So I feel like it’s been forever since I’ve done a real blog post. Besides the Christmas letter it pretty much has been. Here’s what happened….we decided to cancel our internet at home (really bad idea, in case you were wondering) and switch phone plans to get new phones that already have the internet on them. We were thinking that in the long run this would save us money to combine our phone and internet bill since we were currently getting a discount on our internet and didn’t know if that would continue into forever.
So I guess we’ll never know if it really saved us money but in the mean time we just have to deal with not having internet on the laptop which means I will rarely be able to post pics on the blog. But I have been wanting to post a few updates about casen so that means you’ll just get more of a novel than a picture book post. Sorry. I’ll try to get some pics up soon. It would be fun to
post some recent ones as Casen has grown up a lot these past few months.
Speaking of growing up I took him to the park a few days ago when it was about 50* out and it was awesome to be outside in December in that kind of weather. I’m not a fan of the cold so it was great for me. Anyway I took him to the park a few months ago and he was still a little freaked out about doing anything on his own. He would climb onto platforms and the bridges but he
wouldn’t walk around without holding onto my hand and he refused to happily go
down the slide unless I went with him. And even then sometimes he would whimper. This time we went and I took him right to the swings first. This is always a good idea because he loves them and then he’s happy enough to try other things without feeling too freaked out. After that I
took him on a few of the slides and then he wanted to try climbing up places without my help so I just followed him around for a while. After a bit I convinced him to try the higher slide by himself. I told him to sit at the top and I went to the bottom and told him I would catch him. I never actually thought it would work but he held onto the sides and slid himself down. It was actually pretty slippery and I ended up needing to catch him. I think it still scared him a little (he made this really scared face at the top of the slide every time) but not enough to not do it again. He did it 4 other times and was really sad when I told him we had to go. It was so fun to see him do things by himself. It makes me realize how much of a toddler he is and it was a little ridiculous how proud I was of him to go down the slide “all by himself” but I just couldn’t help it.
Also I recently wrote down some things about Casen that I take for granted but really want to remember because I realize that these may be things that other parents have struggled with and that I may struggle with, with our future children and I want to remember to be grateful. And I want to have this list to look at on those days where I struggle to appreciate Casen’s
goodness when it may not be shining through so much. :)
· He never had a problem switching from a bottle to
a sippy cup
· There were no complaints when we started feeding
him rice cereal
· He ate most baby foods without issue and would
even try to eat the ones that made him gag
· He had no problem switching to solid foods-all
at once. And I mean that literally. The day the dr. said he could try real food
(he was 4 months old) we went out to eat at Chuck-A-Rama and Aaron fed him
everything on the line. We didn’t really consider food allergies, but
thankfully he didn’t have any issues. I might do that differently the 2nd
time around.
· He has always been content to entertain himself
when I need to get housework or other things done. He does always prefer to be
where I am so he will usually bring his toys/books to wherever we are and hang
out there.
· He’s not a picky eater and will eat pretty much
anything we give him.
· He goes to bed without any issue. We read a
story, sing a song and then put him in bed and walk out. Sometimes we don’t
even do the first 2 things and he still never cries and hardly ever puts up a
fight.
· He remembers when I tell him “no” about certain
things and then is pretty good about not doing them unless he’s bored, tired,
or needs attention. He will often go to the thing he isn’t supposed to touch or
the place he shouldn’t be and shake his finger and say, “no, no!” to himself.
It’s pretty entertaining.
· For the most part he sits still during prayers.
Even when they are longer than his 2 second attention span. And he’s pretty
good at sitting quietly during the sacrament at church.
· If he is having a hard time being happy or
content during the day all I usually have to do is get down on his level and
spend some time playing, wrestling, or reading to him and he’s fine again. As
long as he gets some good one on one attention throughout the day he is content
during the in between times.
His “loves”(hugs), kisses, and giggles are just the best in the world. I don’t know what it is about the sound of laughter from a small child but it makes me smile every time I hear it. I have a lot to be grateful for when it comes to this little boy!
