60 posts from 2008

Merry Christmas to all. I hope you've been enjoying time together with family and friends, soaking in the sacred beauty of the season. I've been traveling a lot between our house and family and trying to keep up with Will's quickly-expanding vocabulary. So this blog has taken a back seat. I promise I'll come back, once I get the wind back in my sails...

May each gift received and given remind you of God's precious gift of His son.

Just had this sent to me today by one the gentlemen from ABC who interviewed us following the hype from Will's video. It's fun to see it from someone else's perspective. And the black thing hanging off my back is the ergo baby carrier that I LOVE! Anyway, here's the alternate view.

I'm a sucker for FREESTUFF, and over at Simple Mom there's an event which involves freestuff. It happens weekly, different stuff each week. This week the freestuff happens to be some really cool shopping bags. You should check it out. I'm a huge fan of reusable bags. I bought a bunch way back 5 years ago and they're still holding up. They used to sit in the corner of my kitchen, all nicely folded up and packed into one bigger bag. I found however, that fumbling with a wiggly toddler, a purse-that-won't-stay-on-my-shoulder, keys, diaper bag and coffee mug leaves little hands or arm muscle, or brain cell for that matter, to remember the shopping bags. So I've begun to keep the bags in my trunk. Now if I could only take them back out to the car rather than have them pile up on the kitchen counter after a shopping trip. That would complete the cycle. Check out Simple Mom and if you enter the contest to win, mention this blog post so she knows you heard about it here!

One of the great challenges with a busy toddler who likes to explore and pull things off of shelves and out of cabinets is  maintaining my sanity while preparing dinner. I like to cook healthy things from scratch but this often requires not only a small amount of forethought but can be time consuming also. Busy as Will is, time is not something I have. For a while I was doing a lot of prep work during his naps but some days I just NEED that time for other things. I used to use the exersaucer for this time and it was a great tool from 6 months to about a year. Sometimes however, he just got so bored and protested loudly. That defeated my goal of making dinner with sanity intact.

Lately I've begun using the highchair as a containment device. I place it where he can see me and give him crayons and paper. Alas, crayons are no longer novel and they spend more time hurtling towards the floor than marking paper. I find that I chip away at my sanity with each crayon I retrieve from under the refrigerator. Sometimes I give him a bowl and whisk similar to the one I'm using and he "makes dinner" along with me. That usually lasts long enough to make a batch of biscuits then it's on to something else.

Yesterday I pulled the step stool up the counter and had Will help me dump ingredients into the food processor for the venison meatloaf I was preparing. I make it in the food processor because I hate squishing any raw meat between my fingers and getting it under my fingernails. He held the measuring cup while I filled it with bread crumbs, then we dumped it into the bowl together. Then he helped me squeeze ketsup into the measuring cup and dump it in, and he helped shake in the grill seasoning. When we were done with adding ingredients he was content for a while sitting and playing next to me with measuring cups and spoons while I put the finishing touches on the meal. I think this is a trick I'll try to use again,though I have to be really careful to make sure that knives and other dangerous objects are out of reach and watch him on the stool.

I'd LOVE to hear from anyone else who has developed a trick of their own. TV doesn't work for my son. He just isn't interested. So besides the funny box, is there a method you use to keep track of a toddler while you make dinner and maintain your sanity?

Will is learning to close his eyes as we pray. It's such a cute, squinty, serious face he makes and I have to bite my lip in order not to laugh when, mid-prayer I peek and see him go from squint to a wide-eyed peek at each of us and the four walls around us, back to a squint again. Precious. Note to self: capture this on film (or digital, or whatever).

My head is spinning. I just answered a phone call from The Ellen Degeneres show asking permission to show the video of Will at the World Series parade on their show. Then I turned on the computer and found an email from Good Morning America asking to use the video and for a possible live appearance. I also had an email from Comcast Sportsnet asking if they could show the video too.

In an email this morning Sean wrote:

"I’m amazed, fascinated and even a little scared. So for a few days, I checked & thought ok, this is cool, but I’m sure it’s going to die down soon, but it just keeps ballooning."

His name was Dan and he was very calm. He told me that the only thing I should worry about was that the glycerine hand cream my son drank would taste bad to him and that there should be no ill effects. Will apparently liked the taste because he protested loudly when I took the tub of Orange Creme Camille Beckman Glycerine Hand Therapy cream out of his hands. So I didn't follow Dan's advice to give Will a drink to help with the yucky taste. Rather, I gave Will his milk and layed him down for a nap. Then I called Daddy at work to tell him how nice the Poison Control Man was.