Super Eater

As I mentioned in my last post, daycare has turned Joseph into a crazy hungry boy whenever he's with us. His teachers tell us he eats at the mealtimes, but I think he's either not eating very much, or just being really slow. And at daycare, when mealtime is over, it's over, which is totally understandable.

So we've started to learn that even though they serve breakfast, it's better for everyone if we feed him "1st breakfast" before heading out. Generally a piece of fruit, scrambled egg, cereal bar, something to have him walking into school with food in his tummy = a slightly happier little boy. Slightly.

In the same light, whenever we pick him up, it's hours after afternoon snack (we usually can't make it to pick him up before 5:30pm) and he's asking to eat the moment we get into the car. For example, Monday I picked him up at 6 and immediately went to the grocery store to get things for this week. While at the store, he ate an entire banana, handful of grapes, package of fruit snacks, and then still ate his mac & cheese, half a biscuit and a few bites of grilled chicken an hour later at home! 

Tonight was no exception. I picked him up at 5:30 and he was asking to eat. Joe was going to be working late, and I didn't really want to make dinner twice, so I took the easy way out and we stopped at Steak N Shake. I ordered him a kid's grilled cheese, mandarin oranges and a strawberry milkshake. We discovered that he LOVES things like shakes when I ordered a virgin strawberry daquiri last weekend and Joseph drank more than half of my drink. He couldn't get enough!

True to recent form, once his dinner arrived, he sat down and steadily plowed through half of the sandwich, before turning to the oranges. He was so sweet, trying his hardest to scoop up the oranges with a spoon and then a fork. He's getting a lot better at keeping the spoon upright on its way into his mouth and only dropped  1. After polishing off the whole bowl of oranges, he turned back to the sandwich, which he finished! And then asked for more. Are you kidding me? I reminded him about his shake, which he happily started chugging. 

The last bit of sandwich, and a protest about having his picture taken. Usually he hams it up for the camera, but not tonight.

He decided it was much more fun to suck the melted shake off the straw than drink through it, and was having so much fun I had to video a bit of the experience.

You would think all that food would be enough to fill up a two year old. Not this kid. After playing outside with bubbles for a bit, he was asking to eat again, and finished a cereal bar, slice of red pepper and a few more pieces of chicken! He's learning how to stall when he doesn't want to go take his nightly bath and will continue eating, so it's hard to tell if he's really still hungry or not. Probably not, but since he's never eaten this well, we aren't complaining. Except now I have visions of what life might actually be like with a teenage boy in the house....at least that's a long way off!

Well Hello Again!

Turns out, when I take on a full time job, life gets crazy! Now that it's the last week of March, I have a lot to reflect on and update. Back when I started working, Gary and my mom started off watching Joseph for the first week and a half. While it was great for Joseph (and us), we quickly realized that it's not fair to ask grandparents to spend full weeks watching a toddler who's usually going full steam ahead all the time. And due to scheduling, we spent the first three weekends of March driving to and from Columbia and St. Louis. It quickly started to wear on us as well.

I had spent a bit of time looking at day care centers when I knew this job was a possibility, so we went ahead and enrolled him for two days a week, to supplement his already scheduled Friday program. Gary has been watching him the other two days a week, which Joseph loves. At first he really enjoyed the new day care, but I think all of the time spent with fun grandparents really spoiled him, and now every trip to "school" results in some serious separation problems. Luckily he quickly gets over it, but it's still hard to deal with every other day. And I'm still working on trying to be a full time working mom. Meal planning, house keeping, laundry and all of the other daily chores is definitely way more difficult to schedule and stay on top of now, besides trying to stay up with making my lunch for work, exercising and getting enough sleep. While this arrangement works out ok for the short term, I'm looking forward to being able to stay home again and get back into my normal routine (at least what will be normal for a few more months, before everything gets crazy again with a  newborn in the mix!).

A few weeks ago, Joe put Joseph's play house together, and Joseph loves playing in it. Actually, being outside is Joseph's favorite thing, more so than playing trains! I snapped these pictures one afternoon when it was a little drizzly and chilly, and you can see Joseph decided he needed to wear his hat. He got this last year for Christmas, and when we pulled it out in the fall to see if it still fit this year, he saw it and wouldn't let us put it away. At least once a week he'll grab this hat and pull it on, and insist on wearing it around. And no, it doesn't really fit anymore, but try telling that to him!

His house has a mail slot, which is a constant source of fun. Typically he'll gather sticks from the yard and use those as his pieces of mail, which is what he's doing below.

This past Thursday I had the chance to serve as a model for a women's clinic that was training new ultrasound techs. A free ultrasound? There was no way I could pass that opportunity up! Because there were 3 techs training, plus the instructor, I spent a little over an hour getting to watch the baby. While I was there, the baby waved, yawned, and flipped around a number of times. We didn't get a chance to find out the gender, but all the techs had to take a variety of measurements and confirmed that I am measuring about a week ahead of what we originally thought. I'll be 18 weeks on Friday, and the baby's new due date is August 31!

Due to my health insurance/maternity coverage issues, my next doctor's appointment isn't for another week. I'm sure at that appointment we'll get the instruction to set the big anatomy ultrasound. So far I'm still feeling great, and getting better about exercising before going to work, since waiting until after work just wasn't cutting it. I've also been hitting up the area consignment sales, this time looking for clothes for Joseph and me. I forgot how expensive maternity clothes are when new and not on sale! And since this pregnancy has me getting bigger at exactly the opposite time of year as when I was pregnant with Joseph, I really need a lot of new summer clothes. So far, I've been really lucky at the consignment sales, finding two skirts, two pairs of capri pants, two pairs of shorts and two shirts, with the average price per item at $5-8. 

Today was the first day I opted to wear one of the pairs of capri pants to work, and while they are much more comfortable, I'd forgotten how easily maternity pants like to slip down! It'll be an adjustment getting used to wearing maternity clothes again, but I'm glad that I'm still able to wear normal clothes and supplement with the maternity stuff now.

We spent this past weekend at home, the first time since February, which was awesome. Saturday we walked up to First Watch for breakfast, then when we got home we started cleaning up the yard, porch and patio. Joseph was too cute picking up sticks from the yard and trying to copy Joe, breaking the "big" ones on his leg like daddy! He's really turned into quite the copycat. We also outlined the section of yard that I'll be working on landscaping in the coming weeks, including a special section just for Joseph. Joe picked up a RAV-load full of mulch, which covered a little over half of Joseph's area, and we dragged the playhouse out to its new spot in the yard. With spring arriving about a month early this year, I have to keep reminding myself that it's way too early to start planting, which is good since our next few weekends are already full. When Joseph got up from his nap, he helped us spread the mulch, dig for worms and generally had a blast. I can't wait to watch the area evolve into a fun special place for him!

Sunday was Joe and my 6 year anniversary. Hard to believe it's been 6 years already! After church, Joseph went to Nana and Papa's house so Joe and I could spend the afternoon together. We headed out to the Legends to do some shopping, grab a late lunch and watch The Hunger Games movie, since we were both excited about the movie. The weather was beautiful for wandering around outside, and Joseph had a blast with his grandparents. He's starting to realize that grandparents' houses are way more fun than ours, and whenever we are leaving one, he'll try to tell us that "Nana's house is Jo-Jo's house". Sorry kiddo, that's just not the case!

 So that's what's been going on around the Jeppson house this month. Sunday is the annual KC Track Club Brew to Brew, a 40+ mile relay race from the Boulevard Brewery in KC to the Free State Brewery in Lawrence. I'm running the first 4 mile leg and then acting as one of the team sober drivers for the rest of the day. Needless to say, it'll be an experience for me to be there and not be drinking with everyone. I'm still looking forward to a day of beautiful weather, and hanging out with a bunch of good friends.

Baby Bump

I realize I haven't announced it on the blog, but since everyone who reads the blog knows already, it didn't seem like too big of a deal, but baby Jeppson #2 is on the way! I'm approximately 14 weeks pregnant now, with a due date of early September (no ultrasound yet = no official date, but we're going with Sept. 8th).

I enjoyed being pregnant with Joseph, but definitely took the "eating for two" thing to the extremes, as I ended up gaining over 50 pounds with him! Eek! Luckily, after months of hard work and determination, and I lost it all, and then managed to lose another 10 or so over the past year. I was determined to start this pregnancy healthier, with a different mindset for my second time around. Luckily, Joseph keeps me busy enough that this time I didn't really have the time to sit and focus on being newly pregnant. Other than being more tired than normal, I didn't have any bad first trimester issues - not a bout of morning sickness or anything! So it hasn't felt real until, quite honestly, this past week.

I've also decided to be much better about monitoring my food intake and exercise amounts with this pregnancy. Whereas with Joseph I never stepped on the scale, save for the requisite trips to the doctor, this time I'm monitoring my weight and calorie intake daily so I can keep tabs on whether I'm overeating or staying right on track. Not to say I'm dieting, because that's definitely not the case, but I certainly don't need to be eating crazy amounts of food and giving in to every "craving" for sugar. At this point, I'm up about 4 lbs, which is right on target, especially considering I didn't have any morning sickness. In the end, I'm really hoping to stay under 35 lbs gained total, but if it doesn't happen, at least I know I'll have tried harder this time around.

Back to things starting to seem real. All of my clothes still fit, although this week the waist of some of my pants are starting to get snug. And for good reason - Joe and I agree that I'm definitely starting to show a definite little bump! I mean, it's not that noticeable unless I'm wearing a shirt that hangs close to my stomach, but it's there and growing. I'm hoping to be able to stay in my regular clothes for at least a few more weeks, especially since now I have to wear dress pants to work and really don't want to invest in new clothes for a temporary job! We took pictures tonight to document, but for some reason the card reader in my computer won't take the SD card, so I'm kinda out of luck for posting them right now. As soon as we figure out what's going on, though, we will!

What a week!

Wow, what a difference a week can make! Ever since starting my stay-at-home mom job, I go through phases where I wonder if financially it makes the most sense. In all reality, with my law license and experience, the answer is, unequivocally no. However, we're blessed to be able to make ends meet on just Joe's salary and I don't think there's any question that our family/home life is greatly improved having one of us at home.

Still, I get restless every so often and I'd start looking at job postings, thinking, well, maybe.... Then realize that we still weren't comfortable with sending Joseph to daycare at a young age. Now that Joseph's talking a ton(!) and is becoming quite a social little boy, we've entered the stage of life where maybe being around more kids more often in a structured environment wouldn't be a bad idea. If it came to that.

So last week I once again started looking at job postings, and found a few for short term contract attorney jobs - lasting 1-3 months. These jobs are typically 40 hrs, no overtime, no responsibility, and not exciting, but they pay better than a basic attorney job and leaps and bounds above retail, basic administrative work, etc. Joe and I discussed it and agreed maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to apply and see what happens. After all, we are still clawing our way back out of the financial hole we dug when our low budget bathroom remodel last winter turned into a massive home remodel. This type of a job should, in theory, give us that last little push of double income to pay off the credit cards and start rebuilding our savings.

I dug up my last resume, spent some time updating it and emailed it to the two different job contacts Wednesday night. At 9am Thursday morning, my phone rang. One company wanted me to interview that same day! The timing wasn't going to work out, so I scheduled the interview for Friday when Joseph could nap at Joe's office. Later that afternoon, the second company emailed to set an interview for Monday. I was really surprised at how fast everything was moving! Friday's interview went well, and they would call on Monday if I had been selected for a second interview. So Monday I headed off to the other interview, and sure enough, got a call from the first company to interview again on Tuesday morning.

Tuesday's second round interview went well enough that they called back a few hours later and said I'd been offered the job, and needed to start the following day! Mind you, I went from not even thinking about going back to work to employed in less than one week! Crazy!

Luckily we had spent the weekend discussing these options with Gary and my mom, to see if we could line them up to watch Joseph while we learned if I was in fact going to be working and figured everything out. The job I took says that it may only last through the end of March, but there's a good chance it'll run through April. Gary watched Joseph this week, and tomorrow I'm headed toward St. Louis when Joseph will spend this week with my parents. Assuming things go well at work this week, I have a daycare lined up to watch Joseph 2+ days a week, he'll stay in his Friday Kids Day Out program (that he's been enrolled in since August) and Gary will probably watch him the other 2 days a week.

In the end, it's not enjoyable work, but it's a job that should help us get back on the right track financially. And I know that I'm going to really appreciate being able to stay home full time! It's already been stressful trying to get Joseph and me ready in the morning and then figure out dinner when I get home. I definitely haven't figured that out yet, but will be working on it this week!

Things two year olds do

This started before his birthday, but I thought I'd capture it now. What is it about little boys and being obsessed with body noises? Joseph loves to make sure everyone knows when someone passes gas, and since we have a dog with some serious evening GI tract issues, "tooting" is a regular occurrence in our house. Joseph is sure to let everyone know when "doggie toot!" or "mama toot!" or "daddy toot!" although sometimes he says it more as a command than response. His favorite, though, is when he does it. He'll practically scream "JoJo toot!!" and strain to do it again and again. Oh, the joy of having a little boy! :)

2 Year Stats

Yesterday was Joseph's 2 year old check up. We are still a little concerned that he's not gaining enough weight, but the doctor doesn't seem concerned since he's staying steady on the growth chart.

Weight: 24.5 lbs (22nd %)
Height: 35.5 inches (78th %)
Head Circumference: 19 inches (50th %)

For frame of reference, he gained approximately 7 pounds this year, and grew 5.5 inches taller!

2nd Birthday Weekend

We had such a fun weekend! Friday afternoon my parents drove up, and managed to get to Kansas City just before Joseph's bed time. He freaked out when he saw them walk through the door, and immediately told Papa to "sit down," grabbed one of his kid-sized Little Tikes chairs for Papa to sit on, and proceeded to play trains. Of course, this meant he didn't get to bed anywhere near on time, but we didn't mind. He was having too much fun playing!

The next morning, Joe and I were getting ready to meet my parents for a train expo, and we realized it was really quiet downstairs. I sent Joe down to make sure Joseph was ok, and this is what he discovered:

 Joseph has figured out how to open the pantry door and pull down the boxes of cereal. Usually he'll just pull the inner bag out of the box, drop the box outside the pantry and wander around the house with his hand in the cereal bag until he tires of that one and heads back to the pantry to grab the next box of cereal. Saturday, we're not sure what happened, but this face tells it all:

He was pretty proud of himself!  Joe got the space cleaned up and Joseph dressed so that we'd be on time to meet my parents at their hotel. The train expo was being held at the American Royal and we didn't know what to expect, except for the promise of lots of various scale trains set up on display and a train for kids to ride.

We were inside for all of two minutes when these two paired off and headed to check things out.

We took in all of the sights, comparing the various train models and looking at lots of booths for stuff for dad's train table.

 They also had a few vendors specializing in kid trains, namely Thomas and Chuggington. Joseph got a huge kick out of those! One vendor was selling Thomas parts and tracks at 20% off, and had a number of open box items, so we picked up a few hard to find track pieces and a couple fun train cars for the birthday boy.

After the show we grabbed a quick lunch, then headed back home to put Joseph down for his nap. While napping, I worked on making his birthday cake. We decided to do a Dumbo themed birthday, since it incorporates the circus train and his love for Dumbo. The downside to doing a non-mainstream Disney birthday, however, is the lack of related birthday items. So he picked out some circus plates and napkins (since they had an elephant on them) and I set out to figure out how to make a Dumbo cake.

I decided to try doing a frozen buttercream transfer, even though I've never attempted anything creative when it comes to cake decorating. Essentially, you take an image, tape it to a cutting board with wax paper over the top, pipe frosting on the outline of the image, and then fill in the image with colored frosting. Then you put a layer of frosting over the entire top of the image that matches your cake frosting color, and freeze. I let it freeze overnight, praying that it would work out.

Turns out, it worked great! My final image doesn't look as good as it did when I peeled the frozen frosting image off the wax paper due to two unforseen issues: 1) the top of my cake wasn't nearly flat enough, so when I tried to press the image into the cake, I managed to smear a bit of color onto Dumbo's face. oops 2) apparently the cake plate top I used was about 1/2 inch too short, so when I put the top on, it pressed into Dumbo's middle. I asked Joe to take pictures early in case it all melted together, and he discovered the issue when Dumbo had a dime sized section of belly left stuck to the cover!

 All in all, I was really pleased with how it turned out. I added some M&Ms as a border around the base to add some color and called it a day.

Saturday evening Ashley, Mikael, Jen and Elliot drove up, and the whole group went out for pizza. We got home late again and rushed to put Joseph to bed so we could set to decorating the house!

 We also hung some balloons outside his bedroom door, and had loose balloons floating around the living room. He's a big fan of balloons!

Sunday morning I got up early to make breakfast. I had seen a delicious looking recipe for Buttermilk Blueberry Breakfast Cake online, and decided I had to try it. Joseph still loves blueberries, so I figured it would be a hit. And it was! Of course, he decided to pick the blueberries out and then eat the cake, but it was good to see him dive in and eat it.

While we were getting ready for Mom, Dad, Jill and Gary to head over to the house, I also made some "big top" cupcakes with little flag "J" toppers. I had planned on having cupcakes just in case the cake didn't work out, so we didn't really need them afterall, but hey, you can never have too much cake at a birthday party, right?

Joseph awoke to Joe and me singing him the Happy Birthday song, which he loved. Then he caught sight of the balloons in the hallway and scrambled to be put down so he could check those out. Saturday night Joe put together a mini trampoline Grandpa Joe had sent Joseph for his birthday, and he left it in the middle of the living room. Joseph squealed when he spotted it, ran over and immediately started bouncing. I wish we had decent pictures, but this was the best, least blurry of them all.

 After a few minutes of bouncing, he'd turn around, fall down and catch his breath while laying flat on the trampoline. Then he'd get up and start bouncing all over again! This toy is going to be great for wearing this kid out. :)

We set a loose start time of 11am for the party, and Joseph started opening gifts the minute my parents walked in the door, starting with a circus train set and a motorized James engine.

He was really excited about playing with the new toys, but also realized that there were more wrapped presents on the table and kept asking for more. Then he'd get another present to open. What a great game!

I had remembered to pull out the birthday crown I made for his first birthday, and Saturday evening my mom helped finish sewing his birthday shirt and the number 2 for the crown. We told Joseph he needed to wear the crown to open presents, and he was happy to oblige!

Ashley, Mikael and Jen got Joseph a fun tunnel and pop-up tent that quickly took up about a quarter of the living room. Papa even climbed in the tent to "chase" Joseph down the tunnel.

The next present up was a great chef's hat, apron, marble maze, finger paints and Kool-Aid packets from Aunt Lisa, Uncle Dan and the cousins. Since we'd told Joseph he had to wear his crown to open presents, he wasn't thrilled about wearing the chef's hat, but left the apron on for the rest of the morning!

And for a kid who's never even tried Kool-Aid, he was really excited about those little packets!

Mimi and Papa also got him a bumble bee backpack. The great thing about this bag is the attached kid "leash." Which he hates.

 And the matching rain hood. Which he couldn't figure out.

Mimi and Papa also got him a couple of books and lacing cards.

He's a big fan of reading and loves getting new books. Of course, he quickly found a spot in Papa's lap to check the books out.

I snuck one of our gifts in at this point; a Dumbo book! I was surprised at how difficult it was to find one that had more pictures and less text, but finally found one (in a clearance section, no less!) on Friday morning, just in the nick of time.

Next up was a gift that was almost bigger than him, from Nana and Papa. It took him a while to get all the paper off, but he was thrilled to discover the adjustable height basketball hoop inside!

Joseph recruited Uncle Mikael to put it together and couldn't wait to start shooting hoops. After just one day, he's already figuring out how to chess pass the ball and starting to try actually throwing the ball at the hoop, instead of just running over and dropping it in.

The last gifts before stopping for lunch and cake were a height growth chart, Mega Bloks set and a singing birthday bear, that he absolutely loves.

Check out that face! It sways as it sings, and the light comes on the candle "flame." Apparently he remembered blowing out the lights on the Christmas strands with Joe, as he tried to blow the flame out. We didn't even pay attention to this little clue that he'd get a kick out of the candle on his birthday cake...

We planned a circus style meal, complete with hot dogs, brats, popcorn, animal crackers, pretzels and Cheetos puffs (they're a Joseph favorite and Aunt Ashley approved food). It didn't take long before Joseph spotted the cake on the table, too.

He was so excited about it! And he recognized Dumbo, which made me really happy!

Pulling the cake close to let him try to blow the candle out. It took a few tries, but he got the hang of it.

I opted to give him a sprinkle covered cupcake first, and that's when we realized that one round of the "Happy Birthday" song wasn't going to be enough. His eyes lit up when everyone in the room sang to him, and he'd quickly request more after we finished. I lost count at how many times we sang!

After a few bites of frosting, Joseph pointed to the candle and asked for more. I figured, what the heck, and that started about 10 sessions of lighting the birthday candle and Joseph blowing it out. He couldn't get enough! Joe grabbed the camera and managed to snap this great progression - check out Joseph's expresion in the last picture...

 so proud of himself! I served up the cake, which I'd made as a two layer checkerboard cake to add to the fun. By the time we wrapped up lunch and let Joseph play for a bit longer, it was definitely naptime. He really fought it, but finally crashed once everyone left and the house got quiet.

When the birthday boy woke up an hour and a half later, he was confused about where everyone had gone. Luckily, he had lots of new toys to distract him. We knew he enjoyed himself, but the most rewarding, sweetest thing this little kiddo did to thank us happened as Joe was putting him to bed. Most nights, Joe reads him a few stories and rocks him a little before putting him in his crib. Usually Joseph will rest his head on Joe's shoulder and cuddle up a bit. That night, as he was resting his head on Joe, he mumbled outloud "happy JoJo..." a couple of times, gave Joe his goodnight kiss and went right to bed. Such a sweet boy!

Thanks to everyone who helped make Joseph's 2nd birthday such a sucessful day!