A worrier by my very nature, there's hundreds of things to worry about when a baby enters the mix.

For example, a few weeks ago? Sawyer started rolling over. He did it a few times one day and then two days later he did it approximately 10 times. Every time I put him on his tummy, he rolled to his back. Since then, though? Nothing. He doesn't do it any more. Do you think maybe I've worried about this?

Now when I put him on his belly he complains. and complains. and complains. and COMPLAINS. Mike says he's just not interested in rolling anymore - been there, done that. Mike doesn't worry about these things. If Mike's worried, it probably means the world is collapsing at our feet, so I have a hard time accepting Mike's explanations for things... I have learned that he can be correct at times, though. (This is something I have trouble admitting, so *shhhh, our little secret!)

When Sawyer gets on his tummy now, he scooches up his butt and tries to move. I imagine that he's thinking to himself, "Rolling over is for babies. I want to get MOVING!" Though he works so very hard at this new scoot maneuver he has developed, he complains the entire time. I usually let him stay there until the complaining shows signs of turning to actual tears, because if I picked him up after the first complaint he would spend absolutely no time on his tummy. Then when I do pick him up? He looks shocked. He leans forward as if he wants to get back at it, as if to say, "How rude of you to interrupt my hard work, Mom!"

I've decided that I have a very determined, but very easily frustrated little man on my hands. Like his mommy, if he doesn't perfect a new skill immediately, he has no patience for it. He doesn't give up like his mommy would, though. He keeps trying. He groans and grunts the entire time, but he does not give up.

Sawyer has the ability and the skills to roll over, he proved that to me a few weeks ago. He just isn't doing it.

What he DOES, though? He reaches for everything in his path. If you're sitting at a table with him in your lap, be careful of what is within his reach because he will go for it. I didn't think I'd have to worry about that for another couple of months, but I was wrong. Also? He loves nothing more than to stand AND His face lights up in the most magnificent smiles All The Time. Did you know? The other day, I was in the bathroom getting ready, and I had him in his bouncy seat playing with a toy. I turned away for a moment, and when I looked back at him, I noticed he had dropped his toy and was leaning almost out of the entire seat, reaching to pick the toy up again. How did my baby get so big to be able to do that? I guess the bouncy seat is for supervised play time only, now. He also kicks his legs up in the air, grabs onto his feet, and examines them with great intensity. Oh. One more thing. He's trying to master the art of taking his pacifier out of his mouth and putting it back in. It's quite the challenge, but he is determined.

Maybe this is one of those times when Mike is correct. Maybe the point isn't that Sawyer doesn't roll over anymore. Maybe the point is that Sawyer does this, and this, and ohmygosh he just started doing THAT. He's so curious, and he's developing new and interesting skills every single minute. Maybe I should stop lying awake at night worrying about what he's NOT doing, and start lying peacefully at night rejoicing in all that he IS doing.

I'll try.

Today Sawyer and I braved the 45 minute trek to my former place of employment. I was almost a nervous wreck about this whole excursion because we went for The Stations of the Cross that was put on by the 8th graders and there was a certain time we had to be there and certain people who were coming just to see Sawyer. It's hard for me to do things within certain time contraints now that I have a 4 month old around whose schedule I generally try to plan my life.

I needn't have worried, though.

True, last night Sawyer woke up constantly and therefore we both slept in until 9:15 am throwing his normal feeding and napping schedule out the window (the one I had been banking on to get through this day successfully). [My fault, really, the lack of sleep last night thing. He's been sleeping in a pack and play in our room at night and in a bit of a manic moment yesterday I decided that the "bassinnet" part was going to crash to the ground in the middle of the night and give him a massive head injury or something equally as bad. So I took the bassinnet part out and he's sleeping on the very low to the ground part. I think the change of scenery threw him off quite a bit. It was a rough night and we haven't had one of those in who knows how long.]

Basically, thanks to an abnormally wakeful night last night, Sawyer ate earlier than I had planned and did NOT take a nap before we hit the road. I knew that a nap in the car, in the church, or surrounded by new faces was pretty much a FAT chance so was slightly panicked as I threw everything into the car in a desperate attempt to at least get us there on time.

Sawyer was a dream, though. If I had to guesstimate how many strange people invaded his personal space with big goofy smiles and baby talk I'd be in the range of 50, easy. He took it all in like a champ, though. He loved being in the church and looking around. Every time a new person would walk by or a new sound came from a different direction, he would whip his head around to see where it came from. He looked with curious eyes upon every new face and listened intently to every new voice. He is seriously amazing.

I've been thinking lately that Sawyer is my perfect baby. Because he so enjoys new faces and new scenery, it helps me to be a bit less of a homebody and get my little man out exploring this world. He proves to me time and time again that he is a wonderful companion for adventures, and I believe God is challenging me by giving me a baby with this personality. If my baby was a disaster out in public, I would have no problem sitting around at home and enjoying a quiet little life. I know, though, that my baby demands more stimulation, and thus I am forced to oblige. Generally nervous with new situations, Sawyer helps me to step out of my comfort zone with him. I love that.

When I was there, one of the teachers asked me how I felt being back. I said I felt natural, like I'm meant to be there. true. true. true. I don't miss the stress, but I miss those kids. I feel so at home with them. I am sad not to have them as a major presence in my life, anymore. But, I am so pleased to be able to give so much of myself to my own little baby.

In the end, even though Sawyer was well overdue for a nap, and slightly overdue for a feeding by the time we left, he realy enjoyed each and every new face and was very interested. He didn't make a single fuss. No one who saw me believed that he was, in fact, exhausted. I told the last person I spoke with that Sawyer was ready for a nap, and she responded, "with those big wide eyes he's not going to nap anytime soon". I just smiled kindly. Sure enough, not 5 minutes later, tucked safely away in his carseat and headed back home, he was out.

I love my little guy.

Baby and Dogs

Every time I see a picture like the one above I feel a bit wistful.

This is not my dog or my baby. Unfortunately, we have discovered our dogs are not very kid friendly. This might have something to do with the fact that they lived the first 5 and 6 years of their lives without any regular contact with little people. This could be because both of our dogs are incredibly neurotic. Possibly it's poor training on our part. Whatever the reason, I would be shocked if I were ever to find either of my dogs in such a pose with our baby boy, and I don't think I'd be too comfortable with it either.

I'm kind of surprised that my 5-year-old nephew is still clinging onto his love for dogs after all that he has been through with mine. While the dogs and I were on the East Coast for a few months this spring/winter they had a lot of time to bond with Lucas and it was pretty much a disaster. Lucas wanted nothing more than to cuddle with our normally very friendly border collie, but he wanted nothing to do with Lucas. Unless Lucas was throwing the ball to him, or running around the house in which case Ramsey enjoyed nothing more than chasing Lucas and giving him a few nips to the heels as if Lucas were a sheep.

fail.

Lucas and our husky got along okay at first. Copper even let Lucas rest his head on him a few times, and I thought to myself... maybe I do have one of those dogs from the pictures. Maybe it's possible? That is... until Lucas tried to cuddle or play with Copper when he wasn't in the mood. This resulted in either a growl or a snap. It happened more than once, I'm sad to say, and in the end despite the fact that Lucas absolutely adores both dogs and proclaims them to be HIS dogs and HIS cousins, we had to separate them. I certainly do not want to be responsible for Lucas getting hurt by one of my dogs which seemed to be the direction we were heading.

Then my baby was born and I knew from the instant he arrived that we were going to have to be very cautious with having the dogs around him. Under no circumstances should dogs and baby be left alone together. Dogs need to learn to respect baby and baby's space. I was nervous and hyper aware that these dogs, despite having failed miserably at interacting with my nephew in an acceptable manner, were going to have to figure out how to be around my son.

On his second day at the house after leaving the hospital, we had just given Sawyer a bath. My mom, Michael, and I were all standing around Sawyer as he lay on the bed.... and Copper walked up very nonchalantly, opened his mouth, and lightly placed it around Sawyer's arm. Michael and I both reacted immediately, and I'm pretty sure that Copper got the idea that Sawyer was off limits. It scared the crap out of us, though. If we had any lingering questions about whether we should trust our dogs with Sawyer, I believe they were answered then.

After that, Copper treated Sawyer like he had the plague. If you walked into a room holding Sawyer, Copper walked out. I didn't want Copper to be afraid of being around Sawyer, but I did appreciate the fact that he was giving him some space.

Recently, Copper has begun to pay some attention to Sawyer. At least once every single day, Copper will walk up to Sawyer, give him some sniffs, and a little lick. Mike thinks it's a great sign. I'm undecided. Sometimes I let Copper do it, sometimes I tell him no. I want Copper to know that I'm in control of the situation, not him.

The other day, Sawyer was having a rough time after getting a few of his vaccines. I was sitting with him on the bed in my room and he was crying. Copper, who was lying on the bed when we went into the room, moved to the end of the bed and positioned himself away from us. Eventually, as Sawyer continued to fuss, Copper turned and looked. Sawyer stopped fussing and focused on watching Copper. As they looked at each other, Copper scooted his body closer. and closer. and closer. Until he was lying right next to us on the bed. He gave Sawyer a little lick and then jumped off the bed and left the room.

It was cute, and it gave me some small hope that maybe Copper is learning and understanding that Sawyer is precious to me and should be treated with care. And maybe, just maybe when Copper is old and tired and Sawyer is a little boy they will be the best of friends.

Do I dare hope?

Attention Deficit Disorder

Now that the Federal Government finally got their crap together and passed a budget, our orders to South Carolina might actually go through which means we're looking at a move across the country in... less than 2 months.

yikes.

I am not sure why, but my sense of urgency about preparing for this move is just not quite there. I mean, I have a to-do list that is quite lengthy written on the marker board on our fridge... we just haven't managed to check off any of those boxes just yet.

This could have a bit to do with the fact that my life has been consumed momentarily with the eradication of these rats that decided to take up residence in our attic. UGH. I don't even really want to go there, just know that said rats caused me to become momentarily insane last weekend when I was left alone with them and my baby. Google is not your friend in these sorts of situations. Neither, I learned, is my aunt who decided to tell me that when she was in college a rat dug through her kitchen floor......... hello, worst nightmare!

(which kind of makes me want to veer from the subject for the moment and vent about how there is always someone who manages to say the absolute worst thing in sensitive situations... the above rat comment being a phenomenal example. Another example from my own personal experience went something like this: Oh, your mom doesn't wear a wig? (while going through chemo for breast cancer) I had a friend with breast cancer who didn't wear wigs and there was something so beautiful about her bald head. She's dead now." yooowza. thanks for that uplifting story!!)

[back to the rats]

The "professionals" are taking care of it, though... and they're doing a crap-tastic job of it in my humble opinion. Better them than me, though. And that's really all I have to say about that.

After reading this post do you now have a slight understanding why it takes me so long to clean my house? It goes something like this:
*putting away dishes
*looks to the right and sees a napkin that needs to be thrown away
*walks over and picks up napkin
*trips over shoe
*picks up shoe and heads to the bedroom, napkin still in hand
*notices that the mail arrived
*heads outside to get mail, shoe and napkin still in hand
*walks back inside and walks in a circle trying to decide what to do first? shoe? napkin? mail?

I am very easily distracted.

The End.