Inauguration Day

I have never been one to openly discuss my political views and this post will be no exception. I generally don't even like politics and tend not to pay a lot of attention to them. Don't get me wrong, I vote and definitely have an opinion on things - I just don't care for politics. This is probably why it will come as a surprise to some of you that the inauguration and all its festivities has been on my mind.

I think part of the reason for this is the media coverage. I have not lived through many presidential elections and many of them have been won by someone going for a second term. I do not recall an inauguration getting as much coverage as this one has. I am sure there are always parades and concerts and they may have even been televised in the past - I don't remember.

As with everything in my life these days, I think about my son and how this will effect his life. Regardless of the political party I choose to side with, it is amazing to me to already see how much different his perception of the world will be than the generations before him. He will grow up in a world where the first president he will ever know is black. If McCain had won, he would have known a female VP. It just amazes me to try to view the world from his point of view - to only know the world as it will be when he is able to comprehend it.

Snow Day

This is the second time it has snowed in Jonas's short life, but this is the first time he actually saw it. In mid-November we had a light dusting one night that all but melted by morning. Last night we got about an inch or so. The house, driveway, yard, and roads were all covered when we woke up. Jonas's school was delayed, so we had some time with him. I opened the blinds to let him look outside and see everything covered in white. He seemed to enjoy looking out the window because he was excited about what he saw. He reached and leaned towards the window, so I think he wanted to go outside. He loves to be outside. It was still in the 20s, so I didn't take him out. Hopefully next time he can enjoy the snow and at least touch it.

Nicknames

I have realized that calling Jonas Baby J or Little J makes him sound like he belongs on Gossip Girl. I am going to have to put a stop to that. We have liked JK all along, so I will stick with that.

You know you love me.
XOXO
Gossip Girl

HUHS Ram Pride

I had read in the paper and heard that the Harding University High School Band of Gold was invited to participate in Obama's inauguration next week. They have been trying to raise money to afford the trip. As a Harding alumni, I find this very exciting. When I was a student, we all went to the football games to see the band perform at half time, then left. Our football team only won 4 games in the 4 years I was in school, so there wasn't much entertainment elsewhere. We had an urban band director that incorporated drum lines and dancing. It was fun.

As of this morning, the band still needed $17,000 (out of $50,000) to make the trip to DC. Steve Smith from the Panthers decided to donate $25,000 to the band for this trip. Pretty cool gesture.

Maybe he should save up for a new QB after Saturday Night!!!

Redemption

After a weekend full of football games that were either very bad for me or that I cared nothing about, I was awaiting the Wake / Carolina basketball game with much anticipation. We will just forget that the Panthers game and Jake's performance (or lack thereof) ever happened. It is very hard to even comment on that game when they didn't even show up to play.

I always have mixed emotions when Wake plays Carolina in basketball - mainly because it is SO great to beat them and SO awful to lose to them. I always want to win, but also dread the feeling of losing to the Tarheels. This year was different. I always said when the season started that we would match up very well with the Heels and have a very good shot at them - probably the best shot we have had in a long time in spite of all the hype around how good their team was. While I always like to see Carolina get beat, I wasn't so sure it was a good thing BC beat them a week before our matchup.

What a great game. We definitely outplayed them everywhere on the court (except maybe the foul line). They are such a good team, though, no matter how good we played, they were right there ready to pounce. Lucky for us, that never happened and we were able to pull off the remarkable win. If we keep it up all season, we will be a force to be reckoned with. This was definitely the only thing that could make the Panthers game go away.

After only 6 months of being a mother, though, I can definitely see a difference in myself. Shortly after the end of both games, but thankfully before I went to bed, I heard the soft cry of my little boy (see previous post). I went into his room, picked him up to comfort him and held him close. After a horrible loss and after an amazing win all I wanted was to snuggle Baby J.

Trickery and Teeth

Jonas has been doing such a great job eating fruits that we decided it was time for Green Beans. He loves peaches, applesauce, bananas, and sweet potatoes. I thought for sure he would take to the green beans. Not so. He did not like them one bit. I had to feed him 2 bites of applesauce, then one bite of green beans to trick him into eating them. He is a very smart little boy, so one bite for every 2 was about all that worked. Towards the end I was mixing it up pretty good with little complaint from him.

The next morning I decided he really needed to be eating some of his rice cereal, too. He REALLY did not like it. I had to basically mix a little cereal with a lot of applesauce. He still would lick the good stuff off the spoon and leave the cereal. I got him to eat an ok amount before he just pitched a royal fit. I am starting to get a little concerned he isn't eating the cereal like he should be and he is missing nutients. I have decided to let his teachers have the fun with cereal next week and see what happens.

In other news. We think Jonas might be teething. It is actually very hard to tell. He seems to have some of the signs, but not all of them. He doesn't seem to be in a whole lot of pain, but I think he has a high tolerance. He did wake up more than normal the past 2 nights and he was extra fussy. One time we gave him Tylenol because we did not know what else could be wrong. It seemed to have done the trick. We'll see what happens.

Piglet

This week, we started to take solid foods to school with baby J to attempt to get him on a schedule and getting more nutrition. He has only been eating solids at night, so this was going to be another experiment with him. Since we are still introducing new flavors/types, we could only bring in something he has eaten before - so sweet potatoes is the breakfast food for the week. We started off having them feed him 1/2 jar at the first feeding, since it would be incremental food to his diet and we didnt know how much he would eat. He was eating all of the 1/2 jar on Mon and Tues, so on Wed we told them to try to feed him the whole jar and see what happens. So, our little piglet ate the entire jar of Sweet Potatoes today, plus all of his 2 bottles for the day. When we got home, he ate an entire jar of Peaches, plus his bedtime feeding. He is only eating about 4.5 - 5 oz in his bottles, but that is huge for him. Other moms have laughed when we talk about J's growing appetite, but it is a big deal for us. He had been eating anywhere from 2 - 4 ozs for 2 bottles during school. He is a pretty finicky eater - just like me. He eats when he is hungry and he doesn't when he is not. We really need to get him eating the cereals that he should be eating for the nutrition, but we are well on our way!