9 Months and Old Habits

Yesterday was Flintstone's 9 month birthday.  9 Months.  (That said 9 Moths until I proofread it).  And man is he one adorable little piglet.

I could wax poetic about how time flies and how amazing it is to watch my baby grow and develop.  It has been amazing, and time does fly, but we all know that, and that post has been done to death by every blogger with a baby.  I will however, give a quick Flintstone update:
- He crawls - fast
- He stands with no trouble at all and can do things while he's standing.
- He tries to walk.  It doesn't typically work out for him, which is fine with me.
- He hates to be contained.
- His favorite food is celery, though given the choice, he'd rather eat paper any day.  (Seriously, I work so hard to feed him local, organic food and veggies from our garden, to use bio-friendly unchemically cleaning supplies and keep him away from harmful toxins and the kid shoves every wayward peice of bleached, dyed, printed on paper he can find in his mouth - and cries when I fish it out!)
- He says Dada all. the. time.  He makes other sounds, too, but mostly it's Dada.  I say "Mama," he grins and yells "Dada!"
- He does a few signs - milk, up, give me, and he's made up his own signal for "change me" even though he is on a desperate mission to escape the second the diaper comes off.  And he waves goodbye.
- He gives kisses (98% of the time he'll only do it for me), and it's freaking adorable.  Lethal adorable.
- He does the pincers grasp
- He loves owls.  We have an owl calendar in the kitchen.  ANY time I walk near it with him, he giggles hysterically.  One day I will catch it on video.  I can't even express how cute it is.  He lights up when he sees that calendar.

I'm sure there are a million things more, but that seems like a pretty decent catch up.

In other news, you may have noticed that the blogs are getting a little fewer and farther between.  That's not likely to change any time soon.  I'm busy, and, sadly, this isn't my highest priority.

MacGyver and Punky have been out of town for a week.  They went to put new cabinets in our house before handing it over to new renters.  MacGvyer figured it would take two days.  I knew better, but I didn't say anything.  When it comes to projects, MacGyver functions on what I call "man time."  I've also referred to it as "football minutes."  You know how the last 30 minutes of a football game acutally take, like 4 hours?  Yeah, those are football minutes.  But since MacGyver's not all that into sports, I've generalized it to Man Time.

Usually, when MacGyver leaves, my heart is instantly broken.  This time was so strange because I was feeding Flintstone when he left, so there was no nostalgic gazing after this receding tail lights.  I kissed him goodbye, but his absence didn't even sink in for an hour or so after he left.

And I kept so busy the first couple days that they were gone that it wasn't bad at all.  It was actually - dare I say it - kind of nice.  I got SO MUCH done.  I'm good at getting stuff done with Flintstone in tow, but not so much with MacGyver and Punky milling about. 

It was relaxing.  The house was so quiet.  I just did what I wanted, when I wanted.  I didn't have to cook any big meals.  Don't get me wrong, I love cooking for my family and I take great pride in the variety of very healthy meals I make (as evidenced by my FB and Twitter feeds).  But because of my dedication to serving healthy meals, most nights when MacGyver and Punky are home are completely eaten up by chopping, cooking, eating, and cleaning up after.  When it's just Flintstone and me,  I just eat leftovers or a big bowl of veggies and puree up some veggies for Flintstone.

The first couple days were lovely and relaxing.  But it has been a week now.  I'm done with being relaxed, and I've had enough getting stuff done.  It was a nice throwback to being single, and now I'm ready to be married and busy and harried again.  Man time can end any minute now.  I like talking to Flintstone and the chickens when I get home, but I'd rather talk to MacGyver (live and in person).  Not to mention other activities I'm really starting to miss . . .

In the mornings, though, I still don't miss them.  I don't usually interact with them much in the mornings anyway.  MacGyver wakes up shortly before I leave for work, and Punky shortly after.  So when they're home I spend the mornings sneaking around in the dimly lit house getting things ready and tending to the dogs.  With MacGyver and Punky out of town, it's been amazing how quickly I reverted back to my Law School routine. 

I get up a half an hour earlier than I need to and spend that time just sitting with a cup of tea and enjoying an episode of Bones or a documentary.  I can turn on lights (some lights, I still try not to wake Flintstone up till it's time to leave).  The mornings are really lovely this week.

And I can get up that extra half hour earlier because without Punky's bedtime and the alluded to activities, I get to bed a LOT earlier, even with 2 -3 hours of getting stuff done after I put Flintstone down for the night.

Some old habits never really go away, they just go into hibernation.

Even so.  I am SO ready for them to come home.  And SO ready to see pictures of the newly renovated kitchen!  Even though I may never get to use it.  Sigh . . .