Short days and long weeks....

AAAHHHHH!!! 

These last few weeks have been filled with those doing much yet accomplishing less than you need to sort of days...

I taught an Arts & Crafts class at VBS. (No one lost any fingers, toes or eyeballs. I may have lost some sanity.)

We made some plum jelly, canned dill pickles and green beans. We shucked, cooked, and froze 6 dozen ears of corn. Tomatoes, beets and more green beans are being tackled next week. Any good tomato sauce recipes, anyone? We prefer chunky marinara.

We TAUGHT HANK TO WALK!, as you know.

We made a weekend trip out of town to the in-laws.

We researched "creepy trees" for inspiration on a wall mural we're doing for a friends little boy.

We felt our first earthquake.


We spent lots of time with my Grandma, who is incredibly awesome. She can work circles around me and has been a huge help with my first years attempt at canning/freezing/jelly/jamming local fruits and veggies. 



Grandma Rose and Henry, Henry's first parade.

We love her so much. (So much that, when given the chance and a TON of help from my Dad, we were able to move into my Great-Grandmothers little house next door to her a few years ago. Now we get to share breakfast and a yard. Yay!)

Grandma and Pap's six foot tall faces in our living room.

She was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, which was devastating news, but God has blessed our family and she is on her way to cancer-free. She is the most absurdly cute, sweet, understanding and positive person. 

Henry and I have been fortunate enough to be able to accompany her to her radiation treatments. They have been going well, and I love having her all to myself for a few hours each day. The only negative is that we are both serious thrift store/bargain shoppers and we end up turning an hour long trip into an all day affair.

Which is really only a negative as far my inadequate housekeeping is concerned.



 
Henry's mad walking skills are improving every day. He's getting so fast! He's doing pretty well with not touching what he's been told not to, standing beside the offending object and vigorously shaking his head no.

He is master of the rings/pole game. (One ring to rule them all!)

He can drive trucks with sound effects.

He is still afraid of lilac bushes and vacuum cleaners.

And his greeting/goodbye of choice is now the high-five.



 Some feet news...

Henry is WALKING!! What?!

His one or two drunken steps here and there have become six or seven slow, deliberate steps. It's super exciting and heart breaking all at once. He seems like such a big kid...



Ain't no thing like a chicken wing.

In other, but not so exciting, news...

We have now finished re-reading all of the Harry Potter books during our evening breastfeeding sessions.

Yes, we are those Harry Potter obsessed, midnight book buying people.

The first part of Deathly Hallows was his first movie. Part two was his first drive-in movie.

Henry has been great about listening intently when I read aloud, though I will admit I have gotten a bit caught up in it at times and continued reading, so he has missed a large chunk of the action unless he is telepathically inclined.

Now we're about to begin reading Dune. He's going to be as nerdy as his father.

.

Grandma visits, zoo trips, butchers and bears, oh my!

First off, congrats Cochran Family on your first year of raising and butchering your own chickens. Super awesome job, we hope to follow your lead sometime in the future.

Our deepest condolences to Sarah, who I'm sure looked something like this...

But I'm also sure she really was a trooper despite her extremely tender heart. I'm glad it was a successful endeavor.

Henry's weekend was significantly more fun. My mother-in-law Sharon (who is great with Henry) came to stay for the weekend and took him on his first zoo trip.

Grandma Betty, left. Gammie Sharon, right.
Obviously they are super fun.

The zoo was awesome, despite my lack of photo documentation.

He didn't trust the elephants at all, and kept whipping around whenever his back was to them.

He loved the monkeys and the otters the most. 

I ended up with four pictures of Henry:

Henry arrives at the zoo,

Henry sees giant reptile,

Henry eats lunch with gusto,

and Henry sleeps.

 We also met a sweet little owl. Sharon gave him a little hoot to make him look for his picture, which got us a lecture about how owls who sound like that also happen to eat this little guy.

Oops...

But he did look for the picture.

Can you see the terror in his little eyes?

I cannot...

but apparently it was there.

I must need to shape up my animal whispering.

They also had a black bear exhibit, which Wesley was a little snarky about, with black bears that were so much fatter than our little guys. I guess our garbage is not providing enough calories.

Eating leftover mac n' cheese.

This cub is one of at least four bears in the area right now. He keeps getting onto our porch and peering in our back door, which is incredibly unnerving. He isn't afraid of people, but he is terrified of cars.

(I've been working on my best car impression, just in case you were wondering.)

Me and Henry, 1 month old

Throughout my pregnancy, there were many choices that Wesley and I really had to think about.

Breastfeeding was not one of them.

It was something that we both feel very strongly about and something I have known for several years that I needed to do for my children.

We were fortunate to have a lot of resources available to us in our community, and we were able to take a good breastfeeding class whenever I was around 35 weeks pregnant.



Wes and James, breastfeeding class faces.



After Henry arrived, breastfeeding was not exactly as I had imagined, despite my immediate love for it. We had some small issues with his latch in the beginning and had to work at his sucking reflex, then later had to work through some problems with overactive letdown, but nothing major. I felt prepared for these type of problems and had an excellent lactation consultant, so with some manuvering, a lot of love and a little effort these problems were overcome.



Henry, after making a good effort to latch on to Wes.

The problems that really threw me the most started with simply feeling a lack of support for breastfeeding anywhere but in my own home, and grew into feelings of shame and insecurity that eventually turned into body issues and questions of self worth. It was a crazy time for me. I wish I had been as informed about sources of emotional support as I was about technical support.

I am, in general, not a truly modest person. While I was pregnant I assumed I would have no problem breastfeeding wherever I needed to, and up until Henry was almost three months old that was the case. We started adventuring out more then since we were more comforable in our routine, and that's when I really started feeling like I was embarassing people I love and doing something lewd and unseemly. Offhand comments and averted eyes were getting under my skin and staying there, and if I didn't have such a supportive husband and KNOW without question I was doing the best thing for my son I'm not sure I would have kept at it. I struggled for months until I got my confidence back.

Natural Born Chillers.

So to sum up the point I am making...

No matter how we choose to feed our kiddos, they deserve the right to be fed, without crappy comments or raised eyebrows, as needed--not just in the car or under a blanket.

Please help raise awareness and support breastfeeding mamas. It is such a wonderful and rewarding experience. And because, bottle or breast, it really is just babies eating and mothers doing the very best they can for their little ones.




 About me?

So....

I am a 26 year old, happily married, stay at home/occasional work from home mama.



I am obsessed with yarn.

I am a horrible speller.

I am working on simplifying my life.

I am very much in love with Wesley, who is my sonic boom voiced, video game obsessed, comic book collecting supernerd husband of three years.





38 weeks pregnant, September 2010



I am mama to Henry Eisner Perdue, who was born (on his due date!)the first week of October 2010.

Hank the Tank Perdue, 9lbs 10oz.



Henry is now TEN MONTHS OLD.

How in the heck did that happen? 

Six teeth have reared their pearly heads in the past month, and have made me wince a few times during our continued breastfeeding adventure. But wow, they are super cute. 



Henry around six months, pre-teeth.

 He has also started "cruising" along the couch at top speed, throwing his arms out and diving at the next piece of furniture like some drunken superhero.



He is starting to laugh like Butthead. (Huh huh huh.)





He LOVES his books.





He is incredibly awesome.