The kid does not take naps. I finally got sick of it and spent the better part of three hours today with the sole focus of getting him to sleep. Nothin. He cried, we read stories, he tried to eat the stories, I sang him songs, rocked him, he ate, but after letting him cry in his crib for quite a while, I went back in twice with the intention of rubbing his stomach until he calmed down. Each time all he would do is stop crying and laugh at me - like, ha ha, fooled you, Mom! - and play games with his blanket.

I am all about prevention rather than solutions after a problem arises. It’s why I try so hard to always be prepared. I have foreseen and prevented many an issue with regards to this boy, but this is one I must say I never considered. Which is probably why it is now mine to deal with. How on earth are you supposed to get things done when you have a child who does not take naps??!

It’s nice to know I’ve always been me.

Whenever I go to get Max out of his crib in the mornings, as soon as I appear he breaks into such a big grin. I love this! Sometimes he just keeps smiling at me for so long and I have to smile back for so long that my face starts to hurt. Yesterday he just started laughing and laughing for no apparent reason. I’m sure that partly he is just excited at the prospect of getting picked up, but I think it’s safe to believe he also is happy to see me.

I am grateful for the entirely non-judgmental love of my son and of my husband. Both of them love me in spite of how I look when I wake up in the morning! Trevor loves me anyway because he knows there’s a beautiful me in there somewhere (I hope!), and Max loves me because he hasn’t learned yet to care whether or not I have mascara under my eyes or if my [quickly disappearing] hair is poking out everywhere. All he knows is that that’s what the person who loves him and takes care of him looks like for 75% of the day, and so he smiles really big and loves me all the same.

There are two people in this world to whom I am the most important person in the world, and they are the most important to me too and I get to build my whole life around loving both of them back just as much.

And that’s family.

I’d like to pass this off as vegetables:

Mmmm, chocolate carrot cake! Trevor was so helpful as to grate three whole cups of carrots for me while I put a screaming Max to bed. It turned out yummy. I’ve never been a huge carrot cake fan, or even a huge carrot fan - it is so amazing to me that something so highly carrot-dense is so tasty. Chocolate is a miracle worker. And props to whoever discovered you can put carrots in a cake.

The only thing I would do differently next time is put a thicker frosting layer in the middle of the two cake layers. All in all, I am quite pleased with how it turned out considering my last adventure with cake frosting.

Also this week (this fits in with vegetables I guess) I made Mediterranean Chicken with Rosemary Orzo, except really it was with mezze penne because we didn’t have any orzo. The chicken looks all washed out in this picture from the flash, but pretend it looks great.

Trevor loved this. He’s my official judge, so, there you have it. It has great taste without being creamy which is a big plus in his book. I enjoyed it too because it felt healthy. And stuff. I don’t even like zucchini. I seem to be enjoying a lot of things lately that I thought I didn’t like, though!

I love feeling much more confident with my recipe books now. I used to look at them and see very little that I thought I could make. Now, I look at them and think “Oh, why didn’t I mark that? It looks great, and easy!” and the only reason they don’t get made is because I forget to put the ingredients on my grocery list.

For those who asked, most of these recipes are coming from two places: a Betty Crocker Cookbook from my Aunt Carolyn, and the Taste of Home Annual Cookbook (2006) from June Tompkins. I received both at bridal showers and love them!

We worked hard on getting him to roll front to back a month ago, but he seems to have voluntarily taken over the back to front on his own. He spent a lot of time today arched on the floor like this, rocking back and forth in his sopping wet shirt (he drools like Niagara Falls) and trying so hard to get somewhere. He’d get mad at me when I tried to help him. What a funny little boy.

I have come across these words lately and love them for how they both look and sound. What beautiful words!

esoteric: intended for or understood by only a particular group

cadence: a rhythmic sequence or flow of sounds in a language

bonhomie: affability; a disposition to be friendly and approachable

From James C. Christensen’s Personal Illuminations: Imagination:

“It is indisputably evident that a great part of every man’s life must be employed in collecting materials for the exercise of genius. Invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory: nothing can come of nothing. He who has laid up no materials can produce no combinations.”

- Sir Joshua Reynolds, 18th century painter

Here’s the exterior. No, it’s not snowing - our car is just filthy dirty!

Here is what will be my kitchen.

Here’s the view of part of the backyard, from the living room.

The window seat (yay!) in the master bedroom.

The tub where I’ll most likely get to take my first bubble bath ever!

Looking out the garage from the laundry room.

The front door and the dining room off to the right,
and some dude out there laying cement on the front walk.

I didn’t take any pictures of the other bedrooms or bathroom,
because they’re currently mostly boring. That’s all for now!