My Big 10 Month Old BABY!

10 months old, already?! See how my big boy can stand and clap by himself (picture on the side bar). Baby Teague is almost a toddler. Will I always call him baby Teague?? It's like my nephew Chase, we called him Chasey Babes forever. He started introducing himself to people as Chasey Babes. So we may have a Chasey Babes and a Baby Teague on our hands! He is busy learning to walk, I am sure that is right around the corner. My friend Amber's little boy, Mikey - he is 7 weeks older than Teague. Every milestone that he has hit, Teague hits around the same time! It's nice to have someone else to say "watch out, this is going to happen" and sure enough - almost like clockwork. However, Mikey was walking BY 10 months, so I am still buying some time!

He is such a great little boy. Sleeps like a dream, is the happiest little boy - just very content! He has changed our lives for the best. We are so fortunate. I love being a mom! Thanks Teague.

My 1st Mother's Day!

It's corny and cliché, but every day is a "mother's day" for me with Teague. He is an absolute treasure in my life! He has changed my life completely - and it is all for the better that I am changed. I feel a completeness in where I am in life. I have a wonderful husband, a beautiful home and a delightful child. Life cannot be any better right now! I am very fortunate!

We spent Mother's Day morning with my family. We all went to church and then to brunch. That afternoon we did a little work around the outside of the house, but mostly we just relaxed. It was a great weekend all together.

Teague is getting very clever and is very curious. He is standing a lot on his own without holding onto things and then stands there and claps for himself. He is very proud! He crawls so fast, I can't believe it. He still does his monkey crawl on the hard floors and I really need to get a better video of that before he starts walking because it is so funny to watch! He is a really good eater. Tonight I gave him scalloped potatoes and ham and he was shoveling it in his mouth so fast. He just couldn't get enough of it! I also gave him a fresh chocolate chip cookie, which he ate very quickly as well. Any other child and you would say "growth spurt", but Teague eats like this everyday. He is all boy I guess!

Mother's Day - me with my boys
Mama and Teague on Mother's Day
The Mohr girls on Mother's Day
Teague the Monkey (aka: Dunstan)
"Mmmmmm, I love chocolate chip cookies!"

Drama.

Sheesh. Let me tell you, if you are here reading this - it's hopefully because you CARE about my family and want to see new pictures of my kid. If that is the reason you are here, cool - thanks for visiting! Please continue to visit and try not to let my rant below to nosy co-workers affect your feelings about visiting here. I just had to put the word out there to these snoopy people about what I really feel.

If you are here because you "heard" about our blog from someone at work and you just want to read and gossip about what I write about my job (and the chance that I may lose my position and how I "feel" about the union) - go away and get a life. This blog was created for those that care about my family, plain and simple. I don't password protect my blog because it would be too time consuming and confusing for my friends and family who really care. Eventually they would stop visiting this blog because they can't or don't care to remember another password. So if this is you, please stop reading and gossiping about the newest blog entry and passing the news around work and then act all normal and friendly to my family. I am saddened about this and yes - you know who you are and if you really care.

Spurs, thistles and cockelburrs (sp?)????

Gosh, I suck as a mom when it comes to choking hazards. I really don't freak out too much about what Teague eats or puts in his mouth. Like dirt, he eats it a lot. Seriously, unless we have just used "round up" or some other weed killer on the ground, does it really matter if Teague eats the dirt? I mean dirt really never killed anyone, right???!!! Well last night my parents stopped over on their way home after their trip to Ireland. Teague was so freakin' happy to see them. He was just hamming it up for them. Well as they are getting ready to leave Teague is just drooling and crying (and he is not the type of baby to cry unless he is TIRED and ready for bed). He kept chewing on something and then crying - like BAWLING. We were all relatively concerned, but like most things in his mouth I just kept saying "ah, he will chew it up and swallow whatever is bothering him". Well after 15 minutes of this nonsense Ryan finally sees something in his mouth and after wrestling him down and putting him in a choke hold he scoops out a spur/thistle/cockelburr from his mouth!!! Those suckers hurt when I get one on my sock and it barely touches my skin and now my kid was chewing on one! No wonder he was carrying on like death! As soon as we got it out, he acted like normal - like nothing ever happened. What a weird-o. I do feel bad telling everyone - "oh he will be fine. Just let him be." Can you imagine that thing going through his tiny little butt?! Okay, I know - you really didn't want to picture that. But still!

The weather is amazing!! YIPPEE!! FINALLY. It is my first official Mother's Day. We aren't planning to do much. Church, brunch and relaxing. I already know what I will get from Ryan/Teague and I already bought some flowers and planters for them - and spent a lot of money. But I am such a good mom (aside from the semi-choking incident) that I deserve it. At least that is what I tell myself.

Have a great weekend!

Happy Birthday to Dada!

Ryan is still such a young pup, not even 30 yet. We had a low key evening on Friday to celebrate his birthday and just had the Bayer's over for dinner. Teague and I gave Ryan a couple of gifts - I won't mention what they were here because I don't want to embarrass him and have you question his masculinity. You will have to ask him if you want to know.

Mmmmm, yummy! Daddy's Birthday Cake!

Here is Chase making his best "scary" face for the camera. Yikes, don't strangle poor Teague!

Teague is becoming a total Daddy's boy. He only says dada constantly. It's almost annoying. Okay, well truly I am just jealous. We say to him "Ma ma ma ma ma ma ma" and he smiles and says "dada". Even when I mouth "mama" he outright says to me "dada" and laughs. I told Ryan all I wanted for mother's day was for him to say mama. So we practice and practice and he still says every babble word possible, but when prompted it's always "dada". (I put a short video clip of this on the side bar - it's not as clearly stated as he usually says it, but you will get the picture)! He can just keep it up as far as I am concerned and so when he wants something he will just scream for dada and Ryan can go runnin'. Even today when Ryan's parents were over helping us with some spring projects (i.e. transplanting those 500 trees we planted when we bought the land - what a job); Teague stood at the screen door, banging on it yelling "dada dada dada" and then smiling if Ryan turned around to look at him. What a stinker!

Things on the job front continue to get interesting. I am surprisingly really at peace with whatever happens. I think part of it for me is just that I know I have no say in it and it is a fight between the administration (who wants to keep me 1.0 FTE and the union who is battling for a social worker with more seniority to take over my position - LUDACRIS!). Anyway, the union representative came to see me on Friday and said that with my current license I can do special education testing. So what the union is planning to do is if the social worker who was placed on leave asks for a hearing to take my job - then an arbitrator would hear both sides (the administration and the union). The union will present that I am a Guidance Counselor .4 FTE per day and a special education tester .6 per day and the social worker will take the .6 guidance position and it will be named a social work position. This all leads to the question of will I have two different offices then? I mean seriously, so when I am working as a special education tester and a kid comes to my office with a question on financial aid, credits, classes, etc. - do I have to have a sign on the door that says "Guidance Counselor not in, Special Education tester in"?! As if I can only be a Guidance Counselor .4 FTE per day?! Oh well, the saga continues.

Well the good news is that the weather seems to finally be in our favor. The cement slab was laid last week and tomorrow they will start construction on the new garage! Hooray! Now if we can just get a consistent amount of warm weather, maybe we will actually get the swimming pool in this spring/summer!

Have a good week.