Since Wes has learned to pull himself to standing in his crib his poor toys are at his mercy. His new favorite pastime is assaulting his Winnie the Pooh mobile and eating the ears on his musical puppy. I figure it’s good practice for his balance.

Being a mom, you don’t really get paid vacation hours. Or unpaid vacation hours. Or vacation hours of any kind.

But, unlike with normal desk jobs, you’re not limited to x-number hours of vacation. You can go where you want, when you want, for as long as you want. You just have to take your work with you. And he or she has to be somewhat cooperative with your plans.

So today I took Wes to Salt Lake City for a little sight-seeing. After living around here for nearly ten years, I realized I’ve never done proper touristy-type things, and there’s no time like the present. I also got to try out our new lightweight stroller. I needed something light and compact (unlike my very bulky, very heavy jogging stroller) and after some research and hands-on experimentation I decided on the Maclaren Triumph. It only weighs about 11 pounds and turns on a dime. It’s fantastic.

The first thing Wes and I did was take a guided tour of the Conference Center. It was the first time I’ve been on the roof to see the garden up there. Wes and I enjoyed the view of downtown Salt Lake.

Then we stopped in at the Lion House Pantry and picked up a lunch to go (chicken, mashed potatoes, veggies, and a world-famous roll). It was “to go” because I had to go and feed the parking meter again. Two hours went by fast.

Next we toured the Church History Museum and peeked in at the original 1847 log cabin right next door.

Lastly, we walked around Temple Square, took some photos, and watched a wonderful presentation on eternal families in the Visitors’ Center.

With all the construction happening in the downtown area, walking through Temple Square really does feel like the most peaceful experience on Earth. You can’t hear the construction (which, I can attest, is loud). It’s so quiet and comfortable. Here are our attempts at photos on Temple Square.

We stopped at my brother’s place in the Avenues for a visit with his wife and their two kidlets. Wes got to play with his six-month-old cousin Ethan. This photo makes Wes out to be a giant, but actually Ethan has the edge on Wes in the size department.

There was a lot of this going on:

On the way home we listened to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on tape and stopped in American Fork at my favorite bakery, where we had ice cream and a slice of Asiago cheese bread and bought two cupcakes to go.

Such are the immortal words of Mo Rocca, and such is Wesley’s forehead. He’s starting to accumulate a collection of bruises on his forehead from all his bonks. Today alone he bonked his head twice–once at home against the coffee table and once at Tucanos (a Brazilian restaurant) on the table edge. He had a hard time recovering from that last one because right after he stopped crying over his traumatic head injury the Brazilian singers trounced in with their drums and loud voices to sing happy birthday to three tables of people. And Wes wasn’t much a fan of the noise. He didn’t cry again, but his lower lip kept pouting out like he was certainly thinking about it. So John took him out to let him recover a bit more.

Also, we have a potential jailbird on our hands now. Wes learned how to pull himself to standing in his crib. Sometimes we’ll sit him in his crib to play, leave for a minute, and come back when we hear a loud thumping noise to find him standing up and hitting the wall with his hand. Mostly I think he pulls himself to standing to get a better grip on the crib with his mouth so he can chew on it.

Lastly, and I know this is heathenish to include in a post essentially about Wes, but I am so darn proud of my newly reorganized pantry. Just look:

I should have taken a “before” picture because it would have made you pass out from horror. Imagine the shelves of your local grocery store after an earthquake, except with the boxes and cans intact on the shelf but at odd angles and in no particular order. Also with expired freshness dates. And a few weevils wandering around.

I am a fan of these under-counter baskets that I use to store my plastic wrap and storage bags.

I feel so empowered by my new pantry. Last night I went grocery shopping and instead of standing in an aisle staring at an item and wondering, “Do I have any of this at home?”, I could clearly picture the organized shelves and know for sure. Few things give as good a high as getting organized.

I just wanted to report that Wes did much better with his speech therapy visit today than last time. I wasn’t sure how Wes would do since he had been yawning and was obviously ready for a nap. But once his therapist walked in and started playing with him he perked up and smiled a lot. She said that today he was like a new baby; he has improved so much since her last visit.

Hah. I knew my baby was smart.

And he really has come a long way since she came a month ago. He’s making more sounds, especially when he’s mad or tired or needs something. I hear him say “mamamamama” when he’s tired of being in the crib, and I hear the same sound with a lot more oomph when he’s getting angry. Sometimes I just stand there and listen to him making these great noises, even though technically the noises are meant to spur me to action. It’s so darn cute hearing him talk.

His therapist had a lot of other good things to say about Wes, like how he goes after toys (leans toward them) with definite purpose and throws a small ball really well. (We should probably get him a bigger ball to start rolling around.) She said he is responding well to stimulus and is taking turns and can understand cause-and-effect toys. And she said he was so adorable that she’d be more than happy to pack him up and take him home with her.

Today we went to the park.

Wes swung on a swing.

And didn’t crack a smile once.

I guess he must’ve been a little tired. But we had fun anyway.

I was grocery shopping this morning and the most amazing thing happened: As I was touring the aisles I saw ingredients and had ideas for multiple dinners! This is usual for some people, but for me, who is not a great cook, this was landmark.

Today I saw husks of sweet corn in the store and just couldn’t resist. But I didn’t want to boil them, so I found a recipe in my Weight Watchers cookbook for oven-roasted corn. It’s super easy and turned out really good, even though I had to substitute half the ingredients with things I actually had.

Oven-Roasted Corn on the Cob

Here’s how I made it:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Mix:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon water
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1-2 tablespoons fresh herbs (I used basil, tarragon, and thyme–it’s what I have growing in my kitchen planter)

Brush the oil/herb mixture on four shucked and cleaned cobs of corn. Wrap each cob in a double layer of aluminum foil and place directly on oven rack. Roast for 25 minutes, turning occasionally, until kernels are tender.

Per serving (1 ear of corn): 109 Cal, 4 g Fat, 1 g Sat Fat, 0 g Trans Fat, 0 mg Chol, 14 mg Sod, 18 g Carb, 3 g Fib, 3 g Prot, 3 mg Calc. [Nutrition facts from the Weight Watchers cookbook]

The actual recipe calls for cilantro instead of herbs, and lime juice instead of lemon. The flavor is so good that you don’t need anything extra. It makes the corn healthier for you since you’re not lathering on butter with every bite. And it was so easy I might never boil corn again.

A neighbor brought us a squash, which Wes quite liked. In its natural form, anyway. I haven’t steamed and mashed it yet for him to try in its actual edible form. Maybe tomorrow.

His therapist dropped off a baby food grinder for me to use to prepare grown-up food in baby form for Wes (veggies, pasta, meat, etc.). I probably get a C as a mom in the eating department because I have to force myself to feed Wes food besides milk. This is mainly because whatever Wes eats you always see again in the form of spit-up. I’m not sure how long it will take for him to outgrow that. It gets tiring, always cleaning it up. At least milky spit-up is somewhat a neutral color. Last week I gave him lasagna (stage 3 baby food, and he did great with it, even without teeth), but then I had to do a whole load of laundry of shirts, bibs, blankets, and burp rags covered in reddish-pinkish spit-up. And it was three days before I felt like giving him solids again after that. I know. C-mom for sure.

Wes is eleven months old now. I remember when he turned six months John and I came to the surprising realization that we were parents of a kid half-way to one year old. And now we’re parents of a kid less than a month off from one. Kind of crazy.

He is progressing well enough in his own ways. He can crawl backwards, but he only scoots back just far enough to push himself up to sitting. He doesn’t seem to realize he could be cruising around the house if he wanted, as long as he doesn’t mind moving backward.

He’s into size 3-6 month clothes. I realized today that we’ll get to reuse his Superman costume from Halloween last year (which he absolutely swam in as a 4-pound baby), because the costume is made for babies up to 9 months. And even though he’ll be over a year old by October 31st, we’ll be lucky if he’s wearing size 6-month clothes.

Wes is a super-happy kid. He smiles a lot, and giggles a lot when he’s tired but happy. One of my favorite things to do is lie next to him on the floor or on our bed when he’s winding down for a nap and is in a good mood. I can baby-wrestle with him, pull him on my tummy, tickle him, throw him in the air, and he laughs and laughs. It’s so fun being a mom sometimes.

For anyone who’s read the Twilight series, what did you think of the last book? I finished it Wednesday, and I assume I’m not the only one who’s read it. Spoilers allowed in comments.

Speaking of spoilers, only read this part if you’ve already read the book or don’t care:

In addition to knowing whether you overall liked it or not, here are some things I want people’s reactions to:
- The final battle scene: Were you disappointed it fizzled?
- The baby: Does it weird you out? or is it a cool feature of the story?
- The baby’s name: Did you ever learn to pronounce it correctly?
- Jacob’s new lovelust: Could you see that coming?
- The, um, physical affection between Edward and Bella: Too much, too little?
- The section from Jacob’s point of view in the middle: Did it work for you?
- The many extra characters: Where they necessary?

It’s official: Wes can push himself up from all-fours into sitting. And he can do it well!

The downside of this is that putting Wes down for a nap, unless he’s already passed out or practically so, is basically pointless. I lay him down on his back and leave the room; a few minutes later I hear him making noise, and his voice sounds like it’s being projected OVER the crib wall. Because now he’s sitting up. And once he’s sitting up he can’t get back down to the lying position, unless he falls over. (Except that his balance is actually quite good, so he’s usually stuck upright.)

I keep having to go in and push him back down and tell him to go to sleep . But a minute later he pops himself right back up again. I come in and find him like this, looking all pleased with himself:

He seems to enjoy his new trick. Whenever he pushes himself up he gets a gigantic smile across his face and is truly happy.

Video of Wes pushing himself to sitting.

For my birthday some of my family came over and we played a game of croquet in the backyard. It’s one of my favorite games ever, but it was about 100 degrees outside, so we pushed through the game as fast as we could. I took some photos of us playing, but the little guy on the sideline stole the show.

Today I handed Wes to John so I could make some dinner. When I came back upstairs Wesley’s eyes were glued to the computer screen. Like daddy, like baby.

It was my birthday yesterday, and I decided to treat myself with a mini photo shoot with my baby.

Right after the camera captured the photo above Wes spit up all over my face. I have a picture of that, too, since the camera was on 10-second delay, but it’s a little too graphic to post. Suffice it to say that I’m visibly grossed out and Wes has his hand on my cheek like he’s trying to calm me, and he has a look on his face like, “What’s the big deal, Mom?”