Living in the Moment

Our 15 month old sweetheart!

I realize I haven't been blogging as much as I would like. Since James turned one I stopped the daily snapshots and had in my mind that I would keep blogging often. Well, not having a computer to download my pictures on (I can't seem to get them on my work computer and our family laptop died a few months ago) has slowed me down. But our little guy is growing up and is so cute...I need to get better at sharing these moments with our family! So here is my resolve to blog more often!

I am trying to live in the moment. We love our lives but I love to plan and think about the next big thing. Currently, one of the next big things (there are several) is our new baby. I am 15 weeks and I am so excited for James to be a big brother. I loved growing up with a sister 17 months older than me. We have always been best friends and shared life moments. It's always been a dream of mine to have children close together and I never expected that to happen because of our struggle with infertility. But God knows the desires of our hearts and James will be 21 months when his little brother/sister (we find out next month!) is born!

So back to living in the moment. I don't want to miss the little things of our life right now because I'm wondering, "Who is this new baby that is a part of our family? What will it be like to be a mother of two? Etc." So here are some little moments of our past few weeks that I will always treasure.

We have started "potty awareness." It is NOT potty training, because we don't have an expectation of James going to the bathroom by himself anytime soon. What we are doing is introducing the concept now when he is interested and open to learning. He enjoys sitting on the potty (except when he is too excited to go outside) and we never force him. We try to make it a fun time by singing songs or playing little games. He has underpants and is learning how to put them on. Long story short....it's a lot of work and energy but we feel strongly that it will pay off in the end. We are still in Phase 1: Introducing sitting on the potty chair at various times of the day (while I'm trying to observe his schedule and anticipate when he needs to go) and making it fun; and Phase 2: Wearing underpants during the day so he can learn when he is wet. We'll be in these first two phases for awhile but that is ok because we're not on a time frame and we are all learning as we go!

James found a new favorite play area: the kitchen. He loves to watch us as we cook and one day took out a pot and started to play. It's fun to observe the beginnings of imaginary play!

We are using James' table more and more everyday. Every day we eat lunch at his table together. James will go to the pantry or fridge when he is hungry and after I give him something I say, "take it to your table" and he walks over, puts it on his table, and then sits down and eats it. Of course after one bite he gets up and goes to play, then comes back, etc. He is a grazer. He also likes to sit on top of the table...not sure how to stop that one. He even fell off the other day and got a sizable cut on his forehead but that didn't stop him.

Our little guy is growing up! Tyler installed the bigger car seat and we joke that James looks like a king in it. It looks very comfortable!

 

James is very much into doing what we do and he loves to help me clean. Sometimes he'll go into the closet and point to the vacuum so I'll get it out and he'll help me pull the cord out and plug it in. He recently found the duster and that has been a lot of fun.

And finally, if we had to pick James' favorite thing, it would definitely be outside. He LOVES to get his shoes on and go in the backyard and play. Thankfully the Alabama fall has been quite warm so we've enjoyed a lot of time outside.

Tyler is coaching the varsity girls soccer team at Montgomery Catholic and today was the first day of tryouts. James and I joined them at the end and to James' excitement, there were tons of soccer balls just waiting for him! He was cheering the girls on as well. I think we'll have a lot of fun in the spring!