You're all going to think I'm either crazy or just making it up.  Parker said "Mama."  Since he started babbling around I've been saying MAMA to him.  Tonight, he was babbling and I said, "Mama." and he said, "Mum-ma."  So i thought I was crazy or that it was an accident and I did it again - and he said it AGAIN.  Still thinking I was crazy, I waited a while and then I said it again - AND HE SAID "mum-ma"!!!! I got him to say "mum-ma" after he ate dinner, after we took a walk, while we were playing upstairs.  I think he is actually saying mama.

He is so amazing.  

Today, I managed to get all the way to work before I realized I didn't have my badge.  No big deal, I only had to wait a few minutes for someone to come around and let me in the building but it is kindeve a pain.  Right now, our office is the 2nd floor of an old bank building in downtown Charles Town.  I need my badge really only to get to the 2nd floor using the elevator, or to get in the door on the 2nd floor if I take the stairs.   I was ok as long as I didn't leave the building much - sounds easier than it actually is because American Public University has about 8 office scattered across downtown Charles Town.  And it's the end of the month, so I had a ton of bills to bring over to finance.  Plus I had to go get the mail, a task I have been avoiding since I rolled over my foot.  (UPDATE:  it's not broken, thank you for asking Margo.  It's just super bad sprain.  It got all bruised up on the side of my foot where i would have an arch if I didn't have flat feet.  It hurt pretty bad most of the weekend but I can put weight on it now, I just feel scared that I'll roll it over again.  Bill got me a wrap at the drug store and it is really helping a lot.)

I tried to wait as long as possible before I made the trip over to 111 West Congress Street to get the mail and to take all of my stuff to finance.  And I drove over.  I actually gave up my spot at the 8-hr parking meter to drive over.  I knew I had some big boxes waiting for me and i just didn't want to struggle with them.

Anyway, i got the mail got back to the office and all was well.  All day I just assumed my badge was in the pocket of my jeans that i wore on Friday.  That's where I had it all day.  I just looked for it and I have no idea where it is.  Its not in my jeans, i couldn't find it in the truck, and I completely dumped out my purse looking for it.  I'm starting to wonder if it fell off somewhere.  It's not like me to lose my badge.  The first job i had that required a badge was when I worked at AOL in OKC - and that was about 9 years ago.  I've never lost my badge.  Not while I was at AOL as a careless teenager, or when I was at General Dynamics, or at Sprint.  So why now!!!!  I was doing so well.  

OH!  there is one last place I can look.  in my black jacket that I wore Friday, and I left it hanging on my chair.  I wonder if it's in there . . . 

i just turned in my final paper for my class.  Yes, that's right it is 7:00am. 

 Parker has a cold and he can't breathe out of his face (as I like to say.)  He has a very runny nose and he had such a hard time sleeping last night.  He woke every hour tossing and turning.  He couldn't find comfort in his usual bottle of warm milk because he couldn't drink and breathe.  So i've been up since 4:30am.  (Bill left around the time that Parker woke up, he's running a 20-mile race in Alexandria.)  It took a long time to get Parker to go to sleep.  i got frustrated and texted Bill and he suggested the swing (because he would be in a sitting up position.) So out of desperation i put him in the swing and he went right back to sleep.  JOY!

But it was also 5:30 and I was wide awake.  Normally, I would have done some laundry but our dryer broke and the new one won't be delivered until Wednesday.  So i decided to stop procrastinating and to just finish my paper.  The kids are sleeping.  Bill is gone.  And my little mind was alert.  I didn't enjoy having to write the paper.  The entire class seemed like a waste of time and to be writing a paper on time management seemed a bit ironic.

i just submitted it and I am soooooo finished with the class.  So, i can toss another 3 credits towards my degree that I have been slowly chipping away at for the last 10 years.  I would like to have finished before I turned 30, but I am confident, I will be finished before I'm 31.  It seems less daunting when most of the classes are only 8 weeks long.

Yay me.  I'm gonna have a waffle for breakfast to celebrate.  

Parker Braun is going to be 6-months old on the 30th!!!!

Here is a short list of the amazing things he can do!

1. He can pull himself up, unassisted.  The first time i saw it was two weekends ago (or three, i can't remember) and I couldn't believe it.  I have seen it so many times since, and I still can't believe it.

2.  He is a super fast crawler and he can sit up.  

3.  He likes to watch football.  College, professional, video games - he doesn't discriminate.

4.  He CAN EAT.  He can dust a stage 2 container of applesauce (or sweetpotatoes, carrots, pears, or prunes with applesauce.)  Keep in mind, this is also with 2 scoops of a mixture of rice and oatmeal cereal.

5.  He can hold his own bottle.  It's easiest for him to hold the little 4-ounce bottles but he's drinking up to 6 ounces at a time.

6.  He is getting his first tastes of real food.  So far he has had mashed potatoes and various types of gravy (white, chicken, brown.)  his favorite adult food is refried beans.  

7.  He will go to sleep in his crib. He goes to bed every night at 8:30.  He's crying less every night.  He will sleep in his crib and wake up anytime between 1-3am.

8.  He LOVES watching his big brother Stewart.  It doesn't matter what he is doing, he loves it.  For some reason, Parker laughes sooo hard when he sees Stewart jumping up and down.

9.  He is most interested in non-baby toys: cords, bags of chips/magazines (things that make loud crinkling noise), Stewart's toys, and Stewart.

10.  He has a beautiful smile and a perfect giggle.  He still doesn't smile often, and its even harder to get him to laugh but when he does it's beautiful.  He has such a sweet smile.

11. Bonus!!!  He is a snuggler.  As if that is some kind of surprise for this family but Parker loves to snuggle. He just doesn't like to be alone - and I attribute that to his first week of life when he was alone a lot more than I would have liked.  Brand new babies are supposed to be with their mommy and daddy.  

12. Bonus Bonus!!!!! He has two freckles.  One on the right side of his nose and one on his chin.  

The weather is nice and cool, it feels like fall.  I love it.  THis is when I like to be outside.  I hate the summer cause I am a complete wimp in the heat; i get headaches, i don't like being sweaty (right now, sweating makes me extra itchy.)  So yesterday, i decided to pick up the kids early and take them to the park!  We were going to go down the slides, play on the swings, and have a great time.  I knew it was going to rain, so i hoped we would be able to get to the park and have some fun before it started.

I was a little disappointed when we got to the park and no one else was there.  No one.  There wasn't even a big dusty tumbleweed blowing across the mulch.  It was a ghost town.  I put Parker in the Baby Bjorn - he loves being in the carrier - and we took off for the big playground.  We went up and down the sides (all three of us!) Stewart hopped across the "floating" platforms and he played on the "weenies."  (He likes to call them weenies.  They look like big green rubbery hotdogs but it is really just sections of chain covered in green rubber.  It's more fun to call them weenies!)  We were climbing up to go down the big "worm slide" when Stewart said he needed to go to the bathroom.  It's a little bit of a pain cause we have to walk over to the rec center but I didn't want him to have an accident.  So we were climbing down.  I went to step down off the platform, i put my right foot in the mulch, and stepped down with my left foot when it rolled over, made a horrifying POP, and i fell.  Luckily i put my hand out to break the fall because I was wearing Parker on my chest.

Through the searing pain, the first thing that shot through my mind was that we were out there ALONE and i left my cell phone in the car (stupid, and I won't do that again.)  I sat there in the much with Stewart standing over me and Parker happily in his carrier and the pain in my foot was getting worse and worse and worse and worse and worse.  And I screamed a lot and then I started crying.  I cried cause it hurt like a truck and because I was scared that I really hurt myself and we were out there alone and my phone was far away.  And then I looked up and Stewart was looking at me, making this heartbreaking face, and he was crying.  So i sucked it up and stopped crying - but I was still groaning and grunting.  Sweet Stewart tried to help me up by pulling up on the straps of the carrier.  When I finally got to standing, my left leg was bleeding and scratched up and my foot was hurting superbad.  Stewart was lovingly picking the mulch off my shoes, my shirt, my pants.  I sat down on the platform and Stewart said, "You know mom.  I don't have to go to the bathroom anymore."  So while I sat there I tried to get him to play but he just wanted to stand there next to me and make sure I was ok. 

Bill likes to tell Stewart to "rub some dirt on it" or "walk it off" when he has a little owie.  So i thought I should try to walk it off.  And we hobbled up to the rec center.  Without being asked, Stewart wrapped his arm around my waist, and took my arm and put it over his shoulders and he "helped" me walk.  It was one of the sweetest things I've ever seen him do.  We walked back to the playground and I tried to encoourge him to play some more but he said he really just wanted to go home.  We hobbled back to the car and I got Parker in his car seat - who seemed to be completly unphased by the whole event.  I swung my right leg in the car - and then without thinking, i pushed off with my left foot to hop up into the seat and my foot twisted again.  and it maked the horrific popping sound again.  and this time, I screamed really loud.  Stewart started crying again, "Mommy you're scaring me!  I don't know how to drive!"

I don't know how we got so lucky.  I don't know what we did with Stewart to make him so sweet and caring but I know I will never forget him wrapping his arm around my waist to help me walk.  And then his innocent statement, "I don't know how to drive!"  He was doing everything he knew how to do to help me and to help get us home but he just didn't know how to drive.

The rest of the night was interesting.  The worst part was trying to get a sleeping Parker in the house.  I have a hard time carrying the car seat when i have two good feet.  I had a really hard time with it.  And then I had a hard time getting up and down the stairs.  Bill got home at 8:25- just in time to put the kids to bed and help me down to the basement so we could eat dinner and watch the 2-hour season premiere of Grey's Anatomy!

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What makes one Korean?

Yes I realize it has been a while since i blogged.  But i'd like to point out that it has also been a while since Margo and April blogged on their own respective pages as well.  It's a busy time.  For me at least.  I'm knee deep in this US Government class - lucky for me both the midterm and the final are take home!  I am in the last week of my class about taking an online class - it is a bit ridiculous.  But I do have this essay I have to write, which is due Saturday night at 11:59pm.  I don't want to write it.  I'm not interested in the subject and I'm thinking of how I can BS my way through it and I even considered the consequences of NOT writing it at all.  I would get a B - but in a class this easy, it seems silly to get a B.  This class is an easy A!  So I'll write it and I'll hate every second of having to do it but at least I know it will be my last pointless assignment for this class.

I went to the dr last Friday.  Apparently all of the rashes all over my body are eczema.  The dr that i saw was more knowledgable (and she also didn't have the distraction of my super cute kids like the other dr.)  But she looked at ALL of my itchy spots and then said very matter of factly that it was eczema.  She said she knew immedaitely because of where they were located and what they looked like.  And then she said she could tell i was scratching which was a little embarassing but they are really itchy.  At least I know I'm not dying from some weird skin disease.I did some reading about eczema online and it's related to allergies and stress, among other things.  I can't really figure out what is stressing me out so much.  I mean, sure it's hard having Bill in class so many evenings but I don't know that it's enough stress to freak out my skin!  I think in general it has just been a hard summer.  Since Parker's birth it seems like something has been going on.  At first I was stressin about Parker, and then I didn't have a job and wasn't getting any solid leads on a job, stressed about getting Stewart into elementary school by his daycare, . . and now i'm stressing about having to give this deposition next Friday.  I have to sit there while someone questions me about why I'm saying this guy is a pervert who doesn't deserve to have a license to practice medicine and then sit there while someone else calls me a liar and says i'm making it all up.  Miserable.  I wonder if I can drink a Margarita while being questioned?  That might help.  Lol - or I could just take one of these prescription antihistimines (that is also categorized as a tranquilzer) and then just sleep through it. 

I feel like such a dork.  I can't possibly put into words how excited I am that TV started back up this week.  Grey's Anatomy is a 2 hour season premiere.  I LOVE IT.  I want to sit in my bed with a bowl of brownies on one side and a bowl of ice cream on the other side and I want to enjoy the whole two hours.  Unfortunately, the reality is that Bill has class.  So I will sit there with Stewart running around being 5 while trying to keep Parker quiet so I can catch tidbits of the show.  Of course I will DVR it and just watch it again (fast forwarding through the commercials) on the weekend.