Reenlisting

Two weeks ago I was released as the secretary in the Young Womens presidency.  I then stood up a couple minutes later and was sustained as the new adviser for the Mia Maid class.  So excited!  I worked with the Mia Miads when I was the first councilor.  The girls that were in my Mia Maid class before are all either graduated or graduating in a few months.  Yes I've been in Young Womens that long.  I love it!  They keep me young (at least at heart)  They help inspire me to be better.  I'm so excited to have "Reenlisted" in Young Womens.

Monday

I'm really beginning to dislike Monday.  It's a let down that Brent has to go back to work.  We always have such a great time on the weekends.  We miss him.  Sundays are bad for Croix's nap.  Church and nap time are both at 12.  Which means Croix doesn't really get a nap.  Which makes Monday not so pleasant.  (He is currently crying himself back to sleep because he woke up from his nap after only 45 min and that is simply not long enough when he didn't get a nap yesterday, really not long enough on any day)  Croix is tired and grumpy and a tough toddler.  But neither of those are the real reason I hate (oh yeah maybe I hate Monday not just dislike) Monday.  It's the fact that my house is ALWAYS a disaster on Monday.  Remember all that fun we have on the weekend...well it doesn't leave a ton of time or desire for cleaning.  Also Brent usually helps out with the cooking on the weekends, which I love.  BUT he's not as good about cleaning up after himself as I am.  This morning I came downstairs to dirty cloths on the floor, clean clothes on the couch, dirty dishes everywhere, mess from meals, mess from activities we did, mess mess mess!  UGH!  This leaves me trying to clean up, with a tired cranky Croix.  He screams and cries while I try and get something done.  It's pretty miserable for both of us. 

Monday I don't like you!

First Moive

We took Croix to see his first movie in a theater on Saturday.  We saw Megamind in the dollar theater.  I figured that was a good first movie selection.  First of all it's the dollar theater so people know not to expect too much.  Second it was a kid movie so it was just kids and parents, people who would be more forgiving of a meltdown if one occurred.  He did great the first hour and fifteen minutes.  Which with previews was about an hour into the hour and a half movie.  He really loved it!  He pointed and bobbed his head, was pretty adorable!  He watched the movie, and all the other kids in the theater.  He ate his snack and spilled it everywhere.  We chased his sippy cup as it rolled down the floor.  It was an adventure.  Then he got restless so we made our way to the back of the theater where he checked out the wall, the door, the booster chairs and everything else.  We went back to our seats.  More restlessness.  Out to check out the hall way.  Then back to our seats.  Just as the movie was ending he was done.  We all stood in the back and watched the end and headed out before the credits rolled.  He did really well considering his age.  But I think we'll wait a little while before we try it again.  We sure did have fun thought! 

Alarm Clock

I've had the same alarm clock for nearly 10 years.  I love it!  It wakes you up gently, the music starts softly and gets louder.  It has separate alarms for M-F and the weekend.  It has two alarms, one for me, one for Brent.  It has been with me to CT, CA, AZ, PR and survived all those moves.  It has also been my cd player for work.  I've toted it all over the valley doing out call massage.  It has survived being dropped and shoved in my massage table case.  It however has not survived my 1 yr old. He managed to pull one speaker out a few months ago.  The other one has been hanging on by only a few wires.  Today it fell off too. Guess it's time to go get with the times and get an ipod dock.  I really am sad.  I think this means I will have to get an ipod too.  I no longer have a small portable cd player to bring into my massage room to provide soothing music while I work.  Sigh.  Today was a long day.

Personal Progress

I have decided to redo the personal progress (PP) program. For those of you who are not LDS or who joined the church as an adult the PP program is for the young women of the church. It has value experiences for each of the YW values. There is also a project for each value. I completed PP when I was in YW as a youth but I want to do it again. They have added a value, virtue, and there are new medallions, and I lost mine! I also think it will be fun to work on it with the YW I'm over. I'm really excited about it. I realized a lot of my goals for the year will fit into PP. I'm hopeful it will help me to reestablish my habit of daily scripture study. Want to know one of the best parts? You can now do PP online! (If you follow that link you can get started right now!)   How smart right! You can read the scriptures for the goals online, journal online.  Man this is going to be a way better way to spend my time then facebook!  If you have never done PP or received your PP recognition I'd encourage you to do so! It's never too late!

Book Club

We had our first meeting.  It was a success!  I'm super excited!  It was so nice to sit with intelligent women and discuss a wonderful book (The Help, I'd highly recommend it!).  I'm excited about our reading list. I'm so happy it went well!  I was nervous no one would show up, or that it would be a little awkward, or that people wouldn't have much to say.  Thankfully people came, everyone had smart thoughtful comments, it wasn't awkward at all! I was really worried about leading a book club discussion when I had never even attended a book club before.  I really had no idea what I was doing.  Leading a discussion was easy with so many insightful comments. I'm looking forward to a lot more meetings.  I'm also excited that this will count as a project for Personal Progress.  PS I'm working on Personal Progress.  I'll have to blog about that soon!

Good Buddies

Croix loves his Daddy time!

 Sunday morning lounging.

 Saturday chores

 Daddy's such a good teacher!

When Croix was sick he didn't want to sit in his high chair to eat, he wanted to be on Daddy's lap.

(He got strep throat and scarlet fever!  SO SO SO Sad!!)

He also wanted to lay around in bed and have Daddy read to him.

Potty Training

I guess it's official, we're potty training.  A little while ago I had pulled out an infertility book.  It had tips on how to increase your fertility.  I was wondering if there was anything in there I didn't already know.  There wasn't.  BUT there was a paragraph that struck me.  It was talking about how most commonly people start TTC by not preventing pregnancy.  Usually with a thought of, "if it happens it happens".  Then it said that is generally a mistruth in someones feelings about getting pregnant.  Usually you want to be pregnant (are you wondering what this has to do with potty training yet?  Don't worry I'll get there) or you don't.  You may stop preventing before you really WANT to be pregnant, or you might really WANT to be pregnant but don't want to seem desperate or acknowledge feelings of disappointment when it doesn't happen right away.  So we say "if it happens it happens".  I don't remember the exact verbiage but the message I got from it is you are either TTC or not.  Even not preventing is in a way trying.  It made me think about my attitude toward potty training Croix. I know he's young.  So I just kept saying "I'll just see what happens, if he does it great if not we'll wait a while".  That doesn't even make sense!  I either needed to give it a real go at it or forget it! 

That is what we've done.  Last Monday I started getting serious.  Every time he tells me he needs to go potty we go.  This is very tedious.  One day he didn't go poo at all, just said he needed to a million times that day.  I was a little disappointed and also a little concerned that he didn't go.  The next day he went! Oh boy did he go!  He's gone in the toilet everyday since then.  He still hasn't figured out that he needs to just do his business when he feels the need to.  So we'll go sit in the bathroom a couple dozen times before he actually goes, but he goes!  It is nice that he knows that poo goes in the potty, so he doesn't like to go in his diaper.  He'll hold it if we are out and about.

I broke down and got pull ups even though they are much more expensive the diapers.  Getting him on and off the toilet over and over with a diaper was just plane ridiculous!  I'll just put a pull up on him when he starts saying he needs to go and then replace it with a diaper after the business has been done and the pull up is well used.  This seems to be working out ok.  If I had any doubt that we really need pull ups it was squelched at the grocery store when Croix's diaper ended up around one of his ankles in the middle of the freezer section!  Don't worry we left the freezer isle to fix it!  Just whipped his pants down, adjusted the diaper and went back to our shopping.

As monotonous as going to the toilet and sitting with him all the time is, every time he goes it's worth it!  It also makes me so happy to think we could be out of diapers soon.  I could have a poop trained kid at 18 mo.!  Croix is amazing!

Poker

 Another bored day lead to learning with poker chips.  We've had them for ages, I have no idea when or where we got them, we've never used them.  Croix will always pull them out of the drawer where they belong and I put them back.  The other day I thought, hey let's put these to good use.  I emptied our oatmeal into another container, cut a whole in the top.   Croix practiced putting them in in the container through the slot.  We worked on colors by having him put one color at a time in.  We had fun!

Then he found half of his shape ball, and the boom, it was too adorable!

Fervent Prayer

The other night I watched The Lovely Bones. I had read the book years ago and thought I'd check out the movie. I don't think I'd recommend it, it was weird. But this is not a movie review post. The story is of a girl who has been murdered. She is telling the story from the after life. She is stuck between life and heaven. She watches her family as they realize she is missing, search for her, long for her, hold onto hope, find her remains, and then cope with loosing a child and the realization that she is gone. This is the first time since becoming a mother that I have watched that type of movie. It made my heart ache. I know what evil things are out there. I watch Oprah episodes about child predators and even at his young age I think of how to protect him. Yet I also know there is only so much I can do to protect my child. Which made me worry, what if I can't protect him. What if
something horrible happens to him. I went straight into his room and soaked up his innocence. I prayed a fervent prayer. Please keep him safe. Please keep him close. Please help me to teach him to be smart and cautious without making him afraid of the world. Please never take him from me.  Then I laid a gentle kiss upon his soft cheek, lingered a little longer, went to bed and prayed a little more.