2016 Goal Update

If anyone's been following my blog for a length of time, you'll know that every year I participate in the One Little Word challenge. It's easy. Step 1: Pick a word that describes how you want your year to be. Step 2: Make it happen.

Last year my word was Embrace (post here), i.e., embrace the changes. I just re-read last year's post myself, so here's a couple of my thoughts on how well I "made it happen."

Embrace Change: As far as major life changes, I didn't actually have any this year. I remember last year I was worried I would be put into a new position at my school, but fortunately for me I ended up going right back to my 8th grade math spot. So as it turns out, I didn't quite have to embrace too much change in that area.

Embrace the "Baby Year": I think I've been doing a good job at this. I'm kind of a big ol' sap already, so those nights where I just want to put Lincoln in his bed at 6:30pm on the dot and close the door behind me and not have to deal anymore, I've been able to remind myself pretty easily that these nights won't last forever. I knew last January that my six-week-old was going to turn into a toddler by the time the year was up, and I can honestly say I've (mostly) cherished the moments. I've snuggled my baby well past the time he's fallen asleep in my arms. I've snuck into his room to watch him sleep countless nights. I've kept myself from getting (too) discouraged as he's refused to sleep or has his occasional meltdowns. The baby year went by fast. They say it does, but you don't realize it until you're at the end of another year.

See? This guy's practically ready for college now, for crying out loud!

Embrace Relationships: This one. I did not do well with. At all. I'd like to blame it on time and other life issues taking priority, but I know I've had plenty of time to work on this, time that's gone to other things like reading cloth diaper forums and catching up on NCIS LA. I'm continuing to work on this in the coming year.

Embrace Fitness: So I thought I'd failed on this one, but then I really stopped to think about it, and I'm going to give myself a C+ on this one. In the spring I signed up for Stroller Strides when it was offered by my school. Over the summer I continued with the weekly Stroller Strides course at a local park and we all joined the Y. Lincoln had a blast at baby swim classes and the child watch class, while I did dance and yoga/pilates. In the fall, we did Stroller Strides again at the school. This is way more than I've done in years, but still less than I should be doing, so C+.

Embrace Food: Oh, man, this one was tough. I'm just going to go ahead and say we all failed on this one. Yes, there were definitely weeks when I took time to plan out our meals, bought groceries according to plan, and actually stuck to the plan... but there were a lot of times when I let the busyness of work take over instead.

Embrace (My) Creativity: I was fortunate enough to have quite a bit of extra time in the beginning of the year. I was on maternity leave and in a position that did not require a ton of my home time, which led to creative time in the evenings after Lincoln went down. (Well, on the nights that I didn't go down at the same time... which sadly happened quite a lot.) I also had a really great opportunity to be on a creative team for my favorite scrapbook designer, Liz Tamanaha. I even almost finished Lincoln's baby book this year, which, come on, is pretty huge.

Embrace Frugality: Ah, my last minute throw-on. I'll go ahead and give myself a B- on this one. While the couponing didn't last too long (hello, that stuff takes a lot of time), using the Ibotta app to reverse coupon has been great. I've also been paying attention to the coupons that come out with receipts at the grocery stores these days. I almost always get Plum coupons and coupons for our favorite bread. Still working on convincing Chris to buy only what we plan to use in the following week (his method is to just buy all the things so there's always something at home to eat), but I think we've taken great strides in using up what we buy. We used to throw out so much that had gone bad before we used it, it was awful.

So that was my year. Not the best as far as goals go, but not at all the worst! T-Minus two days for the new year to start, and I'm excited to get going with my new word and ideas for the year.

As you can see, this little guy's also excited for the year to come. Another year of fun, learning, and growing- this time toddler style!

Christmas

We'll, we're on our way back home from another fabulous Christmas in Yucaipa. It was cold enough there that it actually FELT like Christmas. It even almost snowed! 

As usual, we did not get a Christmas photo of our little family. Sigh. People think that photographers have lots of pictures of themselves; really, we have lots of pictures of our babies, some pictures of our husbands while they're with our babies, and occasionally a picture of ourselves. (But that only happens if we want to spend time setting up the timer function or convince our husbands to leave their desks to take a picture. Ain't nobody got time for that.)

But I digress.

Christmas!

Notable events this year:

Chris' dad is recovering from knee surgery he had literally a week ago. Lincoln helped by snuggling and reading books on Grandpa's lap.

Lincoln discovered the magical pantry at Grandma and Grandpa's house. It's full of Lincoln sized items like sprinkles containers and parsley jars. Perfect for a little boy to rearrange and move to nearby benches.

Lincoln also discovered that Gracie is now bigger than him and even more rambunctious than him. He kept a cautious eye on Gracie the whole time.

Lincoln discovered the big toy that makes music, aka, the piano.

He now LOVES the piano.

We of course opened gifts. Lincoln's much better at it than he was at his birthday, especially with the gift bags. But his favorite things to play with Christmas day were not his many new toys, but a box of cotton balls and Grandpa's pick-up stick.

Favorite gifts all around include a new flask (Chris, from "Lincoln"), Lularoe leggings (Jordan, from Sarah), and a few Duplo Lego sets (Lincoln, from Justin and grandparents).

Oh, and of course, this Rudolph from Sarah, the first gift Lincoln opened.

Lincoln got his first lollipop on Christmas day, which he seriously loved. No, really, he loved it very seriously. You wouldn't think he was enjoying it, until the tantrum he threw when I took the last little bit away from him.

AND for another first at Grandma and Grandpa's house (well, kind of), Lincoln executed his first bowl-to-mouth spoon maneuver with Christmas night lasagna. The entire table clapped every time he did it, and you know that kid lives for the praise. He also likes to praise himself along with everyone else. 

So Christmas this year was mostly centered around Lincoln. As is life these days. But that's okay, because having a toddler wading through life for the first time is pretty entertaining, and honestly makes life a lot more fun. You never realize how special things are until you experience them with the fresh eyes of a one-year-old. And though he didn't really "get" Christmas this year, it sure was fun watching him walk around with Grandpa's pick-up stick and reorganize Grandma's herbs for the tenth time. Here's to next year's Christmas with a two-year-old!

Christmas Day

As usual, Christmas has been a long, slow day of relaxing, eating, and opening presents at Chris' parent's house. The usual suspects are here: mom and dad, Chris and me, Sarah and Justin, Grandpa Ed. This year we added a one-year-old and a puppy to the mix, which made for a bit more of an interesting time. For the first year, we had ornaments being pulled off the tree, toys being eaten, popcorn being spilled, tantrums being thrown, naps and walks needing to fall into the festivities somewhere, etc. It's been an exhausting and beautiful day, summed up by the picture below.  

Merry Christmas, everyone!

November

Oh, my goodness, we are at November already.

So much for my commitment to blog more frequently. My last post was August 24th!

So here's just a quick life update while Lincoln naps and I finish my lunch, before diving in to mapping out my Unit 3 that we'll be starting on Monday.

This week was fall break for school. Over the weekend, Lincoln spent two nights with grandma and grandpa Trementozzi while Chris and I had a double header wedding weekend. It was super weird not having him at home with us! But we definitely had a nice sleep in on Monday!

Monday was Lincoln's first Halloween, and he was Anakin Skywalker (found the outfit on Amazon). We really weren't expecting much from him when we showed up to church for trunk or treat, but that kid took to collecting candy like it was nothing new. He loved getting to pick a candy from each bucket, then drop it in his bag that daddy was holding. Eventually, he realized he wanted to keep hold of the ones he was collecting, so he was double fisting candy, dropping previous candy into new buckets and collecting more. Chris and I just tried to make sure the good stuff made it into the bag. :D  We went house to house trick or treating in a friend's neighborhood after that, and ended up at the house of one of the nurse volunteers from Grossmont's breastfeeding support class! So random!

Tuesday Lincoln and I went around looking for items for his camping themed birthday party. He pooped out on my early, though, so we came back home for his nap, and I went out on my own to finish up and get my hair cut. Got some more brown in this time and I'm loving it!

Wednesday was Disneyland day! This really deserves its own post, but the highlights are: 1) Lincoln's first ride was the Haunted Mansion, and he waved at all the characters, 2) He actually took a nap in his stroller (first time EVER), 3) He met Tigger and Rabbit and got an awesome picture with them, and 4) He was the best little baby all day! No fussiness at all, and he stayed up way past his bedtime. He's such a good little buddy to bring along anywhere.

Thursday Lincoln and I got out of the house early to give Chris some time to work. We went to the breastfeeding support class and saw our trick or treating nurse, stopped by his pediatrician to confirm his terrible cough is only from teething (poor guy's going to get a whole bunch all at once soon!), hit up Party City and found some more camping party supplies, and then came home for naps again.

And today's Friday! We just finished up a Walmart shopping trip, where we surprisingly found the BEST fabric to make table runners for his party. We had planned to get some more errands done, but Lincoln started nodding off in the carseat, so back home we came. Hoping he gives me a couple of hours to get some work done for school. :D

Life right now.

Well, school's back in full swing again! This is my first year teaching my regular math class while simultaneously being a mama, and I fully expect this year to be ridiculous. Gone are the days of coming home exhausted and just falling into bed for a late afternoon nap. Now the days are go, go, go from 6am until Lincoln goes to bed around 7pm... and then it's finally time for me to get to do all the fun stuff I couldn't do while he was awake, like the dishes, or prep for the next day.

Despite all this craziness, life is feeling pretty good right now. My students are pretty awesome. They're the same kids I had last year when I was teaching 7th grade study hall classes and tutoring, so it's fun for me to start the year already knowing them all. And it's definitely helpful already knowing who I need to keep an extra eye on during class. I know which kids I need to frequently visit to make sure they're keeping on task, and I know who can probably answer my questions before I even ask them. It's going to be a fun year for sure.

Lincoln's been having a ball the last couple weeks. Along with attending "Daddy Daycare," he visits our friend Kristin a lot, who takes him to the Y with her kids, so he still gets to see his friends at the infant child watch there. Two days a week he goes to his daycare house, run by a parent of twins in my class. He goes along with our P.E. teacher's daughter and occasionally other staff kids, and getting to hang out with other kiddos in the 2-4 range is so much fun for him. Our little guy is super social and just loves being around anybody.

To add to the craziness this year, Chris and I are considering buying our next house! Because, you know, that sounds like a great idea in what will probably be my most challenging teaching year yet. (Except for the first year. Oh man, that first year....) No idea if we're actually going to go through with it, but we've been dreaming and scheming up ways to try to get into a 4 bedroom. I suppose that's one way to really make this year memorable!

Lincoln at 8 Months

Slowly but surely... ;)

At 8 months, Lincoln...
- weighs 14 pounds, 10 ounces
- pulls himself up on things easily
- has started searching all the drawers and shelves in the house for interesting things
- plays independently for long periods of time
- lights up when he spots mama
- got sick for the first time (Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease is no joke!)
- ate dirt for the first time
- loves pulling his books off the shelf
- hates to be on his back for diaper changes

He is a ridiculously happy baby. We are so blessed to have such an easy going guy. Hoping that part of his personality sticks for the long run! :D

Baby PSA: Plagiocephaly

Our little monkey's rocking some new head gear these days. Something they don't mention at the hospital when they let you take your lovely newborn home? Watching out for signs of a flat head, aka plagiocephaly. In Lincoln's case, if we had just been watching for the signs, we probably would've been able to mitigate the problem from the get-go and L wouldn't have to wear the helmet. But we didn't know, and so he does, and here we are, making lemonade out of lemons... or protocol droids out of cranial helmets. And I've made it my mission to make sure people know to be looking out for plagiocephaly (and in L's case, the torticollis which caused it).

At Lincoln's two month appointment, his pediatrician noticed he was having a hard time looking to the left (the torticollis, or tight neck), and that he was developing a flat spot on the right side of his head. This was due to him always sleeping with his head tilted to the right, something we realized after that appointment. The doc set us up with an appointment for baby physical therapy.

Lincoln loved his PT appointments. He got to play on a giant mat and flirt with this therapist while she helped him see that he could turn his head to the left if he wanted. She told us that his neck was apparently tight since birth, possibly due to being pulled out at a weird angle, so he had just learned to always look right rather than deal with pushing past the tightness on the left. But the good thing was that his neck could twist that way easily. We just had to get him doing it more often to make that tightness go away for good.

For a few months we had him sleep with "rice socks" we were instructed to make: tube socks full (and I mean full) of rice. When Lincoln slept, we swaddled him tight, laid him between the socks, and tilted his body to the left so he didn't have the chance to keep sleeping on his flat spot. The hope was that since he was still so young it would work itself out. But Lincoln became too much of a mover at night, and soon he was busting out of the swaddle and out from between the socks, so the PT began talking helmet with us around four and a half months. At least the tightness in his neck was gone from his physical therapy!

Lincoln didn't get to start his helmet until he was about six and a half months old. (We had to do a little runaround with our insurance for quite awhile unfortunately.) Because of that, he has to wear his helmet a bit longer than was originally forecast. We were told at his last appointment that he probably has about six weeks left, so that's exciting! That helmet may look cute, especially once it's decorated, but it has a bunch of drawbacks. For one, that thing HURTS! Lincoln is a big mover and squirmer, and both Chris and I have been smacked in the face with the front of that helmet. It also makes cuddling really hard since we can't feel his sweet little head against us. And second, it makes his head stink! Poor guy has had it all summer, and he wakes up in the morning with a sweaty, stinky head. He also has begun to think he's indestructible, because that helmet absorbs the impact from any fall–he's in for a rude awakening when that thing's not on 23/7.

So here's the PSA: take note of how your baby sleeps and if they can turn their head both ways! Chris and I had no idea to be looking for something like that, but we feel pretty confident that if we had noticed the neck tightness, and made sure that we placed him to sleep making sure he was alternating facing left and right, that Lincoln would not have developed that flat spot. When Baby T. #2 comes along, you can bet we'll be super vigilant watching for the first sign.