My dilemma....

There was a 5 week old infant sitting in front of me in church this morning. He was bald, dressed in blue, and spent the entire service cooing at his parents and smiling at me. I couldn't help from turning to Brian and saying, "I want another one". This was only one instance of many in the past few weeks. Which is where my dilemma comes into play...

We've put a lot of thought into the "when will we expand on our family" argument. There are pros & cons any which way you decide to space your children apart. We've decided that what seems best for our family is to wait until Caleb is closer to 3 before having another. He's 15 months now... even without doing the math, it seems like an eternity. There are plenty of times that I'm aware of how much easier life is with one child. There are others where I just can't wait until my little boy has a younger brother or sister. A lot of my friends are currently either pregnant, or have a newborn... both of which give me strange butterflies in my stomach. As uncomfortable and painful as my pregnancy was, I miss it so much. I now miss the times he kicked me so hard I thought his foot was going to pop out through my ribs. I miss the heartburn that kept me from getting more than 3 hours of sleep a night, and the afternoon/evening sickness that kept my body from consuming anything but plums and Captain Crunch Berries. Strangly enough, I keep looking at my favorite maternity wear sites to keep up on their current lines of clothes. I loved pregnancy clothes. Heck I still sleep in them sometimes :-)

Why wait then, you ask? Though the next time around could be completely different, my motto is always 'plan for the worst, & hope for the best'. If I was as sick as I was last time for 4 months, I don't feel like I'd be able to be the best that I could be for Caleb. I still see him learning and growing daily, and I don't want to miss any of it. I don't want to be too sick to give him all my attention when he still needs it so much, nor do I want to be stuck on a couch constantly feeding a newborn while he's still so young.

So, today my 'baby bug' has just been coming on extra strong, and I thought writing about it might help to lessen my ache for a newborn. Next winter, I'll probably be pregnant again-- laughing at how silly this sounds in retrospect. And for now, I'll try to focus on being content with my wonderfully blessed life.

5 days old:

15 months old:

...I wish these days hadn't gone by so fast.

The long awaited update...

I've been informed that it's time for an update. I look at my blog often, but then lose intrest while trying to figure out what to write about. Most things that I find exciting in life, most other people aren't too impressed by. I'll go ahead and share though.

Caleb's up to 11 distinguishable words now. He talks a blue streak when he's alone with Brian and I, but seems to really shy away from talking while others are around. When I ask him a question, he'll respond with an answer... I can't wait until his responses are words that I can understand. Certain conversations with my son go quite well, such as: "Caleb, would you like your juice?", his response being "Juice, juice". But when I ask more complex questions, like "Do you want to play with blocks or read a book?", I'll get a "doobow" as an answer. It's a learning process for us both... which I'm enjoying to the fullest. I can't tell you how many times he makes me laugh out loud throughout the day. I have tears in my eyes I laugh so hard sometimes.

Even though I have problems understanding him many times, I just love how well he understands me. When I say "bathtime" he runs upstairs. When I ask him to get a book, he'll bring me one. When I say it's time to change his diaper, his face errupts with tears. Dogs say "oof", chickens say "boc", cows say "ooo". He knows where his nose, eyes, and mouth are. He's enamored with our belly buttons. He loves to play basketball, dance, clap, and wave at everything possible. His little brain just amazes me. It baffles me that some people still can't believe in our Creator after seeing a child form, grow, and develop like this.

My goal is to update more than once a month from now on. That will have to suffice for now :-)

my little climber's becoming quite adventurous... the boy loves his puzzles!

Happy Halloween!

Well we had fun this year. My little monkey got to make his debut! We kept it low key, and went over to my sister-in-law's for pizza with family. Caleb got a little baggie of treats, and when we got home he had his first cookie. It never dawned on me how big a mess was possible with an oreo! His little grubby chocolate fingerprints were on everything, but I enjoyed cleaning up his mess thoroughly! I love each and every new memory we make. Needless to say, it was a special day. My only disappointment was not getting any trick-or-treaters.... & being stuck with a huge bowl of candy!

Caleb Lee: 13 months

My brother in law, Jeremy, was ever so kind to take some pictures of the little dude at Pemberton Park the other day. I can't get over how grown up he looks... we're sure blessed to have this miracle be part of our little family. Here's a few pics from the session:

The wonderful world of cake making...

So I just finished taking my "cake decorating 101" class.... overall I'd call it a success. Learned some new techniques, have a bunch more tools now, and I can make some dang good icing!

Biggest downfall of the course.... having cake in my house for 4 weeks straight. It's lovely, but most nights I go to bed sick from eating so much of it. I think that would fall into my 'need to work on self control' category.

Anywho, here are the 3 cakes I made:

Sunflower week was a spice cake, clown week was chocolate, and formal/roses week was strawberry.... YUMMM. I might take class 201 in January. We'll see.

I did learn, however, that I could never do this for a living-- no matter how good I get. People that make money on cakes can't be perfectionists... or as emotionally driven as me :-)

A Nation of whiners...

I haven't updated in a while, & I have a gazillion pictures taken since then. That'll have to wait for another post though... ranting at the moment seems more important:

I understand our country is in an economic 'crisis' right now. Shame on us for getting into this mess. I'm just so frustrated with hearing everyone whine about how the government should be giving the 'people' money instead of bailing out these companys. Yeah, I'm pissed off at all the CEO's too, but honestly... Americans are so greedy; I don't feel like bailing us out would even be possible. People buy way too much that they can't afford, get loans like they're candy, and then find themselves in crisis when all goes awry. Though every loan is kind of in jeopardy at the moment... there's smart loans, and then there's dumb loans. Don't be one of those people getting 'dumb loans'-- that's part of why we're in this mess. Are we really not smart enough to know we can't borrow money that we can't pay back? Just because banks and companies have tried to make it so easy to buy things, doesn't mean we need to be dumb enough to take the bait. And if the government gave us money, many people would continue to be dumb, and wouldn't spend it the way they should. We're all adults, we should fix our own messes. I don't feel like it's the government's job to be our 'savior' or our 'superman' and fix everything for us. Suck it up, save your money... and pray for our country.

I think I'm so testy today because this presidential debate has been on my calendar for weeks and may not happen (or happen correctly). I'm still planning on a hot date with my TV tonight at 9... and hope I'm not disappointed. I don't fault McCain for his decision, but wish the country wasn't in such a state where such urgency was needed for legislation like this. Blah blah blah... Vote for McCain :-)

& next Tuesday I finish my cake decorating class, so I'll put up pics of all my cakes then. The end.... for now.

It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to

Thus the theme of Caleb's 1st birthday.

We were up in New Jersey to celebrate, and with his schedule off kilter, he was a bit tempermental. We spent part of his birthday at the lake; he had a blast in the sand and splashing around in the water as usual. Later on, we had a shindig at my sister's. I'd call his party a success, as we got through play-time and dinner without any drama. My mistake for trying to put on his birthday hat though, because that set him into a tizzy. He cried thoughout the happy birthday song, and during the much anticipated cake eating segment. He had been overstimulated all day, and we didn't get around to cake until 7:30 (his usual bedtime), so we tried taking the cake outside with a much lesser crowd to see if he'd enjoy it more. Took a little coaxing, but once he finally tasted it he really went to town for a while. All in all, a great day. I get a bit emotional thinking about how fast this first year has passed. So many happy memories though, and I get so excited thinking about the many more to come. At least his birthday isn't quite over yet... we get to have another party for him in a few days with the other side of the family!

Prepare yourselves for Birthday, Part Deux...