Living, Loving, Learning

It was a no-good, terrible, awful, hideous, very bad weekend. I felt like quiting...this Mama stuff almost got the best of me. I thought it was bad on Saturday morning after missing a night sleep because Griffin was up numerous times with a stomach virus but it just got worse...a lot worse. Late Saturday morning Griffin was sitting on our bed watching a movie and suddenly just fell off the side. I don't know if he was trying to lay down or was groggy/dizzy or what but he screamed...loud! I knew right away he was hurt because he is a pretty tough kid and usually just "shakes it off" when he falls but this was different. As I was comforting him he relaxed and fell asleep and I thought maybe he just bruised himself but he woke up during his nap crying and telling me his shoulder hurt. I called the doctor and they told me to go to the E.R. Bruce was at his internship so he hit the road right away and we met up at the hospital. Luckily, the staff there was kind, quick and effi...

Well, hello there. Welcome to the utterly exhausted, heavy eye lidded, almost grumpy Mama Gast blog. Now that Griffin has the freedom to get out of bed he is choosing to do so at like 5:45 each morning. I can sometimes get him to snuggle in bed with me for another 15 minutes or so (15 GOLDEN minutes) but even that seems fleeting. I am starting to feel like I did when I was in the newborn zone ! Bruce is in a crush right now as the semester is coming to a screeching halt here in a couple of weeks and is trying to get his internship done ASAP so he is up and gone early each morning. Luckily we both have tomorrow off and we can catch up on some sleep (napping in shifts maybe??)! It hasn't been all bad though. Auntie Lexi came to town this week. I picked her up late Tuesday night and was able to have her stay with us until Thursday morning. She had to get on another plane on Friday -- lucky girl is going to meet our baby girl Alethia and stay with the Amors in Germany. We had a great t...

So, it has been a tough week here for Mama Gast. Griffin has been sick all week and I took him to the doctor on Wednesday. He has the beginning stages of strep throat. So, 2 days and 2 prescriptions later, we are finally making the turn for the better. A sick temperamental 2 1/2 year old is not a beast I would subject anyone to!! On the up side, last weekend we converted his bed to a day bed with great success. He is sleeping well in it and has even gotten up in the middle of the night to go potty and went back to bed on his own. I am really enjoying all of these little steps toward his maturity and growth. We have spent a ton of time inside this week (his being sick and the - 10 weather outside) and have worked on learning to use scissors, making things with play dough (versus just balling up each color and then moving on to the next) and reading books. His latest favorite quote is "Run, Run, Run, as fast as you can...you can't catch me, I'm the stinky cheese man" wh...

This week our play group went to the Detroit Science Center. It was a really great time...don't get me wrong, play dates at the mall and at homes are fun, but I love to get Griffin out to see new things. Because he does not attend daycare, I feel a large responsibility to expose Griffin to lots of different people, places and things constantly. Anyways, our group was able to attend a show at the planetarium and saw a short movie about the basics...sun, moon, big and small dippers. It was a Mr. Roger's theme which was kind of funny in a kitschy way and definitely more fondly regarded by the Moms rather than the kids. I hadn't thought about King Friday and Lady Elaine in a long time. All of the kids loved it except Griff. We kind of scarred him in November, taking him to see the penguin movie at the IMAX theatre. Besides 3 or 4 bouts of crying we made it through the movie and then were off to enjoy the rest of the center. They had an awesome children's area where they...

Things are going really well here in snowy Michigan. We have had a GREAT weekend. First of all, like a dummy, I forgot to put a diaper on Griffin before I put him to bed on Thursday night (no, I had not cracked open a bottle of wine yet!) And ***insert drum roll here*** he woke up DRY! Yeah!! He was so proud of himself and said that he was done with diapers forever. We have not put one on since though he has had a few accidents at nap time. We are getting close to being totally done with potty training and I couldn't be more proud of my little dude. Bruce and I were able to go on a date Saturday night. It had been a LONG time since we had been out alone and we really enjoyed ourselves. It was only possible because of our fantastic friends, the Webber family, kept Griffin overnight. Thanks guys!!! Bruce and I had a great dinner out and had so much fun dreaming about all the things this year is going to bring, discussing what locations are the top choices for moving to, what our next...

I am currently reading Bob Dylan's biography "Chronicles Volume 1". I am enjoying the parts in which he imparts emotion or reflection although much of the book so far has been an almost list like recollection of names, dates and places. I do not recognize many of his peers' names and not spending much time in Manhattan, I also do not have a grasp on the locations of all the music bars he mentions. His recollections of his feeling and lifestyle pre-musical success are very cool and exactly what you would hope for from such a legend. This passage hits home in so many ways: "In 1951 I was going to grade school. One of the things we were trained to do was to hide and take cover under our desks when the air-raid sirens blew because the Russians could attack us with bombs. We were also told that the Russians could be parachuting from planes over our town at any time. These were the same Russians that my uncles had fought alongside only a few years earlier. Now they had...