Wednesday, January 19, 2011

installment 1 -- a prologue to my memoir (read my post below first)


Okay, now before you start reading...let me say a few things. This is the prologue I've written for my memoir I'm working on (that I mentioned in my New Year's post). It is, I think, overly dramatic (and maybe taking myself too seriously). But sometimes that's how I roll, so I don't know what to do about that. I was feeling overly dramatic when I wrote it. Keep in mind this has not gone through much revising (and I don't really know if it will end up working as part of the whole -- since the whole has not been written yet). The second part of the prologue, I hope, does not sound controversial to any of you. I was not trying to be.

I'm also not sure if I will write the past in present tense or not -- I haven't so far.

I've only written about one chapter of the memoir -- and it's completely out of chronological order, so I'm not sure when or how I'll get to the beginning of the story. I just wrote what I felt like writing at the time. So, with Larson's suggestion, I am posting this on here, but I don't know if/when I'll be posting more. And if I do, it likely won't be in order of how it would actually appear in the book.

So...with that -- here's what I have so far. You'll have to click on the images of the pages -- you should be able to click on it again to enlarge it to a comfortable reading size. (Okay, this is kind of scary putting this out there...)


Saturday, January 15, 2011

For comparison...

Kate at six months...

I was browsing through old photos of Kate the other day, and I was shocked when I came across this one. She looks like she should be on a starving kids infomercial! I guess she's never had much on her bones. Geez!

Christian at six months...

Christian on the other hand...I realize the two do not look very much alike in these pics, but I have seen some baby pics of Kate where she looks a lot like Christian. I'll find some -- mostly for grandparents that are interested. :) They do look quite different really, but there are times when you can definitely tell they are siblings.

I found an old video of Kate "crawling" -- it is just like watching Christian. It's the exact same crawling style.

Friday, January 7, 2011

6 months and counting...


Well, apparently I've been a little lazy on the picture taking front for little Christian this month. So here are a couple I took this morning. I was in the kitchen when I heard Kate yelling, "Mom! Christian's eating your desk!" I didn't get him gnawing away on the leg of the desk, but I got his cute "bitter beer" face at least (which he has on most of the time) -- in the second one.

Took Christian to the doctor today for his 6 month check up finally...he's 19.5 lbs (75th percentile) and 27.75 inches long (also 75th percentile), and of course 95th percentile for head. And he has eczema -- poor kid.

He's not sitting up yet, but he's close. He can sit for a second on his own before tipping over. He doesn't quite crawl yet, but he gets around. It's kind of hard to explain, so I took a video of it (also taken today...). It reminds me of an injured person clawing their way to the phone ... or something.



Christian seems to have been teething for the last two months (still nothing to show, though) -- drooling like crazy and trying to eat everything. It's really quite humorous watching him straining for everything at all times. If...only...I...could...reach...that...and...put...it...in....mouth... I'll be playing Go Fish with Kate, and he will try so hard to grab my hand and jab the cards in his mouth. The amount of saliva this kid produces generally dissolves the cards within seconds.

I have to watch him like a hawk. The other day he started choking, and I ran in to find him with a magic wand half way down his throat. Man. Kate is a big help to me and is good at monitoring him and keeping wires and cords out of his mouth. Kate was not like this at all. She didn't get in to anything really. We never had to baby proof anything. Such is definitely not the case with Christian.

Christian loves to explore new places and look at things around him. It's sometimes a trick just to get him to look at you because he is so interested in everything going on around him.

Just this morning, I put him in his car seat (without buckling him yet) and ran outside to try to help push Andrew's car out of the snow. When I came back in, Christian was on the floor! He was happily playing with something. I was shocked. I asked Kate why Christian was out of his car seat and what happened. Kate just said, "He wanted to get out. He rolled out." Kate would never attempt to move him, so I know he did it on his own somehow -- and without hurting himself. Gees.

Christian loves baby food and is not picky like Kate was when it came to veggies. He gags on green beans, but will eat everything else. He even seems to like veggies more than the fruit ones.

Christian is not sleeping through the night now. He was there for a while, but for some reason (I think the teething) will wake often in the night lately. It is rough on me, but I'm sure it will get better soon...

My favorite time with Christian is when we're alone at night before bed time. Oftentimes (not all the time) he will sit there contentedly in my arms and just sit and stare at me while he coos and smiles sweetly up at me. He'll reach up sometimes and even touch my face gently. It's just about the sweetest thing I could think up for him to do. After he does that for a while, then he just drifts off into a peaceful sleep. Oh man -- melts my heart!

He is too cute -- we are all crazy about him!!