family visit

fourth of july weekend we enjoyed a wonderful visit from troy's parents, al and deon. we played games and took lots of walks. a highlight for me, besides just watching them enjoy caleb, was going to an off-leash dog park to walk around and enjoy the puppies. also, they gave troy and i an amazing gift! as soon as caleb woke up in the morning, i would feed him and change him into warm clothes and they walked with him up to starbucks. troy and i got to sleep in and they got to spend some wonderful alone time with their grandson. it was fantastic. i'm so glad they came, although it just reminded me how much i wish we lived closer. sigh.

quite the attitude

caleb is so testy today! he's learned how to say "no" with his body. he kicks his feet and shakes his head. and today, he doesn't want to do anything i suggest. doesn't want to eat what i make for breakfast or lunch. doesn't want to go in the car to go to the park. doesn't want to swing in the swings. doesn't want to come home. doesn't want to go to bed. everything i do is met with wild, kicking feet and a shaking head. at first, i liked that he could communicate his displeasure. that lasted about 5 minutes. now it's just annoying! i hope he either forgets how to do that or else learns to talk real soon :)

caleb's strange eating habits...

he likes his pureed food to be warm. which means he doesn't eat yogurt... except when i can get it into his mouth without it touching his lips. i have no idea why.
for finger food, he likes it to be hard (like cheerios or veggie booty) rather than soft (like banana or avocado). but he will eat soft things if i let him take a bite himself rather than breaking it up for him.

so funny!!

killer day

and not in a good way. it's hot here... really hot. i mean, maybe not compared to california or florida, but a lot hotter than we're used to. and we don't have air conditioning. caleb is having a really hard time with it. he isn't sleeping well at all, which is making us all grumpy (and i'm not exactly chipper when it's this hot, anyway) and he's being very clingy. that's hard for me... a clingy baby when it's so hot. all he wants is me to hold him and all i want is to take a cool shower and not touch anyone. they don't exactly go well together. i just have to remind myself that we will make it through and i just need to not lose it.

and did i mention caleb is sick?

first signs

i think caleb signed for the first time! i've been signing with him for a long time and he knows what many of them mean, but he hasn't felt the need to participate. the other day, though, i think he did a sign for drink. what we do is make a "c" with our hand and hold it to our mouths (like we're holding a cup). what he did was hold the back of his little hand up to his mouth. at first i thought he was tired and was going to rub his eyes but then he kept just holding the hand by the mouth. finally, i caught on and he drank a lot! he hasn't done it since, but i'm excited to see it more and more (hopefully!).

6 words...

thanks to my friend hannah, i've been tagged for a meme game. here's how it works... this meme originated over an idea that was prompted by the book written by larry smith & rachel fershleiser. it’s a compilation based on the story that hemingway once bet ten dollars that he could sum up his life in six words. his words were, “for sale: baby shoes, never worn." in another blog i read, melissa summed up her life by the words, "still talks too much in class"

so, i've been challenged to sum up my life in six words. and here they are...

broken mirror: inadequately reflecting His light

i would love to hear what others come up with... i had about 3 i was working on in various forms before this one came together.

chase

caleb and i have been having so much fun playing chase together over and over again. our love seat is in a place where you can go all the way around it. and around it we go! i crawl around one corner and hide and then caleb crawls after me. we have so much fun sneaking up on each other and trying to surprise the other. he's getting to be really quick at crawling and good at listening to hear which direction i'm coming from. he also has gotten smart to the fact that sometimes i get on the loveseat to hide. i'm going to have to come up with some other tricks to outsmart my 9 month old!