Surviving the toddler months

Parker has hit toddler-hood with a bang. It started around 15 months (now 17 1/2 months). I have realized that with the toddler age comes fit throwing, less cuddling, more hitting, biting and other things that make a mommy think her child no longer loves her. Of course Parker only really acts this way for me; he and Jason are still best buddies. In the last few months we have become very familiar with time-outs and having to breathe and count to ten before reacting to a situation. Parker is doing what he is supposed to in order to test boundries and learn; I have to remind myself of that numerous times per day. When he's not terrorizing our home Parker is constantly making us laugh. His personality still amazes me and he is the most polite 17 month old I know, saying "pees (please)" and "tay-choo (thank you)" whenever he asks for something and it is given to him. His vocabulary has grown immensly in the last month and he will repeat everything we ask him to say. One of his favorite things to do is to tell people to "sit down!" if he thinks they are doing something that they shouldn't be doing. He is trying to learn to color which is definitely a process and I am so thankful for washable crayons! He has learned to count to ten, usually starting with two and saying five more than once... but he's learning! He can also say his name which sounds like, "pah-koh" and can also name his cousins Peyton "pay-tee" and Ryder "wy-duh", uncle Colt, Grandpa Stepard "Papa" and Grandma Yancey "Dappy." He is our life and our joy.

About a month ago I discontinued my massage practice in order to stay home full-time with Parker. It was a big decision that took a lot of thought and consideration. I miss my work and it has been a huge adjustment to be a full-time stay at home mom/wife. I knew my work was a break but never realized how much of a break it was until I didn't have it anymore. I can tell Parker is already benefitting from my being home which is the entire reason for the decision and makes all of my discomfort totally worth it.

Jason is still secure in his job, thank God. He has been busy fishing and hunting. He returned a couple of weeks ago from a nine day elk hunting trip; unfortunately he didn't get anything, but there is still his late archery season as well as my rifle season. We also have rifle deer season coming up in a couple of weeks.

Fall is busy as usual but I'm excited for the cool weather and the holidays.

Summary of the last four months

Life continues to get more and more busy as Parker gets older. We celebrated his first birthday on April 18th and I absolutely cannot believe how fast the year went. Parker is now walking all over the place and getting into everything. He has a wonderful personality and is constantly making us laugh with his funny faces and silly antics. His vocabulary is growing daily and it makes me melt when he calls me "mommy" and gives me wet kisses. He is truly a daddy's boy though, and knows exactly what to do when Jason asks, "What does an elk say?" Jason is wondering if he'll be big enough to go hunting this fall as Parker is now his favorite hunting buddy. Along with saying "mommy" and "dada," Parker's favorite words are "uh-oh," "appoh(apple)," "hi," "waz-ah?(what's that?)," "nana(banana)," and "buh-bye." What amazes me more though is his ability to understand the things that we are saying or asking; sometimes he nods his head but more often than not he just shrugs his shoulders.

Along with being a mommy I am still running my business and I am keeping busy with paperwork while at home; about 95% of our clientele has insurance coverage which is probably the only reason the business is still hanging on in this economy. Aside from the massage business I am also working from home doing some writing for a small "grant finders" company. It takes up the rest of my free time while Parker is napping during the day.

Jason is still at Ferguson and has survived a few rounds of lay-offs, thank God. We are so grateful that he still has a job. He started playing on his annual softball team a few weeks ago. During his free time he has been fishing as much as possible and is already looking forward to this fall when the elk start rutting.

We had our first camping trip with Parker over Memorial Day weekend. Dustin and Jessica invited us to Lake Billy Chinook along with the rest of Jason's family. It was fun but extremely exhausting. We did have a chance to get out on the boat and soak up some much needed sun. The guys fished all day every day, so at least they had a chance to relax (sheesh). All the baby cousins (Parker, Peyton and Ryder) had fun playing in the little pool we had with us. It's fun to see them interact even though they do get a little possessive of their toys. We hope to do more outdoorsy stuff this summer if time permits.

That's it for now, I promise to try and keep up with this as much as possible.

Sportsmen's Show and other adventures

I haven't posted anything lately. We've been nursing ourselves back to health. Parker got his first cold, including a mild ear infection. I was very disappointed since he is breast fed and, in my mind, should be completely immune to that crap... oh well. At first I was feeling like a bad mom, "my milk is bad," I thought. Luckily we believe strongly in alternative medicine and he got better overnight.

Other than that we haven't been doing much. We did take Parker to the Pacific Northwest Sportsmen's Show... he LOVED it. Of course I dressed him in his camo so he got a lot of attention, which he greatly enjoys. I'm starting to realize how much of a social person he is, we really should get out of the house more often. While at the show a woman came up to the stroller, and without even looking at Jason or me, crouched down with a small dog and shoved the dog right in Parker's face and said, "oh, do you want to see the puppy!" I kind of yelled at her... who just walks up to an infant and puts a dog in his face without asking the parents if it's ok?! I was pretty irritated; I'm sure she thought I was a witch with a capital "B". Maybe she'll think twice next time... I mean, seriously lady.

We also took Parker on his first fishing trip, just to Daybreak Park. Jason didn't catch anything but Parker had a good time sitting and playing in the grass. At least we know he's not afraid to get dirty.

Today

I could have died...

... right in the middle of Babies R Us.

We arrived at the new Toys R Us and Babies R Us in Jantzen Beach and I decided that Parker could be a "big boy" this time and ride in the shopping cart instead of his car seat. I plopped him in and gave him a couple of toys to play with. He was happy as a clam. We proceeded into the store and over to the thermometer section. I turned around to take a look at the ear thermometers and when I turned back around to the cart, Parker was all out LICKING and CHEWING on the cart bars/handle!! Immediately flashbacks of the NBC program I had just watched titled "1 Million Germs" came flying through my head. "Ninety percent of carts tested were positive for E. Coli, influenza and fecal matter!" Lovely. So I fought my urge to immediately seek out an employee to see if they had a first aid or medical facility in the store. I also put aside the thought of squirting hand sanitizer in my eight month old child's mouth, rubbing alcohol has to be safer than poop particles, right? Instead, I redirected my attention to the area of the store that has those shopping cart cover things.

Some may say that I was overreacting to the whole situation because he's my first child. I'm always getting moms telling me that I won't be so "freaked" once I have more than one. That's probably true in some cases, however, I can't imagine myself looking at any of my children and saying, "ah, how cute... does that dookie taste yummy?"

Nine Months Already?!

Parker is now nine months old. My how time flies! Our little man now has a personality all his own. He is a ham for the camera, people who know us well might say he got that from me. He's still working on crawling, he figured out how to creep/army crawl and apparently that's good enough for him. He gets around well enough to keep me running. He also understands, "I'm gonna get you!" if he is crawling somewhere that he's not supposed to be. He starts to giggle and frantically keeps crawling in the other direction.

He has recently started eating finger foods, cheerios and other small morsels that easily get stuck in his various fat rolls. When he was first able to pick these snacks up and feed himself I thought, "ahhh, what a big boy." Now that he tries to pick up dried up pieces of hamburger that he finds swept under the stove and put them in his mouth, I'm thinking we should have skipped the small snacks stages altogether. I can no longer put off the sweeping and vacuuming of the floors.

Parker has also recently started clapping, waving bye-bye and "dancing" to music. I love it all, it's great to see his mind working.

Parker's Birth Day

Parker Anthony was born on April 18 2008 at Legacy hospital in Salmon Creek. He was 7 pounds 13 ounces and 20 inches long. I can't complain about my labor, it only took ten hours of labor and about five minutes of pushing (too much information?). FIVE MINUTES?! you ask... well, it's not that I'm wonder woman, I was told that if I didn't get him out NOW we would have to go in for an emergency c-section, that was enough motivation for me to kick it into high gear. He had the cord wrapped around his neck so everytime I would push I would cut off blood supply and his heart rate would drop. Yadda yadda...

I was in the hospital for three days with a few complications, those are details I absolutely won't go into, trust me, you don't want to know. I was SO happy when they finally let us go home. It was so peaceful at our house and finally we were allowed to be alone as a family.