Altitude 8,500 feet

Day 2 of our recent trip & we are headed to the peak on the left. We actually passed between these two peaks (if you click on the picture to blow up, you can actually see the trail), but someone suggested we make the extra climb to the top, and boy was it worth it! Best view of the entire 35 mile hike.

I May Not Walk

But MAN OH MAN do I talk! This little man is definitly a Wehmann!! I recently posted some of Wyatt's words, and they have increased even since then - he has gotten quite good at repeating things I name for him, even if they are the very, very toddler version (We call the "fan" the "fee") He has now even started to create a few phrases. Some of them are easy to understand, and some Seth & I just look at each other with puzzled looks.

The other morning, Wyatt & I were having breakfast. This little monkey eats a banana every morning, so I had my knife out cutting his banana. After I set it down, he was furiously pointing at it repeating "No, dat pop! No, dat pop!" After about a minute of this serious warning he was trying to convey, I realized that in Wyatt language he was saying "No, that's sharp!" When I repeated this back to him, he seemed so pleased to be able to communicate this important message to me ;)

Over Committed

So, I started this blog when I was pregnant & maybe trying to kill time at my job (which I believe they call "short timers syndrome" :)) I was so enthused about keeping it up to date, and my family loved getting to see all the pregnant photos & hear about "baby" Jernigan.

Fast forward to a year & a half later & I am not much better at keeping this thang updated. My other mommy friend Abby has such an awesome blog, and I wish that I could keep up with mine the same way. I suppose since almost all of my friends & family are close by, it's not a necessary that I keep mine so up-to-date. But it seems like "update blog" looms on my to-do list each day. It's probably the one thing on my daily to-do list that I WANT to do, rather than unload the dishwasher (which seems to happen 30 times a day with a house full of plastic sippy cups & containers), vacuum or do laundry.

I sat down tonight & decided to write this post though to think about WHY I can't get this done more often. After first looking through my email, it suddenly dawned on me - I am over committed, with a capital "O." I guess I have a problem saying no, but here are the things I am currently involved in:

1) Advertising Sales part-time at Chapel Hill Magazine & Durham Magazine
2) Business Manager of the Junior League of Durham & Orange Counties annual fundraiser, the Bargain Sale
3) Acquisitions Committee member for the Caring House Gala
4) Partner in Lily & Wyatt, my company with my sister

On top of all of this, I have to find time to stay home with my almost 14 month old (while he learns to walk) & keep him busy - all while I cook & keep the house clean. Now listen - I am NOT complaining, just merely reminding myself why I feel a bit frazzled at the end of a day and that I need to learn to say "no" more often. I wouldn't trade my life for anything, but it does make me laugh how I used to think about being a SAHM & all of the projects & things I would get done...I do have my moments, like when I made this for Wyatt in two days:
But what you don't know is that I STILL don't have the button holes done, and I started two more that are sitting on my sewing machine :)

With all this said - SOMETIME I will post about the amazing vacation my husband & I just took, and all of the latest news with Wyatt.

One Year Ago Today

Monkey Man napped at Elmo's while Heba & I had a Girl's Night Out

I'd Like to Be Heard

Lately Wyatt really has his own opinion of things, and he tries very hard to express to me his needs & wants. We have had a constant battle of the "no-no's" lately and just like I have read in tons of books, it is one of his favorite words.

Speaking of favorite words & "no-no's", one of Wyatt's new personal favorites is the word "poop." It is actually great though, because he will say it right after he has done one, so no need to do the dreaded smell test. However, he now has quite an interest in his poop diapers. He wants to see them after I remove them (yuck), and then when I wrap them up in a bag, he thinks it is some sort of play toy. He got very mad this morning when I refused to let him play with one - here he is say "no, no, no" and crying. I mean, child - we have hundreds of toys & you want to play with a bag of poop!!?? I had to laugh to myself.
We have also been reading a lot lately. We started this when Wyatt was really young - probably about 3 months old, we would lay him on a blanket in his room at night & read a book or two to him before bed. As he aged, there were always new challenges that presented themselves - He would roll away as he tested out his new found freedom from rolling; He would sit up & want to hold the book; He would crawl out of the room; He would stand & simply pull every book off the shelf as you laid there reading... So, we now sit in his glider to read & he is a little more still. Lately he has decided that rather than reading books, he would just like to highlight his favorite parts of books. In Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? as soon as we present the book he immediatly starts saying "Teach, teach" and he just wants to turn to this page with the teacher on it & smile:
Not sure what it is about this face, but he loves it! He also likes to say the word "balloon," which he pronounces "boon," and only wants to read the pages of Goodnight Moon that have the red balloon on them.

So, I am learning to try to listen to his "demands" and understand what he is trying to communicate to me. It is so fun to hear the new words that he picks up every few days, and when we ride in the car he likes to sit in his car seat & run through all of them for me! Here is a rundown of what we can say so far:

Mama, Dada, Mimi, Nanny, Papa, Pop, Cow, Moo, Duck, Quack, Teeth, Teach, Poop, Cup, Cookie, Cake (of course, all the junk food words, right?), Juice, More, No, Milo, Doggie, That, Pat, Hot, Ouch, Cold, Balloon, Peace, Uh-Oh

I am always listening for new ones, and there are still some that I cannot translate. No doubt he'll be a big talker though, just like everyone else in the Wehman Family - look out world!! :)

Sleep Log Completed

Before Wyatt was born I took all sorts of advice from my sister, who is an amazing mother of two I might add. One of the best suggestions that she made to me was to keep a sleep log. It started as a side project, but then it became sort of an obsession (I used to have to do a lot of "reporting" at my old job, so maybe a sick part of me missed that...) I have to say though, that after keeping up with it for a year I am definitely glad that I did it. It started as a simple Sleep Log, and then grew into a serious spreadsheet - tracking eating, sleeping, milestones, etc. It really came in handy when I needed to look back at Wyatt's sleep patterns. I also kept track of weekly milestones, so I trust that it will help me give some advice to my now pregnant friends when they ask what Wyatt has been doing at each age/stage.

So, what prompted my post was I just laid Wyatt down for a nap, and I came in to the computer to log it - I haven't done it for a few weeks, but I am still working on breaking that habit. It's crazy how I have learned to retain numbers & times too - if we were away for a weekend Seth would tease me because I would come home to my spreadsheet & insert all the the nap & sleep times that I had remebered from the weekend...the things we do as new mothers.

We have been blessed with an awesome sleeper since day one, but when (and if) there is another Baby Jernigan, I hope to be able to use this as a reference.

My Budding Assistant

How do you think I get all this blogging done? With a little help from my IT guy of course!

The Best of Times

So last night my husband & I went on our first date night in a while. We actually get out quite a bit, with both of our parents living in the same town, but we hadn't been out alone on a "real" date in a long time.

After seeing The Dark Knight, which was AWESOME I might add, we headed out to dinner. While we waited for our food, we chatted a bit about this past year of parenthood. We came up with our Top 2 favorite things about being parents, then the 2 most challenging things. Here's what we came up with:

Best: 1) seeing Wyatt's smiling face in the mornings when we go into his room 2) watching him change & grow over this past year - he truly is turning into a little person & it is so fun to see him change
Most challenging: 1) finding time for the two of us - true quality time, and 2) finding ways to keep our favorite bits of our old lifestyle & incorporate Wyatt into them (camping, etc)

All in all, we agreed that our lives are so much richer because of Wyatt and even though quite a bit has changed we are better for it.

Would you like that in an 8 x 10?

One day, we will put this in his senior yearbook ad :)

Thumb-Sucker's Thumb

Oh the thumb-sucker's thumb

May look wrinkled and wet,
And withered, and white as the snow
But the taste of a thumb
Is the sweetest taste yet
(As only we thumb-sucker's know).

Shel Silverstein