Going to a Birthday Party !

Difficult as this is to believe, Nathan is apparently officially old enough to have friends with birthday parties. The kind of parties where friends get invited, I mean. So today was Nathan's first! His friend Meredith turned two earlier in the week, and she invited Nathan to come to her party. We met Meredith at Gymboree early in 2008, and her family was very supportive and encouraging through Nathan's weight loss and hospitalization last winter -- and since then, her mom (also Erin) and I have become friends -- we like to take the kids walking at Lake Johnson... she's one only friends I have who will brave the hills even in the cold months, so I really appreciate our shared desire for fresh air!

Meredith's party started at Gymboree - Nathan hadn't been in a while (since September) and he could do way more than last time we were there! He was climbing all over everything! Running around, throwing balls, climbing "big steps" and sliding down slides. So fun! He also loved the parachute every bit as much as he used to, but instead of lying on the floor kicking as in old days, today he ran around under it, squealing. Too cute. And he was officially not the loudest one there -- seems he has learned to tone down that big personality when we're around other kids, to the point he might be becoming a pushover (several times kids took toys from him and then ran away, and he didn't do anything about it... he would just look sad for a second and then find something else to play with... I decided since it wasn't bugging him, I wouldn't push it with the other parents, even though some of them were 4 or 5 and should know better), kind of strange to see Nathan in a social setting now that he's getting a little older! Anyway we had fun with the bubbles and songs and climbing equipment, and of course he enjoyed seeing several big trucks out the window too. :)

Then we went back to Meredith's house for a cookout, and to play in her yard. She has a kiddie pool that I thought Nathan would love. Um... not so much. Odd because he loves the bath, and (as long as it's not too cold) he loves swimming pools too -- baby pools and grownup pools. But this one, he was terrified of. He just wanted to stand next to it and pour water all over himself, but not actually stand in the pool. Fortunately it was lots of parents of toddlers around, and they were understanding of water not staying in the pool -- I imagine they're used to it. (They were less understanding of Nathan washing off his cheetoh hands in the water, which baffled me but whatevs. Yeah, your kid's swimming in a kiddie pool full of dirt and leaves, not wearing a diaper to contain his bodily fluids, and you're worried that -- gasp!! -- she might get some cheetoh dust or icing on her swimsuit. ::sigh::)

Nathan, birthday girl Meredith, and mommy Erin

Cupcake with blue icing.... blue!!

But was actually a really fun party; Nathan had a ball! He ate hamburger, baked beans (of course), birthday cake, gumdrops shaped like fish, and ran around in the yard and got out lots of energy. Needless to say he's sleeping hard right now, and I hope he'll stay that way!

For more pictures of us at home and around town over the last month, click on Nathan helping to sweep the floor, below.


by mgoetts

Big Towers

I haven't done a Nathan update in a while, and when I sat down to do it, I realized there has been way too much growing and developing (and talking! oh, the incessant chatter! I am starting to get a taste of what it must be like to live with me) and fun stuff going on to put it all in one blog post. I wouldn't even know where to start.

So I'm just posting about one new thing today: Towers.... Big towers.

You know that Santa brought Nathan blocks for Christmas. What you don't know is that Nathan has missed nary a day of block-building since then. Seriously, he isn't tired of them. We rotate his toys out every few weeks, and there are blocks in each batch, and he always plays with them. He loves these blocks. Every time he stacks as few as two blocks together, he proclaims "big tower!" and looks around for applause (I'm embarrassed to admit I think we're raising a praise junkie). He has blocks downstairs with his dump truck and upstairs in his toy box. There are blocks in my purse, blocks in his backpack, and blocks in his bedroom. The blocks come on vacation with us, so Nathan has built towers all over the state, and even on the west coast.

He adores building towers, adores the towers themselves, and adores knocking them over (and then saying "oh man!" - click that link for a video example if you missed it the first time around).

We're pleased that he likes his blocks so much, and with the fact that they will hold his attention so long (sometimes up to an hour). It's good for him to develop concentration skills, plus they don't flash or beep (that's a plus for mommy). Based on our experience with these blocks, I think it's safe to say our kid has NO attention deficit!

Anyway in the last few months, Nathan has started building towers of anything - books, animals, sippy cups (don't you know milk tastes best when there's a small block balancing on the cup's lid while you drink?), puzzle pieces, you name it. Of course he gets frustrated when he tries to build something that won't stack well, but he's starting to ask "fall?" when he can tell his architecture might be a bit questionable, so he can try something else.

With all this tower building, it's a little ridiculous he had never played with legos until this week... ridiculous but true. My dad sent some (all the way from the Legoland store in Anaheim!) that we had been saving for a rainy day, so we busted them out this week, and no surprise -- Nathan loved them! And get this: with Legos you can build something magnificent and then take the big tower with you!!

The look of sheer joy when Nathan made this discovery was awesome. He might never grow out of his love for building big towers, but I assume at some point he will, and I know this will be a fun stage to look back on.

They're all big towers, sweetie. Don't give up on the biggest one you want to build, we know you can do it.

How I Decided Not to Cloth Diaper

This picture pretty much says it all...

... But I will elaborate anyway.

This is a picture of my laundry room. Yes, that's a push toy and a car seat base on top of my laundry. Yes, my laundry is clean, it just hasn't made it back upstairs yet. Yes, I am dumb enough to put Bible study materials at the foot of my washer, and no I am not trying to drown Jesus. (Somewhere out there, Kiran is wondering, I'm sure.)

As you can see by my laundry room, I don't love laundry. Nor have I ever given anyone any indication that I do. Unlike my friend Hope, I don't even sarcastically allude to loving laundry, lest the message be lost in translation and someone think that I actually do. Make no mistake: I don't.

As I get closer and closer to making and executing the decision to be a full-time homemaker, I am looking for ways to trim our budget. Even more. And cloth diapering is a surefire way to do that. I have been tempted by the numbers: the startup costs are less for cloth diapering than I would spend on six months' worth of disposables (even after accounting for my incessant coupon clipping and bargain hunting and rebate requesting), which means the cloth diapers would pay for themselves four times over (or so) before Beanie is potty trained. Even more if I somehow get knocked up again. So this should be easy math, right?

Wrong.

There is a price on sanity. If this is what our laundry room looks like now, then Mark is right (yes, I am yelling it from the rooftop, sweetie... YOU ARE RIGHT): extra loads would make me miserable. Especially if, when left undone, they smell like poop.

So I applaud you cloth-diapering moms out there (unless you do it solely to "be green" and you live on a high horse from which you preach to everyone about it, in which case I roll my eyes in your general direction directly at you), and I am secretly not a small amount of jealous that you have managed to save your family some money and keep all the laundry done and stay happy. I wish that would work for me, but I'm trying to be very realistic, and I just don't think it will.

I am officially stocking up on Huggies for Beanie.

Oh! And yes, Simon did eat the drywall when he was a puppy.

MMO... All Done!

Today is an odd Tuesday... Nathan is at home. Last week he had his last Tuesday and Wednesday of Mother's Morning Out at our church this year. He has had so much fun, and benefited so much from these hours spent out of our house with a little extra stimulation than he gets from being at home with me while I'm doubling up on my job and parenting.

For parents who were fairly (ok, completely) set on having a parent home with the kids, Mark and I were nothing short of amazed at the progress Nathan made after he started spending more time with other kids -- and without Mommy.

He was the youngest in his class, the only non-walker for the first half of the year, and he started off in September fairly new to holding his own bottles (sippy cups at that point... he never did really hold a bottle himself. what? he didn't have that many bottles, it's not that he's a complete doofus or something).

But none of that stuff got him down. His teachers consistently told us that he was one of the most easygoing kids in the class... happy to play with whatever he could reach, talk to whomever would listen, and (for the most part) eat whatever we sent with him (though that last task was met with significant challenge on days when a delivery truck was parked outside the classroom... not much can distract Nathan more than a big truck!!)...

So this week is a little bittersweet. He's starting "real" preschool in the fall, and although we anticipate he will still have one day of MMO as well, being part of the big-boy school just makes him seem so much older.

It's also bittersweet because it's likely to be the last time he gets to go to church and play with his beloved Howayda. She's the regular in the infant room on Sundays (where babies stay until they can walk... as you can imagine Nathan set some records for longevity in the infant room), and she's also been his MMO teacher in the young toddler room on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Suffice it to say -- Nathan loves her. She's been taking care of him since he was less than two weeks old, and for the majority of this school year, he spent three mornings a week with her. He could say her name before he said Marmie, Ashley, or Oh Nick. He asks for her by name when we pull into the church parking lot. He asks for her anytime we mention going to church (and immediately follows that up with asking if we get to ride the church bus, for the record... yes, the child loves him a bus almost as much as he loves him a truck). But after this week, it's unlikely he will be in Howayda's care at church any more. (Mark and I have been noting things that will cause some jealousy when Beanie gets here, and we have both decided that there is no way we're letting Nathan see us leave her with Howayda in the infant room -- he will get dropped off in his room first, I don't even want to imagine the fit of fury that would ensue if he knew Beanie got to play with her and he didn't.)

Howayda and Nathan - October 2008

The class made certificate-things with their handprints to commemorate the year's end. Can you tell Nathan doesn't like to get his hand dirty? Apparently he threw his first legitimate MMO tantrum over having this paint on his hands; I am not even kidding his was the only one that didn't look like a pristine cutsie handprint on that paper.

I keep picturing him screaming and furious as he made this rite-of-passage memento, and I'm not gonna lie... it's kind of more hilarious the more I think about it.


Here's to another big(ger)-boy moment. :)

Brad is Here from St. Croix!

My brother is in town this week! I couldn't mention it when he first decided to come, or even when he first arrived, because he wanted to surprise our dad last weekend for dinner on his (Brad's) birthday.... And dad reads this blog. Which is why there was no mention of it earlier, even though I was dying to tell. (And almost did... I had to have his wife sneak into his email and delete a copy of the itinerary I accidentally emailed him!)

Brad flew in town last Saturday and spent most of the week in Huntersville with the parentals. But yesterday he came back to Raleigh for a few days before his flight home -- yay! Nathan had been excited to see him all week, ever since I mentioned that Uncle Brad was coming. He only knows Brad mostly from pictures (they've only met three times before this weekend -- the week he was born, our vacation to St. Croix last year, and Grandpa's 90th birthday in August), but Nathan has been asking after pretty much every nap this week if Brad is here.

Anyway we had a fun visit. We ate Mexican food last night, then right away gave the boys a trial by fire this morning while Mark and I went to our first Greek baptism (man was that an event! I think our wedding was less complicated) for our neighbors' son. But Brad and Nathan did just fine -- no fussing from either of them, and Brad changed his first diaper while we were gone (with some help from Nathan, who apparently had to tell him to make it tighter... honestly, only Nathan). Yes, I am apparently that sister who leaves a baby with an uncle who's never changed a diaper... hey, I didn't know, or I promise I would have done a run-through before we left! But Brad did great, as we knew he would. Played games, fed Nathan lunch, read books, even got him to take his nap in the big-boy bed, and went for a walk on the golf course.

Then this afternoon we all decided at the last minute to go watch Clemson and UNC play in the ACC baseball tournament, since it's right up the road in Durham, and those are Mark's and Brad's respective teams.

It was a really pleasant way to spend an afternoon -- especially because Clemson won in the end. (Look, I would like to be diplomatic since I honestly don't care... but I live with Mark, so a win for Clemson drastically impacts the mood in our house.) Nathan was very excited to see all the tiger paws and pointed them all out. All of them.

On every hat, every shirt, and every player's stats on the scoreboard. In innings where Carolina was batting and they changed the huge logo on the outfield wall, he spent the whole time asking, "Where's the tiger paw? Where'd it go?" I don't know how, but somehow my child has become so brainwashed that a tiger paw is some sort of comfort symbol for him. [Sigh]

Anyway, we had fun at the game, had an entertaining ride home with Brad and Nathan (old buddies by now) cutting up in the backseat, ate pizza for dinner, and then everyone crashed. Brad has an early flight tomorrow; it's a bummer that the visit was so short but still great since we weren't expecting one at all.

And Nathan finally learned to say "uncle" correctly! (He still won't do it consistently when we ask him about Nick... mostly just "Oh Nick" as usual... but he's getting there and does it GREAT when talking about Brad.)

We love you Uncle Brad!

For more pictures of our visit with Brad, and the Clemson-UNC baseball game, click on the boys watching the game, below.


by mgoetts

Halfway!

It doesn't seem possible, but today is the halfway point to Beanie. It's going so much faster than it did with Nathan!

In honor of the milestone (and because Mark keeps guilting me about not marking milestones... you did it with Nathan, now do it for Beanie too and all that), I am posting Beanie's first belly bump pictures.

Sadly, this is mostly still just fat roll. I don't have a cute bump yet. Fell free to deny this and tell me how I definitely look pregnant and not fat.

I haven't gained any weight (technically, I am still negative 21 lbs for the pregnancy, but I guess I should start from the low point, not the actual starting point) but my body shape is definitely changing.

I am carrying Beanie higher than Nathan. With him, I was in all pregnancy pants by the halfway point, but didn't need the maternity tops until the third trimester. This time, I am still in my normal pants (albeit, my fat pants from before I lost some of that weight) but my tops don't get around my belly anymore.

I am feeling much better than I was in the first trimester -- both emotionally and physically. (Except for that whole nesting thing, which is kind of exhausting me this week.)

And I felt Beanie moving at the beach this weekend! When I laid on my stomach, she was like mom ow! get off me, seriously! That's when I dug a hole in the sand for her to rest in. I haven't felt her much since then, but it's still a lot earlier than I felt Nathan. I guess this time it helps that I know what I'm feeling for!

Anyway, all is well in preggo-world. See you in another twenty, kiddo. Love you already. :)

Go Mark!

Tonight Nathan and I, along with our friend Hayes, went to see Mark play in his softball game. (He's playing for our church again this year.) It was a very pleasant way to spend an evening, even if it was a little chilly for May.

Hayes has proclaimed himself "Mark's #1 Fan" and spent the whole game yelling "go Mark!" from behind the plate, where Mark was the catcher.

It didn't take Nathan long to catch on, and soon enough he was yelling "go Mark!" too. Not go Daddy, but "go Mark!" When the rest of the team noticed what he was doing, they thought it was hilarious and egged him on, so he kept doing it the whole game. At points when the rest of the team got excited and cheered, Nathan was frantic with joy -- running in circles, sqealing and laughing and clapping.

Too cute.But it does sound strange to hear him call his daddy by his first name. :)

Nesting Already?

The last twenty-four hours have been a jumble of moving furniture.

I mentioned that Nathan climbed out of his crib on Thursday, which has prompted the move to a big-boy bed much sooner than we had originally anticipated. Based on lots of helpful comments and emails about making the adjustment (thanks y'all!), we decided to put the pack&play in his room with the toddler bed, and give him the choice about where he sleeps... at least in the short term, to ease him into it.

But putting both of those beds in his room meant we had to take out the crib. And the glider and ottoman. Oh, and while we're at it, better move the changing table out, too, since the bins full of clothes would result in a disastrous mess from a child who can get out of bed in the middle of the night and explore.

But putting those items in Beanie's room-to-be (still currently my office) meant taking the twin bed out of that room.

Nathan helping Daddy with the crib in the new room.

And moving the twin bed downstairs to our guest room closet meant cleaning out that closet space so we'd have a place to put it. And speaking of closets, having room to store Beanie's stuff in her new room means cleaning that closet out too.

But having room to put the things that are currently in those closets somewhere else means going through all the closets in the house and getting rid of stuff we don't need anymore, filling the car to the brim with a massive load of stuff to be donated, being honest about clothes that haven't fit since college and never will again, and re-thinking someone's decision (ahem) to keep all the files and notes from every engineering class he's ever taken. Which were stored in multiple boxes in not one, not two, but three different rooms in our house (and one of those rooms was harboring class notes in two places!)...

[sigh]

So you can see this one little "let's upgrade Nathan's bed" project has caused quite the domino effect.

Am I nesting? Is all this "reorganization" really necessary? It seems awfully early to have a nesting instinct, but I almost couldn't think about anything else all day. It's carnal, I'm telling you.

And the result... is a hot mess. Of course it was too much for one day. What was I thinking?

I can barely open drawers in my study - the desk drawers hit a changing table (piled high with boxes of diapers and car seat padding and a boppy), the file cabinet drawers hit the crib (void of mattress but overflowing with a bouncy seat, baby backpack, potential sales to consignment stores, and all manner of things Nathan has seen fit to toss in. I can't open that closet in Beanie's room that I was so desperate to have access to for storage (which doesn't really matter, since it's still not empty anyway). Those school files, you ask? Yeah... they're in our bathtub. Along with a bin full of baseball gloves and tennis rackets, and several coolers that don't keep anything cold anymore.

Nathan's room looks good, though. Big-boy dresser, big-boy bed. He thinks it's for playing, not sleeping... but that will have to be a project for another week.

For more pictures of Nathan "helping" to rearrange the kids' rooms, click here.

Birthday Beach Trip

My mother-in-law has a milestone birthday this week (her 60th, and she's proud of it!) so to celebrate we went to Topsail Island, one of her favorite little bits of our great state. (For those of you who aren't from NC, that's pronounced "top-sull" which doesn't just go for people with southern twangs -- it's the way you say the name. Honestly.)

When I say we, I mean that not only did the three of us join Mark's mom at the beach, but Nick and Barbara too, and her longtime friend Marvis who flew all the way from Arizona to join us. Plus two dogs (not mine). So it felt like quite a gathering!

We had warmer weather this time than our last visit to the beach, so that meant it wasn't just Nathan who got to enjoyed the sand and waves. We all got to lay out on the beach and deck, enjoy the sunshine, and relax.

Nathan enjoyed playing in the sand -- filling buckets and toys, digging with his shovel, etc -- but he did not like walking in it. The few times we tried to encourage him to walk around without his sandles on, he wasn't really having it. He would do it, but only reluctantly, and only clinging to our hands. Which made for some cute pictures, at least. :)

I realized two things about being a mom at the beach:
1.) Kids will step on your towel. Even when you ask them not to. Even when you really really really don't want sand all over it. (I should apologize to my own mom now, for all the times I heard her say "don't step on my towel" and I did it anyway.)
2.) Unlike the bed at home, you can dig a hole in the sand to accommodate a pregnant (or just fat) belly, which makes lying around on your front so much more comfortable! Even if your family laughs at you for doing it.

Overall it was a fun weekend, even though Nathan didn't sleep well and we're all sort of tired now. We got to read and relax, and Nathan got to see lots of his precious Oh Nick, and hunt for shells for Grandma to hold, and practice saying Marvis, and watch for birds, and we were all spoiled by Nick and Barbara's fabulous cooking - crab meat au gratin last night, and a yummy typical southern breakfast casserole this morning.

(And since this is a post about birthdays, I should say happy birthday to my OWN brother! Have an awesome day, Brad! I know what you're up to but I can't post about it yet, more to come later this week. Hope it was fun, that's all I'll say for now!)

To see all the pictures of our beach weekend (including a couple that Nathan will hate us for when he's old enough to be embarrassed about running around naked), click on our family, below.


by mgoetts

Moving Out of the Crib?

I had planned to write a post sometime this summer asking other parents out there for helpful hints on transitioning a toddler from crib to bed. When to do it, how to introduce it, sleep in it right away or naps only, etc. Our plan was to start easing him into it this summer, with the hopes that he would be fully acclimated by August or September, long before another child moves into his beloved crib.

Ahhh, the best laid plans. (Seriously, will we never learn???)

Nathan climbed out of his crib this morning. Well, not all the way out. He climbed up onto the rail and straddled it and rode it like he would his plastic horse. Then he cackled and threw himself back into the bed. Who knows how long he's been doing that without our knowledge. At least he fell back into the crib side.

So much for having a gross-motor delay, huh? Apparently he really is a monkey.

We're going to the beach this weekend (he should be safe in the pack & play which has much higher rails relative to the mattress), but on Monday we're going to have to start him in the new toddler bed. Just can't take any chances that he'll hurt himself -- the crib isn't safe once he can get out.

That means I need a crash course on big boy beds. Any helpful hints or ideas on how to make the transition smooth, please share them this weekend so we'll be armed with as much info as possible when we try it out on Monday morning. Leave a comment or email me!

Mother's Day Tri at White Lake

Mark and I had planned to do a triathlon this weekend at White Lake, and had registered and paid for the event before we found out about Beanie. But despite the pregnancy (and my OB's "no-go" on the riding-a-bike-while-knocked-up thing), we forged ahead with our plans. Because hey -- isn't keeping ourselves healthy one of the best things we can do for our kids anyway? Something Mark and I are really trying to do better about.

My sister graciously agreed to spend one of her precious days off at our house hanging out with Nathan, so that Mark and I could do the trip and the tri without having to coordinate childcare. So, knowing it would just be us, with no beasts in tow... we decided to camp. (Remember I mentioned we missed doing that?) I wasn't sure how well it would go, considering neither of us is an elite athlete and we count on good rest before these kinds of events. But there were no hotels/motels in the area still available -- or not that we were willing to pay for, anyway, so we decided to give it a whirl and see how it worked.

And it was really nice. So peaceful, perfect weather (we didn't even put the fly on the tent), so nice to have time for just the two of us, away from the chaos of our lives (and the chaos of just our house, let's be honest). Mark insisted on making a fire, even though we didn't cook anything. (Men. Gotta love 'em.)

And without a troubled sleeper (as Nathan has been recently) around, we actually rested very well. To be fair, we weren't really roughing it: we brought air mattresses. (Mine deflated but I am telling myself it has a leak, not that I'm just too fat for it. Time will tell on either count, I guess.) So really I should say that Mark rested well and I rested adequately.)

And the triathlon went fine too. I skipped the bike, but did most of the run twice to compensate (about 5 miles, I think, after looking closely at the course map -- the course was a 5k for everyone else). As usual I swam off course, and daydreamed enough to come up with a crappy swim time and ZERO exhaustion as I exited the water (really need to work on pushing myself, I'm a better swimmer than that!), but I was pleased with how I did on the run. It was also a crappy time, by most people's standards, but I ran about 80% of it... slowly... so that's good for me. The more I run and the less I walk, the prouder I am. I rubbed holes in the lining of the heels of my shoes, though, so now I get to buy new ones. And I didn't even notice the blisters as I was running, not until I finished. So that was a real blessing.

And Mark (jock that he is) did rockin' awesome, of course. I'll call him out and tell you that he did very little preparation (and by very little I mean none), so he was by no means at the top of his category with finish times. But he did finish, and respectably, and looked hot doing it.

After he was done, he even came back to find me on the course and ran (mountain dew can in hand, what an athlete) the last couple hundred yards with me to the finish. He knew I didn't want to cop out and walk, so he was right there to encourage me. What a hubby, huh?

Before you ask -- I am not posting any pictures of myself. I was hoping that I would look just pregnant enough that people would call me "with child" but not pregnant enough that the race officials would ask for a medical waiver or anything, since I didn't have one.

Mission: FAILED. I just looked FAT.

I hope/think I must have looked a little pregnant, though, since people were very encouraging while I was running. (It's normally a good crowd like that, but this time especially.) Maybe because lots of them crossed my path twice (after I doubled back to do a little extra), maybe because they were amazed that a fattie (in triathlon, they call us "Athenas" -- much nicer huh?) like me was actually out there running, but I'd like to think they could just tell I was pregnant. Some of them could, anyway, since they yelled "go mama" when I ran by. Or maybe that's just because it was mother's day. Nope -- no Nathan in sight. Must have been Beanie who gave me away after all.

Hope y'all did something happy and healthy on mother's day too!

(I will get bigger pictures of Mark posted once they are emailed to us, but that won't be until next week... so for now, thumbnails it is.)

Happy Mother's Day, Marmie!

A video guest post by Ashley and Nathan, who spent most of the weekend together:



Happy Mother's Day to our Marmie! We love you!

Shogun Special for a Special Night

Today is the 12th anniversary of when Mark and I started dating. Seriously. We're that old. We're fast approaching the "we've been together half our lives" mark. Which is just... scary. (And I mean 'scary' in the best way possible.)

When we first started dating, and we needed a special-occasion dinner (6 months! prom! etc.), we almost always found ourselves at a Japanese steakhouse. You know, the kind where the chef comes to your table, announces his name is Honda or Toyota or Kamikaze or some other Japanese word all Americans know, and then turns the preparation of your food into a fiery shrimp-throwing extravaganza? You know the kind of place I'm talking about.

The first time Mark took me, he said, "It's so good, I even eat the vegetables." (Needless to say, that line has become a classic in our household.) Man, we thought we had hit the big time. Out at a fancy restaurant, eating gourmet ethnic food, all dressed up... ahh, good times, good times. In the years since then, we've noticed that the Japanese steakhouse isn't quite as fancy as we originally thought. Jeans, t-shirts, toddlers. You know. But we still like the food (if you don't you're just crazy) and the experience, and I can never eat at one of those places without remembering the early days of Mark & Erin.

So tonight, even though it's not a real anniversary (Mark is dying for me to forget the date of May 8 and just let it go already, but it will never happen), I wanted to go out and eat Japanese food for old time's sake. And since kids are apparently welcome, we brought Nathan along. And since Nathan goes to bed by 8, we went early. Early enough for the Shogun Early Bird Special. I would apologize for being old and dorky enough to eat an early-bird special, but really I was like score! Shrimp and chicken and steak! (I am pregnant, after all.)

Anyway, I now see why people bring toddlers to this place. Nathan loved it. The fire. The egg-balancing. The balloon. The fake bottle of ketchup that squirted a string in his face. The shrimp. Oh, the shrimp. My boy really does love his shrimp... And do I even need to say it? It was so good, he even ate the vegetables.

It was a fun meal for our little family. I love you, Mark. And I hope there are lots more Shogun specials in our future.

Happy Birthday "Oh Nick"

[A rough translation of a birthday message from Nathan:]

Happy birthday Oh Nick! Thank you for playing with me and loving me and making me smile.

You were the first family member to meet me after Mommy and Daddy, and you got up very early to come to the hospital before work to see me on my birth day. We loved each other the first time we met, even though you made fun of my toes before you even kissed me, and then the next week when you came back you thought that I should have teeth and be able to crawl and that my phototherapy machine was attached to my bottom. When I can talk better I will make fun of your toes, too. And the blue t-shirts that are attached to your arms.

I love to hear your voice, and it makes me curious about the things that you're teaching me. I love it when you hold me and read to me and you always talk to me like I'm a big boy and that makes me feel very good.Also, I love the strings on your jacket. You play a game with me that no one else understands but the two of us. They don't see why it's so hilarious but it is! This might be my very first inside joke. Jacket! Jacket! String!

I feel safe with you.

For your birthday I will try to learn to say "uncle" but in the meantime I do like to say Oh Nick. Where's the Oh Nick? ...

You are 25 today. Happy birthday Oh Nick. I love you. Bye bye. Night night. Hug hug.

Go By Bike!

Well, folks... it's May. And you know what that means, right? (Besides today being my half-birthday? Yes it is a legitimate thing to celebrate. Remember the I'm the Best Plate? I rest my case.)

What it means is that it's officially Go By Bike month!

Honestly, I didn't know that until today when my mom emailed me. And honestly, I am not making it up. Neither is she. I promise. It's a real thing. Really. Google it.


Nathan (who loves Go Dog, Go! if you recall) has been all about saying "go by bike" over the past few weeks. Yeah, that's right... he's part of the green revolution. Every time he sees a bike, he yells "go by bike!" at whoever is riding it. This includes my mom, who last weekend set up her bike trainer on our deck. Nathan spent at least fifteen minutes banging on the window saying Marmie! Go by bike! Go by bike! (It didn't seem to stress him that she wasn't actually going anywhere.)


[I should also mention that he has learned to apply the phrase to any mode of transportation, and if we drive somewhere we hear go by car. If he hears a plane outside that we don't feel like taking him out to search the sky for, we hear go by plane (and maybe even go by blimp if he's really desperate to convince us to take him out). But that doesn't have very much to do with bike month, so I guess it's not technically part of this story after all.]

Anyway, in honor of Nathan: Happy Go By Bike month! And if you do decide to go by bike, please try not to fall. That's the reason Mark and I won't be celebrating in full.

And someone please get me one of these posters for Nathan's room. And happy half-birthday to me.