Just a Weekly Update!

Paxton didn't sleep well last night. I didn't think much of it, since his sleep cycle is constantly fluctuating lately, particularly because he's got a cold, and some new teeth coming in. However, it appears that what was interrupting his sleep last night was more feline in nature. Franklin somehow got locked in the nursery with Pax. Even I can't sleep a whole night with Franklin in the room with me. He cleans himself constantly, jingling that damn bell on his collar to the point of insanity. Then he gets the sudden urge to cuddle, standing on my back, making pleading meows for affection. I thought I heard a meow over the monitor from Paxton's room last night, but I assumed it was a cat outside his door, or even outside mine. We have five cats. I hear meows everywhere. Even the bird does a convincing cat impression.

When I went in to get Paxton this morning, Franklin came running out. Paxton looked tired and his hair at the front of his head has the consistency of feathers. I can only assume that Franklin gave him a little tongue bath in the night. His eyebrow was also a little askew. Franklin likes to mother creatures. I'm sure he was thrilled to have a baby of his own for a whole night. Paxton, however, looked exhausted. Poor little guy. He's upstairs napping now. He didn't even try to fight me when I laid him down for his nap. He's probably thanking God right now for some alone time.

On another note entirely, I joined bookmooch.com about six months ago, when I heard that it was a good place to swap books that you no longer wanted. I have a box of books in the garage that I've been holding onto, because I can't bring myself to sell them for pennies to Half-Price Books. I always pass on books I've read to my mom, but I eventually get them back. Rarely do I read a book good enough to keep. I'm already overloaded with many bookshelves of books that I still need to read. Anyway, at bookmooch, you can just list the ISBN of the books you have and other people who are interested will request what they want. You send them to them via media mail, and you can request other books you want. There's a whole point system. I've gotten some really fun books through this. Recently, I requested three baby food cookbooks. Only one of them is remotely current and useful. The other two are O.L.D.! These days, you're highly discouraged from giving your baby honey or nuts in their first year. In these cookbooks, those things make up a good portion of the recipes. I'm sure I'll be relisting them on bookmooch soon.

Anyway, I went on an organic shopping spree at HEB this weekend, and got all sorts of delicious produce for the little man. I've been cooking two things every other day, because it's so time consuming that doing it daily would make me lose all my love for it. The first day, I made him spinach and pears. The second meal was carmelized onions, carrots and apples. Then two days ago I made him green beans and pears. And I was most excited to try to make my own teething biscuits! That was an ordeal. It took more than three hours to get them hard enough and then they essentially just crumbled like a crouton. I froze them, and he's been enjoying them in their frozen state, but I'm still a little disappointed. I'm going to try another recipe today that I found online. He's at the stage now where he's interested in finger foods. A teething biscuit, some Baby Mum-Mums (rice rusks), a banana and some Cheerios and he's in hog heaven for an hour.

My mom is teaching him how to drink from a straw. It amazes me the things that Chris and Mom are able to teach him. I guess I teach him things, too, but it's more incredible and jarring to see him know something completely new that I had no hand in teaching him. I gave him his bath the other night. That's the task Chris usually handles, but Chris was stuck in traffic and wouldn't be home in time. So, I was trying to be as fun as Chris is (there's no chance of that, really) and grabbing toys to show Paxton. He grabbed a little rubber whale from my hand and squeezed it and held it under the water. Then he pulled it up and opened his mouth as if to drink the water that would surely come squirting out. He's not even ten months old!! I'm astonished. And my mom has taught him to do everything from pull himself up to a sitting position when he was only a few months old to pull himself up to stand only recently.

He has had that cold all week, so we haven't been able to go to any story time or playtimes. I miss them. This is the first week in a long time that we didn't at least do one of those things. But he needs his rest and I don't want him to spread his germs to any of the other babies. He's almost all better, but still not 100%. I did take him to Bible Study this week, because Chris had band practice on Tuesday. I brought his Pack and Play for him to occupy himself in. That would have worked, except that he's become so good at getting around that he just kept pulling himself to standing, then letting go with both hands and balancing precariously while he gave various women a goofy grin before he fell down. He did that over and over and over. It was hard for me to concentrate on the video, because I wanted to laugh so hard. Finally, he got a little crabby (it was well after his bedtime), so I took him to the big carpeted area where he could crawl around. I'm sorry to report that we played fetch for the remainder of the evening. I would throw my pen and he would take off after it. Then he would grab it and hand it back to me, waiting for me to throw it again. It was hilarious. And my friends used to get offended when I compared children to pets. I was right all along. I just knew it.