Merry Miscellany

New Pics!

Enjoying some pureed something or other.

I wish we all woke up this happy.

Baby dedication on Mother's Day. Look at all the sweet kiddos!

Mother's Day featuring Riley Paige doing her "scrunchy face."

We had a great weekend. Saturday was the kind of day I'd like have a few times a month, but in reality it only comes along a few times a year. Just a lazy easy day that consisted of Chris letting me sleep in (until 9 a.m.!), running errands, a walk in the park, and then home and bed. Sunday was fun with the baby dedication at church, lunch at our house (lasagna and Italian creme cake!) and a looong nap late in the day.

I cannot believe Hudson will be one in a little over two weeks. I have so much to do between birthday party planning and keeping up with the every day stuff. I'm keeping it simple though, with family, food, and cake. We'll save the big parties for when Hudson will remember and understand what's going on.

Hudson has now been attending his new sitter's for 1 1/2 weeks, and we LOVE it. Of course he is still adjusting to the new caregiver, but it's a night and day difference as far as the "child friendliness." At his new home daycare there are toys galore, a big playroom, they go outside for a long time every day...This new place is so much more child focused, and I know what he does every day he is there, which makes me happy. Every day I get a complete update on what he's been doing, what he likes, what he ate, etc. This is the place we've been praying for, and I'm so thankful.

That's it for now. I just did the math and we will be able to turn on the TV on Sunday, should we choose to do so. I'm back in the "indifference" stage again, not really missing it much. We'll see.

BRIEF Update

Lately my life has consisted of cleaning, laundry, work at work, work at home, clean some more, do some more laundry, work some more, oops house is all messy again...I cannot figure it out. I really try hard to keep my house up all the time, but I swear if I take one day off it's back to square one. Chris says its 90% me, but it's interesting to note when he's out of town the house stays very neat. Go figure.

I think it's been 2 1/2 weeks without TV now and I gotta say, I miss it, especially since it's too rainy to do anything outside. In fact, if I hadn't posted on this blog that we were going to try to go without TV for a month, I would have definitely caved by now. Thanks for the accountability. So now I'm thinking TV isn't so bad...I will just be more selective about what I watch and probably always keep it off when Hudson is awake (save for an an occassional kiddy video). It is a good experiment, though. I'd recommend everyone try it. It's a lot of thinking and quiet time, and it has helped me reflect on what I do watch and whether or not it aligns with what I want in my thoughts, in my head, etc. One Friday night Chris and I played Rummy. We would have never thought of doing that if we were watching TV. We had so much fun! It reminded me of our Alaskan cruise when we played cards on the days we were at sea. Ahhh. Now that was a relaxing vacation.

I need to post some pics of Hudson. That will be my next post. He's all better from the strep (even though the lab said no strep, we're gonna say strep because the antibiotics cleared him up pronto) and back to his happy self. His favorite thing to do is pick up a book and "read" it, which I LOVE. He will point and talk and turn the page and point. It's sooo cute. He has six teeth and he now can point to his nose (the kid is brilliant!). He calls just about everything a "gog" (dog) but also says "baby." His favorite word is Dada.

I think that's it for now. We're looking forward to a nice Mother's Day. Our church is having its baby dedication day on the same day, so it will be an extra special Mother's Day. My parents and sister's family will come up, and I'm going to make lasagna so we can just pop it into the oven after church. And this year's Mother's Day happens to be my sister's birthday as well so I'm making a homemade Italian creme cake which I have made before (but not for my family) and it's totally from scratch and delish.

Well, it's 10:46 p.m. and I have to get up a little after 5 a.m. tomorrow since I work. No wonder I'm always tired. But it's so hard to go to bed when I get a few minutes of alone time! I love my alone time, and there's just not much of that left anymore, which is fine; I just have to steal it from my sleep.

Update

I feel compelled to make an update b/c I just posted on my cousin's sister-in-law's blog (who is also going to go NO TV for a month) and said we hadn't missed watching television (and I quote) "ONE BIT."

And then I just read my blog post below that says, "So far I miss it most when..." Oops. I guess I did miss it at first.

But we've now completed day five with no TV and it has been great. It's a very liberating feeling to feel as if I can have a fulfilling and entertaining day without the television. Sometimes I play some music on my laptop, but a lot of the time there is no "artificial noise" blaring in our home. And it's nice. However, I know five days is nothing to brag about. And I'll bet it's a lot easier to avoid TV when it's nice out than in the dead of winter. That thought just occurred to me today. Or when you have a newborn and you're feeding them at 3 a.m. Just thought of that too. (Though that WILL NOT be happening anytime again in the near future!).

In other news, poor Hudson is a sick baby. We had a play date scheduled today with several other girls and their babies from church this morning, but Hudson was acting very fussy as I rushed around. He felt warm, so I took his temperature and it was nearly 101 degrees! He's never had a temp., not even when he had ear infections, so it was a little alarming. We had to cancel the play date and schedule a doctor's appointment this afternoon.

Turns out he just has a virus, which is good because he doesn't have an ear infection but bad because he could be contagious. So, Chris and I are both working half days tomorrow to keep the little guy at home. He definitely isn't himself. He never lays his head on my chest, and today he let me rock him to sleep twice! That's definitely a small bright side to his little sick side. Hopefully he'll feel better soon.

No Television for One Month?

Friday night I proposed to Chris that we go without television (in our home) for one month. After all, I don't really watch much of it anyway. And Chris usually just watches re-runs of movies we've seen numerous times (lately its been Clear and Present Danger and Braveheart) and UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) episodes (groan). I don't usually watch movies more than once. Chris is content to watch them over and over. I always tease him about it, asking, "Hey, maybe this time Braveheart will escape from the gallows and kill the enemy. Do you think?" He grits his teeth.

Anyhow, the point is I have it on for background noise and Chris just watches stuff I don't want to watch, so we decided to make a go of it. So far, so good. Not to say we haven't been tempted already. I guess Chris tried to turn it on yesterday, but I had unplugged it so that we would have to make a conscious decision to go against our resolution, so he didn't end up watching it after all.

So far I miss it most when I'm sitting down to give Hudson a bottle or like now, when Chris is outside and Hudson is asleep, and watching a re-run of House or some other show in peace sounds kinda nice.

I don't know if we'll make a month. I hope so. If we do make it a month, we'll probably seriously think about cancelling our Dish, which for some reason I hate to do even if we aren't watching TV. Strange, huh? When you go without TV and then consider really going without TV, you realize what a staple television is in your life. It's comforting knowing that I can turn on The Wiggles or watch Dateline even if I don't want to. That bugs me even more. Why is television so important in our lives?

I hope by the end of the month (if we make it) we'll stay in the habit of very little to hardly any television..more reading and quiet time. We'll have to see.