We made it!

We are finally completely out of Portland, and into the new house. It's been exhausting, but we made it, and now have a couple of weeks to get settled in and do some unpacking before I start my new job.

For now, I'm looking forward to a fire in the fireplace and some relaxation after all the stress of moving. And of course, a walk on the beach.

It's beautiful here. We're right by the ocean, but also right by a bay, so the scenery is wonderful. Since the neighborhood consists mostly of seasonal vacation rentals, it's pretty quiet at this time of year (which I'm liking). We're not near any big cities, so there's no traffic, and at night, you can see so many stars because there's no light pollution. It's also warmer here, than it usually is in Portland at this time of year because of the ocean.

Cedar is 1 year old today

Cedar is one year old today. Sadly, we'll be spending it moving.

He's starting to look less like a baby and more like a little boy. He's got a lot more hair now, and since he's been busy crawling around, he's really leaned out.

He's been eating solids for about 5 months now. He's still a good eater, but hasn't shown much interest in feeding himself. He has gotten over a lot of his texture issues, and will eat a wider variety of things. We're still doing purees, though, because I'm desperately trying to clean out the freezer before we move, so I don't have to throw away a bunch of food. I made a ton of baby food from scratch, not anticipating moving, so I've got a ton of fruit blends to get through ASAP. His current favorite food seems to be bananas, but he's gotten a lot more open-minded about food in the past month, and really will eat just about anything.

He's still teething away. He's been working on his molars for a few weeks, and since we're in the process of moving, it looks like he's going to start teething again. Fun. He currently has 8 teeth. Four uppers, four lower. Poor guy, he's a toothy kid. We used to say 12 by 12 (months), but fortunately I think it's not going to be quite that bad.

The past month has been a whirlwind of development. He learned to crawl about a month ago, and since we have hardwood floors, he's gotten away with more of a sliding type of crawl, where he pulls forward with his hands and his legs just slide forward, but hey, whatever works. Man, he is fast now! He will come a flyin' when it's time to eat! He's also been pulling up a lot more, and towards the end of the month, he got to be pretty good at pulling up on the gates. For about a week, he couldn't figure out how to get back down (once he stood up), but now he's figured that out.

Since he's so busy working on gross motor skills, he's usually content to work on that by himself, and thankfully is more able to entertain himself for pretty long periods of time. That makes my life a whole lot easier, since I really didn't have a lot of time to attend to him with all the packing that had to be done.

He really likes to play. His favorite toys currently, are plastic lids (I have a pretty good collection) and containers. He's currently really interested in dropping things, or watching things fall. He likes to drop them from above and watch them roll around until they come to a rest. I guess he likes the noise. He'll do that for 5 or 10 minutes at a time. I rounded out my collection by picking up some stuff out of the plastic bin when I was at the recycling center.

Aside from that, he likes things that rattle, so he's really into this one ring that's got rattly balls inside. He still likes to chew on his caterpillar rattle (that Deb gave him). In general he's pretty happy playing with ordinary objects, so I'm quite happy to let him. He loves to play with toys in the bathtub, and occasionally he will hand me his toys.

He no longer takes his second nap, now it's just one long one that he'll take around noon, that can last up to 2 hours. Unfortunately, he's been waking up in the middle of the night a lot more this month. It could be the teething, or something developmental. He's stopped breastfeeding, so that makes things both easier--and harder.

He's still Mr. Smiley Face. He has been very giggly, and has the cutest laugh, that I just love hearing. Still no signs of stranger anxiety, or separation anxiety. We haven't been apart much, but the few times we have been, he's been fine.

He's still very easy to take places. He likes the stimulation of being out and about, and loves flirting with everyone he meets. He still falls asleep in the car, especially if you're on the road for more than 15 minutes. Since we've had to do several long road trips back and forth to our new home, he's learned to just sleep the whole time (instead of complaining about being bored).

He's really into our dog right now. He sees her and just smiles and laughs. In fact, his only word (besides "mama" and "dada" is "dog"). He also is really fascinated with Margo's cat.

He still thinks his daddy is the coolest thing ever, and likes to grab his beard and play wild games with a willing party.

His eyes are mostly brown, but he's still got that grey ring around the outside, and that hasn't changed a whole lot. They're kind of a hazel grey/brown. They haven't changed much lately, and I'm not sure that they're going to.

During the course of this month, he's had to endure being ignored a lot because we've been so busy packing for the move. I feel bad because I haven't had time to do much with him besides the absolute necessities. I keep telling myself this is temporary and that I can make up for it once we get through this yucky time, and get settled in our new place. He'll be a lucky kid because we'll be living right by the beach, and we can go really fabulous places on our walks.

Now it's back to packing. We're loading up the truck today, and we'll be moved into our new house just in time for New Year's Eve.

It's official--we are moving!

It's official--I've accepted the Job Corps teaching assignment, and we are moving to the coast! My excitement knows no bounds.

It looks like I'll probably be teaching developmental reading (whoo hoo! my favorite! Plus, that's a good application for my disparate experience in Gen Ed and SPED), and with class sizes of 15, this should be a fantastic gig. At any rate, it HAS to be better than anything I'm likely to be offered in a public school setting here in Multnomah County. And I shouldn't have to deal with the fun prospect of getting laid off every year. Yep, this should be MUCH better.

The downside, of course, is that we have to move. And that, my friends, is going to suck. A lot. In the next month, we'll have to rent out our house (can't sell it in this economy), pack up everything, clean out the basement and the outbuildings, clean out the chest freezer (that is completely full because I was prepared for the apocalypse!), and basically I have to get rid of a TON of stuff. Sucks for me, but it'll be a bonanza for every thrift store and community organization within a 5 mile radius.