mandalei

Some miles from where we live there is a very pretty lake and small parcel of land, called Moreau Lake State Park.  I first went there a week or so ago, when the colors were at their peak and reflecting off the lake.  It was very  pretty, and  Jack had a great time looking around at all the trees and colors.  He’s always happiest when I am moving (stop walking and he voices his unhappiness), and is quiet as a mouse on these walks because he’s simply absorbing all there is to see and hear and smell around him.  I want him to learn to enjoy and love the outdoors, and to want to spend as much time as possible outside and active.  I hope I can continue these walks during the winter, but even with his polar fleece bunting with wool socks underneath, his little feet were frozen, and so were his hands.  His core though, was very warm, and I could feel it pressed up against me since he was in the Ergo.  Do I need booties? How can I make sure his extremities are warm?  His legs were pretty chilly, too!

This last weekend we all went back to Tarrytown to hang out with the peeps.  First we went orcharding (aka “apple picking”), then we hung out with the kids for the rest of the afternoon and evening.  It was alot of fun, but Jack didn’t sleep very well that night in a new place, and spent most of the time awake or sleeping on top of my chest.  We called it an early day on Sunday, since we knew it would be a long drive because we were so tired.

Jack has not been doing so well since our one-night away. While he had a normal semi-awesome night the night after we got back to our house, he hasn’t had a really good night since. I don’t know if it is because he has a slight cold, if he isn’t getting enough calories in the day to sustain his body at night, or what! I have been trying to feed him more during the day, but I feel like I am stuffing him all the time. I went walking with two other moms today, with little girls 2 and 6 weeks younger than Jack (and many pounds lighter! Jack will be 5 mos on the 15th, but he’s already 27″ and 20 lbs.) and they’re BOTH sleeping through the night. I am insanely jealous, and at a loss for how to fix this. Jack looks tired all the time, since his naps during the day have also gone to hell. damn.

I have a habit of composing posts in my head that I want to make sure I write down, but they never seem to get written. As I was feeding Jack for the umpteenth time at oh-damn-it’s-early o’clock, I came up with what had to be one of the funniest ideas! And now I’ve gone and forgotten it.

Anyhoo, my mind–the stainless steel colander that it is these days–is churning out some ideas I hope to write about with more frequency. And no, not just baby stuff, although it’s hard not to do that when the little guy is so damn cute! But I digress.

Right, where was I… Oh yeah, memory. It’s funny the way memory works sometimes. I can remember nearly word-perfect passages I have read that impressed me in some way, but I can’t tell you what I needed so badly at the grocery store that I went ahead and packed up the kid and the tote bag and whatnot. Like this post, I had a point I started of with and now I don’t remember what it was.

Right, so some of my ideas for what I want to talk about:

• Works In Progress (WIPs ): the crafts, quilts, and ideas I am working on right now
• Quilts and stuff
• Wanderings around
• Weighty issues
• Housey Stuff
• Parenty Stuff
• Foody stuff

Like I said–lots of ideas, I need to get them in print!

We all had our first Halloween in the new house, and it was alot of fun–fly by the seat of your pants fun, but fun! I was elbow-deep in pumpkin guts when we had our first Trick or Treater, and then we couldn’t find the candy stash we had put aside so carefully. Damn!

Jack wa ridiculously cute and very cuddly in his little tiger outfit (see flickr sidebar), and I think he enjoyed himself. He is not used to seeing so many other babies and kids, so the play groups yesterday were interesting. My normally talkative little baby was totally silent, and his eyebrows seemed to climb to the top of his head and stay there. Maybe I should get him out more?

I feel torn, though, that the house is still packed up in boxes, the rooms are unfinished, and there constantly seems to be a mess in the kitchen. When do I take the kiddo out and still manage to maintain everything?