Mommy's Little Monster

Our big stander!

 We did not even leave our house today and it was wonderful! Ayden also had two solid naps (I joined him for the first one) so that was pretty wonderful too. Such a difference from yesterday.

During our stay home day we tackled a few projects that have been on the back burner. We cleaned our kitchen floor. A crawling baby's knees and toes are like a daily white glove test. The tough part is that mopping a floor, thus making it slippery, is not a chore you can do with a baby at your feet. I didn't realize how much I really wanted to clean the floor until it was all done. We also got our garage cleared out and organized enough to park both cars in it again which was something that had been weighing heavily on David. I'm glad we both got to feel a little lighter by the end of the day.

One of the tasks in the garage was trading some of David's old text books in on Amazon. I had no idea you could get so much money doing it that way. You ship them for free and get an Amazon gift card in exchange. Can we say Christmas money?

After Ayden's afternoon nap he was in a snuggly mood (aka he didn't want to be put down).  So I strapped him into our pocket sling and got to work on making kale chips, roasted pumpkin seeds and our Paleo crunch cereal. 

We used this recipe (with a couple of Paleo substitutions).

David jumped in to help too and it was so much more enjoyable.  We were playing the 90's pop station on Pandora and were having fun singing along to all of the songs that are like a time machine straight back to middle and high school.  Around our bon-fire last night we were talking about how most people tend to stay attached to music from their teens because it was the sound track during such a fun time in your life.  Ayden just quietly watched everything I did and listend to me explaining all the steps for whatever I was doing.  He was right where he wanted to be and I loved that he wanted to be there. 

There are some people who believe that you will spoil a baby if you hold them too much and I say there is no way you could ever hold, hug, kiss, touch a baby too much.  It makes them feel warm, secure, loved, etc. and there could never be anything wrong with any of that.  There will be a time in his life when he will want his independence and I am not about to rush it. 

His babbling has gone up a notch.  He is getting his little tongue involved and is making all kinds of sound combinations.  The funniest new develoment is that he says, "Dadadada" all day long while he's happy and playing.  Then, as soon as he is upset, it's all "Mamamama!!"  We aren't positive he's saying either purposful yet but it's funny that they seem to understand the roll of each parent pretty early.  Dad is for fun and Mom is for when some serious needs are to be met. 

After we got all of our weekly snacks prepped we got started on pizza stir fry for dinner.  It was loaded with veggies and we used some of the venison David has provided for us already this season. It was so good!  By the time we finished dinner it was pretty late, already 7:30, so it was bath and bed time for the little man.

My little monster, ready for bed.

We are hoping that his good naps today will mean some good sleep tonight!

~Sarah