Merry and Bright

My side of the family is all together this Christmas.

And for that, my days are merry and bright.

May you have a very merry Christmas.

20 Weeks on the 20th!

Only four more sleeps 'till Christmas, y'all!

This is the only picture I have of Tatum on her back because the wrapping paper was JUST TOO INTERESTING not to turn over and play with it!

You'd never believe that a few minutes before she had a big boo-boo lip out and was cranky!

Moving to another subject, the other night I had just laid down Tatum for a nap and was at the sink washing a binkie, when I heard a low rumbling sound. 

At first I thought it was thunder, then I looked at the sliding glass window and it was shaking!  Having recently had three earthquakes I immediately thought it was another one, dropped the binkie and ran down the hall to grab Tatum.

It was only when I got down the hall that I realized the light fixture in the entry wasn't swinging...and one major thing: the ground wasn't shaking.

Walking back to the living room where the sliding door was still rumbling, I looked down to see Roy leaning against it, itching.

Dur.

That's all I've got for you today--except we officially submitted our offer to the seller of the house we like yesterday and are waiting for them to laugh hysterically and counter offer!

Here's hoping!

We're putting an offer in on a house.

If you had told me a year and a half ago that I'd be in Oklahoma with a baby and thinking about buying a house I probably would have laughed at you.  Yet, here we be.

Oh, and did I mention that the offer is ridiculously low? I mean, low low? And that our wiggle room for negotiation is itsy bitsy?

Still, we love the house.

It has a basketball hoop for Matt.

A big kitchen complete with an island for me.

A huge living/dining/kitchen area for having people over and for Tatum to toddle around.

And a large yard backing up to a greenbelt and a creek for Roy.

It even has a three bedrooms so y'all could stop on by!

And so we put an offer in on it.  Its a loooong shot, but its worth a try.

In fact, I even have a verse about it! Its from Psalm 105:11-12

saying, j“To you I will give the land of Canaan

as kyour portion for an inheritance.”

12 

When they were lfew in number,

of little account, and msojourners in it,

Note: I know this is severely out of context and am not taking it seriously as a word from the Lord about the house, I just found it funny!

So if you think of us, say a little prayer that if its God's will we be in that house for the next 3 or 4 years that he would open all the doors, and that it would be obvious to all that it was His hand that gave this to us.

And that the relocation company that currently owns the house would be in the Christmas spirit of giving...

Tatum's 19th Week...after MIA for week 18

I know, I've been absent awhile.

But let me explain.

First, though, is Tatum K at 19 weeks!

I was curious so we weighed and measured her ourselves tonight.  While there may be a little wiggle room for error, it seems she's at 19 pounds and 26 inches!!! 19 pounds on the growth chart is big for a NINE month old!! I'm starting to put her in 12 month old clothes!!! What do I make, super milk?!?!

We also bundled up and went to Lowe's for her first Christmas tree...

Uncle Jeremiah wore a crazy sweater...

The men did the tree dance and spun trees around for us womenfolk to choose:

And Tatum was appropriately dressed like an elf...

And when we got home we dressed up up like a flapper...

We're loco.  Understood.

In other big news...

We're thinking about buying a house.

Like, a house house.  With a door and windows and a fireplace and yard and garage.

Which for people who lived in a basement for a year and now live with parents is a BIG DEAL.

We never would have been able to afford a home like this in San Diego or Seattle...even if we did both work.  That's the crazy thing.  Here, on Matt's salary alone, we're looking at a 1600 sq ft, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom  HOME.

So we've spent the past few weeks crunching numbers and looking at houses and gathering paperwork to be pre-qualified and its been exciting and scary all at the same time.

Could we make it? Should we wait? If we wait, should we stay with my parents or rent a tiny place for the time being? A lot is up in the air at the moment but its such a different feeling of  'I don't know what's going to happen' as compared to a year ago.

That, in addition to the usual Christmas bustle and date nights and helping out at the church and wrapping packages and doing laundry and changing diapers and the occasional bit of sleep thrown in has kept me pretty busy for the past couple of weeks!

So if you think of it, say a little prayer for wisdom for us as we're trying to figure out where the Lord wants us to be right now and a month from now.

Oh, and Tatum is rolling over, almost sitting up, reaching for everything and anything, and refusing to take naps or go to sleep EVER.  I didn't know it was physically possible for a child to be awake as much as she is! Any mommies out there...do you think I should start giving her a bit of rice cereal at night to help her sleep based on her weight rather than age? We were planning to wait until 6 months before starting solids, but Mama needs to sleep longer than 2 hours without getting up to flip her back on her back or put the binkie in or nurse!

'Till next time, stay jolly my friends!

Tatum's Seventeenth Week

This might just be my favorite picture to date of Tatum. Those big, blue, inquisitive eyes, soft kissable cheeks, and that perfectly pink mouth with the sun highlighting the craziness of her hair which I am hopelessly in love with.

And then I get to look at her every day, and see her smile coyly at me and bat her eyes and I wish I could just capture every single second of us playing and talking and giggling and nursing and scooting and razzberrying and snuggling. 

She's now a vibrant, VOCAL 4-month-old.

Here's 17 Weeks...which was nearly a week ago, I realize, but better late than never!

We're off to a date at a sushi bar! Sayonara!

Travel, Tatum, Turkey and Timeless Love

There's a lot to cram into this post so we're going bullet-point-style!

• 16 Weeks last Tuesday!

• She found her feet that day, too!

• And Miss Tatum went on her first airplane trip last Monday

• 12 hours of travel was a challenge but she was a champ and slept through a lot of it
• On Wednesday we went to Yosemite--one of my favorite places on earth

• And today is Thanksgiving! 
• It is also Matt and my's 4th Anniversary!

• I still love him!
• And its time to eat! Happy Thanksgiving!

Tatum's 15th Week

Here's my happy 15-week-old!  I'm going to have to buy a bigger onesie for next week--this 6-9 months is pulling at the neck and she's in a disposable diaper! (the cloth diapers take more room...she gets a cute bubble butt!)

In Tatum's world, the big news is she rolled over for the first time! From back to tummy!  Here is a pic of her right after:

Yes that's a bare bottom...we were doing diaper-free time on the mat...

And here's a quick video of her in the morning...she usually wakes up in such a happy mood!

100 Days of Tatum

I just realized that as of today we've had our Tatum for 100 days! My drooling, giggling, chomping, squealing, jabbering, tooting, reaching, snuggling Tater Tot feels like she's been with us forever.

Tempus Fugit!

Day 1

Day 10

Day 21

Day 30

Day 51

Day 70

Day 90

Yesterday while changing her I gave her Jack the Bunny to keep her entertained and she was in love with him.  For a little size comparison, here's Tatum at 3 days old:

And here she is at 99 days old!

A very happy un-birthday to you Tatum!

Elimination Communication--Is This Wacko?

14 Weeks!!

 She is now 15.6 pounds and 25.6 inches long! That's 94th percentile in her weight and 98th percentile in her height!


I realize I forgot Week 13!  All the sudden I looked at the calendar and it was Thursday! Where does the time go?


We sat in the BebePod (traded the Bumbo for this one...this one has a toy too--big plus!):

We took baths with our rubber ducky. I call this: Tatum's Interrogation 

TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW!


And Tatum is learning to use the potty.  Yes, she's still only 3 months old.

While pregnant I spent hours on my registry.  We didn't have a nursery, or really much space for a baby while I was pregnant, so I think researching baby products was my form of nesting.

While looking in the potty training items on Amazon, I came across a book called The Diaper-Free Baby: The Natural Toilet Training Alternative.   Curious, I clicked on it and read a few pages on Amazon's preview. 

The concept is that just like a mother knowing when her baby is hungry or tired and can pick up on those signals, babies give signals when they are about to go to the bathroom.  Elimination Communication, or EC, is just learning to read those signals and respond.  Babies (the author argues) are born not wanting to sit in their waste.  In a sense, diapers train them to be okay with that over time.

I had heard of this years back (when I was in HS)--moms in India for whom disposable diapers are often an impossible luxury would squat over a toilet holding their baby and whisper in their ear.  I didn't know what they whispered, but the concept stuck with me.

I started reading the book when Tatum was about 4 weeks old, then we got the news we were moving to Oklahoma so I put it on the back burner.  But now we're here and a bit settled, I've spent the past week trying it out.

While Amazon describes it as "progressive," I (and the author of this and other books) would argue that its really third-world old-fashioned. Anyone who's been to a village in Africa or India or China will notice that two and three-year-olds don't run around with diapers on. In China you'll see toddlers with everything hanging out of split crotch pants so they can potty easier.

The book even says, "One study states that 50% of the world's children are potty trained by age one."

So this past week I've started to observe when Tatum goes and what she does right before that.  I've let her play on her activity mat on a waterproof mat with her diaper off for an hour or so, or held her loosely cradled in a diaper while nursing, and given her opportunities to go over the toilet while cueing her with a pssss sound.

The very first day she peed in the toilet, and every day since she's gone at least once when I cued her (usually after taking her diaper off).  We got her Baby Bjorn Little Potty on Saturday and I've been working on getting her used to that since then.  Saturday she was fussy and NOT happy to be on it.  But yesterday she was fine sitting for a few minutes (with me holding her), and went twice in her potty!

I'm definitely not saying I've got this down or this is the best way anything like that!  I haven't caught a poo yet, and yes I've been peed on.  Its just the first week of learning her signals and responding to them.  I'm not trying to force her to be potty trained...in fact, the whole EC idea is supposed to be very casual.  You can do it one day and not the next.  You can do it for an hour a day. You don't beat yourself up if you give her a chance to potty and five minutes after you put the diaper on she poops.

And so I'm trying it out while we're home alone during the day.  What do I have to lose, besides a few more things to toss in the laundry (which moms do constantly anyway)? And there are a lot of benefits:

Parents learn to better communicate with baby
It reduces irritation of her skin and risk of diaper rash
It saves money in disposable diapers and wipes
Reduces chances of a power struggle to potty train at 2 or 3

If you want a really long list, here are 75 Benefits of Elimination Communication.


Have you ever heard of EC?
What do you think of it?


I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Here are a few more resources if you're interested...

What is elimination communication?

Learning the Gentle Art of Infant Toilet Training

Chinese Toilet Training

Infant Potty Basics: With or Without Diapers . . . the Natural Way by Laurie Boucke

Gone Bananas

Here's the cutest little banana you've ever seen:

And the cutest chocolate-banana, too:

Oh, and Matt went to a costume party last Friday as a rocker, and I went as a 3 year old.  I guess combined you could have called us Kid Rock..

All for now! Happy November!

Pumpkin Patch!

Tatum had her first trip to the pumpkin patch! And we finally got a few more decent family pictures, since the only one of the three of us (other than sitting on the couch covered in spit up) was from when she was 4 days old!

Tatum was being a bit shy at first...she had just been woken up and taken from a warm car seat to a chilly fall evening.

That orange hat was the hat she came home from the birth center in--it hardly fits her now!

This pumpkin patch was out in Arcadia and was so darn cute! 

 There wasn't an actual pumpkin "patch," like the one we went to last year, but there was still a lot to see! 

And this last picture reminds me of a picture from last year...

Guess I just swapped a pumpkin for a baby! 

And remind me to never cut my hair so short again.

Tatum got to meet a few animals, but she wasn't that interested.

Matt got to be a kid as well...

On a tractor with her Poppie...and this had my dad singing "Take you for a ride on my big green tractor" the rest of the evening...

I just really like this picture.

They had a corn maze, but as it was getting dark and we really didn't want to spend forever in it, we only went partway in...

This tunnel was awesome...live gourds growing all over it!

Tatum did not want to ride the pony. And can we all just note how chic my daughter is in her skinny jeans and boots? Freaking adorable.

And this is OKRA.  I grew up eating it, but had never seen it still on the plant! I didn't know they grew this tall! (For you Californians, okra is a vegetable.  I grew up eating it fried in leftover batter from cornbread along with red beans...still one of my favorite meals.)

I love how cute and red her nose and cheeks got! (don't worry, you moms, she had plenty of layers on plus a thick blanket!)

And how cute is this? They had a Cinderella carriage! I had to get a shot with my Prince!

All in all, loverly time at the pumpkin patch and we picked out three small pumpkins on the way out...but Tatum was passed out by that time so you'll have to stay tuned for pumpkin carving!