Springish

It's getting to that time of year where I am willing to drive again. The snow is almost never coming back until fall and the roads aren't in danger of freezing over.

And I'm getting excited to start getting some lovely, inexpensive produce again.

For some reason, when winter comes I'm not in the mood for fruit, let alone vegetables, so it's a real challenge to convince myself to eat healthy. I usually resort to dried fruit and the occasional salad.

But what I'm most excited about is the fresh berries. Sean loves blueberries and I love to give them to him. It's so exciting to see him love healthy foods that I could not fathom liking. For example: blueberries and cottage cheese. I have never liked either and both are his favorite foods.

This summer I'm hoping that he's old enough to have smoothies, because that's going to be on the menu! Along with blueberry pancakes. Because I'm vaguely starting to feel like myself again.

And then at the end of July the farmer's market starts up again. BOY HOWDY do I want some fresh-picked cantaloupe! The farmer dude warned me that I would never buy store cantaloupe again. I foolishly didn't believe him. But let me tell you now - he was right. His was the best cantaloupe I had ever eaten, imagined that I could eat, or thought about eating. Yeah. If i ever finds out where he lives, you can bet I'll be haunting his doorstep as soon as I know his cantaloupes are ready for eating.

I am so glad that spring is starting to settle in.

Nighttime smooch

Last night Brian and I went into Sean's room for our nightly look-in. Sean is ridiculously cute when he's sleeping, so of course I love to just stare at him for a little while and think about when he was littler.

So in this particular instance, he woke up a little bit. It wasn't a big deal because he didn't want to wake up and tried to ignore his crazy parents and go back to sleep. So we moved him back onto his pillow, tucked him in again, and Brian put his little stuffed animal dog up by his head in case he wanted to cuddle something. And then Sean puckered up his lips and kissed his doggie's nose.

Sometimes I think that kid is going to kill me with his adorable-ness.

Spring is coming?

We have been having some wonderful spring-like days until today. Now it's supposed to rain and snow and sleet until Monday. I just hope for snow because I love it when Sean goes to the window and points, yelling "'NO?!" And when we go outside because all he wants to do is get it on his little mittens and eat it. I better get him those snow overall things for next year - he's going to be a little wild snow man!

I can't wait until I can open up the windows all day and turn off all the heater stuff and let that sunshine in. And hopefully it will rain a lot like I think it will, because I like spring rains. Winter rains are lame - spring rains are beautiful.

This year I'm going to try (again) to grow a basil plant. I killed the last one, as well as the rosemary plant, which I hear is impossible - but it's not. And I'm hoping to grow tomatoes - Sean and I love them very much, even though we really shouldn't eat them (allergies). Too bad Brian doesn't like them, he's the only one that isn't allergic to them. :) I'm thinking about planting some carrots, too, but I probably won't. Maybe some lettuce or spinach or something. Do keep in mind that I'm using pots, so my options are limited.

I'm also hoping to get rid of the huge, ugly, weird berry producing tree in our back 'yard.' I think it would be good to do that right when the ground is less cold and right before the leaves start growing again. But who knows what will really happen. I just want it gone. Soon. Whoever planted that thing must have been out of their mind or drunk or something. While it produces much shade, all the shade goes to our neighbors. Pointless tree. Except for the whole 'oxygen' thing. Whatever.

And hopefully spring means that I will be perkier and in a better mood. My poor boys are probably wondering where the nice, normal me went to.

Whatever.

Today, as of 11:45 AM has been almost nearly completely unproductive. No shower, haven't swept the floor, Sean's in his crib so that he will hopefully nap soon, toys strewn about, dishes undone, bed unmade (though this is normal) and I have little hope of completing much of that list today. I'll bet you're picturing a huge mess, right? Well, never fear, there are only 3 of us contributing to the clutter, so it's not as bad as you are imagining. I just wanted you to know that I am not going to do anything about it today. So just get over it.

My chore list tells me it's time to dust a room, sweep the floor, clean the downstairs bathroom and do a load of laundry. Well, guess what chore list: You can just build a bridge and get over it.

My visiting teachers came over yesterday. They are the best. If they get switched away I'm staging a revolt. And they totally got over the fact that my kitchen was a mess when they got here. Seriously.

But the unfortunate thing is that I cannot get over it myself. I think Sean and I will go for a long walk today so I don't have to think about it for a while.

Just things, since I've been lazy.

I guess since it's been a while I'll give some kind of update to you guys.

Our new furnace has been running well. I don't know if it's actually saving us money. This winter has been pretty mild. The electricity is a little up, but I think I've been using the lights more than I did last year. I'll have to work on that.

My water intake is up. That has helped with my energy levels.

Sean is talking nonstop. This is good news for conversation with him, but bad news for naps. He has decided to talk to himself instead of sleeping.

We are still using cloth diapers and we still like them. I think most people don't use them because they don't realize how easy they are nowadays.

I have some lovely new curtains that are striped in my living room. Thank you Target! You're the best! And when we are selling this place someday, all of the current curtains are being replaced by cheap-o sheers because I'm keeping the cute ones for myself. If I still love them. I'd take some of the rods, too, but that's just getting excessive.

Brian found out that Greek food is amazing. He's also been working like a crazy man, but that's mostly a good thing.

Sean has recently learned how to throw overhand. This has resulted in toys going where no toy has gone before, inability to keep the living room picked up, and fatherly pride.

I might have a nerve dying in my tooth. I'm sad about this. I have never had work done on this tooth before, nor have I bumped it or whacked it on something. Basically my dentist has no idea what's going on with it and we're all hoping it's just being irritated by something and that it will go away as suddenly as it came. Bad news: I couldn't feel that ice thing he pressed on top of it. Good news: I could feel the cold air on the side of it. Bad news: dead nerves = root canal. Good news: no infection or reasonable excuse to go drilling into it. I am to wait one week, if it gets worse, two to three if it doesn't get worse. I swear my teeth are just being ridiculous to drive me crazy. I thought that's why I had Sean, so he could drive me crazy. Apparently not. Because my teeth are more confusing than he has ever been.

For Valentine's we had a low-key dealio. My mom had some sweet coupon things and sent us a big fat chocolate=covered cheesecake and so we celebrated every night for a week with a daily feast of cheesecake. After Sean went to bed, of course. Like we're going to share cheesecake with a 20 month old. Puh-leez.

Oh, and Sean loves snow. On the rare occasion we've had it, we hear "noh? noh?" all the day long until somebody takes him out to play in it. And he loves his snow boots. He can put them on by himself and clomps around in them saying "oots!" and "noh?" and "go" and "cackit" (jacket) until I decide to let him go outside. Again. I don't think he's going to like the spring rains. I get this idea by the panic he demonstrates when snow falls on his face.

Big!

That's right! My little boy is big enough to sleep without both railings up! Toddler bed. Wow.

He grew up way too fast.

Three books

I am currently reading three books. And, shockingly, none of the three have anything in common! And, even more shockingly, I haven't found time to just sit down and read them. I don't know what it is about the last couple of weeks, but every time I sit down to read I find myself interrupted by something. A child, husband, brother, or pressing need to do laundry. This has never happened so much to me and I'm beginning to think that it's how the rest of my life is going to look like. These books aren't very frivilous because I made a resolution to read books that were not just for mindless entertainment.

Here are the books and my thoughts so far:

Common Sense Parenting : It's the one for toddlers. I picked it up since I now babysit a 2-year-old and it's been completely beyond me as to how I should help him understand correct behavior. So far the tips I've read have mostly worked. For the most part it's just reinforcing my behavior, helping me realize that I'm doing pretty good in most areas and need to work much harder in others. Like explaining myself simply. And taking myself and child out of the situation that is causing troubling behavior from both of us. :)

Blink: It's by Malcolm Gladwell. I read The Tipping Point in December and it was so fantastic that I wanted to keep going. Gladwell's writing is intriguing and personable. I saw him on Stephen Colbert or something and he himself is intriguing and personable. It was almost enough to get a subscription to The NewYorker Magazine just so I can read his articles.

Agent Bishop: An interesting true story/autobiography of a man who was an LDS bishop at the same time he was an FBI Agent. Now that's a lot of hard work. Unfortunately it's not a lot of action, so it's going a little slower than I was hoping it would. Fortunately, it's interesting and I still have hope that he'll talk about some awesome investigation.

With any luck I'll get through these in the next couple of weeks.