Repenting...for the moment, anyway

I've been laughing at myself lately. Before Seth was born, I used to get SO FRUSTRATED when my friends' blogs turned into blogs about their children. As cute as they are, I was not interested in looking at 15 pictures of some kid sitting like a blob on the couch.

HOWEVER, my tune has definitely changed now. I LOVE looking at pictures of your kids, especially if you happen to have a baby near Seth's age--I love comparing babies (which has given me a slight complex. Ask my mom). And, as you've probably noticed, Seth has completely dominated our blog since the day he was born. On a related tangent, he's also the reason we didn't send out a Christmas letter. It's hard to fill an entire letter with "Seth rules our lives with an adorable iron fist."

Basically, I'm empathizing with those of you who are actually here to read about me and Jon and are forced to read about our kid. So, in an attempt to remedy this situation, here's what we are up to:

JON had a four day weekend which ended (sadly) today. It was SO nice to have him home. I wish I could say we were extremely productive, but we weren't. I did get him to chop off the end of the curtain rod so it will fit in our window, and got him to hang up his posters and No Loafing sign in his office. But he spent 90% of the weekend working on his Carcassonne game on the computer. So far he's created a peg game, Fill or Bust game, Sudoku solver, Boggle game, and Monopoly game, but Carcassonne has been his biggest challenge. I tried to take a picture of his screen, but he insisted that I wait until it's done. So instead I took a picture of him trying to explain the coding to me. I really do try to understand, but it's over my head. My husband is so smart.

He starts a new rotation today on the Edgewood side of the APG. He's very excited about it--hoping that they'll actually keep him busy (and doing something he loves). I can't remember the acronym, or I'd tell you where he's going. He can fill it in later. I really hope he ends up enjoying this. He still hasn't LOVED any of the places he's worked so far, so maybe this is the one!

ME: Yes, my life still revolves around my baby (who is STILL sleeping at 8:20 am! Dang it, I should have gotten in the shower. But then he would have woken up, of course). But I did get my scrapbook caught up to January 2005. That's right--in scrapbooking years, I've almost officially met Jon! This is actually a huge accomplishment, considering how many pictures I took while in Nauvoo (Winter 2004) and living with Val (Summer and Fall 2004). Just 4 more years to go...grr...

The rest of my life is basically Seth, piano teaching (I have 10 students now), and church. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed, but I really do enjoy it. I have a hard time (being the extreme homebody that I am) when my schedule for the week is full--I'd much rather have nothing to do, because then I get to hang out with Jon all I want. But once I'm actually at whatever activity I'm supposed to go to, I have a really good time. I really have nothing to complain about--my life is wonderful and I'm so blessed to be able to stay home with Seth.

SETH: Yes, he gets an update, too. His pictures are cuter, anyway. He's become a fabulous eater and has moved from rice cereal onto squash (thanks, Dad Blood!). We were so busy with our various projects this weekend that we looked over at Seth and this is what we found:He was dead asleep. No whining or anything beforehand. He slept for a good 20 minutes and then woke up and started jumping like he'd never been asleep. Very funny. He also experienced his first snowfall (he was asleep during the last one we were home for). We took him outside and Jon couldn't even get him to touch the snow. Absolutely zero interest in it.

As for Seth's official graduation from Cry-It-Out University, I'd have to call it a success. Not a stunning success, but a success nonetheless. He's officially pacifier-free, except when we're trying to get him to sleep during church. Church sure messes with little people's schedules... He'll (usually) sleep from 8pm to sometime after 4am, then eat, and sleep until 7:40 am. I can totally live with that. He takes two or three naps depending on how tired he is (and sometimes one if he screams through his morning nap). I'm feeling much better about life.

My only concern is that he now nurses to sleep. As in, he falls asleep while nursing, I put him in his crib, he wakes up, cries for a few minutes (usually) and then sleeps. Bad habit? Probably. But it works. And he still has to soothe himself to sleep, so I'm okay with it.

We still have naps when he screams for 40 minutes before falling asleep (usually on Sundays or Mondays, right after church has messed up his schedule), and sometimes he still wakes up at 2 am for no reason, but things are much better. So, of course, now he will start teething and throw it all off again. Kids are great, aren't they?