Growing Up

My baby is growing up. This really shouldn't come as a surprise to me, but what is a surprise is how I've been feeling about it lately. I have always been so excited for James to reach different milestones and I've loved seeing how happy he is when he learns new things, that I've never really felt sad that he was growing up, just excited. Until a few days ago :)

Now that he can walk, James has started to really love to go to the park and play on the playground so I have been taking him about every other day. A couple of days ago we went and in my head I imagined how it would go: I would push James on the swings for a little while, then I would walk with him to the play area and help him down the slide and bring him to the different parts he can reach and he would explore them cautiously. Um no. That child climbed all over that thing like a monkey, with no regard for his safety or my cardiac health!!! He even fell into things a few times and before I could scoop him up and console him when the tears came, he just laughed and kept going!! The kicker was when he  climbed his way up 6 or 7 big steps, pushed himself down the big twisty slide, and then turned around and crawled back up said slide and then went down again. Backwards. I was not prepared for such big boy activities!!!

I guess what surprised me the most was how, in just a month or so, he went from being cautious, needing me beside him all the time and prone to tears if things were difficult to this wild little boy. Who didn't apparently need his mommy to hold his hand while he went down the slide...*sniff*. So while I am excited at his development, this new independence of his is taking a little getting used to :)

 

Today was his first bottle-free day, we are now officially sippy cup only in this household! James hasn't learned any new signs recently, but he has learned how to point and say "what's that?", which he does pretty much none stop everywhere we go. He even has strangers answering him!! He also says "yeah" every once in awhile and it is so cute! Dang, we love our little man!!!

Kindle books or hard copy? What to do??

A few weeks ago I cleaned out and organized our office and one of the major things I did was to purge the bookshelf of books that I have collected but haven't read in years. I finally pared it down so that my books only take up 2 1/4 shelves!!! Can you believe that?? Ever since puberty I am pretty sure I have always had at least a bookshelf full of books. I decided to only keep the books that I am sure I want to reread when the mood strikes me, especially series like Harry Potter or books like Scarlett (the sequel to Gone with the Wind, Ahhmazing!!) So here is the dilemma. I have been reading a lot of books on the ipad Kindle app, and I have started to really like kindle books. It took me awhile to get used to, but now I am all for it. I've had a few books on my mind that I want to purchase, like the Hunger Games trilogy, but I don't know if I want to buy hard copies or the kindle version. I go back and forth! I've never purchased an electronic book, all the ones I have read have been free downloads or library downloads so I feel like if I start buying them, then I feel like I need to buy all of my books that way. I can't decide!

My pros and cons list:

Kindle
Pros:
-Takes up no space to store tons of books
-I can read it without a flashlight (I read mostly at night in bed)
-I can buy books instantly and read them immediately
-Usually costs the same as buying a used book on half.com
-I can take my entire library with me anywhere (like vacation or a waiting room, etc..)

Cons:
-Depends on battery life, if the ipad is not charged I can't read (hurricanes, power outages, etc.. I mean, a woman has to be able to read during an emergency right?)
-I can't take it to the beach or camping or places like that because I wouldn't want the ipad to get damaged
-It would mean that I spend a LOT more time looking at the screen of the ipad (which is saying something because I do that quite a bit already)
-I want to be able to model reading to James and it would just look like mommy playing on the ipad if I were reading them around him. (Weird thing to think about I know, but I do so I am considering it)
-I would miss being able to hold the book and physically turn the pages. I feel like I get pulled into the story more when I read a physical book.
-I love to have things matching, and switching to kindle would either mean having half of my book collection physical and the other half kindle or my OCD would require me to get rid of all of my books and buy the kindle versions. So everything would match. Yeah, I am pretty sure I would do that :)

The matching issue is kind of a big deal. If I weren't so weird, I could just do a little bit of both, say get what version is cheaper every time I want to buy a book. Unfortunately, I think that would drive me crazy. So what do you think? I honestly have no idea. When I was typing the pros, I thought: "Of course, get kindle books dummy! What are you waiting for". Then when I was typing the cons, "Oh no, I don't think this will work". Anyone else create a pros and con list for their book collection? Just me? Okay :)

*Update* I decided to stick with hard copy books for now. I don't buy books often, so I don't think space will be an issue for awhile, but in the end I decided that the look of covers and the feel of the book and being able to read without the eye strain of looking at a screen and without being tied to an electronic device won out.

The great outdoors

One of the goals that I've set for myself recently is to really try to make sure that James and I (and Anthony if he is home) spend some time outside every day. This may seem like a no-brainer if this is something that you do already, but for us it takes a conscious effort. I was realizing that we would have several days in a row where we were busy, but most of our activities consisted of getting in the car and going into an air conditioned building and then back home inside. James has always loved being outside, ever since he was a baby, and Anthony loves it, but I have never gotten in the habit of it unless I was out there for a purpose. I would much rather be inside with a computer or a book! Recently, I've come to appreciate the peace that comes from being out in nature and the interesting things you can see if you just take the time to watch. I realized that I wanted James to have that same feeling and love of the outdoors that Anthony has, but I need to help him discover it!

Last week we all went out on the boat for the first time in years! (It has been broken for a loooong time). The wind was cool and refreshing and the sun was out, making everything glow and the water sparkle. We saw two dolphins and got out to explore an island in the middle of the channel, something I have never done before! James loved it, especially the breeze. That kid loves the wind in his face :)

Yesterday for our outside time I took James out into the back yard and he just sat and played in his exersaucer, pointing at birds and planes and the dogs while I dug and weeded our herb garden and our vegetables. After that he even had a little farmer's tan :)

I'm so glad that I decided to do this. I already feel like I have benefited from it, and I hope that continues into the future. I love this peaceful and calm period in our lives right now when I can take the time to think about how I want things to be and set goals towards accomplishing it. And I love that I get to play outside in the yard or at the park or in the boat with my family and drink in the beauty of this earth.

Easter 2012

Since Anthony had Saturday off of work for Easter, we decided to take the weekend and go visit with my mom and brothers. Although they come and visit us often, we rarely make the drive to visit them so it was definitely our turn! We had a great time and James did really well traveling. He has really been fighting us on taking naps during the day, which kind of worked out in our favor since we were so busy, we didn't have time for him to take naps unless it was in the car! As soon as we got to my mom's house, we left to go have lunch and visit with a family friend. Afterwards my mom and I took James to her house to visit some more while my brothers and Anthony went shooting at the gun range. Here is Anthony's target. Not too bad for someone who hasn't shot a gun in forever!

It was great being able to go to church and focus on our meetings. I was really looking forward to Sunday school and relief society...of course James had other ideas! He really kept us on our toes and I missed a lot of relief society. Towards the end, my mom took him to nursery for a few minutes and he scored bunny ears and a bunny finger puppet! Only 4 more months and he can go to nursery every Sunday. Ahhh, how nice that will be :)

 After church we came home and changed clothes and got ready for an Easter egg hunt!

 My brother put a bunch of eggs in the front yard for him to collect and we tried to show him what he was supposed to do...he liked picking the eggs up but he didn't want to relinquish them to the basket! Then, once he saw how many eggs were in the basket he had no interest in picking the eggs up off of the ground and just wanted to take them out of the basket. Oh well, it was cute anyways!

Happy Easter! I hope yours was as enjoyable as ours was!