Friday, December 25, 2009

Merry Christmas

Here's a few highlights from today and tonight:




Little Man opening his first Christmas present.



Getting the hang of it!



Surrounded by a few of the mountain of toys this boy is to get...



Along with his big boy backpack (so he can leave our bags alone).




Cheese!!!

And last but not least, me singing as is tradition every year. Steve didn't know that my family makes me sing every year. All in good fun. :-)


Monday, December 7, 2009

Late Night Little Steve Blogging :-)

First of all, it's freezing in this house. It's not that we don't have any heat, it's just that the furnace hasn't cut on yet. Can't wait until it does. Turns out there was something wrong with the duct layout of our furnace last year, and when maintenance came to fix it I guess it was realized that we were overcharged for freezing last year. Our bill was sky high. We finally covered up the main vent, left the furnace off and used space heaters. Can't do that this year with the little gremlin running around.


Now, on to my little gremlin... THAT BOY!!!



Little Steve is now 11 months old. I cannot believe how quickly this year has passed. I go back and look at pictures and videos of the last several months, and I can't believe that those days just flew by. My son is highly intelligent, VERY hardheaded and very expressive. He loves music. He will stop whatever he's doing to watch TV if the people are singing. We were watching the American Movie Awards a few weeks back (well Steve was, I don't really pay much attention to the TV anymore), and when Jay-Z and Alicia Keys sang their song An Empire State of Mind, my son froze in his tracks and gazed at the TV for the duration of that song. I swear he didn't move. He loves it when either myself or Steve sing to him. I enjoy calling Daddy at work to have him sing the Barney Song.

Little Steve has adapted to daycare. It took only a week-and-a-half. He's now not as people shy as he used to be. I guess he understands now that Mommy and Daddy can leave him in someone else's care, and he'll be okay. Still, it's kind of daunting that he listens to his daycare provider yet not to me. She can get him to eat and nap, but let Mommy do it, it doesn't work. Little Steve also loves to pull down our vertical blinds. He's broken two off, and the entire set no longer works properly. When he starts yanking and I ask him to leave it alone, he just ignores me. When I get up to get him, he runs away with his hands in the air....laughing. Ah, how amusing Mommy is.

With Christmas right around the corner, I find myself getting excited for him. He has no idea what's in store. When we turn on the Christmas lights, he just gazes in awe. We have no tree...because I know my son. Everything is a toy if it isn't edible. He'd probably flush whatever he couldn't eat down the toilet. Wait a minute, he doesn't know how to do that yet...he only knows how to reach IN the toilet. Which is a reminder for Mommy and Daddy to always flush. *eeew*


Life is definitely adventurous in this house, which takes our minds off of the difficult things. I'm trying to be like Reb Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. I try to always be cheerful, but when I cannot I just talk frankly to God. It helps. I find myself getting anxious these days, and I don't want to be that way, but I just cannot understand God's purpose for me. I've always believed that my suffering was preparing me for something, I'm just ready for that something to hurry up and come already. It's very discouraging to think that I've never been able to really enjoy my life. I believe that it's time to. And I want to tap into that joy soon so that the little one who is watching me will live by that example, instead of an example of struggling. I believe I learned my mindset from my family. They always hammered it into my head that life would never be fair and would always be a struggle. But I haven't seen that be the case for everyone. I believe that unfairness and struggle are definitely a reality, but I also believe in love and integrity...and in fairness as well as service...truth. Why can't I live a life defined by these things, instead of bowing my head each time someone does me wrong and saying, "it'll always be this way"?

I don't want it to always be this way. I believe our children watch us closely. I want my son to see his parents as successful individuals so that he can see the possibility within himself. Growing up all I saw was frustration, anger and misery. For years I've lived that out.

It's time for it to stop.