More photos of the Little Man

Soon enough he'll figure out how to push the buttons and we'll have to keep this far, far away from him.




It only looks like he's ready for a jog. John puts this headband on his head to keep his ears from folding over when he turns his head. John's worried they're going to stick out even farther than his do.









My two little couch potatoes. John's already got Isaac glued to the tube. Great. :)

More ideas!

I decided, after deciding to grow a vegetable garden, that I also want to start a compost. A friend who lives in Kansas City said she and her fiance just started one, and they love it. They're also collecting rainwater, which they'll use to water their plants and grass, etc. These two ideas seem to fit perfectly with gardening; I'll be able to use the compost to add valuable nutrition to my garden's soil, and I can water it with rainwater, thereby saving us money on our utility bill!

Whenever I tell John about one of my great new ideas, he kind of just rolls his eyes and asks when I'll ever have time to follow through with any of this. He even sort of "forbade" me to collect rainwater because he said it would be a breeding ground more mosquitoes. I'm not sure if he realizes how much his challenges egg me on to follow through with all of my great ideas. :)

We'll see.

Oh, by the way

Isaac did not eat the bread my dad tried to give him. He pushed it around his mouth a bit before my dad finally took it off of his tongue.

Avoiding the inevitable

I'm supposed to be writing a story now about Keith Ballard as a potential candidate for TPS superintendent, but I'm having trouble getting motivated. I thought I'd warm up by sharing some stories from the Little Man.

Saturday morning I put Isaac in his swing while I got ready to go help my parents do some work, and I heard this crash. I ran in, and the mobile hanging above his swing had fallen onto the tray in front of him. The little stuffed bears that usually dangle from the mobile's arm were now covering his face. He had this really perplexed look on his face, like he was wondering what the hell had just happened. I fully expected him to start crying, not because he was hurt, but because the mobile's fall had startled him, but when I lifted it off of him, he just looked up at me, opened his mouth into the biggest, brightest smile and laughed. Precious.

My mom told me that, last week while she was making a cake, she gave Isaac a taste of Cool Whip. "It was non-dairy," she defended, "and I didn't give him much. I just put a little on my finger and put it in his mouth, and he LOVED it!" Then she told me dad had also given him a tiny piece of bread that week. What is this, some kind of game: "Experiment With Our Three-Month Old Grandson's Digestive System!"?? I wasn't terribly angry at them, but I did tell them I'd prefer it if they hold off on giving my son a bunch of manufactured sugar until he's at least a year or two old. I know it's hopeless, though. Even if I can get them to stop feeding him now, I'm sure that, when he does start eating regular foods (beyond the mushed-up fruits and veggies that'll be his diet for the first few months that he's able to eat solid), he'll basically eat all the junk he wants. I'll have to work even more hard to make sure he's eating the right foods at home because, once he gets to grandma and grandpa's, he'll have his choice of sweets and snacks.

Man.

But, what can you do? They babysit for free! And, besides this little premature experiment with solid foods, they've been incredibly supportive of all of my parenting choices. When I get frustrated because I have to defend myself against friends who have children and choose to raise them much differently than I do, they're always there with nothing but positive, encouraging words. They offer advice when I ask for it, but they don't try to insist that I do things the way they did. They trust that I only want what's best for Isaac and that I'll make the right decisions. I could never ask for a better support system than the one I have in them. I am truly, truly blessed.

I guess I'll let the Cool Whip slide.

Hug your kids

My heart is bleeding after a story I read in the May 21 issue of the Oklahoma Gazette (the alternative newsweekly published in Oklahoma City). A couple took their nine-month old to the hospital because he was seizing and failing to thrive and had other problems he had been battling since birth. When they went in the next day to see him, they noticed he was behaving strangely and wincing when they touched him. Their doctor ordered a CT scan, and they found he had a skull fracture and was bleeding into his brain. DHS investigated the couple, thinking the baby's injury may have resulted from child abuse, but they found instead that it was caused by one of the nurses, who admitted that her actions caused him to hit his head (the article didn't specify what had happened). The baby died, months later, as a direct result of this injury and the family just settled the lawsuit with the hospital.

Once I read it, I wished Isaac were there with me so I could just grab him and hug him and be grateful for his presence in my life. I thank God every day that I'm fortunate enough to have a mother who can babysit every day while I'm at work so that I don't have to deal with day care, stories of abuse within their walls being so prevalent, especially lately. But not only do parents have to worry about their children in school and day care, but now we also have to wonder if they'll be hurt or killed at the hospital? The place they're supposed to go to get well, not the other way around? It's terrifying that this could and did happen, and my heart goes out to the parents of this little boy. I wish no one ever had to go through what they had to go through.

On another note, a different article in the same issue of the Gazette talked about urban gardening, and I think that may be my new obsession, along with making baby clothes (more on that one some other time). I've thought nonchalantly about gardening before, growing my own fruits and vegetables, but I've always dismissed the idea because I thought I didn't have time or I worried the dog would pee on everything, etc., etc., but I liked the assertion this article made that, in a time when everyone is trying to eat organically, there is no easier or cheaper way to do so than growing your own food. John's planted quite a few pepper plants, and I applaud him for that, but I won't touch them. His peppers are HOT.

I wish I'd had this notion last winter or in the spring, but I suppose it's not too late for fall gardening. The timing for that, in fact, is just right. I picked up a couple links (and added them to my list at right. I also stole some of yours, Tasha! Hope that's okay) and may head to the library to do some further research. (I got on this kick, literally, about 30 minutes ago.) What is nice is that John knows just about everything there is to know about grass and plants and soil and fertilizer, so he could be a lot of help. I'll let you know if I actually follow through with this idea or if it turns into yet another thing I'd like to try but never get around to. I was just thinking that, soon, I won't be able to shop the farmers' markets anymore, and buying organically from the grocery store is so, so expensive. I used to think that buying from markets would be expensive, but every purchase I've made has been comparable to or less than the amount of money I would have spent at the grocery store. Plus, what I buy from the markets tastes so much better than anything I've ever bought in a grocery store. Now there's some food for thought.

Mr. Personality

I'm pretty sure I could stand in front of Isaac all day, every day, snapping photos every second, and his expression would be different in each one. That's only reason number 276 I love him so.