This and That

I'm not going to lie. It's been a little rough at the Anderson household the last couple weeks. We've been trying for 2 solid weeks now to get Grey to sleep in his own bed. This means hours of listening to him cry. Sometimes he will go down okay, sometimes not. Often he wakes up every 45 minutes to maybe 3 hours. He still is wanting to nurse several times a night. I don't think he is wanting it for food, but comfort instead. But what if he really is hungry? I don't want to deprive him of nourishment. Thank goodness Elliot has been a champ through all this and sleeping most nights without interruption. The doctor says to bulk up the solid food throughout the day especially in the evening. But funny enough, Grey hasn't taken to solid food real well. He likes his rice cereal with apple juice in the morning and I have found that he likes most fruits and yogurt, but getting him to eat meat or dinner type foods or vegetables has been a real challenge. I just keep trying. He doesn't nap well either (like 45 minutes at a time) so by the evening he is tired and cranky and doesn't want to have anything to do with solid food. We are getting pretty desperate over here and not sure what else to try. I just keep hoping that a light switch will go on in his little head. In the meantime this is us:

I know that this too shall pass though and he will sleep and we will sleep once again.

Last week Grey had his doctor's appointment and here are the stats: 27 3/4 inches long and 19 pounds, 3 ounces. He got his 6 month shots and I think had a little reaction to them. He had a fever that night and into morning and a bad runny nose. Then to make matters worse, he burned his little hand on the space heater that night and fell off the couch the next morning. I know, Mother of the Year, I am not. I ended up staying home with him on Wednesday instead of going to work, maybe to try to redeem myself. He has seemed to forgive me (except when he is SCREAMING in his crib).

On a lighter note, I have mentioned before that we have started doing better with Family Home Evenings and we have had a lot of fun with it. We keep them very simple and short, but Elliot loves it and frequently asks during the week if it is Family Home Evening tonight. You can find lots of fun lessons and things, but it is sometimes hard to gear it towards the really little kids. In the February Ensign there is an article about the new nursery manual, Behold Your Little Ones, and how to use it. They suggest that it be used in the home not just on Sundays. I found one in the closet in Primary on Sunday and borrowed it. It is FANTASTIC!!!! Anyone with little kids should get one from the distribution center. The lessons are easy and there are pictures and coloring pages and everything all included. I was so impressed. So last night we had our FHE lesson on prayer as Elliot is trying to say prayers herself. We had things in a sack labeled "We Thank Thee" and in another sack labeled "Please Bless Us." We pulled things out and talked about how we can pray for these things. And we sang "I Pray in Faith" which is one of my favorite primary songs.

(No Grey in this picture as I think he was upstairs crying in his crib...go figure).

One last thing...I wanted to give a shout out to my husband. I was reading an article in a parenting magazine last night about griping about your husband and it was basically women complaining about their husbands and how they have to do everything and he never contributes. I will admit that sometimes I feel the brunt of the things of keeping the household running, plus I work 2 days a week outside of the home. But I feel like Justin works pretty hard for us too and he is very generous with giving me time for me. He let me leave for 3 or 4 hours on Saturday to go to a cricut class, plus an hour early to run. He makes sure I get those runs in as I am training for my marathon. He spent ALL day yesterday (his MLK Day off no less) working on fixing our tub drain only to find out that it didn't work and he has to start over. He helps a lot with the kids and is very hands on with them. I just am very grateful for all the he does for us and that he loves me so much.