Say Cheese!

So, I try to get cool candid shots of Raeford doing stuff, but he would rather pose. He gets a big, goofy smile, and because my phone camera has a slow shutter speed, he's trained himself to hold the pose for several seconds.

So I get funny pictures like this:

And he even holds his hands still, too! He's getting to where he can tilt his own bottle up for a few seconds when he's sitting. He does better reclining or laying down.

It almost looks like he's taking this picture.

And this is the first picture I have of his first two teeth! If you look really closely, you can just barely make out his two pearly whites on the bottom.

Other fun things:

Rae took off one of his socks, and was waving it around. "Look here, Chuckle-head," I said, "You took off your sock!" He grinned real big and pointed to the foot he took it off from as if to say, "See, how clever am I?"

I keep finding myself amazed at what Rae can do. I was studying my scriptures on the table and he was sitting in his booster seat, near, but not at the table. All of a sudden, his little hand shoots out, grabs the ribbon from my BOM and yanks it over the edge of the table.

His big accomplishment this week is learning how to get into sitting position from crawling, from laying on his back , or from laying on his belly. He's starting to creep around. On his belly, he stretches himself out as far as he can go and pushes with his tip-toes or pulls with his hands. Woohoo! Mobility, here we come!

Selectively Neglect

Since I took early-morning seminary in high school, I've wanted to be a seminary teacher. I love the scriptures. I love how I feel when I read, and mostly I love how I feel when I teach. Best. Calling. Ever.

Lucky for me, too, I am the "Assistant Seminary Teacher", meaning, I team-teach with another awesome sister in the ward. She teaches one week, I teach the next. It's a brilliant system; I highly recommend it. I get to rest for a week; she gets to travel and do all the amazing she does on her week off. Works out beautifully.

I was called to teach seminary when Raeford was three months old--perhaps at the best time for me. Raeford was old enough to not need me ALL the time, and I was ready to not be on constant Mommy-call. The transistion to motherhood has been bumpy for me, bumpy and filled with lots of learning.

The Old Testament is HUGE. I thought I knew most of the stories. WRONG-O. Sure, I knew most of the stories, if I didn't have to teach them to someone else. So, figuring out how to teach these stories in a way that makes sense has been a pleasant challenge. This week we covered the entire book of Judges and Ruth. ENTIRE BOOKS.

Thus, the need to "selectively neglect".

In teaching, I need to selectively neglect stories, themes, symbols, and entire chapters. There's just not enough time. The hope, though, is that I will eventually hit on the same principles in a later lesson. That the feeling of the Old Testament will encourage the students to want to read it for themselves.

This seems to be true in my life outside of seminary, too. I can't possibly do everything all the time. There's too much! Sometimes, it really is necessary to ignore the living room that needs vacuuming because I need to write a letter to a friend.

The principle of "selectively neglect" is a hopeful one. The hope is that eventually I'll come back around to whatever I missed the first time. Just focus on what I need to know/do now and all will work out in the end.

I can do that.

Sleeping Baby

I think these pictures of Mr. Graff and Raeford are just precious.

Zonked out. So content.

"Say Goodnight and Don't Look Back"

"Say goodnight and don't look back," advocates Dr. Spock. We've now done this for three nights. I thought my heart would break to hear Raeford crying inconsolably for hours, so I went shopping as soon as we put him down on the first night. He wailed.

But, he was done in 20 minutes.

Then he slept fairly soundly for most of the night. He ate at 1 am; I ignored him at 3:30am and he fell back asleep.

The next night, I planned to leave again and let Mr. Graff tough out the crying. We did our dinner-bath-play-song bedtime routine. Raeford knows what is happening when we start to sing. He howled for a few seconds, realized it was getting him nowhere and fell asleep.

Score.

Last night, we put him down because he was acting tired. He cried for attention for a few minutes and fell asleep. He stayed asleep for almost 7 hours! He woke at 3am to feed and fell asleep until morning.

Why didn't I do this earlier?

I was afraid that Raeford would not stop crying. That he would hurt himself. That letting him cry would make me a bad parent. That he would not trust or like me in the morning. Oh, this is so not the case.

I feel much better now. I get rest. I sleep deeper and feel better when I wake up. I'm a better parent during the day; I get more done around the house. I have patience again. It's amazing. Raeford, too, feels better. He eats more during the day (and less at night). He wakes up happier. He poops better. He plays independently better. He's more enjoyable to be around.

This is what we call a win-win.

Welcome to 2012!

I love the feeling of a new year. I get to start over, try again, to be the person that I want to be. And, as traditional, I start the new year with new goals!

My goals for the New Year:

daily prayer and scripture study

finish re-finishing kitchen chairs

Gospel Doctrine reading assignment

answering my phone within 24 hours

read a good book each month and write about it

blog each week

do visiting teaching

What do you want to do this year?