Conversations With Cormac

At the Bronco's game today:

Me: Look, Cormac! What are they doing down on the field?

Cormac: Sleeping.

Chris: Yup, one of the teams is sleeping.

After the game:

Me: What should we make for dinner?

Cormac: Like, umm, food.

A little later:

Me: What do you want for dinner, Cormac?

Cormac: Food.

Me: What kind of food?

Cormac: Umm, dinner food.

So helpful.

Thankful

This Thanksgiving, Cormac ate his weight in cranberry sauce. Seriously.

We finally scaled back our Thanksgiving plans this year, which made it a far more enjoyable day. Both Chris's family and mine live in Denver, and every year we have always gone to both dinners. Which does have its good points: you get two Thanksgiving dinners, and you get to celebrate with both families. On the other hand, you can't really enjoy either dinner because you know you have to go eat another one, or you're really full from the previous one. And you can't spend as much time as you'd like with either family. Plus, now that we have a kid, we have to plan around nap time. Actually, I feel like life should be planned around nap time, no matter if you have kids or not. But that's neither here nor there.

So this year we celebrated with Chris's family. It was nice and small, only eight people total. Unfortunately, we didn't end up with any leftovers, but it was because the food was that good. Luckily, my parents always make enough for three times the actual number of guests, so we ended up with some Thanksgiving leftovers. And let's be honest, it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without leftovers, because why would you only want to stuff yourself once, when you could do it several more times over the next few days?

I am thankful for a wonderful husband and son who never fail to make me laugh; that we will be adding to our little family in a few short months; that we still have a few months before the chaos in our house increases by 247%; that I have a fabulous new job working with pregnant mama's and sweet little babies; and that we have a roof over our heads and food in the pantry.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Aloha!

We just got back from a really wonderful trip to Hawaii. We stayed on the island of Kauai, which is my favorite because it's like Colorado in Hawaii. You have mountains, canyons, and lots of outdoorsy things to do, plus gorgeous beaches and weather to die for. There's too much to write about here, so I'm just gonna let the pictures do most of the talking.

Halloween!

This was Cormac's first year trick-or-treating. Last year, we walked around and looked at the decorations and costumes in our neighborhood, but we didn't do any trick-or-treating because no one in the house needed any candy. Not that anyone needed any candy this year, but we figured Cormac would actually understand the concept of trick-or-treating, and he might even have fun.

I originally planned to do maybe five houses, because that's how long I thought Cormac's attention span would last, but he quickly made it clear that we would be doing as many houses as possible, thank you very much. At first, he was a bit reluctant to go up to someone's door and say, "Trick-or-treat!" The first attempt involved a lot of "No." But then when he got that first piece of candy, something clicked in his brain, and he was hooked. We heard a lot of "Again!" after that.

The only slight problem was that he kept trying to go in people's houses. I had to go in after him a few times. Apparently if someone gives you candy, that means you can walk right on into their house. We're probably gonna have to work on that, otherwise this kid is gonna get himself abducted.

I wasn't able to take any pictures on Halloween night, because Cormac was waaaaay too excited by all the costumes and decorations and pumpkins and candy candy candy to be bothered to hold still for a picture. But he put on his costume the next day so I was able to snap a few. He even humored me by pretending to fly around the porch.

Happy Autumn!

Today was the last day of the farmers' market in our neighborhood, which meant that it was also the day of the annual pumpkin patch. Every time you spend a certain amount at each of the vendors' tents, you get tickets, and then you use those tickets to "buy" pumpkins. We got a few with our breakfast of biscuits and gravy from the biscuit bus, and then one more because Fozzy decided he/she wanted a cinnamon roll. We got two from Gramps, and a very nice lady gave us two more because she decided Cormac looked like he needed some pumpkins (even though he had his finger up his nose at the time. Or perhaps because of it).

Here are some pictures of our morning:

A Little Taste Of Our Day

I set Cormac's breakfast plate down in front of him this morning.

Cormac: Mud!

Me: That's peanut butter toast, buddy.

Cormac: Mud!

Me: I like the way you think, though.

***

Other than the peanut butter toast for breakfast, Cormac's menu for the day revolved around cheese. I really didn't intend for it to be that way, but it's just sort of how the day's meals turned out. Snack was a piece of string cheese eaten on our way to the zoo. Lunch was a grilled cheese sandwich at the zoo. Grilled cheese is my go-to meal for Cormac when we're out and about because I know he'll eat it even though he may be distracted by Birds flying! or Bee bzzzz! or Baby crying! At this point, it did occur to me that there had already been a lot of cheese involved in the day, but there was still a lot of time left to add some other food groups.

His afternoon snack was part of a graham cracker, so that was good, but then dinner was cauliflower smothered in......cheese. Cormac gobbled it right up, which I found interesting because I've made roasted cauliflower a few times lately (we have a plethora of cauliflower these days thanks to our CSA), and Cormac doesn't seem to be a fan. Personally, I think roasting is just about one of the most delicious things one can do with cauliflower, but apparently Cormac doesn't agree with me. You should try it though; just toss cauliflower florets with olive oil and sea salt and roast at 425 degrees until it starts to turn golden. The best part is the little crispy bits.

I feel like I should have a problem with all the cheese consumed today, but I really don't. Cheese has protein and calcium. And, hey, it got Cormac to eat cauliflower. Plus, cheese is delicious. We should all eat more cheese.

Alarm Clock

We recently switched Cormac out of his crib and into a twin bed. Not necessarily because he was ready, but because Babies R Us was having a trade-in sale for cribs (bring your old, used one in, and we'll give you 25% off a new one). And since our old crib was apparently a death trap (read: dropside crib), we decided to take advantage of the sale. I mean, Cormac survived, but he's scrappy and has no fear. And he slept with us for the first six months of his life, which is likely what this next baby is going to do anyway, but still. Death Trap.

The transition was fairly smooth, especially considering that we did absolutely no prep work beforehand. Mostly it was, "Oh! Look! A big-boy bed!" And when Cormac discovered that he could jump around more wildly on this one, he never looked back.

The first few mornings, he didn't realize that he wasn't confined to his bed, and would lay there and moan until we came to get him. But then a little light went on in his head, and at 6:30 one morning we heard: click, pitter-patter-pitter-patter, "Oh wow! Hi, Momma! Hi, Daddy!" I'm not sure why the realization of freedom had to coincide with an hour-earlier wake up time, but sometimes the universe is cruel that way.

Then one night I had gotten up to pee for the third time, when I thought I heard a little voice outside our room. I looked out in the hallway, but there was no one there. A glance toward Cormac's room told me his door was open and his room was empty. Huh. And then I heard the sound of little feet on hardwood floor, and I realized that Cormac had gone downstairs. By himself. At 2:00 in the morning.

I came downstairs to find him holding his stuffed rabbit while looking at a book and drinking some water. Like you do at 2:00 am. It took awhile to convince him that it was, in fact, night-night time, but eventually he went back to sleep in his big-boy bed, and I went back to sleep in my pillow-infested bed. Only to be woken up at 6:30 am by, "HI!"

We are currently reconfiguring the baby gate layout.