Family Update!

I stole this idea off Alicia's blog. It seems like once you have kids, your entire life (and, thus, blog) become all about them. So here's a quick update on the rest of us:

Jon is finishing up his last year as an AMC Fellow (basically an internship program with the Army). He'll start his final rotation at AMSAA in January and will finish the program in July. At that point he'll be offered a job at one of the places he's interned--which means we'll be here as long as we want to be. He seems to be enjoying what he's doing: something about remote detection of chemical/biological weapons (did I get that right, Jonny?). But he's excited to head back to AMSAA--they have some exciting projects he's hoping to get in on. He did chemical demilitarization last time he was there, but wasn't too thrilled about the specific project he was on. Better luck next time, we hope!

Jon is our ward financial clerk, and I honestly can't think of a better calling for him. He gets to keep things organized, resolve complicated financial issues, and doesn't have to interact with people. Our bishopric LOVES him. I don't think they'll ever release him. It does keep him after church a couple of hours to do tithing, but I don't mind.

In his spare time he's been working on conquering Doom. He found a wiki with all the secrets and has been having a blast. He finally beat it last weekend--I don't know what he's going to do with himself now!

My turn: I feel like I have one full time job (wife/mother) and two part time: Young Women and piano teacher. I love it, but some weeks I don't know how I'm going to make it through without neglecting my poor husband and son.

I have 14 piano students right now (6 are part time--every other week). I had no idea how I was going to pull it off, but it's been good so far. I've had to keep myself on track--dinners have to be made BEFORE the students come, sometimes a day in advance if I really won't have time. I find it very interesting that the busier I am, the more I get done. If I have nothing to do I tend to sit around and blog. Or read. I have a giant pile of books in my room that is NOT getting read now that piano has started up, darn it.

Young Women is always crazy, but fun. I have 13 (soon to be 14) Beehives (ages 12 & 13), 12 of whom come on a regular basis. Our last activity was cake decorating. It was absolutely INSANE, but the girls had a blast. And their cakes actually turned out pretty well! I really, really love working with this group of girls. They're awesome.

Any spare time I have (none) is dedicated to all my little projects: wedding scrapbook, Seth's baby book, 72 hour kits, blogging, decorating my house, and cleaning. Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. And let me just say that I am in LOVE with our new Roomba. Even if it did knock over our lamp and leave a big mark on the floor. We just turn the thing on at night and wake up to a clean floor in the morning. LOVE IT.

Seth is getting a lot of opportunities to interact with other kids. We have two playgroups we attend every week: one at the church and one that rotates between homes. He also LOVES playing with the siblings (or mothers) of my piano students. His current favorite activity is retrieving our shoes from the shoe basket by the door and handing them to the moms, one by one. I'm sure they're thrilled to be holding our dirty shoes...

We think he's having his first language explosion: he's added "ball" (ba) and "shoe" (souh) to his vocabulary in the past couple of days. And he understands lots of other words that he can't pronounce yet: book, Mom, close, throw, etc.

I'm trying to get him hooked on watching movies while we drive so that he'll be content to sit and watch a movie when we fly. We're doing well so far. He likes Baby Signing Time, pays NO attention to Baby Einstein, and LOVES Disney's Hercules. I didn't think I could ever get sick of that one. I was wrong. Thankfully my mom just sent him The Lion King. So far he only likes movies with lots of singing and animals. He laughs every time Baby Pegasus shows up.

And that's pretty much it, at the moment. We really love it here, and life is going great. We really have been so blessed. (Sorry--no pictures. More to come, soon).

Another Vocabulary Word

And no, it's still not "Mommy."

Seth is in love with cars right now. He has about a dozen of them in his toy basket in the kitchen. He loves it when Jon & I play with him. We roll the cars across the floor/table and then say "crash!" when they hit something.

Saturday night Seth started imitating us: "cash, cash, cash." But Jon refuses to count it as a genuine Seth-word until he uses it without prompting.

So during the hour when we were supposed to be in Sunday School yesterday (but never are, thanks to Seth), Seth was playing in the chapel. First he was sermonizing and singing opera from the stand, but then got bored and moved onto his favorite activity: pulling out the hymnbooks.

And guess what he was saying as he dropped them to the floor? "Crash! Crash!" Guess that makes it official...

(Disclaimer: I do not support the throwing of hymnbooks on the floor. He usually only gets a few out before we catch him and distract him with something else. Still working on the concept of "no".)

In Less than 24 Hours...

...Seth has done the following:

*fallen down while walking, thus giving himself a giant goose egg on his forehead (on top of the one that was already on his forehead)

*woken up screaming 3 or 4 times last night because he's too exhausted to fall asleep (why, oh, why does he think he only needs one nap?)

*fallen down while climbing up the cement porch stairs, thus adding a nice scrape/bruise just to the right of his goose egg

*woken up screaming twice from his nap, then finally fell asleep in my arms (and I still love when that happens, rare as it is now)

*Teething. Again. How many stinking teeth does this kid need? I hope they're all coming in at once. I'll take one big trauma over this perpetual trauma (and the nasty runny nose that ALWAYS goes with it).

Now I need a nap. Thank heavens it's Friday and Jon lets me sleep in on Saturday mornings...

Just Trying to Keep Up...

I knew as soon as piano lessons started that blogging (and everything else) would be neglected. I really like how my friend Adrian blogs: she just posts little paragraphs about her kids when they do something clever/funny/impressive/interesting. I need to do that instead of waiting until I have something more substantial to say.

First, Seth has a new vocabulary word: "Car". Which brings his spoken words to a total of four:

#1--Light ("aight")
#2--Cheese ("chies")
#3--Dad
#4--Car ("cah")

Notice there's still no "Mom" on that list? I wonder how far down in the rankings I'm going to be...

Second, our living room is officially finished! I know, we've been here almost a year and a half, but we did it piece by piece.I am REALLY happy with how it turned out. Once again, many, MANY thanks to Lenae for all her consulting/shopping trips. Sometime we're going to repaint it a slightly warmer tan, but not until next summer (or later, depending on how lazy I am).

One of my favorite parts of the room is this picture:I took it myself, fixed it up on Picnik.com (we have a love/hate relationship, so I'm not going to recommend it to anyone), and bought a nice frame for it. You can't see it in the picture, but it's just to the left of the window, next to the front door. I'm pretty proud of it, so you professionals don't criticize too harshly (I'm talking to you, Warnick).

Third, another cake. This was for Seth's friend Eliana. Her birthday theme was primary colored balls. I thought about doing fondant balls, but fondant is pretty disgusting to eat. So instead I tried cake balls. Getting the Almond Bark to dye wasn't fun, but with a little advice from Jon (add more shortening!) I figured it out. And please forgive the bad handwriting--I ran out of red dye so I had to use melted candy coating to write instead of icing.

And last, more Seth (of course). Yesterday it was raining, so we took Seth outside and let him run around. He LOVES to be outside--he just wandered all over the place. I love watching him grow and learn new things. I know this is such a cliche mom thing to say, but every day I think there's no possible way he could be sweeter/cuter/more fun, but then it just gets better! I love being a mom.And yes, I realize the next picture is totally blurry, but I love the look on his face. I couldn't resist!Here's a video to show off his much-improved walking skills. He's even got shoes on in the second segment!

In More Recent News

Seth's a Full-Time Walker

As of last Thursday, Seth officially decided he is going to walk. All the time. It's amazing how quickly he went from crawling to full-on walking. He's turning more into a toddler every day.
Of course, this also means he is an official shoe-wearer now (at least in public). He has a really hard time walking with shoes on--he forgets to pick up his toes. But he's improving quickly. And those little shoes are adorable.

The First Official Babysitting

Yes, he's been babysat before. But it's always been by a relative (or Marley, who's practically a relative and won't let us pay her). Jon & I wanted to go out last weekend to celebrate him being home (and the fact that it's Endless Shrimp at Red Lobster). We asked Marley, but she had family in town.

Which means Seth had his very first official paid babysitting. Nikki (yes, same Nikki as in the previous post at Hammerman Beach) did a great job, especially considering he slept the entire time except 30 minutes at the end. Seth didn't even cry when she went to get him out of his crib--he grinned at her. This kid has NO stranger anxiety (although she's not really a stranger--he sees lots of Nikki. In fact, during her piano lesson today he fell down, started crying, and ran to NIKKI! Stinker).

The First Buzz

Pre-Haircut Fabulousness

Seth's had several haircuts now, but they've all been fairly minor editing I could do with scissors. But when I found the cute little curl at the base of his neck last week, I figured it was time for a real haircut.

We weren't sure how he'd handle being buzzed, but he did great. We plopped "Hercules" into his portable DVD player (thanks again, Mom & Dad) and he didn't give a hoot what we were doing to his head. Of course, he had opinions afterwords. Seth, tell us how you really feel about your haircut:

Oh. I see. Too short, you think?"My hair! My beautiful, beautiful hair! Where has it all gone?"

I can't say "buzzed" is a good look on Seth. In fact, he kind of looks like a bully now (especially with the cat-scratch scab and goose-egg he's currently sporting on his face). Next time we won't go quite so short...

A Little Catch-Up

I have to blog about all my pictures, otherwise I forget what's going on when it comes time for scrapbooking.

August 23rd, 2009--Week #2 of Jon's Stupid Class

Debbie invited me & Seth to go with her and her daughters Angelina & Nikki to Hammerman Beach. She also invited Genny and her grandkids Cassidy & Keegan. So we had quite the little party at the beach.

I'm so glad she told me about this place! It's just over 30 minutes away, costs $3/person for Maryland residents, and was perfect for Seth. The 'beach' isn't actually the Atlantic--it's part of the Bay. Which meant there really were no waves. Like I said--perfect for Seth.
He loved splashing in the water with Angelina (they've actually swapped buckets in this picture. The other kid's toys are always better). Once again, she was much braver than he--she would have walked all the way in over her head if Debbie had let her.

(Nikki holding a terrified Cassidy, Debbie & Angelina, Genny & Keegan)

Seth, on the other hand, just wanted to crawl around on the sand and investigate the little pier nearby.

Until he got bored--at which point he headed for the water headfirst. He would have kept going, too, if Debbie hadn't grabbed him.Bad timing for us, though. It was Seth's naptime, and he fell apart. I took him on a nice long walk in the stroller and talked to my mom while he slept. By the time he woke up it was time to go. I'm so excited for next summer--he's going to LOVE it here!

Because Jon doesn't hate cats enough already...

Dear Daddy,

Here's what I've been up to this week.

First of all, I've been perfecting my walking skills. Tonight while Mommy was teaching Young Women, I was walking all over the place. If Mom had to estimate, she'd say I was doing 80% walking and 20% crawling. Aren't you proud?

Secondly, I'm working on my climbing skills. Remember how I suprised you last weekend by all of a sudden climbing on Mom's bedside table to look out the window? Well, on Monday I was helping Mom load (and by that I mean unload) the dishwasher like I always do. She was busy washing things in the sink, then she turned around and guess where I was?Right here. Aren't I a good climber? If I keep this up, I bet our dishwasher will be just like Grandma Sara's old one soon.

Third, today I fought an epic battle with Marley's cat. I thought she and I were playing together, but then she turned traitor and swiped me good. I confess, I did cry a little bit. But not too much--I was very tough. The cat got it much worse--she was banished to the basement the rest of the evening and is in BIG trouble with Marley & Carlos. I learned that there are benefits to being wounded--all the young women were cooing over me tonight. They were obviously impressed with my mighty warrior skills.

And, lest you think I've been focusing too much on my physical skills to the detriment of my intellectual skills, I had Mom take this picture: I've almost got it solved. I'm determined to have it completed by the time you get home. You'll be so proud of me! Solving my first Rubik's Cube at 13 months old!

I miss you. Come home soon!

Love, Seth Setherus

PS--Some notes from Mom:

I already told Jon about these, but I wanted to blog them for scrapbooking purposes.

First, the phone. Jon calls every day (usually a few times a day) and if Seth's awake I'll let him talk. He's not a huge fan of the phone and keeps shoving my hand away. After Jon hung up on Monday, Seth grabbed the phone from me and started holding it up to his ear. He'd jabber, then put it on my ear. After I "talked" for a minute, he'd take it back and jabber some more. Adorable.

Second--We were hanging out in the kitchen/family room playing with his Memory Game & Rummikub (he loves dumping them all over the place). It was nice and quiet in the house. Suddenly we heard a creak from near the front door. Seth immediately perked up. "Dad?" he asked, looking around. "Dadadad?" It was so cute, and sad because Daddy wasn't coming home. Yet.

Last--We now limit Seth's pacifier time to when he's in his crib. When we put him down, he likes to have one in his mouth and one in his hand. Last night he was sucking on one and I put the other one in his hand. He immediately brought it to his mouth and was very perturbed when he couldn't get it in his mouth. Silly boy. My other favorite pacifier game is when I hand him the pacifier to hold, and he immediately swaps it for the one in his mouth. Apparently there's something to be said for fresh pacifiers...

And this is for Rachel Mae (who just had her own gorgeous little boy), who says I'm a "Ghost Mom" since I never post pictures of myself. Here you go, Raquela. Never mind that I look psychotic (Seth was exhausted and whiny) and that Seth is quite likely flipping off the camera. That's as good as it gets around here.