Photo Dump

No time to post thoughtful insights today but I didn't want to hold onto these photos any longer:

Xavier with "Lovey Smith." He likes to walk around the house with him on his head for some reason.

Great photo of Xav. Not so great photo of me.

Xavier and his Auntie Ashley.

And Away We Go

Xavier and I spent last week in Louisiana visiting family while Tim was at a conference in Germany. One afternoon we had a playdate with Cousin Matthew at Aunt Leanne's house. After a yummy lunch, the boys played and Leanne and I got to catch up. Matthew received a sports car for his birthday this month and was kind enough to take Xavier for a spin. As you can see, Xavier had mixed emotions about the experience!

Babies to Toddlers

I've taken to calling Xavier the "toddler" and the babe in my belly the "baby" for clarity's sake. I have to admit that each day Xavier is becoming more toddler like and less babyish. Perhaps the biggest transition is weaning process. After I reached my goal of nursing for at least the first year, I decided to gradually let Xavier take the lead on the weaning process. The homemaker lifestyle allows for a certain amount of flexibility when it comes to transitions and I planned to take full advantage of it.

We've slowly cut out wake-up and bedtime nursing and are slowly working on eliminating nursing to nap. Today was the first day he napped without a car ride or nursing. Big step for both of us.

Other toddler-like behavior of late:

• drinks from a juicebox
• climbs the playground equipment
• helps clean up messes
• can eat with a spoon and fork when motivated
• enjoys coloring

The Fall Garden

This week I've been working in the garden again. During Xavier's nap I was able to turn the compost heap which revealed a huge pile of rich, black soil. I pulled up everything in the bed save one tomato plant that had three green tomatoes on it. After working the compost into the soil, I headed off to the hardware store to get some seeds and transplants.

Each season I dally with the idea of ordering desiner seeds online from Cooks Garden, Park Seeds, or the like. I get overwhelmed with the choices and doubts about whether their seeds would work in our humid Beaumont climate.

The hardware store didn't have any transplants (I'm hoping to find some tomato and bell peppers at the nursery later this week) but they did have seeds. In making my wish list, I decided to only buy things that we actually EAT rather than just things that grow easily. I've resigned myself to the fact that we just don't care for radishes and teeny tiny carrots. So my list included pole beans, cucumbers, spinach, small eating pumpkins, and various herbs.

Using a book from the library, I identified several varieties of seeds that work well in our climate. Unfortuantely not everything on my wish list was easily available but I was able to make do with what they had. So hopefully in a few months we'll have pole beans, spinach, collards, lettuce, arugala, thyme, parsley, and cilantro.

Eduoard

Just a quick update to let friends and family know that yes, we did get hit by Tropical Storm Eduoard and that we are all doing just fine. The storm rolled in around 6 a.m. this morning. By 8 a.m. our power went out due to a transformer a few miles away. About three hours later power was back on. No damage to our home but my vegetable garden took quite a beating. I'm afraid the tomatoes may be goners since they were getting a little too tall anyway. No big deal since it was time to start enriching the soil and planting the fall garden anyway. Thank heaven for small blessings.