Oh, and there is this too…

Jr is walking.  He has taken a few steps here and there on his own, but he is mostly still holding on to things.  But that does not stop him from walking all over.

And he is starting to talk.

And I think it is making him not want to sleep.  EVER.

EEEEEVVVEEEERRRR.

Well, really it is that he doesn’t want to slow down to go to sleep.

Rocking in the rocking chair had become part of our routine since he learned to stand on his own, since every night after that looked like high holy mass in his crib – he would sit, kneel, and stand over and over again, and I would sing and pray.  A lot.

So rocking worked for us – stories in the chair and rocking and cuddling was the ticket.  But now it is a new sport in our house, Rocking Chair Wrestling.

And mommy loses every night.

I think it is time to move on to find the next “something” that works for the final parts of the bedtime routine – and I think it is probably going to involve some crying for Jr, and probably for me.

It is SO trying being in the nursery, sitting in that chair with him, just praying so hard that he will drift off to sleep.  He is so tired, and frankly at this point by the time he actually falls asleep he is over tired from an hour of being up and pushing with his little limbs against anything he can feel to push on.

So hard.

I am starting to dread bedtime every night, because I know it is going to be a battle. 

I am fairly anti-Ferber – but I also want to foster a little independence on the journey to sleepy town.  I doesn’t help that I seem to have packed my copy of “the No Cry Sleep Solution” in the pre-market packing frenzy at The Tree House.

Sigh.

So tired.

 

Whoa.

When you get in alignment with God’s plan for you – it is almost dizzying how fast everything starts to fall in line.

For years I struggled in the wrong direction – and then one day it hit me that I was trying for things I no longer wanted in a place I no longer wanted to be.

We made a new plan and I prepared to begin struggling up that path as well.

BUT NO – doors opened, opportunities lined up and in the blink of an eye I am at a new job in my home town, the Tree House is under contract, and we are searching for the perfect little house to within sneezing distance of where I grew up to become home for our little family.

Wow.

Just wow.

Oh -and PRAISE HIM.

(but please excuse the absence – just trying to get myself and the fam migrated over into the whole new world.) 

 

Dear Tree House

Dear Tree House,

I love you.

And I actually (for how much I say it,) don’t say that lightly at all.

You’ve been the best house, and it was totally a love affair between me and you from the moment you became our home.

Sure, we had another “married” home before you – but not one we picked together.  Not one where I was considering someone else when I thought “this is PERFECT.”

You have been so perfect for us.

Your flowing floor plan has embraced countless friends as we celebrated birthdays, holidays, and Saturdays-with-no-other-good-reason.

Your high-and -lonesome location way above street level has allowed us to woop it up with burgers and dogs on my supah sweet Patio Caddy (google it, highrise folks, it will change your life,) and also to close ranks and “raise the draw-bridge” in times of crisis.

I adore you.   I have from the second I walked into you and prayed that The Hub would love your generous, bright rooms, and GIANT balcony the way that I have – because I didn’t want to do without you.

I am not abandoning ship because I had this tiny person and everything I ever thought about you changed.
OH NO.

I adore you more than ever.

You are where my son lived the first year of his awesome life.  You are immortalized in my mind.  I will drive him by – like my parents have done with our first little house on sweet little Mason Circle - and I will point towards your balcony and say “there was your first house, Jr.  I was SO proud of it, and of the family we grew while we were there.”

He will roll his eyes.  He will demand to go to the Cherry Cricket for burgers like I promised him.

And some day – long after – he will get it.   He will know that it was pretty cool that he was a total urban highrise kiddo back then.  He will marvel at my mad parallel parking skills the way that my best friend  Misty and I did the first time we came looking for my first apartment with my mom (who was raised in the city,) and she parallel parked the car in a tiny little city space like she was pulling a Yugo into a handicapped van space.  (we were mesmerized, I assure you.)

I digress.

You’ve been the best house.

Whoever buys you had better love you so much…  and know of your fabulousness.

Oh how I have loved you so.

You are the best house.  Let’s find you a fabulous next inhabitant so you can make fabulous memories for them too.

Happy Birthday Jr!

From this:

and this:

To This:

And this:

Happy Birthday Junior – from the luckiest, proudest Momma in the whole wide world!

 

How was this a year ago?

A year ago I was 3 days away from the arrival of Jr and I posted this (now semi-hillarious, considering the timing,) little ditty.

Now that my mind is made up…

It is REALLY made up. Like we had been planning it for years.  Like part of me I had forgotten just woke up, rested and ready and fighting to get free.

And I can’t stop humming this song:

 

How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb, er BURBS, that is.

It is no secret to anyone that The Hub and I consider ourselves Urban-dwellers at this point.  The centrally-located fabulousness of The Tree House had me convinced that we would raise our hypothetical off-spring there for many happy years to come.  I truly believed that I would leave my little palace in the sky only when someone pried me, kicking and screaming, to a house not quite so perfectly located, but still very much in central Denver.

So here we are – it is go-time on the house hunt.

For months (ok, years really,) I have been psyching myself up about the concessions people make in our central neighborhoods – limited square-footage, tiny closets, nutty floor plans, basement master suites (hey, at least it has good closet space and an actual master bath,) and the like.   I told myself that as a proponent of the Not So Big House movement, all of these things would fit right in with my idea of a great home.  We can find a house we will love in a neighborhood with a good public school for Junior that is still close to all of the action.

Then last week, while responding to a Facebook post from an old hometown friend, it occurred to me that while the city may have lots to offer that is oh-so-appealing to mom and dad, the ‘burbs is kind of where it’s at for a kid.   So much easy access to all the things a kid loves – and with no parking nightmares for the parents!  An epiphany the size of the city AND county of Broomfield (and that is big, people,) hit me – I think I *want* Jr to grow up in the suburbs.   The city will always be there, and we will always have places we love to go within it, but I think I want Jr. to know the best of all worlds – city adventure one day, wide open spaces the next.  Room to ride bikes and beautiful suburban golf courses for The Hub to share with his son.  It is so not about The Hub and I as we defined ourselves in the past – it is all about the family we have become, and the needs of that family.

I think I want Jr. to have the space to discover who he is and where he wants to go in this big, promising, wonderful world – just like his dad and I both did when we were growing up.

(Oh, an I could probably get used to wandering out of my beautiful kitchen, through my over-sized garage, down the clean and well-kept street, and into a lounge chair next to the development’s private pool, too.  Not all the perks are for the kiddos exclusively.)

God gave me you

Since Blake Shelton decided to cover David Barnes’ awesome song “God Gave Me You,” it has really been all over the place.

And that is a very good thing, because it is just perfect for this little spot in my life – so I am glad to hear it often.

Cooper is 11 months old today (wow!)

(Hello, Doodle.)

11 months ago, God gave me him -  if there is one thing I know for sure, beyond a doubt – he is the best thing I have ever done in my life.  Easily.

These past two years have been full of self-doubt and setbacks and being just plain stuck in spite of all my trying.

But then there is him – this amazing huge, accomplishment -  growing and being and awesome in all of his little person fabulousness.

It may be true that my skills and talents don’t seem to be promoting me in the workforce right now, but I can look at him and know – beyond the shadow of a doubt – that his thriving and growing little self has so much to do with me.

I have accomplished that, at least.

I can’t doubt too much, can’t be that far off my chosen path, and can’t possibly feel forsaken for long, when I look at him.

God gave me him.  But just as important, God gave him me – so I must be doing something right for Him to consider me worthy of being Cooper’s mom.

The thing is…

I would probably be ok just being mediocre – except having that as a mom just can’t be what God had planned for someone as awesome as him:

I just can’t give up – even if it seems impossible.

No idle hands here.

I have been Busy (capital B required,) at work lately.

BUSY.

Which has actually been kind of fabulous, because the things I have been doing are interesting and challenging and varied – all the things that make work an enjoyable place to spend time, and leave me feeling proud and recharged as I jump in the Keri-mobile to head home for an evening with the fam.

But still – very very busy, and very very tuckered out by the end of the day.  Which means very very neglectful blogger.

BUT there is this – I have been all about Natalie Grant’s “Perfect People”  this week.  I have cranked it and shamelessly shouted along after dropping Jr at daycare every morning.  Love it.

Come as you are, broken and scarred….  and be amazed, and be changed, by a Perfect God.

Go ahead, turn it up – shout it out.  It will change your whole day.