We White Things have been doing lots of different things lately. It’s been a while since I did a normal old update, so here goes.
I. Rose
Don’t be fooled by this picture—Rose has not started crawling yet. This week she started leaning onto her hands like this, though, so maybe mobility is just around the corner.
Sometimes I think Rose will just go straight to walking and skip crawling all together. She doesn’t pull up on things by herself yet, but she loves it when I stand her in the crib. She likes to “dance” there, bobbing her head and shaking the crib bars.
Rose loves it when Jay plays with her. I do too—it’s so cute to hear them giggling together from another room!
Each day, Rose takes 2 naps of 1-2.5 hours each, nurses 4 times, and has 3 meals in her high chair. She’s slowly figuring out how to hold a sippy cup and drink water from it. I think her favorite food is bread. She has a piece every day for lunch. She enjoys holding it, smooshing it and chomping on it. She’s almost got her pincer grasp down, so she’s getting good at eating Cheerios too.
Rose has started eating bits of whatever we are eating for dinner. She LOVED the macaroni and cheese we had this week. Just like Jay. And Jeff. Ok, we all love homemade mac n cheese. It was a particularly creamy, yummy batch, if I must say so myself. We ate a whole POUND of pasta in one night this week!
Rose goes to sleep so quickly and easily. All I do is sing a quick song and lay her on her tummy under a blanket in her crib, and she snuggles up and falls asleep within 5-10 minutes. Sometimes she cries a little first, but not for very long! She goes to bed at the same time as Jay now (between 7-7:30pm) and gets up between 5:30-6:30am. Rose is teething like a little shark. Her top front teeth are both a fraction of a millimeter away from slicing through her sore little gums. She can already bite HARD, though!
Rose has the sweetest little voice! Here’s a sample.
II. Jay
Jay is such a little PERSON these days! He’s 2 1/3 years old, and he is learning at the speed of light. I like to teach him and watch him learn. It’s so fun!
It is exceedingly difficult to get a picture of Jay looking at the camera and smiling. He moves SO much!
Jay now says yes as well as no. It’s nice how he can choose what he wants for breakfast now and tell me, instead of playing a guessing game.
I was so happy to capture this on video!
Jay picked up the dreaded “I want” from his friend recently, so we started working on more
refined manners: instead of just asking “what’s the magic word?” when he wants something, I have been drilling him to say “May I have ____, please?” It is uphill work, but he’s really starting to catch on and often he just needs a little reminder. When he says “I want,” I say “May…” and he eventually remembers how to ask politely. He’s also learning manners by our example. The other night at dinner, he randomly piped up with “pass da juice, please!” Jeff and I got a big kick out of that.
Speaking of talking, I love how Jay copies my tone and terms of endearment when he talks to Rose. He says “Hi, sweet girl!” and “How-a-sweep?” (how’d you sleep). He also says “Thank you SO MUCH!” Love.
We have finally taught Jay to say sorry after he does something like kick Rose or yank my hair, but I’m not sure he really understands what it means yet (repeated offenses suggest a lack of apology-comprehension).
Jay says the sweetest prayers. They are small, quiet, and perfect.
No potty-training yet. Sigh. We’re going to attempt that again when Jay’s 2 1/2.
Jay is growing so fast—he fits size 3T already. He’s also growing some more molars. I didn’t know 2-year-olds drool and bite stuff when they teethe just like babies do, but Jay is a biter and a drool factory.
This is a game we like to play
Jay is such a BOY! Usually it’s entertaining to see how he plays, until he crashes into my ankles with his bike, or chucks a ball at my face while I’m not looking. We had a little rain for the first time in months this week, and Jay was fascinated with the shallow puddles on our patio. He kicked the water, ran through it, and then sat down in the puddle. Wet booty!
Jay loves to run. Last weekend, after Jeff and I both ran, he said “I go on a run-run.” He got out his shoes and Jeff took him outside. Jay ran for more than half a mile!
Maybe Jay is going to be an astronomer or an astronaut—the only recognizable things he draws are the sun and the moon. I love his blue sunshines. I keep that one on the fridge.
Jay isn’t super at singing his ABC’s, but he sure can recognize letters right and left. Whenever words appear on the TV, he says “ABC’s!” He likes getting out our Bananagram letters and playing with them. Maybe he’ll learn to read next year.
I could keep going, but I’ll move on…
III. Jeff
Jeff is growing a beard for Halloween. Man that man can bristle up fast. We are doing a Halloween road race with costumes, so Jeff is growing his beard so he can run as a Viking or Grizzly Adams or Sasquatch or some other hairy primitive creature. Don’t worry—he definitely asked my permission before he started growing all that facial hair. Being the long-suffering wife-with-a-sense-of-humor that I am, I consented to a month’s worth of kissing pine needles in the name of a great Halloween costume. I don’t know what I should be. Jeff wants me to be his “wench,” but I’m not sure I like the sound of wench.
I don’t have a picture of the current growth, but here’s one from 6 years ago (back before we were married or even dating). This is the last time Jeff grew out his beard. He’s only been working on his current hair for a week, but it’s already quite long. Yes, that reddish tint it natural. His name IS Jeffrey ARGYLE White, you know.
Here he is that same summer, after he won a 10k registered as Grizzly Adams. [I did ask for permission before I put these classic pictures up]
In other news, Jeff is super busy with school and his young men’s calling at church. He leaves for school at 5:30am every morning, and gets home at 5pm each night (unless he gets a flat tire on his bike, then it’s later). Wednesdays, he’s at church from 6:45pm-8:45pm. Bedtime is 9pm every night. That is why weekends are golden these days.
Each month, Jeff has been adding a new part to the broken old computer my parents gave him, and it is now fixed up even better than our computer! He hooked the resurrected computer up to our TV, so we have access to the internet and things like Netflix, General Conference and The Office. Jeff also loaded all of our DVD’s onto that computer. Little by little, Jeff is constructing a one-stop entertainment center!
Now that Jeff is so busy and we aren’t spending almost all day every day together, we realized that we need to actually schedule in date time. Last Friday, we went on such a pleasant one-hour date ALONE together. We walked the half mile over to El Mercado’s parking lot and got dinner from the taco truck there. Jeff had a pork burrito and I had a cabeza burrito—that’s right, a head burrito. It wasn’t bad! Spicy, but head meat seems to be leaner. That’s the way I like it. I’m still not sure what kind of animal’s head I had, but some things are better left unknown. I ordered in Spanish, but the lady in the taco truck didn’t seem to care. She just spoke English. Oh well. We walked to the park and ate our burritos at a picnic table. On our way home, we stopped at the Second Street Smoke Shop (Grandview businesses have such snazzy names, I know). Well we stopped there to pick up a six pack. Calm down, I’m just kidding—even though you can get a FREE bag of ice with a six pack there, we resisted and got a Reese’s to put in a homemade blizzard instead. It was such a nice, peaceful hour together. Steph rocked the free-auntie babysitting for us. When she has kids, I’m going to be doing some MAJOR payback babysitting!
And here’s what Rose has to look forward to when she starts dating. I think the next time I’ll permit Jeff to grow out his beard will be in about 15 1/2 years…
IV. Shaina
How about an update on my one-month babysitting gig: This week I realized that it was time for my good-neighborly nearly-free help (I ended up only getting paid about $1.40 per hour) to be replaced by a full-time caregiver. It was a surprisingly agonizing situation for me. I am a bit of a worrier, so that was part of it, but I just really felt responsible for those sweet little kids and I wanted what’s best for them. Then I remembered that I am not their mom, so I’m not in charge of them! It took a night of tossing and turning and getting up for a 5 mile run at 4:20am to clear my head and get everything figured out. Now I’m “off the hook,” and I’ll just have the kids over one morning a week so they can have a scheduled time to play with Jay. There is another girl who’s doing the rest. I feel so relieved of a huge responsibility. Maybe I just took the whole situation too seriously. Who knows. I’m glad I could help. (and I’m glad it’s over!)
In order to avoid running with the 100+ pound double jogging stroller, I have to get up before 5am and be home by 5:30am when Jeff leaves. That cuts into my sleep kind of drastically. It’s nice to be UP and at ‘em so early because I can get SO much accomplished in the wee hours of the morning, but when 10am hits, my day is half over and I feel pooped! (Don’t be fooled—I’m about 50/50 when it comes to getting up that early to run)
We have family dinner every Sunday. When it’s our turn, we FILL the kitchen. No extra space. We don’t have to stand up to clear the table. Tonight’s menu was Harvest Soup with craisins and apples in it, Squash rolls with homemade pumpkin-apple butter on top, and pumpkin blondies for dessert.
One of my favorite things about fall besides the fresh, crisp air is fall foods. Last year at this time I was a weak pukey pregnant lady. Food was gross. I am truly relishing fall this year because I actually LIKE FOOD! Since I missed out on fall food last year, I am in heaven cooking new tasty fall-ish recipes.
I love lists. Here’s one little list for you before I finally stop typing and click “publish.”
TOP 4 things I dislike about living in Grandview:
- The lack of trees.
- The sharp, thorn-throwing, tire-popping goathead weeds.
- The stinky cowpee winds that blow in from Sunnyside.
- It hardly ever rains!
TOP 4 things I like about living in Grandview
- The SKY. It’s so big and beautiful.
- Living close to so many family members
- Most things are within walking distance.
- The fresh fruit.
Whew! This was wordy. I’ve been working on this post in little pieces for the past 2 days. Now it’s done. Later, gators!
