Cream of Potato Soup

I'm chatting with Beth right now, and we're talking about stuff we did 12 years ago and we realize that we are so old and that we've been friends since forever. Everybody has to have a few people like that, people that they were in a junior bowling league with on Saturday mornings and that know all of their darkest secrets.

This gets me thinking about Evan, and the friends he'll have in his life. There are three boys I consider his friends, all between ages 1 and 2, all sons of my girlfriends. These are boys that if they stay friends, they will be able to say, "We've been friends since we were born." Evan plays with all of them, in his own way, by not sharing his toys and running around. I hope that he will grow to be actual friends with these boys, to have that bond (though, I must confess, I don't really understand how male friendships work, not in the least).

For now, I try to do my part. I get together with my friends (huge sacrifice, I know) so that Evan can spend time with his friends too. He seems to enjoy it, and I hope that as he gets older he will enjoy it even more, and maybe even share some of his toys.

Posted by jenny at 09:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Evan and I are just back from an hour long walk around downtown Meadville. We had a blast splashing in puddles and being in the sunshine. I didn't even have to wear a coat!

It's a beautiful day in northwestern PA! Go out and enjoy it!

Posted by jenny at 02:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"We've been captured by the Germans..."

Mike and I have been watching a lot of COPS lately. Not so much in reference to Evan (I can hardly remember the days when we referred to him as COPS), but the actual tv show. I don't know why for sure, but we find it incredibly funny.

All of us here have a cold--not sure where we picked it up, but the three of us have been sick since Monday. Mike's miserable at work, trying to get through the week on a little sleep and some cold medicine. I feel okay during the day but when night hits, my head fills up and I feel like garbage. Evan has been coughing and sneezing, and very cranky. We're both still in our jammies. I hope this passes by the weekend--is today Wednesday?

Not only are we still in our jammies, but we're in total veg mode. Our living room is filled with tissue boxes and juice cups, and we have an air mattress in the middle of the floor for lounging and sleeping. All the Elmo dvd's are out, as are the last three issues of "Parents". The place is trashed, but I'm all about comfort. If only this computer was downstairs...

Posted by jenny at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wow, seems I've become the girl who never posts. I have a good excuse, I swear. For the last 8 days I've been out of town, either in Ohio visiting Mike's folks or in New York attending my sister-in-law's wedding. But now I'm home, and very glad to be here.

In Evan's world, things are going fairly well. We're still not nursing. It's been almost two weeks and he still asks for it occasionally, but on the whole it's going more smoothly than I thought it would. He's still not napping either, but all the excitement of travel hasn't helped that. I'm looking forward to a quiet week so we can get back to our normal routine.

We're excited to report that Ev was discharged from occupational therapy last week! He's pretty much where he should be in terms of fine motor and self-help skills, and we're glad for that. He's really growing up. Right now he seems to want try taking his clothes off and putting them back on, so we're helping him with that. He'll continue to have speech therapy six times a month.

His speech is improving some as well. This week he babbled almost constantly, using different sound combinations than he has before. He also said "Papa" (his name for Mike's dad) for the first time, so that was pretty exciting. He continues to attempt more speech, and that's encouraging--we've even gotten to the point where he talks in his sleep! I can't wait for the day when he starts talking and won't shut up!

For now, our family is off for our weekly trip to Wal-Mart in search of glow stars for Evan's ceiling and perhaps a Valentine's treat for us all.

Posted by jenny at 03:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There have been big changes at our house the last few days. The first is that we are (hopefully) done nursing. Now, don't get me wrong, Evan and I have had a wonderful nursing relationship for over two years now. Despite our rocky start with pumping and nipple shields and all that, Evan ended up becoming a champion nurser, and I am the biggest breastfeeding supporter you may ever want to meet. We went as long as (or longer than) the AAP and WHO recommended, but in the last few weeks things have gone a bit sour.

Evan started nursing a whole lot when he was sick over Christmas, which was absolutely fine, but when he felt better he still wanted to nurse a whole lot--I'm talking ten times a day or more. And he's a very aggressive nurser now--pulling my shirt up, yelling, tweaking my boobs, all that fun stuff. This was making me pretty upset, so I decided that it was about time we ended our arrangement.

So far it's been about 56 hours--and we're doing okay. Bedtime is the hardest, as Evan liked that comfort to help him fall asleep. He still comes to me several times a day and tries to nurse, but I just tell him "no no nurse". Sometimes he accepts it, sometimes he gets angry, but I'm remaining firm and I think another week or so should do it. Or I hope it does it anyway.

In related news, Evan is in the process of trying to drop his afternoon nap. This is so not cool, since he gets so cranky by dinnertime that he becomes an absolute bear. And of course, I like that time to get some things done during the day. We'll see if this continues, or if it's just related to the nursing stoppage.

That's really all that's new here. Sorry for all the boob talk.

Posted by jenny at 08:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sorry for the cross-posting, but it's a good story and has the pictures in question...

We have tried three times in the last week or so to get Evan's two year old pictures taken. Everytime we have taken him to a photographer (including a trip to Erie in the snow on Friday) he screams the moment we try to start taking photos. After it happened again on Friday, we left and decided to try our best ourselves to take some pictures.

We set up our psuedo-studio in our living room late Friday night, and managed to get a few good shots. Yesterday, I spent some time with them in Photoshop, correcting colors and taking out imperfections in the background (which was our comforter), things like that. I put them on a CD, and we headed to WalMart to get prints made for everyone.

I threw the CD in the print machine, and picked the prints I want. We got our receipt and were looking at other stuff, when the clerk lady at the photo counter stopped me, asking me if I had the original negatives for these pictures.

"Why do you need the negatives, did they transfer badly?" I asked. "I only have a CD."

"Oh," she looks and frowns. "These look professionaly taken, and we can't copy professional pictures."

I was flattered. They were nice pictures, but not quite professional quality. I thanked her, even signing a release that I did in fact take the pictures and they were not professional. They printed nicely, and the no-2-year-old pictures disaster has been averted.

Update:

Here's a link to a photo-comparison. And here are the pics:

Posted by Mike at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)