Mommies of One

I've noticed that while our church seems to have a lot of stay-at-home Mommies (we even have a weekly playgroup), there aren't that many Mommies of one child. I regretfully, haven't taken advantage of the playgroup meetings this summer. It's hard because Dean takes his morning nap during the time that they meet, and also because he is so young that it's hard to find things for him to do at the various places they meet. I know I have this weird fear of trying new things by myself and maybe I'm just making excuses to not go to this playgroup. I know that I am going stir crazy being in this house every day, doing the same thing every day. I can tell that Dean is getting that way too. He gets bored very easily and it's hard to keep him entertained at home all day. I can't help but think that when you have multiple children it's easier for them to stay entertained because they have one another. So as a Mommy of One, what do I do to keep my 10 1/2 month old entertained? I'm not sure that he's ready for a playground, but I'm going to try that this week. It's intimidating to think of taking him to a playground full of other moms and kids that know what they are doing.

If anyone that reads this has suggestions for activities I can do with Dean, please let me know! Until then, I'll keep posting about the new things I'm determined to try with him.

Bluegrass Baby

Josh had a teaching appointment this summer at the University of Kentucky with a week long program called College Business Management Institute (CBMI). CBMI paid for all travel, housing, and food costs for the whole week in exchange for the three 4-hour long classes that he taught. Not to mention all the socail gathering, dinners, etc. Since they were paying for everything, Dean and I decided to tag along and see what Lexington, KY is like. The drive there is only about 8 hours, but with a little kid we anticipated it taking more like 10 so we opted to drive halfway, stay in a motel, and finish it out the next day (great choice, by the way).

The week was extremely busy for Josh - preparing for classes, actually teaching classes, trying to get to most of the social/networking events, etc. So Dean and I were on our own. Life in a hotel with a baby is kind of hard. I imagine it's much like being in a studio or one bedroom apartment. I found that he would not put himself to sleep like he'll do at home in his crib. The pack-n-play is still too foreign for him I guess. So I spent many hours trying to "rock" him to sleep, and then trying to get him back to sleep. See, Dean decided that that particular week would be a good one to pop out a new tooth. What fun!

The picture below is of Dean passed out, face down on the bed. Long day of sightseeing in the stroller.


The day we left we went out to a bourbon distillery out of the city about 30 miles. It was beautiful. Really old, historic buildings, long sloping hills with horses, a river running through it...beautiful. It was neat to see how true Kentucky bourbon is made.


We got some lunch and sat out on this big wrap around porch on one of their buildings and just lazed around for a bit. Very cool. Our plan is to hit up a different one every year we go (this teaching gig is a repeating appointment for Josh). We took 2 days to get home even though it's only 8 1/2 hour drive. We stopped around Knoxville at dinner time and got a motel room, went swimming, ate some leftovers we had, and walked down the street for dessert. The next day we detoured to the Blue Ridge Parkway to drive around and hike. We actually did part of the infamous "search party" hike from a few years ago (some of you may remember that story).

Throughout the week we talked of things we'd like to do on future trips, and how fun it will be as Dean ages and more kids come into the picture. Big thanks to Ted Hollingsworth for his recommendation and faith in Josh! Ted, we are so glad to have this opportunity!

Baptism

We had Dean baptized on July 5 at Blacknall Presbyterian Church in Durham. The same church that I was baptized in 28 years ago. We had 3 pews full of family that came in to bear witness to the occasion. We had 2 sets of great grandparents, ALL 4 grandparents, a great aunt, and every aunt and uncle that Dean has. What a great feeling to look out and see all of those people there for our son, to know how loved he is at such a young age. You could feel God in the room encircling our family.
Dean, being the water-lover that he is, thought it was so funny that someone was putting water on his head. While the pastor was giving a prayer after the baptism, Dean was trying to leap out of his arms and into the water basin to get some more. Always the entertainer.


The weekend itself was a celebration. Being July 4th, there was lots going on. Josh rode his motorcycle up to Sparta, NC where our sister-in-law's family lives. Every year for the 4th they have a huge celebration on this beautiful plot of land that they have down by a river. Josh rode up to celebrate and get some much needed mountain relaxation. Dean and I stayed here in Raleigh and hung out with my brothers (who flew in for the baptism). We went to a Durham Bulls game, barbequed with extended family, and lounged around by the pool. We closed out the weekend with a big cookout and celebration of the event. As the adults ate and drank, Dean crawled around our legs picking up any stray bit of food to fall off our plates. My son, the human garbage disposal.

The game of sweeping

Babies are a lot like puppies. Dean is entering into the stage (I think it's a good 15 years) of endless energy and noise. He is all over the place, into everything, grabbing everything he can get his hands on, flailing all appendages in 4 different directions, chasing the dogs all over the house, all while babbling or screaming at the top of his lungs. He follows me from room to room as I do various household chores. His favorite is sweeping. Like a puppy, he loves to chase the broom around the room and thinks the pile at the end is a treasure chest of goodies for him to eat. You would think that I would just do the sweeping when he is sleeping, but that would be far too logical and way less fun. Granted, my floor doesn't ever get all that clean when we play the game of sweeping, but it does poop both Dean and I out. It's been too hot to run with a baby jogger, so I'm improvising.

SLEEPING!

I had to post something. It is 8am and my baby is still asleep! This is a new record! I keep wandering around not quite sure what to do with myself. You'd think I would be relaxing and enjoying this peaceful morning.

Future Mountaineer

We took Dean to Boone for the first time this weekend. My brother-in-law, Joel had a closing symposium for a high school group that he led this summer, and we all went up to cheer him on and hear about the trip. Boone is still one of my favorite places. Every time I go back now I think how much I missed out on and all the things I didn't take advantage of while I was in school. Such is always the case, I suppose.

We took Dean around King Street, got him an ASU tshirt, I gave him a full guided tour of campus and showed him where all my classes were. We let him see the Yosef statue up near the stadium, and he sat on one of Daniel Boone's dogs.


He ate Boone Bagelry and cried in the tunnel under River Street. I have so many memories of hot summer days spent touring UNC's campus with my parents, hearing the stories otld over and over about where they had what class, which tree they kissed under, and which dorms they lived in. I can't wait to take Dean on the same tour of ASU and retell the same memories over and over until it's like he was there.

GO MOUNTAINEERS!!!!

Camping with a Crawler

We are ambitious parents. Josh and I took Dean camping last weekend with some friends of ours. I don't know why we thought it was a good idea to take a crawling child to the woods in the middle of the summer. Dean had a blast. I have never heard him laugh so much. He loved being outside all the time, watching the dogs run around, swimming int he lake, and playing in the dirt. We quickly gave up on trying to keep him from eating dirt and focused more on keeping rocks out of his mouth. Hard to do when you are in a campground with gravel lots. Half the time I would corral him in the tent (which he also thought was hilarious) to give myself a break from the gravel watch, but it was so hot that those moments didn't last long. Then there was meal time...how are you supposed to feed a child like this without a high chair? Even with the 4 of us trying to keep him at least on a blanket while we shoved food in his face, it was quite an ordeal. He was so excited about everything that I could hardly get him to eat the whole time.

So, the daytime was exhausting, but all in all a lot of fun. Dean LOVES the water so it was great that we were 20 yards from the lake. We went swimming like 5 times. A nice way to wash off the filth that coated him from crawling through the dirt and the missed mouthfuls of food that I smeared all over him.

Then the nighttime came...Dean usually goes to sleep around 7:30pm and doesn't make a sound until 6:30am - -I know, we are the luckiest parents in the world. Well, I knew 7:30 would be too early for his excitement level. We all crammed in our big new tent and let him crawl around while we played cards, in hopes that he would finally just crash. 8:30 came and he wasn't slowing down. I proceeded to try to hold him and bounce him around singing him to sleep. He just thought this was more fun. After an hour I gave up and put him in the car and drove around until he fell asleep. Miraculously, he stayed asleep when I got him out of the car and laid him in the tent. He stayed that way while we played cards and ate scrumptious dessert of Cherries-a-la-bugspray and tick-brownies delight. Dean still didn't stir when Josh, Cooper, Jess, and I got in bed. Another peaceful hour goes by with nothing until Cooper hears something and jumps up, waking Dean up. Well, once Dean saw that all of us were on the ground int he same place he was wide awake. He thought it was the funnest game and laughed like crazy and just wanted to crawl around. Josh, somehow slept right through this for more than 2 hours. I had finally had it and woke him up so he could drive Dean around and try to get him back to sleep. The remainder of the night was spent with Josh driving Dean around until he fell asleep, and then the 2 of them slept in the car for a while until Dean woke back up...and the cycle repeated. So all in all, I think we got about 4 hours of sleep total. Josh brought Dean back to the tent at 6am and he was ready to go. We, of course, were done. We packed up and said goodbye to our friends. At 7am we were at the park gate ready to go home and pretend like the whole thing never happend. Only one problem - the gate wouldn't be unlocked until 8am. Lovely. We went back to our sight and had breakfast and coffee with our friends, lifting our spirits some and and letting the caffeine work it's magic. Dean fell asleep (go figure) during this time and slept peacfully in the car for an hour while we ate and drank.

So camping with a crawling child...not the best idea we've had. Doing it in 95 degree weather, during tick season, with no form of child restraint for sleeping or eating...even worse idea. So we had decided that we are not going to attempt it again until later in the fall when the weather is much much cooler, when Dean will be walking more than crawling, when the "everything goes in my mouth" phase is more or less done, and when enough time has gone by for us to forget that miserable night. We also decided that we don't care how rediculous we look, we are going to bring a booster seat and pack-n-play camping. We've done plenty of minimal backpacking and have no qualms about being overpacked car campers now. Times are a changin.

(PS. We have only one picture from the whole trip. I regret not having taken more of his first camping trip. Let your imagination do the work of painting the picture of the little guy spashing in the lake, eating all the dirt he can fit in his mouth, and laughing in the tent in the middle of the night.)