It has been a while

Yes, it's been a while since I posted. We have been extremely busy. For those who do not know, we are trying to sell our house. It's funny, but after we purchased this house five years ago, I felt something open up inside me that said, "we can have kids now, we have space for them." And it seems like the day we brought Robin home from the hospital, that same voice said, "I want to move, I don't want to raise my kid in this neighborhood." I really just want a similar (or bigger) house to what we have in a better school district and in a neighborhood without trash littering all the yards, industrial stuff (including a junkyard for scrap cars) just a few blocks away, with fewer rentals, and with no broken glass on the streets. We'll be looking at foreclosures in addition to regular listings in hopes of finding a great deal that will get us into more house (or a nicer area) than we could afford otherwise. In this picture, Robin is "helping" us fix some tile in the bathroom.

Circumstances kind of came together during the last few weeks (we've now been here long enough to qualify for the tax credit, if we can somehow get a contract on this house and get a contract on a new one by the end of April) so we've been busy packing knick knacks, decorations, pictures, and extra items, and cleaning so our house looks good for showings. It was exhausting work. We got it listed yesterday (I'll provide a link as soon as the link has pictures, for the curious) and are celebrating not having to spend our days and evenings packing anymore.

We celebrated last night by playing in the basement with the lights off with four glow sticks to toss around and play with. Robin had a ball. I don't know what was going through his little mind, but he definitely enjoyed it, and so did Dean and I. It was so nice to be able to play with our son without having to take breaks to clean up the house or pack something. Robin has not been taking the change in his environment very well, and has been very fussy and clingy of late. It doesn't help that he's cutting his ninth and tenth teeth (he skipped the cuspids and went straight to the first molars.)

But on to news of Robin's amazing growth. I haven't measured him in a while, but he often seems bigger to me. He really did leave babyhood behind a while ago. Probably his biggest accomplishment of late has been successfully feeding himself with a spoon. It's messy, but he doesn't require help getting food on the spoon first. It's been great for me, because I can feed him things that require a spoon and can eat at the same time, without having to take turns.

Taking a ride with all of this friends

We started taking a swim class last week, and have had four (of eight) sessions now. He was a little barnacle the first day, but eased up after that and is actually smiling, having fun, and willingly entering the water under his own power now. Part of the idea is to get him to flip on his back if he falls in the water on his own (water safety, to keep him from drowning until someone can get him) although that's a ways off still--he doesn't like being on his back. It's been good to get out (even if it's earlier than we would normally venture out into the world) and spend time with other babies while learning something.

He really likes books lately. We've been to the library several times, and we keep those (and his own) books handy so he can grab them. He usually brings them to us, holds them out for us to take, and then climbs into our laps once we grab the book. His attention span is still short, but it's nice (and great to sneak in a few extra snuggles.)

Look at the leprechaun we found in our yard on St. Patrick's Day!

We found out that Robin still doesn't like lettuce because he didn't want to eat his Ceasar salad on Monday (had it for dinner in honor of the Ides of March!) He doesn't mind the dressing though, so we decided his salads would consist of steamed broccoli until more of his molars come in.

Today he showed real progress in playing in the snow. In the past, he's been very tentative and doesn't want to stay out very long, but today we went outside and he struck out into virgin snowfall on his own, stopping to pick up and eat pieces along the way, and just going all over. He went up and down the steps of the deck about a dozen times. I tried to give him a ride using the snow shovel as a sled, but that didn't work too well. Going inside was my idea, and he didn't want to go in when we did. It was awesome to see him having fun out there. (No pictures, sorry, I thought it would be easier not to wrestle with keeping the camera dry.)