2019 :: week 45

November 3

Our trampoline is temporarily out of service. Sunday afternoon Elliott was playing in the backyard and asked Tony and I separately if he could have a knife to make "pumpkin pie" out of one of our Halloween pumpkins. We both told him no. The neighbor friend he was playing with went to his house and snuck a knife out of his kitchen. A third friend then stabbed it through the trampoline mat about thirty times.

November 4

Spending quiet mornings with these two boys is mostly wonderful. Their sweet smiles remind me of how blessed I am to be living the life I've always wanted to have. Since school has started I have been feeling frustrated with myself because I used to be able to "accomplish" so much more than I am currently. I know that having healthy, well-adjusted children is more important than checking things off my to-do list, but it is hard for me to get to the end of the day and not have tangible things to show for it. I'm much less "productive" than I was at this time last year. I have a baby that needs to nap three times a day and Elliott attends half-day preschool four afternoons a week, requiring me to spend thirty minutes driving him each way. My days are choppy and it makes it hard for me to volunteer at the elementary school, do meals on wheels or exercise like I was previously able to do. I am working on being okay with taking things slow and savoring the gummy smiles and snuggles.

November 5

Miles is 8 months old! The biggest changes that have happened in the past month are that he sleeps in his own room now and he is starting to ween himself. Unfortunately on top of only wanting to nurse when my milk is letting down and it is flowing fast and freely, he refuses all bottles so I have had to resort to feeding him formula with a medicine dropper on a few occasions. Most night he sleeps for about twelve hours with one 7-10 our stretch. I am getting more sleep and feel like a new woman. Miles can sit for long periods of time and only falls over when he gets off balance trying to look at something. He rarely scoots forward but I often find him several feet behind where I left him on the floor. He puts EVERYTHING possible in his mouth. He even tries to put the zipper pull on my jacket in his mouth when I am holding him.

November 6

The weather went from warm to cold and back to warm again this week. Between the shorter days and colder temperatures I have started taking daily mental health walks. I am trying to go in the morning before getting the kids ready for school, but go in the evening too if possible. Wednesday evening I was struck by the beauty in our neighborhood and how much I love where we live. I walked to Target to get some new bibs for Miles and then ran into some friends playing at the park. Tuesday I walked to Holy Spirit to vote, later in the week I walked to the library to return some books and our kids are able to walk to and from school daily.

November 7

Miles seems to really enjoy sitting next to the piano while Anthony plays for him. Anthony has been playing and singing more recently and we all like it.

November 8

Lauren came home from school Thursday afternoon running a fever. She had a headache in the morning, but her temperature was normal so she went to school. When we got home she laid on the couch all afternoon and was asleep in bed by 7pm. When she woke up Friday morning she was feeling great and her fever was gone. We kept her home and she and Elliott had such a fun day together. She made him worksheets--Elliott wants to learn to read--and they played with perler beads, colored popsicle sticks and organized their remaining Halloween candy together.

November 9

Saturday was busy! Next week is a busy week and we made a long list of things we needed to get done to get ready for it and we did almost everything. A big thing that we needed to get done was winterizing our yard. I cleaned out our garden and put stored the trelis, tomato cages and hoses until next year. Anthony worked on leaves and used the weed wacker to tidy up the edges of our yard. We cleaned out the garage and filled up both our trash can and our neighbor's (they are out of town until May and they let us use their can when we have overflow). Anthony took Elliott on a date (McDonalds and then baseball at the elementary school field) and Will and I went on an epic shopping trip to IKEA and Hy-Vee. By the time I got in bed that night my feet were aching, but I love checking things off a to-do list so I felt very satisfied.