My son is afraid of grass

You know that we are city folk when our little man hasn't really seen grass since the 4th of July.  Oh, yes, we are totally urban jungle people.  It's not like he's been indoors since then, he played on our deck during summer BBQ season, we would go out for walks to meet Daddy for lunch at the Chinese Kitchen or meet him on his way home from work to play on the swings, but the parks are not grassy, we had no backyard, and none of our visits with friends included yards for the rest of the summer either.  

Then winter struck and it struck hard.  There wasn't even really a decent time to introduce him to snow with the awful weather we had for most of this winter.  Then we move to Oxford where we do have a back yard (garden here), and it has grass to boot.  It's not like they really have winter here except for that week and a half of snow that shut the whole country down, but the garden has been wet and it's been pretty cool for the most part so I haven't felt like venture out that way with him.  Today was quite warm and even sunny in spots and Jeff thought it might be fun to put him in his grubbies and let him crawl around on the grass.  

Great!  I'll get my camera.

Now at least I didn't go back and actually take pictures of what happened when we sat him down and let him touch the grass, but you can get a pretty good idea of what it was like on this youtube video.  Only it was more screaming as opposed to the whining that kid does.  Let me backtrack a bit and set it up for you.

Jeff walks Asher down the little path to our patch of grass in the back.  All is well and good until he sees the grass.  He does a dead stop at the edge of the path.

 

Won't move.  We manage to coax him a little farther onto the green stuff.

Okay, he hasn't died yet, but he's really not comfortable with how this is going.

We gently sit him down on the grass.  There are no pictures of what follows, I couldn't bring myself to.  He put his hands down so he could crawl away and found that he was now touching the grass, so he tried the other side of him and there was more grass.  By this time he's screaming like those menacing blades are attacking him.  

So we scooped him up and promptly began torturing him by waving bits of the frightening stuff in his face.

And touching his hands with it.  Poor little man tried to scramble out of my arms at that.  So we decided to stop being such horrible parents and try to salvage ourselves from going to hell for cruelty to the innocent and rescued him from the green monster to the indoors where he could feel more secure.

He much prefers helping me do laundry.

"I love you laundry machine."

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London! but first...pots and pans

We finally did it.  We've been living here in the UK for over a month and we finally made it into London.  Very exciting stuff.  But since I'm behind on posting about a few other things that were happening this week, you'll just have to wait on that.  That, and I have to figure out how to pick only a few pictures to show out of the 216 that we took.  Ridiculous.  You may wonder how you can possibly take so many pictures in just a few hours in London when we only saw a small section.  Well, I'll tell you.  200 of them are of Asher.  And not like, Asher in front of Big Ben (although we do have one of that) but mostly just Asher.  Doin' his Asher thing.  Anyway, that's coming soon.

Today we have for you:  pots and pans.  Yes, my son has finally discovered that wonderful place called the pot and pan cupboard.  To be fair, he's discovered it a couple times before but it either bit his fingers and made him cry or everything shifted all at once and made a really loud noise that he wasn't expecting and made him cry.  Well, third time's the charm I guess.  He has conquered his fear of the cupboard doors that bite and the piles of shiny metal things that make noise (currently terrified of the vacuum cleaner but that's another story) and discovered the joys of taking everything out of the cupboard and banging them around.  

Jeff finds this somewhat irritating as our little man can make quite the racket.  For me however, it is music to my ears.  It is currently a minimum of a half hour where I can sit in my chair, watch him, smile and nod every once in a while as he looks up in pride at some particularly loud noise he has just produced, and enjoy my tea or read a book or a blog or maybe even write a blog or download the kajillion pictures I've taken of him and his pots and pans, whatever. I. want.  Glorious.  I'll worry later if he's strong enough to actually dent anything or if he's putting scratches in the teflon as he slides a pot lid around my favourite frying pan, it doesn't matter, it's all just stuff.  Stuff can be replaced.  Time to sit and relax can't.

So without further ado, here are a few pictures I took before I realized I could be sitting down with my tea and my laptop:

Hehe, I have a pot

I wonder what else is in there...

...just gotta get a better look...

...maybe if I just crawl inside...

And then later on that day:

Next blog:  London!  Actually not really, I'll likely do a little blog about dancing with Daddy first and a few other thoughts...and then, London!  I'm actually buying time to go through all my pictures, actually London may take a couple posts if I can't decide which are the most adorable Asher shots, you understand.

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Monkey's Music

Today, finally, after planning and canceling for two weeks and postponing a third due to 'half-term', we made it to Monkey Music.  It's a program at the local rec centre for kids, different groups for different ages, that introduces them to music and rhythm using actions and dancing and simple instruments.  We'd arranged a trial visit ages ago but then got sick, and then got sick again, and then the program took a week off.  We almost missed it today, too, but Jeff was wanting to go into work early so I was up earlier than usual.  It was actually nice to fit a shower in before he left for the day (don't. say. a. word.).

So today, we got packed up (my first time taking Asher and a diaper bag out on the bike), we braved the dreary looking day (not too cold, but damp), and headed out.  I grossly overestimated the time it takes to bike into Summertown.  We were there a half hour early.  Okay, so I didn't need to get up quite so early after all.  So we sat in the lobby reading books.  Well, I read, Asher watched the people after a few unsuccessful attempts to squirm out of my lap.  So really, in retrospect, he'd already been very patient for a good 25 minutes before we even got into the room, I was clearly asking too much that he show the same level of restraint during the program.  Especially with all those fun looking pushchairs (strollers) sitting around the room just screaming to be inspected.  The program was fun enough.  Asher was the youngest there and it was really geared towards one year plus.  The director thought he would do better in the older group seeing as he would turn a year before the term ended.  Not too sure about that, but anyway.

There are set songs and activities that most of the kids and parents already knew.  I guess some of the middle parts were variable and everything was pretty easy to follow.  There were actions/clapping/patting knees/waving and shakers to shake and drums to bang on, all really neat and just what I had imagined it would be.  And Asher did like those parts, but as soon as the music stopped and the lady started talking, he was trying to get out of my lap and go steal her monkey.  We stood and danced for a time so he would stop squealing at me.  None of the other kids were disruptive or squirmy, I kind of felt like the uncouth mom from 'the colonies' with my over-indulged child.  I'm sure it was all in my head, but still, it took away from the magic of what I had imagined our first mom and tot program would be.  

The lady was very kind and offered to give me another trial day if I still wasn't sure.  I said I would like that but I'm not now that I'll take her up on it.  Jeff made a very good point, why fight with him to enjoy something we're having to pay for if we can just search around a little and find something we both enjoy more.  Maybe something a little more active for Asher's part.  There are, after all, no shortage of mom and tot programs in Summertown.  And you would not believe how many of those things are on Tuesday morning.  It's like everyone got together, checked their schedules and Tuesday morning was good so they just decided to book everything then and you could pick one thing to do in the entire week and you would do it on Tuesday morning between 9:30 and 11:00.  Which just happens to be the exact time of Asher's morning nap.

He fell asleep on the bike on the way home.  Too cute.  Definitely have to get out on the bike more often.  Fresh air makes for great (and long) naps.  Then after lunch we had our own music to monkey about with.  I found his African CD and we did our own dancing.  I'm very sad I didn't have my video camera ready for that as it was terribly cute.  I took the camera to the program today but didn't even think about taking it out once we were there, but I did get some pictures of him dancing at home after.

Whew, that was quite the workout!

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Baby's first haircut

I must say, I had visions of what Asher's first haircut would be.  One of those cute little shops where they have airplanes and cars for the kids to sit in.  I imagined he would be fawned over and told how cute he was and what a big boy he was, there would be lots of squirming and maybe some screaming.  I've seen the posts of this happening to other people's kids.  I was prepared, I would be there for moral support, snapping tons of pictures, trying not to laugh at his misery (cause he really is adorable when he's upset) and then I would leave with a little boy in place of the baby that I took in.  Ya, well that didn't happen.

I have searched high and low for such a place in the UK and they don't seem to exist, not in Oxford anyway.  I've stopped Mum's on the street asking them where they get their kids hair cut and very few actually get them done by a shop.  I even posted on a local mum's website and no one had any help for me.  So I decided I was going to have to do it myself.  

Now, I have cut hair before.  As a teenager I gave myself bangs.  A total rookie move on my part (wet hair pulled tight, snip...when it dries it's significantly shorter...picture it).  Since then, I began to pay very close attention to what hairdressers were doing and began to understand, in theory at least, the principles of cutting hair.  I have since given trims to  myself and several friends and have been quite successful.  I didn't think it would be that difficult to trim Asher's bangs, around his ears, and the back of his head.  That is, if he was unconscious and I had my proper hair scissors.  He is rarely unconscious though and my hair scissors are somewhere on the Atlantic.  I thought I could wait it out, but it just became too much and so we decided to brave it.

The Tools

Daddy's comb which ended up serving mostly as a distraction.

The only scissors I had, yes, I know they're not meant for hair, I'm hoping you'll give me a little leeway when you see the finished product now that you know what I had to work with.

Before

Very excited, but he doesn't know why.

Look at all that hair in his eyes, something must be done.

After

That's right, I'm stylin'.

You didn't get to see the back before, but it wasn't this straight.

My little man, all set to go.

The Remains

or at least what remembered to gather for the baby book

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I love my Mac!

I am still sick, so is Asher, but I have made it to the Dr. and I'm off to get some drugs today.  I really am so done with being sick.  I know I have had days when I'm not, but they seem like pinpricks in time on the days that I am sick.  It's been one thing after another since the beginning of December and I'm done.  I quite.  No more.  The office is closed.  We are not accepting any more applications.  At least that's what one person I know says is the key to being healthy...not accepting that you are sick.  I wish.  I'll take the drugs please and hopefully I can keep myself rested and well-hydrated and start to build my immune system back up.  

Okay, on to the real reason for the post.  Well, besides the fact that it's been three days and I really must get more consistent in my blogging.  I love my Mac!  I have had a Mac for...golly, over 6 years now, and I automatically enjoyed it more than the PC.  Can we say no more Control+Alt+Del?  But recently, we upgraded our Mac to a brand new macbook.  We knew we wouldn't have room for a desktop in our new house so we sold my eMac and Jeff's PC and got the macbook.  We call it ours, but mostly I use it as Jeff has his own laptop for work.  I haven't had a lot of time to explore the new operating system that came with my fun little computer, so I haven't had a chance to really play with all the new toys.  Well, this morning, I wanted to play with some photos to see if I could get them to truly reflect the amount of fluids leaking out of my poor little man's face.  (our camera is dying a slow and painful death and has not been taking the best pictures as of late)

So I got to play with the new iPhoto program.  It's great!  I love what I can do with my pictures.  Now I know I am the last person on earth to discover this and if you don't have a Mac, you likely have photoshop which as I understand is a similar program, but let me be excited for a moment.  It was so much fun turning my photos from flat images that don't nearly do justice to capturing all the cuteness that is my son into pictures with detail and contrast.  I think they sometimes come out a little gritty/edgy but that's mostly because that's the kind of photos I like the best and I just couldn't help it. So I may have to start doing some photo blogs.  Right now, I'm trying to figure out how to go back and fix up the 734 pictures we've taken since getting the computer at Christmas.  And then there's all the pictures on our portable hard drive.  Oh golly.  Am I in trouble.

Okay, so here's the first entries:  Me trying to capture how leaky Asher's face is.  Still couldn't quite get it, but I like the pictures anyway.  He's feeling better today though, thankfully.

 

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Single lines

If I truly believe in the sovereignty of God and that His timing is perfect and that He has my days already recorded and mapped out and knows the beginning from the end and knew that Asher would be and would be ours and when and also knows the fate of of any and all future children, then why, oh why, does that single line feel so devastating. It's not like we've been specifically trying, charting, timing, waiting. But I'm late. Late even for me. And it's not like I have any reason to believe that this time round will be any different than the last. Except that I've been back on the Mommy Boards over at Soulcysters and 4 (or is it 5 now) of the other women who were due with me last March are pregnant again. Without trying. One already delivered. Irish twins. Just like my Mom and Aunt. Do women without fertility problems feel such deep wounds over such a simple thing as a single pink line? I want to go rummaging through the waste bin to have one more look. Just to see if maybe, maybe, there's a shadow that I missed, the last time it was so faint.   Part of this is pride, I'll admit it. I feel like I've paid my dues. Done my time. Shouldn't have to go through that again (my heartfelt apologies to all my friends who went through so much more than me, I really do know how lucky I got off). This time, I wanted to feel like a normal woman. A woman who's body hadn't betrayed her. A woman who's God hadn't said 'no' again. Now I really do understand that this isn't likely an actual 'no' but a 'not right now'. And I understand that He has very good reasons for the 'when'. But none of that sinks in tonight. Tonight things feel hollow. Distant. Tonight I feel empty.

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Ugh. Sick. Again

I often give Jeff a hard time when he's sick because he makes sure everyone knows he's sick and he never takes anything unless I remind him.  I'm not a very good wife, not a lot of compassion when he's sick, injured yes, sick no.  I may have to be a bit nicer next time round.  I'm sick.  Again.  I feel like I've been sick for months.  Oh wait.  I have.   Granted lately I've had a few days of not being sick, but since Dec. 8th, I've definitely been sick more than I've been well.  But I thought I was finally over with it!  No such luck.  I'm pretty sure it's a sinus infection this time round and I'm miserable.  We have no drugs in the house to take and I'm a whiny, miserable, sick person.  Thank goodness Jeff hasn't gotten sick much at all these last couple months.  Last night he actually got up with Asher three times!  The best part, Asher only got up 3 times.  Well, best in that I didn't have to get up with him, not so great in that my little man had been doing much better and only waking once if at all during the night.  I hope he's not getting sick, too.  So today I really do have to go into town and register with the medical clinic.  I know, I know, I still haven't and I'm still dumb.  But today, really I will.  Hopefully I'll be able to see someone today, too and not have to go back in tomorrow.  Hopefully my legs won't fall off when I get back on the bike again.  Hopefully other sore parts of my body won't fall off either.

Wish me luck.

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