A Happenin' Friday Night!

That title was said in jest. In sarcasm.

Let me just explain here. Recently, I was looking through a couple old photo albums of mine. They spanned my later college and grad school years. First of all, I so did not appreciate how I looked back then! I totally thought I was fat and gross, I'm sure, and I couldn't stop saying (out loud, even), "WOW!! Look how great I looked then!" Anyway, while looking back through those albums, I starting remembering the lifestyle I lived back in the day. Now, I was by NO means the #1 party animal of Millikin or ISU or anything, but I lived it up! In fact, there were many times once I came up to grad school where I was out Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night on a regular basis!

With that in mind, the sarcasm of this blog title comes in. Even before Nick and I had Austin, I became much more of a homebody. Part of the reason was because most of my friends moved out of town, so there was a long stretch of time where I didn't have anyone to go out and do things with. Then we had Austin and our definition of "weekend plans" changed.

This brings us to tonight. Tonight, I spent my wild Friday playing several variations of "I'm gonna get you!" with Nick and Austin, including a hilarious romp of "That's MY milk!" I spent another 20 minutes watching Nick and Austin wrestle and laugh hysterically. The pinnacle of the evening, however, occurred during Austin's bath, where he proceeded to poop twice in the tub and on the bathmat!

There you have it, folks, my happenin' Friday night! Wrestling and cleaning poop out of the tub! And you know what? I wouldn't trade back for anything in the world!

What a difference a week (and a few days) makes...

Okay. So Austin had a really great week last week. It was out of a storybook, really. However, the dream came to an end. Now, I have to preface this by saying that I completely and totally love my son. There is nothing he could do to make this change. However, we had a pretty rough night last night! I'm not sure what changed or what was going on with him last night, but he did NOT want to go to bed! Then, when he finally did, he didn't stay asleep. Let me just throw this number out at you all: 2. That is the total number of hours I slept last night, but it was in 30 minute increments. Not so satisfying or refreshing!

Luckily, Heartland was closed today. This was good because I could rest up a bit at home instead of working. I even got an hour long nap in while Austin was napping -- score! The downside to not working was that we didn't take Austin to daycare (we could have, but we didn't), so it wasn't really the MOST restful day of all!

I'm happy to report that as of now, 9:35 p.m., Austin has been sleeping silently since I put him down around 8:20. I'm hoping this continues. I'm thinking that he should probably sleep well tonight since he didn't get more than 6ish hours last night, and he typically sleeps closer to 11 hours!

What a great day!

Yesterday, we had such a great day! Austin was SO good the whole day...it was probably our most fun, least stressful day in months! He's been exploring his independence, which isn't a bad thing, but can make things like naptime, bedtime, and rules a little challenging! Apparently on Friday, he really struggled with naptime and was screaming in Sherry's face! Oops! When I picked him up yesterday after work and asked how he did, I got glowing reports! They said he laid right down for a nap and slept for quite a while! Yay!

After daycare, we went to Cecilia's house to eat quickly before leaving for the YMCA. Austin went to the daycare while I taught Zumba class. He again did great at Cecilia's, staying mostly on task and giggling at Grayson playing with some Handy Manny toys. When I dropped him off at the daycare at the Y, he ran right over to start playing! The daycare guy said he was fun the whole time and was "very talkative." Yep, that's my boy!

We even did well at bedtime last night -- it was the perfect way to end the day! Austin and I got home from the Y around 8 p.m. and I ate dinner while he had a tasty snack of Cheerios and milk. Nick came home from his fire department meeting and we all hung out for a little bit. Then Nick read Austin two of his (Austin's, not Nick's) favorite books -- Are You My Mother? and Green Eggs and Ham -- and we put him to bed without much of a struggle at all! I loved yesterday!

I've got to share about reading these books. Austin is getting to the point where he will "read" along with you if he knows the book. It's so freaking cute! Like I mentioned, he LOVES Are You My Mother? and Green Eggs and Ham right now. As you're reading the Mother book, he talks with you about each page and what's happening. His favorite parts of the book are when you get to see the hen and the cow. On the hen page, as you're reading, Austin starts exclaiming, "Tick-en!!! Tick-en!!!" over and over again until you say, "Yes! That is a chicken!" and then start using the word "chicken" instead of hen. When you get to the cow page, Austin starts mooing over and over and telling you that there is a cow right there! He is very helpful at identifying livestock...maybe he'll be a vet or a farmer?

I also love reading Green Eggs and Ham with him, because he has learned that the guy (what's his name? Not the Sam guy...) does not like green eggs and ham. After every question by Sam (e.g., "Would you eat them in a box? Would you eat them with a fox?"), Austin states very seriously, "No, I woo NOT!!" He keeps this up after EVERY page, too, just so you know that he has that guy's back. I mean, get over it, Sam! Quit pushing your weird St. Patrick's Day-themed food on us! Haven't you ever heard about PORTION CONTROL??

Welcome to Heartland

Hmmmm....think I'll go to college today. I'm sure waiting until 1 week before classes begin isn't too late...

Take THAT, insurance!

This morning, I successfully talked my way into lower insurance rates for our cars. Yes! The bill got sent to me electronically and, instead of listing what my payment would be if I chose 1-month, 3-month, or 6-month coverage, it just said the 1- and 6-month options, but they weren't really identified as such. So I just saw my two payment amount options and I knew that the larger one was about double what I paid a few months ago! Looking back, that does make sense since I usually pay in 3-month increments. Anyway, I called my insurance agent and spoke to him at length about why my payment was going to be so much more, ways to reduce it, etc. He did some figurin' and was able to add a couple other discounts to our policy and reduce our rates by about $44 per month! That's awesome!

Don't think for a minute I didn't question it when he said we couldn't have both the "Accident-Free" discount and the "Muliple Policies" discount! I mean, we are accident free and we do have multiple policies, so I feel we should get them both! Apparently, this is "impossible" to do "in the system". You know what, guy? I use that whole "the system won't let us do this" line at my work, too, sometimes. What that really means is that you just won't do both or something! Anyway, I argued that for a while but stopped eventually after making sure I got the biggest discount possible.

I tell you, insurance. Just don't charge me an arm and a leg and I'll be happier!

No time to post!

I am here, I want to post, but we're so busy! This is the last day of regular "non-late" enrollment for our spring semester, so you can imagine the business we're doing out here today! Hopefully I'll be able to get some new stories posted soon!

It's almost Christmas!

Wow, it's been a really long time since I've blogged! It's been busy around work with students trying to get enrolled in spring classes (why won't they learn not to come in at the last minute?). Also, the end of the semester came and went, so I had finals to compose and then grade. But now things are starting to wind down. Don't get me wrong, we'll still be pretty busy for a while and then the FRENZY will bust out right before classes start, but we've been pretty low key today, which is nice.

We've had some sickness at our house this past weekend. Austin was sick Friday night/Saturday morning with a stomach bug and the he passed it onto me. I didn't get as sick as he was, but I just felt gross and ended up going home early from work yesterday. The rest did me some good, though, because I feel a lot better today. The one remaining area of sadness from this weekend of sick? Our house. Our house is a wreck right now, because I haven't felt like cleaning it up! We're hosting Christmas for my side of the family on Christmas, which means I need to get it in gear and pick up before Thursday! We're supposed to go to my in-laws' tomorrow (weather permitting) so I'm going to try to do a bunch of the work tonight, hopefully!

This morning, Nick and I both dropped Austin off at daycare. Nick needed my car because his was at the shop getting repaired today. His driver's side window fell off the track or something, which is really not so good in weather like this! Anyway, while driving from the car place to daycare, Nick (who was drinking a pop) burped and said, "Excuse me." We started chatting and then suddenly I was distracted by a noise from the backseat. My darling son was saying, "Eerrrrr! 'Scuze me! Eerrrrr! 'Scuze me!" over and over to himself! What a great trick to learn! He is so funny and perceptive!

Some of Austin's other new "tricks":

• If you ask him what Santa says, he'll say, "Oh, oh, oh!"
• If you ask him what the Count (from Sesame Street) says, he'll say, "Twee, Fouw...AH! AH! AH!"
• He will sing "Fwosty! Sno-man!" (Frosty the Snowman)
  
• He will sing "Santa town!" (Santa Claus is Comin' to Town)
• He gets very excited when you talk about cows and loves to make the moo sound.
• He also gets very excited when he sees or hears trains and does the "Choo chooooooooo!" with his arm.

He is too cute and funny!