Our First Family Vacation

July 7, 2012 By 1 Comment

I had been trying to prepare A for vacation about a week or so before we left. He was pretty unsure about seeing things being set out of place and watching suitcases being packed. I explained that vacation means that we have to drive for a long time and then we get to the farm. When it came time to actually packing up the car, A was definitely stressing out… and then we strapped him to his car seat for 18 hours!

For the most part, I think he did great in the car. He didn’t sleep quite as much as we thought he would, but since it was dark he was at least quiet or talking to himself when he wasn’t sleeping. It seems like driving at night was the best choice as the roads were empty and it’s the only way he could have sat for that long straight. We’ll just have to see if we can be rested enough to do it when we leave.

We stopped for a picnic dinner that didn’t turn out as fun as planned. It was super windy and A was covered in millions of bugs. It was hard to do anything but laugh as I pictured what we looked like as we tried to keep our food from blowing away, swat bugs off of A, and eat as fast as possible. We are always telling A to eat slowly so it was pretty funny to see his reaction to being told eat quickly.

Sunrise

A woke up several times in the night and it was impossible not to laugh at his comments in his grouchy, over-tired state. Things like “I don’t want seat anymore!” or “I want grass now” meaning he wanted to run at another rest area. The funniest thing might have been when he was confused about getting his pajamas on. We tried to do his whole bed time routine and told him to go to sleep and he said in a crying voice “I no shoes anymore, I no shoes on.” He was very concerned that he wasn’t wearing shoes in the car. I kept trying to assure him that he would have fun once we got to the farm, but at that point I think we was pretty much convinced that he hated vacation.

Farm

Now that we’re here he is doing great! I wasn’t sure how he would react to having his entire environment changed after only being with us for a couple of months. He has been sleeping fine and is already completely comfortable with Grandpa and Grandma Sipes. He loves walking down to the barn and getting to sit in Grandpa’s big tractors. It’s pretty funny to see him take the lead and tell us where to take him after he’s only been here for a day. He’s also enjoying getting to play with some fun, old toys. He spotted toys around the house right away and has actually been playing by himself some, which he rarely does at home.

ToyBlocks

Today we got him to help with the “chore” of picking up fallen apples. He thought that was pretty great. He carried the big bucket around randomly deciding which apples were good enough to bring inside. We filled the entire bucket and then he dumped them out and wanted to start over. So funny! We had to explain to him that Grandma wanted to keep them in the bucket this time to bring them inside.

Apples

So we are having lots of fun so far. We can’t wait to see what other new experiences we get to share together!

Filed Under: Children, Family, Travel

Happy First Father’s Day!!

June 17, 2012 By 5 Comments

Jesse has been wanting to be dad for a long time now. I’m so excited that he finally gets to celebrate his first Father’s day! He makes such a great foster dad. It’s so fun to see how excited A gets when Jesse comes home (downstairs) after work. A loves to copy everything that Jesse does and he loves to go on long walks to find “treasures” with Jesse.

Life sure is a whole lot busier now that we have an extra person to take care of everyday. Jesse has done an excellent job balancing all of his responsibilities and still finding time to make A feel safe and loved in our home. Yay Jesse!!

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Parenting: One Month

May 25, 2012 By 2 Comments

Today marks our first full month of being parents! I’d say that overall we’re doing very well, or at least doing the very best that we can. A seems to be feeling a lot more comfortable with us so that must be a good sign. We are starting to understand what he is saying more and more which must be a lot less frustrating for him. And we seem to be able to comfort him more when he falls down or is tired which makes me think that he is feeling attached, which is excellent!

The funniest moments are times when these first-time parents are learning things that a parent of a 2 1/2 year old have usually learned already. People usually assume that we’ve been parents for the time frame to match the child’s age. So there’s been some funny moments like when it took us forever to figure out how to get his swim floaty off at the pool, or when I’m at the store and I have to double check to see what size clothes to buy him, or when the cashier asks me how old he is and I have to take a minute to realize she’s talking to me, or when we couldn’t figure out how to get the stroller to lock so it didn’t fold in on him. I’m sure most people are never paying attention as much as you think they are, but sometimes I wonder if people are noticing our cluelessness.

Two major accomplishments:

Jesse has figured out how to maintain his treatment routine! The first week or so was very hit or miss on treatment times. We were pretty much all over the place in the morning and there didn’t seem to be time to fit in treatments. That was very concerning. Now he has been able to get back into his normal routine which will keep him healthy. He’s even figured out how to add his morning walks back in. Most mornings he’s been taking A with him, sometimes he goes alone if he need thinking time. I taught A how to feel the Vest shaking so that it didn’t seem scary, and A loves to help Jesse throw away his empty treatment trash.

I’m most proud of myself for figuring out how to get back to eating our normal, healthy meals again. The first week or so we did several nights of last-minute pizza, macaroni and cheese, and such as. Too much grains and sugars was leaving me feeling super stuffy and just “blah.” I am feeling so much better now that we are eating real food again. I’ve been doing several crock pot meals mixed in with our other favorites. Best of all, A loves our healthy foods! He eats up fruits as fast I can feed them to him and he keeps surprising me with all the veggies he likes. I think we’ve tried just about every veggie and cucumbers are still the only one he doesn’t eat.

Two goals for next month:

Jesse has been feeling just a little behind on work stuff. It’s been a little harder than we thought for him to concentrate on working while we are downstairs being distracting. We feel like we are getting closer to figuring this one out, but we still have some things to iron out. Jesse has been working on ignoring us unless he hears me yelling for help (which has only happened once so far when A started crying and sunscreen was getting into his eyes making the crying sound like something terrible was happening). We say goodbye to him in the mornings and try to pretend he isn’t here. A gets so excited when he hears Jesse coming back downstairs before dinner!

My goal is to figure out how to fit cleaning into the schedule of the day. It’s amazing how much faster each day goes by, even though sometimes it feels like the day is dragging on forever. Our house gets much messier with extra little fingerprints everywhere, snack crumbs in the carpet, and endless amounts of dirt… I can’t even figure out how he has time to get so dirty! My mind is getting used to having a less clean house, but it would be nice there were time for things to get cleaned eventually.

One month down, many more to go…

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