get comfy. it's a doozie. with pictures!

Jaxon is at the stage where we get lots of opportunity to take pictures of him sleeping. Here he is with a little frog given to us by our friends from church, the Schaaps. Jackie made us a delicious lasagne that was enough for two suppers for all of us and one lunch for Paul. We're looking forward to tonight's dinner and visitors, the Faulkners. We haven't visited with husbands and kids all together for a long, really long, time. We're also excited for Jon and Maren to come for lunch on Sunday. For those of you who know who they are, I'm ashamed to say I haven't seen Maren since my birthday in 2007, and we have not seen Jonny at all since moving back here. Terrible.


Jaxon's sleeping ... well, I don't know what to say about that. He has done some really long stretches and isn't up too much in the night, it's just that his "night" doesn't start until well after midnight. I know I could prevent this a bit by not letting him nap too much in the evening, but I just can't wake a sleeping baby. It seems so wrong! I thought it would work out that way yesterday but he managed to keep himself awake for a good long time. When he does settle, he can go for 6-7 hours. I'm not at all worried about his weight gain. I forgot to report that at his 2-week check up he was already 8lbs, 5 oz (he was 7, 10 on Day 6). We go for his 4-week check on Thursday and I'm sure he's close to 9 lbs. He's definitely starting to feel more sturdy, he has a plump double chin, and his legs are chunking up. He still sleeps in bed with me, and I'm thinking it might be time to move him either to the playpen beside me or even into his own room soon. We'll see. Paul's still enjoying the single bed in Jaxon's room and is getting good sleeps. I'm kind of still figuring Jax out to see what kind of sleeping habits he's forming and will adjust them from there. (You schedulers out there will be cringing!) We may have some friends sleep here as they're passing through on the way to Seattle. Maybe we'll make the change then so they can have Jaxon's room.


Today has held some excitement. The day to register Max for Kindergarten! We've chosen to put him in one of our district's Traditional schools. It's the closest thing to a private school without paying tuition. You can read more about it here. I've heard lots of good things about the school and really hope that there's a spot for Max. Last year, the 2 Kindy classes filled up in 3 minutes from the online registration. There were only 16 spots available, as any new student with a sibling already in the school got priority. When I went to the parent info meeting, I noticed a "sibling registration form". They stated very clearly that a sibling is "a brother or sister from the same mother and father, NOT A COUSIN, even if you live at the same address." If you know about the cultural demographic of this town, you'll understand why they need to specify that. This year there are 28 spots for new families, so I really hope it works out. Why would I be concerned, since I did what I needed to do online in less than a minute after registration opened? Well, because I'm pretty sure I registered him for the wrong school. There were 3 options, one for each traditional school and one for the fine arts school. As I recall, the other school is listed first, and I'm pretty sure the box is already ticked off. I must have just skimmed over that as I saw it was clicked already. Or, since I only have one school on my brain, I blocked out the other two schools. I don't know. Either way, I panicked! I had already completed the registration and got my confirmation number. No turning back. You can tell how badly you want something by the way you respond when it doesn't go according to plan. Friends, I got the shakes! Short of breath! Asked myself how I could be so stupid! (Out loud, even!) Max didn't sense my distress, just kept whining about something, but Marty asked "You sad, Mommy?" Indeed I was. I quickly called the phone registration and actually managed to get through. I registered him for the correct school. I still didn't feel that was enough, so I called our school of choice. The principal took my call and assured me he'd straighten it out. He sounded so calm about it. He may be a rookie principal but I'm sure he's already had his fair share of agitated parents. Sometime in the next 2 weeks he has a meeting with the other traditional school's principal, and they sort it all out. As long as I get in to our first pick school, I'll be a happy mama. My next hope is that he gets into the morning class. I just can't imagine him getting through an afternoon class, happily, and without getting really tired. He still naps occasionally, so it would definitely be a big transition if he was in school every afternoon. Here's hoping. We'll find out later this spring what class he is assigned to. I feel really bad for my friend. Her son Kooper is in Max's preschool class. Max might say that Koop is his best friend, but the other day he called him his cousin. I thought she was planning to send him to the Christian school so I didn't remind her about today's registration. Turns out she was really hoping to get him in there, but forgot all about it until 8:23. She registered him anyway, and is hoping that if all the spots were filled, she may get in off the wait list. For both of us, if we don't get in to this school, we'll send our boys to our catchment area schools. The other traditional school is way on the other side of town. I don't want to drive all the way out there, and have no intention of shipping him off on the bus all by his lonesome. There are several other boys from Max's class now that are going to the traditional school for sure, thanks to their older siblings already being there. One of the moms said she's looking forward to some new families joining the school. It seems that they're a tight-knit group, these parents. My friend is disappointed that she may have missed out, but she's at peace that everything happens for a reason. I don't think I'd feel that way if I was in her shoes. So that's the first excitement of the day. (Wow, that's a lot to read. Still with me?)


I came home from taking Max to preschool to meet up with my new friend, Megan. She's a mom of two boys (one of them is a Jaxon, seeing her spelling of his name confirmed my desire to do the same). She was recommended to me as a Mary Kay consultant. I'm glad I found her, as we had a nice little visit and she really knows her MK stuff. She did me up with some new foundation and eye shadow colours. The kind of colours that I'm always afraid of. Going on, I felt it was way too dark. When I stopped by to see Paul at work to show it off, he didn't even notice. I won't fault him for that, since that's the way make-up is supposed to be. And thank you, my love, for your compliment ... After I pointed out the change, he said it did look very nice, but I'm beautiful anyway. I know a lot of guys say that to their wives, but it was totally genuine and it made me feel fantastic. I tried taking some self portraits but they really didn't work to show it off. You'll have to wait until someone takes a picture of me. I hope you'll notice that my eyes won't look so itty bitty.


Max often asks us if he can sleep in Marty's bed with him. We wouldn't mind it, but Marty never seems to agree. Finally he allowed it, and they actually went to sleep without any trouble. Until about 1:30 in the morning, or maybe it was 3:30? I heard that they were awake, and heard Marty say to Max, "You go up dere! Your bed up dere!" Max went into his bed happily and they haven't tried it again since. At least we know they can do it if we ever need to.


And here's my super cool Grandpa, meeting his 16th great-grandchild. Paul calls him Grandpa Paul, because my Grandpa's name is Paul. Sharon, you'd be proud to know that every time I have seen him, pretty much as far back as I can remember, he's sporting a Camp Imadene t-shirt over top of whatever else he's wearing for the day. He's been a 'camper' there for ... 50? Maybe 60 years? My Auntie Ruth braved the treacherous snow slush damp sand on the highway and came out for a little visit in early January.