lucas. Originally I had planned on stopping at exactly a year and then when he started weaning himself to once in the morning and once at night I thought I would continue through the winter. Well in the last few weeks Lucas started sleeping through the night again and only nursing in the morning. Starting last week he started to not want to nurse in the morning either. At first I thought he was teething so I took fenugreek to keep my supply up. I also started nursing him back in the rocking chair in his room with the lights off so he wasn't distracted. He is no longer teething and still refusing to nurse and I spent a few days this last week very FULL so I decided to go ahead and let him stop. I don't want my memory of our last nursing session to be of a screaming angry Lucas and a frustrated stressed out mom.

I feel a rare mix of emotions. In some ways I feel free that I no longer have a baby attached to my breast. Finally my body is completely mine again (well at least I think it is my body. I don't really recognize it since it looks so different from before I got pregnant.) I also feel proud of both of us for making it this long. It was very hard at first and we surpassed a few challenges that could have gotten me to give up a long time ago. Lucas will be 13 months on Sunday so that is a pretty big deal for both of us. However, at the same time I feel sad that he is taking yet another step in leaving babyhood behind.

Read for The Record

Today we joined people all over the world in reading The Little Engine that Could. I bought the book for Lucas while I was pregnant because it is a classic and has a good message. I was surprised Lucas sat so still while I read it because it is one of the "longest" books we've read together.

Dear Lucas (56 Weeks),

You have learned a lot of things this week. You are definitely stuck somewhere in between being a sweet little baby and an independent toddler. In some ways this has been one of the most amazing weeks for you it has also been one of the most challenging for me. Your Daddy used to say he wishes you would have been born a toddler so he could play with you right away. First off, "OWWW" and now this week I see why babies come out all sweet and tall... it is so you are in love with them for when they start walking and talking and throwing fits.



If I had to sum up this week in one word it would be TANTRUMS. Several times a day I find myself wondering who replaced my sweet laid back baby with an angry little monster. Out of nowhere you just started throwing these screaming fits. Since you've always been such an easy going happy baby at first nobody believed me. The first time it happened was during breakfast. You were eating your banana like normal and instead of eating your yogurt or cheerios you started pointing at the bunch of bananas that I had the audacity to leave out on the counter in your site. You started pointing and screaming "NANA NANA NANA." I quickly put the bananas out of site and told you "all gone, no more," and you starting flinging your head back into your high chair. Now you will randomly stop playing to throw a fit because your toy looked at you wrong.



Today as your physical therapy appointment started I explained to your therapist about your tantrums and she didn't believe me because she said you were way to young to throw tantrums. She told me that maybe you were just tired from all the hard work you were doing. I started to think she was right when you started throwing a tantrum for her. You refused to let your feet touch the ground when she went to get you to stand... something you hadn't done since you've been able to pull yourself up. She looked at me and said "OK, there is a little attitude there for sure," and you continued to throw several mini tantrums refusing to do stuff you did just last week. You didn't want to crawl on your hands and knees today but all we had to do is say "up" and you would get up on your hands and knees and crawl while YOU screamed "up, up, up" as you went. I couldn't help but laugh. Your therapist apologized for not believing me at first saying that she forgot how smart you were and that now you are more mobile and have choices of how to get around you are probably voicing those choices and trying to test our your new forms of Independence.



The amazing thing this week is the explosion of words that you say. It seems like everyday you are saying something new. Your vocabulary is quite impressive for an almost 13 month old (or at least I think so)

• Dada
• Maaa Maaa! (MaMa, still not as much as Dada... and you usually say Mama when you are upset and Dada when you are excited and happy and want to play)
• Jadie
• Kitty (although you don't say this one that much anymore)
• Hi
• Hey
• Bye-Bye
• See (you say this while you point at things)
• Ree (tree)
• up
• No (you say this more in copying us like when you crawl up to the TV and change the channels.. you don't seem to know what it means yet)
• Nana (banana)
• Peee ba (peekaboo)
• Set (Sit... this one you said tonight for the first time. You would say it after I would tell Jadie to sit and you would get this satisfied look like you were the reason she was sitting)

(click to watch)

Today we stayed with your Great Grandma again. Right before we went to leave I took you in the backyard so we could stick our feet in the pool. You happily kicked your feet and splashed with your toes but wanted to splash with your hands. I carefully held you over the water so you could splash, splash, splash. I realized I need to take you swimming again soon because eventually the water will be too cold and you seem to enjoy swimming so much. After all the splashing was over you were pretty wet so I sat you on the grass to try to encourage you to play with the grass and stop hating it. You are slowly progressing from Hate to strong dislike. You didn't cry while you were sitting on it but you did try to hold your feet in the air to keep them from being defiled by the unworthy green grass...and you tumbled right over. I couldn't help but to laugh.

Your favorite person to look at is still yourself. I am always catching you trying to play with the baby in the mirror. You are always trying to show the mirror baby something neat you found. Today you actually tried to give the mirror baby hugs and kept bumping your head because you wouldn't give up. I picked you up and gave you a hug and went "awww" and you hugged me back, patted me on the back, snuggled close and said "awww."

Bugga-Bugga, I love you to the moon and back,

Maaa Maaa!!!

Completed Working Out Week 1

Today official marks my first complete week of working out. In have worked out 5 of the last seven days. This is absolutely awesome to me since my activity level recently has been WELL BELOW that. I'm not sure if I have lost anything yet because I have not weighed myself and don't plan on doing so until I hit my two week mark (Someone at Curves will measure my progress at Curves on July 29th.)

Even if I haven't lost anything yet I can feel a difference. I have more energy and I'm usually going to bed at a decent hour. I am not on a diet but I am certainly more conscience about what goes in my mouth. I am not buying anymore junk food. I am also less hungry and find myself actually eating a little bit less.

I cannot wait to be able to go into American Eagle and buy a pair of jeans. This is a HUGE deal to me since they only carry up to a size 14 in the store (they sell 16 & 18 online) I haven't been able to buy a pair of jeans instore from American Eagle since I was 19 years old. I haven't been able to order a pair of jeans from them online since about a year before I got pregnant. Today I tried on a pair of jeans I haven't worn since I first got married. Although I was able to pull them all the way up, I could not button them up (they are button flu) even if my life depended on it. Since I don't have a bathroom scale these will be what I will measure myself by.

Lucas is a Hugger

I thought I would post early since I still have to make dinner and go to the Gym and all before the new Season of Prison Break Starts Tonight. I plan on having my eyes glued to the TV at 8 PM. Don't worry Lucas will be in bed by then (knock on wood) so we won't have to choose between him or the TV ;-)

We had another awesome day at Occupational therapy today. He is continuing to improve everyday. It seems like the more he is able to do physically the less he wants to sleep. He has had maybe a total of an hour of sleep today.

Now that Lucas can crawl on his hands and knees he is always switching crawling styles. He will randomly go from hands and knees to army crawl and back. It is quite funny to watch him getting around right now.

Lucas is turning out to be a hugger. He will stop playing just to crawl over to us and give us big hugs and then he is off again. I know some people aren't huggers, (but I am) so it is nice to have a child that is one.

Kevin Federline sounded how we looked

Even though Curt and I are no longer the target audience, we watched the Teen Choice awards. We tuned in only because it was K.Fed's first live Performance... and every now and then we just need a good belly laugh.

"Most predictably bad performer: Kevin Federline. Britney Spears showed up to introduce her man, waxing optimistically that “This show has been very good to me and my career over the years, so I’m hoping that it will be as good to our next performer … Please give a warm welcome to my man, Kevin Federline.” But the world’s most infamous mooch did more ball-grabbing than dancing and more weasel-like groaning than rapping during his debut. To nobody’s surprise, he failed to look like a gangster while playing the intro to his single, “Lose Control,” on a grand piano while a much more talented MC handled the opening vocals. As the song went on, it became painfully apparent K-Fed is, indeed, as untalented as originally thought, although his back-up MC, whose microphone also happened to be twice as loud, should be signed any day because he has some mad chops."
-Dose

Page 378

"In a weird way I must have loved my little collection of hurts and wounds. They provided me with some real nice sympathy, with the feeling I was exceptional.... What a special case I was."

*****

I devoured this book a few weeks ago. I could not put it down. For some reason ever since I finished is, this passage has been floating around in my head. It is probably because I see myself in these words. I hold on to my anger and hurts for the same reasons.

Happy First Birthday to a Sweet Girl

Today Lucas and I were lucky to get to celebrate one of his friend's first birthdays. It was just a low key party but it was fun. All the kids (mostly from our mom's group) played together inside then we went outside for food and cupcakes. Lucas is only one and I think he's been to more parties in a year then I have in the last five.

Lucas still isn't fond of grass. He kept trying to keep as much of his skin as he could off the grass. He held one foot up and turned the other one in. Silly baby.

Site Under Construction

Lucas Laughing

Lucas has been going to OT & PT for almost a month now. Today for the very first time he crawled on his hands and knees all by himself. His occupational therapist and I were sitting on the floor next to each other giving each other these looks and saying "did you see that?!!?" She took him across the room to see if he would do it again and he crawled so far right to me. He climbed right up in my lap gave me a big hug and started to pat me on the back. Both his therapist and I had tears in our eyes.

It is such an amazing feeling watching him and seeing all he has accomplished in such a short time. Oh, and today he also stood without holding onto anything. He was standing up playing with these blocks at the bench. He let go of where he was holding on to grab toys with both hands. He stood there for a few seconds... before he put his hand back on the bench to steady himself.

Curt got home pretty soon after Lucas and I did. I laid Lucas down for a nap and went and worked out at the gym again. Such an awesome day!

Feeling kind of Scrappy

Tonight I got to tuck Lucas into bed again and it was the highlight of my day. We read a story in the rocking chair while he snuggled with me and then I put him to bed. I didn't work out tonight because I had a Mom's meet-up to attend. I "learned" how to scrapbook. (I still have to choose two pictures to place on the blue squares.) I've been wanting to try scrapbooking since before Lucas was born (Angela showed me a scrapbook she was making for her kids back then.)

It was a lot of fun but honestly I don't like the page I made that much. I loved everyone else's pages though. I think Scrapbooking is a lot harder then it looks. Personally, I like the actual taking picture part is more my speed. I still haven't put any pictures of Lucas in our photo albums since November... and that just requires slipping in a photo in a plastic holder.

Dear Lucas (55 Weeks),

Everyone that is around you even for five minutes tells us what a happy baby you are. You are even a good sleeper. Tonight has been the second night that I've gone to the gym and the second night your Dad has put you to bed. Each night I come home and ask "did he cry?" partly hoping that even though you don't really cry when I put you to bed that maybe you would at least fuss for your Dad. Each time your Dad tells me that you went down with no problem... just like you do for me. I've missed putting you to bed. I love those extra hugs and kisses each night before I lay you down. Today when I was leaving you were playing in the floor and when you heard me open the door you looked at me. I braced for what I thought would be a few tears and I waved bye to you and told you I loved you. You looked right at me waved and said "bye bye." I was so proud and sad all at the same time. If you Dad even goes out of your sight for 5 minutes to take a shower you are one grumpy baby until he is back. I get a cheerful send off.

This morning you had physical therapy. You really love going. This morning while we were waiting for your therapist Mrs. Laura another therapist came to lead another little boy back to the therapy room. You were mad that you couldn't go and you tried to crawl after them. Two minutes later when your therapist came to the waiting room you practically jumped out of my arms reaching for her. You are so excited about cruising that today when we went to stay with your Great Grandma you didn't want to walk in your walker... you wanted to walk AROUND it.

While we were staying with your Great-Grandma you kept disappearing down the hall and talking to yourself. The hall had a sort of echo effect and you would get louder then softer then louder. It was like you were testing out your voice and trying to see what kinds of sounds you could make. Every once in a while you would peek around the corner at us and give us a big smile. I just let you wander down the hallway by yourself. I knew as long as I could hear you then everything was fine.

One of your favorite toys right now is a little red race car. The car was one of your birthday presents and you loved it from the moment you saw it... or heard it actually. When you push in the race car drivers helmet the headlights turn on and it makes a car sound. No matter what you are doing when you hear this sound you will get the biggest smile on your face and make your own "car noise." Your Dad and I will take turns pushing the race car driver just so we can laugh at the cute little sound you make.

Tonight you got to play with your Little People Noah's ark for the first time. It was a birthday gift from Lindsay, Jimmy, Ben and Ean. (Speaking of Birthdays, this week you also got a brand new baby cousin named Savannah.) First you would put them inside the ark then you would dump them out. Then you would throw them in the air and watch them fall. You also threw them over the ark. You didn't really like the top of the ark on because you couldn't watch all the animals fall on top of themselves.

Bugga-Bugga, I love you to the moon and back,

Mama