PARENTING.....

..... is hard.

Rewarding, refining, joyful (mostly), and SO worth it. But still, HARD.

I'm just saying.

Okay, that's all.

:-)

The baby in my....

Yesterday I went to a MOPS (Mothers of Pre-Schoolers) play-date at one of those "bounce-houses". It's a big warehouse-type place with a bunch of inflatables that kids can jump on and play in. Fortunately they had a special 3-and-under section so Westin could play without getting crushed by older kids. He had an absolute blast.

So... there were these twin 3-year old girls there. And they were cute as could be. But let me tell you, they were b-o-s-s-y. You'd have thought they were Westin's mother. They watched him like a hawk and kept trying to tell me what he could and couldn't do ("He can't play with that... it's for big kids." Not true. "He can't touch that." Not true either.) It cracked me up, but at the same time, I was thinking WOW... this stuff starts early!

Little girls in particular, once they really notice that I'm pregnant, get instantly fascinated. One of the twins just wanted to talk about it a lot and asked all kinds of questions, including what the baby's name was, etc. I really don't think a little boy would have been so interested. So I had a rather lengthy conversation with a 3 year old about "the baby in my boobies". Yep, that's what she kept saying. A little confused, clearly, but I didn't have the heart to correct her because she was so earnest in her little demeanor.

Nice. In just 9 more weeks I can finally get that baby out of my boobies!

Hello 2010

Hard to believe it's a new decade.... and that we're into double-digits in the new millennium.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year's! We enjoyed having my parents stay with us over Christmas, and I also got to see my sister Jennie and her family the day after Christmas. Westin was a lot of fun this year. Quite different than last Christmas, when we were adjusting to being brand new parents and were so sleep deprived yet so happy. This year we weren't quite a sleep deprived, but just as happy!

In fact, here is a picture from last year's Christmas and this year's:



















Westin loved opening presents, and he loved playing with what he got. Here are a few more shots of our Christmas morning. You'll notice that our Christmas tree is on top of an end table... this was Jeremy's idea and was the perfect solution to keep our busy little boy away from ornaments and from tearing down the tree. Jeremy secured the whole thing, including the tree skirt, so that if Westin tugged on anything it wouldn't budge! Good work, honey.