the beginning of the rest of my life

I do it to myself. I am to blame. I deserve it. I put off washing clothes and before I know it, I’m living in a Chinese Laundry. My home becomes a maze of clothing. Again, I do it to myself. Again, I am to blame. Again, I deserve it. All this because I hang-dry the majority of our clothes. People may laugh – and they have. People may scoff – and they have. But that is how I roll. And, as a result, we get lost just walking through the kitchen.

This week has brought with it many mixed emotions. We have had highs and lows. The good thing: our highs are real high. The bad thing: our lows are real, real low. Ammon is still working on cutting those incisors. I should say, he is working on getting them period. They haven’t broken through yet – much to my dismay, as I thought that one of them had. The beginning of this week was fairly miserable for poor Ammon. The photo above does not do that day justice. You can’t see the tears in his eyes – but they are there. You can’t hear the whimpers of discomfort – but they were there. Long days, longer nights. All around a bad equation. But somewhere around the middle of the week, things started looking up. No teeth, but a better mood. A much better mood, in fact. We are coping so much better. We are enjoying our days. We are sleeping at night. No teeth – but we’re taking it one day at a time.

Brian has been doing his best to make sure that Ammon is a boys-boy. Not like he had to work very hard. I mean, the child lives for wheels. But, Brian has been teaching him all kinds of fun (and slightly unnerving) tricks. Like jumping off the couch and/or bed (i.e.: lean forward, fall off (that’s where I get panicky), get caught and thrown in air). Ammon also got to play with his first Transformers the other day. We know what Ammon wants, that’s for sure. All we have to do is wait for the double-reach and ooo-ooo-ooo whistling noise. Needless to say, there was plenty of that that afternoon. Brian was right… it’s in the genes.

I have been the busiest bee on the face of the earth. I have completely revamped my bedroom. Getting rid of things, moving furniture, making a space for all my goodies. Stay tuned for pictures of the finished product. It’s nothing special – but, I got so tired of the way it was. And, I’m trying to make the most of my space. It isn’t ideal… but it works for now and I'm fairly pleased with how it all turned out. Next on my list: going through Ammon’s clothes and then… downstairs.

The weather has been cooler the last few days. Unfortunately, I have missed it. I was inside slaving away – thinking that it was still far too hot to venture outside. So, we have a family park-date this weekend… just to make up for lost time. Fall is by far my favorite season. Winter is my second favorite season. And, as luck would have it, living in the South I miss both of them. But, we do have a few good days. A few crisp days that just make me feel happy. Make me think of school supplies. Which I adore, of course.

Speaking of that… I was at Target the other day and walked past the remnants of school supplies. They just smell good. Ever sniffed an eraser? Luscious. Mouthwatering. Makes me want to send myself a bouquet of sharpened pencils…

Ammon’s improved mood might just have something to do with him being just a tad pleased with himself. Wednesday marked the day that Ammon really started crawling. He crawled just a wee bit on Saturday to get to his bink, but we aren’t really counting that. On Wednesday, however, he took off. None of that let-me-get-used-to-this jazz. None of that ooo-lets-take-this-slowly riff-raff. Nope, he just got up on his knees, rocked a bit, made an oh-what-the-heck sigh and up and crawled across the room. Brian and I weren’t really that surprised by it – maybe a little taken back by how quickly he figured it all out once he started. What really surprised us, me anyway, was everything else that he decided to start doing all in the same day.

When I went in to get him up from his morning nap, I was shocked to see two little hands on the top rail of Ammon’s crib – with the bug himself pulled up on his knees, taking a look around his room. And once we got downstairs, he was trying to pull up on just about everything. He crawled right over the top of me. He got back into a sitting position from a crawling position. He managed to reach up high enough to swat at our entertainment center doors. Ammon is looking at everything with brand-new eyes. Almost as if he is looking at things for the very first time, with the thought, “…hey, I can get to that...” running through his brain.

We have been getting the wait-until-he’s-crawling comments for a while now. Things like, “…it’s all over then…” and “…let the race begin…”. And while things have been more hairy the last few days, I am just plain happy for him. I got over trying to patent a way to keep him from growing a long time ago. I knew this day would come sooner or later. No, it isn’t fun constantly having to pull Ammon out of things. No, it isn’t fun to have to hurdle over a baby gate to save a quarter that he got from who knows where. No, it isn’t fun trying to baby-proof a non-baby-proof-friendly townhouse. But, apart from all these things, I am still happy for him. My heart thrills at his excitement. My heart melts at that look-what-I-can-do squeal. Such a big boy. Such big times.

So, let us just call Wednesday the first day of the rest of my life. Running after a silly boy that makes me smile. And I've got a good partner-in-crime to help me do just that. All of which sounds perfectly good to me.