3 months old, and I've buried the lead

It's amazing how hard it is to develop a routine that allows for blogging when there's a new baby in the house, especially a first baby. Every thing is so new to me.

Harder still, I'm finding that I don't have a lot to say right now. Probably because so much of what I'm doing revolves around feedings and diaper changes, and I'm not really finding these topics all that inspiring for blog fodder. Be thankful. Because that could be some really gross blog fodder. :)

Yesterday was Xander's 3-month birthday. He's reaching all the right milestones. There are lots of smiles and giggles. He loves to be sung to, and fortunately he isn't a critic yet, because I hit a lot of sour notes lately. It has left my karaoke confidence pretty low. He's holding his head up really well and likes to be held in a sitting position so he can watch the world. Now if we can just persuade him to enjoy his supervised tummy time.

If you don't know, since the experts started recommending that babies sleep on their backs all the time (to avoid SIDS), they've found that babies need supervised time on their tummies so that they can develop the strength and gross motor skills to turn themselves over. So, it's "back to sleep and tummy to play".

What else is new? Oh yeah, my maternity leave was supposed to end last week. Instead of going back, I quit my job. That's kind of burying the lead, isn't it? Yes, I quit my job and am now a full-time stay-at-home Mom.

Scary big change for me. A good change. But still scary, since a year ago we were DINKs (double-income, no kids).

OK, gotta run. Xander is waking up and my free time is quickly ending.

Pumpkin guts galore

I've handled more pumpkin guts in the past few days than I'd ever imagined. OK, it's not really *that* many pumpkin guts. Maybe it's only four pumpkins that I had my hands inside, scooping out the innards and scraping the flesh clean.

When you go to two pumpkin carving parties, your hands are bound to get dirty.

Sunday night, in what threatens to be an annual tradition, we had the neighbor girls over to carve pumpkins. We hit four different stores in our quests for the perfect pumpkins. I fell in love with this horribly scarred and pimpled one, while my husband searched high and low for the perfect big and small pumpkin duo.

Here's the end result, all lit up and lined up. Mine is in the middle. (For a good picture of mine alone, click here.)



And here's a close up of my husband's pumpkin, which is actually two pumpkins screwed together in a "must eat brains" fashion, and a close-up of Linnae's pumpkin, which is also two pumpkins screwed together in a "must suck brains" fashion.



Then Tuesday at work, the social committee threw a pumpkin carving party. At first I told myself I was just going to play photographer, but then I found myself getting into the act.

In the end we carved and decorated 18 pumpkins. Some were carved free-hand, some were carved using templates, and some were decorated using Mr. Potato Head-type plastic parts.





I used a Jack Skellington template to make my own Nightmare Before Christmas pumpkin. I'm pleased with how it turned out.

P.S. I promise this is the last of the pumpkin carving posts. Unless I get some good photos of the pumpkin decay cycle or something. OK, sorry, I just can't promise. Maybe there will be more pumpkin posts and maybe there won't. I don't know. I really like pumpkins. :P