Happy Halloween!

Got Yogurt?

Recommend!

I bought ten of these (two five packs) and they are wonderful for organizing toys! We are trying to work with Remy on asking for help, making choices, and focusing on one task at a time so being able to keep him from dumping all of his toys out on the floor in five minutes and then bouncing frantically from one to another is key.  These bags are good quality and a perfect size. They have strong "zippers," sturdy handles, and a section for labeling contents.  This is also going to be great for keeping toys with little pieces togehter (animals with the arc, school kids with the bus, etc.)  I don't know if they are available at Walmart and Target but I found these on amazon for $6.99 a pack and I think they are gonna earn their keep!

...Oh my goodness, I am back to update this post because I just had a TERRIBLE thought! What if he puts one of these bags on his HEAD? Crap. Why is parenting so dang hard?

Happy Boy

Well Said

 I read this wonderful F. B. Meyer quote in One Thousand Gifts:

I used to think that God's gifts were on shelves one above the other, and that the taller we grew in Christian character the easier we should reach them. I find now that God's gifts are on shelves one beneath the other, and that it is not a question of growing taller but of stooping lower, and that we have to go down, always down, to get His best gifts.  

(If you are like me and had never heard of F. B. Meyer before, here is his wikipage!)

Some Good Ol' After-Dinner Mischief

If he wasn't so darn cute in those overalls it migh have occurred to me to stop him!

That is green beans all over his face...and his shirt...and his overalls!

I think they call this a path of destruction. 

YES!

I read this in One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp this morning and it has been my prayer today:

"For no matter how many promises God has made, they are 'Yes' in Christ" (2 Corinthians 1:20 NIV).

Yes in Christ!
To the Enfleshed Yes who said yes to this moment and yes to last year's illness and yes to the cracks of my childhood and yes to the nail and yes to my name in the Book of Life, hear me say YES! Not "I'm worried." Not  "I'm stressed out." Not "I'm anxious." Not "I'm too afraid." Hear me say thank you.  Hear me say YES!  

Keep on Truckin'

Mr Remy Remington is a huge fan of trucks. And now that we have removed television from his daily life he has even MORE time for trucks! This one is his favorite and it is brilliant. It is by Fisher-Price and it is a large, hollow firetruck with a removable "ladder" that serves not only as a lid but as a building surface for the stackable blocks that the truck came with. There is also a cute little driver and a fire hydrant. Oh, and in addition to the big all-purpose hole on the top, it also has three slots along the sides - circle, square and octagon - for sorting the three different shaped building blocks! I am learning that this type of dynamic toy is great for helping Remy move from something that he has mastered  into the areas that he needs more work - cooperative play, imaginative play, etc.

We are pretty worried about him lately. Not only does he not have any words, but he doesn't seem to know his name, he doesn't seem to understand pointing or verbal commands, he has lost the ability to clap, he doesn't make any animal noises, we have not been able to teach him any sign language beyond "all done" which he learned quite a while ago, and he engages in a lot of senseless physical activity like arm flapping, jumping in place, walking in circles etc. From what I am reading it seems clear that he has some kind of sensory processing disorder and it is possible that he may eventually be diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. This has been an overwhelming realization, but one that when I look in his face doesn't seem quite so daunting. He is still the same intent, happy, beautiful baby he has always been.

Goodbye to Summer

I can't believe that it was just last month that we were on vacation. Now the leaves have finally started to fall here in Las Vegas and the weathermen are warning us of dropping temperatures and increasing winds. It was kind enough to linger, but our second summer in Las Vegas really is coming to an end. So thankful for all the wonderful experiences we've had - Bonnie Springs, Mount Charleston, Springs Preserve, Hawaii, Mom and Dad's move, Remy growing from a stumbler to a runner - it was a magical summer.

Cause it's Purdy

Better

When your sick little baby is feeling better the sunrise is more lovely, the butter more buttery, the flowers more vibrant.  

What's Up

• I played around with the telephoto lens again yesterday. I took that flower picture using the macro setting. It's a fun feature, but kind of unwieldy because you can't get in close like you can using the macro setting on my point and shoot and there is just not a lot of space for setting up your shot out on the balcony.   
• Remy is on day three of his antibiotics and is doing so much better this morning. He still has the cough and the runny nose but is 10x happier than he was yesterday and the day before. Thank God for antibiotics!
• Remy and I have missed out on a lot of fun times over the last few weeks so we have some serious making up to do soon! Hopefully we'll have a playdate with a couple of our favorite Las Vegans and the King's Faire at Canyon Ridge next week. 
• Also next week I meet with the endocrinologist. Last time he told me to hold off on trying to get pregnant because one of my numbers was still outside of the normal range. This seriously messed up my plans and pissed me off.  This Thursday we are meeting to see if that one number is back in the magical "okay" range, but I find I am kind of ambivalent about the whole dang thing right now.  
• We have an appointment with Early Intervention next month to get Remy evaluated.  He has missed many of his developmental milestones so we are hoping he will qualify for some in-home therapy to help him where he is struggling. To say that I am worried would be a bit of an understatement but, you know, I gotta keep my cool here on the blog.  I will surely be writing about this more in the future.  
• I bought some stuff! Yesterday I ordered a retractable brush for cleaning my camera lens, a stainless steel nob for my dutch oven so that I can put it in the stove without destroying the nob, and a set of 5 envirosacks in the beautiful, Japanese-inspired "Origami" line.  
• Another item I am eagerly awaiting in the mail is the Teach Me To Talk DVD that I ordered from Teachmetotalk.com. In the DVD a pediatric speech-language pathologist shows you effective ways to interact with and  teach a child with speech delays. I'm gonna watch it, then I'm gonna make Ross watch it, then I'm gonna ask Mommo and Poppo to watch it!

From the Balcony

The weather has been gorgeous here this week and Remy and I love going out on the balcony!  When we are out there though I have to keep on him about being gentle with the plants, leaving the dirt alone, and not throwing things off the balcony. It's hard being a toddler sometimes, but fortunately he does have his rocks and his watering can to play with when Mommy is being a killjoy. 

 

I am grumpy and sick and don't feel like blogging, but since it would be selfish and wrong to withhold this awesomeness from the world...behold!

Watching TV

When I am old and senile and I look back at Remy's baby photos I may have to conclude that all he did was watch TV! It's true, he watches a lot of TV. But he does other things too! ...It's just that they don't photograph as well. It seems like the only time he stops pushing his truck, or making weird faces, or hopping up and down long enough for me to get an in-focus picture is when something on TV catches his attention. So I have hundreds of pictures of him looking at the television. Oh well, at least he is a beautiful TV watcher.

(Okay, so I just scrolled through the pictures I have posted lately, and I was relieved to see that I have some decent ones of him NOT watching TV.)

Poor Baby

Oh my word, folks! Remy is still sick. I tried to take him out yesterday for a couple of little errands - the post office and target - and he had a full-on meltdown. Thank goodness I had Mama there for support!  So we are staying in once again today. He usually has a few good hours a day, generally right after he wakes up in the morning and after his nap, and he runs around getting in as much playing as he can during those brief hours. Then he slips back into bewildered tears and sniffles. :(

Meanwhile I am playing around with photoshop actions. They mesmerize me. Here are some free ones I downloaded yesterday from My Four Hens (thanks Steph [btw, couldn't find the one you were talking about.])

NOT a Chicken

One thing you may not know about Piper is that she is always on the lookout for a good game of chicken. She is pretty sure she rocks at it. I'll concede at least that she has nerves of steel. You could throw that ball at her and she wouldn't flinch...she would just try to stare it into submission until it hit her in the face. Then she would give a quick, indignant hiss, move a foot away and act like she had won. She also employs this method with Remy. It's amazing to see a snot-nosed, sticky-fingered toddler barreling at a cat and the cat staring him down without batting an eye. The wisdom of her tactics (or tactic, it's pretty straightforward) is sometimes questionable (I can't count the number of times I have stepped on her not realizing that we were engaged in a game of chicken) but her persistence is remarkable.

By the way, I did not throw that ball at her face. But Remy might have.

What's Up

• Remy is still sick but he is more cheerful so I think he is feeling better than he was. 
• Poppo and Ross are also not feeling too hot.  Something is definitely going around.
• Yesterday I went over to Mommo and Poppo's place to watch ND kick some butt. It was such a gorgeous day that after the game we drove down to the Town Square mall to walk around. 
• At said mall I bought some pricey blush. It is my reward for being such a good nurse this week. 
• I read The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern this week. It reminded me so much of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell that I kept expecting footnotes. It was good! Nice love story, interesting characters, good prose, and the lovely circus itself. If you don't mind a little fantasy in your fiction you will like it.
• The season finale of Doctor Who was last Saturday. Apparently some people didn't like it. Hrmph. I thought it was great. Visually it was gorgeous. And there was a wedding, so it was kind of romantic. Matt Smith and Alex Kingston are brilliant together and I love seeing a woman over 30 as a recurring character. Personally, I don't miss David Tenant or R.T. Davis one little bit. I still miss Rose though... (((sad sigh)))
• Still playing around with the telephoto lens.  Here are some pictures from early-sunset on Friday. 

Zooming...

SUPER zooming!

From the Balcony...

More weather! I love the big puffy clouds and the rain that falls far enough away that it only enhances the view. I also love that we are finally out of the triple digit highs.

I took the above photos using Ross's snazzy telephoto lens. I feel like I could explore the mountains for hours using that lens. I am hoping to buy a tripod in the next  month or so that I can get crisper, clearer shots with it.

Sick Baby

If I had to characterize this week in just one word that word would be snot. Rivers of snot. My hands are always damp and I am so exhausted that I struggle to remember if they are wet because I just washed snot off of them or just touched something snotty. It's been a lot of fun. But look at this little buddy, doesn't he melt your heart?

Job Perk

I think there was about a decade of my life when I only saw sunrises once or twice a year. One of the blessings of motherhood is that now I get to see them whenever I want. You give up some things to be a mother, but you get so much more back.

New Shoes

Our Most Distinguished Cat

What makes a cat distinguished? Well, a haughty expression is a good start. Add to that the ability to remove keyboard keys with one's tongue, a talent for fetch, and a stubborn streak a mile wide. 

Old Keyboard

One of the best things about replacing my laptop is that I don't have to use an external keyboard anymore! Piper had destroyed my old laptop's keyboard (first licking off numerous keys and then puking into it until half of it shorted out.) Before putting the keyboard (the good one, not the pukey one) into storage yesterday I let Remy have a go at it. He loved it!

(I'm also trying to transition from picnik for my photo editing to photoshop so please excuse my trials and errors!)