• I’m thankful that I made up my own chili recipe on Friday and it worked wonderfully. It basically consisted of me looking at the recipe I printed out, mostly ignoring it, and adapting it to what we had in the pantry. I NEVER DO THIS. I am a strict Recipe Follower since I don’t trust myself not to ruin whatever it is I am trying to make. But it turned out! And it was really, really good!
• I’m thankful that the Pioneer Woman mashed potato recipe Daniel and I made this morning turned out. (How could it not be good, really?) I’ve never made mashed potatoes not from a box (embarrassing, yes) so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but these are amazing. You will not be disappointed.
• I’m thankful for Pinterest. It’s given me so many ideas and helped me refine the sort of aesthetic I like.
• I’m thankful that my dad was able to fix our car tire after it repeatedly kept going flat. This was a huge annoyance and it’s awesome that he knows how to fix things like that. (Daniel was excited to use the ZHOOP-ZHOOP hubcap bolt unscrewer thingy.)
• I’m thankful for all the lovely people in my life. Daniel, Wesley, our extended families, and all our wonderful friends.

*****

Wesley learned to walk on Father’s Day! We were messing around and set him up to walk, not expecting him to actually do it, and then he did! And then he did it some more that evening! He is not very excited about walking and still vastly prefers crawling as a means of transportation, but he can make it about eight feet by himself.

*****

I found him a baby-sized rocking chair at an antiques warehouse sale last week and he LOVES IT. He likes climbing, sitting, rocking, and playing in it. I had considered purchasing it, so I let him sit in it and then every time I tried to remove it from his grasp he SQUEEEEEALED in horror so I was sort of forced to buy it. It’s adorable and I am going to paint it a beautiful shade of aqua called “aged agean.”

*****

He can do all sorts of tricks now. He knows:
Superbaby (arms forward like Superman)
Earmuffs (hands over ears)
Hands up / How big is the baby?
Body parts: teeth, nose, tummy, tongue, leg, bellybutton
Freak out (close eyes, scrunch face, wave arms back and forth)

*****

I think he might have some words now too, but it’s hard to tell. He understands SO MUCH of what we say but he is not particularly keen on repeating anything or saying his own words. For heaven’s sake, he understands “pterodactyl” but won’t say “mama.” I think he knows dog (“dah!”) and duck (“dat!”) and possibly fan (“daph!”). Sometimes he says “DA!” for Dada, too. He will point to the light, our wok, a clock, etc. if you ask him where it is. I think he also understands that a cow says moo, but instead of saying moo he makes a raspberry-like buzzing noise with his lips.

*****

Being back in town with family around has been great – I’m able to call my mother-in-law and say “Wesley is splashing around in the baby pool – he wants to know if you can come hang out?” and she can ride her bike over within a few minutes. (We live two blocks away.) I love being able to call a friend (who lives a block away) to go on walks with the babies. My mom can stop by after work to check out Wesley’s weird viral pox problem if I need her to. That said, I miss my Portland friends terribly and can’t wait to visit. But things are good.

Ready?

I have given my notice at my job, and we are moving back home to Idaho.

This is one of those times I wish I felt comfortable talking about my workplace on my blog, but I do not. Suffice to say, things got weird, people I admire and respect either have left or are leaving, and it became increasingly obvious to me that it was time for me to move on. My last day is next Friday, March 18, and I will be a stay-at-home-mom to Wesley for the next few weeks or month or however long it takes us to put a deposit on a place in our hometown and give our notice at our place here in Portland.

I am so, so excited. It sounds weird, but living in a much smaller town with family nearby actually gives me infinitely more options than what I’m doing now. I might not have to work! If I do, I can work part-time! I don’t necessarily have to put Wesley in daycare! I could open an Etsy shop! Daniel is finishing up writing a business plan to open his own coffeeshop, so we might be small business owners! It is all very new and different.

I expect there to be a pretty hefty learning curve – I haven’t had any extended time alone with Wesley for nine months. I will shamefully admit that I don’t actually know what to do with him every day beyond feeding him and playing with him, but hey! I will learn.

I also need to learn to cook. I can bake just fine, and there are a few meals I can reliably make myself, but Daniel does the vast majority of cooking in our household. If he is bringing home the bacon (metaphorically, of course – he is vegetarian!) then by all means, I can figure out how to make dinner. Plus, Wesley needs to eat during the day, and while I am more than happy to exist on cold cereal I expect that he needs more balanced meals. We have a crock pot I’ve never used because I was scared to leave it on all day while I was at work, and I am going to experiment with it. (If you know of any “Vegetarian Recipes for Dummies,” crockpot-friendly or not, I am all ears.)

I am incredibly bummed about leaving the place I’ve worked for the last four and a half years, especially since I truly liked what I did (web development) and loved my co-workers, but here’s to new beginnings!

Hurrah!

I think his favorite toy was the green ball he got from Grammie Angie and Grandpa Ronnie:

My favorite photo from the vacation:

Those EYEBROWS, oh my goodness. I don’t know what he was doing but I love that I caught it.

Wesley is going through a bit of a separation anxiety phase, which was a riot when he was faced with a ton of faces he didn’t quite remember and people with beards and lots of loud toys. And then his top teeth started coming in. There was one middle-of-the-night freakout (sobbing from 3am to 3:20am while refusing milks, his binky, cuddling, not cuddling, you name it) and a couple of where-is-my-Mama crying jags every day, but he did great, all things considered.

Merry Christmas, Chubby Baby.

We left Thursday after I got off work, so at midnight we had made it about halfway and decided to get a hotel room and continue the drive in the morning. (We’ve powered through it once, but that was pre-baby and it wasn’t very fun that time around either.) The only two rooms the stupid hotel had left were both smoking, so we chose the king-size bed and turned the air purifier on high and opened the window all the way. Fortunately, the pillows/bedding smelled fine so I was able to sleep okay and not freak out about third-hand smoke harming my baby (or either of us).

(Edited to add: Also, THANK YOU to those of you who chimed in on my most recent post. You were all very helpful. I am pretty sure I can see two tiny teeth coming in now that weren’t visible before, so *ding ding ding* teething seems to have been the answer. He is still occasionally sad at feedings but NOTHING like what he was doing before, so we seem to be past the worst of it for now. I heart the internet.)

Some photos from the trip below:

Wesley pilots the rocketship swing outside my parents’ house.

We had noticed he was nearly there, but that weekend he really started sitting by himself. He still needs a pillow around him in case he falls, but he’s usually very steady.

We’ve noticed Wesley seems to be afraid of beards, and Grandpa Ed was no exception. He warms up eventually but he is not a fan of beards right away.

Wesley got to play with his cousin Riley and only got injured once. (Lost his balance while sitting and fell face-first into a toy steering wheel. Brother should have caught him but didn’t/missed; I managed to catch the whole thing on video on accident because he wasn’t falling when I hit record. Mother of the year, for sure.)

Wesley is a week older than Roan, but you’d never know it. That kid is a TANK. Roan cracks me up.

Hi-kid is always so much fun to visit and clearly gets a kick out of hanging out with Wesley.