2007 Resolutions

• Loose 40 pounds (the obligatory weight loss goal)



• Find things I love to do (i.e. get some hobbies) and do them often.  Ideas: writing, taking pictures, crafts...



• Take Alex out to socialize with other kids once a week at a minimum.



• Get myself out to socialize with other adults once a week at a minimum



• Less TV.  Ideally, Alex and I would limit our daytime TV to 1 hour and as a family, our evening TV time to 2 hours.  Not sure how I'm going to get John on board with this goal. 



• Read one non-kid / non-parenting book per month



• Create and stick to a household budget. 



• Get our front yard into shape (Spring/Summer)



• Spend more time with family (both John's and mine).  Have everyone over for BBQ's, do crafts with mom, call Grandma weekly, have Alex draw pictures for Vince and Raquel, get Alex and Baby Lilly together often (well, after she's born of course)... 

2007 is going to be SO AWESOME!

Sledding

   We took Alex sledding for the first time today.  We ended up having a great time, but our field trip started out a bit rocky.  We didn't have a sled, so we thought we'd just go to the closest store and pick one up.  Boy were we wrong.  Who knew finding a plastic sled in the middle of winter, in Utah would be hard to find?  We started out going to K-mart with no luck, then we went to Walgreen's and Rite Aide, still nothing.  We took a ride out to Walmart where I almost cried after finding plastic snowboards and a foam boogie board but no plastic sleds.  We considered buying everything from a large Frisbee to a storage bin lid.  After wandering around for some time with no luck, we decided we were on a mission.  We would not rest until we had a sled.  We went to Albertsons and Harmon's (where I almost convinced myself that a laundry basket might do the job quite well) and were about to make our way out to Target when John, presumably guided by the sledding gods, pulled into the parking lot of Big 5 Sporting Goods.  We hit the jackpot!  Every kind of sled you could imagine, they had.  From a sledding disk to a toboggan to a blow up snowmobile.  So two hours, seven stores and $25 later we had ourselves a brand new blue two seater complete with a pull cord and brakes.  It was totally worth it too:

Warning label

It should be required to put a warning label on all cans of olives:

"Warning, allowing your child to eat this entire can will produce the most foul smelling feces imaginable."

Alex LOVES him some olives.  Eats 'em like candy, which completely grosses me out.  But I'm trying to be open minded about his food choices since he's such a picky eater, so I give the boy olives.  The other day, he ate an entire can of sliced ripe olives.  For the next two days he was pooping toxic sludge.  The smell is STILL in his room.  I'm thinking of calling in a HAZMAT team. I'm telling you, it's a mutant, toxic smell of death. 

My Precious

My obsession with getting a new fancy-shmancy digital SLR camera has now reached new and quite frightening levels.  I can not walk into Best Buy without making a bee-line to the camera section to fondle the display models.  Yesterday, John and I were out looking for a particular video game he wanted and I ended up getting shooed out of the camera section by a short, plump balding employee after he discovered me with my face pressed against a glass display case and drooling, tracing little hearts on the glass doors with my finger.  God help me if I find myself in a Ritz or Inklies. 

My step-mom-in-law just got a new Nikon D80 for Christmas.  I'm afraid that at our holiday get together next week, I'll pounce on her and steal her camera.  They'll find me hours later, hiding in a closet somewhere stroking the lens and muttering "my precious".

My intense desire for a new camera is odd, considering, I don't even know how to use an SLR camera.  I have an old Canon (film, not digital) in my storage room, and I think I'll pull it out, dust it off and start teaching myself how to use it.  Maybe by the time my penny jar is full enough to take a ride out to Inklies and buy my beloved camera, I will be worthy of it.

Honey

Before I quit my job to stay home with Alex full time, Alex called me "Mama".  I haven't heard the word "Mama" since September.  I rarely refer to myself in the third person when talking to him and John only calls me "Honey", so I suspect the loss of the word "Mama" in Alex's vocabulary is due to the fact that he very rarely hears the word.  I've been kind of sad about this recently, he's picking up more words every week, and I keep wanting my boy to call me something.  Usually when he wants me he lets out an unintelligible yell as if to say "Woman!  Get over here and change my diaper!"  But today, he was cuddling with me on the sofa, I was saying things to him like "I'm your Mama" and "Mama loves you!"  He looked right into my eyes and said "Honey" with a big grin on his face, then hugged me.  Not quite the title I was hoping for from my son, but I'll take it.

A Festivus miracle!

The boy is sound asleep in his room (went down for his nap ON TIME with no screaming, biting, kicking or ripping hair out!) and John is busily steam cleaning our basement carpet while I browse the internet with a cold diet pepsi and wearing my brand new pink fuzzy slippers. 

Five things about Alex

1. He LOVES green beans (YUCK!)



2. He is terrified of the Starship Enterprise (we've been watching Next Gen on DVD)



3. If he comes at you with his mouth open you've got a 50/50 chance he'll either bite you or raspberry you.  Sometimes, he'll do both.



4. He loves watching Teletubbies



5. He loves books.  All day long he's bringing me books to read to him.  If he's not having me read them, he's playing with them.

Still hoping for a Festivus miracle

It's Festivus eve and I'm hoping to wake up tomorrow to a toddler with a full head of fluffy brown hair.  More likely the Festivus hair elves will skip our house and Baldy will be waking me up at 7AM as usual.

John is unofficially starting his holiday vacation today.  Unofficially because he actually has to go back to work on Tuesday for a swing shift, then he's off until January 4th.  Which basically means, call before you come over because John will likely be unshowered, unshaved and undressed.  Roaming the house in his boxers until he has to go back to work.  If history is any indicator, we'll be sick of each other in under a week.  I LOVE my husband, I do, but every couple has a limit of "together time".  Ours is about 5-6 days if we're not alone in a swanky hotel on a tropical island. 7-9 days if we are. 

Anyhow, HAPPY FESTIVUS!  Enjoy your holidays!

Maybe they are horns after all

Alex is learning to perfect the art of a temper tantrum.  If a situation is not to his liking he will instantly drop to his bottom screaming and hit his head on the floor repeatedly.  If he's being held at the time of the offense, he'll raise his arms up in the air and arch his back effectively causing you to loose your hold on him, then begin writhing around until you put him down, where he will of course, drop on his butt and scream while hitting his head on the floor. 

The screaming is not your normal scream either, it's a blood curdling scream you might expect to hear from a child having his arms ripped off of his body.  High pitched and VERY, VERY angry.  In between the high pitched screams is a low rumbling growl, as if he's some kind of attack dog warning an intruder not to come any further.

I figured all of this anger was coming out this week because we've been cooped up in the house due to my being a wimp about going out in the cold, cold snow.  So I took him to the mall to play in the indoor play area with some other kids.  He threw fits all the way there.  I had him in his big puffy coat and hat, which he hates and he spent the entire drive pulling at the hat trying to get it off and screaming the scream of death.  Once we got there, I took off his winter gear and set him loose in the play area.  He played pretty well, but he often escapes and tries to steal things from the store attached to the play area, so several times the other people at the mall got to experience The Alex Tantrum (patent pending) when I had to take away the stolen toy and herd him back to the play area.

"How old is he?" Asked another woman when he was banging his head against the foam floor
"Almost 15 months" I replied
"Oh wow, well, you're in for it when he turns two then"
"You mean it gets worse than this?"
"It probably will."

Great.

We stayed at the play area for about 45 minutes or so and I think it really helped for him to let off some steam and interact with some other kids.  Though it was a bit disconcerting on the way home, Alex was in the back seat playing with a toy light saber and saying "Ebil, ebil, eeeeeeeeeeeeebil"

Demon Alex

Alex has fallen and bumped his head twice this week producing a goosegg on each side of his forehead, making him look like he's growing in a set of horns. 

Housebound and bored, silently shaking my fist and cursing the neighbor children

I want to write about something interesting, I really, really do, but there just isn't anything to write about at the moment.  Alex and I have been housebound for a few days due to the fact that we've got a foot + of snow outside and it's just too damn cold to venture out there for any length of time.  Yesterday I dressed him up in his snowsuit and took him out to play in the snow but the snow comes up to his hips so he can't walk around or anything, so it's just no fun for either of us.

On the topic of snow, there's not much that's more beautiful than the pristine, white blanket of fresh snow covering the front yard.  I go to great lengths not to disturb the front yard snow if I can at all help it because I love the look of it so much.  So very, very much.  But the neighbor kids, presumably on their way to school yesterday, defiled my beautiful perfect front yard snow.  EVEN AFTER I made a point to shovel the sidewalk SPECIFICALLY so they wouldn't have an excuse to run through my yard.  So now, my beautiful white virgin front yard snow has footprints all over it.  Just like kids to ruin the one and only thing I enjoy about winter.  Bastards.

Anyway... We're just waiting for Santa to come. I'm completely done with my holiday shopping and John, who is responsible for all of two gifts this year, is not.  He's got me, which should be easy since I emailed him a link to a pair of slippers I want and said "Buy these in a medium".  And he's got his person from the Dillier Gift Exchange, which I'll probably end up taking care of because, well, I'm the wife, and that's my job.  This weekend I'll be baking goodies to deliver to the neighbors (and their evil virgin snow defiling children).

Baby's first piss on the floor

The other day I was in the middle of changing Alex's diaper when I realized I had to go to the bathroom.  Immediately.  So, I finished wiping all the poop off and brought him to the bathroom with me without putting a new diaper on.  He did what he normally does when he's waiting for me to finish, plays with the toilet paper, empties the box of tampons, steals boxes of dental floss out of the drawers... He had successfully stolen my moisturizer out of the drawer when he started peeing on the floor. He looked down and with a look of utter shock on his face, jumped backward about a foot and stopped peeing.  He'd never seen himself pee before and it scared him!  After he relaxed a few seconds later he began to pee again and this time he watched in amazement, making a little puddle on the floor and laughing.

Five things I'm certain Alex is saying

We've begun to translate Alexese and are pretty sure he is saying the following words:

1. "Daddy"  =  Daddy



2. "No!" and "Nine!" = No (I have no idea why he speaks German)



3. "Ba!" =  Ball or any round object, or object that can be made round by scrunching it up in your hand.  Surprisingly "Ba Ba" seems to mean  Football on TV.



4. "Tee" and sometimes "Tee Tee" =  Kitty



5. "Eye" and "Noos" = Eye and nose, which he helpfully demonstrates by poking your eyeball and sticking his finger in your nostril.

Also pending confirmation are:

• "Doggie"



• "puppy" (why he has two distinct words for dog and we don't even have one is beyond me)



• "Boob"



• "Hey" - which is his version of "hi"

Footloose

Last night John and I attended his company's holiday party, and we had a fabulous time!  We closed down the joint!  We were literally the last two people on the dance floor, and as my husband is so proud of saying "We were the last coats!"  meaning, our coats were the last ones hanging in the coat check when we left.  The party was that fun.

I also discovered where The Boy gets the dance gene.  From his father.  Let me tell you people, my man can DANCE!  John (after several glasses of wine) boogied his heart out to the point where people were handing him their drink tickets as if they were Mardi Gras beads.  For my part, I attempted to dance with him, but my style of dance is limited to step-touch-step-touch with occasional Saturday Night Fever arms thrown in for fun.  John has these elaborate moves that include fully acting out the lyrics in an interpretive dance.  It's difficult to keep up.  He's kind of got a Napoleon Dynamite thing going on where it's totally unexpected that that boy can move!  My only complaint with John's dancing is that when we dance as a couple he never warns me before he intends to twirl me, which last night, often resulted in either my tripping, running into someone else or a scream of surprise when I'm suddenly flung across the dance floor.  I was very proud to have been John's date last night though.  I found myself watching him out there grooving to the music and thinking "Damn! I get to go home with that guy! I am one lucky woman."

Lord of the dance

They boy, he can't stop dancing.  Anytime music starts, his hips start a wiggling and his feet start a tapping... he can't seem to help himself.  If you click here it will take you to my first YouTube video of Alex clearly at the mercy of the music.  He wants to drink his juice and play with his blocks, but the music... the music is too powerful.

Just a bunch of stuff...

I've had a headache for two days and I'm being quite the wimp about it. I'm blaming it on having taken Alex to frolic amongst other sticky, slobbery, boogery germ factories (aka other kids) the other day at the play area in the mall.  I'd intentionally kept him from contact with other kids for the last few weeks because John kept getting sick and if I had to hear him whine anymore about being "not right in the head" I'd have probably shoved that jar of Vicks right down his throat.  But, Alex was getting antsy and so I broke down and took him.  The pure joy and happiness he displayed running around the play area stealing other kid's toy dinosaurs was totally worth this headache.

Yesterday I went for coffee with the mom's club I joined and really had a nice time.  This club is geared towards STAHM's who aren't LDS (or religious at all really), a group of women I didn't think existed in Utah.  It was refreshing to talk to other women who really are a lot like me.  I am very excited about having joined and I'm optimistic about meeting some new friends.

And, in perhaps the best news, Alex has begun to give kisses.  John and I have always made a point to be very affectionate with him, and until now, the most we would get in return would be a leg-squeeze. But yesterday, I was laying on the couch and as Alex walked by I said "Gimmie a kiss Monk" and he stopped, moved his little face towards mine, closed his eyes and planted his slobbery lips right on mine.  Then, as if that weren't sweet enough, he grabbed my neck and gave me a squeeze.  My heart exploded and I melted into a big puddle of goo right then and there.

Project Hot Mom Returns (again)

Ok, I am officially starting up Project Hot Mom again.  This fat ass has got to go.  I mean, there's really no excuse for it.  It's just there, jiggling menacingly at passers by.  To my credit, it hasn't gotten any bigger since I quit my job.  In fact, I am a whole five pounds lighter than I was when I was employed.  But, it really is time to get back on the wagon again and give loosing this pregnancy weight a real go again.  I mean, I really haven't tried very hard in the last year, and it's too bad because by now I should be at my pre-pregnancy weight or less.  But, it's never too late to start (again), and I think I'm ready to give it another try. 

In March John and I have our fourth wedding anniversary and Alex will turn 18 months old.  I would like to get a professional family portrait done around that time as well.  So that will serve as my timeline.  By the end of March I want to have lost 30 pounds.  That should put me around 20 pounds lost by our anniversary and 30 pounds lost (PRE-PREGNANCY WEIGHT!!!) for our family portrait. That means I have to loose 2 pounds a week.  Totally doable.

I begin today.

Picture with Santa

We went and sat on Santa's lap this week and Alex was the only little kid we saw NOT to cry for the picture.  He sat on his lap, looked right at the camera and smiled. 

Note: While Alex busily asked Santa for:  "babba baby noo noo noo DADDY! BA! Mmmmm." (He was also the only baby-type to actually TALK to Santa)  all I want for Christmas is for the boy to grow some damned hair!

hung over

So, last night we popped open a leftover bottle of wine from Thanksgiving, and two glasses later I was completely drunk and stumbling around the house.  I woke up this morning with a pounding headache, sensitivity to light and sound and the very strong desire to curl up under the covers and sleep until next week.  Clearly I don't drink enough, because suffering from a hangover from only two measly glasses of wine is pretty pathetic.

Who does he look like?

We were sitting at the dinner table when John said:

"He doesn't really look like me anymore"
"Yes he does"
"Well, he does, but he doesn't look like my clone anymore.  I mean, you don't look at him and think that I just proceated with myself to produce my exact replica.  He's definately got someone else's genes"
"Ahem." I say, pointing at myself
"No, he doesn't look like you. He looks like he's got someone else's DNA other than mine, I just can't place who"
"I incubated him. I gave birth to him. He came out of MY vagina.  He looks like me.  ME ME ME!"
"No, that's not it."

Five things I swear Alex said even though he can't speak yet

1. "Here ya go"



2. "Mamas boobs" (he may have actually said this as he was pointing to my boob at the time)



3. "Em Repubkin" which I translated as "I am a Republican" (OH NO!!!!!)



4. "Kiddie farzzzz" which I translated as "The kitty farts"



5. "The dingo ate your baby" which he said clear as day with a hint of an Austrailian accent.  I shit you not.

Can't post... busy!

I am in a mad rush trying to get all of our holiday "business" taken care of.  Presents either made or purchased, wrapped and shipped.  Holiday cards addressed and mailed.  Hickory Farms cheese balls purchased and eaten...  I'm telling you, it's hard work!

I'm more stressed this year than normal, I suspect, because this year I'm personally hand-making about half of our gifts.  That not only means I've got a lot to do, I've also put a lot of myself into these presents and I'm feeling a little self conscious about it.  I mean, if someone doesn't like their 2007 desk calendar, who cares?  But what if they don't like something I actually made?  Add that to the fact that John is never any help whatsoever around the holidays and Alex makes just about everything about 10 times harder (be it making gifts, shopping, wrapping, shipping...), well, let's just say I'm a little tightly wound right now.

Happy Holidays from The Dillier Family

Well, even though we never did get a perfect family picture, I picked out three of the 75 pictures we took and ordered our holiday cards. 

When I first looked at the photos I saw squity eyes, my bangs going wild, Alex refusing to look at the camera, John's three day old beard stubble...  But when I took a second look, I saw us.  Our family.  For better or worse, that's us.  A picture is supposed to capture a moment in time.  It's supposed to be a snapshot of life and those pictures are exactly that.  I look at our holiday card and I see a happy, loving family.  And in my eyes, regarless of my crooked smile and stupid bangs, regardless of John's stubble and squinty eyes, regardless of Alex's out and out refusal to look at the camera, we are picture perfect.