At almost 15 months, Joseph is slower to walk than some. Standing seems a good place to start though!

I think that at the end of my prgnancy with Joseph I joked that I was going to drum up some need to be put on bed rest, and the last week I have had a post knocking around in my head about the intense level of fatigue has been constant in my life.

You’d think that the OB telling me to be on my feet no more than a total of two hours a day for the next two weeks would me a welcome instruction, but then you might remember that I have two very young children, a weekly mountain of laundry, and that people that live in my house expect me to feed them regularly. Like daily. And those are just the minimum requirements.

The Doc. said "You can get up and make youself a sandwich, but don’t make dinner. You can climb the stairs, but don’t carry anything (like a 25 lb one year old) while you’re climbing" So, I can get off the couch occasionally. I just can’t do anything that is, you know, useful while I’m up.

Please pray for this baby. And my sanity. Thank you.

On Friday I started having symptons that no pregnant women wants to have…bleeding and cramping. A trip to the Dr. showed that the baby was fine (more than fine actually; he was doing what looked like prenatal kickboxing. yes, I said ‘he’ but I don’t know that it is a boy, only a feeling.) and I left with orders to take it easy for the weekend. I should have gotten specifics…all weekend I wondered if I doing too much. We had a ridiculously busy weekend planned that I ended up spending most of on the couch while C.W. did his share and mine. 

Saturday night was the kicker. Have you ever found yourself in circumstances that just seem unbelievable. Like surely this isn’t really happening. That is where I was Saturday night.

We had a house full of midshipmen for dinner. The plan was for me to disappear upstairs once all the food was pretty well in place so that I could continue to ‘take it easy’. Joseph started running a wicked fever about the time everyone started showing up. No problem, that makes it easier because he’ll go to bed early, right? Which he did. Then the barfing started around 9:00. So, there is a house full of people and C.W. is downstairs and can’t hear that Joseph is barfing, my ultra sensitive nose and stomach is NOT dealing well with the smells that little Joseph is producing and about this time this CRAZY loud thunderstorm started. And the chimney’s started leaking water which they are prone to do. So, the rest of the evening (remember I am feeling this pressure to be off my feet) found me picking up Joseph  (who is no light weight) and cleaning him up while C.W. ran up and down the stairs to wash sheets, pj’s, and Joseph’s sleeping companion bears. All the while this ridiculous thunderstorm is raging and mids are downstairs laughing and playing games. I am not griping here. It just felt really surreal.

We all stayed home from church Sunday morning which felt weird, and Sunday evening has found me and Joseph back to normal, although Joseph does seem to still have a fever and C.W. is a bit tired. As you can imagine.

Whew. I will take my weekends a little less emotional, thank you.

On Friday we had Mr. Potato Head over for tea. 

Aren’t we cute? Thanks again Stacy! 

For those among us that do not spent a large amount of time with the preschool set I need to first address the Swiper part of this comparison. Brenna’s hispanic friend from Nickelodeon has a nemesis named Swiper. He’s a fox that likes to steal. Usually Dora and gang can fend him off, but occasionally he succeeds in swiping whatever he’s after. I have thought before that what is particularly villainous about Swiper is that he seems to steal soley for the enjoyment of stealing. He doesn’t actually keep what he steals. He casts it aside so that the protagonists of our story have to hunt it down and find it, which they always do. Anyhow, Brenna did this today. She snatched a ball out of Joseph’s hands, ran into the other room, and stashed it on top of a high bed and went back to what she was doing before the ball caught her eye. It wasn’t any special ball, very ordinary, and she didn’t want to play with it, she just wanted to snatch it for the sake of snatching.  Too much Dora or just a fallen condition? My guess is the later.

In other news, the blanket transition is going well. Today at nap time she didn’t even ask for it. I should have known that it wouldn’t be too brutal. She is such an adaptable little thing. I, on the other hand, remain sad. But it is the good kind of ‘my baby girl is growing up’ sad.

Hugs from Joseph are among the things that make me most grateful right now to be a momma. He gives these intense hugs, both little arms as far as they can reach around your neck, squeezing tightly for like 30 seconds and then he’ll come back for another right away.  Mmm mm. Doesn’t get better than that.

If you have been around Brenna at bedtime you have probably seen her attachment to her blankets. When I was pregnant with Brenna and received a gillion receiving blankets as gifts I wondered what in the world I would do with all of them. The answer that is obvious now is that I would give them to my child to chew on. Obviously. She can fit a pretty impressive about of blanket in her little mouth.

Well, Brenna went for her first visit to the dentist this week and we got busted on our blanket usage. It doesn’t take a dental degree to realize that holding a bunch of fabric in your mouth for long periods of time will push your top teeth forward. So, here is the confession. I don’t want her to give up her blanket habit. I love it. I love it that she is holding on to something from her babyhood. I love it that it comforts her when she is sleepy. She is getting so big and grown up….I don’t want to let this go.

And this is what Brenna thought of the idea when I brought up the idea of putting up all her blankets: (With a confused, ‘are you crazy’ look) "But, we need my bankie to sleep with ourselves." Obviously.

So, this is my plan. I took Brenna to the store to let her pick out a special stuffed animal as a sleeping companion. After nap today she is going to help me box up all her blankets and tonight we are going blanketless. And I am so sad. My prediction is that Brenna will be too. She will either a.) shove the new bear off the bed and very sadly beg for her bankie and then cry ALOT before going to sleep. b.) Shove the new bear off the bed and very sadly beg for bankie and then retrieve said bear and shove his foot in her mouth before falling asleep, or c.) do a combination of A and B.

Any other ideas of how I make this transition easier for Brenna? Easier for me? 

I ran across this comic strip this morning at xkcd.com and thought it might have been written about me.