I’m thinking of changing the name of these posts to “5 on Whenever I Get Around To It”.

1. This week Noah has been pointing at things and jabbering. Sometimes it’s because he wants something, others just because he wants to talk about it. The last couple days he’s begun saying “That!” or even “wan’ that!” when he is pointing out something he wants.
2. Mom, the kids, and I took a couple days this week to visit my aunt and uncle a few hours away. We try to get there a couple times each year, but it had been more than a year since we’d been there this time. The visit was lovely. We took the kids to a charming little zoo and beautiful playground, we ate good food, and we spent hours just visiting. The “just visiting” is my favorite part, because my aunt and uncle are two of my favorite people. It’s a joy to spend time with them.
3. Toward the end of the visit Aria dropped a heavy flashlight directly on the bone of my big toe. Same foot I broke a toe on in the spring. At first I thought it was just a bruise, but now I’m not so sure. I’m back to wearing a boot for a while. Sometimes you just gotta laugh.
4. But you know what did not make me laugh? When I came into the living room on Thursday to find some of Aria’s beautiful ringlets lying on the floor. I nearly cried. When I asked her if she’d cut her hair, she said, “Yeah, I did.” <searching my face> “Is that okay?” I told her that no, it wasn’t okay, and she immediately and sincerely replied with an “I’m sorry”. We had a talk about how only Nana is allowed to cut her hair (she’s our hair stylist). I think the message will stick. Thankfully, Aria’s curly hair disguises the unevenness, but I’m still a little heartbroken over the loss of those hard-earned curls. It took forever for her hair to grow to this length.
5. Andy and I have kind of abandoned the Whole 30. Not entirely, but it wouldn’t be fair to call it that at this point, I think. We’ve had a lot of good talks over the past couple weeks about our eating habits, and we both feel comfortable with where we’re at moving forward. We are continuing to eat primarily according to the Whole 30 rules, and I think we will indefinitely, but we are also allowing ourselves off-roads as appropriate. Our goal in starting the Whole 30 was to kick our cravings and get a better handle on our diets, and we’ve both done that.
   

   That picture on the left is tuna salad on lettuce leaves. Surprisingly satisfying. The tuna recipe was from Well Fed 2, and the lettuce leaves gave a great texture to the meal. The top right picture is fajita chicken and veggies, which we ate over cauliflower rice. Scrumptious. The bottom right picture is zucchini cut into spaghetti noodles. We had that for dinner Thursday night, and we didn’t love it. It was okay, but mostly just made us realize it wasn’t actually spaghetti. Aria refused to eat the noodles at all. Only Noah loved it, probably because he’s only had real spaghetti a couple times in his life.

1. Noah is becoming more independent. When prompted he can find things he has left elsewhere (i.e., pacifier). He is falling to sleep on his own, rather than nursing to sleep. Today I even left him in his crib for a couple of minutes at naptime, and he was fine. He gave a fake cry a couple times, then settled in and started happily yelling “Daddy” (which he does constantly anyway, so it wasn’t really an indication he expected to be rescued). I didn’t push it – I went and got him and put him down in our bed as usual. But, all these things are giving me hope we may be close to him sleeping in his own crib!
2. Noah’s two favorite words are “Daddy” and “buddy”. Andy and I both consistently call him buddy, and he seems to perceive it as the way to get another’s attention. The first I realized this was the other night when he wanted me to roll over and lie a certain way, so he called “buddy” until I did so. He pronounces it “bu-DEE”. It’s quite charming.
3. We got Aria construction paper and her first pair of scissors, and she is delighted. So now our house looks like this:  But, hey, learning! And motor skills!
4. We ate this yummy crockpot carnitas-style chicken last night. I like this recipe because it’s tasty, healthy, easy, and cheap. We eat it over rice, and I douse it with hot sauce. The kids like it, too. You could easily turn it into additional meals by serving it on salad or putting it in a soup. Last night I served it with cauliflower seasoned liberally with oil, salt, cumin, and paprika and roasted in a 400-degree oven for about an hour.
5. Speaking of food, we’re about to start a Whole 30. I would like to start next week, but it works better for our schedule to start the 18th, so that’s my plan. I just got this toy so we can make fake pasta (read: vegetables). I’m excited about it! Let you know how it works out…

*A toddler who moves on his legs of his own volition; not a cast member or fan of The Walking Dead.

1. Noah is walking! He has taken several steps a handful of times now. Each time he has walked it was at the home of one or the other sets of grandparents. That made us realize he isn’t walking at our house because our furniture is quite spaced out, so he can’t move one or two feet at a time and thus he chooses to drop to his knees and crawl. Interesting that even our babies base their decisions on quick, imperceptible judgments about their environment.
   

   This is not Noah walking, but it IS Noah demonstrating his mobility. He slid himself down between our bed, the wall, and his dad’s bedside table, and was happily stuck.

2. My parents, siblings, the kids, and I went to the Eiteljorg Museum last weekend to see the Ansel Adams exhibit. It was gorgeous. I loved everything about spending the day with my family. I wish we were able to do things like that more often, because as a group they are most of my favorite people in the world.
3. Aria was pleased to see the chiropractor and his screwdriver this week. Turns out (we asked), the thing she calls a “screwdriver” is actually an activator. Either way, she was happy to go and extremely concentrated on the process while he worked on her back. Noah was not enthused, but he didn’t cry through his adjustment, so I’m calling it a win.
   
4. I’ve spent the last couple days at the Mixwest Conference in Indy. It’s been fantastic. I highly recommend it. You can come with me next year, yeah? We’ll make it a party. The insights I’m picking up have actually spurred so many ideas I am a bit freaked out about how I could possibly even download them all in a constructive fashion – and I thrive on ideas and information. It’s a good conference.
   

   We took selfies in the Instagram session. And I like mine, so you actually get to see it.

5. Since I was heading down anyway, today the kids and my mom came down with me and are going to the zoo with my brother. When I got Aria up at 6am, she groggily said, “Hi, Mom” and, moments later, “Where we going?” with a sweet smile. Those little moments are priceless.

   You’ll notice this post is on time for once. That’s because I’m just at a conference, not actively parenting. 😉