I need a break!

Hellooooo everyone!

Goodness gracious. It's been a long time, yes? 

It seems hard to come up with a blog post after so long especially when I've been so busy, but I feel like it's always good to give a few updates here and there, even if they're short ones.

Nolan is just growing and growing and it hardly seems possible to put all the big moments into a milestone, but here are some of my favorite things as of late:

• Giving him a balloon last month - what a cheap toy and the fun reactions were so worth it! I bought it because I do event planning for my job and I had to go to a party store to talk about a big event we've got coming up. As something fun, I figured I'd bring Nolan home a balloon. It really was an afterthought that Brian told me that earlier that day Nolan had said "Up" for the first time! 

• We went pumpkin picking the other day! I had no idea we'd have so much fun. We went on a whim knowing that we didn't have anything planned that day so it just made sense to go pick up a pumpkin. We did a TON while we were there including "swimming" in a corn pool (which is just a big space with literally tons of corn that you can play in - think a ball pit but with hard corn kernels)

Corn Pool - a lot of corn ended up in the diaper!

A fun tunnel!

Wind blowing in his face on the hay ride - despite appearances, he LOVED being on the hay ride!

We found our pumpkin! Yes, it's effing HUGE!

• I still love those little feet!!! Sorry, but I just feel like sharing this... 

• And finally, Nolan will eat just about any fruit you put in front of him! Jamie at daycare said that she gave them fruit pizzas (essentially a cookie with fruit on it) and he just ate the fruit off of it and leaving the cookie. HE IS NOT MY SON! (Soooo kidding, but seriously the kid looks nothing like me... if I didn't give birth to him you probably couldn't prove that he's mine LOL... at least Brian is confident)

Above everything else, it's been really fun buying clothes for Nolan. Getting winter stuff is kind of exciting! This year we'll have boots and mittens and coats and more! I'm trying to pull back and not buy more stuff for him even though all the outfits are so cute and fun. To try to be economical I bought 2T sized clothes which actually fit him but are really baggy. I just didn't want to buy 18 month sizes for winter stuff AND then to buy 2T stuff to get him through winter. So yeah, that's what I did.

We still have the cleaning service which we're kind of becoming less than pleased with. We're paying a lot to have her come in but we have to essentially clean the place up for her... I don't mind tidying stuff up but for what we're paying I kind of wish she'd organize my stuff. It's for this reason I wish I could afford a housekeeper. Maybe when I win the lottery.

Ok, peace out!

Sorry In Advance

Sometimes my job can be really, really, excruciatingly slow. Like in the summer. But I love it. I know it sounds terrible but if I'm forced to sit at my desk for 8 hours when I don't have any immediate events to plan it gives me a lot of... time to kill. 

That's all I'm going to say there. 

But then there's the next 2ish months where my life is going to be busy as all get out. 

Basically I get little windows of time where I'm in the wait part of "hurry up and wait" or I'm writing this on my lunch hour (truth) to just post a blog and keep people updated on my life.

Truth is it's been really busy at work and my head is a fog. I sometimes don't know how I'm going to keep up this whole working and being a mom kind of thing. I mean that in the "I have to work late some nights but I need to get Nolan to a babysitter and I can't find the time to do it" kind of way. 

I guess the point of this post is to say that I'm sorry for what very well be a long stretch without any updates. 

But what I do have going on in the next few months I am excited about. I'm especially excited to see my cousins this weekend at what I hope will become an annual tailgate event for us. See you soon!

Redemption

Memba the daycare provider who still needs to suck a bag of Dick's Sporting Goods? Yeah.

I try to forget about her. Although from time to time I actually get people messaging me on facebook asking what happened or I find someone else with a terrible experience and we bond over the matter. Turns out, she's a bullet that I'm glad I dodged, but that doesn't mean that I can be happy about the situation, right?

Here's what happened in case you forgot: Annoying Adventures in Babysitting

After having a fantastic weekend with Nolan, getting out without any fussing, tons of fun, etc. I went to the grocery store with my little man and tried to help keep the kitchen stocked. Nolan got compliment after compliment, "oh he's SOO cute!" and when he'd be friendly with other babies, the other parents and I would grin just knowing our babies are just pretty darn cute. It honestly filled my heart to overflow capacity.

Love.

Anyways, so I'm going through the grocery store like a normal human. I start in the produce and do the thing where you go up and down all the aisles not missing anything just in case you needed whatever random thing is in the aisle and didn't have it on your list. I don't think I'm a unique shopper in this sense, pretty much everyone does this, right?

Well I actually got my frozen stuff and had to go back to the chip aisle - the one aisle I choose to avoid because holy Doritos, I'll eat them all - to pick up some goldfish. So basically I go to the middle of the grocery store and coming my way is someone looking in Nolan's direction.

You know when you can feel like someone is looking at you, you can sense they're happy and you return a friendly smile because they're looking at your cute baby? Well, she was locked eyes on him, my eyes found hers, and my friendly smile turned into the best "I hate you and everything you represent" scowl.

We walked down the aisle like a couple of gunslingers without saying a word. I didn't cower, I didn't back down. I don't have a reason to be ashamed about how I acted. This woman does. Of course she recognized me at this point and she and her husband just kept walking.

I had that fire inside me build up, gah, I have so much anger still because of this woman. But I instead directed my energy to talking to my little punkin' and as he makes the slightest fuss I tell him we're leaving after I pick up popsicles - because holy humidity.

I walked the rest of the grocery store with my head held high. Nothing to be ashamed of, like I said. I have no reason to be afraid to see that witch again should she turn down my aisle.

Of course, I can't be certain of this, but I can only assume that she was in the middle of her grocery shopping since I met her in the chip aisle. Unless she was bouncing around like I was towards the end of her trip (which I doubt because if she's with her husband and she forgot to pick up doritos before checking out, she could just send him to get them while she waited in the checkout line) she still had the dairy and frozen section to hit up.

I took no more than 2 minutes to get my popsicles before I hit the checkout counter. I had one person ahead of me with just a basket. Surely, TERRI BOGENRIEF had more shopping to do and would be joining the check out lines after me.

Nope.

After I paid she was already loaded up in her van and driving away as I left the grocery store. I know it was her van because she has these ridiculous decals on the back of it saying Bogie's Little Rascal Learning Center on it.

Vindication.

Did my mere presence in the grocery store send her packing? I mean, she had to have went straight to the checkout counter after seeing me. Did my being there scare her in some way? Make her realize once again that she's a coward who can't be in the same building as me knowing that she was wrong?

I like to think so.

What a fun weekend!

This weekend I played the part of a single mom while Brian went away for a continuing professional education. To be honest, I thought I was going to die of exhaustion but it ended up being one of the most fun weekends I've had in a while. Just me and the little man.

It started off with me having to work the company picnic. Nolan was my "assistant" for the day and helped me set up. He did mic checks, which is adorable, he'd take the microphone and just go "huh" in his breathy, noise making tone. I know he loves hearing his voice on the speaker!

He helped put this on, blurry photo and everything

I'm definitely getting those so-called Mom-Arms. With Nolan at my side the whole time, he was a little too shy to be on the ground with all these strangers, he stuck close to me. It was fine for me too because who doesn't love a good Nolan snuggle?

At the end of it all, he was pooped. Of course it was way past his bedtime.

I'd say one of the best parts of being a mom is when you successfully lift your sleeping baby out of his carseat, change every article of clothes on his body, and he doesn't wake up. I did stir him just enough to give him a bottle of milk before bed because I thought he might be dehydrated otherwise, but it was one of those "I'm just going to keep my eyes closed while I drink this" kind of things.

The next day was Maddie's first birthday! Maddie is his friend from daycare and the daughter of our daycare provider. Once again he was a little apprehensive to be around all these strange people, but he quickly took to playing with other kids his age when he found the toys of Maddie's that aren't kept in the basement. New toys made him a very happy camper.

The only picture I have from the birthday party is the birthday girl eating her smash cake and she doesn't have her shirt on. Since she's not my daughter I'm not posting the picture, but I assure you it was adorable.

Sunday was Cyclone FanFest and Nolan and I went to Hilton Coliseum and met a lot of the players! Including all the Women's Basketball and the Volleyball team. He even got his picture taken with Coach Rhoads. I'm getting this one made into a tshirt fosho.

For those that don't know, Coach Rhoads is kind of an Ames celebrity and very adored by Cyclone fans! The fact that he's holding Nolan and making THAT face while Nolan is like "jeez, can we be done?"

Well it was all a pretty spectacular weekend with a little sprinkle of redemption which I'll talk about tomorrow. Hello teaser alert!

ETA: This picture of him passed out after FanFest

First Dentist Appointment

Since Nolan almost has NINE teeth, it's about time that he goes and gets those chompers checked out, yes? Well that's exactly what we did last week. I'm getting quite behind in my blogging....

We got ourselves checked in and handed in our paperwork and all that good stuff and waiting in the waiting room. Since this office is for kids only - they had Tangled playing on their TV and the sound system so no matter where you were in the building you could hear the movie. There were also a lot of little toys for Nolan to play with, but he stayed close to me.

While we were in there - a faculty in my building came in with his wife and SIX kids! You put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Anyways, the first dentist appointment went really well. We had to wait for the dentist to do 3 of the 6 kids' checkups before getting to Nolan. It was cute that Nolan wanted to stay on my lap and not investigate the room because the hygienist was in there talking to us about dental health care.

When the dentist came in (we weren't waiting too long!) he had me sit knee to knee with him and recline Nolan on his lap. I held Nolan's hands while the dentist looked at his teeth and pointed out his molar (!) which, according to him at the time, was going to pop through any day now. Since Nolan hates when mama does teeth checks, I haven't looked since the appointment so I don't know if it's officially through or not.

Before leaving, the dentist "painted" on fluoride to his teeth which dries instantly. But to make sure it sticks, the dentist gave him a pass on brushing for the night. This is light years better than the foam mouthguards that they gave us when I was a kid. No eating or drinking anything for 30 minutes? Psssh, this paint give Nolan the ability to go right back to his schedule of eating and drinking whatever RIGHT AWAY.

And now he's upgraded to a fluoride toothpaste and a big kid toothbrush!