A Bit Of An Update

Most of my blogroll has been languishing for want of an update. I have finally been able to add Stephanie's (relatively) new crafty blog Me So Crafty and removed her previous blog Forks and Chopsticks. Give it a look-see!

A Momentous Week

The holiday craze has continued at the Tiny Tyrant's household. The time is really getting away from me now and most of of the time I feel like a real nut for putting forth all these efforts to create the "perfect" holiday season for Collin. I mean, he's not going to remember it after all!

But, the big news here this week is that Collin took his first real steps this past Tuesday! I missed it because I was at work, but CJ was home taking caring of him and I'm glad one of us got to see it first hand. Since Tuesday I've seen him take a bunch more steps and he's pretty nonchalant about the whole thing. It's almost like he's saying..."yeah...so what I'm walking?

Tonight was a fun family dinner at Aunt Sue's since my cousin Tessa is visiting from the Florida Keys for a few days. Collin received his first Christmas gifts from Tess. He hasn't seemed to catch on to the whole concept of receiving gifts yet, which is a good thing I guess. On the other hand, he just seems to assume everything is his for the taking anyway! The poor thing also has his first official cold. His nose is running like a sieve and he really gets a kick out of licking up as much of his own snot as possible. We've basically made it a whole year with no illnesses, so I'm not complaining. Not too shabby!

You Know You're a Mom When....

Scroll down a bit to find the entry 12/13. I thought that this was a hoot. Every single one applies to me, numbers 1, 3, and 9 in particular. Babble is the latest and greatest parenting site up and running. I actually read an article about it in the New York Times last week. I'm already familiar with several of their bloggers...seems like some good stuff.

The Happiest Time of the Year

The heating debacle is, hopefully, behind us now and we're settling in to our cozied up house. Unfortunately, there are still one or two glitches to work out and parts of the house feel like the Sahara. Needless to say, I am oh so happy to have the workmen out of the house! In addition to all of the ruckus going on, we've been pretty busy preparing for the holidays. CJ and I continue to work on melding the traditions of our 2 families into the new one we've created with Collin. Sometimes this has been a delicate task, but I think we've done a good job of it so far. We'll be doing Christmas Eve at our place and Christmas Day at his mom's house.

So, some of the fun stuff we've been up to....

More Christmas pictures! The ever elusive toothy grin from Collin has still not made an appearance. Since this is the case, I might go with this shot on our Shutterfly card... I just think it kind of shows his quirky side.


I'm still not too sure, but time is getting away from me now and I need to order.









While we were taking these pictures at a local tree farm Collin also had his first chance to ride a John Deer lawn mower (or some kind of truck)...kid size, of course. He could not get enough of that thing!! He looked like such a little farmer in his plaid shirt! I have to give the kid some credit because he has been a good sport about me dragging him all over the place to take his picture.






It's going to be another crazy week around here again. Our new part-time nanny is starting and there are errands galore to run....including planning the big birthday bash for Collin! I'm finding it hard to believe that he will be 1 in just a couple of weeks. In some ways it feels like it was just yesterday that he was born and in others it feels like a decade has passed!

It's COLD In Here!

I've been in denial the last couple of weeks about our home heating project and the fact that we would be having an entirely new HVAC system installed this week. One of my biggest gripes about buying this house is that it cost us a small fortune and has an absolutely awful heating system. Last winter was a nightmare with the main floor being about 15 degrees colder than the upper floor. The main floor was pretty much uninhabitable at times, so we knew some major changes were on the way. Well, it took us awhile to find a company that we felt comfortable working with (after being screwed by multiple other contractors over the past year and a half) and of course, just when we're ready to begin, the first real cold spell is upon us. We'll have no heat for the next couple of days, except in the basement, where we had electric heat installed last year. There will be workmen in and out for the next bunch of days and the bulk of the work will be done in the attic. The attic,you ask? Yup, because that's where the boneheads that built our house put the furnace. The attic stairs happen to be right next to Collin's room and at the moment he is defying all belief by sleeping in his crib during a racket that would truly wake the dead. Trust me, I'm not complaining! So, we're basically evacuating to the basement for the next couple of days. Thankfully, our basement rehaul was completed a few weeks ago and we should be pretty comfortable. The biggest concern is that we're blowing a hole in Collin's comfort zone. We'll be attempting to get him to sleep in the travel crib next to us while we're on the futon. Should be interesting!

Another Day

Sometimes I wonder how full-time, have no help at all, stay at home moms do this job at all. Here I am, with 15 hours a week worth of help, weekly date night, and a part-time job in my chosen field that gets me out of the house another 15 hours a week and I am still struggling to deal effectively with 1 small 11 month old boy. Not to mention that I have an extremely supportive husband who is only right down the road and who will come home to help out whenever asked (usually). I honestly think that I might run away if I had to stay with Collin all day every day! I know I've said this before and I think it freaks The Hens out when I mention it, but I don't think I'm cut out for motherhood about half of the time. The other half of the time life is great, but the boy can really be a tough cookie at times. He's been a bit on the aggressive side lately too. I mean, if you could even say an 11 month old could be aggressive. I'm not sure about that, but Collin has been pinching, scratching, gouging, hair pulling, and biting us QUITE A BIT lately. We've been trying to be consistent about our response to him when he does this stuff, but frankly he seems to be getting a real kick out of it. I mentioned to CJ the other day that I feel a general sense of defeatism about myself lately. I can't get on a real routine with Collin, I can't stay on top of household duties, the thought of the holidays overwhelms me, my files at work have been untouched for weeks, I can't stay on a healthy eating plan for more than 2 weeks at a time, yada, yada, yada.

OK...so that's my whine for the day. It's off my chest and on to other things now.

Vaccinations: These went off without a hitch. Collin was pretty pissed, but he seemed over it after 5 minutes. We'll see how round 2 goes in a month

The Quest for the perfect Santa shot: We've seen 4 Santas so far and Collin has been holding his own. After his melt down on our first attempt, he seems pretty cool with the chubby man in the red suit. However, he has not really, truly cracked a smile EVEN ONCE. I also took him to Picture People last week and again, we got some awesome shots, but there was not a toothy grin to be found anywhere. We will continue to visit Santa as the opportunities arise.

The Quest for Mary Poppins: I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but I think we've found her! She starts "training" with Amanda on the 11th. I never should have wasted our money on the agency...I found her on my own.

Convincing Amanda she doesn't need to return to college and that Collin will forget her after 1 week: This one is going nowhere.