Insomnia

In preparation for our trip to Maine, Martin had been catching up on all the Steven King novels that he hadn't read. But usually after reading for a while Martin ends up also catching up on some zzzzs. That's pretty funny given the particular title he was reading....

Cute pics of Dylan eating

Family Pictures

This pics are from last month when my family was visiting.

The big 1-0

Dylan is ten months old today. He can stand on his own pretty well now. He's going to be walking really soon. Maybe this weekend when Martin's family is here. That would be cool.

Dylan seems to be sleeping a little better lately. He has taken some longer naps and is waking up a little later (between 4:30 and 5:30) before going back to sleep for 2-3 more hours.

Dylan is still only drinking 4oz bottles but that's fine. We've pretty much tried all the new foods we can until he's one. I'm hoping he gets better at eating chunkier food though. Everything still has to be really smooth for him to eat it.

I haven't done a weight check lately but Dylan is still in his 3-6 month clothes except for sleepers - he's in 6-9 in those.

I celebrated Dylan's 10 month birthday with a blueberry and creme frap at Starbucks. Until he can have sweets, I still get all his treats (which I guess he later gets). :)

Last weekend for the outdoor pool

I'm pretty bummed that this is the last weekend for the pool. Dylan loves it so much. He gets so excited when we are in the water. We can still go to the indoor county pool but it cost about $7 each time to go. But that's probably worth it. It will be a little more work getting there in the winter but Dylan needs to keep up his swimming skills right?

Trying a different template again...

I'm really sick of the blazing white background. Hopefully this time the pictures won't get screwed up.

Sign of putting down roots?

Last week I, for the first time in my adult life, reordered checks with the same address as the last box of checks. And with how few times we need to write checks out these days, I think this says a lot. I'm been living in the same place for 3 years now. Depending on how the market looks in the spring, we may be moving next year so the streak will have to come to an end. For now though, I will enjoy the fact that I haven't had to deal with moving.

WE DON'T NEED NO TEL-E-VISION.....

We discontinued our cable TV this weekend. Here are the reasons: we don't watch it enough, especially the non-network channels; we can get the network channels with and antannae (albeit fuzzy); Netflix now has live streaming movies and tv shows (like the first two seasons of The Office); CBS, the network that carries our favorite show CSI has the last four episodes of their shows on the Internet for viewing; we can find better thing to do with our time than watch TV; we get our news off the Internet; we can find a lot better things to do with the $35 per month that we were paying for our very basic cable service.

Considering that Martin's coworkers talk about wide screen TVs and HDTVs etc. on a weekly basis I'm thinking that we may be a little counter-cultural, which I usually take to be a good thing. My co-worker Tim who seems to have a claim on the definition of "American" will probably call me un-American for this like those people who don't celebrate halloween or don't drink beer and watch football or who home school their kids.

But we have some friends who don't have cable and with raising cost of cable and more entertainment available on the Internet, this may be a growing trend and we may be ahead of the curve.

So what do you think, counter-cultural or ahead of our time?

Arboreum

After the Aquatic Gardens we swung over to the arboreum for lunch (which got a little messy) and a walk around the state trees and the asian garden and down to the river. We recruited my mom to carry Dylan for a while.

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens

Here are some pics from last month when my parents were here and we went to the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in (NE!) DC to see the lillies in bloom.

I hear the train a'comin'....

When my parents were visiting in July, they brought this push train toy of my brother's that my mom had saved in the attic. It was a big hit with both Steven who was visiting also and Dylan. At first we just had Dylan sitting on it and we pushed him but then we set him up behind it and off he went! He's gotten really good at pushing the train around. When he runs into something, he cruises around to the front of the train and pushes it backwards until he runs into something again. Amazing. The train would probably not pass some safety standard today because it does easily fall over onto the child (as shown at the end of the video below) but with the newer ones he wouldn't be able to push it from both sides. Regardless, the train is a new favorite in our household.

August 20th

In case you haven't noticed, I'm a person who remembers dates and plans by my calendar. It's a very useful gift/talent and creates great reference points for life. I think reference points are helpful in remembering where you've been and where you are going and helps one to reflect on the past and imagine the future.

Today is the 6th anniversary of me moving to Falls Church, VA. I have now been in DC twice as long as I was at Penn State! Pret-ty crazy.

Today is also Cara's birthday (she was my roommate when I moved here) and Patricia's birthday. Happy birthday ladies!

In honor of Patricia's birthday, I'm posting pictures of her 2 month old son when we went to visit him a while back. Russ the fifth was born the day before my birthday.

And then I found five dollars....

This is a line that my friend's husband's friend uses when he tells a story that ends up having no point to it....(right Laura B. - am I getting the story right?) I'm one of those people who is not a good story teller. I rarely come up with good concluding tag lines to my blog posts that are not all that interesting to begin with except to Dylan's grandparents who want to know the up-to-the minute happenings on Dylan.

But I have a story to tell that happened to me on Tuesday. My metro card wouldn't work as I tried to got through the turnstile at West Falls Church. I took my card to the station manager like the display on the turnstile told me to. In the meantime, I'm remembering the last time I was on metro which was the Thursday before we went on vacation. The train that I was on had to be offloaded after we had already sat at McPherson Square for 15 minutes. I had left work late (5:30) as it was and needed to get home to feed Dylan. I knew it would be forever before getting onto another train so I left the station. [This next part is a side story but it's a decent story so I'll tell it.] I then called a friend who I knew who worked in DC to see if he wanted to share a cab home - he would be going to West Falls Church too. But he was already home when I called. Then I remembered that my boss was working late and called him to see if he could give me a ride home. My boss lives in Gainsville (i.e., BFE to anyone who works downtown) but WFC is one the way, right off 66. He was working late because his wife was out of town and he didn't have the second passenger for HOV, which ends at 6:30pm. He agrees to give me a ride but says he won't be able to leave for another 15 minutes. I figure it's still my best shot and take the ride. I get along with my boss and I'd even consider him a friend but the situation is still a little weird and I was wondering what I we were going to talk about for the half hour ride. We go to his car which is parked in this garage that has a valet service. My boss is pretty friendly with the guys at the garage. As soon as we're in the car, my boss says, "yeah, they probably think I'm having an affair or something cause they know she's away." So what do you say to that? I just laughed and try to stop myself from wondering if he's actually thought about the idea or not. Then I got annoyed at him for referring to his wife as "she" before using her name. I know a lot of men to refer to their wives that way and it really bugs me. So I eventually get home uneventfully around 7:15. [End of side story, fast forward back to Tuesday when I'm at the metro station.] I hand my card to the station manager (who thankfully takes my card instead of this gal's to my side who has tried to hand him her card even though she knows I've been standing there longer - she practically reached across me the whole time I was waiting) and then as he's swiping my card on the outbound reader I tell him that my last time on metro was the day it was really bad. He says, "oh you should have told me." Uh, I just did. So I ended up getting charged for a ride even though I didn't ride metro home the Thursday before. Normally this would have totally irked me. I spend a lot of time trying to save a dollar here and a dollar there - just ask Martin. So having to pay an extra $2.60 for no reason should have really burned me up. But I said, it's probably more trouble than it's worth to get a refund and you know, metro needs the money. I'd probably be willing to make a donation to metro in that amount so I just forgot about. And then I found five dollars.....

But I really did....I was having lunch with this gal from Treasury and we are walking into sandwich shop and I feel something fly by me. I thought it was a napkin or something. Then a guy that's eating outside says "hey hey did you drop this?" to the gal I'm with and it turns out the thing that flew by me was a five dollar bill. She says no and then she and the guy determine it must belong the guy who was in front of me. So the gal I'm with hands me the five dollars since I'm closer to the guy in front and I ask him if it's his. He says no and tells me to keep it as does the gal I'm with. So then I found five dollars....and I netted a positive $2.40 for the day.

Dylan update

Sorry for the lapse in posting but we were on vacation in Maine. More on that later including pictures. Dylan did wonderfully :) on the trip. He's a great traveler and hiker. During the trip Dylan also got another tooth (left top front) and has since learn to eat Cheerios by himself! I'm so excited to be able to start figure foods now! Dylan really likes eating by himself. And he gets a kick out of walking while holding onto our hands too.

Dylan sleeping

Last night my dad commented that I'm always saying how great Dylan does at things like plane rides and long car rides and hikes - things that allow Mommy and Daddy to still get out and do things. Dylan rarely cries and he's really friendly (that fear of strangers and separation anxiety never really set in) and easy-going, not much bothers him. So one might think from reading my blog that we have the perfect kid....well, lest you start envying the E's too much, let me tell you that Dylan, at 9 months, still does not sleep through the night. For a while there, he was sleeping through the night maybe 3 times a week. But then he wasn't STTN at all and last week he got a cold and starting waking up twice(!) during the night. Last night he was back to his waking up once around 4am. I think he wakes up because he's hungry and I'm not sure there's much I can do because I think his stomach is just still too small. One thing I might try is waking him at 10pm before I go to sleep to feed him so that he might make it through the night. Although, being up for 20 minutes at 4am hasn't been much of a hardship on me so that's why I haven't complained about it or really tried to do anything about it. Dylan sleeps for 12 hours at night. I've actually had a harder time with his naps. He takes 2-3 HALF hour naps a day or one, one-hour nap. Sometimes I just have to keep him in his crib longer (for quiet time) so I can get some work done. He usually wakes up refreshed so I'm not sure there's much I can do about the naps. I'm open to suggestions.

When Dylan is sleeping, he's been sleeping in some funny poses. Here are a few of them:


Notice the knees tucked up under the bottom...

Dylan likes the corners and sides of his crib.