Peyton at 4 months

An update on Peyton...

Peyton now has two teeth: he got his first tooth last weekend and his second one three days ago. It’s been a long couple of weeks, to say the least. Poor guy. It’s got to hurt to get teeth like that. He’s been in so much pain. It stinks that this has happened right when school is starting and I have to get up early for work (Am I being selfish or what?!!). He’s been getting up four to five times per night. I’m still very surprised how early he’s cutting teeth. He’s barely four months old! I’ve read that it’s better for kids to get their teeth when they are a few months older than Peyton because then their baby teeth last longer and their adult teeth don’t come in until they’re older, which means fewer cavities with adult teeth. But my kids don’t seem to care. Elizabeth got first tooth earlier than Peyton—a day before she turned four months. But it’s still exciting, even if the tooth fairy is going to visit him when he’s four!! LOL!

Peyton still isn’t sleeping through the night. On a good night he’ll wake up only once. Most nights it’s twice. Lately, it’s been way too many to count because of his teeth. Selfishly, I’m really ready for a full night’s sleep. What is that like?

Peyton has the sweetest little demeanor. He smiles at anyone who looks at him and is especially fond of his parents and his sister. He has started giggling and laughing. He rolls over back and forth and thinks it’s a cute little game. He also loves to stand up on you and has been doing this since he was like two months old (literally). He has the strongest legs—he just curls those toes and stiffens those legs. It’s really very cute.

Peyton is also very sensitive. If you put him down, he gets his feelings hurt. If he can’t see you, he starts screaming. He doesn’t necessarily need your attention, but he just has to see you to be happy. He also really likes to be held, which is majorly different than Elizabeth. He’s not a cuddler, but he LOVES to be held.

Peyton is in the 95th percentile in length and the 50th in weight, which means he’s a long, skinny fellow. His eyes have lightened up quite a bit since birth and now they are light blue with a dark blue ring around them. Really pretty. He doesn’t have much hair but what he does have is light blonde. He also has a very pale skin color, not really like any of us.

We started him on rice cereal last week and keep forgetting to feed it to him. He did like it, though. I’m going to be making his baby food, like I did with Elizabeth. It’s going to be organic this time, though, because I’m really into that stuff now. And it’s also cheaper and more environmentally-friendly to make my own, so we’ll see how that goes with that and my job. Maybe I’ll do it on the weekends and freeze it. Hopefully, Peyton will form good eating habits like his sister. I think that feeding Elizabeth a variety of foods early on really helped form her healthy eating habits today. We shall see.

I’m still nursing Peyton, even though I’ve started back to work. I have about 4 months of milk saved up since Peyton is barely taking a bottle. That ended up being a blessing because now he has all this breastmilk to drink and I don’t have to stress too much. We’ll see how long this pumping at work lasts.

Here’s just a little bit about my sweet four-month-old boy. What a blessing he has been to my life.

An update on Elizabeth

So here’s an update on the kids. Today I’ll write about Elizabeth (because it's so long) and next I’ll write about Peyton.

It’s hard to write about your children. On the one hand, you don’t want to write all these things they can do because you don’t want to come off as conceited and arrogant and proud, and on the other, you don’t want to write negative things about them because we love our children in spite of their misbehavior and bad habits (but let’s admit, they do have them). So, what should I say? I’ll just write the truth, at least as I say it.

It’s hard to explain Elizabeth in words, but I’m going to try so that I can look back here later and see what she was like as a three-year-old.

Elizabeth started Pre-K last week at a local school here in town. She started one full week ahead of all the public schools here, which was good because I needed to get some things done with work. This is the first time that Elizabeth has gone anywhere for five days a week since she’s been born. We’ve been really blessed to have had her home at least two days a week for the past three years (even though we’ve both had full time jobs) and now we’re a little sad to not have her here some during the week.

Elizabeth is a very smart girl. Not just in the traditional knowledge sense but also in her understanding, observation, and analysis. For instance, our family was driving last week and discussing where we were going to eat. Elizabeth said, “Let’s go to McDonald’s.” And we said, “No, we’re going to a real restaurant.” And Elizabeth responded with her first “argument” when she said, “But McDonald’s is cheaper.” She’s also so observant. Anytime we are driving in the car, she says, “Oh, this is the way to Baylor’s pool.” Or “This is the way to the Robinson School.” Or this is the way that goes over the railroad tracks. Wow. She pays attention when we drive.

Every time we drive, we have to listen to her “Songs!” And one song, in particular: the Books of the Bible. She can sing the Old Testament song and the New Testament song. She even likes to play this game where she says a book and asks you if it’s in the Old or New Testament. She is really good at it, too. One time, she and her Granna were playing this game and she asked, “Granna, do you know what Testament ‘Letters’ is in?” Right on cue, Granna responds, “New.” (“Acts and Letters to the Romans”). J

Elizabeth is a very talkative girl. Even if you don’t respond, she’ll talk your ear off. Everything she thinks is verbalized, which is just like her father. She also has the cutest little sense of humor. She loves to laugh and makes silly jokes all the time. Then, she laughs at her jokes and tells you to do the same.

Elizabeth loves to play dress up and is really into princesses (I haven’t encouraged this, but oh well—it’s fun to pretend. She prances around in her tutus, tiaras, and princess shoes. She also likes her Little People. She plays with her baby dolls all the time and we often find them sleeping in Peyton’s bed. She is a very good mother to them. She makes us be quiet when they’re sleeping and she covers them up blankets, burp rags, and towels. She even dresses them in Peyton’s clothes.

Penguin is her favorite stuffed animal. Lamb has been missing for a few months and she is still mourning his disappearance (We don’t know what happened to him.). Elizabeth left Penguin in Austin when she was there a few weeks ago and today Penguin arrived in the mail. Elizabeth grabbed him and hugged him and rolled around with him. She was so excited to see him. It was really cute.

Although Elizabeth is fully daytime potty-trained, she has no interest in being nighttime potty-trained (not that she really knows this); she just has this unquenchable thirst that can’t be satisfied and so she is constantly drinking water. It’s going to be a long time until she doesn’t wear something at night. Oh well.

Elizabeth changes her own clothes constantly. She especially loves to wear long pajama pants, even though it’s 100 degrees outside.

She’s a really good eater. She’ll eat anything at least once and loves vegetables, meat, and fruit (as well as all the processed food, too, but we don’t give it to her very much). She even likes to eat salad, as long as it has plenty of ranch dressing on it. She also loves ketchup and can often be found dipping her fingers into it and licking them. Yuk! She loves desserts, but she comes by this honestly. We just try to do this in moderation.

Now for her behavior…we are constantly having to remind her what it means to obey. She really has trouble with this concept. She has been throwing tons of fits lately. These tantrums have been too often for our tastes and we are ready for her to realize that our boundaries are set, tantrum or not. Parenting is hard!!

But I love Elizabeth so much. She’s such a sweet girl. Always wants to be around us and always wants to play with us. She’s so sweet to Peyton and loves him unconditionally. He’s her little baby, too. Whenever she talks to him, she always refers to herself as “Sister.” “Sister loves you, brother.” “Play with Sister.” “Smile for Sister.” J It’s cute. She also gets right in his face and her hair dangles in front of him, right at the perfect level for him to pull it. When he does pull it, which is often, she gets upset and says, “No, Peyton” as if he really knows what he’s doing. What a special girl. That’s enough for now, but since I hadn’t written in so long, I had a lot to write. We love you, Elizabeth!

Day Two: The Urge to Spend

I've realized that some of my urge to spend comes out of laziness. For instance, this morning I was running a little late getting out of the house (Peyton was up five different times during the night because he's cutting some teeth), and I thought, "I'll just stop and pick something up on the way into work." And then I remembered that I couldn't do that because we weren't spending money this week. So what did I do? I went into the pantry and looked at the variety of cereals and oatmeal located there and sat down at the table and ate what I had. Didn't I buy this stuff for the purpose of eating it?!! Then why was I so anxious to buy something else? Laziness. I'm sure it would have taken even longer to stop and wait at a drive-through, but the idea of "eating out" appealed to me.

I'm also learning that even though we are doing this "no spending" thing, I still have to catch myself from spending. I still forget--even though this is only day two. It's so ingrained in me to "buy" and purchase things that even when I consciously know we aren't spending, I STILL WANT TO SPEND. Weird. That strikes me as shocking, actually. I consider myself very budget-conscious, but even still, I think about purchasing things all the time. In fact, almost all the emails I get in one of my email accounts are about spending and buying things (Kohls, Old Navy, Land's End, Toys 'R Us, and on and on. Even the coupons I get through the computer still require me to spend the money (the argument is that you're SAVING, but in reality, you're still SPENDING). We all know this, but it helps when I know I can't spend any money because then my thinking doesn't get turned around that "Hey, at least I saved 5 bucks." when in reality I spent $50 on the other stuff. Yesterday I sat down to read the Sunday paper and because of this thing we're doing I didn't have to read the dozens of ads and inserts. Whew. I didn't realize how much time it took to look through those things and see what's on sale and write down the stores I needed to visit this week to buy the products at their cheapest. Not only did recycling the ads instead of reading them save me about 1/2 an hour at the time, but it also saved me money and time in the future because I didn't go to the store. Wow. There's 3 hours where I can do something else. I've been looking for how I can spend more time with the kids. Presto!

Another part of my urge to spend comes from the advertisements (and emails I mentioned above) that I am constantly bombarded with as I proceed throughout the day. Television commercials, billboards, magazines, posters, emails, notifications, mail, etc....the list goes on and on. In America, you can't think about NOT spending. The powers-at-be (whoever they are) don't want you to think about NOT spending; better yet, they want you to think about how you save money when you spend. That's the lie we're told. That's the myth we all buy into. Maybe this week will make me more conscious of the money I do spend and how when I spend money on X item, then something else does not get that money.

Are any of you familiar with Shane Claiborne and The Simple Way Community? It's radical, and it's impressive. Check out his site at: http://www.thesimpleway.org/. I strongly encourage you to read the books, though. Wow.

My "job" in Elizabeth's eyes

The other night I was giving Elizabeth a bath and she wanted me to refill the water bottle Nana gave her. So, I refilled it…again and again and again. Back and forth to the bathroom sink. And what did she do? She kept dumping it right back out into the bath water. I quickly grew tired of the little game and finally said I wasn’t going to refill her bottle anymore. What did she say back? “Mama, it is your JOB to refill my water bottle.”

I turned around and looked at her, put my hand on my hip and lectured her about my "job." The conversation went something like this: “It is not my JOB to refill your water bottle. I actually have a real job. I am a PROFESSOR at Baylor University. I have my PhD, and I teach college.”

She interrupted my little speech, replying, “You are NOT a professor.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No, you’re not!”
“Yes, I am.”
“No, you’re not! You don’t LOOK like a professor and you don’t TALK like a professor.” Her response made me giggle: “You’re right. And aren’t you glad that I don’t look and talk like a professor?!!”

Day One of No Spending

Today on my way into work, I did not purchase my daily 44 ounce Diet Coke. I wanted it really badly. But I drove right on by the gas station. That's 86 cents that I saved. Not that big of a deal really, but since I committed to not spending any money, then even such an insignificant number (at least insignificant to me) counts, too. I guess I'll settle for water today.

Consumerism

Tomorrow is the beginning of the Alexander family’s spend-free week. We are going to go Monday through Friday without spending any money. We won’t buy groceries. We won’t be eating out. We won’t go to Target or Wal-Mart or Sam’s or Lowe’s or the mall or anywhere that requires spending any money. We won’t buy one single thing. Not clothes or toys for the kids or things for our house.

You may ask why we are doing this? Well, there are a lot of reasons. To save money. To use what we already have. To think about what we are spending our money on. To think about others who don’t have money to spend. To reflect on whether we really need to buy something. To consider “consumerism” in America and how what we buy has implications around the world. On those who make the products. On those who trade the products. On those who sell the products. And even on us who buy the products. Our family is going to focus this week on NOT consuming. I don’t know if we can do it. We’ll see. But I do think God calls us to think about things like this. To consider those less fortunate than us. To consider how rich we are. To become less materialistic. We’ll see what happens and what change comes over us. Over me.

The urge to do something like this is the result of a long personal journey towards thinking more about creation, our world, the environment, capitalism, money, and God. I should have blogged about this journey throughout, but I didn’t really know I was embarking on a journey at the time. I only realize now, in looking back, how much my thinking and my actions have changed over the course of a year. I hope to write about these things in the coming days and weeks.