January 22, 2007

State of the Heiners

It's been almost 2 weeks since I updated the blog - I am sorry! I have a good excuse for the last week at least since Justin was gone to Phoenix for 5 days and I was busy taking care of Sam all by my lonesome. So, how have things been around here?

Sam is doing better with bedtime. He went to sleep with only a couple of minutes of crying while Justin was gone, and the last couple of nights have not been too bad. I think he's getting back into his routine after learning how to pull himself up - maybe he's learning that it doesn't really make a difference at bedtime whether he stands up or not, he is still going to bed!

He is also pulling himself up with ease all the time. He stands up and he can also get himself back down almost all the time. The only times he gets stuck standing up is if he grabs on to something that's too tall and he's not that familiar with it, then he can't figure out how to grab on to something lower to get himself down. He loves to stand up and if you hold his arms up, he'll take steps. Justin thinks that he is going to be walking in no time (oh my gosh!), but I think that his top half is too heavy and he can't balance that good, so we've still got time. Of course, he is a total champ at crawling now, so much of our time is spent chasing after him. We have the basement pretty safe now - after putting a blanket down on top of the cords and moving a chair in front of the DVD shelves, it's a pretty safe area for him to crawl around and play without us having to watch him like a hawk. The other day he crawled back into the play area (although really, the whole downstairs is his play area!) and we messed around with his Legos megablocks for a while. He has also crawled through the nylon tunnel several times, which is fun.

He is also eating like crazy! He is getting more finger foods now. He likes french fries (of course), and he's figuring out how to bite off smaller pieces with his teeth now. He has also had little bits of a lot of foods - he eats almost anything we give him so far! We are going to start buying more finger foods and safe fruits to put into pieces for him, because he is definitely ready. He is also eating a lot - this morning he ate two whole containers of baby food at breakfast! It was crazy.

As I said earlier, Justin was out of town earlier this week. He found out on Monday morning that he'd be leaving for Phoenix on Tuesday morning. I am aware of the fact that he sometimes has to travel for his job, but it is always difficult for me when he has to leave so suddenly. This time I was also disappointed because I had my monthly Girl's Night Out dinner on Thursday, and wasn't sure what I was going to do since Justin was going to watch Sam. Justin was gone for 5 days and I was with Sam almost 24 hours a day every day. It can be hard to be without another adult around, and even though Sam can play by himself sometimes, he is still a lot of work and it can be very tiring not to have any breaks.

As for the babysitter side of things, the whole 'finding a babysitter' dilemna has been something I've been thinking about lately. I had sent out an e-mail to my mom friends, and also to non-mom friends to see if anyone knew of babysitters, or had any suggestions for a good way to find a babysitter. I got back two replies, both which said 'If you find anything out, let me know!'. I was especially concerned when I was stuck with finding a babysitter on such short notice last week. So, I tried the regulars - my sister was unavailable, and our one babysitter that I used to work with didn't return my call (she was sick). My Mom suggested contacting local community colleges to try and find people studying early childhood education who might be interested in getting some experience, but I had no luck finding the correct contact numbers, especially with a limited amount of time to do the research. So, I ended up on the internet, and joined a website called Sittercity.com. It's a website where parents and babysitters can sign up, you can post jobs and people can respond, you can search for babysitters in your area, you can do background checks, you can post your information, and you can get references from babysitters and read whatever introductions they've posted. I ended up finding a great babysitter who works full time as a school counselor in a school district here and does tutoring and babysitting on the side. She was very qualified, and I was able to go out and enjoy my night out on Thursday. I also got replies from several other people who might be available in the future when I need sitters, I can post jobs earlier so I'll be able to check references etc. I guess it's as good a resource as any, and it seems like it will work for us. I am also happy about the babysitter I found, and she seemed interested in babysitting for us again in the future since we only look for sitters 3 or 4 times a month at most.

Justin will also be leaving sometime probably in the next week to go to the Philippines for work, so that will be another little challenge for Sam and I. Well, more for me I guess, I'm sure he enjoys himself just fine. We haven't found out exact dates yet, but at least I know it's coming!

Speaking of travelling, I made some exciting reservations this week. I booked plane tickets and hotel reservations this week for Brooke and I. We are going to California in April! Why? Well, if you didn't already know how big of a dork I am... we are going to the Creation Entertainment Grand Slam Sci-Fi Convention 2007! WOO! There are going to be people there from Battlestar Galactica (which is one of our favorite shows), Heroes, Eureka, and of course Star Trek and other various shows. We are leaving on a Thursday afternoon and coming back on Monday afternoon - four days of just girl geekiness with no kids etc. We are REALLY excited about it, we got special pass tickets for the convention so we'll get good reserved seats at the speaking events and autograph sessions and into some cool things like a dessert reception. I'll write more about it later when it happens, and I will definitely have LOTS of pictures to put up on the internet when we get back!

Well, I better get going. Justin wants his laptop back, and I've become addicted to playing Urbz - Sims in the City on the Nintendo DS he got me for Christmas, so I'll probably go do that now! If you haven't checked them out already, check out the photos from Christmas that I posted on the photo site. I will probaby post more pictures from January soon!

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