What a month of comings and goings in the Baxter house! In January friends Larissa and Mark visited during the Sundance film festival, the first week of February Jason spent a week on a work trip near Boston, and the same day he returned, my mom, grandma and grandpa arrived for a 5 day stay. Now I think it is time to kick up our feet and catch our breaths a little.
One person who doesn’t share my beliefs is Will. These days he is run, run, run and talk, talk, talk. Little man’s vocabulary has increased by leaps and bounds these past couple weeks. Just during the week Jason was gone to Boston there were noticeable changes in his ability to form sentences. The sentences continue to get more and more complete although his favorite phrase seems to remain “mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy” (or daddy daddy daddy, grandma grandma grandma etc). He has some strong opinions these days and he’s not afraid to share them. My mom was even put in her place one morning when he proclaimed “No grandma, sit down!” complete with hand gestures towards the futon. He is also having some separation anxiety for the first time which makes daycare drop-off a little more difficult for me than it has been previously.
Some additional projects have been accomplished since my last post. After a long online search for little boy bedding that wasn’t
horrendously ugly and/or would break the bank I settled on a rocket ship themed set from Kohl’s. There was a moment of sheer terror when on the day my 30% off coupon started they no longer had the twin size sheets I wanted. Thankfully someone must have returned a pair and I snagged the last pair they had (I haven’t seen them online since!) Whew! I painted some wall art for William’s big boy room to match his new bedding that I am very pleased with. He likes to sit or play on his new bed, but with all the company coming and going we haven’t tried to move him out of the crib just yet. He still peacefully 
sleeps in there without a complaint so it will be a harder transition for Jason and I than for anyone else. I also repainted a bookshelf that had been Jason’s when he was a kid. Will’s big boy room is now all but finished. During an evening babysitting for a friend, I managed to order all the pictures to finish Will’s baby book, at least up until the 2 year mark. I’ve wanted to do that for months and just hadn’t found the time. Soon enough we’ll have another baby book to get started!
My mom, grandma and grandpa DeBaets spent the 7th-12th of February enjoying the warm rainy weather of Utah and the company of a certain (great) grandson. William adjusted pretty well to the visitors and by the 2nd or 3rd day he and great-grandpa were even friends.
They were amazed at his language skills. He also demonstrated his knowledge of colors, numbers, and letters. We 
have ‘happy birthday’ candles and William named all the letters and colors of each candle for my mom. Apparently this makes him very smart for 23 months. Since I have no direct comparison I know he’s fairly bright, but I just feel like “that’s William”. While our visitors were here we enjoyed a birthday dinner with Lee, Marion, and Jeremiah at The Mandarin–an amazing Chinese restaurant in Bountiful, UT. (Marion, my grandma, and myself all share a birthday on January 25th.) The next day I sent my company to visit with Lee and Marion in Orem while I painted the baby room ceiling and deep cleaned parts of the house. It was a wonderful and exhausting day of cleaning and being productive while enjoying the quiet of an empty house. 2 ceilings down, one remaining ceiling to paint this weekend.
It is briefly worth mentioning I celebrated another birthday on the 25th of January. 32 years young. I spent the day doing what I like to do: projects, painting, cleaning, and even a nap. I bought myself some silk flowers from Hobby Lobby. It was an excellent day with my boys. 
This weekend I am 30 weeks pregnant. I feel pretty good. I’m on track to gain about the same weight I did in my last pregnancy and it seems to be staying mostly in a tight ball around my belly. I’m getting a lot of kicking in a lot of different directions these days some of them more comfortable than oth
ers. Will pointed to my tummy one day last week and said “baby”. He then proceeded to point to his own tummy “baby!”…so he’s only loosely getting the concept at this point. 🙂 I’ve snagged a few new things for the new little man including a going-home outfit for the hospital. He will also have his own new infant car seat as William’s was pretty trashed. He may as well get a few new things before he starts through all of big brother’s hand-me-downs.
The weather is getting warm and I’m getting itchy to spend some weekends digging in the yard before this baby arrives. Upon inspection this evening, there are enough of those blasted grape hyacinth bulbs to keep me plenty busy digging. Jason will plant tomato seedlings in the next couple weeks and I have ambitious dreams of a garden after we worked so hard to make room and clear out overgrown raspberries last fall. I’m excited to see if my tulip bulbs come up as I’ve been hoping. Love this time of year in Utah when spring starts to creep in.
Jason is, and continues to be my hero. A couple weeks ago I went to leave for daycare and found that my car had a flat tire. Being 7 months pregnant with a toddler in tow, I did the natural thing and called him from work to come to my rescue. He obliged without argument and traded me vehicles so I could get to my OB appointment on time. He didn’t even flinch to put on the spare tire with William supervising. “Daddy fix it” Will later told me. His second hero moment came on Wednesday when after driving my car for a few days while my family visited and noting it had been starting a little hard, he was met with a dead battery after work. He got a jump-start, picked Will up from daycare as planned, and then installed a new battery for me at Auto Zone while I took care of bedtime. I love this one. He’s a keeper.
Happy Valentine’s All!
S.~