The Herron Update: Another General Update

It's really hard to believe that Tate is already over 5 weeks old. In the past, I never considered myself to be a "newborn baby person," but always said that I wished my babies came out already a few months old. This time though, I am already sad that the time is flying by so quickly. Granted, I'm not going to miss the around-the-clock nursing and the sleep deprivation and the trying to accomplish things in 3-minute segments of time because that is about as long as Tate wants to be set down. But, I am really going to miss this tiny little person who doesn't want much more in life than just to be snuggled up, asleep on his mama's chest. In fact, I am trying to write this post one-handed, as I am getting used to doing many things, because I have this little bundle snuggled up with me...and it's wonderful. I don't want to take any minute of this for granted or just be looking forward to the next stage - when he sleeps through the night, or when he starts smiling, or when he...fill in the blank. He is perfect right now.

Jay's birthday was a couple of weeks ago. He would prefer that it go by completely unacknowledged, but that certainly wouldn't go over well with the kids. Usually for birthdays, I make a special breakfast and set out the nice dishes on the dining room table and the birthday person gets to eat off of the red "You are Special Today" plate. My mornings right now are taken up with either nursing Tate or caring for him in some other way and Jay obviously didn't want me to set the alarm to get up early to go pick up balloons or set the table or make breakfast. When we came downstairs though, Jake had set the dining room table with the nice dishes and the red plate. I was so proud of him for doing it. The kids then proceeded to give Jay their gifts. I think that I've mentioned before that we don't buy a lot of gifts around here for birthdays, Christmas, etc. The kids have come to believe that it is perfectly normal to find things around the house of their own to wrap up and give to others. And so, for every special occasion, we end up with toys from the kids that we then end up loaning back to them for them to "borrow" once in a while. I think that Jay made out this year with a deck of cards and crayons and a coloring book from Addi, and a Star Wars puzzle from Jake, along with some homemade cards, of course. We were then big spenders that evening and took him out to enjoy Happy Hour at BJs with a couple of half-off mini pizzas.

We took the kids trick-or-treating on Halloween, and no, I did not dress Tate up in some sort of cute baby costume, much to my neighbor, Sarah's, chagrin. I hate pretty much everything about Halloween to begin with, and I'm certainly not going to go out and buy some silly costume that he would be miserable in anyway. Our kids don't ever get to pick out a new Halloween costume, but Jake always wears whatever costume our neighbors have handed down to him, and Addi always wears a dress that she has gotten as a gift at some point (either from my mom or our neighbor) that she plays dress-up in. They are completely happy with that and don't even know that most kids actually go out and pick out new costumes specifically for Halloween each year. They just assume that everybody wears some sort of dress-up item that they already have for whatever reason. So, this year, Jake was a skeleton, and Addi was Rapunzel. We went to a "Harvest Fest" at my parents church a couple of nights before Halloween, and for that Jake went as a pirate and Addi was a Renaissance princess (both costumes had been Christmas gifts from my parents last year), but I didn't get any pictures of that.

We also had another Nature Day with Mr. Mark. Among other things, he showed the kids how to make a fire using tools that he had made with materials from various plants. Jake was very into it, of course, and obsessed over trying to figure out how to use the tools. We then ate some delicious apples and bananas that we cooked simply by throwing them on the open fire.