Tired Parents

George didn't sleep very well last night.  He woke up at 11:15 pm (less than one hour after I fell asleep-brutal), 1:15am and 3:15 am.  Each time it took me about 35 minutes to get him back to sleep, then another 20 to get me back to sleep.  He has another terrible cold, and maybe another ear infection brewing.  Whatever the reason, getting up for work this morning was pretty brutal.  But I did it.  I got up, got George nursed and dressed and diapered and teeth brushed.  I got myself dressed and teeth brushed.  I made us both breakfast that we shared.  I packed a healthy lunch for myself, and we got out the door.  I brought him in to daycare, had a 10 minute conversation with his teacher and another mom, then headed back into the pouring rain to the car.  I got a bit more of a chuckle than usual from the parking attendant, and took a look in the mirror.  Well, I had brushed my teeth, but not my hair.  And worse than that, I hadn't washed my face last night or this morning, so had absolute raccoon eyes from yesterday's mascara!  Lovely sight!

Well, baby wipes in the car are a godsend, and fingers for hairbrushes, not too bad.  I was able to appear fairly tidy by the time I arrived at work.

Telling Chris this story (and the one where I got to work only to discover I still had my slippers on) got him to share...

His story.  The story he is too embarrassed to tell many people.  I think the distance is great enough now that he won't kill me for going public with it.  I hope.

When George was about 9 weeks old he went through quite a colicky period.  We had many late and sleepless nights.  One night when I was too tired to cope, Chris took over for the entire night, and still got up for work the next day.  He leaves really early.  Usually around 5:30, and this was October, so it was dark.  To allow me to sleep, he gets dressed pretty much in the dark and heads out in the dark, and arrives at the office in the dark, etc...Anyhow, he put on his gorgeous camel overcoat and headed to work.  He arrived at work, walked in and felt like he got a very strange look from the security guard.  He walked past many occupied cubicles, said good morning to a few co-workers, and arrived at his desk.  There he went to take his coat off only to realize he was not wearing his long, camel overcoat.  He was wearing my 3/4 length PINK wool coat...

He was so horrified he stuffed it in a drawer and didn't bring it home for 3 weeks.  It only took him a week to tell me the story.

Here is a less embarrassing picture of a very tired Daddy...(while I was on baby duty last night, Chris had to get up to take care of our senior dog at 2 am)...

Monkey!

George is really into climbing lately.  We got a step-stool so that he can climb up to wash his hands before and after meals.  He thinks that is great fun - climbing and water play together!



And I taught him how to haul a kitchen chair over to the sink so he can wash his hands there...That may have been a mistake.  This morning Chris walked into the living room for a minute and returned to the kitchen to find our monkey on top of the kitchen table.  We suddenly are faced with an entirely new phase of childproofing.  If he can get on the kitchen table, he'll be able to get on the kitchen counters.  Which means he may be able to get the vitamins out of the cupboard (and they look and taste like candy...).  And the knives.  Where are we supposed to keep the knives?

Any advice would be great, as we enter this new phase of our amazing adventure!

Vegetable Garden, Here We Come!

Chris has spent this gorgeous weekend finishing off our raised beds, mixing in compost, vermiculite, and peat moss, planting seed potatoes in pots, starting veg by seed in the house, etc... Let's hope we're off to a bumper crop this spring and summer.  We're planning on planting a great variety and are learning what vegetables complement others.  So far we know we'll have lettuce, spinach, chard, kale, eggplant, artichokes, beans, peas, potatoes, tomatoes, lima beans, zucchini, cucumbers, peppers...  We're trying to learn how to rotate our crops to have a year round harvest ( if we're lucky we'll be eating lots of cabbage, brussel sprouts, and kale this winter).  Wish us luck.  Chris is also going to borrow space in a friend's greenhouse this year so we can grow tons of tomatoes.  He's planning on canning most of them, enough to get us through the winter.  Then we could go through an entire winter without worrying about the effects of BPA from the plastic lining the tins of organic tomatoes we buy at Costco (who knew canned foods were lined with BPA plastic, and the more acidic the food, the more BPA leaches from the plastic into the food?)...



George has spent most of the weekend with Grandma and Poppa while I study, but he came out to "help" some too.  He especially loves Poppa's tractor.



Clever boy knows that you need to turn the key.  Luckily he is still lacking in the strength and dexterity to do so.  But he does have fun climbing around on the tractor.

George is a busy boy

After school yesterday, we played in the garden in the rain for a while, and he picked some camellias.  Lovely.  Then we went inside for some pre-dinner play time.  Tonight his full attention was on his stroller and his milk...

Dropped his hat!

Back to get the hat...

Pause for a drink of milk...

And off he goes again!

Adventure Boy!

In our unseasonable warm weather, we've been taking George to a local park a lot.  This is the first time in his life he's spent time on a playground (other than a bit of assisted sliding on vacation near the ocean with Nana and Nenny when he was 9 months old), and he was quite hesitant at first.  He stood and watched all the other kids playing, but wasn't ready to leave Daddy's side.  But it didn't take him long, just a little company and encouragement, before he was exploring and climbing, swinging and sliding.  His favorite activity is, without question, the slide.  We started him on the small slide, but soon he found the big slide.  He likes to climb the ladder all by himself, though the rungs are quite far apart for such a little fellow.  But he can do it!  We just stand behind him to catch a stumble, and up he goes (this does require a bit of extra patience from the other children waiting their turns).

Brave boy likes to go head first on his tummy!!!

After sliding, he has fun playing with Daddy!

Super cool wagon!

Daddy made a cool wagon for George that he thinks is great.  It's a very fun way to get around and I imagine will be much used this summer.

Cold Water Boy

It was 60 degrees yesterday, so we headed down to the park to play on the playground.  This park is right on the lake, and after many trips down the slide (all by himself), George headed down to the lake.  He was having a lot of fun picking up rocks, but wasn't responding too happily to mommy's hold on him - keeping him out of the water.  All the good rocks are under the water.  So, why not?  It was a learning moment.  So I let go and he marched right on in and had a wonderful time throwing rocks.  Then he ventured a little further (to his knees) and had a blast walking back and forth across the shallows.  Luckily he didn't seem to mind mommy's hand on the back of his shirt, just in case.  But he definitely takes after his mommy--daddy won't go anywhere near cold water unless he has long johns and waders on.  After about 10 minutes, we headed to the car and changed him into a nice fleecy romper and his little toes were toasty warm (though bare since we didn't have a change of shoes) within 3 minutes!