The Small Family   

Well, this week started out great, went to lousy, and then ended with a very nice weekend. The great beginning was due to Theo taking his first steps. That's right--for anyone who missed the midweek blog post, Theo took his first unassisted steps last Monday night! He can now toddle about five steps at a time, though most of the time he prefers to crawl.

But along with Theo's great feat (ha ha, I really did NOT intend that pun!! Get it--walking...feat?!) came a very, very crabby week. For four straight days, Theo whined pretty constantly. Morning to night, whine, whine, whine. And then burst into tears for no apparent reason. And then whine more.... You get the idea. And we quickly discovered that whining is pretty much like nails on a chalkboard for us--it just wears on our nerves very quickly! We were both frazzled messes by Friday.

Why the whining? Several possibilities. One is that tooth #4 is peeking out through the gum. Another is that he had his MMR shot on Wednesday (but he started whining Tuesday morning, so I don't know whether that's the likely suspect). Third possibility is soy milk. Per the doctor's suggestion, we started transitioning Theo from formula to soy milk. But after several days of whining, we thought, "Wait a minute--could it be the soy milk upsetting his tummy??" So, on Friday night, we switched back to 100% formula. And what do you know--by Saturday morning, he was like a new kid! Our cheery boy was back, and the whining was gone. We're going to start the soy milk back up in a few days to see what happens. If he starts whining like crazy again, we can be pretty sure it's the soy milk. But hopefully it was more teething or the shot...or both. We shall see.

The other lousy part of the week was finding out that our Subaru needed about $2,000 worth of repairs! (Yes, the same Subaru that we just spent $250 to get out of impound after it was towed by our lovely Homeowners Association.) We've been thinking about getting a larger car for a while--we both drive very small cars, and they're a real pain when it comes to getting a baby in and out of them. And, they certainly won't work if we ever decide to give Theo a sibling--we'd definitely need one larger car. So, we spent much of the week figuring out finances and debating our options on that front--make costly repairs to the Subaru and keep it another year or two, or cut our losses now and get a bigger car while sales are good thanks to the lousy economy? And ultimately, on Sunday we ended up buying a car that we both love. We went out to test drive the four cars we were thinking of (Ford Escape, Ford Escape Hybrid, Toyota RAV4, and Honda CR-V) while Grandma Diane watched Theo, and we both fell in love with the CR-V. Aside from the fact that I owned a CR-V for years and loved it, we also just loved the way it drove...heavenly! And they get a fantastic rating, so the only thing stopping us was price. Used CR-Vs stay really expensive, and we didn't think we'd find one in our price range. Lo and behold, the Honda dealer had an incredible deal on one brand-new CR-V they were trying to clear off the lot, and they threw in a bunch of incentives, too. It ended up costing us, for a brand-new CR-V, only $2,000 more than we would've spent for a used one with 50,000 miles or so on it...AND we got an 80,000 mile warranty on it, plus three full years of FREE routine maintenance (oil changes and such). So, we couldn't pass it up...and buying it ended our weekend on a very high note!

Our other purchase of the week was a very small desk for our living room, so I can put our spare laptop computer down there and work while Theo plays downstairs. (He gets very bored in the den, so I don't get much work done. But he's happier downstairs--more things to get into, I think.) The desk is a very small secretary-style desk that hides the laptop from grabby baby hands, and it fit perfectly in the small spot we had available. So...done!

And the other GOOD part to the somewhat lousy week was that we went to Picnic Day in Davis on Saturday. (Picnic Day is sort of a campus open house on the UC Davis campus.) Theo, fresh from his four straight days of whining, was a sweet, wonderful boy for our adventure, and he really seemed to enjoy petting and seeing the bunnies, kitties, and many, many dogs. (For those who aren't familiar with UC Davis, it's well known as an agricultural and veterinary school, so there were LOTS of animal (and plant) exhibits. So many "dits" for Theo to see!) But I think Theo's favorite part of the day was playing in the grass...both at UC Davis and later, when we brought a picnic lunch to a quiet park on the other side of Davis, far from the commotion of Picnic Day. All in all, it was a great way to spend a beautiful Saturday.  

Many of the pictures this week are portraits of Theo I took at Picnic Day--one of my current photography assignments is to do a portrait, so I've been working on that. But you'll also see some shots of him playing with his "new" rocking frog. The froggie has actually been in our garage for some time, just waiting for Theo to be big enough to use it. We bought it months ago, when a wonderful toy store near us was selling out and had it on major clearance. Who can resist a rocking frog?!   

Anyway, it's late, and I'm beat, so I'll sign off for now. Enjoy your week, all!