Blessing and a curse...

So I am going to go ahead and put it out there...I am Seth's favorite. Hey, don't blame him..he's too young to know not to play favorites. And do you blame the kid? I carried him, went through 33 hours of labor and breastfed him..I can be the favorite.

Some of you may still not be convinced. How do I know I'm his favorite? Well on multiple occasions Seth has literally mushed Sean in the face trying to get out of his arms into mine....point made. Oh and I can't leave a room without Seth crying for me. So this FACT that I am his favorite made me smile on the inside initially..and then just become down right smug.... until now.

This favoritism has it's drawbacks. I know I know...how can cuddling with the epitome of cuteness have a drawback? Oh believe me, it does. I did not realize this until recently. I left Sean and Seth at the house to get to work on time...once at work I asked Sean how it went getting out of the house. He was like, "It was perfect". Oh, ok. Did he fuss any? (I'm thinking sure he did...he was fussing for me to pick him up as I was leaving). Sean: Nope, he just hung out in his high chair and ate the rest of his cheerios. Now this is a problem. Because I was alone with him a few days earlier and he was fussing for me to pick him up.

Another example is pick up from daycare. I walk in the room and Seth  begins to fuss..IMMEDIATELY! There have been times where I watch him through the door and all is right in his world. I walk in..and I can't say hi to anyone...do anything until I pick him up. One day the teacher said how she had to remind Seth on multiple occasions that he is not her father...because he would fuss to get picked up. See y'all think we mean crying...I don't. He does this grunt thing that is akin to fussing...lol! So Sean picks him up and what does he get? A smile! Yes, Seth smiles when dad comes to get him. So I have to rethink this favorite thing..I don't think it is all it's cracked up to be :)


On another note..here are a few pics from Seth's 1 year photo shoot

Suess-tastic!!

Here is a small peek of the inspiration for Seth's party :)

I really want to do a fun photo booth

Furlough Diary - Day 2 & 3

I did not do much on yesterday (day 2). I started the morning getting the guys out of the house. Then I went to a doctor's appt (one that was 5 months late). I saw the OB that helped me through my preeclampsia drama and took her some pics of Seth..and she was so excited! She then quickly said how excited she was for the next baby...huh?! I tried to change the subject...but nope she was not hearing it. I then asked for a year prescription for birth control (so leave my uterus alone!).

I then went to my job (shhhh!). I actually had some stuff I needed to pick up and I wanted to check on my collegues who are "essential". I hung out with them for a few hours. I then went to the grocery store and home to do some planning for Seth's birthday party. I went to order invitations that I scoped out on Etsy only to find out the seller was on vacation. AHHHHH!!! I have to get these invites out soon. So my wonderful hubby made a duplicate...and I promise they are almost identical. I actually like his better. I will do a seperate post with some pics.

I then went to pick up Seth. I have to admit that one of the things I am debating is what to do with Seth and daycare. If this shutdown drags out I don't know if I should take him out of daycare. I will have to talk to the directors and make sure they wont charge us an application fee...and make sure we won't lose our spot. I honestly don't think it will be easy...but if this is longer than 2 weeks...we might have to take our chances.

Today is kinda light as well. I will be cleaning around the house. I made muffins last night for Seth's teachers and some cupcakes for my co-workers. I'll drop those off and then pick Seth up. Sean and I have a date night tonight, so I figured I would pick Seth up early and take him to the park and then for some frozen yogurt.

Government Shutdown: Furlough Diary - Day 1

 Well as many of you know...I am a federal worker. Actually many of you likely kinda knew that but forgot. Anywho...I am on furlough. I count this as day 1..but this is actually the second day of the furlough. I won't go into all the details of the gov shutdown (e.g. how many times it has happened...what it means, etc.). I will say that it makes me SOOO mad that our government officials can cause so much disruption to so many lives AND still keep their jobs.

Anyway, what am I doing in my "free" time? Well today I dropped Seth off at school. This was a treat since Sean usually drops him off. I hung out with him and his class for about an hour and then went to a spin class at the Kraft Family YMCA. I thought I could get a free guest pass...only to find out they don't exist. The lady was nice though and just let me do the class.

After spin I went home and changed clothes so I could make my 1pm hair appt. Before going to my hair appt though..I just had to stop and see Seth sleeping. Other than my stalker tendencies...I love to watch him sleep. Although neither of those was the reason I stopped by. I stopped because I wanted to see him in his cot. He just transitioned to the toddler room...and they don't sleep in cribs there..and they have a structured nap time...neither of which I could imagine. So I went by and lo and behold, Seth was the first one down for his nap and was sleeping peacefully.

After I got my hair done, I went to pick Seth up from school (that made 3 visits in one day). We hung out, ate a snack and once dad got home, I got ready for taekwondo. Let me say spin class and tkd in the same day = not a good idea. I made it through though. Went home, had dinner, watched TV, washed bottles..and that was it.

It was a good day except I am worried that the whole shutdown thing will not be resolved quickly :(

Keeping up...

I really am having a hard time keeping up with blogging lately. A LOT has been going on. I am not sure if I mentioned it, but I recently became President of the American Association of Food Safety Veterinarians. I don’t think this position would normally be very stressful, except our main support person took on a new job and has not had time for his position. So in the mist of being new, I’m new and drowning.

Then I recently got elected to a council for the American Veterinary Medical Association. A position that has taken me to Chicago 3 times already this year. Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and wonder what the heck I was thinking about when saying yes to all these things.

Then there is black belt training. I went to another black belt seminar on the 7^th. I told Sean that I left the seminar not wanting to cry (I’ll count that as a win). Then I went out of town to Colorado Sept 9^th – 13^th for training. With all the flooding, I barely made my flight on the 13^th. I was soooo happy to be home…until I remembered I signed up for a TKD tournament for the 14^th. I actually did pretty ok. I only competed against teenagers, which Sean thinks is impressive. It just makes me feel old. I did get 2^nd place in forms (I might have been robbed) and 1^st place in power breaking (Sean took a video of this…and other than looking fat I did pretty well).

Seth has been growing like a stinkin weed! Today he moved up to the toddler transition room. This is a room of babies that are 12-14 months old. Babies who either just started walking or are trying to walk. There will be no cribs in this room and they have a scheduled nap along with some other small changes.

His first day in Toddler Transition Room. No, he is not walking, he just has really good balance and stands on his own

 

Seth has been doing so many new things; it’s hard to mention them all. He walks (assisted) really well, yesterday he pointed for the first time (I almost fainted from the excitement), and we are pretty sure he associates da with Sean and “d” with zeva. It’s a small difference in the two…but it is pretty consistent. He eats pretty well, especially yo-baby yogurt (he LOVES that stuff). I forgot to send some to school once, and the teacher begged me to bring more because Seth would harass other kids thinking it was his yogurt.

Lost...then found..then lost!

The following is a story about a dog I found…

It all started when I was on my way out to pick up some toys for Seth. I frequent facebook buy/sell/trade groups and get steals on toys. Most of Seth’s toys are used..but I swear you wouldn’t know it. So I leave home and as I leave our subdivision I see this dog. There was not an owner in site, so I went in to action.

I jumped out of the car and coaxed the dog in (it really did not take much). I took a pic and headed home. Now keep in mind I had just left the house, so when I showed up again Sean was a bit confused. Then he looked outside and asked why there was a dog in the car. I told him how I found it and was going to locate it’s owner. Now, Sean had just given me an hour to pick up these toys and come back home because he had homework to do. So I can’t imagine what was going through his mind. In spite of this he commended me for being a good samaritan. I posted the pic on a few facebook groups and headed back out (me and the random dog). I did not want to leave it at the house for Sean to have to deal with…so I just took him with me.

 

I went to a few houses in the subdivision across the street..asking people if they had ever seen the dog. After going to five houses with no luck, I just took him with me. I went to the first house to pick up toys…jumped out the car,  picked up the toys from the porch, left the money….turned around and the dog was sitting in front of me. OH CRAP!!! I left the door to the car open. Now for someone who lost their own dog when I first got her, I realized I did not have the best track record. How sucky would it be for me to lose a dog I just found…20 miles + from where I found him :/

So the dog decided he wanted to pee on everything outside and that he was not interested in getting back in the car. In my near panic state, I decided to use a trick I use on Zeva many times. I offered him a treat I did not have. THAT DID THE TRICK!! He got in the car ::whew::

By this time, I had gotten a few offers for folks to keep him overnight (since I mentioned that I could not). In the end I lucked up. As I was leaving my neighborhood I decided to stop at another house and asked if they had seen this dog…and they did! Right next door to them. I went to the house and the lady cried! She said it was her husband’s dog..and he was deployed. She was happy..and the kids were ecstatic! Good thing I did not lose him :)

 

The Daily Dose

Seth's 10 month Pics

Black belt journey

Many of you have followed (and encouraged me) on this journey to get my black belt and the time is approaching where my dream will be realized. I started taking taekwondo in 2010. I visited a few schools and settled on Yongin Martial Arts. It was just something about Master Kim that spoke to me and I knew I would enjoy learning from him.

When I joined, Yongin had only been open for a few months. Soon they started a demo team and I joined. I am no longer a member of the demo team, but that team was sooo fun (even if I was the oldest one on the team). Demo is where I learned all the advanced skills...it always kept me on my toes.

Anyway, I did taekwondo even through my first trimester of pregnancy. After the first trimester I took off until February of 2013(about 9 months total). When I started back it was ROUGH! Not only was I out of shape, but I hated being away from Seth. Sean kept encouraging me, plus I was only one belt away from qualifying to test for my black belt. Well I finally tested last week..and I GOT IT! I am now pre-qualified to test for the black belt. And on Monday I found out this is where the real fun starts.

Between August and November I have to do the following to qualify for my black belt test

• Complete 100 acts of kindness
• Run 50 miles
• Do 3,000 push ups
• Do 4,500 sit ups
• Do 30 reps of the 9 forms (each form is at least 18 moves0
• Do 30 reps of the 8 self defense techniques
• Do 30 reps of choreographed self defense technique
• Do a black belt project (usually some type of demo)
• Do a charity project
• Get letters of recommendation
• Attend 2 manual study classes for the written test
• Attend 3 seminars that review martial art basics

HUH?! Typing it all out just made me anxious all over again. ::deep breath::

All the things above are what I have to do before I take the written test and the physical test. If I remeber correctly, the physical test is about 3-4 hours long.

Every journey starts will one step...

The kissing game....

Why is my son already kissing little girls?! Yes, you read that correctly..lol. It started a few weeks ago. I walk into daycare and the teachers are tripping over themselves to tell me what happened. There is a new girl that started (the only one in a all boys rooms..well the room was not supposed to be all boys it just happened that way). Hannah, is 11 months old and has the MOST beautiful eyelashes and an easy smile for everyone. Very sweet girl. Well one day Hannah glabs Seth's face and gives him a kiss..on his eye. Then she kissed him on the cheek. The teachers said Seth just sat there dumbfounded. There were a few other days where I came in and they said it had happened again...Hannah kissing Seth. They said Hannah always started it (I'm sure that will always be Seth's excuse.."She kissed me").

Until yesterday. They said Seth followed Hannah all around the room (in his two hand clasp, praying army scoot). He caught up with her at one point (it was hard I'm sure... she is 11months) ...and she leaned in close to him...and he opened his mouth for a kiss. She kissed him on the cheek though ::whew:: So yes, Seth has a little girl that he is giving my kisses too :(

In other news, we went to SC recently. Seth got to see his grandmother and his great-great grandmother. Both would eat him with a biscuit.

Great-great grandma is always trying to convince me to leave him. Considering Seth has be protesting his regular bedtime (usually at 7pm but the little rascal has been wild open at 8:30 and not going to bed until 9pm) she would be calling me in two days max to pick him up.




Seth on Saturday night (right) and Monday night (left)

The many faces of Seth



Say cheese!

Look at those teeth!

Toastmasters: Get your speak on....

A few months ago I joined a Toastmasters club that meets upstairs in my building every Wednesday at noon. This has been a long time coming as I have been meaning to join Toastmasters for at least three years.
 
I intially learned about Toastmasters when I was in my last job. Although we were located here in Raleigh, we were considered headquarters staff. So I would receive all these emails from Riverdale, MD and some of them would come from the Toastmasters group located there. When I looked into the organization, I was intrigued. I mean, who couldn't use help becoming a better speaker?
 
By now, some of you are wondering, "So what is is Toastmasters?". Toastmasters International (TI) is an organization that operates clubs worldwide ( I did a search and there are ~200 in NC alone). Toastmasters helps its members improve their communication, public speaking and leadership skills.
 
So how does Toastmasters work?

When you begin Toastmasters, you have two tracks, the communicator track and the leadership track. There are 10 projects in each track. The leadership track is pretty easy as long as you participate in roles at the club. The communicator track is a bit more difficult, since that is related to the speeches that you are supposed to do.

 

For example, the first project/speech is the icebreaker. This is a speech that is pretty simple since you just share something about yourself. Each speech has certain skills you are supposed to address and they all have proscribed time limits. The icebreaker speech is 4-6 mins. Each speech is timed and there is someone at each meeting that volunteers to be timekeeper. For my icebreaker speech the timekeeper would hold up a green card when I was at 4 mins, a yellow card at 5 mins, and a red at 6 mins ....I never got to 6 mins though. My speech was 5 mins 22secs.

 
At the meeting, someone also volunteers to evaluate your speech and yet another person who volunteers to be the grammarian (counts your ahs, ums, and any other filler words). You see, that is really what Toastmasters is about, becoming better. And the only way you can do that is with constructive and open criticism. The criticism is very gentle though and done in a supportive and loving environment. There is not anyone who would cut you down or be really mean.

The club I am in is super nice and like to have so much fun. I don't think any of the clubs have a dress code, at least mine does not. I just wear whatever I wear to work.

So back to my speeches. My first one was an icebreaker. I titled it "Confessions of a Know it all". I wanted it to be more than me sitting up there and saying where I was from and what school I went to. I ended up giving examples of things I said I would never do (because that's what know it alls do). Everything I said I would not do as it relates to pets and babies, I ended up doing. So I said I was a recovering "know it all". Surprisingly I got quite a few laughs and since my humor usually does not go over well in my speeches, I counted it as a plus.

My next speech project is "Organize it" where you have to have an opening, three main points and a conclusion. My title for this next speech will be "No laughing Matter" and I will talk about stuttering. I tend to stutter so this will be a topic that hits close to home with me. I will let you know how it turns out.

It's been too long!

I know, I know! I have been absent from the blog for quite a while. Things have been uber (yes, I said uber) busy...but it's that way for all of us I'm sure. I know you don't want to hear about me, so I will get right to it. Since my last post, we took Seth's 6 months pics...and they turned out so great. At the time he was not sitting up all that well...or at least we thought. He really did show out with those pics. Here are a few of my favs. Notice the candid one where Seth is giving me a kiss. Yes, I am laughing and so is Sean...we look like the happy family. What you don't see is Sean trying to make Seth let go as he pulls my hair (with the hand you can't see)...and in the other hand he has a death grip on my cheek...lol! He is SOOOO strong...especially when he gets a good grip. I actually miss my Seth kisses...where he would grab my whole face and pull me to him.



Look at him holding the book...too cute!

Since his 6 month pics, he has started doing soooo much. When we went to MN, he started scooting and has only gotten faster. He babbles alot now and says ma ma ma and ba ba ba. He recently started trying to clap. And he has been pulling up on things and can pull himself up on his knees. Oh, and he has been holding his own bottle (except when he can sucker me into doing it). And recently we have introduced him to the sippy cup. Whew! And I know I am missing some things :)

Look at him "mean mugging" the camera (he does not like the flash)

Happy Half Birthday Munchkin!



Sign at daycare

Seth turned 6 months a few days ago...my how time flys when you are having fun!  I remember folks saying how this would happen. The first 3 or 4 months crawled by and I appreciated it but month 5 zoomed by! Let's see what is the little munchkin doing that is new? He can now roll from back to front...very easily. I knew he could do it once he was motivated. Do you remember the lip pop that Sean does in the video with Seth. Well Seth has figured out how to do that as well..it is so absolutely adorable. He is also really good at lip trills...another thing dad came up with to teach him. He can sit up like a tripod on his on although he still needs to work on balance. He is outgrowing things left and right and is wearing 6-9 month clothes. I don't have his current weight as his doctor's appt is on Tuesday.

Six months marks another milestone as well...it was my goal for breastfeeding. Although I have not yet decided when I am going to wean I am excited that I made it to 6 months. I am really proud of this milestone as not every woman can  breastfeed. It has been a journey and I have learned so much along the way. I remember the lactation consultant saying how Seth and I will have nursing down to a science..and I was like, "yeah, right". And then the other night I was feeding him with the light super dim and we did just fine. That is when I realized that what she said was true, you really get it down to a science.

There are twelve lily pads on a wall. Every month the kids get older their frog jumps to a new lily pad. It is a cool way to keep up with all the ages of the kids.

There are a few things I wish I had know about breastfeeding when I started though. I will share them for the moms out there who plan on breastfeeding. Feel free to pass the info on to other women.

1. Babies are so much more efficient than pumps. This little fact is important when you start pumping and freak out because you are pumping less than your baby take in. I remember thinking, "Oh my goodness I am starving him if this is all I am producing". Then I came across an article that explained how pumps try to mimic our babies but can't come close

2. Pumping 2 oz after a full feeding is GREAT! I remember pumping after feeding Seth and looking at the 2oz like it was nothing. I wish I had know what a feat that was. I would have pumped more and therefore got a better stash going before going back to work.

3. Start pumping as soon as your milk comes in. When your milk comes in, it is overabundant because your body does not know how much to produce. If you start pumping at this time, you fool your body to think you need more than you really do. If you don't pump your body will adjust to the needs of your baby.

4. Learn how to use your "let down" button on your pump. Pushing the button on most pumps will trigger a fast then slow phase of pumping...this mimics your baby and will cause the let down of your milk. You can probably push that button at least 3 times in a 15 min session. It is best to use it when your output has slowed during a session.

Criss Cross...Applesauce!

This weekend Seth had applesauce for the first time. This was not his first time eating...we gave him cereal at 4 months. At the time he had a cold that was making him miserable. On top of that the cereal gave him the worst gas. So we stopped feeding him so that he could deal with one thing at a time. Well it seemed like he kept getting colds (thanks daycare) so we never picked it back up..until now. Finally this weekend I gave him some Gerber apples. I say apples and not applesauce because it is not the least bit sweet. The first day he did not seem to enjoy it...the second day he seemed to like it a bit better. He certainly did not show the excitement that he showed the first time I fed him cereal but I think he liked it. I am excited to see what daycare has to report, since they will be feeding him today.

In other news, Sean got another pat..lol (see the post on Stealth-R-US)! I still get tons everyday...but it was nice for Seth to throw him a bone..lol! Seriously though, dad deserves a pat. He came up with a theory as to why Seth always curls his toes when he is jumping in his jumperoo. He suspects that it has become a habit after having them curled up in his sleepers. Seth's sleepers fit length wise but it appears that his feet are bigger than the ones in the sleepers (I was trying to avoid saying too big or bigger than normal).

Seth has also been hanging out in his bumbo alot lately.  I remember when he hated that thing, now he loves it...even when he manages to take the tray off and try to eat it :)

Stealth-R-Us: Code name - Drool Monger

If you are a "Survivor" fan then you totally get the picture on the left. I was inspired by Seth this morning to put that picture up. I am telling you that kid has been playing mind games with us all weekend. We know he can roll from back to front, because we put him on his back and turn around and he is on his tummy. Since we have not been able to catch him actually doing it, we thought that he must be an honary member of stealth-r-us. We think his code name would be Drool Monger.

In other news, another super cute thing that Seth does is he pats my back..well really my shoulder. Please note the "my" in the above sentence. He only does it to me. Now some would lead you to believe that the only reason I get pats on my back is because Seth is right handed and I hold him with my left arm, thus making it easier. In the words of Joe Biden, I say that's marlarkey! Haters gone hate!

 

Color Mania!

We had a blast this weekend! We did our first 5k and it was a nice one to cut our teeth on! We ran in the Color Mania 5k. It is a new fad of running that is non-timed and meant to be fun fun fun! There are color stations at each kilometer (or there abouts). It is kind of like a soul train line where you get doused with color. At the end of the run, they have color throws every 20 mins or so (see pick and video below). Everyone gets a color packet at the end of the race. After doing this race, I learned that the idea of the color throwing comes from the Hindu concept of spring color festival (Holi). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holi

 

Since this is not a timed race, it was a perfect one to start with. We had more fun than I thought we would, although the terrain had quite a bit of loose gravel. While we were at the race, our neighbor Renee and her husband watched Seth. Seth loved it! I don't think I have ever seen our son so mellow. I mean he is a pretty mellow kid...but he was really loving the cuddles he was getting from Renee. When I pick him up at daycare he is excited to see me, when we came to pick him up from Renee's he did not give us a second look...lol! We are so grateful (thanks Renee and Neil!). So we all had an excellent Saturday!

 

Sunday was my b-day (I finally turned 30..thought the day would never come!). Flashback to Friday..Sean brought me home some lobster bisque from Sullivans that I have been talking about now for weeks. And then on Sunday he brought me some hot cheesecake from Flights (both my favs...thanks Shaun ...she introduced me to both restaurants). I also got a much needed gift certificate to a spa.

 

Overall with the weather, the run, time with friends (went to a baby shower on Sunday), and birthday freebies (started cashing in on those on Thursday) it was a great weekend!

 

 



 

 

 



Enough said!

 

 

I always knew how protective moms could be. But never knew exactly how that felt until I had Seth. I would do anything to keep my little one safe. Woe to anyone who trys to harm him. I came across the ecard below and was like, "Yes, that is how I feel...200%!". 

 

 

 

You make me smile!

Seeing my baby laugh warms my heart so much. Just thought I would brighten someone else's day by sharing this video :)

cheers!!

Happy Easter!!

Hope everyone had a safe and happy Easter. He is risen!! Thank you Lord for sending your only son so that we may have everlasting life!

Today Seth is 5 months old and he is getting so big! It is getting a little harder to get him to smile at the camera, because he is so distracted by it. Here are a few pics of him in his Easter outfit. Our church is pretty casual, so we did not do a suit.