Sunday blues...

After reading a friend's blog, I realized we are both feeling the same way tonight...

Man, I love my kid! Love him so much it hurts!! I always want to do the very best for him, and I wonder where I fall short. Does he not get enough attention? Too much discipline, not enough? Should he be experiencing more in life? I can't take him to library time and play groups like stay-at-home moms, so does that mean I am a bad mom?

It never ends! It never gets easier either, there is always a reason I don't want to drop off. So why not stay home? I know, I feel the thoughts sometimes. My husband has a good job, we are financially responsible, so why wouldn't you just stay home? Or there are some that may even think I am career-obsessed and selfish. I wish I had all the answers. I wish I had the definite call to stay home, I wish I knew I would be happy that way. I wonder if some of this interaction for Chaz isn't really good. And I think I may suck at being a stay-at-home mommy, I might be bored, I might get needy, I might be a bear to live with.

So I do my best, my evenings and weekends are focused on Chaz and family time, date nights happen after he is tucked in bed. I bust my butt during the day to get done as fast as I can, and some days you just can't get done fast. I am so much more efficent these days, personally and professionally. All this doesn't leave much time for myself, but I don't care one bit. I have time to chat on the phone while I am driving to see my customers and I have a lunch hour once or twice a week. That's pretty good time for me. I don't know how my husband does it - he has much less time for anything.

I actually think I have one of the very best jobs for a working mom, but I wonder if that's enough. I wrestle with these thoughts often.

I can say, for the most part, I have been content working. However I don't think job contentment can erase mommy guilt, or the panick you feel when I know he's had a rough day and I can't get there fast enough. More recently I am beginning to wonder if this is the best choice for my entire family. I wonder if maybe I wouldn't entirely fail the stay-at-home mom thing.

Chaz is cutting his sixth tooth of the month, and I know he is in pain. I know if I was at home he would be constantly held, he would make darn sure of that. Whether that's best or not, that's how it would be. I know his sitter will take care of him. I think he manages to get most of her lap time during the day, he's just a cuddler and he is determined when it comes to it:)

I have the Sunday blues, Mondays come too fast...

Merry Christmas!!

I know, I know, I am really late on this post. Now everyone is out of the holiday mood and ready for spring and new adventures in 2010. This Christmas was a vast difference from our last Christmas, mostly because our little man was now a toddler! Ah, toddler life is busy, but not nearly as exhausting as a newborn!! At least for us that was the case. Chaz was a ton of fun this Christmas! He enjoyed all the lights, singing, Christmas cookies (yes, my kid get sugar - sue me), and the gifts and mostly having lots of time with his parents and extended family.

Our stockings were hung with care

We took great care baking our cookies:

This year we celebrated our Christmas at home on Tuesday before heading to the QC. I missed my siblings this year, as Mark and fam were in Cali and Bets and fam were not into the QC until Sat, when we needed to leave. But we did have a blast seeing our Maryland and Dubuque family members as well as Nonnie, Papa and Unca Joe. Here are a few from our place:

And from our Nonnie and Papa's house. Our Chaz began saying sentences while on our visit. "I did it." was his very first and his cute little voice said it over and over clear as day.

He has just been such a ham, flirting with people and goofing off. We get stopped often for comments on that red hair or because he is such a goof. I have no idea how we have such a dramatic child?!

And just to prove to you he is a toddler! Yes, we are into everything...and the reason that binky is all over the place is because he is cutting 3 molars a a tooth right now. I promise when he is done we will be weaning;)

Christmas Season

This is a little peek of what we have been up to!

Christmas Card reject - but we love the pic!

"Ooooo" that's what Chaz says about the tree! Oh and check out that little belly:) My 14 mos old is almost out of his 12-18 month gap clothes (yikes)!

Luckily it was washable...and he did

have fun.

Happy Thanksgiving

Wow! Time flies! Christmas is around the corner and I can hardly believe it, this year it came so very fast. We have been having fun with our snow days this past week and getting ready for some time off (yeah). After the time off at Thanksgiving and and 2 1/2 snow days this week and a short week this week I am sure he will be a little confused. After our snow days he threw a huge fit when it was time to leave daycare, I think he missed his buddies and all the toys.

Chaz is learning new things everyday and is trying all sorts of new things. Currently, he is loving his new shape sorting toys (thanks Mn Walks), and coloring. Also, a quick visit to Santa proved traumatic - there were tears and a his head in his lap (no pics to share. I mean he was so upset I would allow this to happen he couldn't even look at me! He did however love the dancing reindeer and called it a "puppa" his word for puppy. Chaz is also learning about his bodily functions - in that if he farts or burps he laughs and gets excited, now realizing he did it (yeah Chaz). He is so much like his father.

Oh, I should also mention that he loves loves loves the tree, lights, nativity all of it - which is realy making us enjoy the season in a whole new way. Thanks Chaz for allowing us to see the world through your eyes, it's precious!

Now on to the latest event: Thanksgiving! We had a great celebration at Christian's parents. His brother and family were there too, and it was the first time the cousins were able to play together - we look forward to more of that in the future.

Holidays with Christian's family is always nice and relaxed. We got into town Wednesday night and had dinner and all chatted away the night - including a good ole' healthcare debate, which the Walk boys get very into! Thursday was a great Thanksgiving dinner and Friday was some running around, hang time, gifts and Saturday we ended with the park (burn off that energy before the car trip). All in all a great time! Here are some pics to prove it!

Dancing to the girls recital video! HILARIOUS!!

November catch up

Has it really been over a month since I posted?? I guess we have been busy, which is weird because I feel like we don't do too much, as we like to keep things simple and easy at our house. If it's not fun or necessary it goes! But I did have some training in KC in November and now have some new work developments going on - which is good. This work trip was so different than my last one in June. I was so worked up about leaving in June and just wanted to get home, in fact I took a red eye home to make that happen. This time around I slept, tons. I was in bed most nights at 9 pm and then didn't get up to go to the gym (I was very bad), but I really enjoyed indulging myself in the sleep. Christian and Chaz were fine with out me too, in fact my sweet husband had the whole house cleaned up when I got home. It was such a nice surprise.
I'll be leaving again for four days in January and hope everything goes equally as well.
So, I have one quick story I have to share. I hope you enjoy this as much as I think you will...Yesteday morning I walked in to the kitchen, where my rock star hubby was making our morning lattes (non-fat sugar-free hazelnut for me, incase you were wondering), I should mention he does this every morning. Yes, I am one lucky woman! Anyway, back to the story. So I walk in, Christian's back is to me and I ask, "are you serious?" To which he looks at me confused and wants to know what I am talking about. This goes on for a little while until I bring him into the bathroom mirror and he notices something poking out from his side. He turns around and we both begin rolling with laughter. My husband, as sweet and loving and intelligent as he is, can be a little absent-minded. When he turned around he saw a big hanger neatly hanging from his pant's waist band. Don't ask how it got there, or how he did not feel it as he was walking around. Those are questions that will never be answered. Funny story, huh??
On another note, Chaz is "exploring" his boy body parts during bath time and diaper time. Now, Christian and I, being modern parents, are a little unsure of how to parent this. Right now we look away and try not to let him see us laugh, yes we are also very mature. Man, he looks like he could really hurt himself with all the grabbing! Usually I am the one that can keep it together, and say something like "let's not touch that, we don't want to hurt it" or "hear hold this for momma instead." The other night before Cz got into the tub, Cs and I were laughing (heads turned away) at this display and Cz figured out that he was doing something funny and kept it up and laughed really hard too, throwing his head back and trying to jump all while grabbing. If I only had it all on film!! Too funny!!
We had a great Thanksgiving and I will try and update everyone with a few pics soon. Hope life is good!

Doc Visit and finally the remodel update:)

Hello Blog Followers!

Okay, so today was Chaz's 1 yr appt. Well, he started to come down with something on Sunday (after a three hour nap on Saturday we thought something was up), so no shots for us, but he was diagnosed with H1N1. Poor guy! We caught it in the first 24 hours, and he had only had a fever for a few hours, so he is on Tamiflu, which should shorten the whole process for us. But we would appreciate everyone's prayers for a speedy recovery and that us parents don't get it either, especially because I am supposed to be out of town all next week and don't need Christian to come down with anything while he is holding down the fort solo.

For those that are curious, Chaz is just acting like he has a cold, so far, not too bad, but I heard that the cough he has developed could get worse, but we will be praying hard against that! Symptoms included a watery eye, clear runny nose, and a low fever Sunday night, that jumped to 102 by the time we had our appt, oh and a cough that occured twice on Saturday and then about 10 times Sunday, and now is a couple times an hour.

His height was 31" and his weight was 23 lbs.4 oz.

He is currently in the 82 percentile for height and 55 for weight (those cheeks are deceptive, huh?). So basically, tall and slender, like his daddy.



He also got the highest score on his development questionaire! Way to go, buddy.

Right now I am listening to him say "uh-ohohoh, uh-oh, mamamama" over the monitor. I am hoping he sleeps soon, he needs his rest.

Oh, and for those that follow the blog, here are the bath pics as promised. We are needing to get some accessories and just have not found the right stuff yet,and the fireplace trim is getting changed from the gold, just need to get it done.



Look at this pic - obviously H1N1 is not getting him down!













Oh, yeah and Saturday morning we had our first haircut! He was great, it was just a trim because we didn't like all that scruff around the ears.

Last, anytime I can find matching shirts for these two I am on it! Too cute! We got that shirt for Chaz as a gift, little did the giver know that it was Christian's favorite movie as a kid, and then I found one for daddy while I was looking through the Sunday paper ads, so I snatched it later that week!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday, Chaz! We are so proud of our little guy! He is such a fun baby with all his giggles, dancing and singing. We could not be happier to be his parents. We seriously have the cutest kid out there! We love his little gap tooth smile and red hair. We love the way he says "pretties" more like "psssTTTss" and how he obsesses over his books and insists you read it over and over. We love how he enjoys food and says "mmmmm" when he gets something he really likes, our foodie.

He is becoming such a big boy. He now walks everywhere, no more crawling (kind of sad). He drinks out of a sippy for all but one or two bottles and he eats table food. He is also beginning to follow instructions ("sit", "no", "close the door", "where's your _"). He can do the actions, when he wants to three or four songs. He talks almost non-stop and will laugh at himself when he thinks he has done something "cool" or funny.

It is such a blessing to become a parent and have a new appreciation for life and the innocence of childhood. Nothing brings greater enjoyment than watching your child learn something new and be proud of themselves, or listening to a hardy laugh and getting a really good cuddle. Which, while I am bragging about Chaz (this is my blog, so I can do that ) can I just tell you he is the best and I mean VERY BEST cuddler out there. He is so sweet, a couple times an hour he comes over and gives me a good tight cuddle and lays his head down and pats my back. He is just such an affectionate guy, and his momma loves and cherishes all of it! If I had only known that, when he was still an infant, these cuddles would have been my reward for having to hold a baby that just seemed to hate being out of someones arms, I think it could have gotten me through much more easily! It is all worth it.

Not only was this a big year for Chaz, but as his parents and first-time parents we had a big year too. It's been quite an adjustment! Both Christian and I had a tougher transition to being parents than we had thought - but we both think we were a little dillusional on the outset. We thought, if we implement all the advice from the books we've read then our child will just follow suits...not the case. Also, we had been together as a couple for a very long time and were very used to having all of each other's attention and doing whatever we wanted whenever we wanted, so our selfish ways had to change and having a baby taught us alot about priorities and self sacrifice. We look at life in a whole new way now!

Okay, I know, enough...back to the birthday boy! So, Chaz turned one on the 16th, but we celebrated with family and a few friends on the 10th with a party at the house. Chaz loves 'Old McDonald' so we stuck with a barn animal theme and it was pretty cute, if I do say so myself. Chaz, a performer already, (it's destined to be with such dramatic people for parents) made a huge display with the cake. We had cake flying off fingers when he clapped, he did some dancing, some cake got smooshed down into the diaper. He loved all the attention and just stared when everyone sang to him and was very pleased that everyone got excited when he touched the cake. Here are some photos of the big day!

>Chaz's obsession with pumpkins has not stopped and he had to bring out cousin, Charlee to enjoy them too! These two are becoming buds as Chaz becomes more mobile and more able to play with the "big kids."

Grandma cuddles!!

Why is it the packaging is always so much fun??

Had to share - I decorated this cake for my baby! Christian wanted me to make it all from scratch for him. But we compromised and I ordered a plain cake and then went to town. What fun!

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On Chaz's actual b-day I took the day off and we went to story time at the library with our cousins, Charlee and Elle. We met daddy for lunch and had lots and lots of chocolate milk. Then went back home for a big nap and a fun night playing with all his new toys. The next day was Saturday and we went to an apple orchard and had a great time with each other and Chaz had pizza and ate an entire piece. Is pizza love an inherited trait? Daddy thinks so!

Bonus pic - taken a few weeks ago. But just because Halloween is around the corner!