If We Did it Again...

What things would you do or want to do differently if you could do it all over again? This goes whether you're planning on having kids again or not since, let's face it, we'll all at least have folks in our lives at some point who can benefit from the advice.

I imagine this list will grow over time, but so far, we've come up with:

• Be rich enough to stay home with the kiddo (yeah, I didn't say it would be realistic)
• Get a nursing cover that's a bit better so nursing in public is easier (close enough to weaning now that it just isn't worth it at this point)... not that I'm sure it would help since Pike simply hates being covered while eating. We usually go for bottles or cereal out in public for that reason.
• Get more pictures printed and hung on the walls sooner
• Have the nursery done two months in advance (apparently that's how we roll)
• I'd probably put more clothing on the registries for a wide variety of ages
• Wes said that he'd definitely pack the recovery room/delivery bag earlier... which he'd wanted to do anyway. D'oh.
• Put our new knowledge of what baby products work and which ones don't to good use - which means better wish list planning and use of money
• Get a cosleeper since that would have been nice to have, especially early on
• Stock up on wipes as well as diapers - for some reason we did great on one but not the other. They go hand in hand, though, so I'm not sure how we missed that one. 
• My hubby also pitched in that he'd get a membership to CareFlite. Just in case. Would have saved us several thousand dollars, so I can't disagree at all.

Wordless Wednesday

Baby butt and Fairy wings!!!!, originally uploaded by Sarah Alston.

Seven and a Half Months

Pike is seven and a half months old. He's getting stronger and smarter and more awesome (biased? me?) all the time.

• He's tried pretty much every kind of veggie there is to try in a pureed form. Next up will be fruits.
• Pike is perfecting his own version of my "one eyed crazy look" to be administered to people who are saying or doing stupid things. To the left, you can see him looking at me that way. Punk kid.
• Blowing rasberries is his absolute favorite activity (see him doing it with daddy below). Mostly he just pushes air and spit out of his mouth at this point. It's gross, but hilarious.
• He can army crawl like a baby possessed. Okay, maybe not that fast, but it's pretty fast when you're used to him not moving. Crap!
• Pike is ticklish. Awesomely ticklish. And sometimes in odd spots, like his ears. Making him giggle is one of the most awesome things possible. 

• He's at the stage where everything must be tested by shoving it in his mouth. Which means we're having to clean and vacuum more. I do not love that. I hate cleaning floors. 
• I damn near decided to wean him a half dozen times, but he seems to be getting over his desire to pinch every time he nurses. Cuz that sucked. Though he does seem to be moving himself toward weaning. It's just not as exciting as solid food, it seems. Which is both sad and freeing at the same time. We'll see how I feel when he really makes the call of what he prefers.
• Though he isn't quite able to do it himself, he's starting to experiment with signing when we do it to him. We only really do mommy, daddy (those are the most common ones we use), and milk, and we're introducing hungry and tired. The other day when Wes was signing to him, he started trying to do some mimicry of the sign, which was super cool. It's nice to see him really paying attention to things like that now.

Toads & Snails & Puppy Dog Tails

Cute toad is cute, originally uploaded by Marji Beach.

Pike met his first toad this morning. It had been raining gently overnight, and there was a little toad hopping away from the driveway when I brought him out to get in the car. I scooped it up (okay, after chasing it down for a minute... they hop fast) and showed Pike. He seemed amused by my excitement if not by the toad itself. I think I was grinning like an idiot, so he felt that it would be polite to grin back.

Then I washed my hands up and got us on our way, but it was still super neat. I kept toads in a pen in our backyard when I was little, so they're one of my favorite kinds of critter :)

So What Now?

Vintage Portrait of two Babies, originally uploaded by Beverly & Pack.

Much like marriage inevitably leads to questions about when you're going to have babies, having a baby leads to questions about when you're going to have more babies.

The thing is? I'm not lying when I say I don't know. We're still debating the when and the if. There are so many things that are amazing about it just being the three of us, and right now we're lucky because my sister is living with us while going to college, so we have a built in baby sitter for date night. Awesome! But by the time baby #2 comes along (if they do), she probably won't be there, which means finding a REAL sitter. Less fun. Then there's family vacations becoming paying for four people instead of three, wrangling two kids instead of one - which means we would no longer outnumber the child portion of the house population.

On the other hand, we both love being parents. After spending most of our lives thinking we'd never do it... it's amazing. Pike is amazing. Watching him grow and change is probably the coolest thing I've ever seen (no offense to my sister since it was also super fun watching and experiencing that with her). He's smart and gorgeous and, I'm sure, will continue to be super fabulous. So if one baby is fabulous, why wouldn't a second be?

But what if they weren't? What if we had a second kid and they were terrible and cranky and mean and ugly? Not likely since we're so amazing, but it could happen.

So what thoughts make you want - and not want - to do it all over again?

Critter Crazy

Yes, those are my boobs. You're welcome. (kidding... sort of) Most importantly, that is our hamster - well, was. Sadly our little Ed passed away quite a few years ago, but isn't she adorable?

See, I know most parents look at the moment their child starts wanting pets as a downside. Me? I'm excited for it. Pike already loves the puppies as much as he can when he mostly just wants to put stuff in his mouth, so I'm hoping his love of critters holds. The thing is, it's a great excuse to get more pets. I think if we didn't take such good care of the fuzzies and scalies and other odd animal babies we take in, we'd end up being hoarders. Thankfully the care means we don't have time to reach that level. Still, a hamster or a fish or a new snake... I wouldn't say no :)

What weird kid things are you looking forward to?