party = success!

i had a lot of help, so it's not really surprising that everything went well. thanks to everyone, especially mandy, mom, and missy. i couldn't have done it without your cooking, decorating, and/or baby wrangling skills.

liam's caterpillar smash cake

liam got some great toys and clothes. i was worried about his winter wardrobe, but not anymore! aside from all the new goodies, he also received a bunch of clothes from hunter. yay for hand-me-downs!

the weather was a little rainy, and although our home is small, some borrowed chairs was all we needed to make everyone comfortable.

cozy house full of guests

liam was feeling unsure about opening presents, so marie showed him how instead. zeven and noah enjoyed playing with all the toys, and there weren't any fits for such a busy time. liam loved his carrot cake 'beetle' (it was supposed to be a littler caterpillar)



i ate so much cake during the decorating that i skipped it during the real 'cake time'. after cake liam nursed and was out - while the party went on!

liam knocked out; missy: maker of many faces

all in all, i couldn't have asked for a better first year celebration. i am grateful to all of my wonderful friends and family who were able to be here with us. so, again, thanks :)

happy birthday, baby liam!

we have had more of a week long celebration in honor of that guy's special day, as opposed to a single day's observance. the culmination will be pretty big party on saturday morning. we are very loved, and so is liam. we only invited the important people in our life, but still ended up with 20+ guests. i am really nervous, since our house is so little and it's supposed to rain...we are planning on being outdoors. but, whatever; we will make it work!

colin didn't have to work on monday, so he decided to be all photo-journalistic and take photos of a typical liam day. i hope to have them up on flickr soon as a slide show. they turned out great!

yesterday was liam's birthday and we spent it with our friends missy and marie, and nikki and zeven. we all met at missy's house (she has the coffee and the space) and i cooked a late breakfast of whole wheat pancakes and eggs. yum! colin worked a half day and got off in time to eat as well.

i spent afternoon nap time sorting all the 'baby' toys out and organizing liam's books. we also got our new fridge delivered during said nap, so that was convenient. our old one was having issues, and our landlord, jerry, is awesome. requesting the fridge has inspired missy to ask her landlord for carpet. i hope they get it! we went to 'the globe' for some tasty indian food, then picked up a movie (smart people) which ended up being pretty good. the last movie we watched before this was the new x-files movie. IT SUCKED. colin downloaded it because everyone else was. well, everyone else was wrong. it made me think that the tv show could possibly be awful as well, although i utterly enjoyed it when i was in high school.

tomorrow grammie kate, aunt mandy, cousin stephen, and uncle kyle are all coming to town to see their favorite one year old! better get to bed so i can wake up early and clean my house. O_0

what a quick month!

time has been flying lately. here we are, the last day of august, with a ton to report.

first, i got a new camera! here are some really cute photos of liam being naked at missy's house:


liam's second tooth came through. this time, it was in the right spot (his first lower left). both are on the left side of his mouth. he knows they are there - it's pretty entertaining to watch him gnaw on cantaloupe, watermelon and strawberries.

finally, photos of liam on our bike!

colin and i went on our first real date. our friends, angela and stacey, invited us to the local improv comedy troupe, "laughing matters", at the topeka civic theatre. this place is so cool - it's a dinner theater, complete with a full bar and wait staff. we knocked a few beers back while liam stayed with missy and marie. he missed me, and was a bit clingy the next day, but is very comfortable with missy and didn't cry once. i'm glad he has someone besides us that he has learned to trust.

here is a link to a letter i wrote to the editor of lawrence's newspaper. the comments are really entertaining. "wifemotherslave" is my good friend, evie.

speaking of evie, i made a mistake this week, and it hurt her feelings. i invited her and my aunt and uncle, who adopted her son 13 years ago, to liam's first birthday party. i was just so excited that she and her family are near for the first time in years, and i didn't put it all together. it isn't the right time or place for this meeting to happen, so evie is no longer coming to liam's party. it's best for all involved, although i know she would love to see chris in person. she is one of my heroes. it takes an incredible person to put a child's needs above their own and pursue adoption. someday, sweetie. i'm sorry i hurt you by not thinking this through.

today colin and i participated in the labor day program at fellowship. colin played a few of the songs, and i talked about being a homemaker. other members talked about being a writer and teacher, finding your career path as a single mother, our good friend vicki spoke about her daughter's grand adventure in the peace corps in paraguay, and our friend kate spoke about her lifetime of work up to her current age of 80 in december. i received many compliments on my piece; that it was great to hear that being at home is a choice anyone can make, that they stayed home themselves, and that many wished they weren't watching their own children struggle and burn out by trying to "do it all." this is definitely the life for me!
the second service was recorded, so go here and look up the august 31st program if you want to hear it yourself.

other liam updates:

new words: moo, uh-oh, wah-wah, tee (for tree), and he makes this hilarious frustration scream

he loves his friend marie. here's a picture her mom, missy, drew of them:
here's what they look like when grocery shopping:



he loves his friend, zeven:


he has been able to give kisses for a long time. he stretches his neck out like a turtle, makes his lips flat and wide and then opens them with a 'muah!'

he picks up his shoes and puts them on top of his feet. when he puts anything else on his feet (like a washcloth) he cracks himself up. we have video of this.

he plays 'night night' by going into our room and laying down on his blanket on the floor. it's real cute.

he does 'farm dancing' - we also have video for this.

he's really into the color red. this was first reported by missy's friend, michaela, who watched liam and marie while we all rode our bikes to the goose for some beer. sometimes it takes fresh eyes to see things, and she's right. he will point to all things red. maybe it's because his mom is an aries. ;)

he took his first steps on august 25th, showing off for aunt hez while she was visiting. the first steps were to reach his target dog, the second ones were to get a PBR can. i don't know where he gets this.

he makes motor sounds for cars while he's playing. no one taught him this. he also adores jewelry of all sorts and put my head bands on like necklaces.

he rolls all over truck, especially when naked. we try to tell him that this hurts truck, but truck takes it like a man.

here's liam and jay:

and liam and daddy:

that's all for now. i have some more photos to post, but it's time for this muffin to go to bed!

oh yeah, i have a blog.

hello, friends. there is so much to catch up on in the five minutes liam is allotting me, i don't think this will end up being a successful blog. *sigh* but i will do my best!

the weekend of the last post, i went out for the first time since liam's birth. i went to the gay bar downtown (the tool shed - not kidding!) and got my dance on with mandy, rocky and tammy. dancing is apparently like riding a bike. it had been about 2 years since i had been out, but my feet and hips cooperated, and i actually got hit on by some straight (albeit weird) dude. he asked how he could get to know me better. i laughed and said he could come to my baby's playgroup. he didn't laugh, but i thought it was funny. that sunday we got to see heather and jay. i sure love those guys, and like always, wish they lived closer. i know they feel the same way. but we all like where we live and have good jobs and such, so that's that.

sad news hit our fellowship (again) with the passing of one of our youngest members, 4 month old avery. i had the opportunity to meet and hold baby avery one tuesday evening before a building meeting. she was very sweet and alert and strong. he daddy was there, holding and doting on her. apparently the family was blessed with a high needs/colicky baby. but she was blessed with loving and patient parents who just held her for the hours she cried every evening. we went to the memorial services that saturday, and today i'm making dinner for the family. it seems so insignificant, the sharing of food, but i don't know what else to do. putting myself in their shoes, i think the food would make me feel loved and less alone. i'm glad they found our community, and like the shooting tragedy, there is no reason for this to have happened to them and not us. so it moves me to do what i can, no matter how small.

colin and liam were on the news, along with the marables, for attending the LLL ice cream social. of course, none of us have TVs, so we didn't see it. but it cracks us up how often we've hit the local media since the birth of liam.

liam and i have been spending a lot of time with my friend missy and her 18month daughter, marie. we bike around together to the library and the grocery store and such. our kids wake at compatible times and go down in the afternoons, so mornings are good times to hang together. our kids are crazy about each other. marie calls liam 'liamy' and says this numerous times in a high pitched squeal when he shows up at her house. it's one of the cutest things i've ever seen. she's also pretty enamored with colin, and says his name often as well. apparently marie will wake and utter one or both names before falling back into her slumber. my guys are pretty sweet. she calls me 'gace'. but not with the zest and enthusiasm reserved for 'liamy' and colin.

liam got his first tooth on august 2nd. or rather, that's when colin found said tooth. it wasn't where we had been looking for it, so we may have missed it for a day or two. it's his second incisor on the left. he nearly has his two bottom teeth cut, too. he's pretty cute with his little random snaggle tooth.

mandy spent tuesday - thursday with us while stephen played with chris and tom at the great wolf lodge. we took liam swimsuit shopping for two days. mandy and i are built very similar and were having a hard time finding one-pieces that fit. after trying target, we exhausted all options at the mall on tuesday (this took nearly 3 hours) then hit kohl's on wednesday. no luck there either. desperate to swim at the GWL with the kids, we decided to try k-mart since it was on the way home. there we both found exactly what we had been looking for. actually, mandy found two!

that's all the squeak will let me do for now. :)

when national news becomes personal

we had a great weekend that i was very excited to blog about, until this happened:

yesterday, a unitarian universalist church in tennessee was the target of a deranged conservative. it's been all over the news, so i will only briefly state the facts here. the horrible man, jim adkisson, entered the sanctuary and fired into the congregation who had gathered for sunday services and a children's production of 'annie'.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/28/usa

why? because our religion is a liberal religion. because we fight for the rights of everyone, including gays. because we teach our children about social justice and try to make the world safer for everyone. because we don't think we have all the answers, and draw our personal faiths from many sources.

these are the reasons why colin and i became UU's ourselves, and are raising liam in this faith as well. and these are the reasons two people were killed and seven more were injured, some critically. as soon as i saw the news yesterday, i knew that this would be why the congregation was targeted. the motive wasn't actually released until today, but i think anyone who knows about our faith would have known instantly because it is so controversial. you know, to truly believe everyone has 'inherent worth and dignity,' including gays and women. *gasp*

it's hard to think about the fact that we live in a very conservative town without a shortage of it's own crazies (ie = fred phelps and family). my thoughts are with the families in tennessee, because i know it could have been us. it could have been any one of our friends at fellowship. and even though we don't know them, they were singled out by this madman simply for the faith we share.

i'll let my frivolous blogging about my seemingly charmed life wait for another day.

summer reading

i thought i'd post the great books i've read this summer, in case you're wanting some ideas for yourself. or just wondering what it is i do at work, i.e., whenever i nurse liam.

currently reading:
'jitterbug perfume' by tom robbins. thanks, evie! so far, i'm loving it and would really rather be reading than updating. which is why the blog has been sparse lately.

finished recently:
'breastfeeding: biocultural perspectives' editors: patricia stuart-macadam and katherine a. dettwyler (from the LLL lending library)
'someone like you' short stories by roald dahl (from my friend, missy)
'becoming attached: first relationships and how they shape our capacity to love' by robert karen (from the API group lending library)
'the way that water enters stone' short stories by john dufresne (also from missy)
'girl, interrupted' by susanna kaysen (missy again!)
'the girl with the pearl earring' by tracey chevalier (book sale find)
'the man who mistook his wife for a hat, and other clinical tales' by oliver sacks (book sale find)

i would highly recommend 'becoming attached' to anyone with children or contemplating having them in the future. it is full of the science behind attachment theory. this is the theory that motivates colin and i, along with many of our friends, in the ways we choose to parent our children. many people have misconceptions about what attachment parenting is. it isn't babywearing, breast feeding, or co-sleeping, although these practices often naturally grow out of this type of parenting. what it really is is education about infant and child development, based on scientific research. this book makes a compelling argument against most forms of daycare during the first two years of life. it also stresses the importance of being responsive to infant's cries, and shows that actual brain damage occurs when babies are left to cry without being comforted.

the other book i wish everyone would read, although it is dry (because it is, in fact, peer reviewed research studies) is the breastfeeding book. i thought i was pretty schooled on the womanly art of breastfeeding, but a few things caught even me by surprise. the first is that being breastfed reduces a woman's chance of getting breast cancer. you read that correctly. not only does breastfeeding protect the mother from this form of cancer (when duration is 2 years or longer), it also protects her infant daughter. second, out of 190 cultures surveyed, only 13 viewed the female breasts as sex objects for men. much to colin's chagrin, this seems to be a cultural valuation instead of a biological one. this, in the author's view, is one of the biggest stumbling blocks in our society to breastfeeding. another study shows that breastfeeding and near-sleeping reduces an infants risk of dying of SIDS (but i admit, that i already knew!). finally, over 3,000 babies in the US die each year from not being breastfed. crazy!

as far as my fiction list goes, i loved both books of short stories. i hadn't read that genre in ages, and i don't intend to stop now. there was some synchronicity between ending 'girl with a pearl earring' and beginning 'girl, interrupted'. the first was all about the painter vermeer, and the second also takes the title from a vermeer painting. although i took an art history class, i don't remember the painter, and found it odd that he appeared in both books.

liam updates

he can now say the following words: mama, dada, cat, car, and baby. it's so freakin' adorable. i need to get it on video soon. he's such a delightful kiddo and we cant' imagine what we would be doing without him.

we're in print (again!)

here's something else to add to the scrap book - an article in our newspaper about our fellowship! i was interviewed for the story and the whole family got their photo taken. i think the article is great, so enjoy!

http://cjonline.com/stories/071208/rel_303070483.shtml