In no particular order…

1. That Wesley sort of smiled for his preschool picture. And that we actually thought to buy a few copies of the picture to keep for future memories. Wes doesn’t smile on demand, so this is a big deal.

I’m not sure why he’s wearing his jacket in the picture. Maybe he wouldn’t let them take it off??

2. This gal who is 2 months old and who smiles whenever you give her attention.

I will, however, be grateful to see her sleeping through the night. I get up with her consistently twice each night. Usually she goes right back to sleep. But then sometimes Wes will wake up and I have to get up to help him go back to sleep…

3. That Wes likes strawberries.

He’s made the sign for them before, but I didn’t know what the sign meant until I caught a snippet of his “Signing Time” DVD where they were signing it. Last night he was on the counter watching me cut strawberries for my meal, and he helped himself to one. I was kind of surprised, but he ate the whole thing and asked for more. Yay for another thing Wes will eat! He ate three more strawberries tonight. He can even kind of say the word: “Dah-Bay.”

4. My Zumba classes that I teach. I worked at a desk for seven years and truly never liked sitting at a desk. Standing in front of loads of people and making them sweat and smile and have so much fun is much more my idea of the dream job. I often come away from class thinking, “I have the best job ever.” Not that being a mom isn’t truly the best job (it is), but there is something so gratifying about a job where people come up afterward and smile and say thank you and tell you what a joy the class is to them. Wes and Carissa aren’t big into thank-you’s.

5. Losing weight. Because I’m finally losing a little more. I’ve been at it (imperfectly, for sure, but consistently, yes) for about six weeks and I’m making progress. I’m getting close to where I was before I got pregnant, and then from there I’ll just be a few pounds from my goal. Not every day is easy. In fact, most days aren’t. But as I keep working at it I gradually get closer to my goal.

6. Wes is getting so smart. He amazes me with how much he knows. Today we were watching “Signing Time,” which had a song about the colors of a rainbow. I looked over at him and he was not only signing the colors but even saying some of the words. Impressive! He is getting really good at colors. And he loves it when we count with him. He holds up his hand as we count 1-10, although he can’t arrange his fingers the right way yet. But he can make sounds that resemble most of the numbers as we count. I also started singing the alphabet song with him, and he is totally into it.

7. Wesley’s preschool teacher is thinking of increasing his school time to four days a week instead of two. I think this will only help him. He is doing so much better verbally since starting, really repeating and imitating sounds. So we’ll see what happens with that.

8. Sleep. In theory, anyway. I should go test that theory.