Monday, January 31, 2011

Sleep baby Sleep

Some moms are overly worried about feeding their kids all natural/chemical free foods, some moms are overly worried about autism and immunizations. I guess I am overly worried about forming bad habits. Especially when it comes to sleep.

My brain thinks things like  "If I don't put him to bed after 9:30 every night he will wake up too early in the morning. If I rock him to sleep he will never learn to sleep on his own, if I let him cry it out he will not sleep well, be cranky, and hate me when he wakes up. If he wakes up too early from a nap, he won't go back to sleep on his own if I rock him. If I bring him into bed with me in the morning he will sleep better. Worst of all, if I don't pay ridiculous attention to all these little sleepy things I will have a three year old that won't sleep by himself or have any good sleep habits."

The longer I am a mom the more my experience shows me that most of these thoughts are silly, and the issues resolve themselves over time. And I'm pretty good about quelling most of my truly paranoid thoughts into infrequent worries. But I still find that when I'm under stress or when I'm sleepy, they still creep into my head and stick till my brain is working again.

Brad started out last week with a cold, or maybe teething I never know, and so his beautiful, normal sleep patterns started going crazy. It always takes me a few days to figure out something is up. So instead of waiting to see how things go, I start in with the over analyzation in the mean time. I began worrying about what I am doing that might be causing the problem or what I can do to help. It rarely occurs to me that Bradly will shift back to normal on his own.

So I started with a warmer blanket. This seemingly helped. Then he started waking up early from naps. So I rocked him back to sleep and put him down. He slept for another hour and a half. Sweet success right? NO. More waking up, more sleeping at odd times. What what what?? Teeth? Cold? nobody knows.

This week. All better.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

GA Aquarium Today

Ever since we came back from oregon, Brian has been busy during the weekends. Every weekend! So Brian promised that we could do something fun on his off friday this weekend. In contemplating what fun thing we could do it occurred to me that we haven't been to an aquarium in a while. Our number of aquarium vs air museum trips isn't too good. Naturally, I felt that a trip to the Atlanta Aquarium was needed.
Truth be told - I love fish. They taste pretty good yea, but I really love looking at them. I've only ever swam with the fish once or twice, and that was pretty much cooler than any aquarium ever. But since I don't get that opportuinity every day, looking at them through plexiglass is the next best thing.

Bradley liked them too. I think he mostly liked walking around by himself, but he did stop to enjoy the fish occasionally.
Brian tolerated the fish. He much preferred the otters, but as fish go, he did like this aquarium. Nearly every exhibit featured fish and other sealife in a 360 capacity. there is even a clear tunnel through the water where you can see everything swimming around in the deep saltwater exhibit! Sharks, manta rays, whale sharks, hammerheads, huuuge other kinds of fish.

I would also say that about half of the exhibits featured a hands on sea life experience. My hint -  even if you don't have kids that will play in the kid zone area, go in anyways because they have the coolest hands on stuff in there. We touched a live: manta ray (or some kind of ray), a shark fin, a star fish, a sea urchin, and I touched a sea anemone!
 These are fish from Africa! How colorful, and ornate, and swishy! Gliding through the water must be so relaxing.

Okay, so I fully understand not everyone gets as excited about fish as me. But I still think it is a very neat aquarium and worth a visit.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Not really Goals

I've been thinking about this new year for nearly half of last year. I've slowly been formulating some "goals" or more like personal desires that I would like to work on now that Bradley is out of the 100% attention phase. We are in a 70-60% attention phase now.
So what do I want to do with my 30% + of time not spent on Brad??

Clean? Yea right.
Cook? Kinda.
Craft.... Yahtzee!

But I can't just craft all the time. First my dear hubby wouldn't appreciate the constant spending of hard earned funds with out any pay back other than self gratification. So I guess this needs to be a money making endeavor. And second, I do have to clean the house.

A few years ago I ordered a scrabble tile pendant from a seller on Etsy. I've been a little obsessed over the last year about it. I'm a good designer, I could easily design better imagery for these little tiles. I'm a good crafter. It only took me one try to figure out how to make these little guys. AND I already have a mother with a successful website so I could network between two websites.
For practice and for service... I used the tile pendants as an incentive project for my Young Women for church. So now I've had nearly a year of experience making them. And I've extensively experimented on papers, printers, glues, and done some dabbling in jewelery baubles. I think I'm ready to start this little project. Too bad I only have two naps a day to really get any work done.

So now I need another buddy to help me... Who do I know who wouldn't mind a few extra bucks a month who is already spends a lots of time on the net, a pro blogger and experimenter, whose husband already has his own etsy site... Heidi!!!! My dear sister.

So now I have a half baked plan to sell these pendants online with my sister doing the footwork on the Internet. Wish me luck and lots of sells!!

Oh yea, other "goals...."
um. Clean the stupid house more often. Paint the kitchen & bathroom. Get a haircut. Raise a charming and sweet boy.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Santa!

Brian found my camera!! So I can post some Christmas memories!
I made this santa ornament when we were living in SLO, CA. I didn't really think my little boy would play with it and recognize it as "santa" someday. Sweet.





Bradley did surprisingly well in Santa's arms at our ward Christmas party. He asked for some books and a new horse to replace his unicorn.

We also went to Lights of Life, which is Life College's "free" drive through light show. If you turn right instead of going straight you can pay $5 to stop and look at their little santa showcase thing. (Life college is not a weirdo southern conservative school, though it has a weird name, it is a medical-ish school).
Yay $5 santa ville!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Snow Days

 

 

 

 
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Snow Days Day 2

Snow was fun for Portland, but Bradley had some other ideas of what to do for fun.
How could I resist snapping a few pics of Bradley wearing his Portland Blazer's shirt while riding Portland? She patiently waits for this to stop, then after Bradley climbs off, she takes off! There is only so much pony time she can handle.
He also dug out the wood wheely turtle Grandpa Daniels made and drove it around the room for like an hour.

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