Done!

• Thanks to the encouragement of my friends, I signed up for a Disney 5K -- my first race ever! Despite my hatred of all things exercise, I'm actually very excited about this. Cool Running has an excellent Couch to 5K training program that promises not hurt my fragile bones and/or muscles.

• In non-exercise news, Little Man has been, shall we say, asserting himself lately. And by asserting himself I mean: back-arching, screaming, hand-pounding, snot-coming-out-of-his-nose temper tantrums. Where has my sweet boy gone? Maybe it's teething, some new personality development, and/or frustration that he can't quite crawl yet. Whatever it is, for the sake of all involved, I hope it ends soon.

• The Smartest Man Alive and I have decided that the two most thrilling topics are....(drum roll, please)... poop and the invention of the bottle brush. We're pathetic. We know.

• School will be starting soon, so The Greatest Summer Ever is about to come to a close. I'm taking classes for the next week and then we only have a week left before heading back to school. (All you non-teachers can skip this whiny part.) I'm going to miss library time, visits with the family, and all-day snuggle fests. Good-bye summer, I'll miss you.

Craziness or brilliance?

I'm really getting serious about my working-out, exercising, losing-this-baby-weight business. I've been walking about 3 miles each morning and watching -- but not obsessing -- about my diet.

But, today Jennifer Lopez was on Rachael Ray talking about doing a triathlon after the birth of her twins (triathlon?! twins?! Are you crazy?). I thought: Well, triathlon, forget it! But, I could do a smaller race.

Now, let me be very clear here: I have never done such a thing before and the longest I've ever regularly gone to the gym has to be, probably, a week. But, here's a challenge and something new I've never tried before. I'm kind of pumping myself up for it, but I'm a little nervous.

What do you guys think? I think I've made it pretty clear that I do not particularly like working out, but it might be fun to do something totally different and I would have a goal in mind. Plus, this particular 5K is at Disney! Running friends and friends-who-like-working-out, what do you think? Is this craziness or brilliance?

Single Mom

The Smartest Man Alive is a lacrosse coach. He coaches during the year and then he usually does at least one sleep-away camp each summer. This is a huge sacrifice on my part, mainly because I'm a huge fraidy cat, and *hate* staying by myself. But, the Smartest Man Alive truly enjoys coaching and escaping the hum drum of our peaceful little home, so I assured him I would be fine during his absence. I'm sure I'll be sufficiently compensated for this selfless and kind deed in the form of spa getaways and shopping sprees (HINT! HINT! Smartest Man Alive are you reading this?!).

I've always wondered how single moms do it anyway. A few of my friends are single moms and they are the most incredible women. They are loving, generous and unselfish moms who seem to do it all. Even on the best days, I usually forget to pack at least one vital baby possession during the daily day care drop-off. But, we both survived and neither of us will be requiring therapy in the near future.

Little Man did manage to take a bath without screaming his precious little head off and he's thisclose to feeding himself Puffs. We went on walks, cuddled, read Aesop's Fable while rocking, played Momma Monster and The Attack of the Killer Kisses, built block towers and knocked them over. A good time was had by all.

Table Manners

We're embarking on one of the first independence milestones: Feeding ourselves.

Oh how fun -- and terribly messy.

We've started to introduce Little Man to table food. Whatever we eat (within reason), he eats. I thought this would be NO BIG DEAL since we had already mastered the spoon. Wrong. Everything we put in, comes right back out. Only once that terrible food has been expelled from his mouth, does Little Man begin to chew. It's like we've started right back at the beginning.

At the suggestion of a friend, I've put some puffs on his high chair and he willingly grabs, smacks, whaps, and crunches the puffs. But, he does not eat them. Sometimes, he will tease his poor mother and put them near his mouth, but he does not actually ingest them. I've tried mashed potatoes and those were great fun to flick and fling all over the place, but no eating. (To be fair, maybe once, by accident, did he get the potatoes in his mouth.)

And, since we're talking about food here, let's have a nice picture of Little Man eating. Isn't he cute with his dinner smeared all over his face?



So, I think this is going to be a case of wait-and-see. Eventually, he will get the hang of it, and then I will miss the days when he needed me to feed him.

Thankful

Lest you think I'm a whiner (I'm not unless you ask my mother) I decided to share a few things I'm thankful for.

1. A calm, peaceful baby. Please don't hate me for this but, Little Man rarely cries. Sure, he fusses or grunts or gets crabby, but we've had very few instances of inconsolable baby rage. He goes with the flow...whatever we do, he does (without complaint).

2. A loving hubby who takes on his fair share of the baby duties. One of my fondest memories of The Smartest Man Alive is him trying wrestle Little Man's arms while I was trying to nurse him those first few days. It wasn't pretty, folks. But, he did it with calmness and patience. For that, I am truly grateful.

3. Two loving families. I'm pretty sure my parents and the husband's parents like each other more than they like us. Seriously. They talk on the phone, take trips together, e-mail. We all take an annual trip together to Tennessee during the 4th of July. It's nice that everyone gets along and is comfortable together. You will not hear me bemoaning the in-laws on this blog. I'm LUCKY, LUCKY, LUCKY.

4. Our jobs. We narrowly escaped the dreaded ax this spring and I'm so grateful that we both still have our teaching jobs. We get to spend the summers together with Little Man and have a myriad of other holidays off. Plus, we both LOVE what we do. Who could ask for more?

5. Our health. Kind of cheesy and predictable, I know. But seriously. Everyday thousands of people get in car wrecks, contract the swine flu...God knows what else. I'm just glad it hasn't happened to us.

Operation Must Lose Baby Weight NOW!

So. This post is overdue. This Operation is overdue. Logan was born in December and due to an enormous sweets craving that just would NOT be satiated during my pregnancy, I had lots of work to do. Correction: I HAVE lots of work to do. I just haven't really gotten around to it until now. I'm still wearing some of my maternity clothes (please do not think less of me) and some unwitting strangers have kindly asked me if I'm expecting. (At this point I would like to shout: HELLO?! ARE YOU CRAZY?! DO YOU NOT SEE THE SMALL INFANT I'M CARRYING AROUND HERE? IS IT SO IMPOSSIBLE TO THINK IT'S TAKING A BIT LONGER THAN I ANTICIPATED TO LOSE THESE EXTRA POUNDS?! But, I digress.)

So, much to my chagrin I have started exercising (gasp!) and eating smaller portions (double gasp!!). My goal is to lose the 20 pounds necessary to be back to my pre-pregnancy weight. You may be wondering why I am putting this out there and the reason is quite simple. I'm telling you so that there is actual written proof that I am doing this. I am notorious for joining a gym and vowing to attain Britney Spears-like abs (from the Baby One More Time days) and then NEVER going again. This greatly angers the Smartest Man Alive. The Money! The False Promises! The Britney Spears abs!

I would love to tell you how much progress I've made already, but I don't even own a scale. I really must get to the store.

Sweet Sleep

Ah, sleep. I remember those experienced mothers wisely warning me to get as much sleep as I could before Little Man was born. I thought: It can't be worse than this darn pregnancy insomnia. So, so, so wrong.

Little Man started sleeping through the night consistently around 3 months. We were lucky. But, while he's snoozing peacefully in his nursery, I still CAN'T SLEEP. He's seven-months old and I wake at least once a night and tip-toe into his nursery and check on him. Or the crackle of the baby monitor wakes me up. Or I hear a noise. Seriously. If I'd have known that I would never sleep well AGAIN I might have never gotten out of bed while I was pregnant.

It doesn't help that I'm a little, shall we say, anxious and this is my first child. If my husband hadn't been so adamant, Little Man would probably still be sleeping in our room.

Any ideas to help me sleep peacefully? How often do you get up? When can my husband wrest the baby monitor from my anxious hands?

Hi!

Thanks for checking out my new blog! A little about myself: I gave birth to Little Man in December 2008 and I'm married to the Smartest Man Alive. No joke. My mom named him that and I'm still devising ways to exact my revenge on her. (You have no idea the effect that has on a man. Trust me.)

I started out as a journalist, but I traded in my reporter's notebook for a gradebook and now I teach middle school reading. (It's fun. I SWEAR!) After reading far too many Twilight and It-Girl novels, I decided get back to writing.

Nearly every outfit I own has at least a little spit up on it, and I consider baby snuggles grown-up "crack."