Crib update

I finally made a decision and got the more expensive crib. I like it better. This decision was helped by Chad actually starting work this week and soon to be receiving real paychecks. And I feel pretty good that I didn't get the Pottery Barn Kids crib I really wanted. I'll just have to wait for Nathan's room in about ten years to go shopping there.

Nathan, ever the curious kid, just figured out how to open the drawer of the desk. He's trying to get the envelopes out of the drawer now. What a smart little kid. If only he would attempt to crawl...

Cribs

You may have seen in the news the largest crib recall ever on cribs made by Simplicity. As it turns out, they made Nathan's crib and it is one of the recalled cribs. Now, the issue is with the drop side and if it has been installed properly (the directions were unclear) and also if it has older or newer hardware (new is good, old is bad). Our crib is installed properly and has the good newer hardware, but even with newer hardware and correct installation, there were deaths and entrapments. The CPSC is still investigating these occurences. Chad, always the cautious one when it comes to safety, feels, and I do agree, that Nathan's safety is not worth the risk, so he has been moved temporarily to his Pack-n-Play. But that's only a short-term solution. The time has come for us to buy a new crib.

I have been looking online for two days now trying to find a crib I like that I can afford. Why are so many of them ugly? Or expensive? Or ugly and expensive? I've seen some over-the-top cribs in my search. I'm down to two finalists, but I just can't make up my mind. One is $100 more than the other, but I like it better. I also like the changing table and dresser that go with it, which would be purchased upon birth of Reese #2 (not an announcement - just a future discussion). They're both fine cribs, but is the prettier one worth the extra $100? I have seriously been obsessing about this for two days now, and I need to make a decision. If you'd like to contribute an opinion, here are the two cribs -

Roxanne (my favorite, but of course, the more expensive of the two)
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5734310

Ariel (nice, sturdy, $100 cheaper, but I don't like it as much)
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4433096

Any input would be helpful - I'm tired of not making a decision and Nathan sleeps better in a big crib.

High School Reunion

This weekend Chad and I went to my 10-year high school reunion. Somehow it didn't make me feel old that it's been ten years since I graduated from high school. Frankly, I feel like it's been way longer than ten years since I walked the halls of Jesse O. Sanderson. So much has happened in the intervening ten years that I feel like much more than ten years have passed. Duke, Carolina, Boston, meeting Chad, getting married, my brief teaching career, Nathan, and coming back to North Carolina - I've been busy these ten years.

I enjoyed seeing friends from high school, but I was also reminded as to why I was so ready to graduate. I didn't have many good friends in high school, just a lot of sorta friends and acquaintances. I've kept up with the Mormons mostly and Puja and Saurabh a little since they went to Duke too. Other than them, seeing everyone else was just mild curiosity as to what they had been doing over the past few years. Most people hadn't changed much at all. There wasn't anyone with whom I suddenly plan on keeping in touch. It was just nice to see them all, and I'll see them again in ten years for our twenty-year reunion. Now, a Duke or Boston reunion would be something to look forward to...

Hallelujah!

Chad received his license in the mail today! He is *finally* a licensed dentist! All of this means that he can start working and we can now earn real paychecks. Woohoo!!! Let's hear it for financial solvency!

Happy eight-month-iversary to Nathan!

Nathan turns eight months old today! Yea! It's hard to believe it has already been eight months. Time flies when you're having fun (and/or sleep deprived).

Nathan isn't crawling yet, but he can roll over fabulously and can easily get from point A to point B, as long as point B is to his left or right. He shows no interest in standing whatsoever. When you try to hold him up, his chubby little legs crumble underneath him. He has no idea what you're trying to do. He loves his puppy blanket and is getting interested in rolling and bouncing balls. When we read books together, he turns the pages mostly by himself. He likes to "talk" to his dad on the phone and sits mesmerized by the sound of Chad's voice.

Playing with a sheet while "helping" mom with laundry

He is still a fabulous sleeper, with three naps a day and over twelve hours of continuous sleep at night. He's down by 6:30 and doesn't get up until 7 the next morning. He eats like a champ, taking down a small fortune in baby food at every sitting. We're up to three sittings of solid food a day, adding a mid-day feeding of yogurt and finger food earlier this week. He still has no teeth yet, so his finger food consists of things he can mash up, like cheerios and soft cheese.

Nathan grabbed a container of carrots that I had thought was more securely closed and farther away than it was. He had a great time playing with the carrots!

That, in a nutshell, is our adorable little boy. Every day, we're grateful that he came to our family. I'm excited for the upcoming years!

Every summer since I was three, my family has been going to the beach. We started up at Nags Head and then headed down south for warmer (and cheaper) waters the next summer. We've been going to Topsail every summer since then. Some of my aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins have slowly stopped coming over the year, but we still get a crowd each year. I think I'm the only cousin who has been there every single year from the beginning. It's a great family tradition, and since we now live forty-five minutes away, it's one we'll contine with our family.

Since we live so close to the beach, every now and then you run into it in normal life, which is really weird. We had stake conference this Sunday down in Wilmington. To go to the stake center, you drive down US 17 for most of the way. That's the highway we always took to get to Topsail from Raleigh. When we were coming home from stake conference on Sunday, we started hitting the familiar Hampstead (the town along 17 near Topsail) spots, and I completely thought we were going to the beach. I almost got on Chad's case for missing the turn onto 210 to go to the beach. Then, I realized that, no, we live farther north. We're not on vacation. It was an odd juxtaposition, to have something you associate with vacation and childhood turn up on your way home from stake conference. That being said, we need to go to the beach...

Our beach trip in August

Signs I'm no longer in Brookline

1 - "Fine cuisine" = the new Olive Garden opening up later this fall
2 - Good Italian food = the new Olive Garden
3 - My favorite place to grocery shop is now Wal-Mart. It has a better selection at better prices than my local Food Lion.
4 - It's been around or above 90 since we got here at the beginning of August.
5 - Books-a-Million is the local bookstore.
6 - There is only one Dunkin Donuts in all of Jacksonville.
7 - There aren't ATM machines on every corner. It's so much more annoying to get cash.
8 - I no longer use my car horn when I drive.
9 - There are alligators literally living in my neighborhood. We have Spanish moss too.
10 - No one goes apple picking at quaint little orchards. We go to the beach.
11 - Our rent is $600 a month less than Brookline.
12 - I haven't seen a synagogue since we got here.
13 - We have central A/C, a full-size fridge, a full-size dishwasher, AND a garage!
14 - People here pronounce their r's and don't add r's to the end of every other word.
15 - Car insurance is actually affordable.
16 - All of our neighbors have at least one truck. And a boat.
17 - I haven't heard about the Sox or Yankees in months. Sigh.
18 - No major pieces of concrete fall on cars here.
19 - I can't walk to the grocery store, post office, bank, parks, book store, dry cleaners, Magic Beans, Zaftigs, Boca Grande, good sushi, our pediatrician, Rod Dee's, Pizza Republic, pharmacy, Trader Joe's, Staples, or anything else Coolidge Corner had to offer. Here, I can walk to our neighborhood dock.
20 - All of our great friends aren't here :(

Down with outsourcing!

I just got off the phone with Delta Airlines, and they seem to have followed the growing trend of outsourcing their phone folks to India. As it turns out, their English isn't the greatest, and those looong distance calls are difficult to understand. The entire conversation I was called Bryan, and I had to repeat myself over and over again. Argh... I think Nathan will be traveling with us to Utah, and hopefully there are enough air masks for him. I'm almost tempted to call back and try to get someone whose English is better and make sure everything is set. At least we'll get to see everyone in Utah for Thanksgiving :)

The dread vacuum cleaner

Nathan and I have previously enjoyed many cleaning days together, and he has never had a problem with any aspect of cleaning. He likes to help from the command center of a laundry basket or by eating anything left behind on the floor, particularly envelopes with cellophane windows. Yummy. He has been intrigued by the vacuum cleaner, but it was always on our side. Until today. Today it became terrifying.

I was vacuuming his room, and we started out alright. A little nervousness from Nathan, but we were managing. Then I'm not quite sure what scary manuever the vacuum performed (perhaps cleaning under his bed), but the vacuum quickly turned from friend to foe. Nathan burst out into sad tears. When the vacuum approached him, the sadness escalated until he had great streams of tears running down his face. Oh, well. There go my plans of getting the vacuuming done until his next nap. Now we're going to see how he feels about scrubbing toilets...

This weekend

The new back-up puppy blanket arrived on Friday, and Nathan took to it immediately. He's sucking on it and his thumb and carrying it around with him everywhere we let him. Sadly for the puppy, Nathan has already spit up carrots all over it and the original puppy, but I guess that's why we bought a back-up. And to think both of the poor puppies could have gone to little boys who might not have made them so crusty and orange. I don't think they could have found a little boy who loved them so much, though.

Tropical Storm Gabrielle dropped by to visit yesterday, and her visit was more like nine defused nuclear warheads (In an old Far Side cartoon, there are a bunch of people in an audience watching a guy on stage. His poster says that he's supposed to be juggling nine nuclear warheads, and the warheads are lying on the ground as if he has just dropped them. Someon in the audience yells, "More like nine defused nuclear warheads!" It's been a classic family quote for years). While some parts of eastern North Carolina received over six inches of rain, most of us just received some normal showers and some wind. We both breathed a big sigh of relief that our first tropical storm was such a disappointment.

Fun tidbits

This morning, Nathan was sitting on my lap as I booted up the old computer. Our background picture is a picture of Nathan's sweet mohawk, and as soon as Nathan recognized himself, he got a great big smile and started to laugh. So, I went to our Picasa pictures, and we looked through some other pictures of Nathan that we have on our computer. He thought it was great and was highly entertained. What a silly little kid. I can hear him in his crib going down for his nap, slubbering to himself.

In other news, Chad's partner told him yesterday that he'll be getting a paycheck soon. It probably won't be a full paycheck, but it's still a paycheck. WOOHOO!!! Chad told him that that wasn't necessary as he hadn't been doing any real work yet, but Steve insisted. Hallelujah! We had enough in savings to make it for a while longer, but it will be nice not to have to completely deplete the old ING account. YEA!!!

Labor Day Weekend

Our ward had a temple trip on Saturday, so on Friday we drove up to Raleigh to see my parents and enjoy the wonders of free babysitting. Since we hadn't really been able to do anything for our anniversary the previous week, we went to Lilly's Pizza for dinner and went to see the new Harry Potter movie on Friday night. Chad and I have been reading the Harry Potter books this summer with all our free time, and as we finished each book, we would watch the movie. We finished book #5 Wednesday night at 1am, so we were able to see the movie. The movie was great, and the pizza and pigs in a blanket were delicious. It was nice to be around civilization again.

It was great to go to the temple again and remember what is important. We were the only couple from our ward there, which got me thinking what could be done to increase attendance (a calling from a previous ward of temple night coordinator makes this important to me). Since I'm not in charge of the temple nights, only the Laurels, I can't do a ton, but I realized one prohibitive factor for many couples is babysitting. Going to the temple is a good eight-hour affair from Jacksonville, and that is a lot of babysitting. I've already talked to the Young Women's president about organizing the Young Women for a babysitting service project for the next ward temple trip. We'll see where things go from here...

We had a great visit with my parents and Mike, and it was nice to be home. Mom and Dad are gearing up for their European bike trip in another few days, and Mike was recovering from the first week of school. Mom and Dad took Chad out on a bike ride Saturday morning, and he appreciated the flat terrain around Jacksonville even more after riding the hills of Raleigh. I loved that I didn't have to pack tons of things, or even a Pack-n-Play, to visit, and there were certainly no plane tickets to buy or air travel. I don't think we even went through a whole tank of gas. It really is nice to be closer to family.

Argh...

So after going through all that effort to wash his puppy blanket, on Saturday Nathan spit up something distinctively orange all over it. It was probably squash or peaches. But since the backup blanket doesn't arrive until next week, the child will just live with an orange, yucky puppy blanket until then. It's not like he notices or cares. It's just me that gets totally grossed out by it. At least he's not screaming for hours in the middle of the night again. He's really lucky that he's cute...