Happy First Day of Fall!

Bring on the orange, red and yellow leaves; the sweaters; crisp mornings and evenings; the warm soup and excitement and anticipation of the holiday season...

HAPPY FIRST DAY OF FALL!!!

Farewell Paci

This is Henry the in hospital, the day after being born. Boy did that child love his paci. It was great considering he was colicky and the paci sometimes helped to sooth him.

Around a 18 months though we noticed that his little friend was making star appearances in ever picture we took of him. That is when we went down to only allowing the paci at nap time and bed time.

And now we're trying to say farewell to the paci for good. It has become his number one comfort and since he only gets it at nap and bedtime, whenever he is upset or hurt he asks to go "night night." Now, if he actually took a nap every time, well that might be a different story, but usually he gets in the crib grabs the paci and then wants to come out, then go back in, then cries, then climbs, and falls and cries, and wants back in, "PACI! PACI!" you get the idea...

So last night we went cold turkey. "We had to give the paci away for another little baby because you're a big boy now." I have heard people do lots of different things like have the kid give it away themselves but we really couldn't see Henry parting with his beloved blue paci for anyone, willingly.

We laid him down to little cries of, "paci? paci?" and then we closed the door and...silence.

I think he was just too pooped from the mother of all tantrums he threw yesterday, prefaced and followed by some little tantrums. So he slept all night and morning with no problem.

Now its nap time. I hear bouncing, crib rattling and "MOMMY! PACI! MOMMY! MOMMY!"
Good luck to me. =)

"Seriously, SO BLESSED!"

I love reading the blog Seriously, so blessed! It usually gives me a good chuckle, after all, "For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?"
Perhaps more importantly, reading SSB does something that every good satire should do: puts an unabashed mirror in my face that asks, "Are you like this? Do you do this?"
There is a post on another blog interviewing the anonymous author of SSB that you can find the link for on the post from today. One of my favorite portions of the interview quotes the author responding to the question, "How much of TAMN do you see in yourself?"

"TAMN says that things are perfect, but she’s also really whiny. When really, how could her life be easier? I catch some of that in myself as well. It’s like TAMN wants a trophy for existing. I’ll catch myself being whiny and think, “Wait, why I am being such a baby? I deserve a trophy for what? For living, for doing things that everyone does all the time? Pull it together, quit being a TAMN.” There was one post where her husband had to work a lot and so she said she was basically “pulling an Emma,” with the implication of huge sacrifice. What’s Emma Smith about having to clean up a diaper or getting to spend all day playing with your kids while JJWT is in law/biz/medical/dental school? What a blessing to have a family, to have a spouse that has a great job or is getting such good training or whatever it might be. We often lament our pretty high-class problems."

So if you haven't read Seriously, so blessed! check it out- have a good laugh, and sometimes (hopefully not too often) have a good squirm at seeing yourself through the stark and all too truthful satire of mormon mommyhood. I know I do. =)

"Henry go to school!"

This morning I went to get Henry out of his crib. I opened the door, said good morning and opened the blinds in his room. Since we are in an end apartment on a busy street, usually he spends five or so minutes looking out his window at the cars, bikes and people going up and down the street. Usually he just talks about the cars or bikes but today he informed me of a decision:

"Mommy look! People packpacks."
"Right Henry, because they're going to school like Papa."
"Henry wear packpack, Mommy. Henry go school, Mommy. I go school. I go school packpack."

At least he tried to break it to me gently, right? =)