It's almost Friday!

So yesterday was a flurry of activity. Got up at 5:00, dropped Logan off at the sitter's, taught all day, picked up Logan, met Eric for dinner, he took Logan home, I went back to school for open house, got home around 9:30 to the lights out and everyone asleep, stayed up and watched the news, learned that Ted Kennedy had died, felt weird about it--like I had been on some other planet for a few days or something, went to bed around 10:45. Fin.
Open House is such a strange experience to me. I meet my students' parents, introduce myself and talk to them for ten minutes about the class their child is enrolled in. I always feel like I jabber on like a maniac and smile too much--the parents probably think I am an absolute crackpot. Ah well, that's being an adult for you.
As for being a wee lad, things haven't become much kinder or gentler. Logan struck again yesterday. This time, he bit Kaleb, Karen's little boy, and he left a pretty good mark. Our sitter can't make sense of Logan's biting because he seems to be happy as a lark, then all of a sudden, he chomps. Maybe that's his mastermind strategy, the happy-face fake-out. I'm tired of writing and even thinking about feeling guilty, so I'll just skip that part. Today, though, he did much better. The sitter's little girl answered the door, and afraid of the answer, I asked, "Well, how did it go today?" She said, "He didn't bite anybody today." What relief! Just when I was on the verge of finding a toddler-sized Hanibal Lecter mask for him, he comes around. Hopefully it will stick.
We found out he has an ear infection, though. I took him to the clinic today after our sitter and Eric had noticed some suspicious ear pulling. This time we caught it early--he's on five days of azythromyacin, so we're crossing our fingers that he won't look like a leper like he did when he took amoxicylin.
What a long five days this work week has been. If you've had a long one too, I'll share my mantra with you: "It's almost Friday, It's almost Friday." Even if it's raining buckets, it's almost Friday. Happy weekend, everyone.

No Bite!

It's amazing how many commands you give a young child sound like something you would tell a puppy in training...Yes, we're trying to have some stern conversations with Logan about biting. Today at daycare, he was watching one of the little girls playing with a car. (I'm guessing he probably wanted to steal the car but didn't know how to go about getting it.) So he started to push the little girl, who was, in turn, pushing the car. While everyone laughed at first, seeing the connection between the two actions, the little girl understandably became annoyed and told Logan to stop pushing her. Next thing our sitter knew, Logan chomped onto the little girl's shoulder. Not good. We'll try it again tomorrow... I think I'll give him a little pep talk tomorrow in the car on the way to daycare. "C'mon, little dude! We bite food, not people!" I feel for him, though, because he sure has faced a lot of changes in the past couple of days.

Day Two of Daycare

I shouldn't have shown Logan the following movies: Jaws, Twilight, Interview With a Vampire, and Silence of the Lambs. What do all of those have in common? Yup...Biting. Logan had a biting incident today at daycare. I guess he bit one of the little girls on the shoulder. Ouch. Carly talked with Dawn about the details, so she'll have to blog more about it, but we feel bad. Hopefully Logan can learn "NO BITE" soon.

Day One of Day Care

Well, Logan did splendidly on his first day of daycare at Miss Dawn's, much better than Eric and I did. We woke the little guy up at 6AM this morning, changed him, and packed him up in the car. Eric shed a few tears and said goodbye, and we were off on our big day. He was happy as a clam as soon as he got there--breakfast was ready for him, and he was eager to flirt with the girls. Dawn said he was smiling all day, just watching everyone. He even hugged her little girls--how cute! When I came to pick him up, he smiled and ran right for me, then thought better of it and ran toward the toys and the girls. It was reassuring that he was having so much fun there, but I have to admit it made me feel a bit useless as a mommy. We'll see what tomorrow will bring. Hopefully he's just as angelic as he was today! I left his steel sippy cup over at Dawn's for him to use, but on second thought, I think I had better trade it for his plastic sippy. He's been known to bonk other kids on the head with his cup, and I think he would easily give one of the girls a concussion if he decided to do that with his steel cup. We're crossing our fingers that things will continue to go well!

Hi, Ho, Hi, Ho, It's Back to Work I Go!

(Cue Whistling) Hi, Ho, Hi, Ho, Hi, Ho...I'll be checking in this week. Wish me luck!

Thanks For Reading!

Oh, the Places We've Been!

As Logan hysterically cries in the background, I'd like to reflect a little on the past year at home. It has been quite the adventure. Yesterday we were driving back to DeKalb from Red Lobster in Geneva which happens to be the same route that we took back home right after Logan was born. Driving down 38 I was caught up in a sense of nostalgia. Logan was babbling and head banging to some music in the car, vibrant and smiling, and it didn't seem that long ago that he was a newborn, barely able to move his head, not really able to talk or smile. How something that delicate turned into my rough and tumble, happy-go-lucky boy in the span of a year and five months is amazing.

I feel blessed to have had the chance to stay at home with Logan. I hope that he thrived under my care. I hope that my instincts were right in thinking that being with him during this first year was the most important thing that I could be doing. I know that is how I feel. I wish that we lived in a world where all parents had the same opportunity that I had. All I know is that I learned a great deal about myself and my boy from this experience and that I wouldn't trade it. I feel a profound sense of gratitude to Carly, my wife, for bringing home the bacon this past year. Thank you so much, honey, for supporting our family and allowing me the chance to develop a strong bond with Logan. Without your support, advice, care, compassion, and love, well, I wouldn't know where I'd be right now. You gave me such a gift and I love you. Perhaps in the future you will get your chance to experience "the bliss" of stay at homeness.

Like all babies, Logan is a special one. Like most parents, I feel like Logan is the special one. He is growing into such a character and I am really excited to witness him emerge into the person he will become. I'm so glad that I created this blog. Someday, Logan will be able to search the Internet and read a record of when he was young. I think that is so cool. I started this blog with lofty intentions, and I feel I accomplished most of them. I didn't exactly write everyday, but I came close. Not every entry was stellar prose or even very insightful, but I managed to capture some of the little things that make life special. I started off eager to write, hit the doldrums, saw blogging as a chore, picked myself up again, got busy with other things, but still managed to write about my time at home with Logan. And for all that, I thank myself for keeping this blog. It wasn't easy all the time, but it was usually fun. Thanks also to everyone who reads on occasion. I hope that you felt connected to the Hill family through this writing and that I wasn't a waste of your time. I tried to make it interesting.

Well, Logan is still not napping. How fitting an ending. So Carly and I are going to take a walk with him now. That means that I have to stop writing. So I'll post. Is this the last post? Maybe. Or perhaps I will start up a new tag team blog with Carly. We shall see.

The Final Week at Home

Carly is at her first day of school and Logan and I have settled into our familiar "Daddy is Home" rhythm. We played a lot today, went for a walk, explored the backyard garden, had sword fights with dead day lily stalks, ate some good meals and watched the midday news together. He was running a bit of a fever yesterday and today his nose is dripping ooey gooey snots so he is not feeling very well and is on his second nap of the day. I can't say that I've used his nap time to my benefit very well. I have a lot to do to get ready for school but can't seem to make myself do it. Perhaps I don't want to acknowledge the fact that my year at home with the boy is nearly over. It's sad. Plain and simple. I know that everything is going to turn out fine but I also know the facts: I am not going to "be there" during the day. If I focus on that fact I get sad. But if I focus on the hours after I pull into the driveway at home, well, then me going back to work doesn't seem so overwhelming. I will "be there" every day and every night and I will make our time meaningful. That's all I can do.

Logan Fails to Appreciate Bolt

Today at the Track & Field World Championships a world record in the 100 meter dash was set by Usain "lightning" Bolt--9.58 seconds--whoosh! He was the first man to go under 9.7 seconds, and now he's the first to go under 9.6 seconds. Logan was witness (at least on t.v.) to the race this afternoon, but didn't get too excited about it. I wonder how long this world record will stand? All of Logan's life? Hardly. I'm sure Bolt himself will break his own record eventually...he is that good. Anyway, I thought it a noteworthy event (I'm a track & field geek) and so I wanted to include my little track star in on it. And who knows...someday Logan may appreciate the talent that I witnessed today.

Rage against the dying of the blog!

So as I'm soaking up my last few hours of freedom before the school year starts again (sigh), I am reflecting on what a treasure this blog has actually been for me and my family and friends this year. When I would come home from school last year, if i was ever, shall we say, underwhelmed with Eric's description of how his day went, I would quickly check out the blog and be far more satisfied with its answer to my query. It helped me stay connected to Eric and Logan when I couldn't be around as much as I wanted to. And I realized it serves the same purpose for other people, too, when I talked to my dad the other day, and he said, "Hey, your blog doesn't work anymore." It made me sad to know family and friends maybe checked the site, only to find a stale post. It's happened to me before, and maybe this is some reflection on how dull my life is, but it's such a sad feeling, like you've been abandoned, forgotten about. What's more, this blog has made a great record of our lives this year. Though it's still in the editing stage, Eric's-year-at-home blogs are being made into a book (thanks for the link, Liz!) that we can enjoy for years to come, that Logan can enjoy when he's old enough. So in this age of disappearing information, it's reassuring to know that one can refuse to fade away "into the blogosphere" as Eric put it. We're getting this blog back in gear, damnit!
Oh, we've had some adventures the past couple of days. Logan has been flaunting his inheritance from dad--a dangerous combination of fearlessness and clumsiness--as he fell down the front step, bit it in front of a pet store, knocked his head on the corner of our bookcase, and...wait for it...pulled two mountain bikes on top of himself this week. Luckily, no trips to the emergency room were necessary, but while I was changing him the other day, I noticed he has chipped his front tooth. I was a little dismayed when I couldn't even begin to narrow down the probable event that caused the little alteration in his appearance. And I nearly cried when I found out that tooth has gone from a dull to serrated edge--ouch!
On the upside, we've been living up our few remaining days of summer by going to the pool, biking around town, and hanging out with friends. On Thursday night, Eric, Logan, and I met up with the grad school clan (sans Leah, sniff sniff) at JuRin for dinner and enjoyed a Maggie Moos after-party. Logan and his friend Zoe soon grew restless, however, and we had to walk them over to PetLand. Guess what? Logan knows what sound puppies make. "Woowoowoo!" I think he's going for "woof" but is short a consonant...Either that, or he's just really excited to see those puppies.
And we were able to queeze in one more road trip before school by going to Aunt Jackie's today for her housewarming party. Logan had fun playing with his cousins and watching the dogs romp around. It was a beautiful day, and it was nice spending time with Eric's side of the family. We're all excited for Jackie's little girl, who's coming in November, though it's strange for me to think that Logan will soon be the "big" cousin. I can hardly wait to hear what he'll have to say about that next year.
Well, I guess I'd better hit the hay. Thanks to all of you for reading and for caring so much about our little dude!

"Gentle" Logan

Carly and I managed to make it to church this morning for the first time practically all summer. Logan slept in today and was well-rested so I knew that he would be good in the nursery, but I didn't know how good he would be. The lady who watches Logan called him "gentle" because he was giving hugs to other toddlers and patting them on the back. I didn't think I would ever hear that adjective used to describe my rough and tumble boy, but alas, "gentle" was the term used. It was nice to hear that he got along well with all the other little ones. Perhaps he is learning that hitting, scratching, and pulling hair is not the best way to make friends. We hope so.

Logan had a bit of separation anxiety today. He was latching on to us when we went to drop him off and only some sneaky diversions involving oversized legos would allow us to break away from him without tears. I hope that when Carly has to begin dropping him off at Dawn's house he gets used to it and doesn't give poor Mama a hard time. I know she isn't looking forward to leaving him.

Well, this blog has almost run its course I think. I have school stuff to do all day next week and the beginning of school is right around the corner. I don't yet know if I will continue to blog or if I will let Daddy is Home fade away into the blogosphere. We shall see.

Vans

House on the Rock & Wisconsin Pics

Return to Sleepless Nights

I don't know why (we assume molars coming in) but Logan is not sleeping well as of late. Last night he woke up at midnight, 2:00, and 4:00. Not fun. The worst part about it is that when we go to soothe him he is somewhat inconsolable. He doesn't want to go back to sleep when all we want to do is go to sleep. Not the best combination. Anyway, Carly's parents are in town and we are headed to Carly's Aunt's house in Wisconsin (staying overnight) and I'm dreading how he is going to sleep tonight. He does not do well in strange places so I imagine we will be sharing the bed with our little teething wonder.