Night Shift and Hail

Jeremy's just gone back on night shift for the next 3 months. It takes a little adjusting too. He now works 5pm to 3am Saturday-Tuesday. So his days off are Wed-Friday. The weirdest part for me when he's on night shift is cooking dinner at like
2:00 pm. And then he eats it hot, and Nathan and eat if we're hungry, but we've usually had lunch around noon so we're not hungry. So then, we end up reheating dinner around 6 or so for us. So weird.

I am very blessed though that I do not have to work with Jeremy's schedule. If I was teaching, we would never see each other. Him on nights, me on days, him with no weekends off. It would be really tough. We're heading down to Royal this weekend (Jeremy's weekend) so that should be fun. We haven't been down since Thanksgiving.

I've been trying to take long walks when the weather is nice. It's been really cold and rainy and windy lately so it's hard to find the time to fit in a good walk. Bloomsday is in a little more then a month so I need to get ready!

We had some crazy hail today! It's the biggest we've seen. The thunder and lightning were also pretty intense. Nathan didn't seem too scared, but was very curious as to what was going on!



The hail was huge!



Two Cougars!

Graveyard of Tools

We've had a ton of snow this year. Over 6 feet. We've been able to play out in the shop during the winter. Nathan began to develop this habit of grabbing Jeremy's tools and throwing them out into the snow. We're wondering what we're going to find under the snow once it's all gone? How many tools will be under there? Most of the time, I managed to catch Nathan and stop the tools from going under the snow, but we'll see! Jeremy already knows of a missing 10 mm ratchet. Hmmm...likely buried. Hopefully the snow will be gone in a week or so...hopefully!

Nothing gets past Nathan!

Nathan is so observant. Almost too much so for his own good!

This afternoon, Nathan and I were almost home from our walk. I try to take him out in the stroller most days that are decent and not too cold. It was about 4:55. We were 5 minutes from home.

All of a sudden, Nathan sits up straighter, puts his pointer finger out, and says "Dada!" Now, Nathan does not say alot, but when he says Dada I know what it means! I look around and sure enough, probably a block or more up the street, a police car is parked. How did Nathan even see it? I figured it probably was Jeremy as it was 4:55 and he gets off work at 5:00. It was an abandoned house and sure enough as we're walking by, I can see Jeremy up there in the yard. Nathan keeps saying Dada. Jeremy eventually sees us and waves from a distance.

I keep walking and know that Jeremy won't be too far behind. Nathan starts throwing a fit and keeps saying Dada and trying to climb out of the stroller. We get home a few minutes later and he does NOT want out of the stroller. Usually he is dying to get out of there since our walk is usually about an hour. I put the little screamer down and he starts pounding the driveway with his little fists.

THEN, he turns and starts marching out of the driveway into the road yelling "Dada" and crying. I run after him and grab his little hand. He pulls me down the street in the direction where he knows Jeremy is. We get just a little ways when I see Jeremy's car pull out on the road and start driving toward us for home. When he gets closer, Nathan's face lights up and he gets all happy.

This is what happens when he sees Daddy when he's not supposed to!

A similar scene took place a few weeks ago when Jeremy left one morning to go skiing with another off-duty deputy. Usually, Nathan is fine with Jeremy dressed up in his uniform and getting in his police car and leaving for work. He knows that the uniform and car mean Daddy has to go to work. On this morning; however, Jeremy was dressed up in regular clothes for skiing. Then, he got into the other guy's regular car. Nathan's little lip started shaking and he broke down in tears. Usually when Jeremy is dressed up in regular clothes, Nathan goes along wherever Daddy goes. It took me almost 40 minutes to calm him down after Jeremy left to go skiing! I think someone is becoming a little attached to his Daddy!

New picture-hillbilly baby!

We thought this picture was pretty funny. Nathan was really hot one day so we decided to try the hillbilly look on his with overalls only. Then, his buttons on his pants kept popping open and his diaper was hanging out. We tried to get a picture of him in a straw hat, but he wasn't having any of it. So here's our hillbilly baby!

Fire Station Visit

Here in Suncrest, there is a Co-Op Preschool. I'm friends with some of the women whose children go to this preschool. Today, the preschool took a field trip to the fire station and Nathan and I were invited to come along. We got to see all the fire trucks and equipment. I'd say the kids that were 3,4,5 really enjoyed it. Nathan mostly just liked to run around and push the strollers of other babies. He wasn't impressed by the lights on the fire truck or the sirens. I'm thinking this is maybe because Jeremy's always messing around with the lights on his police car for Nathan. Several of the other little kids cried when the siren went off and thought the lights were cool. Not my little guy. Maybe next year, he'll enjoy the fire station more! He did get a cool plastic hat and sticker badge though.



Nathan in his Fire Chief hat. He's even dirty! Not from a fire though. Just playing outside and dribbling food all over himself.

Adventures in Toddlerhood

Nathan has been very active lately. He's been getting himself into some funny scrapes. Well, I'm not sure funny is the right word to use. Troublesome. Here are three fun things he's done in the last 3 days.

The other day he ripped his baby gate off the wall. Not only did the baby gate come off, but a nice little piece of the wall did too. It's still not back up yet, but he's doing ok with the stairs. Jeremy will be working on getting it back up this weekend (his weekend)

Yesterday, he learned how to open the bottom door on the china hutch. He reached in and grabbed for some napkins. When he pulled them out, one of my $70 china bowls from our wedding falls and breaks all over the floor.

Today, we were playing a game. He closes the bathroom door. I sit outside, knock and then open it up. He thinks this is such fun! Well, he's now just tall enough to push the lock button on the door. He locks himself in the bathroom. I try to use a bobby pin to open it. No luck. I try to use a paperclip and it's not working so well. He's crying in the bathroom. Finally, I manage to get it unlocked with the paperclip. I'm glad I didn't have to call the fire department! I guess it's time to buy those fun plastic door handle covers.

Our visit to the allergist

A couple times a year, we make a trip to see Nathan's allergist in Spokane. Dr. Drain is awesome! She's a pediatric allergist so she sees children with allergies. Today was our visit. We got good news!

Nathan was retested for his allergies (dairy products, eggs, tree nuts, and peanuts.) He's still allergic to them all. However, his egg is much improved!! We'll go see Dr. Drain again when he turns 2 in August. We'll test him again, and she is hoping that the egg allergy will be going away! I know it's not much good news as nothing will change in our daily lives, it just gives us hope!

The dairy allergy is still bad. That is the one we hope he will outgrow the most, but his reactions are so severe to any milk product, that it will either take a long time to outgrow or possibly not at all. He will still break out in hives if you touch him after having cheese on your hands.

He won't ever outgrow the tree nut (almonds, cashew, walnuts) or peanut allergy, but we can hope they will improve at least. Maybe someday there will be allergy shots for nuts. They are beginning to do trials for that now actually.

He was also tested for a variety of other foods that can be highly allergenic. Soy, wheat, peas, shellfish, fish, and gelatin. All came back fine. No new allergies!!! Thank goodness!

The Canadian

Jeremy was at work a few weeks ago. He arrested a really drunk, biligerent jerk of a guy. On the way up to the jail, the guy started complaining about Jeremy. He noticed Jeremy had a US flag on his uniform. The guy then complained that "You shouldn't have this job and be wearing that flag if you're a Canadian!" Jeremy couldn't figure out WHY this guy thought he was a Canadian. Do Canadians look a certain way and Jeremy fits in?

Then, a few days ago, this same guy calls dispatch because he claims his house is being robbed. Since the guy had caused Jeremy such problems, THREE deputies went to this call. The guy still didn't have the best attitude. He commented to the deputies that they had arrested him just a few weeks ago. The deputies all told him it wasn't them that arrested him.

The guy then says, "I know. It was that damn Canadian!"

Jeremy's new nickname amongst the deputies is the Canadian. No one has any clue why that guy thinks Jeremy is a Canadian. We'll likely never know.

Books, Fake Milk, and 18 Month Checkups!

Yesterday, Nathan and I went to the Library Sale. We had a great time! I got to see a few of the teachers from school and a lot of people oohed and aahed over Nathan. It's always surprising at a library sale how many books you can get for so cheap! I bought about 20 board books for $6. Yeah, usually those books are $6 a book. Nathan and I have read about every board book at the library, so it's nice to have a bunch of new books to read at home. AND I don't have to worry about him destroying them! I was so excited about his new books I didn't even look at any books for me. That's ok though. I'd rather check them out anyway. I don't like buying too many books for myself. They just clutter up the house and whenever you move, you've got really heavy boxes! I guess that's when you give them away for the library sale. I really need to clean out some of my old books and pass them on!

We also took a trip to Fred Meyer to stock up our supply of Oat Milk for Nathan. It's the only store besides health food stores that sell it. He drinks super expensive formula right now, and we are slowly beginning to give him more Oat Milk. When he's 2, we'll switch him over completely. I was impressed to see that Fred Meyer also now carries Hemp Milk. Nathan really likes that too. Oat and Hemp are our best alternatives for him. Soy is too scary as it is also a highly allergic food and since Nathan is already allergic to half of all the highly allergic foods, we don't want to push it. Rice milk is basically water with some added calcium and vitamins. There is no protein or fat in rice milk, so I don't really see the point for him. Oat milk and Hemp milk both have protein and at least a little fat for a growing brain!

Nathan had his 18 month checkup last week. He now weighs 27 pounds, which is in the 75th percentile. We never thought we'd see that! He's about 32 inches tall which is in the 50th percentile. The doctor was a little concerned as he's only grown 1 inch in six months. He said we need to keep an eye on that as there could be some kind of hormonal problem if the growth doesn't pick up at his 2 year appointment. Also, I wasn't at all surprised to hear this, but Nathan was referred for speech therapy. The only word he says is Mama. The doctor said all babies (even boys) should be saying more then this by now. He should be saying at least 20 words. I really can't figure out what the problem is. We read for seriously hours a day and I spend all day talking to him, but I guess it's not enough. I hope the speech therapy can give us some good tips on how to get him to start talking! We hope to start that in the next month.