Baby No. 2

Last week I went in to Curt's department at the hospital one night to sneak in an ultrasound. My doctor hasn't mentioned setting up another one, and I have been curious to know how big the baby is right now and to see it again now that I'm closer to the due date (Dec. 16). It turns out that baby was 5 lbs, 8 ozs last week, so hopefully it won't gain over 3 more pounds in the next six weeks before it's born! The first photo is the more traditional 2-D version, and it shows Baby's profile. The second is the newer 3-D ultrasound, which gives an amazing amount of detail and makes babies look so much more realistic. I think this baby looks like it's brother!

Trick-or-Treat!

All set, Mom!

For Jackson's second Halloween, he went trick-or-treating for the first time! Last year I figured he was too young, so we stayed home and waited to pass out candy. Only no one ever came to our house. So it was pretty un-eventful. This year, though, I had tossed around the idea of taking him to a church in town for their Halloween event, but I wasn't sure if there would be enough to keep a toddler entertained, or if it was mostly for older kids, so instead, I put him in my cousin Olivia's old ladybug costume, grabbed the pumpkin bag from Auntie Brea, and decided to go visit some neighbors.

It was cute to hear him say "pumpkin," a new word for him. Isn't the bag adorable?!

Jackson was too shy to actually say "pumpkin," "trick-or-treat" or "thank you" to the people, but he kept repeating the words to me in the car as we made our way. He mostly just acted shy in front of the neighbors and kept looking at me like, "What's going on?" It was funny to watch him figure out this whole trick-or-treating thing as we made our way around the neighborhood. The first bag of candy he got, he wanted me to open so he could eat it then and there. He didn't understand that he should put it inside the pumpkin and wait until later to consume it. With some distraction from their dog, I was able to sneak it into the pumpkin without him realizing it wasn't in his hands. By about the fourth house, he knew that it was okay for him to take the candy they offered without looking to me for help, and he had figured out that it was meant to go into the pumpkin. He even tried grabbing five or six pieces from the last bowl he saw! I think he wanted to stay at their house - they had an indoor dog who loved to fetch the ball for him, so he just kept throwing it and throwing it.

Halloween this year was kind of a last-minute, minimally-planned thing (I hadn't even decided he'd be a ladybug; I just never bought him anything to wear), but by the time we had visited about six neighbors' houses, I could tell he was getting sleepy and had probably had enough. We got home, told Daddy about our adventures, and shared some candy. Here's to collecting even more next year! :)

Mmm, chocolate! I think I like this trick-or-treating business!

My Sister's Wedding

Although their day didn't go according to plan, Brea and Andrew had the most beautiful wedding on Friday, September 25th, 2009. The rain in the Hudson area restricted the ceremony to Kilkarney Hills Golf Club, where the reception was held, but it was already set up and decorated so beautifully that it actually worked quite well; there was to be no sound system at Prospect Park in Hudson, where we had rehearsed the night before, but that was all set at the golf club, so in that sense it was probably better. Guests had been forewarned that there might be a change in location, and it seemed that everyone figured it out and made it on time.

They were married by a friend of theirs from UW-River Falls, a woman so spirited and fun that she was able to make the ceremony very personal, funny, and extremely touching, which fit the couple extraordinarily well. The girls wore plum taffeta tea-length dresses and carried multi-colored calla lily bouquets; the men looked classy in black tuxes. Curt and I were both honored to be part of Brea & Andrew's big day, and we had lots of laughs with family and friends - a really great time. Congratulations, Mr. & Mrs. Jennings, and may there be many happy years to come! We love you!

(To see some of their wonderful professional photos, visit www.dansphotography.zenfolio.com, click on "Weddings," click on "Andrew & Brea," and enter password jennings.)

Someday...

My last post was August?! Oh my goodness. I have no time for this thing anymore, and it's not exactly the most user-friendly blog when a person has multiple photos to upload. I will not yet say I'm quitting blogging, as I still think to myself, "I should really post an update and get some pictures up," but see title... sorry to disappoint my few regular readers.

The Day Came

I knew it was only a matter of time before I would have to re-live my worst teenage babysitting moment: feces in the tub. Last night while I ate a late dinner after a long day at work, Curt decided to be a multi-tasker by doing the dishes while he was supposed to be giving Jackson a bath. He figured that with Jackson babbling and the door being open, we'd hear him the whole time and he'd be fine. I didn't love the idea, but we made sure to check on him a few times. (Not our smartest parenting move overall, I know, but don't worry, Grandparents and concerned mothers: we don't make this a regular habit at all.) When Curt finished up the dishes, he went to get Jackson out of the tub. I knew it must be bad when I heard Curt utter a phrase he never, ever uses: "Oh, my God." Instantly I thought, Poo. Oh, great. I went into the bathroom to see Jackson sitting amongst his own slightly liquified turds, looking up at us with an expression that seemed to say, "What? It's not so bad."

You can imagine the smell after the few moments had passed during which we didn't realize he had pooped and he had a chance to play in it. I went to the kitchen and made a quick decision about which spoon I could live without - once it touched poo, it was not going anywhere near the eating tools ever again. I brought a tiny wooden spoon and a Ziploc bag back to Curt in the bathroom, which he ridiculed as inadequate for making the task at hand go quickly. True? Yes, but I was not about to waste a perfectly good large wooden spoon! So I got our son out of the tub and held his smelly little body while Daddy scooped poop, bless his heart. We switched, and I cleaned the tub for the second time in two days to try to obliterate the smell, all the while unable to stop myself from wondering whether Jackson had managed to - gulp - get any into his mouth. He was a calm, cuddly onlooker all the while, and then he had so much fun in the poop-free second bath that he didn't want to get out. I'm glad he wasn't frightened by our reactions or the unusual weirdness of having back-to-back baths after seeing me wash the tub.

Maybe this was the best way for the inevitable tub poop incident to go down. Had I been in there to see turds beginning to float in the tub, I probably would have panicked, yanked him out, and ran into his room, leaving a turd trail in our wake. At least this way the mess was contained. However, it would have been a helluva lot easier and less fear-inducing (I worried that at least one of us would be very sick today) to pick up dry turds with toilet paper! Let's just hope this was an isolated incident so I am never forced to make that decision, eh?

My First Harvest

I am so proud of the fact that, although it doesn't look pretty, my first-ever garden has produced something edible that I did not kill! In terms of my gardening abilities, it doesn't take much to thrill me.

The North Shore

The week after the Beaudoin reunion, we headed up to Two Harbors to join the Anderson ladies for my aunt Pam's fiftieth birthday celebration. Of course I forgot my camera wherever we went, so there aren't many pictures to share. Twelve of us (plus Jackson) spent two nights in a lodge at Superior Shores resort. Jackson was not a fan of the very long drive, but he did better both ways in the car than I expected him to. As I was unpacking, I realized I had forgotten his portable crib and decided for some reason not to rent one from the resort. Horrible mistake on my part. The only time he went down easily for bed was on night one, and the remainder of naptimes/bedtimes were a struggle because I couldn't just put him in his crib and walk away as we normally do (which he usually handles well).

We enjoyed a variety of yummy pizzas from town the first night and ate at the lodge the second night, which also had some good food. We lucked out and had good weather for the most part, so we were able to spend time walking around the resort and checking out Lake Superior, using the outdoor pool (though it was chilly that day), and driving up to Gooseberry Falls for some hiking. That was probably Jackson's least favorite activity of all. He hadn't had a morning nap since he's in the awkward stage of slowly outgrowing them - sometimes he takes one, sometimes not - so he fell asleep in the car on the way there. I was hoping that wouldn't happen as I then had to wake him up and figured he'd be crabby. Boy, was I right! He could not make up his mind whether he wanted to ride in the stroller, walk, or be carried, so he decided to throw repeated fits instead. This caused a small group of us to cut the hike short and return to the visitor center with him, where he proceeded to throw Cheerios all over the place and lay on the ground, rolling around in fits over and over again, despite our best efforts to keep him hydrated, fed, and entertained. And they call it the terrible twos? How about the terrible 1.5s!!!

After hiking, we stopped for lunch at a restaurant called Rustic Inn that none of us had eaten at before but that had come highly recommended by relatives on the Beaudoin side. They claimed the food was delicious, the service was good, and the pies were even better than Betty's Pies! If you're not from MN, you should know that Betty's Pies is an iconic, home-style restaurant on the North Shore where every tourist goes for a good meal and some awesome pie. However, more and more locations have started sprouting up around the state, and the restaurant seems to be unable to maintain its originality and quality, so I was definitely not opposed to skipping Betty's to try something that was touted as even better.

Unfortunately, our experience differed greatly from that of my aunt & uncle. Naturally, Jackson had fallen asleep again on the way there and was not happy to be roused. Even though Grandma Paula took him outside to wait it out, bless her heart, he was not satisfied with reading books in the grass and eating Cheerios, but preferred to run around the parking lot and touch all the cars, and he did not want to hear that he couldn't do that because it was dangerous. We did the best we could with him and prayed to be seated quickly. It was packed in there despite the fact that we arrived a bit past lunchtime. We were told that the wait would be half an hour, so we said we didn't mind how they split our group so we could seat faster. We were split into only two groups and seated AN HOUR later. It was a miracle that Jackson outlasted the wait - or any of the rest of us, for that matter, including his pregnant mama and one of his tired, crabby, hungry great aunties. You know who you are. :) From the second I strapped him into the high chair he wanted out of it. To prove his point, Jackson thrashed around, grunted, and threw everything I handed him from the table to play with back onto the table or onto the floor. To my chagrin, this restaurant did not provide free bread before the meal. I should make that a prerequisite when dining out with my toddler.

Our table had a crabby waitress who gave slow, poor service throughout the meal, and the food and even the drinks came out of the kitchen slower than molasses!!! Of course Jackson refused to eat anything his mother gave him, but wanted to eat only what Auntie Brea and Grandma were having. Luckily for me, they are kind and understanding enough to share (that is, until the pie came. Right, Brea?) Their saving grace was that the food was absolutely delicious, and by the time we ordered and received our pie at a prehistoric pace, we were immensely satisfied with that as well. However, it's really hard to justify the nearly two and a half hours we spent at this restaurant by the time everything was said and done. Two and a half hours. No joke. If I ever go up there again, I will not even pull into that place unless there are fewer than 10 cars in the lot, no matter what time it is nor how hungry I am!!!

After that horrible lunch and a slow-coming naptime, I knew I didn't want to venture far for dinner, so eating at the lodge that night seemed like a great idea. I should have known that after the day we'd had, Jackson wasn't going to like it no matter where we went. It seemed that he was hell-bent on destroying my resolve all that day, and dinner didn't go much better. Take the lunchtime fiasco, add in some screaming and crying at the top of his lungs, and you've got our dinner experience. And they even had free bread this time!!! Of course he's not really aware of what he's doing when he acts like that: he's too young to purposely anger and embarrass me at the same time (that ability comes in about another year and lasts until they move out, from what I hear), but it's hard to forget that fact in the heat of the moment. After Grandma showing him the huge fish tank, me walking him around the upstairs and offering him bread without him calming down much, I couldn't take it anymore, so he and I left the group to go back to the lodge even after I'd ordered dinner.

I broke down the second we got into the car and cried pretty hard for the next fifteen minutes or so - a pretty major episode for me. It didn't help that we were locked out of the lodge when we got back. Then he was quiet. He looked at me in a confused way and made quiet noises to me as he hugged me, which I appreciated. I calmed myself down, dried my tears, and drove back down to get keys from someone. My dinner was all boxed up and sitting there, so I was able to take that back and have a quiet, peaceful meal all by myself while Jackson was content to just play on the floor silently, only coming over for a bite once in a while. I was glad they were taking there time down there - that time virtually to myself was just what I'd needed to try to de-stress from the situation, and reflecting on it led me to realize that my expectations of how much my little one could handle during this whole excursion were way off. However, when Brea and I stayed behind after the rest of the group had gone home, Jackson did much better. I tried not to put him in any situations that would stress him out, and he was much more like his regular, happy self, which was a huge relief for all three of us!

Hindsight being what it is, I now know that I should have just left my son at home, which would have made the time more enjoyable for both of us. He is too young to handle that much coming and going, and his regular schedule and routine were off. However, despite the difficulties, there were some good moments. Jackson is a ham who loves entertaining people once he warms up to them, and the ladies had some good laughs at his behavior, which he eats right up. He also got to spend some time playing and cuddling with his Great Grandma, for which I'm very grateful.