First Mother's Day

Little and J worked together to make my first Mother's Day a special one. J woke up early with the little guy so I could sleep in as late as I wanted. Getting up at 9:30am to the sounds of Little babbling in the kitchen was pretty amazing. When I finally decided to roll out of bed, I found the breakfast room tidy with flowers and sweet treats from Ken's. My guys made it very easy to be a mom this weekend.

After breakfast, we lounged around the apartment, marveling at how great it feels to be parents while Little entertained with giggles, feats of strength (trying to do pullups on the dining room table), and cheesing the camera with his two bottom teeth. He also reminded me of those teeth this morning when I wasn't paying him enough attention by gently nibbling on my big toe. Those things are sharp. He'll appreciate them in not too long when he can enjoy a greater variety of his parents' culinary adventures. We made a Sichuan meal last night that was pretty out of this world. More on that tomorrow.

As an extended Mother's Day gift, Little was a delightful baby this morning (allowing me to finish a long overdue blog post for work). While I was typing away, he did a few chores around the house.  I guess he was embarrassed that I never polish the brass knobs on his changing table, so he took on the task himself. Such a helpful lad. I'll have to talk to him though about being more gentle in the future, don't want teeth marks on the hardware.

End of the Day

Some days at the end of the day I'm not exactly sure how this all happens. I turn my back for just a few minutes and all hell breaks loose. Believe it or not, our dining room was rather tidy this morning. Now the contents of our bookshelves and nooks are all under foot. Sigh. Today I chose to ignore the chaos and just closed the doors.

Thrifting and Crafting

This weekend was beautiful and I decided to make the most of it. Jesse had work to do on Saturday, so I took Miles for a weekend outing with Anna and Elliot. We initially were going to stop for the grand opening of a new Cotton Babies store in Vancouver -- a grand opening that promised a free BumGenius diaper to the first 100 customers. We should have known that showing up only 30 minutes before the opening was a bad idea. As we drove by, we saw that tons of women, men, babies, and toddlers were already forming a line that wrapped around the entire building. Instead of joining the chaos, we decided to go to an awesome consignment shop that Anna has been raving about for quite a while. I scored a sweet pair of Converse sneakers for Miles for only $8. They're size 5's, so he won't be able to wear them probably until after his 1st birthday, but I will display them prominently on his shelf until then. I can't wait to go back when I have a better idea of what size clothes Miles will be wearing in the spring and summer!

Today, it's not nearly as warm, but very sunny. The non-gray sky put me in the mood to do a bit of crafting, but the success of my project largely depended on Miles. It seems like the sunshine put him in a good mood too and he was willing to sit through a morning of chores and watching me sort through projects that I aspired to start, but never had the time to finish. Between me cutting and folding fabric and the washer tumbling around load after load of clothes, he was a happy little dude. Occasionally he would let out a little shriek, as if to say "hey Mom, I'm still here," and I would make a goofy face and he would crack up. Man, it's been a good day. 

In between our stints of crafting and doing chores, he's managed to sneak in two good, if short, naps. As you can see, I've whittled down the laundry pile and am well on my way to making an adorable sun hat for Miles. It won't be very useful here in Portland for another couple of months, but we're headed to Florida and then D.C. to visit the grandparents in just 11 days and I am hoping for lots of sun (at least in FL). Ahh! Only 10 more days to start packing while biting my nails thinking about the long airplane journey across the country with a 5-month-old baby.

Penance

We tried out the collard greens last night with a roasted chicken and stuffing. Yum! The greens were even better today than yesterday. Doesn't Jesse set a nice table? We made a recipe that I had tried before, a butterflied chicken roasted over the stuffing and it cooked perfectly. I don't think I can say enough how much I love my new oven. Anyway, after dinner (which was a lot later than usual) Jesse had a few things to finish up for work so I went back into the bedroom and watched a BBC miniseries on Netflix's Watch Instantly.

As BBC television shows usually go, it wasn't earth shattering, but I was sucked in immediately. I stayed up until midnight waiting to find out if Dorothea's weirdo husband would finally succumb to his "heart illness." Even after my watching spree, I still have three more episodes to go. I have promised myself that I won't even think about finishing Middlemarch until I have done penance for last night's indulgence.

Jesse's good friend, Ben, is coming to visit on Saturday and there are still quite a few things that need to be accomplished in the apartment. I have been lax in doing things that are unappealing to me lately, like hanging that shelf in the kitchen and organizing a pile of stuff in our bedroom. There is also a mound of laundry that keeps staring at me and more paperwork that needs filing.

It's a lot to take on in just one day (just the laundry alone might kill me), but I am determined to check off several tasks on my to-do list!!