Updates June

Due to a conversaton with my cousin, I probably won't be posting a month at a time, at least for a while. But here's June anyway. Interesting fact - only the first week was ever read by Gary's family since things were too crazy for me to write until later. I mean, interesting to me.

June 6:
Andrew has moved on from yoga and started crawling this week. He's making me very aware of what we leave on the floor - I've already had the need twice to pop him on the back to get him to cough up a wad of paper. Just now he took the doorstop off the wall, and is trying to eat a book he saw sticking out from under the couch. The journey has begun! Josh has been a super great brother, and loves playing "follow the leader" with Andrew, getting him to follow Josh all around the room. Andrew also belly-laughs when Josh makes funny noises, and it's adorable.

Josh and Noah might watch too much Diego. We showed up at playgroup on Friday and Noah yelled, "Yo, rescue pack here!" Also, when I went to print something yesterday there were no cartridges in the printer, only yogurt smears on the outside. I haven't found the ink yet. Not assigning blame for sure, but putting it in the same paragraph as Noah.

We've being doing regular stuff (lots of it), and trying to put stuff back together after being out of town, so I'll just end with the thing that amused Gary and I this morning. I was putting together an object lesson for RS that involved a bag of small red beans I've had open since 2003 when I used them for a school project. Noah kept asking, "What do you have? Can I have it?" So I gave him one. Josh saw him chewing on it and immediately asked, "What does Noah have?" I said, "An old, dry bean." And Gary and I laughed and laughed . . . how many times when your kids were jumping to eat what you're eating and get what their siblings are getting have you wanted to say something like, "An old, dry bean."? But it was true! Gary thinks we should do that more often so they don't always think they're missing out on something good.

Hmmmm . . . Noah has a plastic lizard named Cricket whose mommy is his stuffed pig. He's Piggy's dad, and he nurses him. Josh had his last soccer game of the season, and we were proud of his hustling skills (the good kind). That's all, folks!

Should have been June 14:

Yeah, I feel off the weekly updates wagon. Crazy busy, but I made these notes to remind myself what we did. First of all, weaning, this is the week we started it (although it took a while). So sad, so time consuming. So that's last of all. We had our first "stuff stuck up the nose" experience with Josh. He came inside crying because he couldn't get something out of his nose, but he wouldn't tell me what. When I couldn't get it out with traditional methods I filled a syringe with water and plunged it up his nose. Success!! Crappy past experiences sure paid off. Oh, it was this piece of a foam puzzle, I'd say significantly large for his nose. I had a chuckle at the whole thing.

One interesting thing I did this week was learn how to make all sorts of stuff out of beans. (Benefits of overseeing food storage in the ward.) As in, using beans instead of butter. Favorite was fudge out of refried beans, serious.

By Friday night I was absolutely beat, and Gary walked in with Butterfinger ice cream and "The Blind Side." The ice cream had lots of candy in it and the movie was great . . . the simple things make it all better.

On Saturday we got together with Gary's family for his brother's birthday. It's always good to see everyone, and I enjoyed myself, although I was exhausted and mentally gone before I got there. Our nephew Luke sang and played the piano adorably, then his ornery cousin Noah came up and said, "I'm playing the piano now, Luke." Hmmm. I hope that's not reflective of us.

As for the weaning. Doesn't sound like it should be dramatic, but every woman I talked about it with totally understood why I was on the verge of tears for a week. One girl almost started crying herself. I didn't start out wanting to totally wean Andrew, but he just would not go for the bottle at all (even though he used to, that's another story that ends with the legislative session stinks sometimes), so we had to go 100%. Of course there are a million things people could say, "Well, did you try ___?" Answer is probably, yes, or there's a good reason we didn't. When we totally made him start bottle feeding he wouldn't really eat much for more than a day. He would look at me with his big, brown Bambi eyes, begging for a meal. I would hold him and he would dive at me, and my heart just broke over and over. My poor baby was used to me snuggling him and providing him with his nourishment, and now I was denying him. I was a wreck inside, and every now and then I'd start crying, "I just want to feed my baby, Gary."  Plus, it was time-consuming. We had to try all the different bottles, find the right nipples, wash the bottles and the pump components, buy formula, pump, and also fight him on every meal . . . argh. And it's not like I wasn't trying to get anything else done. From this vantage point a couple of weeks later, it's okay, but then I would have had even more to say about it. Good or bad thing I didn't have time to write until now? I am determined that this will end up to be a blessing somehow, or else I wouldn't have done it. I have nursed him a couple of times since camp, but it's just not happening anymore, and now I'm okay with it. I'm glad for the extra chances, though. Oh, my sweet baby Andrew . . .

Last week of June. Actually, I skipped a week, but that happens in retrospect. The weaning thing was during the skipped week, as were crazy camp preparations, as well as getting many other things squared away before leaving. Anyway, here's the last week:

I was at girls' camp. Amazing people helped watch my kids, and Gary fed them hot dogs and pizza. I got home on cloud nine, but the kids were sick and my neck wouldn't move the next day. Oh, well. I was SOOO blessed to have people help out, and the kids are lucky to have a fantastic dad that plays with them. Which, in turn, makes me lucky as well. Gary wanted to watch a movie with me to celebrate being together again, and I thought the kids-with-a-disease-Harrison-Ford-movie looked interesting. However, when he said he'd rather watch New Moon than that, I decided after a week with the kids he deserved to watch Sherlock Holmes like he wanted. After we rented it I was barely awake, but being clean and with my man was nice.

On Saturday Noah was singing "Happy Birthday" to everyone in the house - Mom, Dad, Josh, Noah . . . I pointed out he'd forgotten someone, and he named everyone again the same way. Then I said, "What about Andrew?" "Andrew is too little to eat cake," was his reply.

Oh, and we went to my cousin's wedding before camp. It's fun to see my cousins, and makes me want to see them more often. We had a close shave with leaving Noah at the reception, but he found me before I could really go, thank heaven.