When Life Hands You Lemons, Go Out For Pancakes

It was a rough day. There were rumors for months that the local branch of Adam's job would be closing. This morning they were told there would be a big meeting that afternoon to discuss the closings. It was very stressful.

It turns out the surrounding cities have branches closing, but our local branch will remain open. There were layoffs and there are still some concerns, but things are looking better than they were this morning.

We decided to go out for pancakes for dinner because it had been such a hard day.

I was on the fence about whether to get Jayden his own kids meal for the first time.

It's a good thing I did! I ordered him pancakes and fruit and (other than a little bit of pancakes and two chunks of fruit I ate) he finished his meal!

As the waitor was putting down Jayden's plates, Jayden grabbed a pancake right off the plate and started eating!

I had to pull his plates away because he stuffed his cheeks full of food!

Sometimes all it takes is a dinner like this and we are reminded how lucky we are. 

DIY Pacifier

The only time we let Jayden have a pacifier is when he is sleeping- both at night and naps. When he wakes up, we take it from him. He still has some stashed away, like in his toy box. Every once in a while we'll see him walking around with one.

This morning Adam put Jayden in his playroom and we started to get ready for work. He stood at the gate and watched us, like he usually does.

I was a little blurry eyed from just waking up (and Jay keeping me up all night) but I saw he had a pacifier in his mouth. I looked closer and thought it looked really big. I walked over to him and realized it was his rubber ducky.

Since we took his pacifier away, he decided to make his own.

Things Have A Way Of Working Out

I've recently had some turn over with my job. Within the past year and a half two children moved out of the area so they could no longer come here for child care. Another child stopped coming because she turned 12 and her mother decided it was time to let her stay home and get on the bus herself.  Another child had two new siblings added to her family so her mom decided to stay home full time.

I've had a large number of children in the past and I've even had a waiting list at times. I went into this summer with the lowest number of kids I have had since I started. All of them part time.

I was freaked out about it and we had to come up with a plan on how to save money in other areas in order to make it work. Especially since the IRS still hasn't given us our tax return. (Many adoptive families have had this issue. They are still "reviewing" our adoption expenses that we claimed.)

There is a lot of pressure on me when things change and I make less. It is made worse by the fact that I have absolutely no control over it. I lost a lot of sleep over these changes.

We are now almost a month into summer vacation. Despite the decrease in pay...I have to admit....having less kids right now is a blessing in disguise.

Jayden is a high maintanence baby. No doubt about it. He likes it when I am in the room when he naps. (How does he always know?!?!) If I am on the opposite side of a gate from him, he flips out. He still doesn't sleep through the night. He is a needy little one. Which is fine, but it makes 12 hour work days very hard on me.

Having a day or two off during the week is kind of awesome. And I honestly don't know what I would have done if I had to work all day, everyday. I am not sure I would have survived it.

On the days without other kids we can be more flexible with our schedule. We both can catch up on sleep- I sometimes get to take a nap with him and he sleeps longer because there are no big kids around to play with. It also gives us more opportunities to go off on adventures with grandma while she has off from teaching for the summer.

This is one of those situations that seems devestating at first but then as it happens you realize it was exactly what you needed. The universe gave you exactly what you needed when you didn't even know that was what you needed.

It kind of reminds me of our long struggle to start our family. Who knew someday I would look back at it all and be at peace with it and think it worked out and had the best possible outcome.

Maybe there is a little lesson in this for me.

Summer Goals

Summer Goals:

• Survive my sister's baby shower and my family reunion in 93 degree heat. (Note- I melt if it's over 72)
• Organize my craft stuff and finish transforming our back porch into my craft room.
• Finish planning Jayden's 1st birthday party.
• Use all my groupons.
• Learn how to cook all the vegetables we get in our CSA.
• Make time for "date nights" with Adam after Jayden goes to sleep.
• Get caught up on Jayden's scrapbook (which I haven't even started!)
• Teach Jayden more signs.
• Take Jayden to the beach.
• Take Jayden to the water part of the Zoo.
• Get new families to sign up for childcare in the Fall.
• Finalize our adoption!!

What are your summer plans?

10 Months

BIRTH

ONE MONTH

TWO MONTHS

THREE MONTHS

FOUR MONTHS

FIVE MONTHS

SIX MONTHS

SEVEN MONTHS

EIGHT MONTHS

NINE MONTHS

TEN MONTHS

This month's pictures were not easy to get. Most of them are just pictures of him trying to either grab the camera or escape off the couch.



The pictures may be harder to get, but spending time with him keeps getting more and more fun.

He initiates peek-a-boo and thinks it's so funny when we play with him. He will use a blanket, a bib, or sometimes just hides behind an object or person.

He walks around like it's no big deal while Adam and I are still amazed everyday. His balance has gotten so good.

He's been teething like crazy, but still only has his bottom two teeth. I finally broke down and bought an amber baby necklace. I am willing to try anything at this point. I don't want to give him tylenol or advil all the time. I'll let you know if the amber necklace works.

The baby gates that we added last month work great. They keep him safe and they're easy for us to walk through. Just this week we added one at the bottom of the steps because he figured out how to get up the stairs really fast. The rest of the baby proofing seems to be holding up well. Although I see him trying to figure out how to get the outlet plugs out or open the cupboards.

Meals are hard. Harder than I expected them to be. I've learned that it's best to do meals right after he wakes from his nap. If I try feeding him when he's tired, almost none of the food makes it into his mouth. One day he may love something, the next day it gets thrown on the floor. I never know what to expect, other than the fact that by the end of the meal food will be in his hair. I've decided babies this age should be fed naked in the backyard so they can be hosed off at the end of each meal.

He loves water.

He went to his first parade and loved it.

 We were worried about how he would do with going to fireworks on the 4th of July, but he loved it! He wasn't scared of the loud noises and he even knew to look up everytime. The real surprise came when he fell asleep in the middle of them! We have no idea how he was able to sleep through fireworks!!

We went to a farm with some other adoptive families. Jayden had a great time. He especially loved the goats. We sat together on hay and watched them for a long time.

We saw the sweetest little newborn baby goat.

I love my sweet little snuggle bug.



First Holidays

I had a Groupon for making a photobook and as I was thinking about what to put in the book, I realized that Jayden has had all of his "first" holidays. Starting with Halloween and ending with 4th of July. I decided to make a book of all those holidays. It always takes me forever to do this stuff. This one took days!

I love the book so much I decided to share with all of you:



(Yes, I included Dr Seuss' Birthday as one of the holidays. hehe)

The Cuteness Is Killing Me

Jayden can do new things everyday and I love watching as he grows. Lately the cuteness of the new things he can do is killing me.

Like walking. I can't get over how adorable it is to see this 17 pound peanut walking around the room. He walks more and more each day. At this point he can now walk across the whole room and even take a break in the middle to just stand there and look at something and then start again.

He walks around like it's no big deal, but I am still amazed all the time.

He has a very strict no walking if I have a camera in my hands policy, but I did manage to catch these pictures:

He caught me with the camera so now he's going to sit.

Jayden's love for cats is another thing that I think is adorable and I can't get enough of. He lights up when he sees one and he often says his own version of cat or kitty. Cat is just the "k" sound. Kitty is like "iiiieeeee."

He even recognizes cats in his books.

The only thing cuter than him recognizing cats in books is when he sees a bunny in a book and calls it a cat. He thinks all bunnies are cats too. HOW CUTE IS THAT?

Sometimes I give him a little bowl of food to snack on in his play area. I watch him as he eats and every once in a while I catch him sitting there signing "more" to himself in between eating.

Don't even get me started on the baby kisses.

I'm telling you, this kid is killing me with the cuteness.

Check Your Sunscreen

Someone shared this website with me and I am so thankful to have this information that I thought I would share with all of you.

http://breakingnews.ewg.org/2011sunscreen/

You can look up the current sunscreen you are using for yourself or your child and find out what kind of toxins, chemicals, etc are in it.

I had gotten Aveeno baby sunblock for Jayden. It actually says "mild as water" on the label. I thought I was doing good spending a little more than what most sunscreens cost. Well, it turns out it's awful and full of baby poisons. It's on their Hall of Shame list. Luckily we hadn't used it yet.

I've now switched to one of the sun blocks on the best list. It costs more, but it's safer.

Whatever you use to protect yourself from the sun, I hope you have a wonderful 4th of July weekend!!