What I'm not doing

Foot drag
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Well the pool was perfectly beautiful for exactly one day. Then we had a pretty fierce pop-up thunderstorm which blew a bunch of leaves into the pool.

El monito and I spent the weekend working on the outdoors - I went shopping early Saturday, first to the pool place to make sure the chemicals were balanced, then to Lowe's for assorted neccesities, then to Publix for groceries, then to the Verizon store to find out the phone Jon gave me can't be fixed, only replaced. I don't have a warranty so I'll have to buy a new one. Feh. Brenden did fairly well up until the verizon visit. I had to chase him down several times.

In all fairness he was just bushed by that time. Once I strapped him into the car seat he was asleep before we left the Verizon parking lot. I spent his nap time putting together a nifty kitchen table that folds down into almost nothing so now I can actually eat meals with Brenden in the kitchen. After lunch on our new table B and I went out to do some work in the yard. Bored yet? Me too.

Sunday we worked in the yard, played in the pool, then played in the sprinkler in the front yard as I tried to revitalize the dead grass. I found out that if Brenden tries to fight me when I'm removing him from a not-so-safe situation (like running out into the street - I can move pretty fast for an elderly mom!) he tucks quite easily under an arm. I can keep him from pulling my hair that way, too.

In other words, SSDD.

2-bath day

Neighborhood
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Yesterday was a 2-bath day at the Maynard household. Since I pretty much spend the entire weekend at home, and since Brenden loooooves the outdoors, I decided it would be a good time to do some work on our badly neglected landscaping. I decided to start by weeding and raking around the bushes in the front yart and spreading new mulch. I especially wanted to lay new mulch down because the previous owner used some sort of water permeable tarp around the bushes and a lot of it is uncovered because the last mulch is totally decomposed/washed away.

Brenden and I drove to Home Depot where I bought a few miscellaneous tools we didn't have and 3 bags of pretty red wood mulch. I figured I would need more but this is a long-term project because 1) it's too hot to stay outdoors for very long 2) I have to keep an eye on Brenden and 3) because I have to keep an eye on Brenden, I don't want to use any power tools so that I can hear him as well.

So yesterday I start raking around the weedy-looking and overgrown bushes to the right of our porch, and I finally discovered where all those freakin ants come from when they invade our house. There was so much leaf/compost buildup around the base of the plants they were living in there! Thank goodness these ants don't bite otherwise B and I would be in poor shape. So I didn't even get around spreading the wood chips - I cleaned up as best as I could and Jon should spray near the base and kill all those farging bastiches. I hope to get out there this evening and spread.

Brenden of course helped a lot, mainly by pulling clods of dirt up and tasting them. Oh, well - parasites can be removed. I grew up on a tropical island so I know all about parasites. Brenden of course helped rake and sweep; he spent a lot of time in the open garage where it was substantially cooler investigating everything in there (I spent Saturday cleaning up the garage so that Brenden wouldn't try to eat any spiders he found).

I'm making tentative plans to rip up the whole farging front landscaping this winter, and replacing the poorly-laid plastic border (ick) and the tarp (double-ick) and replacing it with a nicer brick border. I'll also do some initial prepping of the ground to get it ready for some new plants in the spring. I need to take photos so we can have a before-after comparison. As you can see from the above photo, we have a ginormous oak tree in our lawn with a very scraggly-looking area underneath. Poor watering and zero shade caused that. I'm still working out what I'm going to do about this area. The tree stays - it's huge, beautiful and in great shape. It definitely needs some pruning but that should be done when it's colder.

And then there's the landscaping around the pool - I'm going to wait for at least a year before I attempt to tackle it because I hope by then Brenden will have enough sense not to fall into the pool.

Brenden Loves Bananas!

hippie
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

My sinus problems seem to be improving, if only a tiny bit. Every once in a while, I can smell something fairly strongly. Most of the time it's something strong, like the garbage or the cat box or one of Brenden's diaper loads. Yesterday I realized I could smell and so I rushed into the refrigerator and opened a container full of some arroz con pollo I had cooked the day before and took a big whiff. Aaaaah, garlic!

I'm finally losing weight again, and the past month I have dropped to 140. I was pushing 143 when I found out I was pregant, so I have officially dropped all my pregnancy weight (yay!). I'm not happy though because that's still heavier than I'm comfortable with. The nice thing is I am still in a groove where I'm comfortable not eating and am having no cravings. And if I stay away from beer (which I am) they tend to stay away. My comfortable weight would be around 125.

I'm also walking a mile and a half Monday - Friday and I'm weightlifting again 3 times a week although I'm nowhere near the shape I was way back in '04.

Brenden's official 1st word is "Bow!" as in "Bow wow wow". It might be that he's practicing to be King of the Universe but I don't know. He loves pointing to things and saying "bow" so I think that he finally understands that the sounds we make have a distinct purpose. Well he actually has 2 phrases then. He says "Uh-uh-uh-uh" which means "hurry up and feed me/give me that/come with me/pick me up!"

He also has two other molars coming in. No wonder he likes ice in his drinks!

Before the haircut

Before the haircut
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Ahg. If it's Thursday, it must mean a visit to the allergy doctor. Why do I always get sinus headaches when I go see him? Is that some kind of joke? So anyway, since I had a reaction to the last antibiotic (Avalox) he prescribed me amoxcillin or some sort of -cillin but it didn't have any effect. I've got something new and unpronouncable to take plus at the beginning of August I get to have a CT scan of my sinuses.

Next week my husband gets a whole week with el monito. That should be fun for both of them! Really! I hope. I love watching Jon interact with Brenden. Like last night he gave monkey-boy his bath and it's so neat to watch them together. I never thought having a family would mean so much to me.

I'm doing pretty good on the Spanish front. Since I had a 4-day weekend I managed to do a rather intensive review (in between being led around by the finger by B), and after a while I was able to listen to something and pick up the meaning, not just small phrases. My favorite channel on XM now is CNN en español. I also listen to los deportes, but I have a harder time with that because I don't really have the specialized vocabulary to follow sports talk, plus the announcers get all excited when they're giving the play-by-play so I don't know what's going on. I wish I could find the TV remote so I could use the SAP button for Braves games. Yeah, I don't care if they are sucking wind this year. Been there, done that, and yes, I still have the t-shirt.

I also love love looove the HBO Latino channel. I watched "Titanic" and "Shrek 2" en español over the weekend. The familiarity with the movies help me decode what they're saying by the context. I also tried to watch "Elektra" but it was plenty boring even in Spanish so I wandered off. Both MSN and Yahoo have Spanish versions of their news pages available so I'm reading noticias when I can.

First Haircut

New cut
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Letter to Brenden Month 13:

Hey buddy; I thought you were going to slow down a little. Was I wrong! During your first month in your second year, you decided to work on communication. You don't exactly speak yet, but I knew something had clicked in your head when you sat down next to me a few weeks ago with your favorite book in your hands. You grabbed my finger and placed it on the book!

When I read to you I put my finger under the words as I say them, so I didn't have to be Einstein to guess what you wanted. You wanted me to read you "Moo Baa La La La" (again and again and again). What's really nifty is when I get to the part where some dogs go "BOW WOW WOW" you smile and go "WOWOWOWOWOW!"

That communication method took another leap as you learned that you could grab a finger and lead me around. Most of the time you simply wanted out to the back yard. I'd slather you with sunblock and we'd go, but not enough for you. Little dude, I did not want sunstroke! As it was I'm surprised neither of us are sunburnt despite the goop.

You have also learned to ask to be picked up - like all little kids, you hold both arms up to me. You take it a step further if I'm slow to respond. You took my hands and placed both of them under your armpits. Pretty cool, hon.

You are also sorting pretty well and are sorting all shapes not just circles any more. You can also stack a bit, but if you don't get something on a few tries you will throw the object impatiently across the room. Shades of your dad there, buddy.

I bit the bullet this weekend and I gave you your first haircut. I had to buy dad a new pair of hair clippers anyway, so I bought a nice set and used the clippers on you. You didn't seem afraid of the noise, just curious. I think it looks pretty good!

So you keep advancing. It looks like you finally have found the time to develop your noggin some now that you have conquered all of the first stage of physical development (walking, climbing the furniture, pulling kitty's tail, negotiating steps, emptying drawers, etc). I hope this time next month I can report your first real word, but I'm also dreading when you use that Boeing 747 brain of yours to start climbing by stacking things, and opening doors.