Huckisms

As I sit here beginning to write this post I’m listening to my child scream and cry in the background from his crib.  I just put him down for nap time without finishing his lunch because he was getting frustrated with trying to eat by himself and had already thrown his spoon, pushed is bowl away, almost dumped his food on the floor and pushed his milk away and was beginning to throw a major fit.  This seems to be the norm lately—get extremely frustrated when something doesn’t work for him immediately the first time, fuss, and then throw a fit.  And while I’m trying to calm the frustration and anger that’s boiling inside of me, I keep thinking of the message from church this morning to not worry, for worrying only takes away from today’s strength and to {as is the name of this blog} “count your blessings.”

Although life with Huck has not been that easy lately and he is frequently fussy and uncooperative once again in his life, I have to remember to be grateful for those “Huck-isms” that do bring us great joy.  In no particular order, here are the top 20 that we encounter pretty regularly:

1.  “Hold you” is used when he wants one of us to hold him or help him do something. He frequently confuses “you” and “I/me” and uses them in the opposite context that he intends.
2.  “Pump it” or “pumped it” when he punts  or punted a ball
3. “Carnoons” for cartoons
4. “I have a bone, I’m a dog” when he puts a spoon or other stirring device sideways in his mouth.  The other day this turned into “I don’t need a bone,” and when we looked at him, he had a book in his mouth.
5. “Booster seat!” when he runs into the kitchen to eat a meal
6. “He wants…” whenever he wants something instead of using I
7.  “What’s that little guy doing?” or “Look at that little person” anytime we see any person no matter how big or small
8. The past 2 days, twice he has asked me in complete sentences to do something with “please” at the end of it.  I definitely stopped the cooking I was doing and meditation I was practicing to respond to these requests.
9.  Milk is now referred to as coffee and he wants to carry it around the house all the time when we have traditionally only allowed milk at meal times.
10. “I’m a race car” when he runs around the kitchen island as fast as he can
11. “That’s a cute “lil house” or “what’s in that ‘lil house” when he’s referring to buildings and businesses
12. When you whisper something for him to say out loud, he whispers it as well.
13. Beginning to use 7 word sentences: “Mama, will you get that car, please?”
14. “Wanna wrestle?” is used frequently when Matt gets home from work
15. “Wanna read this one?” Then hands you the book to read thinking you’ll read it to him, but he really just wants you to read it and he’ll grab another book to begin reading.
16. He has to sleep with 4 loveys each night: blankie, a puppy blankie, lambie (a stuffed lamb), and Henry (a stuffed scary looking cat).  He often cuddles them all at the same time and says “ohhh.”
17. “I go crib” is common when he’s really tired after reading and during songs at night. 
18. Beginning to learn the grace we say before each meal and says “Come Lord” and “be our Guest”
19. “Thank you very much” when thanking someone
20. “Anhydrous tanks,” “he’s plowing,” “hay bales,” and “wanna go get ‘em” or “ wanna  go see’em” when we see any tractors or farm equipment working is extremely common.

 

Potty Training...Part 1??

I know this is only the beginning and we haven’t even formally begun the process yet to potty train our son, but I purchased a little potty for him last week to help him begin to get used to the idea.  He does have more of an interest in using the toilet and occasionally tells us when he needs a diaper change, thus prompting the purchase.  I can honestly say I don’t really even know how to go about starting to potty train, just that there has to be consistency…so I guess I better get my act together.  If I can be so consistent and disciplined about other areas of my life, I can surely do this.  But then again, I’m dealing with a toddler who has a mind of his own.

Since we got our son his potty we’ve been asking him throughout the day if he has to go or wants to use it.  Sometimes he says “yes,” but mostly “no.”  It generally doesn’t amount to anything, but him sitting on the potty and getting used to it, but yesterday, to my amazement, he told my husband he wanted to use the potty when he was getting his diaper changed and sure enough, after sitting there for a minute or two, he went in the potty!!  I’m not sure my husband was as pumped as I was (if you know him, you know he’s Mr. Show His Emotions, right?), but it was pretty cool to have him do that already.  I  know it probably won’t last this early, and that this is just the beginning of a LONG process, but it kind of makes me think I had better turn my focus of research toward something else other than how to eat following the Whole30 program when you’re pregnant. 

 Oh yeah, in case you didn’t hear, we are expecting in March!  Life is full of blessings each day, and it’s so easy to forget or neglect to stop and acknowledge them and give thanks for both the joys AND challenges.  Taking the time to write this blog has not been a priority of mine lately partially because we’ve moved last month, which feels like it has consumed my life and thrown everything off kilter, but I realize when I actually sit down to write, that it serves a great purpose in remembering to take this little step to “count my blessings.”     

Laugh Like a Toddler with a Ball

I had to make a trip to the store yesterday with Huck in tow...just needed 1 thing so I figured we could run in and out and be back home within a half hour.  Well, it went mostly as planned, but the first store we stopped at didn't carry overnight diapers, but did indeed carry bouncy balls.  When Huck saw the cage of balls at the store his eyes lit up.  He has been absolutely obsessed with any sort of ball lately and has so much fun playing "catch" or kicking them even if it's just to himself.  And there happened to be a ball with airplanes on it, which was recently a 2 week obsession that has seemed to taper a bit, so I thought it was a must.  While waiting in the check out line for this 1 ball, Huck was on cloud 9 carrying around, rolling and tossing his ball (luckily the store was small, and we were the only customers in there except the gentleman in front of us).  And it really didn't bother me that we had to wait for quite some time because it was so much fun to just watch him discover what he could do with this ball he was getting.

After our trip to the next store, we indeed left town and headed back home with overnight diapers and 2 bouncy balls...yep 2.  I guess I'm a sucker for a toddler who gets so excited about seeing a cage of balls that he can hardly stop laughing and almost crawls into the ball cage to get one.  Our trip home began with Huck holding one of the balls and throwing it up in the air to himself.  It would occasionally land on his head and rest against the top of his car seat in which case he couldn't reach it so would get frustrated, and I would tap it so it fell down in his lap again.  But that lasted about 1 mile.  He was playing so boisterously with the ball that he tossed it to the other side of the backseat and to the floor.  Thus ended the joy of having a ball, and the beginning of the frustration and sadness of not having a ball to hold on the way home.  And since I was driving and the only other person in the car, I wasn't going to be able to get him the ball unless I stopped the car.  We only live 10 minutes from the store, so I wasn't going to do that, unfortunately.  So the laughter turned to periodic crying the rest of the trip home.

The whole evening was spent playing with his new yellow ball and airplane ball, and by bedtime he marched right into his room with his airplane ball ready to get into his crib.  It took a lot of coercing and some prying to release the ball from his grasp and turn his attention to books.

This little afternoon adventure was such a reminder of the pure joy that the little things in life can bring.  Where is that wonder that I'm sure each of us once had?  It so often gets stuffed down and forgotten as we conform to society and encounter stressful situations and life in general.  Imagine what the world would be like if we all took a step back and paused to simply be more mindful of how we approach life--without expectations, praise or blame.  To just observe what is going on and accept it for what it is.  I know this is something I personally work on and need to be reminded of it more often.  And maybe that's just what my son is doing for me each day with these little reminders to laugh and have fun.

Mother's Day 2015

My 3 blessings on this Mother's Day:

1. My beautiful mother who brought me into this world and continues to teach me so much about life and how to be a good mama and wife.  She continues to amaze me with her openness and desire to never stop learning.  I am so proud of her for taking the brave step to begin to practice Adamantine(R) Yoga a couple months ago and for sticking with it.  Thank you, Mom, for supporting me in everything that I do and continuing to encourage me to dream and set goals.  I love you.
   
   
   
2.  My handsome son, Huck, who continues to teach me patience and reminds me to see the world through the eyes of a child.  His wonder, spirit and intelligence amaze me every day and bring so much joy to my life.  It's hard to believe he has been in our lives for 16 months and how things have changed during that period of time.  I am so grateful for our healthy little boy who loves to be outside and shows such pure excitement & joy when either my husband or I walk through the door after a day at work or into his room after nap time.  The unconditional love that exists between a parent and a child is a beautiful bond.
   
3. Gardening and the land that God has given us to care for.  I spent time today weeding a flower bed and planting some seeds that will hopefully bring flowers this spring or summer.  Working with my hands in the dirt and navigating around the many earthworms I encountered was therapeutic and a beautiful reminder that all things work together for our good.  Even though the clover and dandelions had taken over this little bed around the perennials that live there, the life that was working so hard beneath those weeds to make the soil more fertile gave me reason to be thankful.  Because just a few years ago when I created that flower bed, there was nothing but grass growing in clay soil there.  Life creates life.

Saving the Planet or Our Budget?

Last weekend marked a momentous occasion in our lives…buying disposable diapers.  You heard me right.  It was one of the first times we have had to buy diapers for our 15-month old.  Crazy, I know!  But we had the good fortune of acquiring a LOT of diapers before little Huck was born because of a diaper keg that was hosted for my husband.  And we finally made it through all of them.  Oh we still have some random ½-opened packages of diapers that the little guy grew out of before we could use; and of course, I did exchange some smaller sizes for larger ones if he grew faster than we could fit the diapers to him.  But I think there may have been only 2 other times when we actually had to buy disposable diapers—once when he was still super small and once when we were traveling and needed more.  Oh yeah, and we do buy overnight diapers since Huck sleeps 12-13 hours a night and needs all the absorbency he can get.  So the diaper keg is the way to go if you know anyone having a baby in the near future. 

If you’re not familiar with what I’m talking about, here’s brief overview:  it’s essentially a baby shower for men.  My husband’s friend got a keg and a bunch of beer and invited their friends to come drink with them…the catch, the fee for the beer was a package of diapers (we requested bigger sizes since we had gotten smaller sizes at my baby showers).  We have some very generous friends because many of them brought big boxes of diapers…we’re talking the 196+ count diapers.  If you’re reading this and contributed to the cause, I can’t thank you enough; you helped us tremendously.  If you consider that it costs roughly $72/month (per babycenter.com) to use disposable diapers, that means we saved at least $1,000 over the past 15 months.  And for those of you who know I am a Dave Ramsey nut, that completely gets me psyched!  But let me let you in on another little secret as to how we made it this long without purchasing more disposable diapers—some people might consider me a mild Granola/Earth Mama:  I’d rather be outside doing anything active than being inside, I’m {kind of} crazy about recycling, I care about our environment & preserving it, we like to grow our own vegetables, we compost nearly all of our organic non-protein food scraps to later feed our garden, and WE CLOTH DIAPER.

It wasn’t until Huck man was about 11 months that I really decided we would make a concentrated effort to go the cloth route.  I had dabbled in it, but would get so frustrated because the diapers always seemed to leak, and I wasn’t a huge fan of rinsing messy diapers in the toilet even though I have a diaper sprayer (for those of you who aren’t aware, a diaper sprayer is a spray nozzle that attaches to the water line of your toilet and uses that water to rinse the diapers directly into the toilet, safely disposing of the solid waste).  But I started to realize that our diaper supply was diminishing, and if I wanted to avoid the super high costs of buying diapers each week or month, or however often you have to buy diapers (I don’t really know, I guessJ), then I better step up my game and dive into cloth diapering.  I shared my frustrations with one of my friends who is really into CD’s (cloth diapers) and she immediately added me to this wonderful group on Facebook that changed my life (https://www.facebook.com/groups/FluffLoveCDScience/).  The 2 biggest take-a-ways I got from this group were how to properly position and fit the diapers to avoid leaks and how to develop a sound wash routine…because, yes, washing cloth diapers does take a little more science than simply filling the local landfill with disposable diapers.

Don’t get me wrong, unfortunately, we still contribute our share of diapers to the landfill, but it is certainly far less than the average household, and even far less than what we were throwing out in the first 9-10 months of our child’s life.  Before we had a baby, we would maybe have 1 bag of garbage a week (again, remember we compost and recycle everything!); after we had a baby we would most typically have at least 2 bags of garbage, if not more.  But we are now back down to 1-1 ½ bags of garbage for our little family of 3.  YEAAA!  

We are a part-time cloth diapering family.  There are times when I know it’s just going to be easier to have a disposable on Huck like if we’re going to be out and about, or when the sitter or my husband will most likely have to be the one to deal with the messy diaper, or because I know a disposable will allow him to sleep longer during nap time, but I try to use cloth as much as possible during the day.  It obviously saves us money and contributes to our financial goals and helps save the environment, and the diapers are also so darn cute, they’re hard to pass up! 

Yes, cloth diapers are an expensive investment, but the fact that you re-use them helps.  And there is a market out there for cloth diaper re-sale if they are in good enough condition and if that is the route someone would want to take.  I haven’t pumped a ton of money into purchasing a bunch of CS’s; we have enough  to last us 2-3 days before I have to wash them.  The “nerd” in me says this is just fine and there are other things I would rather save for. 

For those of you who are questioning the use of the water that it takes to launder dipes…guess what, over the past 4 months our water bill has actually stayed the same or gone down.  Yep, that’s right, DOWN!

I know I’m not normal, but at least I’m confident enough to be content in being weird.