monday miscellany (posted a day late- story of my life)

1) First things first: Henry says "Mama"! He started doing it yesterday and it seemed like it might be purposeful, and today he definitely said it on purpose a few times. He also started saying "ow" today, because we have a game of Henry pulling my hair, me saying "Ouch!", and him laughing. Today he was pulling my hair and saying "ow". Smart boy! So Henry Boy now has 3 words at 10 1/2 months: Hi, Mama, and ow. Tonight I swear he said "ap" for clap and then clapped his hands, and he also imitated me when I said Dada, so he may have more words on the way. 

2) We were playing outside today and the light happened to be perfect for pictures. 

3) I woke up on Sunday morning with muscle spasms in my neck and shoulders. It happens every once in a while and feels like I've been in a car accident. It's terrible. This morning I went to the doctor, and I have to take lots of ibuprofen, use heat and work on range of movement. Hopefully it will be better soon because I don't want to have to take muscle relaxers while breastfeeding. Chris took the day off yesterday so I would have help with the kids with my neck hurting, so we at least got to have an unexpected family day. We went out for lunch and walked around.

4) Other than that, our weekend was pretty good. On Saturday we went to a little country fair. Henry saw the sights from his stroller and Celia had a pony ride, got her face painted, talked to some policemen and firemen, and got a free balloon and lollipop. 

5) Before we left the fair I wanted to get Pita a vinyl blow-up toy from one of the vendors, because I know how annoying it is for the vendors trying to sell balloons when there are people walking around giving them away for free. (Also, the free balloon people were so pushy! At one point we already had one and some lady was trying to force another one on us.) Celia saw a pony she liked, and the vendor was nice enough to sell at a discount because I didn't have enough cash for it. I hoped Pita wouldn't lose interest in it right away, and it turned out that she has spent a lot of time playing with it. "Pony" has to do everything with us, which is a bit cumbersome seeing as Pony is rather large. She is having a great time with it. 

6) Wednesday I'm spending the day shadowing an SLP at my new job. Part of the interview/training process. Should be interesting, and hopefully I will not be walking around like a hunchback by then.

7) Tonight I heard Celia asking Chris if I would be okay because I hurt my neck. She is so cute. 

8) There is so much conflicting information about babies and food allergies, so now that Henry's past ten months I decided to start giving him some wheat and nuts. He has had whole wheat pasta and sauce made with almond milk with no problems. Well, he did turn bright red while trying the sauce but it turned out he was trying to poop. Ha! This morning I made some mini loaves of whole wheat bread for him to try. The dude just loves food, and it will make feeding him easier if I start giving him more of whatever the rest of us are eating. I will have to write a vegan baby post sometime soon. 

9) We've been doing some fall decorating. My mom brought the mums, Pita and Chris collected the squash from the back yard, and Pita and I went to get pumpkins. 

10) This is my favorite time of year. The temperature is just right, the wool socks get pulled out, the trees are beautiful, we eat squash and pumpkin almost every day, and I drink copious amounts of pumpkin spice coffee. Our deck is one story above the ground, and it's neat to be right up in the trees when they look so pretty.