To my mother

     Happy Mother's Day. This is my second mother's day, but, considering that Ethan was only six days old on the last one, I feel like I have a little more experience being a mother this time.
     Today was our ward's fast and testimony meeting this month and a lot of people got up and talk about  their mothers. So of course I started thinking about what a wonderful mother I have and about how grateful I am for her example. I have always been grateful for her. When I was a teenager I heard people say countless times, "you will only be really grateful for your mother when you leave the house/go on a mission/have your own kids, etc" (any of those times where you suddenly have more responsibilities, I suppose). I used to think, "whatever, I am so grateful for her now!" And I really was. I knew a lot of kids that weren't grateful to their parents, so I could understand why people would say that, but I didn't think that it applied to me. When I left home and then when I went on a mission I was grateful for my mom but I wouldn't say I became that much more grateful. Now that I am a mother I wouldn't say that I am more grateful either. I would, however, say that now I understand why I am so grateful. This I did not really know before. I was always grateful because I knew that my mother has done countless things for me and sacrificed so much for me. I always realized that my mother gave up time, energy, her last bite of her favorite food, etc., so that she could make her children happy. I saw all that, but I knew there were countless other things that she had done like stay up late helping on a school assignment or letting me crawl into bed with her when I had a nightmare. Some I had heard about, like how my mother had got up countless times in the night to take care of triplets or how trapped she felt sometimes while nursing. Being a mother for the first year of a baby's life though has shown me all the things that I didn't know she had done.
     This past year I have learned about all the little things mom's do that no one really talks about. I suppose people don't talk about them because they are not really sacrifices. They aren't hard and they aren't big. They are just things mom's do because they love their baby. For example, every night before I go to bed I go in and look at Ethan. I think how beautiful he is. I put his blanket back over him. The other day when I put his blanket back on him I thought, "Wow. I bet my mother used to do this."
     Some days Ethan and I go out to run errands. We inevitably come home a little late for lunch. I feel so hungry. I know Ethan is hungry though too, because he is getting fussy. I ignore my growling stomach though and get Ethan's food ready, feed him, clean him up, play with him, and put him down for a nap. Then I eat my lunch. Guess what? I bet my mother used to do that too.
     During this past school year I would rush to get Ethan from the sitter's after class. Inevitably I would have to go pee. Go figure. I would get Ethan home and get him all settled with a toy before rushing to the bathroom. I would run the chance of peeing my pants so that Ethan would be comfortable and happy. You know what? I bet my mother used to do that too.
     Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night. My first thoughts are about Ethan. I assume he is okay, but just to make sure, I get up and go into his bedroom to make sure he is still breathing. I am sure my mother used to do that too.
     I can't resist kissing Ethan. When I am holding him I kiss his little head so much that he always starts to pull away from me. I always tease that he is saying, "Please mom! You are embarrassing me!" I just can't help it though! I bet my mother used to do that too.
     There are a million other things that no one but mothers, and maybe their husbands, know that they do. Tiny little things they do just as their way of saying "I love you." As I do these little things for Ethan I imagine my mother doing them for me. Thanks Mom. Thanks for doing all those little things for me. Thanks for caring about me. Thanks for putting me first.  Everyday I hope that I can be more like you. You are my hero.

Ethan is a ONE YEAR OLD!

So my little baby boy turned one. I cannot believe it. I cannot believe that a year ago we were in the hospital in shock that our little boy was born with gastroschisis. I remember each day dragging on and by the time he was a week old I was having my first Mother's Day. Wow. Maybe it was because we had spent so much time in the hospital, but looking back on it I cannot believe that he was only six days old, it seems like it had been much longer than six days. I remember how to that day we had only seen Ethan's eyes a handful of times. He was so sedated because of his condition and then recovering from surgery. He was so tiny and I couldn't believe that he was ours. Here are some pictures of us with him a year ago today. I love this little boy who made me a mother!

Anyway, so for his birthday we threw him a little party. We had it at the lounge at Natalie's apartment and we invited some friends. Ethan played with the other babies and played the piano there (which he LOVES). I made him some "healthy" cake (it had less sugar and no butter, just yogurt) with some low sugar frosting (which was actually really good-it was cream cheese frosting but not too rich). When he went to eat his cake he first just played with it in his hands, then started licking it off his fingers, then he slowly started leaning forward to eat it with his mouth. It was pretty cute. He had blue all over him.
I love my baby boy!

Play time first...

 And on to the cake...

 

Happy anniversary to us!

Today is Trent and I's second anniversary. This second year has been better than the first and I hope that the third is better than the second! Having Ethan really makes us value and take advantage of our time together. Trent just got called as the Elder's Quorum President today too. The Stake President said that the Lord will make our time together "sweeter" because we have less of it. I thought that was a good way to put it.
It was also nice to celebrate Easter today. I don't know how we will end up celebrating Easter in the future, but today was great as we did not focus on Easter bunnies and eggs (just some Cadbury eggs, that was a must!) and we just focused on the Savior and His resurrection. I am so grateful to know that His sacrifice of the Atonement makes it possible for me to hope to return to live with Heavenly Father and my family for all of eternity. I know I do not understand it all yet, but I do believe it. A girl in our ward sang a song today that said something that rang true with me: "Though I did not see him calm the raging sea, He has calmed my troubled heart and I believe."
Edit: Trent and I went on our anniversary date on Monday, April 25. Trent told me he had to go into work really quick but he surprised me by coming home with two beautiful calla lilies, one for each year of our marriage. It was one of the most romantic things he has done for me. Partly because I always guess that he is up to something, but he COMPLETELY surprised me. I even started crying. Here is a few pictures of them.

11 months old and counting

Ethan turned 11 months old today. Wow. And weird. I can swallow the fact that I have a baby but it is a little harder to believe that he will soon be a whole year old.

I haven't written in a while because we have been SO busy. I am almost done with school (thank goodness, only two weeks left!) and we have SO much to do before the end of the semester. General Conference was this weekend and Jean A. Stevens, first counselor in the Primary General Presidency, said that we must choose to have faith and to trust in the Lord. I am so glad that she said that. These next few weeks are going to be hard but I have been working on being patient and not getting stressed out. Now, I guess, is the time for me to choose to have faith and to trust that if I put the Lord first He will help me to get it all done without getting stressed out and taking it ot on those around me. I know the principle is true. I just have to have faith to try.

So, lets start from where I left of last post. On the 16th Trent left early (3:00 AM early) for Chicago and Student Career Days put on by PLANET. He has been preparing for it all semester now and was a little nervous about how he would do. On Sunday I got a call after the awards ceremony telling me how they did. BYU took first overall. Trent took first in not only Small Engine Repair (the one we knew he would do well in) but he also took first in Plant and Pest ID (which he had told me he was going to do terribly in...ha)! He couldn't believe it himself. I am so happy for him. He works so hard and deserves to finally win something. Now he is a National Champion. Twice. Pretty cool.

While he was gone my mom came to visit. She came down to help me with Ethan during my last week of teaching and help Natalie get ready for her BFA Illustration Show Reception. It was so fun to have her here and to watch her with Ethan. Trent came home at midnight on Monday and then my dad came down on Tuesday for Nat's reception (on Thursday). It was crazy to have so much going on during my last week of teaching but I loved having them here. On Wednesday night we went to my parents hotel to take Ethan swimming for his first time. It was so fun. He never smiled once during his whole time in the pool, but he didn't cry either. He just stared and looked around, presumably trying to take it all in. I am so excited to take him to the pool and the ocean this summer. He loves bath time and I hope he loves to swim.

Thursday, March 24th was Natalie's art reception. I asked if I could make the food and she said yes! (My first catering experience! I have this secret desire to be a caterer). Anyway, I made red velvet mini cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and almond cheese balls. It was my first time making either and I had a lot of help from Dad, Mom, and Nat. Luckily, they turned out good and were a success. I had a lot of people ask me for the cheese ball recipe and one lady wouldn't accept my offer to email it to her and had me give it to her off the top of my head! The best part about it all was that I had so much FUN. I LOVE cooking/baking. I just wish I had more people besides Trent and I to eat the food that I make. Here is a picture with Ethan, Nana, and Papa (my parents) at the reception.

Here is Papa reading to Ethan.

So Ethan is exploring and into everything but he is learning so much. Just a few stories to illustrate how fast his little brain must be working. About a week and a half ago I went to go to the bathroom and I shut the door most of the way but I left it open just a crack. My parents were in the living room but I heard Ethan crawling in to find me. I heard him crossing the little bit of linoleum and saw him peek through the crack in the door. I smiled because I thought it was so cute that he came to find me. Then, though, he reached up with his right had and pulled the door towards him, opening it. I was shocked. How did he know that to open the door he had to pull it towards him? I have seen him push doors closed but never pull them towards him. He was too much in the way of the door to open it very much so he scooted himself backwards and to the side so that he was out of the way and then opened the door, crawled in to the bathroom and pulled himself up to standing using my leg, and gave me a huge smile. I am amazed. I just can't believe that he knew to pull the door towards himself or even how to move out of the way so it could get by him. Second story. We have a couch and a chair that sit at almost a 90 degree angle to one another. In between them is an end table with computer and TV cords underneath. I was cleaning up and decided to put our little ottoman in between the couch and the chair so that Ethan couldn't get to the cords in the corner. Later, Ethan was walking along the couch and decided that he wanted to play with the little handle that hangs from the table (it is like a fake drawer handle that he likes to pull on). He couldn't reach it though because the ottoman was in the way. He leaned over the ottoman, reaching for the handle, but he just couldn't get it. He turned around and walked back down the couch. He went about a foot away from the ottoman before sitting down and rolling around a little bit. I wondered what he was doing because it just seemed kind of strange. Then I saw. From his position he reached out, grabbed a hold of a little rung on the ottoman and pulled it towards him. When he had pulled it as far as he could he rolled and scooted about another foot away, reached out and pulled the ottoman towards him again. I started laughing. I knew exactly what he was doing. He looked up at me and started to crawl to me but then he remembered the mission that he had started on, and he turned, crawled around the ottoman to the newly vacant spot, and pulled himself up the table so that he could grab onto the handle. I could hardly believe it. What must be going through his little mind to think: I want X. If I do Y, then I will get X!? Not only that, he is getting less sidetracked. He stayed focused on that handle the whole time. His brain must be learning so much about cause and effect right now. It is a pretty amazing process to watch.

Change of topic now.
This past Thursday was the Elder's Quorum Activity which was a Pinewood Derby. The wives were invited so Trent and I made a car together. Before we started we kind of had a lazy afternoon playing tennis (Trent barely won) and just kind of hanging out together. The activity was going to start at 6:30 so at about 4:00 we decided that we should probably start on our car. We knew people who had been working on their cars all week and we didn't want to be shown up too badly! We pulled out the table saw and started designing our car. When Trent went to cut it it splintered to the axle and ruined the block, making us realize that a table saw really isn't that great for making pinewood derby cars. Luckily we had an extra block. The second one survived the table saw but didn't look much better as you can see below. We tried to do one thing and messed up (hence the weird cuts in the front and up the sides) and then we just cut at an angle up the front and back to try to make it look a little better. We didn't have paint so we just colored it with markers. We also didn't have a scale so we had to wait until 6:30 to go to the church and use the scale there. Trent figured out how many fishing sinkers he could use and took his drill to the car, gutted it out, and hot glued the sinkers in! It was the ugliest car there! We were just laughing, we knew we weren't going to win. There were guys there who had some sweet looking cars and knew all about physics and where exactly to put the weight to get the most potential energy (in the back). Anyway, Trent named out car Trent & Cait, which is super romantic for him so I thought it was really sweet ;). When it went for its first run we beat the other three cars by a whole car length! We were shocked to say the least. It ended up winning all the other races and took first at the Derby. Wow. We laughed the whole way home in disbelief. Here are some pictures of the Trent & Cait.

Saturday was General Conference but Trent had to change the fuel pump in the truck.  I stayed inside watching Conference with Ethan while Trent worked on the truck and listened to the radio. He was getting pretty frustrated because he had to drop the gas tank to get the fuel pump, which means he had to crawl around on his back under the truck. After the first session and Trent had dropped the tank I went out to help him switch out the fuel pump. Ethan hung out at some friends house for a bit and then in the cab for a few minutes until it was time for his nap. He had fun pushing buttons and exploring. When he went down for his nap I went back out to help Trent. I ran the jack while Trent tried to balance the gas tank on top and then we rolled around underneath trying to screw all the nuts and bolts back in place and hook tubes/wires back up. Trent was so sore from being on the hard asphalt for four hours but we had fun working on it together. I love working as a team. I think that is what marriage it all about. I can't believe how cute it was to watch him work on the truck though! I was so proud to be married to such a man!

Standing up

Standing up. That is pretty much all Ethan does right now. The only reason for him not to be standing up is so that he can move to a different location and stand up there. Now we know the secret to happiness. It has been so fun. He has even started to cruise a little and takes baby steps along the couch, but only ever one or two, never more than that. He is always crawling to me and pulling himself up my legs (it really makes me feel loved even though I know it is because he wants me to take him around the house to look at things). The only problem with his new discovery is that he has learned that he can now stand up in his crib. He used to be such a good napper but now he just wants to play in his crib! Yesterday we put him down for his 1:00 nap but he didn't go down until 3:00!! Will the novelty of standing up just pass and he will start to nap well again? Answers anyone? I can only hope so.
Also, on Friday I got to babysit my friend Valissa's baby boy. Natalie and I have been friends with Valissa and her older sister Melea since we were 2 and Melea was 4. Last year Valissa and I found out that we were due within a week of each other (me with Ethan and her with her second child). What are the chances! Anyway, her and her husband were down here for a sealing and I got to watch Talis (her little boy that is Ethan's age)! Here are some pictures of our fun adventure.

A first and a second

I know I wrote yesterday but I just have to write two new things today. First of all, Ethan is pulling himself up to standing everywhere. He was doing it all morning and actually fell and hit his head three times because he lost his balance. Then, a few minutes after we laid him down for his morning nap we heard him talking and went in to see him standing in his crib. That was the first time he has done that, and I am sure that it will continue. I cannot say that I am too happy about that development!

We also discovered today that he is getting a second tooth! I keep feeling everyday to see if there is a new one and sure enough, tonight I felt the second one and I could barely feel the little ridges sticking up. You can see that it just broke the skin. He still has yet to be fussy while teething so I feel pretty blessed about that. He does have his tongue constantly hanging out of his mouth though as he rubs his tongue along his new teeth. I am sure he is wondering what is going on in there!
Anyway, I just needed to write these in here tonight. Everyday I am surprised at the new things he is doing and learning. I always knew I wanted to be a mother, but I never thought having a kid would be so much fun!

10 month old little boy

Ethan turned 10 months old this week and he is EVERYWHERE. It doesn't bother me really. I think it is so fun to see him exploring and checking things out. He is starting to pull himself to standing, open drawers, and follow us from room to room. The hardest part about it is getting him to eat! He will drink for about 30 seconds out of his bottle and then he is off and running. Today in church I had to strap him down tight in his car seat to get him to take his bottle! He fought me and kept crying out but eventually he got the idea that he better eat. I am a little worried about his weight gain now that he is more active and eating less. I might have to do a lot more strapping him in the car seat ;).
Ethan has now figured out how to pull open drawers. I followed my mom's example and put the Tupperware in the bottom drawer so that he can't break anything in it. He sits in front of the drawer, pulls it open, and tries to put his little arms over the top (so he really can't reach much). It is fun to watch him explore though.

Ethan was pretty sick this week. He woke up in the middle of the night crying for several nights in a row, refusing to take a bottle (which has never happened in the middle of the night) and I did not know how to comfort him. It was amazing though. I really felt like the Lord prompted me on ways to help Ethan calm down. I did things that I never would have done normally. For example, I never bring Ethan out into the light during his sleeping hours but when he started crying like that I just felt like I should I woke him up completely, playing with him reading books to him until he finally calmed down. Then I would rock him, transitioning slowly back to a dark room so he wouldn't started screaming again. There were other little things too and I know the Lord was helping me know how to handle and help Ethan without letting him cry to much. I am so grateful for all His help. It is so hard to be in school and have a kid and although I know that many people have it a lot harder than I do, I know that He watches out for me and cares about my small concerns. This was just one more testament of that.
Ethan is also starting to be more vocal. It is funny to watch him learn a new sound and have that be the only sound that he makes for days on end. The first sound he made was ga-ga, then da-da, then b-b (no vowel, really just breathy b's), then ba-ba, and this past week he started saying ma-ma. I know that he has no idea that ma-ma means me, but seriously, it still melts my heart when he says it! I just think it is so precious! When he was sick in the middle of the night this week he would say it crying maaaa-maaaa (if you can imagine)...my heart almost broke. I felt like he was calling out to me saying, "Mama, I feel so sick, please make it better." I know he was really just crying but I couldn't help but say, "Mama's here sweetheart." As a side note, I, of course, don't like it when he is sick, but it is kind of nice to have him be all snugly again like when he was little.
Here are some more pictures.

This shot was taken right after Ethan threw up all over me. Cute.

Weird faces.

The big mirror that Ethan LOVES.