My Sweet 14-Month-Old

My friend, Olya, took these adorable pictures of Isaac. Isn't he a cutie? My favorites are the last two. But these raccoon ones melt my heart as well. :-) Actually, let's be honest: I love them all! 

I love this age! I think I've felt that way about every age, but it just keeps getting more fun. Isaac loves to read, and he will bring books to me throughout the day. His new thing is that he hands me a book and then runs to the couch because he knows that's where we sit to read. I love it when he sits on my lap and rests his head against my chest. It's our time to relax.

Isaac is a really good eater, but drinking has been a challenge for us. He is officially weaned, and really, it was the smoothest transition ever. I was the one that had been pushing nursing for the last 3 months because I was worried about his liquid intake and diet (due to his allergies). But my milk dried up, and nursing became a futile cause. So, we just stopped, and he hasn't even cared. Talk about an easy transition.

But getting him to drink enough has not been easy. I put sippy cups around the house, but if it were up to him, he would drink less than 8 oz a day. So, I offer, offer, offer. If I offer a lot and spoon feed him a bowl of cereal and oat milk, he can get around 20 oz down-- but that is still 4 oz shy of what is supposedly the absolute minimum he's supposed to be drinking. ACK! Any suggestions there? We did buy a straw cup, but I'm still not sure if he prefers that. We've tried Nesquick in the oat milk. I even blended up fresh strawberries to make a smoothie-like drink, and he wouldn't drink that. So the only things he drinks are watered-down juice and water. I'm hoping this is just a phase and that he will start liking chocolate oat milk. What kid doesn't like chocolate milk?

His new skills include walking backwards (he does it when he's trying to see what's on top of the counter), spinning in circles, crawling up the stairs (I let him climb all the staircases in our complex as we s-l-o-w-l-y make our way to the mail box), eating with a fork, and saying a few words! He is not a big talker and rarely says these words, but he has said all of them multiple times on his own:

dada
ba (ball)
teh-teh (Teddy)
buh (book)
buh-buh (bubble)
nuh-nuh (no no)
puh-puh (poke poke) -- This is what we tell him to do when he's eating with a fork.
ickle ickle (tickle)

The thing he says the most is "DUH!" Which is pretty much the equivalent of "THAT!" He points and says "duh!" to whatever he wants. It's cute, but I'm excited for him to become more verbal.

Life with a one-year-old is very sweet.

Laughing at Myself

Usually I have a hard time laughing at myself, but today Brent and I had a good, hard laugh about a naive mistake I made.

Today when I was walking into Costco, I noticed a woman walking out who had a big black smudge on her forehead.

I thought, "Oh dear. When that poor woman gets home and looks in the mirror, she's going to think, 'Why didn't anyone tell me I had a huge smudge on my face?!"'

But then, as I walked through the store I saw other women with this strange black mark, so I thought, "There must be a booth where they are offering free samples of some strange beauty product.'

As I continued through the store, I saw another woman who didn't have the mark and thought, "Ah, see she didn't get a free sample. When they offer me one, I'm not going to get it either." However, I never saw the booth, checked out, went on with my day, and never thought anything of it. Until Brent came home and I told him the story.

"The weirdest thing happened today," I said, "It was like from a sitcom." And I told him the story. I didn't get  through more than one sentence when he said, "It's Ash Wednesday."

Boy, did we laugh.

How dense can I be? Well let me just say that I don't remember ever in my life seeing someone observe Ash Wednesday. Maybe I have, but not that I remember. Brent says he has only seen people observe it since moving to Houston. I guess my other two Ash Wednesdays in Houston must have been spent at home-- or in stores where the less-devout shop. (Which could be true since today I went to Walmart after Costco, and there was not an ash to be seen. I doubt there's a correlation, but since I didn't see anyone outside of Costco with the mark, it did support my free-sample theory.)

Ah well, it was all worth a good laugh!

Four Seasons

About a week ago I was taking a walk with Isaac on a beautiful warm day. Technically, it was winter since it was January-- and most of the trees are bare, but the warm sunshine felt reminiscent of summer. At the same time, the crisp breeze and floating leaves made it seem like fall, and the blooming flowers and a passing butterfly made me think, "Wait, is it spring?"

Who says Houston doesn't have four seasons? We just experience them simultaneously.